I was idly wondering just the other day if my mouth tasted like meat. It occurred to me that, whether it does or not, it IS full of meat: tongue, cheek, epiglottus. I decided my mouth probably does taste like meat and that's why I like salt so much (i.e. when it mixes with the meat in my mouth it tastes as good as salty meat tastes (which is reeeaal gooood...)). This new development might put some vegitarians in a somewhat false position with regard to their eating habits, but this was not my intention. I suppose people with bad teeth might have vegitables growing in their mouths (mold etc.), but at the very most it would still be a combination of meat and veggies. If vegitarians stopped brushing their teeth they might be able to increase the meat:vegitable ratio.

I was also idly wondering if the wheel was a more important invention than money. Anybody want to think about that one for me and save me the trouble?

[you can reach Clay Sails, who is probably at this moment enjoying the succulent flavor of mouth meat, at sailingacrossamerica@hotmail.com]

Back from the holidays, back to school, back to this woefully unattended site and you all, my fairly faithful friends. Here is how things went while I was away:

I ate a lot.
I watched a lot of old people eat cereal.
I discovered that after many years of ambivalence toward skiing I'm still ambivalent toward skiing.
I played with many fun children and dogs.
I pissed on Unbreakable's head in a contest of wills that we both won.

Other stuff happened, too, but those were the highlights.

Today I embarked upon a true scientific test of the Ambient Ice Cream Heater. I obtained a prototype of this miraculous device from Ben & Jerry's (a small cone, strawberry flavored). The idea of the thing has held my imagination for years and -- if principally sound -- could make me millions. Unfortunately Southern California is a poor place to test it on account of the warm weather. (Yes, I am aware that it gets very cold in the desert, but there are not many ice cream vendors in the desert on account of the Date Shake cartel, which controls everything from Anzaborrego to Bishop). Anyway, the experiment follows this logic: an ice cream cone, if colder than the outside air, will cool you down when you eat it. This is why people often buy ice cream at the beach and in the summertime. The corrolary of this, on the other hand, states that if the outside air is *colder* than the cone, the ice cream cone should warm you up when you eat it. If proven true, this would revolutionize ambient tempurature control in cold climates: people from Archangel to Fargo would walk around sucking on ice cream instead of spending millions on coffee (which, on account of its great heat, might actually cool the drinker down). Unfortunately my experiment today failed. I walked out of the Old Post Office Building with my ice cream cone and barely made the metro before hypothermia ensued. I am not discouraged, though. I think that my problem lies in the fact that I ordered a small -- or maybe the strawberry flavor has unknown properties. Next time it shall be as large a cone as possible and vanilla, I think.