December 31, 2007
Posted at: 10:07 am by Timothy Haroutunian
Categories: Rants and Randomness
Each year, I announce the nominees for the Darwin Award because I think it is funny. Not to sound morbid, but honestly, there are really dumb people out there.
The first and my favorite stupid moment of the year.
(1 January 2007, Netherlands) The first Darwin Award of 2007 goes to Serge Sluijters, 36, who thought it reasonable to hover over an illegal professional firework and light the electronic ignition with an open flame. But this was not a traditional wick; it was a device designed for precision timing. The flame triggered an immediate launch, and the fireworks catapulted upwards, killing our amateur pyrotechnician enroute to a spectacular burst across the night sky.
Serge had purchased the firework legally in Belgium, but then transported it illegally into the Netherlands. His father disputed the notion that Serge was careless, characterizing his son as a man who gave due consideration to his acts. A witness told reporters, “His face disappeared. If someone has no face left, you know it’s serious.”
Every year, another idiot gets nominated for a Darwin Award for this same reason. Please, readers, keep your itchy fingers off the triggers of these dangerous fireworks!
Honestly, I have alcohol to the point where I had impaired judgment (I am over the legal age), but I have never once thought about doing something to this extent.
(19 August 2007, Serbia) It’s well known that alcohol impairs judgment. It’s well known that carnivorous wild animals and humans don’t mix. What happens when we combine all three? One might expect men, beer, and bears to combine with lethal consequences. Such was the case for a 23-year old man who inadvertently fed himself to Masha and Misha at the Belgrade Zoo.
The Zoo director said of the incident,
“Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage.”
The man’s naked, mauled corpse was found inside the bear habitat, along with several mobile phones, bricks, and plenty of beer cans. His clothes were completely undamaged, suggesting that he approached the bears bare-naked by choice. The bears, fearing that his intentions were as dishonorable as they were ill-informed, meted out a summary justice.
Later, Masha and Misha “reacted angrily” when keepers tried to recover the man’s corpse, but were eventually persuaded to give up their tasty prize. We await word on how many beers were bartered for the body.
This is just sad…..I love stupidity though!
(12 September 2007, Tampa, Florida) The setup: A woman wins two concert tickets from a local radio station. She can’t believe her luck. The Dave Matthews Band, live! She invites her friend to join her. But they are in for more than a concert experience.
Flash forward to the next morning. My buddy, head of operations at the amphitheater, looks like hell. He tells me that two women were killed the previous night at the concert. I am shocked. Nothing like this has ever happened at the amphitheater. I ask for details.
Flash back to the previous evening, 8:30pm and pouring rain. The show is delayed. Two women leave the venue to escape the rain. They pass multiple free shuttle buses that run directly to the parking lot. Instead, they opt for a shortcut across a 7-lane Interstate.
They run a hundred yards through wet grass, and jump a six-foot fence that borders the road. Ahead are 3 lanes of freeway traffic, a 100′ median, and another 4 lanes of traffic. Beyond that is another six-foot fence, the maze of an ‘under construction’ garage, and a long hike around a casino.
All in all, the ‘shortcut’ to their vehicle covers a distance of about a half mile. And the women are in a torrential thunderstorm. Free shuttle bus, or mad dash across dangerous territory?
My buddy was an eyewitness when the first vehicle struck the women at 8:30 pm. Oddly, this was in the first lane of traffic, on a straightaway where one can see headlights for miles in either direction. The impact hurled the women farther into traffic, and each was struck by a second car. They did not survive the collisions.
Ironically, one of the women was an “energetic and gifted athlete” who won two national championships in gymnastics. Physical prowess is no substitute for the homespun maxim:
“Stop. Look. Listen. Or tomorrow you’ll be missing.”
December 30, 2007
Posted at: 11:08 pm by Timothy Haroutunian
Categories: Sports and Leisure
I know that this is about 24 hours late, but I was busy all day today.
In the 2007 NFL regular season, the New England Patriots are perfect. Now that is not entirely true, if they were perfect, no one would have scored on them all season. Since that is not possible (yet), this is as close to perfect they can get. 16 teams tried to beat them in 16 games and no one was able to do it. Even during those 4 games where it came down to the last 2 minutes or 1 second in one game. This is not about being perfect though, it is about 2 things and two things only, the second one being the most important. First, breaking about 6 NFL All-Time Records and the second of course, winning another Super Bowl.
Breaking records and winning is why the game exists and if you’re not playing to win, you’re not playing at all. Just like the 57-69 Celtics, the Red Sox (now and before 1918), the Bruins in the early 70′s and now the Patriots. Since 2001, that is all the Patriots do is win and make history. Everyone wants to put an * next to this season because of spygate, but they can’t realize that we would have destroyed the Jets that game even if this whole situation didn’t happen. Everyone from New York can deal and everyone down in Miami can deal, which includes Don Shula. Shula is pissed because the Patriots completed what analysts said was not possible. They talked about the ’72 Dolphins being different than any other team ever…Up until now. Three more games and the New England Patriots could/should be labeled the greatest team ever to play in the NFL, passing the ’72 Dolpins and the ’85 Bears. Is it possible, we will find out, but let me say that it is indeed possible since the Patriots can play the game with a 40 point lead, a 3 point lead or even a 12 point deficit. They are that good and the records prove it.
Including last week, the Patriots have broken tons of records, here are some of the top ones.
- FIRST TEAM TO GO A SEASON UNDEFEATED AT 16 WINS
- MOST TOUCHDOWN PASSES BY A QUARTERBACK IN A SEASON (50 – Tom Brady passing Payton Manning)
- MOST TOUCHDOWN RECEPTIONS A SEASON (23 – Randy Moss passing Jerry Rice)
- MOST POINTS SCORED IN A SEASON BY A SINGLE TEAM
December 29, 2007
Posted at: 9:01 pm by Timothy Haroutunian
Categories: Armenia, Entertainment and News
“Turkey praised the United States on Wednesday for providing intelligence in support of attacks against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, as it confirmed its third such air strike in 10 days.” – source
Why is it that George Bush loves the Turks? Is it because he is an idiot and doesn’t really care about what he is doing as long as he doesn’t have to take responsibility for anything.
That’s about it, just thought I would add my own comment.
December 28, 2007
Posted at: 10:27 pm by Timothy Haroutunian
Categories: Rants and Randomness
Today ends another year of blogging and a new one begins tomorrow. What will next year hold for ArmenianEagle.com? That is a question that can only be answered 365 days from now. Over the past year, I have had some amazing milestones. Launching my new unique theme, creating a “Category Converter” plug in, passing 1 million hits and had an article get dugg making my all time highest day over 44,000 hits. It has been a great year and I am looking forward to the future.
Over the next year, I plan on creating another plug in, redesigning my theme and hopefully raising my traffic even higher than this year. I have been very happy with blogging every day which has brought my traffic up a lot. I have also increased my number of posts. Last year at this time I had 228 posts. This year, including this one, I am on my 651th post. I almost tripled the number of posts in a year and my love for blogging. I completed a few of my goals that I had last year and I am going to try and complete more this year. I want to get my rss subscriptions up
Current Total Reads: 1,053,172 (up from 120,940 last year)
Current Technorati Ranking: 613,239 (down from 305,135 last year)
Current Alexa Ranking: 293,938 (up from 3,054,634 last year)
Current RSS Subscribers: 81 (not that good, but I will try and increase it this year)
Top Five Stories:
Thank you very much to all of those who read my blog and enjoy the variety of topics. I am really excited for another year and I will do my best to keep on blogging and developing. God Bless!
