Okay, so we’re not condoning laughing at someone else’s injuries. But in this case, it’s too, um, educational not to watch. This video shows a guy, presumably in England, who decides a good place to light up is right on top of a Shell fuel truck. Ahh, Darwin. Is there anything you can’t prove?

Shell Garage [YouTube]

This is what happens when enough wind hits a vertical plane.  We imagine the guy driving the truck must’ve been chewing on his stomach about halfway through the video.  Looks to us like the trailer was empty, which didn’t help — effectively he had a sail on the back of his rig.

Whatever the situation, we feel bad for the driver, even if they weren’t hurt.  Of course, as some of the commenters on the site were saying, a driver should know his truck and recognize when conditions are too dangerous to drive.  We wonder why the driver risked it.

Truck Blown Away [YouTube]

This is a prime example of why you need to pay attention when cutting anything that might be holding something up.  Use your head in the manner not seen in this video –- think.

This video might’ve been a staged thing, but I’ve seen it happen where it wasn’t, and more than a little wood and debris fell on the unhappy worker underneath.  Most remodelers don’t wear hard hats, but when doing demo, even if you know what’s going on, you might want to consider it.  This guy is just lucky there were no nails sticking out of that board that hit him.

Dangerous Woodwork [YouTube]

Talk about Doh!  I look back fondly on December of ’08.  I look back on it fondly because it was the last time my shop was functional. It’s my own fault. Seriously, take a look at this picture and tell me this is the shop of someone on the ball. This, quite frankly, is what happens when you become the dumping ground for other people’s crap or projects — the junk seems to swell beyond capacity and beyond any semblance of control. That program ended two days ago.

I snapped this picture about an hour into working the mess down, and I posted it on the blog to serve as a warning to others.  Especially if you have a shop at work and the home shop is not your primary, beware! Don’t end up like me, two weeks behind any project you’d like to start, simply for the fact that you can’t get to your tools.

I’ve already begun several projects, like a new miter bench and a few homemade wood racks, as well as a bit of store-bought storage for some of the new gear I’ve managed to steal from my old man. I’ve also started the crap-removal process which has already filled two trash cans.  It’s shameful, I know, but over the next few days I’m getting the home shop down to fighting weight if it kills me –- or anyone else in the way for that matter.

A year or two ago we posted a guy swinging on a crane arm. Now this other guy has apparently taken up the challenge and is vying for the bonehead crane-swinging crown.

He exhibits great style in his routine, however he fails to realize this isn’t going to end well should his head ever hit the arm, or should the guy inside fling him off at whatever trajectory he happens to be launched on –- and I do mean launched — at the moment of disconnect.

Looks like fun, and probably is the first time or two, but at some point someone isn’t going to be able to hang on, and the resulting mess will require a meat wagon.

When Workers Get Bored [YouTube]

I don’t care what commercial or spoof this is, it speaks about something true enough in the real world:  If you leave enough jackasses around the shop with gear on hand, they’ll come up with something like this.

The golf-style commentary really makes it funny, but the whole thing reminds me of high-school shop class — you know, when the one or two smart guys were learning skills that would forward them in life while the rest of the class were figuring out how far the table saw could launch a board across the shop.

Guess which group I fell in.

When Workers Get Bored [YouTube]

Here you see an interesting game of chicken, but it’s not the same version you might be familiar with.  Sure, other cars and road traffic might find this activity a bit unnerving, but it’s the cop, who could any minute catch a glimpse of it, that you’re really playing chicken with.

Not only have we done this sort of maneuver ourselves, it worked so well the first time that we tried it a few times after that. For the record, the third time we got caught — and with the fine added into the cost of the project, we still came out ahead of having it done by contractors.

To my knowledge that sprinkler system is still in place and functional today.

The awesome photo was provided by photo pool member resq47.

Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]

I realize that we’ve covered tools designed specifically to melt ice with propane, but this strikes me as one of those cases where one must apply one’s (not so) common sense. While propane may work wonders for melting ice in the middle of a concrete driveway, applying the same tool to a porch might lead to, um, disastrous results.

In this case WBZ channel 38 reports that a guy in New Bedford, CT was clearing ice from his porch with a torch connected to a 20-pound propane cylinder when he managed to light his home’s vinyl siding on fire. “The fire quickly spread into the building’s uninsulated exterior wall and then into the second and third-floor apartments,” WBZ reports. They go on to indicate that it took the efforts of 25 firefighters to put out the blaze.

This is something that always scared me when I lived in an apartment — that one of the other residents would do something like this.

(Thanks, 416style, for the totally unrelated CC-licensed photo.)

Man Burns Home Melting Ice With Blowtorch [WBZ 38]

The best stories always seem to happen when no one’s around.  They pass from person to person, and eventually a habitual skeptic, who can’t believe something if he hasn’t seen it for himself, will say the event is an urban myth — that is, unless it was captured on video, like this fiasco at Target.

We feel for them, but the sheer laugh-factor has got to be worth the time it took to get those carts pushed around to the loading dock and back into the truck — if anyone could push carts, laughing that hard.

How Not To Unload Hundreds Of Shopping Carts [YouTube]

I love it when signs save me money and make me feel smart.  Of course, everyone’s had spell check do a number on their work — we’ve had a couple funny ones here at Toolmonger — but it’s amusing to see it happen to other folks, too.

Most people won’t read anything past “50 percent off” anyway, so “register” being misspelled way at the bottom will hardly be a stumbling block amid the pillaging going on at the table it’s attached to.  I had two tools in my hand before I stopped to read the sign fully myself.

Lowe’s [Website]

Watching other folks screw up a lifting operation never gets old — but it always makes you wonder about the circumstances at the scene when they were rigging it up.  Did the crane operator have somewhere else to be? Did he bet his buddy he could screw this bad boy up in under twenty seconds?

It just doesn’t occur to people that what you may think is a permanent connection or solid object is only strong in one direction.  Lifting on an object with four times its own weight slung under it isn’t the best plan of action.  We suspect they came to that conclusion at about second 13 of the video.

Vrachtwagen Valt [YouTube]

We’re pretty sure no one in this video actually owns that dozer.  All that laughter at the end is a tell-tale sign these guys either intended to do it or aren’t financially responsible for the fallout.

It could’ve been worse:  Had the trailer not cut when it did, whoever owned that white pickup behind the semi would’ve been walking home.  We’re pretty sure this happy little event added an hour or two to the end of the day –- of course, that assumes they hadn’t declared “Miller Time” right before they devised this plan.

Bulldozer Falls Off Semi Trailer [YouTube]

Ever wonder what would happen if you decided to use your household vacuum like a snow blower?  Wonder no longer!  Actually, it worked a great deal better than we thought it would.

Sure, you run a risk of electrocution, and there’s the slight chance your vac won’t ever be the same again, but if you can get that sidewalk clear, who cares?  Seriously, who says you can’t use your regular Hoover like a wet/dry vac?

Did we mention not to do this?  Don’t do this — we’re pretty sure copious amounts of Anheuser-Busch were involved here.

Vacuum Cleaner Used As A Snowblower! [YouTube]

You can blame blunders like this for many of the “never do that” lectures the old-timers give you — you know, the ones you toss aside and never give a second thought to.  Those pearls of wisdom came from somewhere, and probably from scenes like this.

Remember, kids, always check to make sure the flow is shut off when you cut into a pipeline. At least it was water and not sewage or something really nasty.

How Not To Use A Power Saw [YouTube]

It’s not that fathers and sons don’t love each other, but when Dad screws up, the son will find it funny — ok, not funny, hysterical.  In this case, anybody can see that a dump truck unloading on a hill is going to be trouble, but sometimes you just have to let Dad have his way.

Even if these guys set this up just for the video, I wouldn’t be able to resist posting on the net and making fun of the same guy who told you, “Stop that, you’re gonna break it!” all those times.  Just once to catch dad pulling a “Doh!” on camera is worth more than money.

AFV Dump Truck Tips [YouTube]

I realize that it’s not always obvious to you when you’re pulling a completely boneheaded move.  Maybe you’re not fully on your game, or your attention is elsewhere.  But when you rip a crane off the back of your trailer, it has to be a show-stopper.

I may not know what that 12-foot spark trail coming out from underneath the trailer was, but I feel certain I would’ve stopped the truck to investigate. Luckily when the crane boom caught the overpass beam and yanked it off, no one was injured.

The video won’t do much for this guy’s trucker license though.

Crane Crash In Tunnel Caught On Camera [YouTube]

Sometimes you witness something that you’re almost sure has to be fake — this guy pulling into the quick lube is one of those times. If it was an employee, you may find him buried under the quick lube. If it was the owner, you might find him under a giant can of Old Milwaukee that fell from the sky.

Whether it’s fake or not, we’re very curious how they got the car out of the pit.  We can think of several ways, but the simplest –- and most entertaining — may be to hook it up to a tow truck and rip it out of there.  But you can’t always find the really good videos on YouTube.

Driving Into The Quick Lube [YouTube]