Matt, you knower of all knows: I can’t sleep at night because of this, and I need to know. On MTV’s The Real World and Road Rules, it appears as though every now and then …
January 23, 1997
Straight from the Hip
Archived articles
When MTV makes the screen hazy
Ball lightning in Wyoming
Attention: Mattfax: I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a large cold front sweep through the plains, but it’s pretty awe inspiring. In 1993, somewhere around the Wyoming state line, my wife and I drove …
January 23, 1997
The strange eucalyptus at Balboa and Ruffin Road
Matmail: Did you know that there is a tree with a knot tied in it on the southwest corner of Balboa and Ruffin Road? Check it out. No one believes me till I show them. …
January 23, 1997
Stinky cheese and stinky feet
Dear Matt: Why do some cheeses smell like people’s feet and vice versa? 2. Who deduced that the extract from a sheep’s stomach was the missing essential ingredient for cheese making? — Curious, North Park …
January 16, 1997
Microwave takes double the time as conventional
Mattman: How come when I put two potatoes in my microwave it takes twice as long to cook them as to cook one? When I put two potatoes in my conventional oven, it doesn’t take …
January 16, 1997
Blowing really does cool off your soup
Dear Mr. Alice: I was contemplating a hot bowl of soup the other day, eager to eat but reluctant to burn my tongue. So of course, I scooped up a spoonful, blew on it a …
January 16, 1997
The rhino as fire marshall
Matmail: This weekend we rented the 1980 film The Gods Must Be Crazy. In this film the rhinoceros is depicted as being the “self-appointed fire marshal of the veldt,” and one is actually seen stamping …
January 16, 1997
The Secret Life of Plants author admits error
Matt: Do plants feel pain? — Marcos, San Diego Mankind has tried, mankind has failed to prove that lettuce shrieks in pain when we tear it up for salad. Peter Tompkins started all this in …
January 9, 1997
Cute cockroach babies — and how they die
Matmail: Are cockroaches cute when they are babies? Perhaps a better way to phrase it is, are they smaller? Smoother? Less likely to make eye contact? I see various sizes around San Diego sometimes in …
January 9, 1997
Matthew Alice's true identity
Dear Matthew Alice: Are you real? That is to say, are you actually one person, or are you a group of people under an assumed name? — Name Withheld to Avoid Embarrassment, Clairemont Every decade …
January 2, 1997
Macarena — its origin, its song, its saint
Dear Matt: A three-part question, if you don’t mind. (1) Regarding this new craze of the cute little Macarena dance, where and how did it originate? (2) Is it not true that the trumpet solo …
December 19, 1996