Well actually it bounced off the wall above your head 'cause you ducked.
A friend of mine broke his then brandnew $239.95 Discman, because it was malfunctioning. It wasn’t until he heard it crash did he shamefacedly read the instruction book and found out that he had activated the hold function by accident.
Reading this thread reminded me of how fortunate I am. I couldn’t begin to count the number of cars and trucks I’ve hacked apart with hydraulic rescue tools at actual incidents and training sessions. It is fun to bite the roof or a door off of a car! 
This reminds me, my office might be tossing an old EKG machine because they can’t find anyone to buy it.
I wonder what the EKG readout of outlet power looks like?
Last month, 7 EKG machines sold on eBay at prices ranging from $255 to a little over $1500.
Of course, destroying it *would * be a lot more fun than selling it. . .
I think the company would rather give it to me to play with then hassle with ebay. If I do get it, I think I’d rather play with it until it breaks.
Thanks for noting that—the really strong “Deja Vu” was getting me worried for a second. (The plotter story cinched it.)
I have no idea how valuable it was but I once ripped to shreds an old Star Trek book that my mother owned. She had a huge collection and this was one of her favorites. I was only about 10 so it must have been around 1990. I’m sure the whole collection would probably be worth some pretty money now but the saddness it caused my mother stopped me from ever deliberately destroying anything again. It’s because of this that my spare bedroom is now home to 3 DVD players, 2 TV’s, 2 computer monitors, a printer, and a busted amp. I also have a very large collection of obsolete computer parts and books which are missing pages, covers and in some cases - bindings.
If anyone wants to destroy some technology, come see me.
The most memorable “inoffensive” rampage I’ve seen was in college. A friend of mine lived in a dorm some 6 stories tall, facing another similar dorm, with an alley between them. The tenants in both building were watching an important game and our team lost. It all started with a couple of beer bottles thrown out the window in frustration. Some guys across the street responded with a few bottles of their own smashed on the alley’s pavement. Next came some light bulbs, dishes, and whatever other things people found in their rooms (glasses, vases, etc.) Then it all went downhill from there. By this time the students in both buildings were in front of their windows, forming two competing teams as it were, inciting each other in a sort of “throw-things-out-the-window” competition. Soon they ran out of small objects but as spirits were… well, high, they moved on to bigger things: radios, stereos, a couple of TV’s and even a kitchen sink. The police brought the party to an end right after a coach got thrown in the alley, to everybody’s disappointment, especially since a small team was by now hoisting a closet over a perch on the 4th floor.
The sight of that alley after the event was long remembered around the campus. Ah, the good ol’ times…
What kind of coach was he?
y’know, upholstered… with a few stains on it. Wait… that’s a couch… :smack:
:o
… but I assure you, had the REAL coach been there…
A French navy aircraft carrier.
Actually, an ex-French Dixmude (A609), ex- British *HMS Biter * (D97), ex-USN escort carrier. ex-US Merchant Marine Mormactern, built in 1940 at Tacoma.
The *Dixmude * was given back to the US Navy in 1966 by the French Navy and was used for target practice at the end of its useful service life. The ship I was on, *USS Springfield * (CLG7), shot at it for several hours with her 5" guns but they were terrible shots and/or it was too well built so they had to scuttle it in the Mediterranean Sea.
You’re telling me that the USN cannot defeat an unarmed, unmanned, sitting duck of a French ship? What has this country come to?
You’ll note the name of the vessel he served on. D’oh!
Not My Story. Had to share.
A coworker of Mr. Ujest’s was quite the hippie/wild child in his youth.
One night during a week long drunken high-on festivity whilst his best friends parents were out of town on vacation, decided to take said parental unit fathers hot, collectors corvette ( or porche. Some kind of sweet rag top) out for a little spin.
One can only envision Ferris Buellar’s Day Off, late 1960’s style. Long hair, bell bottoms. The whole barrel of worms.
After a day of Grand Times and Mucho Beer, they were returning home about 8 or 9pm.
Lost control of the car, flipped it, they - in their wasted, drunked state managed to duck and tuck inside the car - and it came to a complete stop, sliding into a tree on the friends parents front lawn. Upside down.
The lights went on in the house.
The parents had just gotten home early from their vacation.
The car was totalled. They were not even scratched.
Yeah. Good times.
The coworker now is a Yuppie First Class Republican Engineer. So it makes the story even funnier.
Last year for my office’s Halloween extravaganza, I pushed a printer off the roof. It cost me $20 for the privilege (which went to charity), but by gods, I hated that printer. I’m the technical writer, so I’d tangled with it more times than I cared to count.
It was old, but it was one of those large, industrial, HP office-type printers. Probably cost a coupla grand when new.
Next day, they’d replaced it with an identical, only slightly better working printer. Bastards. :rolleyes:
Tho’ now, we’ve got a brand spanking new one that works well. And I am happy.
Around 1986 or so, I destroyed my vintage 1979 Atari 800, which I had purchased for $1600. It came with 16K (yes, that’s K, not MB or GB) of memory, to which I had added 32K at $100 per $16K. Amazing, no?
Anyway, after 7 years of heavy gaming, it developed an intractable heat problem - it would get very hot and crash - which in those days, meant it would just freeze. The time until it crashed got shorter and shorter, until one day I couldn’t take it anymore.
I took a golf club to it and smashed it to bits. It was a lot of fun, and very rewarding.
I then bought a new Atari 65 with 64K of memory for $130.
Speaking of destroying valuable things, how about destroying yourself? This is slightly off-topic, but here goes:
One day, when I was 18 years old, I was feeling particularly amazingly stupid. I decided to walk the streets of my suburban town carrying a cap gun that looked exactly like a real 9mm hangun. Just carrying it at my side, walking the streets.
But to add to the immense stupidity of it all, I decided to walk by a parking lot where I knew that the cops from my town always hung out. I walked right by the car. The officer said something (like hey you; I don’t remember what it was), and I turned right around. Not too fast, but none too slow neither.
He coulda shot me right there. It is amazing that I am still here to tell this story.
This was by far the STOOOOPIDEST thing I’ve ever done. I have no idea why I did it.
Right after that, I met up with a friend, and we decided to do something almost as stupid. We proceeded to the nearest candy store (that’s what we called stores that sold sort of a little bit of everything in those days, twenty years ago), where I walked up to counter with my gun, held it up to the counterperson, waited a beat, and then said, “You got any caps for this thing?”
Ah, the stupidity of youth!