Stumbling

Today I decided to stumpleupon since I had kind of abandoned my account for a while due to the clock race syndrome I've been suffering lately...however, if I was hoping to get a little distraction and relief from my stress I was not able to avoid the imposing negativity of slow crushing death with this LIST OF UNUSUAL DEATHS. What in the world! WHY was this the first website to pop up? (Is it because I put dying as my facebook status this morning maybe? I don't know...maybe I should feel a little freaked out)...but instead I guess this is a way to realize that my slow brain death is nothing compared to:

"1920: Ray "Chappie" Chapman, shortstop for the Cleveland Indians baseball team, was killed when a submarine ball thrown by Carl Mays hit him in the temple. He took two steps after being given a walk, collapsed, and died the next day."

Although I do have to say I identify with this man and I am a little bit scared now about all of this work I've been doing lately and the lack of nutrition I've been putting my body through:

"270 BC: Philitas of Cos, Greek intellectual, is said by Athenaeus of Naucratis to have studied arguments and erroneous word-usage so intensely that he wasted away and starved to death."

And is it so crude that I find myself laughing while I read some of these??

"162 BC: Eleazar Maccabeus was crushed to death at the Battle of Beth-zechariah by a war elephant that he believed to be carrying Seleucid King Antiochus V. Charging into battle, Eleazar rushed underneath the elephant and thrust a spear into its belly, whereupon it fell dead on top of him."

Seriously, I can see this so well in my head...and the funniest deaths are the ones that are most ancient and thought to be "apocryphal" for some reason! Maybe because some of the things that happened to these people are things we know better now and would never do...

Although this more recent one does still raise a concern for the improvement of the intellect in our species:

"2010: Robert Gary Jones, 38, was jogging and listening to his iPod when he was hit from behind and killed by a small plane making an emergency landing on a beach in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina." 

Lesson: Don't jog with your iPod volume all the way up...