"Cliff jumping"? Sounds like a real bright crew out there...

Kaboom!
 

3' and Rage got me thinking. I feel so lucky that I grew up without too much adult supervision. We didn't have kite tubes, but we didn't need them. I would take off on my bike and ride to places unknown. No helmet. Abandoned buildings or buildings under construction were always cool. You learn about the world that way. No supervision is not always a bad thing. And that tennis ball cannon? Just great! 5 soda cans stacked together with each can's top and botton cut to leave a half-moon of metal. Leave the bottom of the bottom can uncut, but punch a small hole on the bottom edge. Cut the entire top off the top can. Stack the cans to form a tube and alternate the openings. Use duct tape to bind them together. Pour some Ronson brand lighter fluid liberally into the top of the cannon and let it slosh around until the entire insides of the can are coated and a small pool of fluid ends up on the bottom. Place a tennis ball into the top can. Put a flame to the hole at the bottom. POW!!! Best damn device I've ever had the pleasure to make and use. Good, safe, Summer fun. I tip my hat to the Tom and Bill Patterson, the "Patterson Twins" for teaching me that one. What are friends for, after all?

Hmmm... I think Travis (my fifteen year old) and I are all over this. I firmly believe that "safety" is one of the most commonly used reasons in the accelerating dumbing down of america.

Well, don't miss the "Kite of Death" thread here...all about why the government should spend your money to tell you what to do so we make sure morons stay in the gene pool.

The real problem is that by the time someone can afford the Kite Tube of Death, they have probably already reproduced.

Pangloss62,

Make one of those out of steel pea cans , or Snappy Tom cans and launch Eggs , sloppy but FUN !!!

Schaefer shorties: Fold a beer can in half, back and forth repeatedly until it splits in two. Tuck one half inside the other and you ow have waht looks like a half sized beer. Stick a fire cracker in the drinking hole and overturn the can. Use care not to put out the fuse by crushing it. Step back. Bang.

H.S. physics teacher taught me that one.

I also read about an Oxy Acetylene potato canon. Stainless pipe, etc. shot a spud through a 1/2 sheet of CDX from 50 feet. That'll leave a mark...

A high excitement threshold and low heart-rate has nothing to do with intelligence and thrill seeking personalities ARE the safe side of the coin, the other side of our personalities are crime and violence. You choose, because those ARE your choices.
In fact, those who have those attributes tend to be very intelligent.

"Oxy Acetylene potato canon"....now there's something I don't have....yet.;)

Ah...so "I"m jumping off a cliff because otherwise I'd be mugging an old lady. Look how smartt I am"?

I get plenty of excitement flying once in a while.

Ah, the potato launcher...

My great-uncle-twice-removed-or-whatever-the-fuck-he-is has a band.

The Fabulous Spudcannons.

They rule.

Thanks for illustrating that you have no idea what you are talking about.
Little help.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...?artid=1188701
http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~raine/PrefrontalGlucose.pdf
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi...1986.tb00301.x
http://books.google.com/books?id=44T...+thrill+seeker
http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogu...sbn=0521432006

Maybe you're just not that smart...
:D

Yeah, well, I'm just not smart enough to sit around seaching the web for neurochemical excuses for violent behavior, claiming it's a marker for intelligence.

Sorry to disappoint...we can't all live on the edge; it'd break off. :-)