Ok, maybe not ever, but probably for a year or so. As you know I’m leaving for my world trip a week from today, so this will be the last Tazeroke I’m a part of for a while.

It will continue on with my friends Doug and Clint, but I won’t be there to experience the majesty.

For those of you who don’t know, Tazeroke is a thing I invented where people challenge each other to sing karaoke, and whoever sings their song worst gets tazed on stage. Somehow no one has shut us down.

Anyway, it will be January 1st, 2008 at Shakespeare’s Pub on sixth street. A few blog readers came by the last show, which was really cool. Hope to see you there and make my last tazeroke the best one yet. I personally guarantee that there will be people tazed.

I’m doing my new years post a few days early this year. I have a post coming out on the first and I want to give this one a few days at the top.

So first, let’s get to last year’s goals.

1. Make a Million Dollars This is long overdue. Not much else to say here.
2. Operation Broccoli This is a secret for now… relating to the ladies. I’ll write about it when it’s a success.
3. Have a good relationship with my sleep schedule For as long as I can remember, I have been unhappy with my sleep schedule. I sleep too late, too much, or too chaotically. My options here are either to adopt a regular sleep schedule, go polyphasic, or accept that it’s ok to sleep like a crazy man and not feel bad about it.
4. Start the Tyboy Empire Step one for this should be to come up with a better name. I want to have a regular social scene at my place including cool parties that aren’t typical get-wasted-and-act-like-an-idiot-parties.
5. Figure out what I want to do with my life (or at least the next 5 years) This is probably priority #1.

#1… Failed completely. I gained a lot of insight, though. A few things here…

I used to think “WHY am I not a millionaire? I’m so smart! I want it so badly!”

Now I realize I DIDN’T DESERVE IT. You get what you deserve, almost always. I wanted it and I’m smart, but guess what?

Smart people are not richer than than average intelligence people on average.

In other words, whatever intelligence I may have almost totally useless on my quest for millions.

I know a few millionaires and have noticed some striking patterns amongst them. Things EVERY single one has in common.

The biggest thing they all have in common? They work SUPER HARD. Their lives revolve around work and they LOVE it.

A friend of mine sells info products online. He has TWENTY new products READY TO GO for this year! TWENTY! He’s already a millionaire, but do you think he’s going to get richer? YEP.

How hard do I work? Up until recently I’d give myself a 3 out of 10. Pathetic. When I wrote conversion doubler I worked at an 8 out of 10. If I had ALWAYS worked at an 8/10 I would have been a millionaire by now EASILY.

It’s not that I haven’t had the opportunities, or even that I haven’t taken them. It’s that I’ve taken them and have put in a FRACTION of the work necessary to develop them.

So now I understand why I’m not a millionaire. It makes sense. I accept it completely. The one major trait that it takes to be a millionaire is a trait I DON’T HAVE (yet). I should have developed it this past year but I didn’t. More on this when I get to my goals this year.

Number two… Operation Broccoli. I got closer than I ever have by a long shot, but didn’t get it. The problem? It’s not something I care about enough. If I had put in the effort (like #1… see a pattern here?) I could have done it this year. I won’t talk about it since no one knows what it is anyway.

Number three… Sleep schedule. I did this one. I decided that WHEN I sleep is extremely unimportant. What’s more important is that I am making good use of my waking hours. In other words… trying to perfect my sleep schedule is not a good use of my time. I accept my crazy hours and the benefits and disadvantages that go with them.

Number four… I didn’t really do this one. I don’t care enough about it. I got obsessed with the Playboy empire and read a bunch of books on it. I watched all the girls next door show to understand how Hef did it. The problem is that I love my social circle. I have no real drive to create a glamorized new one.

At the same time… I set a goal and didn’t meet it. F-

Number five… figure out what I want to do. It’s a bit of a loaded question, but I remember how I felt when I wrote it. Over this past year I’ve gotten a lot of clarity on who I am, who I want to be, and what I want to do. I’m taking huge steps towards these goals, so I give myself full credit for this one.

So what happened?

I have a tough time in situations like these. On one hand I want to say “Look at all the progress I’ve made on OTHER stuff and on things related to these goals!”. On the other hand, I never want to let myself slide when I have failed. I don’t feel bad about it, but I want to recognize problems and address them.

So I see THREE major problems with these goals and with my whole life. These issues surface over and over again.

First, I need to hold myself to a higher standard than anyone could ever imagine.

This is something that ALL champions do. Shaq has a quote I read many months ago which still sticks out in my mind. I can’t find it, so I paraphrase:

“No one can imagine the high standards that I have for myself in my head.”

Will Smith had a similar quote where he talked about how he set all of his goals astronomically high and then worked non stop to achieve them. That’s the only way he felt that he could overcome ANY adversity that came his way.

Tyler from Real Social Dynamics has a great post where he says that when he decides to dedicate himself to something he assumes he’ll have to work harder than everyone else. BUT… he assumes that he can be better than everyone else eventually if he puts in that effort.

My grandfather, who is also wealthy, has this quote taped to his desk at his office:

”Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” –Calvin Coolidge

This makes a lot of sense to me. It resonates with me. When I think of my goals I think in terms of OTHER PEOPLE’S success. What level are they at and how can I get close? This needs to change. I need to DISREGARD other people and think of the level of success that I WANT. Then I will decide what it will take to get there and accept nothing less of myself.

My natural inclination is to get to the level where people consider me to be “good”. Not the BEST of the best… just amongst the best. That’s where I got with gambling, pick up, rap, even writing this blog (the rap one might be a bit of a stretch, since I’m obviously not amongst the best).

So from now on… I will hold myself to the highest possible standard imaginable for my effort.

I’ve already started doing this, but haven’t fully developed my plan. I’ve stopped accepting excuses from myself, which is step one.

It was Christmas Eve at midnight and I hadn’t worked out yet. I was in Boston, far away from my Crossfit class, and class wasn’t even meeting that day anyway.

“Eh. It’s Christmas Eve. I don’t have to work out,” I thought.

WHAT?

What does ANY of that have to do with ME or my fitness goals? NOTHING AT ALL.

So what do I do? I go to the basement and do a hard core workout.

I used to visit digg and reddit a lot. Then I thought, “These sites are NOT moving me closer to my goals.”

“But they’re interesting…”

EXCUSE!

I have now blocked them from my computer and will not visit them anymore. You have to understand that I tend to go overboard on stupid computer things… I didn’t just visit once a day, I would spend hours reading stupid articles. So for me it’s best to just totally block the site and remove the temptation.

And you know what? It’s not the SITE that I’m addicted to. It’s the HABIT. We’re NOTHING but a collection of habits, so it’s important to systematically remove all bad habits. Luckily I’m very good at sticking to these sorts of things when I make rules.

I’m also not putting enough effort into things

I already went into this earlier, so I won’t go nuts on it.

It is TOTALLY unacceptable in every way for me to not be working as hard as I can. I’m beginning to understand that in this area I cannot except anything less than 100%.

Think about it… I know for a fact that hard work is what it will take to become rich. I MUST become rich. How can I possibly think it’s ok for me not to work hard?

“But it’s hard to work all the time…”

WHO CARES? I have spent most of my life as a total slacker. I would say that I’m easily more prone to slacking than anyone who reads this site. That means that I have TONS to gain in this area.

Bottom line - if I am not willing to accept the importance of hard work and immediately implement it, then I am not worthy of being a millionaire and will not become one. Period.

I’m focusing on SYMPTOMS, not PROBLEMS

Since becoming rich is obviously my most important goal, I’ve written a lot about it here already.

But… I’m not a millionaire because I don’t have the right habits to be one, NOT because I don’t happen to have a million dollars.

In other words, I need to be setting goals for HABITS or for things I want to become. Not for end results.

“How I become a millionaire?”

Well.. there are a million different paths to get there. That’s not a goal against which I can measure my results on a daily basis.

However, if I determine the HABITS and ACTIONS necessary to become a millionaire, and I make those my goals, I will have to succeed.

A couple more things

Tim Ferriss has a fantastic concept in his book. I read the whole book and have read most entries in his blog, and I think this is THE KEY thing he talks about.

“Focus on output.”

Learning is great. Reading is great. But at the end of the day what MATTERS is what we output.

Did I build more of my program? Did I write sales copy? Did I get myself out into the field to meet new people? Did I make phone calls I had to make?

Input is easier to focus on. It’s easy to read about something. It’s easy to do a tutorial to learn a skill.

However, when you focus on output, you automatically seek out the input you need.

For example, when I was programming conversion doubler, I had NO IDEA how to program. I’d never used PHP, never used AJAX, and never used Javascript.

BUT… I knew what I wanted to accomplish, so I’d read little bits here and there as I went. If I needed to do some database queries, I’d look up the information on them and learn it on the fly.

Now I’m a pretty good programmer.

What would have happened if I learned all these things in school and then tried to make a program a year later? Chances are I’d STILL have to look a bunch of stuff up online, just like I had to do without learning it first.

Which is a more efficient use of time?

So from now on I’m going to think of each day in terms of “what was my output?”.

My goals for 2008

1. Hold myself to a very high standard and accept NO excuses from myself. If I do accept an excuse I will write it down and post it publicly for others to judge.

2. Focus on output. Every day I will make a list of my daily output. I will also make this public.

3. Work harder than I’ve EVER worked. Every day I will grade myself on a scale from 0-3. I will publish this daily. My goal is a weekly average of 2.75 (I’m not trying to eliminate fun, just useless and unproductive activities). I will only count time that I SHOULD be working.

For example, if I go bungee jumping in New Zealand I won’t count that against me because it’s a good experience. However, if I waste time or decide to do something marginal (like watch TV), that will be counted against me.

I should also mention that MY scale for 0-3 will be extremely harsh. Remember #1.

I’m excited about these goals… I can’t imagine ANY POSSIBLE WAY that I wouldn’t consider these the most important goals for the entire year. I don’t want to have another year where I say “Yeah… but I don’t care about that anymore.” Even if it’s the truth, it’s still a weakness.

What did I do RIGHT this year

Lots. Just as I think it’s important to be very critical when examining failure, I think it’s also important to be proud of accomplishments.

I am now in the best shape I’ve ever been in. I eat an immaculately clean diet with only rare planned cheating (like 1/4 of a cannoli on Christmas).

I work out three times a week doing very intensive workouts through Crossfit. The training is balances throughout cardio, strength, agility, endurance, etc.

I have a LONG way to go before I’ll be 100% satisfied with where I am, but I am definitely 100% satisfied with my progress. I don’t see my diet or my training schedule as a compromise or a sacrifice. I see both as a huge privilege.

Seriously… what POSSIBLE excuse is there for me to not keep my body in the 100% best condition it can be in? I can’t think of ANY.

I learned Japanese. I’m not fluent, but I stuck with the tapes doing one every day for 90 days straight and I plan on becoming as fluent as possible while in Japan.

I wrote Conversion Doubler. This took a TON of work and effort form me. I was working 12+ hours a day for a while. I accepted no excuses when creating it and constantly looked for ways to improve it. As a result I now have a world class product to sell.

I stopped lying and misleading. I NEVER lied about anything serious, but I would tell tiny lies of convenience.

If I was supposed to make a web site for my mom she might ask about it. Previously I’d say “I’ve been working on it. It will be done tomorrow.” Then I’d spend five hours getting it done.

Now I’d say, “No, I haven’t started, but I’ll do it tonight.”

It’s hard to think of examples, because they’re all very minor things. Maybe I’d say that I read something in a magazine instead of on the internet because I’d think the person would consider that more credible.

Still, I realized that small lies like these are MANIPULATIVE. I’m saying them to make myself look slightly better or to be more convincing.

But you know what? I’m awesome, even with the faults that I have. I don’t need to manipulate people into thinking I’m even better. Instead I’ll BECOME better.

And what do I care what people think? If the internet isn’t reliable enough then maybe they SHOULDN’T believe what I believe. (On a similar note, I’ve given up trying to convince people to do anything like I do. I know what’s best for me… if others can be inspired, then great… if not then they probably know what’s best for them)

I guess that this is a big deal to me because it signals a shift in my perspective, even if the practical difference is almost non existent.

Todd and I planned a world trip! I’ve been talking about doing this forever, and now it’s time to put my money where my mouth is. As most of you know, I’m out of here in only 10 days.

I got rid of EVERYTHING. I’m still working on it, but in ten days I’ll own ONLY what fits in a small 28L backpack and some sentimental things I’ll keep in boxes at my parents place (cards, letters, photos, drawings, etc).

This is a huge departure from my previous M.O. where I had five of EVERYTHING.

What I’m most proud of, however, is that I’m changing for the better. I think that I am a better person today than I was a year before. I’ve learned a lot, created a lot, and made new friends.

What are your goals for this year?

I finally arrived at the Manchester, New Hampshire airport around nine at night. We fly in there because it takes less time to get to my grandparents house in a Boston suburb from Manchester than it does from the Boston airport. Traffic and all that.

We were supposed to get there at five, but there was so much snow in Manchester that we had to divert to Boston, wait for the snow to pass, and then return to Manchester.

I actually like the delay, though. I love everything about traveling, including being stuck on a plane doing nothing. There’s something very pleasant about being totally isolated from the rest of the world.

I got to climb up on the baggage carousel at the airport. A bag’s handle got stuck in the conveyer belt, so I tried to be a hero and dislodge it. In my dream world it would have become dislodged and I’d get a short but exhilarating ride on the baggage carousel. They always look so fun.

My grandparents picked up my mother and I.

“Are you two hungry?”

We were, so we went to Bertucci’s in North Andover (I give the exact location so that people nearby can go experience my story firsthand if they want). As we drove by it looked closed.

There were still some cars in the parking lot, though.

“Let’s check.”

Sure enough, they were open for another twenty minutes. The place was otherwise empty… surely the staff was hoping to leave a little early.

The hostess got up from the table she was sitting at and went behind the podium at the front of the restaurant.

“Four?”

She was trying her best not to show her disappointment.

We sat down and began poring over the menu. When I go to a new restaurant I have to look at every single dish and assess the level of offensive ingredients in each one. I try to find the best dish that will allow the fewest substitutions to become acceptable. Taste has nothing to do with it - I just don’t want to be that annoying customer.

“Hey guys! My name is Amy!”

Amy looked to be about 16. Average height, wiry build, and long frazzled red hair in a ponytail. Huge brown eyes.

She stood with her head cocked one way and her hips the other way. She was smiling, but there was something peculiar about her smile.

It wasn’t that forced I-am-a-waitress-robot smile, but rather a smile of genuine happiness. We all noticed and were shocked.

“What can I get you guys to drink?”

“I’ll have a martini, extra dry… ” began my grandfather.

“A martini! I’m a martini girl myself!”

Really? She’s old enough to drink?

“That’s my kind of girl! How do you drink yours?”

She squinted and scrunched up her face a little bit. Depending on the age of consent in Massachusetts and her actual age, it may have even been alluring.

“Dirty. REALLY dirty.”

She paused.

“I like a lot of olive juice, and just a little vermouth. It’s REALLY good. Do you want to try it? I’ll go make it for you myself.”

“Sure…”

My grandfather smiled. Hurricane Amy had hit our table and we had no idea what to make of her. Equally surprising was that my grandfather agreed to have his martini her way. He’s so particular that even I, a non drinker, know exactly how he likes them.

Despite us just beginning to eat our entrees at closing time, Amy was in no rush to get rid of us. In what is no doubt her signature pose, with her hips and head cocked, she stood next to our table talking to us for quite a while.

I talked about my trip. She talked about how often she gets arrested.

Finally we finished and she brought the check. She commented on my grandfather’s credit card.

“Amy, do you have a credit card?”

“Yeah. A few of them!”

She rolled her eyes a bit. She never said anything that wasn’t accompanied by some sort of facial expression or hand gesture.

“And do you pay the balances in full every month?”

My grandfather is in the credit business, but it still seemed a little personal.

“Ha! I wish!”

“Amy… you have to pay your balances in full. Otherwise you’ll always be in debt. What are your interest rates?”

Much to the amusement of my grandmother, my mother, and myself, they launched into a full conversation about her credit situation.

“I’m not THAT bad! I don’t just pay the minimums!”

“Now Amy… I pay my full balance every month. It’s important. My daughter pays her balance every month. Tynan pays his balance every month. You need to pay every bill as soon as you get it. You get thirty days, but forget that! Don’t be a floater. Me? I’m a floater. You shouldn’t be a floater. Don’t float, Amy.”

She gave us her full schedule so that my grandfather could check on her financial progress.

“I work here Tuesday nights and Wednesday nights. Then the rest of the nights except for Saturday I work at another restaurant. On Saturdays I go downtown and dance.”

Instantly all four of us thought the same exact thing.

“She’s a stripper!”

But she wasn’t. She teaches kids ballet.

We left the restaurant and immediately all started talking about Amy and how great she was.

“That’s the best waitress I’ve ever had!”

“She was amazing!”

“Did you think she was a stripper too?”

It’s two days later and we’re still talking about her. At our dinner tonight we remarked that our waiter was “no Amy”. I’m even writing a blog entry about her (and these days I write like… 1 a month). I can’t remember the last time I even remembered a waitresses’ name.

Amy really drove home the importance of being totally authentic at all times. We were two senior citizens, a middle aged woman, and me, and she didn’t even think to filter herself. She giggled and told us about how she kept getting arrested without ever thinking about what we’d think of her.

And you know what? We all appreciated it.

I’d driven by dozens of times and never noticed it. Tucked away from the main parking lot, vines had begun to cover the corners of the building. Pieces of sheet metal were hanging from what once might have been a modern looking building.

A Wheel of Fortune aficionado may have been able to make sense of the remaining letters on the marquee. It probably said “Home Alone”, “Kindergarten Cop”, and “House Party” or some other movies from 1990.

That’s when the movie theater was shut down. It was built on the edge of a hill, and half of it was now a few inches down that hill. The building had cracked apart and been condemned.

We parked our car in a dark corner of the lot. There were six of us, each toting a mag lite we’d purchased minutes before at Home Depot.

The front door was locked, but that wasn’t a surprise. The back door was locked too. We circled around to the box office, trying to see if we could somehow squeeze in through the ticket window. We couldn’t.

I walked along the side of the building, desperate for any way to get in.

There was a set of exit-only double doors. I almost passed it by, assuming it would be useless, but at the last second I noticed that near the top one of the doors protruded by a fraction of an inch.

I grabbed a stick and jammed it between the doors. After a few tries I managed to pry the door open by half an inch. I stuck in my fingers and pulled the door open.

“We’re in!”

We piled in through the door. The floor was completely covered in sand. I thought that it felt like walking into a pyramid in Egypt.

Was anyone in here? If I was homeless I’d live here, I thought.

We slowly crept down the dark hallway. The only light was from our flashlights. After all, theaters are designed to be as dark as possible.

Around the corner was the actual theater. A giant tattered screen hung on a wall. Through the rips you could see where the speakers used to be. All of the seats had been removed, leaving a giant sloped room. The floors were covered in debris and sand, the only identifiable remains were the two aisle carpets that ran from the top to the bottom.

It was eerie being alone in a room that was designed to be full of people.

The concessions stand turned out to be a bonanza. There were two coke machines there, which we considered taking but figured would be too heavy. A Dove ice cream freezer was earmarked to be taken back to our dorm.

“Hey… have some coupons!”

I threw the book of coupons at Al.

“These aren’t coupons. These are gift certificates.”

Whoa. That was pretty cool. The nearby mall was the same brand of theater, so they might work there. The design looked dated, of course, but they’d have to accept them, right?

We dug around and found another book. Twenty dollars each, plus some coupons in the back of each book.

Al and I went upstair to the projection rooms. Between them was a big storage room full of paperwork and letterhead. In the corner was an unopened box.

I opened the box and yelled.

“Oh my god! Look at this!”

Al came over. Inside were bricks and bricks of gift certificates. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth.

We finished exploring (although we’d later come back many times, including once to test a flamethrower we built), and quickly drove to one of our apartments. We laid the gift certificates out on a bed and counted them.

In the end we had $3,600 worth of gift certificates, which we split six ways.

Still in disbelief, we met at the theater the next day to see if the tickets would work. I got suckered into going first.

“One ticket, please.”

I handed him seven dollars worth of gift certificates.

He looked at them.

“Haven’t seen this type in a while.”

He glanced up, and then returned to his computer. My ticket printed out.

“Enjoy the show.”

For the rest of the summer we saw every movie that came out. Every time we went we’d get pizza, slushies, popcorn, and candy (which the gift certificates also work on). I never spent all of mine… I lost the remaining few around the time I moved to LA many years later.

Note for those of you who think this is horrible and immoral : The way gift certificates work is that the franchise purchases them from the main office and then sells them for more to movie patrons. These were paid for by the defunct movie theater, so the theater we spent them on got their money back when they redeemed them from headquarters.

I have two weeks left in Austin and ten days in Boston. When we first decided to go on the trip six months ago it seemed like it would take forever. Now every day seems to fly by before I can make any progress on my list of stuff-I-must-do-before-I-go.

Of course, the one thing I’ve had no problem doing is buying the gear necessary to leave. I’ll post a complete list of every single thing I’m bringing with me… some of which will probably surprise people.

We still haven’t found anywhere to live in Panama yet. I send e-mails to people on Craigslist in Panama, but nothing good has surfaced yet.

Today I’m getting my car ready to sell. I have to get the oil changed and get it washed. There are two very interested people and a few less interested people. One of the guys is a car collector so I hope he buys it. I’m selling it for way less than its worth because I want to sell it before I go to Boston in four days.

I have a few buyers for the RV too. They’re all associated with Casa de Luz, the restaurant I park near, so hopefully one of them will buy it and it will stay there on the street where it’s been.

I’m really going to miss living in the RV. Even though I’ve had it now for almost eight months, I still love living in it.

I should probably say that I’ll miss people the most, but I won’t. I’ll still have a local phone number and IM and e-mail, so I know I’ll keep in touch with everyone. A lot of people are going to come visit (or at least say they will…) and I’ll probably end up coming back to visit a few times.

What I’ll miss most is the food. I have a great roster of restaurants I eat at, all perfectly healthy and delicious. Who knows what I’ll have to eat when I get to Panama?

It’s strange to start having lasts. From the insignificant (last time I’ll fill up the RV) to the significant (last time I’ll see my friend Hayden). I only have two tazeroke nights left. One Indian night at Casa left.

Of course all of these little things pale in comparison to the excitement I have for going on the trip. I daydream during the day of getting on that plane. I can’t wait to land in Panama knowing no one and having to explore and make friends and find places to eat.

I haven’t had too much to write about recently because all I’ve been doing is working and getting ready for the trip.

Oh… actually I went skydiving the other day.

I’ve been a couple times before, but always as a tandem jump with an instructor on my back. This time I did an AFF which basically means that two instructors grab on to me as I jump, one on each side. Once I pull my rip cord they leave and the rest is up to me.

For anyone who hasn’t gone skydiving, you really should. It’s far less scary than you think it will be (my friends Todd and Doug went too and neither was scared). It’s definitely a feeling unlike any other you’ll ever have.

Imagine jumping out of a plane and falling for thirty seconds with nothing connected to you other than a small backpack. It doesn’t feel like falling, though - it feels like floating. When I jumped I fell through a cloud.

The whole jump went without incident for me, but Todd went the wrong way and almost landed on the highway. He was three feet away and his chute was actually on the highway. Pretty awesome.

So… we ate Miracle Berries.

I know that sounds like I’m either a druggie or a hippie, but I swear I’m not.

Miracle Berries are this crazy fruit from West Africa. They’re bright red, have a large pit in them, and taste a bit like a weak grape. So why eat them? Because they have a protein in them called miraculin (seriously) that binds to the sour receptors on your tongue and makes sour things taste sweet for half an hour.

When I read about these, I had to have them. My friends and I pooled together and ordered 20 of them from Curtis Mozie, a miracle berry grower and farmer in Florida. They weren’t cheap - about $65 for the order which was shipped overnight to keep them fresh.

We arrived at Central Market and went totally nuts. Lemons, limes, grapefruit, kumquats, rhubarb, raspberries, varigated pink lemons, mayer lemons, and granny smith apples were all corralled in our shopping carts.

I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical. How could it be that this is the ONE food that alters your taste? It seemed ridiculous, but people on the internet raved about them. And you know… if people on the internet like it, it must be great.

We cut up all the fruit into bite sized pieces and ceremoniously ate our berries at the same time. We glanced at each other as if to say, “you feel anything?”

We didn’t. They tasted like almost nothing. Not unpleasant, but no real flavor of their own. As I spit out the pit and swallowed the fruit the aftertaste tasted mildly sweet.

Everyone reached excitedly for a lemon slice, with peel still attached, and chomped down. Almost simultaneously everyone said the same thing :

“Wow!”

It was amazing. We could eat lemons without so much as wincing - they tasted like sweet lemonade. Limes were amazing. The apples tasted about the same. Raspberries, kumquats, and mayer lemons tasted like candy. Rhubarb tasted like apples. I wasn’t too impressed with it until I tried some after the berries wore off. Totally inedible. Grapefruit was delicious and I don’t even like grapefruit.

The effect didn’t quite last half an hour. Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes of voracious eating. Eating two at once didn’t change anything.

All in all… pretty neat.