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You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh…

I know, I know…going to hell. I’ll leave the light on for you.

Actually, it sounds like Jimi Heselden was a damn decent guy who gave millions to military charities.

But…honestly.

Drove his Segway off’n a cliff into the crick.

Okay, I’m still sore about the way they introduced this thing in 2001. Remember? For days (weeks?) leading up to the announcement, there was all this bullshit marketing blag about how the new whatever-it-is was going to change human civilization FOR-EV-ER.

Then they rolled out this expensive goofy-ass two-wheelie mong-scooter.

I admit it — I experienced a little rage bubble. You know, that brief, sudden snap that makes you hoot like a monkey and fling out-of-date food items at the teevee.

Comments


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: September 27, 2010, 7:19 pm

You know what’s even worse?

You’ll be going to hell – on a Segway!


Comment from steve
Time: September 27, 2010, 7:28 pm

OK…Thanks for this…

But the race was on, you know…..

Today’s effort had to be either the breakneck Segway ride….or the installment of Mazlan Othman, as the head of the UNโ€™s Office for Outer Space Affairs…

“Take me to your bureaucrat!”


Comment from jw
Time: September 27, 2010, 7:35 pm

I snickered, then got a sober face.

I laughed, then got a sober face.

I guffawd, and then got a sober face.

I BWAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAD, then tried to get a sober face.

Hubby told me I was going to hell, then asked me what I was reading as he would really like to join me to keep me company. I told him, but that it was unlikely I would be without company.

We both ended up in tears laughing so hard.

So yeah, we’ll meet you there.


Comment from Some vegetable
Time: September 27, 2010, 8:33 pm

Insensitive brutes! I would like to point out to you that the gyros kept him vertical up to the very moment he went SPLAT! So, he had that going for him. . . ๐Ÿ™‚


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 27, 2010, 9:10 pm

Ohhhhh…good point, Steve. I hadn’t even thought of P’shopping the UN Ambassador to the Little Green Men.


Comment from Paul in BarneyFrankistan
Time: September 27, 2010, 9:22 pm

As an engineer, it occurred to me that driving an off-road vehicle that’s steered by shifting your weight on rough terrain near a cliff *might* not be entirely prudent. Positive feedback loops are NOT your friend.(BUMP, swerve, BIGGER BUMP, bigger swerve… probably doesn’t end well)


Comment from hemmersheim
Time: September 27, 2010, 9:49 pm

Dagnabit,,,,,,,,,

And I bet NOBODY had him in the deadpool…….


Comment from scubafreak
Time: September 27, 2010, 9:53 pm

You would think that they might be smart enough to install a safety that hits the brakes when the rider screams “OH SHIT!!!!!”


Comment from Nina from GCP
Time: September 27, 2010, 10:20 pm

I think that the fault is not as much with the machine as it is with the user who expected the machine to perform beyond its design specifications.

๐Ÿ™‚

But it is soooo ironic nevertheless. I’d love to have one of them things, not for transportation, but for fun. It looks like it’d be a hoot to tear around the neighborhood in.


Comment from jw
Time: September 27, 2010, 10:24 pm

The article I read said this was a Segway designed for rough terrain. Like a mountain (bike) Segway of sorts?

Didn’t work out to well for him, now did it? ๐Ÿ˜‰


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 27, 2010, 10:25 pm

I was driving around Newport — in an incredibly posh neighborhood, natch — and I saw a lawnmower/Segway. Now, THAT is a brilliant idea!


Comment from Pavel
Time: September 28, 2010, 12:44 am

When I was a little kid, my folks bought me this toy car that you would wind up and it would go skittering around on the table. The cool part was that when it got to the edge of the table, it had some kind of sensor that told it to back up. It worked famously. You’d think the Segway guys could have built something like this in.

Too bad. He did seem like a champ of a guy.


Comment from cobrakai99
Time: September 28, 2010, 12:50 am

Face it we’re all going to H-E-double hockey sticks for this one. Or S. Weasel could have quoted Dennis Leary “I’m going straight to hell and you’re all comming with me.”


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: September 28, 2010, 2:02 am

There seems to be something about the Segway that just breeds nuttiness; or maybe it only attracts it. Didn’t Dean Kamen, it’s inventor, try to declare the island he owned off the U.S. coast a separate sovereign nation? When I first saw this post, I assumed he had sailed off the coastline of his little fiefdom. Guess not.

Oh, geez, jw–I had you wrong gendered and everything. Apologies! My bad!


Comment from Frit
Time: September 28, 2010, 2:54 am

Bwahahahahaaaaa! *ahem*

I’m pretty sure I’m on the “Banned” list in Hell, but if you all like, I can save you a spot in wherever I end up! (Won’t be heaven either, let me tell you…)
๐Ÿ˜‰


Comment from jw
Time: September 28, 2010, 3:38 am

Is there really a purgatory? Do they have an open bar? We might bloody well have a good time then, yes?


Comment from Scott Jacobs
Time: September 28, 2010, 3:44 am

I admit it โ€” I experienced a little rage bubble. You know, that brief, sudden snap that makes you hoot like a monkey and fling out-of-date food items at the teevee.

*eyes Stoaty*

Yeaaaaaaaaaaah. Because that’s totally different from every other moment of yer life… ๐Ÿ˜‰

I just want to know that somewhere, this story was introduced in a fashion much like the following:

“You know, speaking of ironic deaths…”

Get it? A segway segue?


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: September 28, 2010, 4:09 am

Ok, Scott Jacobs, you have earned the EYEROLL!
(Yeah, actually, it was pretty funny! But it would be so uncool to ADMIT that. . .all the same, you rock!)

jw:
“Will there be Mogan David in heaven?
Dear lord, we’d all like to know.
Will there be Mogan David in heaven, Sweet Jesus?
‘Cause if not, then who the hell wants to go?”

Um. From memory, so it may be off by a word or two.

Wanna know about the baptism of Jesse Taylor?


Comment from Deborah
Time: September 28, 2010, 4:15 am

Code Name Ginger. The hype was something else. I guess no one told Kamen that it’s “under-promise, over-deliver.” Not the other way around. That said, I’d like to try riding one—in a warehouse, or an airport runway, where I can’t hurt anyone or myself.


Comment from Mags
Time: September 28, 2010, 6:24 am

At the local University there was a middle aged man who had one of the damned things. The first time I caught a glimpse of him going up the steep hills on it I thought “Oh, poor man, likely has MS or some such. Must make his life easier.”

Each subsequent time I saw him he was chain smoking on it while swerving in and out of people and knocking them over. I saw him every day for a year and now every time I see one of those things I just want to go push the person off.


Comment from SCOTTtheBADGER
Time: September 28, 2010, 9:05 am

The only Seguey I have ever seen was being ridden by a woman at Pacific Books in Minneapolis, as she rode up and down the aisles in the store, doing her shopping. Everyone had to get out of her way. If my and Mags’ observations are repersentative, Segueys must be the scooter of choice of the self appointed elites. ” out of my way, peasant “. I wonder if Michelle Obama has one?


Comment from Mike C.
Time: September 28, 2010, 10:53 am

I have been chastized on two blogs (so far) for being heartless, especially after everybody discovered that this guy developed the blast shielding used by US troops in Afghanistan. Well, the guy that dreamed up this solution looking for a problem also invented the insulin pump. So what ? It’s just funny, that’s all.

I am not a nice person – deal with it.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 28, 2010, 12:51 pm

You will never be chastised on this blog for your tastelessness and insensitivity, Mike. That’s my pledge to you.


Comment from Bob Mulroy
Time: September 28, 2010, 2:23 pm

Whenever I go through O’Hare, I alwasy smirk at the cops on Segways.
It doesn’t matter how manly you are, it doesn’t matter how well-armed you are. Get on a Segway, and you look much less than authoritative.


Comment from bad cat robot
Time: September 28, 2010, 3:47 pm

Some of the Mighty Meter Maids in Seattle have Segways. It does provoke the involuntary giggle.

And just to make sure I’m on the express elevator to join all y’all Down There, I would amend the thought bubble to “What could go wrong? It’s in ‘D’!”


Comment from jwpaine
Time: September 28, 2010, 5:06 pm

Hey, Weez! No Photoshopping necessary!
I’m thinking Great campaign pic, with the obligatory “Vote Clinton in 2012… Or She’ll Eat Your Soul!


Comment from Ric Locke
Time: September 28, 2010, 7:42 pm

You will never be chastised on this blog for your tastelessness and insensitivity, Mike. Thatโ€™s my pledge to you.

Hailing as I do from not far away from hark’s ancestral home, and living as I do now not far from Glen Rose[*], it’s probably a good thing that wasn’t addressed to me, as it could be regarded as a challenge.

Regards,
Ric
[*]Dinosaur tracks, a museum for young-Earth creationists, girls in bikinis sunning on rocks down by the crick[**], AND a nuclear power plant. What’s not to like?
[**]Do they have cricks in England?


Comment from Bill (now the .000357% of your traffic thatโ€™s from Iraq) T
Time: September 28, 2010, 8:07 pm

[**]Do they have cricks in England?

Yes, a small one, and playing it’s the national sport…


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 28, 2010, 9:01 pm

Well, I have to admit, Ric, I deleted a comment once. It was a drive-by anonymous three word post to the effect that persons of color must cease to be. So there’s no FIRST! to be had there.


Comment from Elphaba
Time: September 28, 2010, 10:16 pm

Of course I LOLed….and hell doesn’t scare me. All my friends are going to be there. ๐Ÿ™‚


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: September 28, 2010, 10:43 pm

Doesn’t scare me either. Elphaba.

I went to Croydon once.


Comment from Scott Jacobs
Time: September 28, 2010, 11:24 pm

‘I know where we’re going eventually. In the mean time, Daventry.’


Comment from EW1(SG)
Time: September 28, 2010, 11:49 pm

I still think he confuzzled “gyroscope” and “autogyro.”

For some reason, the scene of him attempting to convince Pratchett’s character Mort that it was funny comes to mind.

/Heselden: “C’mon then, that was hilarious! Ha, I kill me!”

Death: “I’m unsure exactly what you mean by “style points.” And I’ve met Geronimo, you sir, are no Geronimo!


Comment from jw
Time: September 29, 2010, 12:44 am

Hark,
No problem! Kind of hard to tell on these here intertubes.
I’ll listen to Jesse Taylor and his being saved and all, iffens you listen to this…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K16fG1sDagU…everybody got saved that day!

Ric,
You live close to my ol’ stompin’ grounds? Good lawd this world gets smaller and smaller! ๐Ÿ™‚ BIG ROCKS!


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: September 29, 2010, 2:26 am

Smaller? It’s getting downright claustrophobic in here!

I’ll see your squirrel, and raise you a shriner:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO_tXzeiZAQ


Comment from jw
Time: September 29, 2010, 3:31 am

I’ll see your shiner, and raise you a bum?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q59ZcFguUOo&feature=channel

WE HAVE to go meat for a brew or tea, or a good sammich! LOL!


Comment from jw
Time: September 29, 2010, 3:44 am

I don’t have a very good poker face, do I? ๐Ÿ˜‰


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: September 29, 2010, 4:42 am

OK, I have a technical question–is that actually Ray Stevens in those three videos?

And–you know, I’m not opposed to the notion of throwing the bums out. On all sides, from all parties. If we could find actual statesmen to replace them–people who are genuinely prepared to put public service before self interest, and do what is right rather than what is expedient. And go back to the plow at the end of the term. Although I’d be willing to accept two terms, in order to avoid complete chaos.

Not gonna happen. So, while I’m in general agreement that reelecting incumbents is not automatically good, I just think it is important not to throw the responsible government baby out with the corrupt bastards bathwater. So–think before voting. A pretty conservative concept, eh?

Well, poker faces are kinda hard to judge in the absence of faces. Um. Eyeroll? However, yes, we should look for the opportunity to meet in, well what, Utica? for food or beverages, or armwrestling or summat. Funny thing. I recently created a gmail account for canthark (I don’t need to explain that that is not my real name, right?). So. gmail account for cantharkmycry Feel free or not as the spirit moves you. And may the Great Stoat forgive us for using her site as a means to an end!


Comment from Mike C.
Time: September 29, 2010, 9:18 am

“You will never be chastised on this blog for your tastelessness and insensitivity, Mike. Thatโ€™s my pledge to you.”

That’s somehow disappointing… Kinda makes the whole thing pointless.


Comment from Ric Locke
Time: September 29, 2010, 2:09 pm

waitaminnit. There are criteria? A grading standard?

I believe the (perhaps antique) Britishism is “sod that for a lark”.

jw, I don’t know which grounds you were stomping. Back when I had money for gas, Glen Rose wasn’t far away. By two-leg drive it’s a bit of a hike.

Regards,
Ric


Comment from jwpaine
Time: September 29, 2010, 6:55 pm

I miss the booger haiku.

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