Our Daily Dead

We ODDfellows like the above quote from Steve Mizerak, National Pool Champion who is dead at age 61 from heart disease following gallbladder surgery. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again, “Scary places those hospitals.” Mizerak gained national fame for his trick shots in Miller Lite beer commercials. He also played the character that got beaten in a pool tourney by Paul Newman in “The Color of Money.”

Speaking of sinking balls (now that is totally lame segue), Raymond Davis spent years underground in South Dakota’s Homestake gold mine, sitting next to a 100,000 gallon vat of dry cleaning fluid, trying to capture neutrinos from the sun. Check this out! When a neutrino hits a chloride ion, it produces radioactive argon, a sort of atomic “ding.” Davis had to work deep in the mine to get away from those pesky cosmic rays that would muck up his experiment. (Anyone who gets our little pun, please send us a comment. First winner gets a recording of Tuva throat singing of the Tasty Freeze jingle.) Davis, who received a Nobel prize for his work, died of Alzheimer’s at age 91.

It appears that 91 is a popular age to die today. This is the age of Perry Bass, Texas oilman and major league philanthropist. Bass, along with other members of his family, was a billionaire with a conscience. He made mega millions, and gave a lot of it away. In 2001 the Bass family had a little financial miscue, and had to sell Disney stock worth $2 billion to cover loans and margin calls. Gad, we ODDones felt devastated when we had to hold a garage sale to cover the veterinary bills for our Eclectus roratus after she ate one too many Papaver somniferum.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Steve Mizerak, Miller Lite, The Color of Money, Raymond Davis, Tuva throat singing, Perry Bass

Lillian Asplund was aboard the Titanic when it hit an iceburg in the North Atlantic in 1912 and sank. At age 5, she lost her father and three brothers–one a fraternal twin–when the ocean liner went down. Her mother and one brother survived. We ODDfellows think there is no justice in a world where Leonardo DiCaprio was not asked to authentically reenact the sinking TO COMPLETION, with Alec Baldwin playing the role of Benjamin Guggenheim, sipping brandy and smoking a cigar while attended by his valet before the final glug, glug. Now that’s something we would pay money to see. Lillian Asplund was the last United States survivor of the Titanic’s sinking. She died at age 99 years.

For those of you familiar with the Australian band, The Go-Betweens, Grant McLenna, age 45, has died. He made preparation for a party, decided to take a nap before his guests arrived, and never woke up. Well, certainly beats a telephone thumping by an actor and less renowned Australian rocker of the 30 Odd Foot of Grunts (but oh how we love his band’s ODDname.)

In 1961, the Soviet Union exploded a 56 kiloton hydrogen bomb, the largest explosion in human history. That same year Floyd Patterson unloaded a bomb on Ingemar Johansson, and won the world heavy weight championship. Patterson is dead of prostate cancer and Alzheimer’s at age 71.

Peace and drugs.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Lillian Asplund, Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio, Alec Baldwin, Benjamin Guggenheim, The Go-Betweens, Grant McLenna, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, Floyd Patterson

Harold “Bunny” Levitt has died at age 96. Levitt was the famed free-throw shooter of the all-black Harlem Globetrotters. Between quarters of basketball games, the Globetrotters challenged any member of the audience to beat Bunny in a free-throw contest. Anyone beating Bunny won $1,000. The Globetrotters never paid a dime. In 1935 he made 499 consecutive free-throws. Oh, and one other thing, Bunny was 5 feet 4 inches and white.

Talk about ODDexits. Workers renovating a home in Budapest came upon a large barrel of rum. Enjoying its “special flavor,” they drank the rum on the job, and took bottles home. When finally drained, the barrel seemed heavier than expected. Looking inside, they found the pickled remains of a man. Turns out that the former owner of the home, rather than pay the costs and duties of bringing home her husband’s body from Jamaica, had it placed in the barrel and shipped to Hungary. Yo ho ho and a bottle of yuk.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Harold “Bunny” Levitt, Harlem Globetrotters, Budapest, rum