On Sunday, Silverlotus and I caught a rerun of “The First Emperor: The Man Who Made China”, the Discovery documentary that chronicled the adventures of Qin Shi Huang, the man who united the feudal provinces of the Middle Kingdom into the Qin Empire.
Later in life, Qin became obsessed with attaining immortality and took to ingesting mercury in the belief it would make him live forever. Ironically it actually crippled his mind and body, eventually killing him.
As they played the scene of him eating the poisonous substance, I took this time to say something of historical significance:
“That must have tasted like ass.”