Unsmelly Durian?

On a dare from Roxy, I consumed durian in Thailand. It's supposed to be the smelliest fruit out there. It was a bit smelly, but I don't remember it too unfondly. Maybe this review is an example of time healing all wounds, but not having checked my Thai post, I can't say for sure. (As a point of honesty, I won't read what I had to say about it until I've finished this post.)

Anyway. I read in the NY Times that they have finally bred an unstinky durian. I don't think it's the same. It's not that I am a durian connoisseur; I can't judge it like wine or beer or cheese. So why am I upset? It's homogenizing food.

It's an affront to me because it's removing a barrier to entry. You don't have to go out on a limb to gain a new experience. There's less on the line.

Let's not have life be too easy.

I wonder what else is rolling around in there...

So having a spare moment or two, I hit wikipedia. On the front page, I see something about an infinite sum of positive numbers = -1. I click, and remember back to undergrad. I once knew how to sum an infinite series. It was critical to my existence. Or, at least my grade.

A click later, I stumbled upon "Cauchy sequence" and my mind screamed, "You've heard of that!!"

And, as I type this out, I think back to yet another undergrad class. In this one, I learned the difference between "recall" and "recollect." You have different types of memory. It's easier to get information into "recollect" to ace that multiple choice test. You only have to pick from the choices in front of you. Much more difficult to get it into that "recall" memory bank for the dreaded "fill in the blank" questions. I could recollect "Cauchy sequence" but if my life depended up on it, could not hope to recollect it.

Anyway. I was momentarily seized with the desire to once again commit to memory how to sum an infinite sequence. That desire has passed. It's just a bit too esoteric now. If it were a bit more practical, I would invest a bit of myself.

So we'll leave the moral of the story as "Look Dad! I wasn't drunk for all of undergrad!"

And think, I've only had one beer tonight.

I'm Kenny....

Never thought I'd be Kenny, but that's ok. There's also a William Shatner quiz too...