I've been thumbing through a book that claims to contain 1,003 facts that will scare the you know what out of you.
I can't tell you the actual name of the book because this is a newspaper, and if the past is any indicator it is read by a lot of 3-year-olds whose parents become outraged when the child is exposed to bad words.
To get around this, I have altered the book's title to give it a PG rating, but hopefully have done it in such a way that adults can figure out what the title actually is. Think of the following as a kind of Word Jumble.
"Scared ----less."
Got it? Good, lets move on.
After reading "Scared ----less," I found that while there were some facts that might qualify as lower intestinal-tract voiding, only a small percentage would be frightening enough to leave the average person in need of an underwear change.
That noted, the book does include many interesting, if not entirely believable, factoids.
>>Bacon affects the brain the same way as cocaine and heroin, overloading the pleasure centers and requiring increasing amounts to be satisfied. (OK, there may be a chance that I'm a bacon junkie.)
>>New York City is estimated to have at least 8 million rats, or one rat per person. (Good, everyone has a pet.)
>>Men are four times as likely as women to be struck by lightning. (This is because men are four times more likely to be holding a metal golf club during a thunderstorm.)
>>Justin Bieber has 24 million followers on Twitter (make that 24 million and 1).
>>In 2006, William Shatner was paid $25,000 by a casino for a kidney stone he had recently passed. (Passed? You'd think it would have been easier to have the kidney stone beamed up.)
>>At one point before his death, Elvis consumed an estimated 94,000 calories a day. (How was that even possible, unless he was chugging eggnog and gravy?)
>>Benjamin Franklin almost killed himself while trying to electrocute a turkey. (Again, how was that even possible, unless maybe the bird was too big for his microwave?)
>>Dorangel Vargas (Hannibal Lecter) didn't eat older people because he found them to be too tough. (See, being a baby boomer does have its advantages)
>>Finally, for pain relief, sex is 10 times more effective than Valium. (Of course, for men, sex also offers more pain relief than anesthesia.)
