Statistic of the Day: On Thursday, President...

Statistic of the Day: On Thursday, President Clinton took 449 words to proclaim National Poison Prevention Week and tell us that poison is indeed dangerous. By way of comparison, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was 254 words.

Bizarre Publicity Stunts Department: Oscar nominees are accustomed to getting free designer dresses, tuxedos and sunglasses to wear to the ceremony. But this is the first year they’re scoring complimentary anti-diarrhea medicine. According to a report from Wireless Flash News Service, Kaopectate is sending every actor who is up for an award a golden wicker basket filled with 12-ounce bottles of its regular and peppermint-flavored concoctions.

Company officials say the goal is to make sure every nominee can give a “solid performance.”

Bubble Brains Inc.: A guy who uses Spam to polish furniture and a guy who thinks duct tape should be used to preserve Egypt’s pyramids have now collaborated on a book about another ubiquitous product, Bubble Wrap.

Joey Green and Tim Nyberg, whose previous writing credits include “Wash Your Hair With Whipped Cream” and “The Duct Tape Book,” respectively, are once again chronicling wacky uses for common household goods. But at $7.50 a pop, “The Bubble Wrap Book” (HarperPerennial) is a bit of a bust.

To be fair, we did find some amusing anecdotes. For example, Bubble Wrap was invented in 1957 by two members of the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame, an elite group that also includes the creator of edible ice cream cones. And the book does contain some important Bubble Wrap pointers, such as never wrap your body in Bubble Wrap as a substitute for using a parachute when sky-diving.

Other humorous ideas for the product include Bubble Wrap neckties, bubble-shrouded automobile passengers (for cars without air bags) and bubble-studded picnic tablecloths, so ants will take longer to reach the food. You can also cover bowling balls with Bubble Wrap to make the sport quieter, feed sheets of the stuff into a paper shredder for awesome machine-gun sound effects or tape Bubble Wrap to your eyeglasses for “simulated insect vision.”

Nevertheless, we’re reluctant to endorse the book, partly because we’re afraid of what the sequel might be. The world does not need a book about Styrofoam peanuts.

Letter of the Day: We never know what to expect when we check our mailbox--lawsuits, death threats, free Kaopectate. Monday’s shipment included this e-mail note from a reader identifying him / her / itself only as BluSpark97@aol.com: “Your column is never funny. Ever. It is even less funny when you inject your personal opinion, whether the subject is music or current events. Never funny. Ever. Not even accidentally.”

Uh, we’re a little unclear, BluSpark97. Do you think the column is funny or not?

Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: We aren’t sure what this says about the Los Angeles Times, but someone here apparently swiped our Weekly World News. Fortunately, we had already made a copy of today’s entry: “Mom Gets Emergency C-Section Because Twins Were Fighting Inside Her Womb! One of the Baby Boys Was Born with a Black Eye, Say Doctors.”

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* Roy Rivenburg can be reached by e-mail at roy.rivenburg@latimes.com.

Contributors: Chicago Sun-Times, Pamm Higgins