A Shocking Outcome

Today's Dumbass Files Dumbass Lawsuit comes to us courtesy of a one Kyle Dubois from Dover, New Hampshire. (This reads a lot better if you use a game show announcer voice in your head when you read it.) Let's see who Kyle is suing! First of all, Kyle is suing his teacher, a one Thomas Kelley. But Kyle doesn't stop there! He's also suing his school district AND the city of Dover! And why is he suing, Bob? (I'm envisioning that the announcer's name is Bob.) Why, he's suing because he claims that his electrical shop teacher didn't warn him of the dangers of electricity before he hooked two clamps up to his nipples and then had another student plug him in! Wait. What, Bob?

Yep. It is just what it sounds like it is. Eighteen year old (and certainly old enough to know better) Kyle Dubois attached one of those little electrical clamp things (that look kind of like jumper cables) to one of his nipples. Another idiot student attached the other clamp to the other nipple. And the idiot student trifecta was completed when a third moron plugged in the cord. What happened next will shock you. (Actually, it'll shock him, but you already saw that it was headed in that direction.)

According to The Boston Herald and surprising no one but perhaps Kyle, after the human battery jumper was all hooked up and the current was applied, he "...received a severe shock that caused him to stagger and collapse". The article goes on to say that the shock resulted in the asshat (my terminology, not that of The Boston Herald) "...being sent to Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, where he was diagnosed as having an "out of hospital electrocution resulting in cardiac arrest, unresponsive state and respiratory failure". It doesn't state that they diagnosed him as being a complete ignoramus, but let's not rule that out, OK? OK. Oh, by the way, here's a screen grab from a 4-second cell phone video that one of this moron's classmates made of him hooking himself up to be a human Roman candle. You can tell by the fact that his pants are about three inches below the top of his boxer shorts that the boy isn't quite right in the head to begin with. Behold!

According to the documents filed in this absolutely meritless lawsuit, this moron "...suffered brain damage due to the heart stoppage. He has short-term memory loss and "other losses and disruptions" as a result." I'm not so sure that the brain damage was due to the heart stoppage. If I had to guess, I'd gather that he might have had a little bit of brain damage already going on when he went into class that day. And I can't even imagine what the "other losses" could possibly be. Has he joined the ranks of the un-layable as a result of this? Oooh! Maybe he lost his nipples. Is that it? Is he nippleless? I hope so. That would be most excellent.

Of course, the basis for his lawsuit has to do with negligence on the part of the teacher. And since the teacher works for the district, they're allegedly liable for his actions. And I guess since the district is in the city they just go ahead and sue them, too. Do you really need to be warned to not hook yourself up by the nipples with jumper cables? And even if you do need to be warned about that, does that mean that you need to be warned about sending a jolt of electricity through said jumper cables which are now affixed to one's nipples? I guess if you're already grabbing your nubbins with the nodes, you might need some sort of alternative direction. But I prefer to leave things like this to Mr. Darwin.

Here's my question: He obviously did this for a reason. What in the hell did he think was going to happen? He had to have known that plugging in his little contraption there was going to result in electricity surging through his body via Nipple A and Nipple B. (I don't know if those are the actual names of his nipples. That's about as creative as I can be right now.) Maybe if he had paid a little more attention in class, he would have realized that by getting plugged in, he was going to sent 120 volts through his body. And if they're going to be suing people, why are they not suing the other two asshats who participated in this asininity? Shouldn't they be the first people that should be included in this lawsuit?

What a waste of time and money. What ever happened to natural consequences? If some idiot hooks himself up to a surge of electricity, I certainly hope that he would get lit up like a Christmas tree or have sparks go shooting out of his nipples like it was the Fourth of July. That seems perfectly reasonable. And if someone is eighteen years old and hasn't quite grasped the fact that electricity will kill your ass, I see nothing wrong with that individual learning through experience. Case closed.

Oddities at CES

As a huge fan of gadgets and electronics (not to mention electricity itself), I always look forward to the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas every year. Granted, it's not as big as it used to be, but we don't have as much money as we used to, nor are we as frivolous as we used to be. (That was due to our spending our seemingly endless supply of money in a fashion equivalent to that of drunken sailors on leave. No offense to any drunken sailors out there. Thanks for your service!) But it doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of cool things that get unveiled at the CES every year. And everyone one of them practically touts that they're going to be the next big thing. And some of them might very well be. Others might be big, but just might not be huge. (You know, kind of like that one guy you dated in college that everyone in your sorority was talking about.) And others...well...others are going to be quite surprised when they find out that they are going to be neither big nor huge, but are going to find themselves being mocked here.

(By the way, most of these photos are compliments of our friends across the pond over there at The Telegraph and from our friends on this side of the pond over there at Switched. And by "compliments" I mean that I took them, but I didn't ask, but I also wasn't trying to do any harm, either, so just back off!)

First up is something called the Hanvon Touchpad. It says that it "...has a 10.1" screen, e-Book content and includes handwriting recognition software in different languages..." Sounds great. What's it look like? Behold!

Swell. I just wish that they could have shown a better picture of the capabilities of the "handwriting recognition software" other than this one. Behold!

And that thing is going to be $700?! My Etch-A-Sketch technically has that same kind of "handwriting recognition" and it's no $700. Poor choice in photos, that's all I'm saying. It could be a perfectly find product (but I think I'll stick with the Etch-A-Sketch).

Are you familiar with a brand of AV cables called Monster Cables? They cost a gazillion times more than a regular cable, but there really isn't any proof that they do anything at all that is better than your regular ol' cheap ass cables. (If you're one of the folks that actually bought the line of crap that the guys in the blue shirts were selling you, I've only one word for you: Sucker!) Now, I don't know if so many people caught on to the Monster Cable scam or what, but I do know that the folks over there at Monster are at it again. This time, their enlisting the help of a music legend in order to scam folks out of not just $100 for an inferior product, but to scam folks out of $500 for a pair of earphones that I'm going to have to guess do not deliver $500 worth of audio goodness. Behold! The Miles Davis Tribute high-performance in-ear headphones and their poster boy, the son of Miles Davis, Erin Davis.

That's a real cute little royal blue lined miniature trumpet case you guys have going there, but those are not $500 worth of earphones that are inside of it. Shame on you, money grubbing son of Miles Davis. Shame on you.

Ed Hardy, the designer who has been outfitting douchebag Jon Gosselin over the past year or so, made an appearance at the CES with his line of cell phone covers. The photo below shows how they are displaying their wares at the convention. And while the covers may be cool, as a friend of mine told me today "...their advertising dept. really should have more than 70 collective IQ Points." Well said, my friend. Well said.

Here are the GoPro wearable camera rigs. Apparently, a large rubber band and/or bungee cord wrapped around your imaging device and then strapped to your head just wasn't cutting it.

Here we have "...the Steadicam 'Smoothie', a video stabiliser for the iPhone" as demonstrated by an Elvis impersonator. Let's hope that the image that the product helps produce does a better job than the Elvis impersonator.

The photo below was captioned: "Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini (L) talks with actors dressed as time travellers." Time travellers? Really? I don't know about that, but the one on the right looks more like he might have been a buffet traveler.

For some reason, a company called Hannspree thinks that we, as consumers, want to watch a TV that is set inside some sort of whimsical object. I don't know that we do. In fact, I know that I don't. I'm easily distracted (shiny!), but besides that, these TVs are ridiculous. I know that we all think that Apple products are like heaven on earth, but that doesn't mean that we want to buy products that look like a regular ol' apple. Behold!

I don't want to watch TV on a large piece of fruit. I'd feel like I'm trapped outside of some sort of impressionist painting. But I suppose it's better than watching TV and feeling like I'm trapped on some sort of an ice floe somewhere. Behold!

Yep. That's a polar bear. Because when I think "the future of TV", I naturally think "cold environment predators", don't you?

There was also this clock for $129 from Oregon Scientific. The point of it is that the clock will gradually start illuminating your room a half an hour before you get up. It's supposed to ease you into the whole "being awake" sort of thing. I'm thinking I can be eased awake for less then $129. Maybe I'll sleep with the curtains open and be eased awake by Mother Nature for free. $129? Really?

And finally we have Lady Gaga who will be "...working with Polaroid where she will act as the brand's creative director for a speciality line of imaging products." It's a perfect fit, really, because with both Lady Gaga and a Polaroid picture, you have to stare at them for a few minutes before you can actually figure out what you're looking at.