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Great Acts Of Stupidity

Are more people than ever now determined to poison themselves? See here:
News story

The latest internet craze, apart from drinking bleach, is eating as much nutmeg as you can and nearly dying from it. For some reason this is "fun". OK, it's fun because you get the clicks on your TikTok account's videos. Worth it?
 
eating as much nutmeg as you can and nearly dying from it

This purported hallucinogen was popular, back in the same days as banana peels were!

I never tried banana peels but nutmeg was horrid, as every experimenter reports. Like ingesting sawdust for the sake of a short fever, followed by a long period of horrific dryness and bloodshot eyes. I learned my lesson, your honour. :fslap:
 
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Yeah, it's an old, old story, but I don't know where the fun hallucinogenic part came from. You could eat too much of any spice and feel just as ill.
 
This purported hallucinogen was popular, back in the same days as banana peels were!
This reminds me of a Mad Magazine item from the sixties (I think it must have been a "One Fine Day" something by Don Martin):
A man in hippie clothes peels a banana. He tosses the peel over his shoulder and stuffs the banana into a pipe. He turns around, takes one step, slips on the banana peel, and hits his head, which makes him see psychedelic stars.

Mad Magazine has influenced me deeply. To this day, if I see a movie that I think is dumb, I start constructing a Mad Magazine version of it in my head as I watch.
 
Reminds me a bit of some stuff a doctor prescribed for me when I was having back problems. I don't recall what it was, but it was awful. Really didn't do anything for my back either, so I stopped taking it and looked it up on line. I found that a lot of other people had similar experiences with it, but also that some people experimented with it for the unique buzz, or whatever. Yikes! Tequila is cheap, legal, and fun. Well, at least until you get to the bulletproof, gorgeous and charming phase. Things pretty much always go downhill quickly from there.

Similarly, a dentist gave me some codeine a long time ago. I soon decided I'd rather have the excruciating pain. Who the hell takes that shit for fun?
 
Similarly, a dentist gave me some codeine a long time ago. I soon decided I'd rather have the excruciating pain. Who the hell takes that shit for fun?

I sometimes have to resort to codeine for my back - it's fun for the first day then it's just horrible.
 
Codeine is what I'm allergic too!
 
On the one hand my Dad was a codeine addict which probably shortened his life due to heart problems. On the other hand it enabled him to live a reasonably normal life for the last 20 years he was on the planet. Not necessarily a bad trade-off.

If you had seen him trotting upstairs with a beer barrel under each arm you'd never have believed that he was in a wheelchair for years. Built from tough stuff. Much tougher than me.
 
I gather that to be that tough you have to start very young (say, a few hours old) and then survive the knocks life dishes out to you.
 
Yes, not like the snowflakes nowadays

Not even like most people from my era. I'm not going to give his whole life story, but he was brought up by a stepmother as his own mother had died in childbirth a year after Dad was born. They lived in Liverpool at the time. His dad (my grandad) was one of those people who you'd have thought was a great bloke if you'd met him in a pub, but he used to drink all his money away and my dad was brought up on a shoestring.

When the thirties hit he walked from Glenridding to London in search of work. His stepmother had left my Grandad by then and had a job as a maid in a hotel in Glenridding. Not coming by any work he ended up living in Soho and earning a living as a bare knuckle fighter. Somehow he injured one foot quite badly (never got the real story for that) and had to give it up. Luckily one of the punters who had won a lot of money betting on Dad had contacts and got him a job as a commis chef in the Savoy. Then WW2 happened.
 
Your dad sounds like a survivor, did what he had to do, that was a hellava different job, bare knuckle fighter to commis chef, bet nobody complained about anything to him, ever, he really sounds like a great guy
 
Your dad sounds like a survivor, did what he had to do, that was a hellava different job, bare knuckle fighter to commis chef, bet nobody complained about anything to him, ever, he really sounds like a great guy

He was catering manager at a 'famous name' company in the 60's. I can remember well the 'discussions' he had with his head chef Dennis, who was also a piece of work! Imagine Gordon Ramsay with all the vehemence but no swearing.

Edit: In the amazing coincidence line, when we moved here 20-odd years ago, one of the first people we met in the pub was an old-timer who had also been a bare knuckle fighter and knew my dad!
 
Trespassing into a closed Yellowstone Park is one thing. Stumbling into a thermal vent and burning yourself while taking photos is a whole other level of self-induced risk.
Woman falls into thermal feature in closed Yellowstone park

A woman illegally visited Yellowstone National Park while it’s closed during the coronavirus pandemic and suffered burns Tuesday when she fell into a thermal feature, officials said.

She was reportedly backing up while taking photos and fell into a hot spring or hole where hot gases emerge near Old Faithful geyser ...

Despite her injuries, the woman drove for roughly 50 miles (80 kilometers) until park rangers stopped her near Mammoth Hot Springs. She was flown to a hospital in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Park officials did not release the woman’s name or the extent of her injuries.

Yellowstone National Park has been closed since March 24. Yellowstone and nearby Grand Teton National Park will announce plans for a phased reopening Wednesday.

Visitors are warned to stay on the boardwalks near Yellowstone’s often boiling or acidic thermal features, which include geysers, hot springs, steam vents and mud pots. Tourists sometimes go off the designated walkways and are injured or killed.

Last fall, a man who was walking off a boardwalk near Old Faithful at night fell into a hot spring, suffering serious burns.

In June 2016, 23-year-old Colin Scott of Portland, Oregon, fell into a superheated, acidic mud pot and died. His remains couldn’t be recovered. ...

SOURCE: https://apnews.com/9cc779fa893b6d0c531c4af14f3aeed4
 
It's a wonder she didn't die.

I used to drive tour buses, and was fortunate enough to visit Yellowstone at least half a dozen times. I had to drag an idiot back into the bus to get her away from a bison she was trying to get a close-up photo of. Having been to the mudpots and other thermal features, I have to say that no one with a lick of sense would leave the walkways. I've seen them do it though.

If you ever get the opportunity to go to "Jellystone Park" it's well worth it. What an amazing place!
 
If you ever get the opportunity to go to "Jellystone Park" it's well worth it. What an amazing place!
Am I right in my understanding that Yellowstone is the top of a super volcano which, should it erupt, could wipe out mankind?
 
Am I right in my understanding that Yellowstone is the top of a super volcano which, should it erupt, could wipe out mankind?

Don't know if it would wipe out mankind, but it would be "game over" for much of North America.
 
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Heh. Most of the tour guides didn't say much about that, but as I recall the next eruption is overdue at least by some measures. So yeah, any minute now. Might be a perfect finale to 2020.

My visits there were in the early and mid 90s, or five years or so after the big fire that "destroyed the park" as some headlines read. There were many large areas burned, but it's a natural process and the park was still magnificent. Many of the burned areas already had small trees and other vegitation growing back. Anyway, I ended up seeing quite a bit of video of the fires and the human element, much of that being large groups of people fleeing. It was amazing. The Park Service rounded up everyone who was still there and caravanned them out through the smoke in their own vehicles. I'd have been long gone by then, but as we're seeing right now there are huge numbers of people who lack basic common sense.
 
A Twente novice motorist lost his licence on the night of Friday to Saturday because he was driving with alcohol on the N18.
When his brother-in-law came to pick him up, he appeared to be drunk behind the wheel. The driver's father was then ticketed when he too crawled behind the wheel with a sip to go to his son.

Haaksbergen police reported on Facebook on Saturday that she received a report about a car lying upside down in the roadside along the N18. The occupants had already left the vehicle and had only minor injuries.
Officers at the scene smelled alcohol at the driver, who was found to have consumed four times the permitted amount of alcohol, blowing 370 ugl, while up to 95 ugl was allowed. After a report had been made against him, it became clear that his car was not insured and that he had already lost his licence. The police therefore wrote two more reports.

To help the driver, his brother-in-law had driven to the N18, but police also smelled an alcohol smell. The man blew 470 ugl, while he was given a limit of 220 ugl. That's why the police made a report against him.

While all this was taking place, a police unit was on their way to the location to assist. She found a scooter that was riding on the N18, when this is not allowed. At the check,the driver appeared to be the father of the novice motorist.
Once again, the police smelled alcohol. The man blew 720 ugl, where 220 ugl was allowed. He lost his driver's license and he was also charged.

https://www.nu.nl/binnenland/605321...ader-na-elkaar-betrapt-op-dronken-rijden.html
 
Boys let black widow bite them in hopes of turning into Spider-Man

Three young Bolivian brothers were hospitalized after getting a black widow spider to bite them — thinking it would turn them into Spider-Man, according to officials.

iu


The Marvel-loving siblings — aged 12, 10 and 8 — found the spider while herding goats in Chayanta, a Ministry of Health official revealed

Thinking it would give them superhero powers, they prodded it with a stick until it bit each of them in turn, the official said.

Finding them crying, their mom rushed them to a nearby health center, which transferred them to a nearby hospital, Telemundo said.

The would-be Peter Parkers were transferred a third time, taken to the Children’s Hospital in La Paz the next day with fevers, tremors and muscle pains, according to the report.

There, they were successfully treated and discharged last Wednesday, almost a week after they were bitten, the report says.

https://nypost.com/2020/05/25/boys-let-black-widow-bite-them-in-hopes-of-turning-into-spider-man/

maximus otter
 
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