Have You Ever Wondered?

"Good morning. On Ten news today ; 8 people, die in a landmine explosion in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh when a truck they were on drove over a landmine ; In Indonesia, at least 17 people have been killed, and dozens more remain missing when a landslide hit an area in the Indonesian island of Flores ; In Somalia,  six separate explosions have been reported in the capital Mogadishu, seriously injuring at least 6 civilians, including 2 children ;  and in Iraq, a car bomb has killed an estimated 10 people when it exploded in a commercial district in Baghdad".

"But first, in breaking news, pop-icon Britney Spears is reported to have shaved off all her hair. We have exclusive footage of Britney walking into a tattoo parlour, and exiting with a newly shaved bald head. Inside sources say that Britney is close to emotional breakdown, after the failure of her marriage with  Kevin Federline… In a further bizarre Hollywood story, a video of Anna Nicole Smith has emerged showing her to be seemingly to be under the influece of alcohol or drugs…"

When I heard this, I was shocked, flabbergasted. No, not at the fact that Britney has shaved her head, but the fact that these are the stories that make headline news. What the fuck. People need to get a bit of perspective these days. As the forces of supply and demand have dictated, it is essentially us who chooses what news to watch, and what news tends to go on air. We need to take a hard look at ourselves. In an era where there is still so much (preventable!) dying going on, why do we still put so much weight to bullshit such as the academy awards (which was big news for days and days)?

Utterly disgusting.

Oh, and by the way, all my news stories from above are true. How many of them did YOU know about?

Hey. Did you have a good festive season? I had a pretty good Christmas and New Year’s Eve (NYE). Spent time with friends and family, and that, by my definition, makes it a wonderful time. For many other people, especially in the Western world, this time of the year is basically the happiest time, the time when everyone celebrates, when everyone goes out and has fun, and takes a break off work. Shopping malls are full. Clubs, pubs, and bars are making tonnes of money. In Australia at least, the beaches, parks and sidewalks are brimming with people, all generally enjoying themselves. If happiness could be seen, the whole continent would be glowing if seen from outer space. Or so it would seem.

For many others however, it is the worst time of the year. The time when they are reminded of how lonely they are. The time the starkness of their reality hits hardest. The time when their unhappiness cannot be buried anymore. It is, sadly, the time when suicide rates peak.

So, is it everyone else’s fault that depressed people go over the edge during the festive season? Should the rest of us stop enjoying ourselves so that depressed people don’t go over the edge, literally? Certainly not. It is no one’s fault. But we can do something to, maybe, help the situation.

But what should we do? How can we help?

I don’t know.

Perhaps we can start by negating the pressure for people to celebrate festive periods. The kind of pressure that goes something like : "Hey Timo what are you doing for New Year’s Eve? ", "I don’t know, I’ll probably just stay at home", "Is that all? Come on, it’s New Year’s Eve, you don’t want to be some loser sitting at home now do you?!".

Or perhaps we can actually actively help. Volunteer at a homeless shelter or something.   

I don’t know - that’s all I have unfortunately.  All I know is that (almost) all life is precious, and (almost) everyone has something to offer, so its an enormous waste for someone to just end their lives.

So, if you’ve been thinking about jumping off that window ledge, you may want to rethink your situation. Trust me! I just hope I am not too late - statistically, I should have written this plea over 10 days ago… so, let’s hope if you’ve jumped, that you’ve survived with all vital organs intact!

Merry Christmas everyone. Well, for most of you (if you are not Russian), that should be merry belated Christmas anyway. Hope you enjoyed the break in whatever secular and/or religous way you saw fit. And of course, hopefully you have not bought into the bastardisation of the symbolic birth of Jesus Christ and the spirit of sharing time with your loved ones by actually buying presents, and thereby feeding the exponentially growing beast that is the commercial interests of the unwelcome capitalist system.

Anyway…

My question today is : why do all ice cream trucks/vans/motorcycles, or rather, why does the ice-cream man (the driver is always a man it seems) play the same song? Everyone knows the song. In fact, its been made to a Christmas song as well, so you should have heard it played recently if you’d been paying attention to the carols (instead of donating your money to rich capitalist-scum traders).

The title to the song in question, is of course, ‘Greensleaves’, and the Christmas carol which uses the same tune (but different lyrics) is ‘What child is this’.

It’s a song everyone associates with ice cream. As soon as kiddies hear it, they become organised in a chaotic kind of way; they instinctively drop whatever they are doing, fetch the house keys, while looking left and right, open the door and bolt out towards the gate while there is always one particular member of the kiddies gang who goes find an adult while yelling ‘mommy mommy ice-cream ice-cream!!!!’. And then amazingly no matter how many kids there are (I had many many cousins),  it seemed that no two kids ordered the same ice cream. The adults of course, who were probably playing mah-jong or something before, don’t hesistate in paying 1 ringgit per kid to get them to shut up and stop fighting for 15 minutes. It always works. But then again, 15 minutes sometimes gets cut short to 5 minutes, especially when one of the older kiddies steals one of the younger kiddies’s ice cream (heh heh). Or, when one of the silly younger kiddies drops their just unwrapped ice cream on the floor (heh heh again).

Ah, such raw emotion. The excitement. The joy. It’s the same, in many countries all around the world (eg. Malaysia, Australia, scum-sucking U.S, Iran, Lebanon, Indonesia - or so people have told me) - the power of one particular tune, of one particular song. Silly kiddies.

Now, where’s my paddle pop?

About 6 months ago, I wrote a piece on Euler’s Identity, a mathematical formula of wondrous proportions. Two things came out of that. Firstly, all my friends are now adamant about not standing too close to me in public places (don’t want to be associated with nerds they say…), and more importantly, I have a great respect for divine creation that we call maths.

Here, I try to build on the latter. I’ll try to keep in short, I promise.

Let’s start by something called the Gamma function :

where z is a complex number with positive real parts (hence the integral from 0 to infinity and not minus infinity to infinity). t is some dummy variable which disappears after the integral is performed. But that’s not really important. In fact, the formula doesn’t even look particularly special. Why its called a Gamma function, and why it is so special that it has its own name is beyond me. Nor do I know why someone would even bother writing it down. Basically it looks pretty harmless.

However, some really cool urbane slick mathematician in his twenties showed, in his chic looking apartment with a verandah that overlooks the creeks and hills of his homeland (warning, overuse of creative licence is detected), that using integration by parts, that the Gamma function is identically

So what does this mean? It means that, say, Gamma(5) = 4 x Gamma(4), and Gamma(4) = 3 x Gamma(3) …

Uh huh. So?

Sooooooooooooo….. it basically means that Gamma(z+1) = z! , where z! is pronounced z-factorial. Factorials come up quite often, especially in probability and stuff like that. For example, if you had four shoes of different colour with four boxes of different colour, you would have 4! = 4×3x2×1 = 24 ways in which to arrange the shoes.

So, what’s so special about the Gamma function linking with factorials then? Well, normally, factorials are only defined for integer numbers, like 1,2,3…, and not for any other type of numbers - logically how can we have 2.3! or 7.771!  ? But hey, the Gamma function is defined for all z where the real part of z is positive. As long as we have positive numbers, we can define a factorial for it. That in itself, is pretty special. But in particular, think about this …

What is the factorial of half, i.e., 0.5! ? What do you think it is? Hell, I don’t even know where to begin guessing, but if you guessed this, you must be brilliant :

Yes, 0.5! = the square root of pi!!! (real exclamation marks, not factorials). What the hell man! Where did pi come from? Pi, a number that we cannot ever possibly determine exactly, due to its own nature, a number that is usually associated with the ratio of a circle’s perimeter over its diameter, has turned up in our weird half-factorial.

It’s a miracle.

Sometimes I go to Woolies, the local supermarket, armed with just a few coins. Usually, I know what I already want to buy - say, some soy milk. I know it costs AUD2.59, because that’s what I have been paying all this while. Because I hate carrying coins, and because I am such a dick, I only bring AUD 2.60.

I enter Woolies, and lo and behold, the price tag says AUD 2.59 for my bone enriching muscle building energy providing low sodium ultra healthy albeit super processed soy milk. I grab a packet and head to the express lane of the check out counter. There are tonnes of people at the queue, so, being the increadibly considerate man that I am (note I am using the word ‘man’ somewhat loosely), I prepare my coins to expedite the purchasing process. My turn comes, Samantha, my favourite hot check-out girl scans the bar code on the packet, and says "two dollars sixty thanks". See, she even thanks me before I give her the money. Now that’s politeness. I give her the money, and walk home - mission accomplished.

As I walk home, I wonder - what would I have done if the hotty Samantha had said "two dollars sixty five thanks" ? What would I have done if the price was higher than price as displayed? It would be highly embarrasing, seeing that I didn’t have enough money, and with the long queue behind me. As luck would have it though, it never does happen. Shoppers around the world would go mental if it did happen. I mean, come on, of course you only pay the amount of money that’s on the price tag (or perhaps less on sale). If not, what’s the use of the price tag in the first place? Paying more than the displayed price - simply ludicruos. No one would accept it.

Or rather, no one would accept it if it happened in a supermarket. But it happens all the time. The biggest culprits? Airlines. No matter what airline you go to, no matter what travel agent you go to, you almost ALWAYS pay more than the initial price. If you have travelled before, this must sound very very familiar : "Hi, do you have flights available from Adelaide to Kuala Lumpur in December please?". "Sure thing sir, let me just key in the details and check for you. Please be patient. Let’s see, you’re in luck sir, there are ample flights available on Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways". "What are the prices like?". "The best offer seems to be the Malaysia Airlines, which would be seven hundred and twenty three aussie dollars". "That’s not too bad, can I book the flight for the 20th of December, returning on the 7th of January please?". Two minutes pass, and in between the minutes the lady at the travel agent is busy typing at her keyboard. "Here is your invoice sir, flight leaving on the 20th of December, arriving on the 7th of January, Malaysia Airlines - total cost comes to AUD 1388. Thank you for coming".

AUD 1388?? WAIT A MINUTE WAIT A MINUTE. Didn’t she just say it was AUD 700 something? I have written proof! It is written a few sentences above this one! "Oh sir, AUD 723 is the cost of the airfare, the rest is tax". TAX ?? What tax? The damn government tax is 5%. Last time I checked, 105% of 700 plus is NOT anywhere close to AUD 1388.

But of course, its not government tax now is it? It’s airport tax, petrol surcharge, the ANSETT levy, and all kinds of bullshit. It’s fucked up. Airlines are screwin us. Petrol surcharge? What the fuck man. If the cost of your damn company is going up, fine, raise the cost of your product, just make sure you tell me from the freaking beginning you maternal parent fornicator. Cadbury doesn’t charge no fucking petrol surcharge even though their cocoa beans are shipped from Brazil. No one pays a damn fuel surcharge when they buy papayas even though its shipped from Indonesia now, do they? Hell, taxis don’t charge no petrol surcharge, even though they should since their pricing is government controlled!

Airlines are blatant liars and con artists. Or at least their marketing and pricing people are. Obviously, it is understandable that prices can go up, especially with high fuel prices and general consumer malaise over international travel (especially with all this terrorist crap), but, the answer is to increase prices, not fuck us up with bullshit asterisks and  *taxes apply crap. Next thing you know they are going to be charging us pilot tax and stewardess tax.

But airlines are not the only ones. Go online, and there are tonnes of them. Purchasing a DVD boxed set online? Advertised price, AUD 69.99. Click click click, after you put in your credit card info (carefully), and just before you click ‘confirm’, the price suddenly becomes AUD 82.50. Postage and handling fee. Admin fee. Internet fee. What the fuck (again). Admin fee??? That’s the one that really gets me. Admin people do NOTHING. Their jobs is to create more layers of bureaucracy to fuel inefficiency and stifle productivity and therefore create more jobs for themselves. A bunch of useless gits. And they charge us for being useless pricks! The nerve!!!

Some restaurants in Malaysia have a 10 - 15 % service charge. MANDATORY service charge. That’s whether you like the service or not. So I guess the price of food on the menu literally buys you the food only. The act of putting that food on a washed plate, and bring the food to you from the kitchen costs, apparently, another 10 - 15 %.  Bullshit. 

It’s time for us to claim back our consumer rights. No more misleading advertising and pricing. When we buy our milk and veges, we don’t get charged any ‘admin fee’, nor do we get charged ‘dealer delivery’, nor ‘fuel surcharge’. The displayed price is what we pay. No more. It works well for us consumers, and it works for the supermarkets as well. There is no reason it shouldn’t work for all products.

I realise of course, that one fine day in the not too distant future, in a corner of California, there will eventually be a clinic that specialises in oral-care for canines. Heck, it probably exists already, knowing the all too-rich I-have-everything-in-the-world-that-I-need consumer culture that is rampant in the U.S (or so I imagine). In fact, dog psychologists are almost becoming the norm nowdays, as is designer-fashion accesories for the ‘hip’ pooches.

For the rest of us in the real world however, we never send our lovely mutts to the dentist. After all, they don’t seem to need it. But why is this? How come dogs don’t need dentists? Dogs never brush their teeth, let alone get the recommended amount of ‘brush after every meal’. Dogs don’t gargle. They don’t use floss (not the dental kind anyway). They don’t watch their diets. They eat bones. Hell they’ll eat almost anything. Yet, I don’t see them having trouble with plaque. I don’t see them needing braces. They don’t need to get those fillings done, simply because, they teeth hardly rot at all. And finally, our little doggie friends never ever seem to get trouble with those damn impacted wisdom teeth that commonly affects humans.

It doesn’t seem fair now, does it?

We take so much effort and pay so much money to take care of our teeth on a daily basis, yet, in the end we still have to pay some dude with rough hands to inflict pain by drilling holes into our gums, and hammering teeth which are still connected to our jawbone.

Is it all a gimmick then? Is there a world dental association that collaborates secretly with the toothbrush and toothpaste industries to try and manipulate all of us into thinking that we need all these products and services, when in fact we don’t? Are there groups of people in lab coats meeting in underground stone buildings and masonic halls in medieval europe conspiring against all of humanity, preying on our ignorance and our fears, in the hope that we continually fund them by buying their products and services? And do these people form leagues with the tea and tobacco industries - the latter two developing products that are designed to yellow our teeth, which the oral-care industry rigoruously develops products to whiten our teeth.

Definitely something to think about the next time you want to purchase dental floss.

Do me a favour. Try to blank your mind, and keep calm. Take a deep breath in. Now, think of a homeless person. A homeless person wearing layers and layers of clothes, usually in a mixture of browns and greys. A homeless person with a shopping cart full of plastic bags and hidden treasures. Imagine this homeless person walking down the street in the late evening. In your mind, is this person a male, or a female?

I bet you were imagining a male. But why?

Is it because you read my title, and therefore I have manage to plant a perconceived notion, subtlely, into your mind?

If so, then, it proves how easily the human mind can be manipulated. It shows how easy it is to plant an idea into someone’s head. Especially if you use a tool called ‘doubt’. Hey, don’t miss this penalty Beckscum. Those posts are looking a little lower than usual, you may want to keep it low. Oh, and there seems to be a bit of a breeze from left to right, you may want to aim further to the left then. *Beckscum kicks the penalty and blazes it to the far left and above the post*. Hey, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

But, if I didn’t manage to manipulate your mind, or, if you hadn’t read the title in the first place, and yet you still answered ‘male’, then, it is fair for us to ask, why does it seem most homeless people are male? After all, it should be the other way around, since males have a much lower life expectancy than females.

Is it because males are loved less? Is it because males take more, and larger, risks in life? Is it because society protects women more than men? Or are there simply more males in society than females? Or, are there approximately equal number of homeless people in each gender, only that we tend to see more homeless males, simple because the homeless females are at ‘home’ somewhere cooking dinner?

Hmm. Life changing questions indeed.

I just caught the cold the other day. Yes. Poor me. I took two days off - two fairly bad days as I had to endure watching Oprah Winfrey and all that day time crap that’s on TV. I wonder how many points my IQ has dropped within those couple of days?

But before I get into my whingeing mode, let me put forward this question -shouldn’t the common cold be extinct by now? But first, let me give you the whole situation.

The common cold, or also popularly known as the ‘flu’ (which is a misnomer) or ‘the sniffles’, is caused by viruses. In fact, around 200+ viruses are known to cause the common cold. Let’s just call it 200, just to make things easy.

These viruses enter our body, they multiply, our body responds, we get sick (or rather we feel the symptoms of the cold), and a combination of our deadly white blood cells and the superior defence of our new antibodies get rid of the virus. Usually within a week. Nothing new there - we all know this.

Furthermore, we also know that once we have an antibody for a particular virus, that virus cannot infect us anymore. That’s why we can only get chicken pox once in our lives.

The average human catches the cold approximately 1-3 times per year (some quote 2-4 times per year). Some people get it more often, some less. Children are particularly susceptible, with statistics as high as 6-8 contractions per year.

Also, mother’s breast milk is supposed to transfer some of the mother’s antibodies to her baby.

Do you see where I am heading?

If we take an average human that lives to say 80 years old. An average human that, in her (let’s call it a she) childhood years (say up to 12 years old), contracts cold fairly regularly, at say 4 times per year. Then, for the rest of her life, she contracts the cold at an adult average of say, 2 times per year. This would mean by the time she’s 25 years she would have contracted the cold… (where’s my calculator?).. umm… 74 times. That’s nearly a third of all common cold viruses. By this time, logic would have it that she is far less likely to contract a cold, in fact, around 1/3 less likely.

Suppose our dear friend who’s regularly sick has a child, and she passes half of her antibodies to her child. This child would now be immune for over 15% of all common cold viruses. If this child grew up and caught the cold regularly, and her body built antibodies which she passed on to her daughter, eventually we should all be immune from the common cold, yes?

Even if we couldn’t pass our antibodies from mother to child, by the age of 40 an average human should be immune to about 50% of all common cold viruses. If we think about this as a population, where each human would be immune to 50% of common cold viruses, but each human would be immune to different combinations of common cold viruses, then surely the viruses would have an impossible job of spreading? If this is the case, if viruses cannot find new targets or vectors for transmission, surely they would die out quickly? This is, after all, how we eradicated Smallpox in the 60s and 70s.

The answer, of course, is that these viruses evolve. Yes, evolve. Evolve into better and more powerful beings. For most of us, this concept is not hard to imagine, but for a small minority of religous people, this may be hard to stomach. People who live in the central United States for example. People who believe that the world was created with a snap of the fingers and a flick of the wrist of God. People who believe that this Creationist theory should be taught in science classes.

It is of course, ironic that a monologue on the common cold is turning into a one sided rant on the application of the Creationist theory into science classes. Ironic because both spread like diseases, and it seems, both cannot be completely eradicated.

But I shall hold my tongue here for once. If I got into trouble for slandering chopstick users, imagine if I started to attack religion. So, to end with something in-topic, I shall pose you, the reader, a question :

If viruses mutate, why can’t we catch chicken pox more than once?

The other day I was out, having lunch. It was a small chinese restaurant, if you could call it a restaurant. It was a place that sells food for a relatively cheap price - at the expense of cleanliness, service and ambiance. But no matter, I was hungry, and had been hungry for ages.

As I was craving for fried rice (damn monosodium glutamate), I ordered the ’special thai-style fried rice’, which had nothing Thai about it at all. Probably the only thing that made it distinct from the 6 other choices of various types of fried rice is the angle they cut up the pieces of chicken meat (at least I THINK it was chicken) or something.

Anyway, after waiting for about 10 minutes, my food finally arrived. A huge plate of yummy looking fried rice on a humungous plate (we had ordered for two people). Yummy! After seeing everyone else in the ‘restaurant’ gorge on their food I couldn’t wait to start on mine. The waitress left the plate right in front of me, and went to get some cutlery. At this stage, you may imagine me as akin to Wile E. Coyote from the Road Runner cartoons, saliva practically crawling down the corner of my mouth while I was clasping and rubbing my hands together. Yum yum yum yum yum yum. Where’s my cutlery?

In a few short seconds, the waitress came back with our cutlery. She put the cutlery right in front of me, and within a flash disappeared from my view. I looked down, and to my horror, the waitress had given me a two small pieces of what looked like cheap bamboo sticks and a plate that was the size of an espresso saucer. Holy fornicating baboon. How the hell am I supposed to eat with this? Who the hell eats with this arcane, obsolete eating instruments? That’s when I looked up and around to see all the other patrons eating with the same impractical utensils. Chopsticks. What the fuck. Where the hell is my fork and spoon?

Now you tell me, how am I supposed to eat fried rice off a flat plate which is barely the size of my palm using two long parallel sticks of the same length? Why do some people insist on still using chopsticks?

Now, I have to admit, besides my surname, I share nothing in common with the Chinese people, or their culture. Or, for that matter, any of the chopstick using countries (like Japan, Korea and Vietnam). So, you can’t really use my inadequate skills of using chopsticks as a basis to argue for or against the use chopsticks as a proper eating utensil. Most people in China, I would assume, grow up using chopsticks and hence for them, it would seem normal to eat rice of a tiny flat plate. But, on the other hand, I am convinced that the average human being could eat any food faster and more comfortably using a set of forks, knives and spoons than an average chopstick-master using chopsticks.

For example, how would you eat, say, a steak with chopsticks? How would you eat chocolate cake with chopsticks? How would you eat porridge with chopsticks? Almost any food in the world can be eaten properly using a set of a fork, knife and a spoon, but the same cannot be said of chopsticks. So, why do the Chinese still insist on using chopsticks? After all, they don’t dig the ground using two big pieces of sticks, do they? No no, they use a shovel, basically a big spoon. And I don’t see anyone using two big pieces of sticks to gather up hay, or for farming. No no, they use a rake instead, basically a large fork.

If chopsticks are not as practical, why do people still use them?

One story I have been told ages ago was that long ago, forks and spoons were considered a Western influence and hence one of the Emperors banned it. Another story I have heard is that knives were banned from the dinner table because knives could be used as a weapon for stabbing, and hence this ensured that dinner time was always relatively peaceful and civilised. Another source has told me that knives were considered unsophisticated, and that knives only belonged in the kitchen because it was rude to use them as an eating utensil. I am not entirely sure any of these stories are true, and I doubt we will ever find out.

The one interesting story I found out was that it is claimed that chopsticks are an evolution of chinese calligraphy instruments, and to be a proper calligraphist you had to have good control of your fingers - something chopsticks inarguably helps you achieve.

Regardless of how chopsticks started, most people would tend to agree that chopsticks are part of Chinese culture, and tradition. I will agree to this. However, does that mean we should throw away practicality, throw away progress and development just to hang on to some arcane obsolete tradition? Shouldn’t we be looking forward rather than backward?

Chopsticks, it seems then, annoy me on multiple levels. On a superficial level, they are difficult to use, and are unwieldy. On a symbolic level, they represent the stubborness, the pride and the regressive attitude that some people and some cultures have obtained, even in this day and age. This is not limited to any particular culture, but it seems that some cultures have more obvious examples of this regressive backward thinking.

Perhaps it is time we stopped dwelling on the past and started to look to the future. There is, of course, a balance to be made - history is, of course, our best teacher - but for the time being at least, whenever I go to a Chinese restaurant, please give me the more useful tools for eating. Not two bits of bamboo.

The other day while I was stuck behind a red traffic light my eyes decided to take a little wander around. In front of me, there was a dark dirty green squarish Volvo. Must be one of those older models. It had a child seat at the back, and in the front, all I could see was a dark red bushy set of hair radiating from the driver’s seat. Probably a mom doing her grocery shopping or something with the kid at the back. I made a mental note not to follow her too closely. ‘Housewives’ tend to brake suddenly for reasons only known to themselves. Perhaps the kid was like me when I was young and therefore being a real pest.

Directly next to the Volvo was an unrecognisable old model automobile. A two seater at that too. It was dark grey and looked like it was plucked right out of an old black and white movie. The car was occupied by, I assume a married old couple. How sweet.

On my right was a regular modern sedan, metallic maroon in colour. Perhaps it was a Camry, I don’t know. The driver was a youngish blonde lady, looking at her rear mirror and putting on lipstick. I bet she will be slow off the mark when the lights turn green.

Not wanting to turn my head all the way around, I used my rear-view-mirror to look at who was behind me. It was a old beige Holden Commodore, with its best years behind it. The driver was a huge fat guy - so huge in fact that the handbrake was probably underneath one of his bum cheeks. Regularly, I would have moved on, as there were so many cars, so many people to look at. But not this time - this time this guy caught my eye. I was particularly intrigued because he had his index finger (the finger we use to point) deep within the cavernous orifice that were his nostrils. And his finger was in there for a while too. A good 5 seconds, at least. After he removed his finger (with a ‘pop’ sound I imagine), he did what all of us would do, he took a glance at his finger. I mean, come on, everyone wants to know what REALLY is hidden deep within their noses, am I right? But what followed shocked me (although it shouldn’t have) - he proceeded to put his finger in his mouth and then to chew. Yummy!

Why it shocked me, I don’t know. Because if you think about it, everyone has probably tried to eat their snot before. I surely have. I was pretty young though, I must admit (maybe 23 years old? heh heh). And I don’t remember the experience being rather unpleasant either. A bit salty, a bit chewy. Mind you, I picked a good one (pun not intended) to savour, it wasn’t too slimy or wet, and not too crunch and dry. It was… perfect. Ever since then though, the appeal of eating ‘nostril waste’ has slowly tapered down.

I am sure I am not the only kid to have a good dig up my nostrils. In fact, if you watch ‘Funniest Home Videos’, I bet there are pratically tonnes of snot eating people around. It is so common in fact, that there is a scientific term for people who dig their noses often, its called "rhinotillexomania". There is also a scientific term for the consumption of our mucus - "mucophagy". I am not making this up, I swear!

So if it happens so often, it would be prudent to ask the questions, "Are we SUPPOSED to dig our noses? Are we supposed to eat our snot? Is societal pressure just getting in the way of our natural state?". These are fair questions indeed. We can also add to this another important mind boggling question, is it a coincidence that the human finger fits so nicely into the human nostril? Think about it. We have 5 sizes of ‘drills’, the smallest for those deep hard to reach places, and the largest for the ones right near the opening of the nostrils. But all of them fit nicely. If mother nature didn’t want us to dig our noses, she would have either made of noses smaller, or our fingers bigger. It worked for our ear-holes now, didn’t it?

So, if we were meant to dig our noses, and meant to eat our nose-waste, what possible use could it have for us? Aha, another good question (you guys are learning well!). Well, some professor in Austria (Prof Dr Friedrich Bischinger) has suggested us that eating our mucus is akin to a mild form of immunisation, since we are literally ingesting a collection of dead/dying bacteria. So, by eating our mucus, we actually slowly build up our immune system! Isn’t mother nature a sheer genius?