Death by "Hold your Wee for a Wii"

I actually did something useful with my time today! Granted, it happened after I'd gotten up at 2pm, but it was still useful. I slung on my sports gear and drove down to Wide Lane, for the termly Firsts versus Seconds match for the Medic's hockey team, the Gophers. Because I'm the only goalie, and we only have one full goalie kit, I played for the second team and the firsts went without a goalie. I had a lot of work to do, and couldn't help feeling that the first team were being unusually kind in not shooting the way they usually do... The second team won 4-1. It's far from the first time I've played against the first team, I recently played for RUMS (London) against Southampton in a national cup game because RUMS were an awful team, and didn't have their own goalie anyway. We won 9-0 that day.

Drove home, and got all the little chores out of the way. It was actually a bit rewarding to sort out the washing up, hoover my room, and iron two weeks worth of creased shirts. But don't tell anyone. And even then I wasn't done, I wrote a rough draft of the first page of my essay, on adenocarcinoma, the most common, but not the most severe form of lung cancer.

When I finally got some rest I switched on the darts, and watched what could been the greatest some back in the history of the game. Nixon, practically a pub player, had reached the final of the World Championships against Adams, world number one (in a different organisation to Taylor and Barneveld). He went 6-0 down, but pulled it back to 6-6 before the professional eventually dragged his sorry carcass over the line. As for the snooker, Ding Junghui made a 147 on the first day of the Masters. I can't argue with his talent, but for God's sake smile. The BBC do such a good job of highlighting the personalities of all the top pros, and really turn them into celebrities. But poor old Ding couldn't charm a lemming off a cliff.

A mate of mine drew my attention to a woman in America (where else, he said, and I agree with him), who died due to water intoxication. Tragic, you say, and how did this awful accident happen? She entered a competition, run by a local radio station, to win a Nintendo Wii. It was called "Hold your Wee for a Wii" and the contestant who could drink the regulated amount of water without urinating for the longest period of time would win the console. I find it incredible that someone (a radio station for that matter) could be so irresponsible as to allow this. Any half-ecent doctor would have told them that the results could be horrific, and easily equate to what happens if you give someone IV water. The blood sodium drops, cells become hypotonic, swell and burst, and various lovely effects include cerebral oedema (brain swelling), seizures and kidney failure.