I was sitting at my desk, typing away at my computer, when it died. With no warning. Suddenly, utterly, and completely. One moment everything was fine — or as fine as can be expected with anything that involves the Dark Lord of Redmund — the next: no power, no lights, no fan, nothing.
The problem was almost certainly the power supply or the motherboard. Given the Known Perversity Of Man-made Things, I suspected it was the motherboard. But when I pulled and tested the power supply, it wouldn’t run, so I figured what the heck, threw in a new one, and… tah dah! Back online!
The question now becomes, what to do with the old power supply. If I was irresponsible, I might be tempted to take it to some flying site deep in the wilderness, launch, climb up to 8000′, pull the thing out, and… drop it. Whee! Indeed, I’ve long suspected that bombing was invented because It’s Fun To Drop Things — the supposed military applications of this practice were just offered as an excuse. It’s even more fun when those things blow up, and bigger explosions are better, which led to a natural escalation that continued until August 1945, when people realized that things might be getting out of hand.
But I’m a mature and thoughtful individual who would never dream of doing anything so childish. Right?
One word: trebuchet.
Built several during my “Junkyard Wars” days, along with the various two and four-wheeled vehicles that morphed in and out of existence. When we lived in the mountains, I threw our table scraps over the side of a deep gully near the cabin for the coyotes. My throwing arm isn’t what it used to be, so I rigged a slingshot out of a piece of canvas and some bungee cords. Got some nice distance on turkey bones!
Your story just reminded me of… Mountain Bowling! A fine recreation we saw being practiced down in the Topa Range. (Actually, I suppose we heard it first, because it was quite loud.) You would have loved it! The tale is too long to fit into a comment, and it really deserves a graphic, so I’ll have to see if I can write it up as a post. Stay tuned!