Oh shit.

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― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 14:50 (twenty-one years ago)

what a pisser.

― Catty (Catty), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 14:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeep.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 14:56 (twenty-one years ago)

:( i thought chainsaws have the safety thing where you need to keep your hands on it to keep it running, and then i realised that i was thinking of drills.

that's sad :(

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 14:59 (twenty-one years ago)

that is sad!

― dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 15:03 (twenty-one years ago)

i think chainsaws have that too ken. maybe he was holding onto it as he fell as a reflex? who knows. christ that sucks.

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 15:05 (twenty-one years ago)

He had to chase her three times around the garden before he accidentally fell on her though.

― C J (C J), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 15:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Hang on - what kind of sicko starts a thread about a horrific thing like this? What's the deal, Dan?

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 15:52 (twenty-one years ago)

it is kind of just a random article

― dyson (dyson), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 15:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Nice one, Mark! Ten points to you.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Very sad things like this are pretty much %99 of what people I work with talk about. It's the obsession with such depressing news items that keeps me from talking to my coworkers more often than anything else.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Huh?

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:01 (twenty-one years ago)

In looking at your post, I came up with two options:

1) You're kidding, in which case I kid right back.
2) You're not kidding, in which case you are engaging in masturbatory point-scoring and should be scored thusly.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Huh?

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:08 (twenty-one years ago)

No, I wasn't kidding. I can't see any point in this thread other than some kind of perverted pleasure from a horrific and depressing accident. Are people's lives enriched by learning about this? Does it have anything to say about society? Only that a morbid interest in this kind of thing is considered acceptable. In which case masturbatory points scoring doesn't come into it.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, I really don't want to get into a fight about this, but shit, what were you thinking?

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh shit.

― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:13 (twenty-one years ago)

So door #2, then. Figures.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Faggots.

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:15 (twenty-one years ago)

i've learnt from this thread to not cut trees with a chainsaw on a ladder whilst my loved one is standing below.

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Hey Tom!

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Ken C OTM. I've also learned that, apparently, chainsaws DON'T stop spinning when the grip is released. This actually comes remarkably in handy, as I am to help my grandmother cut a tree down this weekend.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I initially thought nickalicious said he was going to cut his grandmother down this weekend.

― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Now when you say handy. Do you mean in a good way or a bad way?

And is there a will?

xpost, me too Leon

― Penelope_111 (Penelope_111), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:24 (twenty-one years ago)

The interesting question this thread raises for me is why so many people are such eager consumers of news such as this, not to mention all the vast selection of imagined and simulated horrors brought to us by television and the movies - exploding heads, serial killers, futuristic warfare, etc.

As far as I can see, the police-blotter news we are fed on a daily basis is extremely repetitive. So are the plots of the cop shows for that matter. Any intellectual value they may offer is soon extinguished in the sameness of the content. So, their appeal must be purely on an emotional level. Some part of our brain must crave the stimulation of imagined violence. (I say "imagined", since a newspaper is an inert thing and the imagination must be engaged to get the desired effect.)

All I can think of is that, in a place and time where mortal danger rarely emerges from the general stupor of safety, imaginary violence keeps us vigilant. It reminds us not to be lulled by a calm surface, that chaos can erupt at any moment. The very fact that western society has succeeded in holding so much potential chaos under check and making our lives generally safe results in our seeking larger and larger doses of imagined violence as a corrective.

Incidentally, soldiers on the front line of battle have no need or desire to supplement their mental life with news about gruesome (but remote) disasters, murder and mayhem. Obviously their brains are getting all the violent stimulation they can handle. Mere death or "horror stories" are surrogates and the soldier is getting a belly full of the real thing.

Instead of mere horror stories, soldiers are fascinated by stories about random, queer and irrational deaths and near-escapes from death. The classic story would be how one soldier is lighting a cigarette for another and just as the lit match is proffered the soldier holding it suffers an instantly fatal wound, but remains stock still holding the match while his buddy gets a light off it. Only when the match burns down to the fingers does the buddy realizes his mate is dead.

Rather than stimulate one's vigilance in a safe environment, these stories seem to provide a kind of anesthetic against hyper-vigilance in a profoundly unsafe environment, by promoting a sort of protective fatalism.

Anyway, this seems more interesting to me than yet another story of the 'Oh, my! So sad! So shocking!' garden variety. (xpost)

― Aimless (who was logged off and can't recall his password), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:26 (twenty-one years ago)

nickalicious: i know what you mean. the woman in the cubicle next to me keeps telling me about how she envisions planes flying into the skycraper across the street, or some kind of chemical attack on downtown, and i'm like, 'stop. stop. stop. don't want to hear it. i said stop. stop. i'm not kidding' and she laughs. fuckers.

xpost

yeah i don't understand why people would want to read let alone share these kind of stories but i don't presume that there's anything wrong in doing so. just not my thing.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Here's my "oh shit" fucked-up in a million ways news story of the day.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1091613335109680.xml

I knew this guy, he was a really good guy and amazing trombone player. He had incredibly fucked-up childhood and a drug problem. He certainly didn't deserve to be shot by the cops in broad daylight. In all likelihood this is just a minor local news story that'll be forgotten by next week.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:45 (twenty-one years ago)

why did they have to say that he pruned his wife? so tasteless.

― kelsey (kelstarry), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

If this happened in my town and someone started to tell me about it I would be all like "dude your insatiable appetite for the gruesome has grown repetitive"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 22:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I mean it's a little cheeky to call your own mom "dude" but still

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 22:15 (twenty-one years ago)

why did they have to say that he pruned his wife? so tasteless.
-- kelsey

Did I miss something?

― chrisco (chrisco), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 22:34 (twenty-one years ago)

er... aimless... was using the term "garden variety" on purpose or not¿

― dyson (dyson), Thursday, 5 August 2004 05:24 (twenty-one years ago)

why did they have to say that he pruned his wife? so tasteless.
-- kelsey
Did I miss something?

um. I did. I misread it.

― kelsey (kelstarry), Thursday, 5 August 2004 15:11 (twenty-one years ago)

people like these stories because they remind us of our mortality and the fragility of human life and yadayadayada, blahblahblah, etc. etc.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 5 August 2004 15:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Or they remind us of the fragility of your mom.

(sorry, I just felt I had to balance the intensity of my above post with stupidity)

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 5 August 2004 15:25 (twenty-one years ago)

It's not like gruesome stories are something related to (post)modern age only. Many of the most famous horror stories and gruesome tales date back to the middle ages and beyond, when people were much more familiar with death, blodshed, bodies etc. Though there is perhaps a difference between how people react to such stories; I bet in the middle ages such stories were told merely for the amusement and excitement of people, and no one said: "Oh dear, why did you have to tell me this, you're sick!". So, while nature the stories haven't changed, the reason *why* they're told is probably somewhat different, and I think both Aimless and Latebloomer make good points related to this.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 5 August 2004 15:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Hmm, I could've been clearer there. What I meant to say is that there are probably several reasons why such stories interest us, and while some of the reasons are related to the way we live now, some of them are less bound to history and have more to do with the "human nature", if there is such a thing.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 5 August 2004 15:39 (twenty-one years ago)

and have more to do with the "human nature", if there is such a thing
unfortunately there is, tuomas.

― dyson (dyson), Thursday, 5 August 2004 15:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I was just talking the other night about how I don't really understand the interest in News of the Weird. I mean, I understand it, I guess, in that I understand the prurient impulse at work -- but what's the payoff? Every single one of those stories has the same response: "People sure are stupid!" or "People sure are crazy!" There's absolutely no discourse that can be had.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 5 August 2004 16:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe that's why they make good office 'conversation'?

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 5 August 2004 16:10 (twenty-one years ago)

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