Except once.

A few years before he died, my father and I were eating at a taqueria in the Mission. After watching me slather salsa and jalapeño peppers on every bite, he expressed his concern.

"Son," he advised, "that much hot sauce just can't be good for you."

Of course, I ignored his advice. Painfully spicy food is exhilarating, not dangerous.

Or so I thought, until Glenda sent me an article from the Journal of the American Medical Association that provided a cautionary tale. A young Israeli man ate ...

... here we go ...

... twenty-five chilies in twelve minutes!

Carumba!

This proved to be too much for the lad's innards. Specifically, his intestines couldn't handle all the capsaicin. (C₁₈H₂₇NO₃ is the bit that makes a pepper a chili pepper--I think.)

Anyway, the capsaicin burned through the chili aficionado's intestines. The kid needed surgery to fix his plumbing problems.

Despite such compelling evidence, and sage parental advice, I will continue to subsist on capsaicin, caffeine, Rainier Ale, and my other seven secret ingredients.

Or that's what I thought until I read this:

One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called "weasel words." When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a "weasel word" after another there is nothing left of the other.

This words were spoken by--maybe even written by--Theodore Roosevelt in 1916.

Well, I'll be.

Gerald always spells "words" as "werds." He says it's because words are always about the past (wereds?), always about something that used to be. I don't think that has anything to with do dyslexia.

The device looks like an aquarium on a tripod. Made of aircraft aluminum and hardened plexi, the aquarium itself is full of electronics, lots of sonar motion detection sensors and that sort of thing. The legs bend; they're hydraulically controlled.

Umberto has constructed a robot, a robot with a fish brain. The contraption walks in the same direction the fish is swimming. Crazy.

I have no idea why Umberto has spent most of this year on a walking fish machine. Fish have no money.

Cat's counting the seconds until she can escape from Tennessee.

Who can blame her?

This was accomplished by way of a chain. The man was balancing on a skateboard, so I don't think it hurt very much. He looked like one of those people that just likes to bark at nothing.

Helen said it looked like there should be an exciting Halloween, a holiday I'd failed to remember. After all, most days are Halloween.

Nothing is real in San Francisco, especially money.

I wonder why anyone would put that on their car? Maybe I'd know the answer if I hadn't gone without a car for nearly a decade.

Having sold my old electronic doodad that translates my handwriting into text, I bought a new electronic doodad that translates my handwriting into text. I believe the new, improved gizmo will improve the quality of my life.

I spent hours finding the lowest price on the new electronic doodad that translates my handwriting into text, then traveling way out Genessee Street to buy it. I then wasted more time installing new software, then restoring my old calendar and notes, et cetera. And then I spent the rest of the night trying to figure out why the damn thing didn't work.

I'm very happy with my new electronic doodad that translates my handwriting into text. The small device has already forced me to be more creative. Maybe I'll write something tomorrow.