[Tired of Taxes]

Trayvon Martin's age. Any man who is about 30 or older can look back at himself and his friends at 17 and think, "I'm glad I made it, but looking back it certainly could have gone the other way." These kids didn't die at 17, they died of being 17.

Exactly. I'm female, but I remember teenaged boys doing things like this when I was growing up. We girls took chances, too, just in other ways. The teen years can be deadly.

Am I the only one to notice his name matches the name of a character in The Hobbit? RIP, young man.

[Little Pig]

You’re not the only one to notice that. My thought on that was that someone who names their kid “Thorin” is probably a little further removed from reality than most parents. Very likely a lot of fantasy and escapism in that household.

Combine that with the standard propensity for teenage boy impressions of invulnerability, and you get someone who very likely didn’t even consider that in russian roulette sometimes the cartridge starts out under the hammer. He’s probably seen more than a few movies with RR scenes, where the characters involved go 3 or 4 pulls without anything happening.

[shibumi]

"Am I the only one to notice his name matches the name of a character in The Hobbit? RIP, young man."

Oh, yeah! That's right. Charles Montgomery Burns

He financed Bilbo's Misty Mountain expedition for 20% of the treasure.

(Clang!)