Everything Is Going to Kill Everybody (24 page)

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not have been possible without the help and patience of many people. I would like to thank my girlfriend, Meagan Kennedy, for reminding me, when I was caught in the depth of a screaming existential panic, that I “liked the apocalypse” and should write about that. It is not her fault that I “like” the end of humanity; that is a personal issue. I would like to thank my agent, Byrd Leavell, for always being my ardent supporter, at times to the point of psychosis. I would like to also thank Lucinda Bartley, for plucking me from the choking miasma of the internet and dropping me into the esteemed realm of literary publication. She also deserves a great deal of gratitude for all her hard work editing this book, and for holding my hand through the entire process even though I frequently became distracted chasing after shiny things. I would like to thank Tom Bordonaro, for sending me roughly one-third of the disturbing material in this book, even after several court orders asking him politely to stop. I’d like to thank Jason Pedegana, whose amazing illustrations grace the pages of this book and who, when faced with depicting these foul words of mine, not only avoided visibly shuddering, but even feigned some very convincing enthusiasm. I would also like to thank my dad, Robert Brockway III, and my grandpa Robert Brockway II, who have always been endlessly supportive even if they kind of suck at naming things. I would like to thank my dogs, Detectives Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh, for being totally ridiculous and stupid, and also for keeping my legs warm while I wrote this. Finally, I would like to thank
Cracked.com
, whose open-door policy for writers has given me and countless other aspiring comedians the opportunity to shine. Anybody can sign up to write for them, and everybody should do so now. If I have forgotten anybody who has helped in the making of this book, please believe that it was not intentional. I realize there are many others not named here whom I owe dearly, and I have omitted you only because I am doubtlessly a terrible person, and will certainly one day answer for my many misdeeds.

Copyright © 2010 by Robert Brockway

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brockway, Robert, 1980–
Everything is going to kill everybody : the terrifyingly real ways the world wants you dead / Robert Brockway.
p. cm.
1. Hazardous substances. 2. Natural disasters.
3. System failures (Engineering). I. Title.
T55.3.H3B76 2010
303.48′5—dc22
20090393312

eISBN: 978-0-307-46435-4

Illustrations by Jason Pedegana

v3.0