I just had a plumber over to discuss ripping out a bunch of pipes and maybe walls and who knows what so we can have good clear water.

Timelies all!

Busy day today. We changed hotels, went to the Victoria and Albert Museum, walked around Hyde Park a bit, hit Forbidden Planet, had dinner and just got back to our hotel. Unfortunately, I seem to be battling a bit of con crud.

Tomorrow we go to Bletchley Park.

The librarian on phone duty right now is fielding a call from a patron who wants to know about the nutritional value of manna. Ah, public library life.

Does Whole Foods carry manna now?

According to the wikipedia entry, if you eat only manna, you do not defecate. "As a natural food substance, manna would produce waste products; but in classical rabbinical literature, as a supernatural substance, it was held that manna produced no waste, resulting in no defecation among the Israelites until several decades later, when the manna had ceased to fall.[35] Modern medical science suggests the lack of defecation over such a long period of time would cause severe bowel problems, especially when other food later began to be consumed again. Classical rabbinical writers say that the Israelites complained about the lack of defecation, and were concerned about potential bowel problems.[35]"

According to the wikipedia entry, if you eat only manna, you do not defecate.

When I was in the freak-ass church, we actually had conversations (not about manna and pooping) about whether or not, in heaven, our bodies (which were supposed to be "glorified," which I suppose is super-duper perfect) would need to eat. And then we thought, well, what if you really LIKE to eat? Surely heaven would have an endless crab-leg buffet, right? And then we wondered about pooping in heaven. If you eat endless crab legs, you'd need to poop, right? And one guy said, totally seriously, that he likes to poop, so he hopes he gets to poop in heaven.

(The FAC wasn't all bad; sometimes we have conversations like these, and it was all worth it.)

GUYS WHY DID I EVER LEAVE THAT CHURCH.

I...

I...

I have nothing to say. Wow.

it was held that manna produced no waste, resulting in no defecation among the Israelites until several decades later

That surprises me, because the one thing I know about manna is that it spoiled. If you gathered more than you could eat in a day and tried to save the leftovers, it would go bad, except on Friday when you could gather enough for Saturday and it would be fine because gathering manna is work and can't be done on Saturday. That's how you know your manna is a miracle and not just luck.

Although I guess that doesn't really argue against digestion producing no waste, but it goes against my intuition.

I have nothing to say. Wow.

Yeah. We really did talk about stuff like that. (I should maybe clarify: the "will we poop in heaven?" discussion wasn't really serious -- we were probably drinking when we had it -- but had a kernel of seriousness.)

(I totally want the endless crab leg buffet in heaven.)

I'm just saying, there BETTER be cake in heaven.