Some kids play this kind of the "russian roulette" quite innocently:
But even they can become new Calvins and drive multitude snowmen to despair:
For those who ever felt slightly suicidal, here is a story, well-known on the internet, but spectacular enough to keep on record.
Ronald Opus's Puzzle
Don Harper Mills actually made up this story. But it should be true because it is so good:
"On March 23 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a gunshot wound of the head caused by a shotgun. Investigation had revealed that he must have jumped from the top of a ten story building with the intent to commit suicide. (He left a note indicating his despondency.) As he passed the 9th floor on the way down, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, killing him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the 8th floor level to protect some window washers, and that the decedent would not have been able to complete his intent to commit suicide because of this...
Further investigation led to the discovery that the room on the 9th floor from whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. He was threatening her with the shotgun and became so upset that he could not hold the shotgun straight. Therefore, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the bullets went through the window, striking Ronald Opus instead.
The old man was confronted with this conclusion, but both he and his wife were adamant in stating that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. It was the longtime habit of the old man to threaten his wife with an unloaded shotgun. He had no intent to murder her; therefore, the killing of Ronald Opus appeared then to be accident, as the gun had been accidentally loaded...
But further investigation turned up a witness that their son was seen loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal accident. That investigation showed that the mother (the old lady) had cut off her son's financial support, and her son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that the father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus...
Further investigation revealed that the son became increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to get his mother murdered. This led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a 9th story window.
The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide."
The picture of the woman with a gun in her mouth was used in 1998 (in sepia) on the cover of the Beautiful South album "Welcome to the Beautiful South". The cover was changed for some markets, for obvious reasons, so it may not have been seen everywhere.
Huh. That picture of the Russian ship in trees is interesting. The Russians have a lot of ships on dry land around the Aral sea because they've diverted so much of the water for irrigating crops that they've ended up beaching boats in the middle of what looks like desert (well I suppose technically it is desert). But the trees are interesting, since it seems that if there wasn't water for the lake there wouldn't be water for the trees. I guess it could be a tsunami.
Of course in a likelihood it's probably just an old boat that was decommissioned and then moved out into the woods to serve as a party member's dacha.
The large cargo ship lying almost on its side is the Cougar Ace. A great article about its rescue can be found at Cargo Law.
The 47-foot motor lifeboats are self-righting under all conditions--they can be flipped completely upside down and they will right themselves quickly. While on a tour of the US Naval Academy in 1992, I saw a video of an actual test in which a lifeboat was flipped over and righted itself--maybe you can find this video around the Web somewhere.
lol... "no one could take a picture of a tsunami because no one survived" uummmmmmm... what about the 2005 tsunami- hundreds of thousands dead, millions of videos and pictures taken-?
There's a great write-up in Wired this month about saving the "Cougar Ace" boat that you have pictured under "Some ships fare worse than others:" (the one on its side)...
Uh, I live in Nova Scotia and have several friends in the Canadian Coast Guard. They don't do anything like what the US Coasties go through in training in Morro Bay, California
What a fantastic story, It amazes me how much power the ocean has. Some of the pictures you have posted are amazing.
I know that it isnt on the same scale as the pictures you have posted but I once got caught going across Moreton Bay in Queensland (Australia) we had 3 meter swells in the bay and we had to try and make it back from Moreton Island to Brisbane. If you are interested here is a picture from the trip. http://photos.birdfamily.id.au/?p=48
Got caught once in the Atlantic in December, north of 50, and got hammered by a massive winter storm. The scary thing is that waves never appear as big in photos...usually about 50% bigger in real life.
There is a famous photograph taken in the 50's of storm swell breaking on the headland north of Faial in the Azores. The waves / swells are in excess of 10 meters. The photo was taken as one of the swells crashed into the headland - the spray makes a perfect outline of a bearded man (Neptune) with amazing detail.
The Heinrich Behrmann (out of Bremen, Germany)beached herself near Ensenada, BCN, Mexico a few years back due to navigational errors. - She was unloaded by helicopters, a ditch was dug around and under her and she was successfully refloated by several tugs after about 3 months' hard work.
re: the basketball picture -- I'm guessing there used to be a basketball court there, with the floor mounted on those little brick pillars. But, it was abandoned and the floor scavenged by the locals, so all you've got left are the pillars.
The dragon is a fake, no surprise there, but it was created in the 1890s! http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/28/1075088090949.html?from=top5&oneclick=true
When I lived in Tucson Az I worked with a guy who's legal name was Obi Wan Kenobi. He was an actor and he said he changed his name to something people would remember. I have a Christmas card that he gave me that he signed as Obi Wan Kenobi.
That lady with the long black hair seated by the huge stone is Cher. I think that's the cover art of her album Heart of Stone, which was released in the early 90s. If I'm not mistaken, that album is where the single "Turn Back Time" is from.
It is Heart of Stone, and interestingly enough, that album cover was recalled because it was thought to be too morbid. That's the one I have, though, and I've never seen what they replaced it with.
the two paintings (flowers and leaves forming a female face, birds forming a female face) come from the artist Octavio Ocampo. Great work! Keep it up! ;)
omg, i cant beleive it! the one where u have 2 find the F's..first i counted 3, then i read the answer..i counted again, found 4, and the 4th time, i saw 6, haha!!
I think that second painting credited to Jos de Mey is actually by Rene Magritte. He frequently used the juxtaposition of night and day in his landscapes, and the birdcage fellow appears in many of his paintings.
That "asteroid" is in fact a meteor. :) Asteroids are large bodies smaller than a planet, located typically in the asteroid belt, meteoroids – smaller bodies, but still in space. Once they enter the atmosphere, they produce a ball of fire and this is called a "meteor".
The meteor photo has been found to be the reflection of the sun off ice particles left by a airliner's engines. Here's another photo from about 10 kilometers away http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=031013_fireball_heywood_02,0.jpg Still looks spectacular though!
The multi-coloured Beetles ("afterlife") were sold as such from the Mexican production line. They took 4 different-colour beetles and a small team just took the various parts off and assembled them on the other bodies just as they felt inspired that day. They then were sold as "clown"-version.
please consider not using "[wiki]" if the link goes to wikipedia, as a "wiki" is the type of software in general that wikipedia and many other sites use. in that sense it is as useful as using "[blog]" or "[site]" or other generic terms.
in short: "wiki" is no good abbreviation for "wikipedia".
That nazi aerosled is not nazi but Finnish. Finnish army was well prepared for snow operations and the use of the swastika in its armed forces comes earlier than the nazis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Finland
Karamazov is absolutely right. The aerosled is Finnish. The German Wehrmacht never used the swastika on their vehicles. Trucks, tanks kubelwagens, etc., always used the standard German Cross.
Only in need, when there was aerial support, did they put a flag (with the swastika) over the tanks and trucks to signal them to Luftwaffe.
The Finnish used a blue swastika over a white background, as can be perceived from the black-and-white photograph.
in case you were wondering, the three b&w pictures with the different variants of the one snow mobile , written in russian and translated as follows : passenger variant, business variant, and "sanitary" variant ( or sterile).
great stuff. i wish that last tank/ship had been made.
An interesting, but topical aside is the US prewar entry for the Antarctic. The Antarctic Snow Cruiser. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_snow_cruiser
Somewhere it now seems at the bottom deep sea buried.
Great post! Don't forget Bombardier's beautiful snow buses, some of which are still used for ice fishing in Canada. http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w90/sugarzebra/BRPBusPOTN.jpg
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check this img
http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/2184/russianroullette4dummiezv5.jpg
Dark Roasted Blend rox
Garibaldo2 o/
Here is the source for the surgery image.
There are other funny pics in this journal as well.
Pic with the axe is a well-known fake.
I'm pretty sure this story is shown in Paul Thomas Anderson's 1999 Magnolia.
The picture of the woman with a gun in her mouth was used in 1998 (in sepia) on the cover of the Beautiful South album "Welcome to the Beautiful South". The cover was changed for some markets, for obvious reasons, so it may not have been seen everywhere.
Cool story, it's been added at http://www.gearcult.com
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