How is Evolution trying to get YOU out of the gene pool?

RedRamage · #1 (**permalink**) 10-30-2003, 12:36 PM

Reading the thread about people dieing in fires, and came across this comment by Dtroppens:

Quote:

But then again everytime there's a tornado warning guess who's outside looking for the tornado.
Social Darwinism will get me one day too!

Got me to thinking... what do you keep doing dispite knowing that the activity could kill you every time?

Obviously for Trop is Tornados. For me, it's climbing. I loved climbing trees as a kid. Fell more than once, though some how never broke a bone. My brother and I tried to climb up a billboard signs once too when we were kids.

Just this past Spring a huge limb from a tree in my parents yard broke in a wind storm, but got lodged in the branches of another tree rather than falling all the way down. A couple of my brothers tried to climb up and get at it, but couldn't get close enough. I, on the other hand, throwing fear and good common sense aside, climbed up high enough to reach it, dropped down a rope to pull up a chain saw, started the sucker while perched percariously in the tree tops, and reaching over my head with one hand managed to cut through the branch, so that it became dislodged and crashed down to the ground.

How I was able to do it all without falling still amazes me...but hey, I was the coolest brother for the rest of the afternoon cause I got it and the other brothers didn't!

MotownRandy · #2 (**permalink**) 10-30-2003, 01:29 PM

Red, there was a story I read recently about a guy standing on a ladder with something sharp(i cant remember, a chain saw comes to mind). Well, he fell and it stabbed him through the skull. Luckily, he did not die. Just be careful. It makes one want to believe in Social Darwinism and natural selection.

Billy Ringo · #3 (**permalink**) 10-30-2003, 03:22 PM

I know a man who at the age of 73 climbed a ladder, about 30 feet up, to trim limbs off a tree. He took his chain saw up with him. He fell. He is alive, but hurtin'.

Whiskey tried to get me once, but I dodged it. Cholesterol is my real enemy. I had bullets pass near me a few times. Once (when seriously drunk) I got into a pasture with a young, feisty bull. Did that on a bet. Won the bet, damn near lost my poopchute.

MelissaG915 · #4 (**permalink**) 10-30-2003, 04:27 PM

Natural selection working against me:

I'm near-sighted, flat-footed, big breasted (causes problems with things like balance), frizzy-haired and if it weren't for the efforts of one orthodontist, I would be snaggle-toothed as well.

Maybe that's why I can't get pregnant...

Biff Mayhem · #5 (**permalink**) 10-30-2003, 05:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by MelissaG915
Natural selection working against me:

I'm near-sighted, flat-footed, big breasted (causes problems with things like balance), frizzy-haired and if it weren't for the efforts of one orthodontist, I would be snaggle-toothed as well.

Maybe that's why I can't get pregnant...

*honk honk*

Billy Ringo · #6 (**permalink**) 10-30-2003, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by MelissaG915
Natural selection working against me:

I'm near-sighted, flat-footed, big breasted (causes problems with things like balance), frizzy-haired and if it weren't for the efforts of one orthodontist, I would be snaggle-toothed as well.

Maybe that's why I can't get pregnant...

Skategirl, your wit, sense of humor and downright good natured heart make you as loveable as any. It doesn't matter if you're snaggletoothed, as long as you can laugh through 'em.

(And I whist, big boobies do not detract.)

DTroppens · #7 (**permalink**) 10-30-2003, 08:45 PM

Mel,
In just the 10 minutes you were around us at that White Cap game I could tell you'd be a blast to be around. Just thought I'd throw that in.

Red,
Since bike helments are the norm now I guess that's another one of Social Darwinisms. I'll probably fly off a bike one day head-on into an anvil.
Beehives - We had a bee hive in our garage this summer. And instead of just putting some chemical on it I had a blast breaking it up with a hoe and then running from the bees. A stupid game, but I never got stung. I also love getting bees to land on my finger (get something sweet) and "petting" them. Never been stung yet by either. It's stupid but it amazes people everytime I do it.
The Game 500 - Still play it and as physical as ever. The sad thing is we usually play on the road and a few of us go tumbling onto the pavement. Why we can't stay on the grass, I will never figure it out.
And if I lived in hurricane land I'd be one of those idiots that would want to experience the hurricane and want to get out when it's too late. I could see myself doing something stupid like that.

DTroppens · #8 (**permalink**) 10-30-2003, 08:51 PM

For my brother it's frozen ice.

He goes to Lake St. Clair every year and walks on it quite often - at least up to a few years ago he was still doing that. He's not ice fishing or anything - just walking. Every now and then he comes back with a story of how the ice was cracking around him.

It's going to get him one of these days. I just know it. Well that's if he still does that.

DetroitFolly · #9 (**permalink**) 10-31-2003, 05:27 AM

Dtrop:

I'll be looking for your brother floating past my neck o' the lake on his way towards Toledo! :)

My personal problem is SPEEDING. I'm a good driver, but I drive too fast.

I am doing my darndest to keep my speed in check, but every once in a while I'll look down and realize I'm doing some ungodly MPH on the highway. Cars today are just so damn smooth, that you'll be doing 90, and it feels like your going 20.

shabba4detroit · #10 (**permalink**) 10-31-2003, 06:36 AM

Illegal left turns.

I'm a sucker for an illegal left turn.

djhutch · #11 (**permalink**) 10-31-2003, 07:17 AM

2 things:

1) Falling asleep @ the wheel. Driving makes me drowsy.

2) Sugar. I know I'm not going to die today from it, but I can't stop eating sugar. Sugar on my coco-wheats, sugary pop, chocolate, TONS of sugar in my coffee. It's going to be the death of me - unless I have to take a long trip on the freeway.

DetroitFolly · #12 (**permalink**) 10-31-2003, 07:32 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by djhutch
2 things:

1) Falling asleep @ the wheel. Driving makes me drowsy.

2) Sugar. I know I'm not going to die today from it, but I can't stop eating sugar. Sugar on my coco-wheats, sugary pop, chocolate, TONS of sugar in my coffee. It's going to be the death of me - unless I have to take a long trip on the freeway.

Hutch...have you ever been tested for diabetes, or other blood sugar related diseases?

smr-nj · #13 (**permalink**) 10-31-2003, 07:39 AM

Ah, if I didn't get "weeded" out as a kid, it won't happen now.

When I was growing up in the Bronx, the subway trains in my section were above ground... actually, above the roadways, about 30+ feet up. (They were called the "El", short for Elevated)

We used to ride in between the cars, straddling the two train cars, one foot on each platform.

Also, our favorite sleigh riding place in the winter was in Bronx park, a hill called "Suicide Hill".
It was called that because if you didnt' bail off of the sled at the bottom of the hill, (grabbing the sled by the rope), your trajectory would take you right across 3 lanes of the Mosholu Parkway.
The braver kids would scope out the traffic on their way down the hill on their sleds, and play "chicken" with the cars ....... the rest of us watching the cars swerve to avoid hitting the sled that came outta nowhere...

Ah.
The good old days.

Billy Ringo · #14 (**permalink**) 10-31-2003, 07:57 AM

Good Grief, Sue. You lucky you be here!

MotownRandy · #15 (**permalink**) 11-01-2003, 12:37 AM

Something makes me think Mel intentionally mentioned that she had big breasts because she knew she'd get reaction to it.

(it's ok, I don't blame you and don't press charges)

I always like the Darwin award where the guy stuck his arm in a vending machine...it fell on top of him and killed him.

Oblong · #16 (**permalink**) 11-01-2003, 11:23 PM

Evolution is not trying to get me out of the gene pool. It would defeat the purpose. I am too superior of a speciman to not generate offspring. It would be a dereliction of duty. I'm trying to convince my wife to let me have about 15 more wives so I can do all I can for society. I want to be like Anthony Quinn and Tony Randall and have kids when I'm about 100. (Is that a Tony thing?)

Be honest, tell me you wouldn't want about 65 more of these kinds of kids running around?

smr-nj · #17 (**permalink**) 11-14-2003, 03:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by smr-nj
Ah, if I didn't get "weeded" out as a kid, it won't happen now.

When I was growing up in the Bronx, the subway trains in my section were above ground... actually, above the roadways, about 30+ feet up. (They were called the "El", short for Elevated)

We used to ride in between the cars, straddling the two train cars, one foot on each platform.
Ah.
The good old days.

Hey, turns out what I did as a kid was tame compared to what they're doing now - subway surfing........
You get on top of the subway car and ride it up there like a surfboard.

With mixed results...........

http://www.msnbc.com/local/wnbc/A1878000.asp

Man Killed, Another Injured Surfing Elevated Subway Train

NEW YORK, 2:59 p.m. EST November 14, 2003 - One man is dead and another injured after falling while surfing an elevated 6 train in the Bronx Friday.

Police tell NewsChannel 4 the men were subway surfing outside the elevated northbound train before they fell to the street at Westchester Avenue.
Christopher Loughrey, 22, was killed, and Brian Hochstetter, 21, was in critical condition at Jacobi Hospital.

Both men were students at the State University of New York Maritime College. The school is planning a prayer vigil.

It was the second time in less than a month that someone died after trying to ride outside a moving subway train.

smr-nj · #18 (**permalink**) 11-14-2003, 03:12 PM

This is a kid who died doing this less than a month ago, but his ride was in the underground subway....

http://www.wnbc.com/traffic/2568218/detail.html

NEW YORK -- A 14-year-old boy died when he fell from a subway train Monday, having climbed atop a car on a dare from friends.

Eric Alvarez of Harlem was found dead on the tracks between the West Fourth and West 14th Street stations on the Eighth Avenue subway line at about 4:45 p.m., said Detective Carolyn Chew.

Alvarez fell from the car after hitting his head on a steel beam on the tunnel's roof, said Marisa Balde, a spokeswoman for New York City Transit.

Shortly afterward, an oncoming train ran over the tracks where Alvarez lay. Initially it appeared that the second train crushed him to death, but subsequent investigations have revealed that he probably died from head injuries and the impact of his fall, Balde said.

"It a train hits something on the road bed, it automatically stops," Balde said. That was not the case with either Alvarez's train or the one behind, she said.

Alvarez and his friends were riding home from school Monday afternoon when they dared him to climb to the top of the train -- a practice known as subway surfing, Balde said.

He apparently climbed the rear of the car he was on and had reached the top when he his head hit the beam.

Trains on the Eighth Avenue line were diverted to Sixth Avenue until 6:45 p.m., when regular service was restored, she said.
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City kids are always looking for ways to dispel the boredom..... nothing changes.