Archive for February, 2010

Fail Hard: Brain Damage

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

This post may very well explain a lot of things about me, and that’s kind of what I’m afraid of. Let’s take you back until I was about 10 or 11 years old. We had a trampoline at my house in a gravel pit. As much fun as that was, we also have a basketball hoop and the trampoline was always pushed over to the hoop so we could dunk the basketball. Now this trampoline was on concrete, a very unforgiving surface.

After years of use, the trampoline started losing springs. One by one, these sharp edged medal objects flung wildly in the air. Now these springs help keep the trampoline together. What happens, when there’s no springs, the trampoline starts to fall down. At this point, we had about half the trampoline missing, but that doesn’t stop us stupid brave kids. We still dunked the basketball. On this day there were three of us on the trampoline and we all bounced each other as high as we could, one wrong bounce though and I went flailing through the air and slammed head first into the concrete where there used to be a trampoline. My breath was gone for a solid minute and obviously my head hurt. Basically I was dropped on my head from about 15 feet high, and this one I can’t blame on my parents.

-Trent

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Fail Hard: Driving through a chain link fence

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Previously, I had talked about a different go-kart fail and I’m hear to tell you about another go-kart fail. When I was 14 I had started racing go-karts. Just for fun, but of course my competitiveness started taking over. I was new to this game and didn’t know all the ways you could cheat(there were plenty). I was consistently coming in 3rd, 4th, and 5th place. It was decent, but there were two brothers who always dominated. Anyway, I was in a little 5HP kart that wasn’t that fast and required you to always have the gas down, no matter what! To slow down, you’d keep your foot on the gas and jam the brakes. It helped keep the revs up and made it pretty fun. After awhile of getting nowhere, I decided to try out the shifter karts. Now these were quite a bit faster and could hit 100mph given the room. On the straightaways at the track I raced on, 90mph was possible.

I had tried the shifter karts out around the neighborhood(going after the cats again) and after some yelling gentle persuasion, my neighbors said no more and I had to take it to the track. On a side note, 75mph on a private lane is awfully fun. So there I am on a practice day enjoying myself in this much faster kart. What I hadn’t realized is that I had gotten into the habit of riding the brakes a little bit. I could let off the gas in these karts, but in the karts I really had to use the brakes a lot more since I was always on the gas. I go around the s-bend leading into the straightaway and floor it. This track configuration had a very sharp 120 deg. turn at the end of the straight. I’m going as fast as I can go, let off the gas, jam the brakes and….nothing! No brakes there at that point it’s a choice of either running into a hard barrier or going off into the dirt. I chose the dirt. However, at this small town track, the dirt is maybe 5 feet long and goes straight into a chain link fence. After that it’s a pile of dirt. The dirt runoff is also downhill, so it did nothing to slow me down. SMASH! Straight through the chain link fence and not much slower than my 90mph top speed on that straight. As I hit the fence I downshifted once and that slowed my speed enough that I didn’t slingshot out of my kart when I hit the dirt hill. There I stood, waiting for the track workers waiting to tow me in with a sore neck. I don’t remember the exact words, but the track worker was obviously more concerned with the fence than with my safety. Fences must be more expensive than lawsuits.

After that I still raced the 5hp karts for awhile and once I figured out how to cheat drive better, the two karts in front were a bit more accessible.

-Trent

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Toilet Paper Fail

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

toilet paper-2

A wise man once said “You’re never too poor to afford good toilet paper.”  Apparently those in my house haven’t heard these words of wisdom because we, a hearty midwestern family, are using SINGLE PLY TOILET PAPER.  Never had the harrowing experience of using single ply toilet paper?  I won’t go into detail, but it’s like walking across a frozen lake: at any moment the ice could break and you would be plunged into doom.

What’s even worse about this is that the manufacturer of said useless toilet paper had the audacity to put the word “value” on the package.  There is no value in this stuff.  I use two or three times as much.  Is it because it costs next to nothing and the good stuff costs?  Maybe.  Is it because you need 8 feet of it per wipe?  Probably.

If needs be, live on Top Ramen, but never ever EVER buy single ply toilet paper.  Heed my words my friends and heed them well.

-Yom

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Fail Hard: Broken toe

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Somehow, some way, I’ve managed to remain rather unscathed in terms of broken bones. The only time I broke a bone was in high school, I broke my toe. How you say? Racing a car…on foot.

I was in auto shop and thanks to an incompetent teacher, work rarely got done and most of the time was spent playing cards in the back of someone’s car or attempting burnouts. Eventually this became tiresome and so we started racing behind the shop. There wasn’t much room to do so as there was a big dip at the end of a straight that’s only a few hundred feet long. Eventually it got down to people betting on who could beat who. There was one individual who thought his Camry was particularly fast. It had a non-functional dual exhaust, 17″ wheels, unpainted body kit, and a couple subwoofers. I decided to take him on, but my car was faster without a doubt. Time to challenge him on foot!

The stage was set, my 5’10″ 180-lb. out-of-shape body was going to race a mid-90′s Toyota midsize sedan. I was talking the talk and I was ready to walk the walk(without stretching!). He was revving his motor, I was revving mine(I make awesome engine noises). Ready…set…go! I take off with a burst of speed, and my Sketchers claw at the asphalt for traction. The delay for the power to go through his automatic transmission and to the wheels is playing in my favor. I take the lead and I know I can’t outrun him forever, but this few hundred feet were mine! Three mph was quickly surpassed in my in-head speedometer, here comes 4, and then 5! As I get close to the finish, a car pulls out of a garage and I come to a screeching halt! More worried about slamming into the side of the car than anything, I didn’t think about how to stop, I used my pinky toe to take the force. There was too much noise from his furiously revving car as it flew past me so I didn’t hear a crack, but I felt something. I was so close, I was going to win! Instead, I limped away with a broken toe. In retrospect, had that car not seen me and stopped, my opponent would’ve probably gotten in a low-speed collision. I’d like to think my broken toe saved his life.

-Trent

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