When I learned about the 2006 Darwin Awards I could not help but wondering if this is for real (disregarding now the question what real actually is.)

When contemplating I could not help travelling my time track to look for instances where I could have won such an award. Look at this sample and tell me if you would ever do something like that?

1. When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.

I have been humbled by situation in my life where I - previous to that situation - would have totally rejected the mere possibility that I would fall for something like that. One example was the Nazi propaganda - growing up I was so arrogant to believe that I would have never fallen for something like that - - until I did.

But that is just a more esoteric example - we were looking for real dumb things like that 'looking into the barrel' kind of situation.

Sure, I did that too. No, not with the barrel, otherwise I would not hack here on my keyboard. But I remember vividly one situation in college. I had an experiment involving a radioactive beta source (you know - fast electrons, really fast!) I was involved in building a detector that would detect the trace of those electrons through the air.

I got a nice signal on my apparatus I had built, I demonstrated it to the assistant and to show the difference between radiation on and radiation off I put my finger between the beta source and the detector. The next thing I know is the assistant slamming my hand away from the radiation source - "Don't do that!"

Pretty dumb - normally you use a lead plate to shield the radiation not your living tissue. It probably was not very dangerous as it was a very weak beta source - but dumb nevertheless.

With this said, you can now enjoy the rest of the 2006 Darwin Awards at The Magic of Life, but you can do it with a bit more humility.