Spitting contest participant dies
A 29-year-old Swis man died in a spitting match with a friend, reports the daily Blick newspaper. Apparently, the two pals were up late at a hotel in Cadempino, Switzerland when they decided to see who could spit the greatest distance off the balcony. One of the men took a running start and, well... Link (via Fortean Times)
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Paging Charles... Paging Charles... Charles, do you read? There's a package for you from Switzerland...
Shall I sign for it? No, I don't know if he has children... Okay, will do sir.
My thoughts exactly.
I must be out of touch. I don't understand a thing you said Tenn.
Sorry, ma'am, boss goes by "Mr. Darwin" commonly. He lets me call him Charles, though, on account of how much I worship him.
Noen,
Darwin awards
This young Swiss man could very possibly be a contestant for this year's award. So long as he has no progeny.
The next time I throw one of my "friends" off a balcony, this is *totally* the story I'm using.
Remember to spit off the balcony first, Wurp, else even CSI:Cadempino may suspect something.
#6:
Actually, he fully qualifies, children or no.
From the rules:
Did he win?
I have a theory that if there is a heaven, certain methods of death will exclude you from even getting in line for consideration.
Lighting a match to look into a gasoline can.
Any motor vehicle accident involving the phrase 'Watch this!'
Overeating.
Drowning in water shallower than your height.
Overriding or defeating more than 2 safety features.
And now the list has a new entry.
Don't drink and spit.
There's an older entry on the Darwin awards site from 1999 with almost the same story, but from Alabama.
http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-21.html
@13 Walttrombone:
It's not a particularly unique occurance - it happened here in Ottawa too.
There's a certain kind of young man who indulges in spitting contests. The older they are, the more likely they are to be drunk while indulging in spitting contests. All it takes is one of them knowing enough physics to think of accelerating their spitoo, but being drunk enough to overestimate his ability to stop, and voilla.
Doh!
Is the moon full or something? Yeah, I'm going with that. Or early onset senility. sheesh.
ROSSINDETROIT @11
One more for your list.
Saying god caused (insert natural/man made disaster here) to punish (insert demographic here) for being/doing/planning/thinking (insert activity/belief system/lifestyle of your choice here).
What would an animated short about this kind of story be called?
A spittoon.
The best part of this entire thing is one little line in the article...
"The man had suggested the contest when he and two friends returned from a disco to their hotel in Cadempino in Switzerland's Italian-speaking Ticino canton in the early hours."
Umm... Disco? Really? Wow. I didn't even know they still existed.
The same thing happened several years back at my alma mater, Furman University. In completely unrelated news, President Bush will be giving the commencement address there in two weeks.
I didn't know the Swiss had rednecks, too.
"Hold my beer and watch this!..."
@18 Spokehedz
I was recently in Albuquerque browsing the yellow pages for bars in the vicinity of my motel and couldn't find anything. Finally looked under 'discotechs' just to be funny and lo and behold there they were. The funny thing was that it was listed as 'discotheques'. How very Euro of them.
Also, a lady recently died here attempting to smoke a cigarette while using oxygen. A candidate for a Darwin award if I ever saw one.
what a fucking idiot.
This must happen once a year because I hear about it once a year. You'd think people would learn by now...
Haven't you learned anything? People never learn!
Spitting, huh? And today the NYT has a story about a belligerent, homeless, HIV+ guy who's going to be spending 35 years in prison for spitting on a cop. Assault with a deadly weapon.
Bad time for spitting, I think, bad juju.
Umm... Disco? Really? Wow. I didn't even know they still existed.
Disco in Germany / Switzerland / nearby countries does not necessarily mean white suits and sequins. It's a dance-house with all kinds of music. Some may play disco music I imagine, but the word 'disco' basically means 'club'.
Disco in Germany / Switzerland / nearby countries does not necessarily mean white suits and sequins.
Actually, I think that it's more likely to mean that in Europe. Have you watched an O-zone video or Eurovision?
Many of the Darwin awards involve too much alcohol rather than inferior genes.
@21:
It's not "Euro," it's English. "Discotech" is not a word. The correct spelling everywhere, including the USA, has always been "Discotheque." The US bastardized the French word by abbreviating it to "disco," so no further bastardization/Americanization of either its spelling or pronunciation was necessary.
@14:
If Knowledge of physics + Competitive buffoonery + Alcohol intoxication = Spitting contest fatality, then I'm willing to bet that engineering students/graduates are the most likely to die in a spitting contest.
The Psychiatrist Karl Menninger wrote about this in his book "Man against Himself" these accidents are really suicide .
He gives many true incidents of very stupid things people have done that have killed them.
The book was written in the 1940's and does include
many gun accidents such as the farmer that rigged
up his chicken coop with string for his mounted rifle to catch a Chicken thief of course he "forgot
about it one" Morning opened the door and walked in
and shot himself dead.
When I was hanging out at MIT for a year with a friend (waiting for him to graduate), I saw genius-level IQ folks do all kinds of truly stupid stuff, and usually buck-sober.
Often, when a stunt/experiment/stunt-experiment would fail fantastically, the response from the lead pointy-head was, "Awesome! Let's do it again... but bigger!"
In gross numbers, I'm sure beer+height has resulted in way more deaths than IQ+curiosity. But it ain't always about the stupid.
well...remember: stupid is as stupid does! (ooh, i hear ya groanin!)
He only fell twenty feet and died? You really have to try to do that.
never been on the dojo floor I see. People die in bathtubs fer crissake.