The Hunger

Well, it's been a long time since I've posted, and it's finals week, which can only mean one thing-- a double post!! Hurrah!

Way up there on my list of "Ways I don't want to go" is this one (straight out of Hannibal)-- being eaten alive by pigs.

A three-year-old boy near New Delhi walked off from his family November 29th. A little later, his mother noticed some pigs chewing on something.

Then she recognized her son's clothing.

Only the son's limbs were recovered.

You can read the story here.

Also, I posted about Marlie Casseus in the previous entry. If you'd like to read about her progress, see pictures from after her latest surgery, or donate to the charity that sponsored her surgery, you can go to her page at the International Kids' Fund.

Beautiful.

This is just a wonderful list, brought to you by Wikipedia, StumbleUpon, and the number Q.

List of Unusual Deaths

Related is List of People Who Died in the Bathroom

Gotta love it.

Note: I cannot vouch for the veracity of the above articles, since they are, y'know, on Wikipedia.

True (and not-so-true) myths

I'm going to start this off with a quick post about one of my favorite topics: urban legends. And, of course, I love them even more when they're true. Here are some highlights (of the true ones, of course) from the "Freakish Fatalities" section at snopes.com:

• Two men lose arms during a game of "tug-of-war"
• Killing waves of both beer and molasses (separate incidents)
• A homemade bomb with playing card ammo
• Personal favorite #1: In 1981, a David Kirwan jumped into a hot spring at Yellowstone (one measured at upwards of 200 F!) to rescue his friend's dog. While noble, this was also incredibly stupid. He reached the dog, but ultimately had to give it up in order to escape the spring. He was blind, his skin was peeling, and he suffered 3rd degree burns to 100% of his body. He died less than 24 hours later. The dog, Moosie, didn't make it, either.
• Personal favorite #2: This is one of my all-time favorites. In 1986, Lake Nyos belched out a huge, extremely deadly cloud of carbon dioxide. It reached 12 miles around the lake, and killed 1,746 people (as well as many cows). This shit kills instantly. No warning. You just fall down, dead. Carbon dioxide was also a major worry for coal miners, since they could hit a pocket of it at any time (canaries didn't help; those were for carbon monoxide-- by the time you could notice an animal dying of carbon dioxide, you'd be dead, too) .
• Lastly, in the Halloween spirit, we have several stories of teenagers dying in gallows/hanging stunts gone awry (at least awry in some sense; they probably were extremely effective in their goal of freaking people out).

All of these and more can be found here. And check the rest of the site out, it's awesome!