You all know about the Darwin Awards - It's an annual honor given to the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing him/herself in the most extraordinarily stupid way. It is once again time to vote for the Darwin Award nominees for 2003.

You may recall last year's Darwin Award winner: The man who found out moments before making a 300 MPH dent in an Arizona cliff that the JATO (jet assisted take off) unit he'd strapped to his car could not be turned off once it was turned on. 1994's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.

Some of my favorite nominees for 2003 are as follows :
Note. the order in which they are posted is random and does not reflect my personal choices.

1> A Queensland, Australia man, 63, and his female companion, 64, were driving along the Newell Highway near Moree, in Northwestern New South Wales, on Wednesday night, police said. Their car crashed into The side of a fully laden, 600 meter long train at a level crossing .

The vehicle became wedged between the second last and last carriages And was dragged sideways beside the track as the train continued towards Moree, a police spokeswoman said. After being carried more than a kilometer and a half, they approached an unfenced bridge with a 10 meter drop, the spokeswoman said. Moments before they reached the precipice, the car was struck by a pylon, dislodged from the train and spun several times.

When it came to rest, the pair managed to free themselves from the wreck with minor bruising and the man set off along the railway line for help. But he slipped on the bridge and fell to his death.

2> In February, according to police in Windsor, Ont., Daniel Kolta, 27, and Randy Taylor, 33, died in a head-on collision, thus earning a tie in the game of chicken they were playing with their snowmobiles.

3> A man cleaning a bird feeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment in this Toronto suburb, slipped and fell 23 floors to his death while he was standing on a chair with wheels. "It appears the chair moved and he went over the balcony. It's one of those freak accidents. No foul play is suspected" (get it?)

4> Ken Charles Barger,47, accidentally shot himself to death in December in Newton, N.C., when, awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson 38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.

5> Six people drowned Monday while trying to rescue a chicken that had fallen into a well in southern Egypt. An 18 year old farmer was the first to descend into the 60 foot well. He drowned, apparently after an undercurrent in the water pulled him down, police said. His sister and two brothers, none of whom could swim well, went in one by one to help him, but also drowned. Two elderly farmers then came to help, but they apparently were pulled by the same undercurrent. The bodies of the six were later pulled out of the well in the village of Nazlat Imara, 240 miles south of Cairo.

The chicken was pulled out. It survived.

6> A terrible diet and a room with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his body but autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things). It was just the right combination of foods. It appears the man died in his sleep from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed.

Had he been outside or had his windows been opened , it wouldn't have been fatal. But the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom. He was "...a big man with a huge capacity for creating [this deadly gas]." Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized.

7> A 24 yr old salesman from Hialeah, Fla., was killed near Lantana, Fla., in March when his car smashed into a pole in the median strip of I-95 in the middle of the afternoon. Police said that the man was travelling at 80 MPH and, judging by the sales manual that was found open and clutched to his chest, had been busy reading.

Thats all for now. Post more nominees soon.