UPCOMING AWARDS ADD INSULT TO IDIOCY By DAN KADISON

December 26, 2002 -- Death becomes them.

Fans of a popular Web site will soon see who takes top honors for The Darwin Awards, the annual citations that memorialize foolish people who've increased our survival chances by accidentally getting themselves knocked off.

"The Darwin Awards honor those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it in really stupid ways," Wendy Northcutt, the founder of DarwinAwards.com, said on the site's homepage.

Among the nominees found and ranked by the site's users are:

* A Colorado man who shot himself in the head while attempting to fire over his shoulder at cops who were chasing him.

* A Croatian man who, while trying to retrieve explosives for New Year's firecrackers, blew himself up by taking a chainsaw to a hand grenade.

* An Italian man who, trying to pull off an insurance scam, attempted to chainsaw off his cousin's left leg. Instead, he hit a major artery and killed the 23-year-old.

* A 19-year-old pool player who passed a gun to a bouncer in a Moscow bar by placing the piece on a pool stick. The firearm slid down the cue. The stick got thicker, the trigger pushed back and a discharged bullet sent the deceased teen to the corner pocket.

* Three men who tried to rob an Albuquerque man of a gun that he had posted for sale in the classifieds. One of the attackers received a shock when the beaten gun owner showed the rod worked and fired off a deadly round.

* A 46-year-old Romanian who, trying to ascertain his train's arrival time, was killed when the train struck him while he was holding his ear to the rail.

-- Anonymous, December 26, 2002