This isn't really the place for it, but then again I couldn't think of anywhere else since it didn't exactly rustle my jimmies. Made me laugh at what a retard my coworker is though.
He's rebuilding an old Firebird, and has done a ton of work on the interior. From the pictures it looks pretty good (please note, there's no chance in Hell I'm going to this guy's house, if I do I'll be called over there for every possible reason. He already texts me too much, and I literally despise him). He wanted to put a nice stereo in it so I gave him some advice on what to grab in his price range and how to run the wires (power away from speaker wires, etc.). So for some reason this weekend he got a bug up his butt to put it in and just hear it.
So he sends me a pic of the wiring diagram that he found on the internet somewhere, and asks if that is all correct. I say sure, in general. I mean, it literally has a generic drawing of a battery, an amp, and a head unit, with the power, ground, and aux power/remote lines. Speakers are separate, which is fine. I tell him that he doesn't need to run the ground back to the negative terminal on the battery, he can just find a good screw on the frame near each of the amp and the head unit, sand off any paint, and attach it there so he doesn't have these long ground wires all over.
It's not working, so first thing I ask is if he setup the aux/remote lines properly. The reason this was a huge first question for me is because he used to have a boat, and he would talk about how he had to disconnect the power line from the battery to turn off the stereo in his boat, otherwise it stayed on and drained the battery. I could have told him how to fix that, of course, but remember I despise him, and he didn't ask. He sold the boat years ago though. But I figure he probably doesn't know shit about that still. He says he's bypassing the ignition switch right now because he just wants to hear it for a minute. Ok, whatever, so I just ensure that he actually does have a separate wire attached from the battery to the proper terminal at least.
Still not working. I spend way too much time over texts trying to trouble-shoot shit that I shouldn't even have to ask about. Then he says he feels like I led him astray by not having him connect everything to the negative terminal of the battery, he doesn't feel as if he's "completing the circuit" by just connecting everything to the frame. I say, well, the battery is just connected to the fucking frame of your car anyway, right? He says no. I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? Show me. So this is what he sends.
Understandably, I ask him what the fuck I'm looking at, where is the battery? He says he has no battery, because he has no engine in the car or anywhere to even put a battery (nor does he actually have a battery at this point), so he's just hooking it all up to a battery charger. What. The. Fuck.
Before I can pick my jaw up, he texts that he tried hooking everything to the negative end of the charger, and it still doesn't work, and he's about ready to throw the whole thing away, he's so frustrated. So against my better judgment I tell him not to throw it all away, that of course it isn't going to work because a charger doesn't output the same power rating as a fucking battery AND the charger is grounded through the wall outlet, not the car, so of course it didn't work previously either. Just buy a fucking battery, charge it up with the charger, and plop it down on the ground right where he had set up the fucking charger in his picture.
Blew my fucking mind. I mean, I get that people don't always understand electronics or other shit that seems easy to other people, but this was absolutely retarded. What does he intend to do anyway? Sit in his car with no battery or engine, in his garage, up on blocks, and rock out to tunes??
This is the same guy that a coworker and I have a running joke about that the first time he fires up the engine he's rebuilding for that car, it will probably throw a rod through his skull, miss his tiny brain, and he'll get famous on TV for being alive with an engine part through his skull.
EDIT: Oh, I forgot to add. This is where Monster makes their money. I repeatedly told him not to buy Monster or any other "premium" cables. He did anyway, because the guy at Best Buy told him it was on sale for a really great price, and if he's putting all this work into restoring a car, he's going to be upset when he has to redo all the wiring later because it doesn't sound as good as it could. I laughed and asked him why he only spent $200 on the fucking head unit then, and less on the amp I believe, if he's so concerned about "premium sound."