He lost his brain to an unknown deity one Tuesday afternoon in an obnoxious bet. The deity said to him, "I will wager you that you cannot lift as much as an ant!" Cannonball Tom thought he could, as ants generally lift things like pebbles, and things that look like little grains of rice, or perhaps other ants if they got in an ant-fight. He became both very surprised, and very squished, when a thirty thousand kilo weight suddenly dropped on him. He wrote a book about it later, and is now the fifth richest person in the world.