Life lessons

[davidc]

Things I've learned as a kid & teenager (please don't verify ANY of the following, just learn from my example :-)

If you spit on a hot light bulb it explodes

Never launch bottle rockets & other flying explosive devices with an old fluorescent tube.

You can light about 50 bottle rockets at a time with a MAPP gas torch.

Pouring gasoline on a large ant-hill in the summer to torch the little bastards will create a large fire as the fumes spread through the dry grass and you ignite the anthill.

I can do a backwards standing broad jump about 20 feet when I find myself standing in the middle of a gas/grass fire.

A styrofoam cup is not an ideal container to hold flaming gasoline.

If you shoot an arrow straight up, you can see it well enough to know which way to run.

A firecracker set on end in a half inch of gasoline in a pail and then lit makes a great fireball.

Spraying lighter fluid on hot coals, then shutting the lid with the top vent closed, and then lighting the fumes coming out the bottom will almost launch a BBQ

Blow guns work great

Blow guns darts with shotgun primers in them tend to shoot the primer cap back at the shootee

Bones really are white

Big block ford engines are too heavy to carry up from a basement once fully assembled

Spontaneous combustion is real

And repeatable

Getting a sinker caught in a tree & pulling it loose with about 500 pounds of force on the fishing pole is a bad idea

Sinkers make a neat sound as they whiz by your head at several hundred miles an hour

Flies only detect lateral motion; a fully pumped up pellet rifle with no pellet can be brought close to a fly if you move straight at it.

Flies vaporize completely when blasted with air from a pellet rifle.

So do grapes & various other soft objects.

Living room furniture tends to become sticky when coated with grape/fly/other soft object residue.

An air blast from a pellet rifle, when inserted in a bowl of your mother’s hand-baked French fries, will empty the bowl over several rooms.

If you glue the knobs on the end of a vise handle before it is inserted into the vise crank, you’ve just made a nice wooden dumbbell.

Never start an engine with a breaker bar still attached to a crankshaft pulley bolt.

A leaking gas line, ignited by a coat hanger that shorted the unprotected positive terminal to the chassis, attached to a jury-rigged electric fuel pump in your trunk will easily ignite a spare tire and your work uniform.

Little kids like watching someone fling burning items and tires from their trunk.

And to think I've passed on my genes =:-O

Let's hear some of yours.

Dave

[lezonebay]

have you heard that if you burn a wound it will stop the bleeding ? BS as the exhaust manifold will burn you so much it will bleed !

A GM 6.5l Turbo Diesel engine's crankshaft loaded with bearings, dropped from a table to your feet will shatter the foot bones!

slinding down on the snow covered roof and then the trunk of a 50's car (rounded shapes) will replace a hill/sled, but if you arrive head first the concrete will be stronger

if a handmade metal arrow goes into your palm it will have to come out on the other end, no pulling on it !

an old bold tire, on a rainy road will make your RWD car with no traction control as good as a sled on an icy road

if you really good, you can shoot a dart into a person eye (not to the eyeball but into the eye hole) and not blind that person - he might becomes an eye doctor when he grows up ! That was a scary one in 3rd grade and he did become a doctor 20 years later !

old paint cans and hairspray will blow up if thrown into a firepit but it takes time. be patient don't get close to see whats happening !

a city train can flatten a coin and a bullet too. the bullet has better sound ! a real train do it too fast, not much fun !

riding a bicycle right in front of a city train in a contest to get closer... will make a person hurt. the winner will get hurt !

holding a train and riding a bicycle is not a smart thing, very dumb actually

going downhill at over 60km/h (38mph) with a camping bicycle (old style folding bike) and not having a good brakes will cause a major headache to you ! the look on the car drivers when you pass them - priceless !

you can use a largew straw to broke a window in the living room. Shoot small rocks hard enough !

a spark plug porcelan (or a porcelan piece from a tea cup) will break a windshield fairly easy !

dead birds do fly - into a horrible neighboors attic and they rot there till spring. then make a real nasty smell and a real angry neighboor

a large nail driven through a can of coke, and then placed in front of a cars wheel will drive it through the tire. old tubed car tires make nice sound when they blow up !

if you put enough detergent into the dryer and set it to full heat, it will blow. apartment super will blow up too !



thats all I can remember at this late hour...

[tking]

Oh I've got plenty but here is a couple from childhood:

- Climbing the fence at the city airport and turning all the landing lights around backward gets you a stiff talking to by the authorities.

- It also can get your parents arrested.

- Sliding down a gravel pile wearing only shorts hurts like hell.

- So does outpatient rectal surgery to remove the gravel.

- Shooting at cars with a pellet gun CAN blow out the back window of a passing car and gets you a stiff talking to by the authorities.

- It also can get your parents a stiff talking to by the authorities.

- Cats do not have nine lives.

- ..... nor frogs

- and especially chickens.

- Roman candle fights are best conducted outside.

- Lit Roman candles burn carpet

- .... and apartment buildings.

- Roman candle fights conducted inside can get your parents a stiff talking to by the authorities.

- Cats, frogs, and caged chickens can not fly.

- 1970 Plymouth RoadRunners most certainly can.

- Flying cats, frogs, caged chickens, and 1970 Plymouth RoadRunners all have the same landing characteristics.

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thats all for now.
<b><FONT COLOR="blue">Tom King <a href="http://www.tomnlisa.com">www.tomnlisa.com</a>
<I>93 BMW 850Ci
06 Cadillac SRX
84 Dodge W250
67 Jeep Kaiser M715</FONT></I>
</b>

[davidc]

And I thought I was the only one who had Roman Candle fights, but we used the ones that shot exposive rounds (supposedly M80s). It was hard to correct your aim as you could't tell in the dark if the flash at the other end was him shooting or your M80 going off. I did bounce one off my friend Dan's leg though and the strobe light flash image of him leaping to get away as it expolded was memorable.

A few more - A peanut M&M thrown over the top of the windshield of a moving convertible can be easily caught in your mouth by correcting the trajectory with gas/brake/steering.

Opel Kadettes cannot ford moderately deep streams and hydraulic lock can and will stop an engine in mid-stream. But if you pull the spark plugs and pump the water out & let the engine dry while you play a round of frisbee golf it will start again, eventually.

A strategically placed can of coke shot open with a nail dart from a electrical conduit blow gun will explode its contents all over your hapless victim.

[Argonaut]

Fantastic - brightened up my otherwise pretty dull and boring day.
Here's a few from me

If you throw a frog into a river it will always, I mean always swim back to the side of the river from which it was thrown. It will continue to do this until either a) exhausted b) it gets stuck in the mud of the river bank on the other side or c) it's dead

Pulling a "wheelie" on a Yamaha 125 needs caution, pulling it too far will result in sliding down the road on the back luggage box of the bike - this is impressive to your mates but leaves you with no control over direction or speed.

When travelling home by train after a night's drinking (read very drunk) it's always a good idea to make sure you get out of the correct side of the train - the 3 foot drop onto hard stones can be painful but it depends how much you've been drinking

Running away across the fields after you've just out of the wrong side of the train because you thought you might look a bit stupid is pretty much guaranteed to make you look stupid.

Using Petrol (gasoline) to speed up an already slowly burning bonfire by pouring it from an old milk bottle is actually not a great idea. The flame runs up the liquid and into the bottle faster than you can drop it. (It also means having to explain to your dad why there's no fuel left for the lawnmower)

Throwing a bottle of burning petrol away from you to get it out of danger is a bad idea, this will ignite larges areas of the garden and any clothing in the area.

Smoking dried stringy bits from bananas does not get you high in any way. Nor does tea.

[pcy13]

Don't save the best for last, the smile for later or the "Thanks" for tomorrow.
Paul
'01 Esprit V8TT - intercooled, chipped and Quaifed
'07 Hummer H3 Adventure - 315/75-16 MTRs and lights galore