So, its been a bit and there is a collection of random things that have been collecting on my mental desktop.

Time to drag those to here, and clean up the desktop to collect…well, more random stuff.

–The fact is, that Lorne Michaels didn’t ask me–but if he did, I’d tell him that the only people who should host Saturday Night Live are Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin, any former member of the cast…and Justin Timberlake. (I know, the last choice is surprising to me too. But the guy has some serious comedy chops.) Witness last night’s terrific job by Maya Rudolph.

–That so many Windows users hate Apple products isn’t surprising. So why do so many innovations that Apple pioneers, end up in Windows computers? The latest being the rise of a class of thin and light Windows laptops called “Ultrabooks”. That look remarkably like Apple’s Macbook Air laptops that have been on the market for a couple of years now. Coincidence?

–Did the creators of the creepy Cars.com commercial where the guys “confidence” is growing out of his shoulder pay anything to the second “Men In Black” movie where Johnny Knoxville looked exactly the same way as an alien?

–Anybody else surprised by the news that they’re making a “Men In Black” 3?

–The ineffectiveness of words on a screen to convey one’s emotions never ceases to amaze me, fun little “emoticons” not withstanding.

–When will we give up on the penny as a coin and just round things up to the next even unit of .10? In fact, what if we rounded up every purchase by the few pennies to the next dime–and used that change to pay off some of the national debt?

–Shouldn’t the only voices heard in any discussion about contraception be those of women, since the last time I checked–they are still the only ones who can get pregnant in the first place?

–I could be wrong but it might not be possible to be sociable on every one of the social networks that keep popping up by the day. (Yes, I’m talking about you–Pinterest.)

–Am I the only person who is finding more and more that their favorite way to watch a television show is to wait until they have finished making a season and then watch all of the episodes in a marathon over a weekend? Sort of like a long movie, and you only have one cliffhanger to deal with at the end.

–If you were trapped on a desert island and you could only have one book, one movie and one album with you for however long you might be stuck there–which of each would you choose? And what do they say about you?

In case you are wondering–my choices are “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand, “Citizen Kane” with Orson Welles, and “Sly and The Family Stone’s Greatest Hits”.
I have no idea what those say about me, I just know I could go back to them again and again and they still would make me happy. They all have for years.

OK, that’s all off the desktop. Time to start collecting more random stuff.

Every now and then, something happens to trigger that part of your brain that you don’t use all the time. The part of it that does the really deep thinking. The part that takes some nugget that you picked up in the past of living your life and connects it to something else to make one of the cosmic connections that lead to an “aha” moment.

I had one of those today about the word “taste”.

Not so much about having taste, as in good or otherwise. I can’t really claim to having much of that. I mean I like some things more than others, but that probably puts my good taste somewhere between Martha Stewart and the guys from “American Pickers”.

This is more about the “taste” thing that involves your tongue. That thing in your mouth that has some 100,000 taste buds on it. The thing that knows that you like Filet Mignon more than Spam. That knows the difference between a ten dollar bottle of wine and a hundred dollar one.

Apparently there are only five basic tastes that all those taste buds determine. Those being sweet, bitter, sour, salty and something called “umami”. (I didn’t know what it meant, turns out it is the Japanese word for “meaty” or “savory”. Apparently there is some debate about whether or not umami is a basic taste, but I defy anyone who has ever eaten at a Japanese-style steakhouse to tell me that “meaty” isn’t a basic craving.”)

It’s interesting to me that sweet is the first basic taste that is listed. Sweet is something that I have a hard time living without.

I’ve never had that much of a craving for anything (well at least that you eat or drink), except for Cola.

Coca, Pepsi, RC, Double, Jolt, Jones, Sam’s, and all the others. Pretty much anything but the Diet ones.
(I am a real sugar guy, can’t stand the stuff made with the substitutes with names I can’t pronounce.)

Blame my parents for this flaw, they gave me Pepsi in my baby bottle in the late 50’s, back before the food police made such an act a capital crime.
(Never mind that Pepsi had been around some 60 years by this point, so the damage to generations of infants before me was probably written off as some kind of inexplicable madness. And that Coca-Cola syrup was actually sold by pharmacies as a remedy for nausea or upset stomach.)

We develop tastes for many things, but all of us have certain tastes for a few things that can only be described as the go-to cravings. Those things that will always be something that you want, no matter what. where or when.

For me, that would be an 8oz. glass bottle of Coca-Cola.

You can keep your Dom Perignon (which for the record I think is pretty tasty)…for me a small glass bottle of Coke is definitely “the real thing”.

And then some.

So if you are as patently insecure as I tend to be, you start thinking that you can’t have that much taste if one of your favorite things in the world is a bottle of soda. (Also known as pop, depending on your regional preference.)

But I believe it isn’t what you have an insatiable craving for that defines you. It’s that you have something that you crave–and maybe have enough good taste about you, that you can use a word like “insatiable” without it sounding really dirty.

Wait a moment! On second thought…this whole line of thought doesn’t just apply to something you love to eat or drink. It can also apply to someone you love too.

Oh, and there’s pretty much no way insatiable isn’t sounding dirty–no matter how you use it.

So much for having any good taste whatsoever.