whats the dumbest thing you have ever done ?

iceman · Post by **iceman** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 9:07 pm

the most dumbest thing ive ever done is put myself in series with a neon bulb and 220v ac and use myself as a human resistor to make the neon light up, the harder I squeezed the wires the brighter the bulb (and stronger the shock)

schematic diagram

Code: Select all

                                 _____
            Neon Light           |x x|
                    /            |###|
               _  |/_             -|-    <--- me
L ------------|_|------------o-----/
                                  /|
                                 / |
N ---------------------------o--/  |
                                   |
  220 Volts AC                    / \
                                 /   \
                              __/     \__

Sabarai · Post by **Sabarai** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 9:29 pm

lol, that's quite stupid indeed

My brother once asked me to screw a light bulb out of it's fitting while it was on. I was sleepy and i did it...

Post by **Lucifer** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 9:37 pm

The dumbest thing I've ever done was read a post about a guy who put himself in series with a neon light....

(ok, so I'm not pulling anything up right now, I'll get a real one for you)

Website · Post by **Z-Man** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 10:13 pm

I once played bowling with glass bottles...

On a slightly higher dumbness level, I did make some silicon out of sand (or maybe glass, can't remember) and wanted to build my own transistor from it. Actually, a lot of dumb things I did involved trying to build something

And, of course, high voltage. I had this nice capacitor cascade that produced about 10000V

(Luckily for me, not capable of high sustained currents, so getting zapped by it was hardly more dangerous than carpet induced static)

Post by **Lucifer** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 10:26 pm

Aha, that reminds me, z-man.

(somehow, don't ask how)

I was hanging a center pipe and muffler on this pickup truck. I was using the mig welder for some reason, and I was having a little trouble with it. So I decided to do the front muffler weld before welding to the flange in the front of the center pipe. When I was done with that, I grabbed the pipe, just in front of the weld, intending to twist it. Instead of twisting it, I screamed in pain (the pipe was really hot).

Two other particularly dumb things come to mind on the junkyard.

I was driving the forklift with a car on it, and I went to put it on the top rack. But the car pinned one of my forks between it and the rack. To extricate myself from this situation, I decided to put the forklift in reverse and gun it. Nearly crashing into the car behind me, I also managed to pull the car I was putting on the rack off the rack enough that it lost its balance and fell on its roof.

So, to turn the car over so I could pick it back up I tied a chain to it and jerked it over with the forklift, and it was standing on it's side. So I put the forklift up close to it, walked over to the roof of the car (which is now opposite the forklift), and gave it my best football charge. Instead of pushing the car down onto the forks, the car tipped backwards and fell at me! I jumped out of the way, though. Then I did the chain thing again and got the car back up on its side. At this point the car miraculously still had all its glass intact.

So I brought the forks down low and charged the car, and it fell right onto the forks, bouncing hard enough to tip the forklift. When it was done it was balanced precariously on the forks. I tried pushing against the car on the bottom of the rack to straighten it out, but the forks were pushing on the frame rail on the far side of the car, so this was as good as it got.

So I went ahead and lifted the car again. Just when I got it to the height of the rack, the car became far enough from the center of gravity of the forklift that it tipped the forklift and--you guessed it--fell. This fall broke all the glass on it.

After that point my memory gets fuzzy. I managed to get it on the rack somehow, but I don't recall how.

My other dumb forklift experience wasn't really the fault of my own stupidity, not completely anyway. The forklift had bad brakes, and I was told to take a Mercedes down to the lower level, which meant I had to go down a ramp that was inclined at about 30 degrees. Knowing already that I had to back down the ramp I turned the forklift around to do it. Had I gone down the ramp forwards, the car would have fallen off and rolled its way down. The clutch was going out so I was having some trouble getting down, and the brakes went out on the way down. So I popped the clutch and turned off the engine and the forklift stopped about 1/3 of the way down. So my stupid decision was to go ahead and keep trying to go down.

So I pulled the parking brake, pushed the clutch and started the engine again and started backing down. Quickly the thing accelerated out of control and I popped the clutch, shut off the engine again, and pulled the parking brake.

But the forklift kept on going!

So I jumped out of the forklift, clearing the car easily. I rolled, stood up, and watched the forklift gloriously collide with a little Toyota MR2 that was behind it.

At least I got the car down.

Later the boss got mad at me for taking the mercedes down there in the first place.

(Yeah, there was a stupid power struggle going on between the shop manager and the owner)

Phytotron · Post by **Phytotron** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 12:30 am

I've done a lot of dumb things due to the fact that I'm a bit clumsy combined with my occasional absent mindedness.

Since electricity has been touched on a few times already, I'll expand on that. I used to live in the basement. My couch was right up against the wall, next to the circuit box. One evening I'm sitting there and I hear the entire box vibrating. So I get up and take a look. I peer past the circuit breakers and see a screw back there that's holding the box to the wall. So I figure, ok, I'll just tighten that thing up. I grab a screwdriver, stick it in there, and begin to twist. POW! A big pop and flash and all these sparks. Shit! I did a little duck and cover. My pops comes running downstairs, having just experienced a brownout upstairs, and having heard the pop and my howl downstairs. I picked up the screwdriver off the floor and part of the shaft had been melted. There were actually hardened metal drips. Apparently, as I was twisting the screw the screwdriver had touched the side of one of the circuit breakers and completed a circuit. The only thing that saved me was that I had my hand entirely on the handle. My dad still has that screwdriver, heh.

Oh, a number of years prior to that I had another incident. I had bought a strobe light at some yard sale. At some point it stopped working. So I figure I'll open it up and check the bulb. I take off the back and there's a metal plate between me and the bulb. My thumb touches the plate and BUZZ! Yah, I'd forgotten to unplug it first. In a split second I felt the electricity going up my arm and I started to black out. I came to on the other side of the room. It would be a more dramatic story if it was the electricty that threw me that far, but I kinda doubt it—I'd probably be dead if it was. I probably just jumped that far, heh.

There are plenty of other stories where those came from, but I'll leave it at that for now.

iceman · Post by **iceman** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:01 am

Sabarai wrote:lol, that's quite stupid indeed

My brother once asked me to screw a light bulb out of it's fitting while it was on. I was sleepy and i did it...

lol I never switch off the power when changing bulbs !

hang3r · Post by **hang3r** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 4:09 am

Sabarai wrote:l
My brother once asked me to screw a light bulb out of it's fitting while it was on. I was sleepy and i did it...

hmmm, glass isnt a conductor of electricity, i do it all the time

Jonathan · Post by **Jonathan** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 5:23 am

Just watch out that it isn't HOT! And don't blind yourself when screwing another back in.

TiTnAsS · Post by **TiTnAsS** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 7:32 am

Ah, my storys involve clear lake and some mean quads -_-...

A few years back i went down to clear lake to stay with my friend who had just moved there, he had 4 quads (a polaris, suzuki, bombardia (spelling?), and a honda). We then made our dayly thing to do riding quads. (i had never rode a three wheeler, quad, and only once rode a dirtbike and i was only 15 so bear with my stupidity.

First, i was going up a hill on the polaris (bad hill climber) and it started to tip backwards, i then tryed to turn to the side out of instinct to not fall backwards... I was then going off the side of the hill while starting to roll. I don't know how i got out of it all i know is it rolled one time and i tucked myself in the seat sideways and escaped unscratched. (seeing my friend running tword me yelling "ARE YOU OKAY?!" and me followed up by screaming "I'M STILL ALIVE!!!!")

The second unfortunate experience was when we drove down to urika (may have been ukaia i'm not certain and i've lost contact with this friend so i've no way to ask). We were staying in a parking lot with lots of trailors that were here to ride dirtbikes and motorized toys etc. There were about 20 miles of trail and then a beach at the end of it. Since motorized vehicles are allowed on the beach there are tire tracks of course, except where the sand is wet. We were racing down the beach (i was in the wet sand so i could go faster without hitting all the bumps). There were all these little islands out a little way that you could drive through the shallow water to get to. So he does this then comes back. I attempt to do the same thing, but it turns out the shallow water i attempted to go in was not so shallow... it ended with my having to swim out to the floating honda and attaching a tow-cable to it, then my having to sit on it while my friend whos drives them insanly fast through the drives was towing me.

The next thing that happened was a little bit funnier. We were out at the beach spinning doughnuts and tryin to kick sand up at eachother and etc, you know the whole im more macho and better at getting you all dirty then you are thing... after we do this for about a half an hour the throttle on my snapped. I'm sitting here with a snapped throttle (don't know how but it was speeding up) flying down the beach. My first instinct is to jump off, so i did. I was on the susuki wich is very fast and reaches a whopping 80 mph. It flew into the side of a hill didn't get damaged at all but boy i never heard the end of that. Once again i had to be towed back to camp.

The last funny thing (there were alot more we were there for 2 weeks...) was by far the stupidest. My friends cousin was with us to. She was on the honda and i was on the polaris. The polaris is not a good hill climber as ive already said. My friends cousin bottomed out on the top of hill and i thought she was just easing her way over and being a wuss... I went to speed up so i could get over the hill without backing up. she didn't move and soon enough i was going fairly fast and i realized i was gonna hit her.
Of course I did. Bent the grill ALL the way back. From vertical to horizontal. She got off and started screaming at me.

Aside from all the rolling and stuff that happened to us thoughs were the funniest things..

iceman · Post by **iceman** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:44 am

hehe good stuff

--------------------------

I've just remembered somethings (sorry memory is bad, things come and go)

When I was about 12 years old my friends older brother let me drive his ford cortina automatic (I hate automatic drive)

I had been driving for about 20 mins around the back streets to advoid police I was going about 55MPH when he said pull over

So I did !, I jumped the curb at full speed and ended up totaling the car into a large oak tree

---------------

Another incident happend to me when I was about 22 years old in an automatic golf gti (my bosses car)

I was working for an electronics/computer firm in the repairs department and on this day there had been a huge amount of postal sales, as I wasnt very busy I offered to help and loaded up the golf with parcels and set off to the post office

After delivering the parcels and waiting about 30 mins for processing I was getting very bored, After leaving I noticed there was a quiet side street to the left of the post office and was wondering if it would be possible to make this crappy automatic gti wheel spin

So I put the shift into neutral, floored it until the engine was screaming and threw the shift into drive

and got a little spin but nothing impressive

I tried this a few times but gave up as it was pathetic but then had another idea about getting a better wheel spin (or so I thought)

I put the shift into drive and floored it, got it up to about 43MPH then threw the shift in reverse (bad idea)

There was an almighty clunk followed by an ear piercing squeal and grinding sound, I managed to destroy the gear box

hang3r · Post by **hang3r** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:55 am

how did you think chucking it into reverse at 55mph was a good idea???????

lol, what did your boss say?

Sabarai · Post by **Sabarai** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:00 pm

I got a firm shock alright...

After reading all this, I think I should take a class: How to do dumb things and remember about them? (as in, when you're sober

)

iceman · Post by **iceman** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 3:10 pm

hang3r wrote:how did you think chucking it into reverse at 55mph was a good idea???????

lol, what did your boss say?

lol if I write here what he said it would look something like this

f****** a****** what the f*** have you done to my car you s***** little b****** c***
im gonna deduct this f****** repair from your wages you stupid f****** a****** c***

now get the f*** out of my sight

Phytotron · Post by **Phytotron** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 3:53 pm

My first vehicle was a 1979, lemon-yellow, long-bed, 5-speed, 4-cylinder Toyota pickup—one of those "toy pickups," as some people derisively termed them, but I loved it. I called it Old Man, but a girl I was hanging out with at the time named it the RYST, which stood for Rusty Yellow Shit Truck, heh.

One night when I was 16 this guy we knew had a party up at his uncle's farm up in BFE, Indianer. Late night rolls around and I'm under the influence of a couple illegal substances. I don't think I had had anything to drink at this point. A couple of buddies and I were sitting on the roof looking out and thought it might be fun to take my truck out into their field. So we went out to where I was parked in an opposing field. I had a camper on it at the time, and figured it would be a good idea to take that off. It was held on by 6 or 8 wingnuts. So the three of us get in and make our way toward the field. Now, this is pitch darkness out in the country; there are no lights other than my headlights. I couldn't see a damn thing. I also don't think I got over 20-odd mph, because it was just so bumpy. Still, it was funny just driving around aimlessly in this field in my crappy little pickup. Ruined the shocks, though.

OK, I told you that story so I could tell you this story. The next morning I was unable to find all the wingnuts. Due to my laziness and procrastination I drove around for the next couple weeks with the topper held down by like 2-3 wingnuts and a clotheshanger. One night I'm driving home from work on I-64 when I hear this wooshing behind me. I look in my rear-view mirror just in time to see the topper flying and flipping through the air, had to be at least 20 feet up, and then crashing into the median.

When I got home and told my pops he just chuckled.