Vice Magazine's UK arm recently published a fascinating Q&A interview with a man who has come up with a fairly revolutionary way to live without actually, uh, eating anything.

Rob Rhinehart is a 24-year-old software programmer from San Francisco who apparently feels that food was just too damn inefficient, and took it upon himself to streamline the nutrient-obtaining process — "hacking the body," as he says — by mixing nutrients, in their most basic reasonable forms, into a nutrient shake he calls Soylent. Yes, as in Soylent Green.

From Vice.com:

So what’s in Soylent, exactly?
Everything the body needs — that we know of, anyway — vitamins, minerals and macronutrients like essential amino acids, carbohydrates and fat. For the fat, I just use olive oil and add fish oil. The carbs are an oligosaccharide, which is like sugar, but the molecules are longer, meaning it takes longer to metabolise and gives you a steady flow of energy for a longer period of time, rather than a sugar rush from something like fructose or table sugar. I also add some non-essentials like antioxidants and probiotics and lately have been experimenting with nootropics.

And that tastes as good as a burger?
It tastes very good. I haven't got tired of the taste in six weeks. It's a very "complete" sensation, more sweet than anything. Eating to me is a leisure activity, like going to the movies, but I don't want to go to the movies three times a day.

What are some of the benefits to the food-free lifestyle? Any drawbacks?
Not having to worry about food is fantastic. No groceries, dishes, deciding what to eat, no endless conversations weighing the relative merits of gluten-free, keto, paleo or vegan. Power and water bills are lower. I save hours a day and hundreds of dollars a month. I feel liberated from a crushing amount of repetitive drudgery. Soylent might also be good for people having trouble managing their weight. I find it very easy to lose and gain precise amounts of weight by varying the proportions in my drink.

There are drawbacks: It doesn't keep long after mixing with water, so I still have to make it every day. If I make a mistake with the amount of an ingredient it can make me sick, but that hasn't happened in a while. Also, some people really enjoy food a lot more than I do, so they may not like the idea.

How could Soylent affect the world's eating habits?
Consumer behaviour has a lot to do with cost and convenience. There are plenty of ways to be healthy, but Americans are more likely to be overweight simply because the food that's cheap and convenient is unhealthy. I think it's possible to use technology to make healthy food very cheap and easy, but we'll have to give up many traditional foodstuffs like fresh fruits and veggies, which are incompatible with food processing and scale.

Rhinehart has fascinating ideas here, but I'm still not sold — mostly because I'm a big fan of tasting different things from time to time. Either way, you can find out more about Rhinehart's Soylent shake (which, he promises, has absolutely zero human in it) at Vice, or at his blog, where he's chronicled his experiences.

Today is March 14—you know, 3/14—making today National Pi Day.

As you might remember from those algebra classes you took at some point in the past, pi is an irrational number that's most easily defined as the ratio of a circle's circumference to it diameter—and since a circle's circumference is always juuuust a bit more than three times its diameter (though not exactly so,) the figure is often represented as being 3.14159265...and stretching on into infinity. Which is cool.

But really, Pi Day is just a damn good day for nerds to gather around and eat pie. Which, again, is cool.

The Loft Cinema, however, has taken things into a different direction, as they'll be screening Darren Aronofsky's debut feature film, Pi this evening at 7 p.m.

A film synopsis from The Loft Cinema:

In Pi, reclusive math genius Max (Sean Gullette) believes "everything can be understood in terms of numbers," and that patterns exist everywhere: in nature, in science, in religion, in business. Max spends his days searching for these patterns in everything, when he’s not suffering mysterious headaches, playing Go with a former teacher or fooling around with an advanced computer system named Euclid he’s built in his NYC apartment. Unfortunately, Max is not the not the only one looking for these universal patterns, and soon everyone from Wall Street investors, looking to break the market, to Hasidic Jews, searching for the 216-digit number that reveals the true name of God, are trying to get their hands on the secrets in Max’s head. Distracted by blackout attacks, hallucinations and paranoid delusions, Max begins to lose his grip on reality as the increasingly dangerous world closes in around him.

Following the film, University of Arizona professors Bruce J. Bayly and Kenneth D. McLaughlin will be leading a discussion on pi, infinity, and other such weighty topics.

For more information and to purchase tickets (starting at $9.25, with discounts available), check out the Loft Cinema website.

A new farmers' market is opening at a one of Tucson's local loves, The Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway Blvd.

On Saturdays, the market will take over the new outdoors patio area to the east of the main building. Hours are 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Local food farmers and gardeners will be featured including local honey from the Tucson Honey Company; produce from Breckenfeld Family Growers and Local Roots Hydroponics; raw macaroons and crackers from R’s Raw Kitchen; eggs from ZenHens; lasagna from Lasagna and More; canned goods from Iskashitaa Refugee Network; spices from Spice Smith/Solar Cooking; raw ice cream from Tonic Sustenance; fair trade/organic coffee from Café Aqui; plants from Dream Flower Garden; cotton candy from Fluff It Up; power bars from PHOD; salsa from Chilttepica Salsa; and seed bombs from Green Fire Arizona, along with organic produce, baked goods and cold salads from Food Conspiracy Co-op. Topping it off, there's free organic popcorn available for all attendees!

Also each week, along with all the great local food being sold, they will offer live music, food demonstrations, short films, and other activities. There will also be three tables for other non-profits to use, free of charge, to promote their organizations. For questions, or to express interest in being a vendor, email [email protected].

• Late Winter Potted Garden

Now is the time to cut back your damaged plants. Prune back any deadwood that was hit by the freezes. Also remove any potted plants that have no root system left.

Go to the nurseries and choose plants that you like and if you are planting flowers, look for ones that I call "Shoulder Season" plants. Petunias, snapdragons, dianthus, marigolds and cosmos are good choices for these large temperature range days we have. You can certainly add some late season pansies and violas - you will get about 2 months out of them.

This is a great time to plant up some cactus and perennials too! Love hummingbirds? Try some salvia.

Have some fun as it has been a long winter!

• Tammy Graves
• Marylee, Desert Potted Gardener

Remember when we told you that Tucson mail was going to hell in hand basket?

Well, Arizona lawmakers are trying to get Congress to do something about it.

House Concurrent Memorial 2007 urges Congress to protest the closure of Cherrybell Mail Processing Center in Tucson, which serves 1.8 million people.
Memorials allow state legislatures to make a statement on something that is outside their jurisdiction.

The resolution passed through the House (35-24) and needs to be heard in the Senate before the end of next week in order to advance.

It’s assigned to Senate Government and Environment Committee, which is chaired by Gail Griffin, R-Herford.

“I think I’m lucky that she’s the chair of the committee because she’s from Cochise County where Fort Huachuca is and I think it negatively affects them too,” said Rep. Andrea Dalessandro, the bill’s sponsor.

Dalessandro said Griffin told her she would hear the bill next week.

The center’s closure stands hurt a large number of Southern Arizonans, Dalessandro said.

“It makes no sense to me to have mail from Nogales come up to Phoenix to go across town in Nogales,” Dalessandro said.

The center serves 23,197 businesses and processes more than 3 million pieces of mail a day, according to the memorial.

Small businesses could be waiting on checks, veterans might have medicine delayed and time-sensitive legal documents could be a problem, Dalessandro said.

It also could make the already sluggish ballot tally time slower.

Arizona gained national attention during the 2012 election because of how long it took to count ballots during the 2012 election. Elections officials have been lobbying this session for ways to get early ballots back sooner.
Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez, objects to the center’s closure because it will cause a “detrimental impact to voters,” according to the memorial.

Dalessandro said she thinks she could have snagged more votes in the House if she hadn’t made a “freshman mistake.” Dalessandro said she wasn’t able to really lobby since she didn’t realize the bill was going to go to a third reading as quickly as it did.

“I’m willing to accept my error,” Dalessandro said. “Hopefully I’ll never make a mistake like that again.”

The owners of 47 Scott will be bringing Caribbean food and a lot of rum to downtown Tucson this August.

After some construction delays thanks to the age of the building, Saint House, is set to open August 15 at 256 E. Congress, filling the space left behind by Shark's Nightclub.

The owners decided to pause construction after a few delays and open when streetcar construction on Congress Street is finished, Nicole Flowers, co-owner of 47 Scott said.

"It's a Caribbean restaurant based around all the different regions where rum comes from," Flowers said. "So we'll have a lot of rum drinks a lot of different rums."

The food will be based off of the Caribbean, Flowers added, but also Caribbean cuisine influences such as South America, France and the United Kingdom and the surrounding islands.

Having the streets open to traffic in August will help people get into downtown easily which makes for great timing. In May 2010, 47 Scott was one of the first new concepts in downtown Tucson. Flowers said she doesn't see many vacant spots in the area, "which is nice."

"We ... are all in on downtown as far as businesses and any future businesses that we do," Flowers said. "We've seen a lot of growth with everyone else opening since then ... it'll just be nice to have a walkable, urban feeling downtown here in Tucson."

Simplifying Arizona's sales tax just got a whole lot more complicated.

While lawmakers worked on sealing the deal on HB 2657's most continuous issue, construction tax, the Joint Legislative Budget Committee ran some numbers.

What they came up with varies, by a lot.

The committee ran two scenarios one that mimics the Department of Revenue’s methodology and another scenario that Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, described as more of a “worst-case” situation.

The result is a fiscal note that estimates that the general fund could gain around $19 million or lose $137 million because of the bill.

It’s a level of uncertainty that’s troubling and creates yet another obstacle, Kavanagh said.

The bill relies on three different assumptions, which the committee took into account: how many people are not complying, how much materials cost, and how much retail will increase.

Looking at different possibilities was necessary since the odds of the Department of Revenue's numbers being right are so low, Kavanagh said.

The cities lose at in both scenarios, with the local transaction privilege tax revenue net loss being either $24 million or $61 million.

They would however see a gain in what they get from shared revenue, either $50 million or $102 million, according to the estimates.

There's going to have to be a way to protect the fun, Kavanagh said.

There are lot of options as to how to go about doing that, he said, noting that the more options there are to choose from the longer something will take.

Kavanagh also said he's hoping that cities' issues with auditing will be sorted out before he hears the bill in the House Appropriations Committee, which he chairs.

Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Glendale, the bill's sponsor, said she and the cities are currently at an impasse when it comes to auditing.

“[Construction] was their big issue before and now they are on to another issue so it makes me wonder if they want to compromise on any of it,” Lesko said

She said she doesn’t like the idea of “deputizing” city auditors into state auditors.

Auditing is an issue for cities since what the Department of Revenue might see as a small amount of money lost could be a big loss for a city.

For Tucson, which does its own auditing, having the state take over all auditing could mean job losses of about 25 people, maybe more, said Andrew Greenhill, assistant to the city manager of Tucson.

In an attempt to compromise, backers of the bill proposed allowing the cities to pay the Department of Revenue for extra auditors for their cities. She said the cities told her that many city auditors used to work for the Department of Revenue and know that it doesn’t pay as much as the city does.

Lesko said she made it quite clear that she isn’t going to hold up the bill because auditors want more pay.

“I said ‘Well, you know what, over 50 or 70 auditors not getting their pay, that’s not going to hold up that bill. That’s not a good excuse to me,” Lesko said.

For an in-depth look at the bill, click here

Opening this Friday, March 15 is the most recent addition to the food selection on Fourth Avenue. Located at 210 N. Fourth Avenue, in the Tophoy building, the Hopyard Market will be open serving what looks like to be a combination deli and small market fare.

The back counter will be serving grinders, soups, salads, pastries, and more with the added ability to pick up essentials such as bread, milk and other dry goods. Their normal hours will be Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sunday 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., and some late hours Thursday through Saturday, opening from 10 p.m. to 3 p.m. for all your late night noshing needs.

Though considering "Paradise Valley" already sounds like the name of a fictional village somewhere within the canon of pornographic lore, that shouldn't be surprising.

• pornmd.com

Pornography search engine PornMD (NSFW — but if you click on a link to a site named PornMD while working, you deserve to get fired) has done the world a service, sifting through undoubtedly sticky and uncomfortable stacks of search engine data to determine what the 10 most popular search terms on porn sites are over a 6 month period (and no, the word "period" is not among them).

Arizona's most popular porn search term, "teen" just surpassed "MILF" (which, for the uninitiated, is an initialism that stands for "Mother I'd Like to F—k") as of this morning, which is actually kind of surprising. I mean, the people who attend ASU Girls Gone Wild University and Casino surely aren't watching their own work, right? Aside from the film students, of course.

America's top pick though, is MILF—which must relieve the lonely housewives of both Phoenix and its affluent suburb of Paradise Valley, who now know that their hobbies aren't going unnoticed. Rounding out the rest of the US's top terms, in descending order: "teen," "college," "creampie," "massage," "asian," "pov," "amateur," "compilation," and "anal." On the off chance those happen to be answers to a quiz, you owe us beer.

We'll leave you with random search terms from around the world, because ignoring the fact that Peru searches for "just beiber (gay)" is practically criminal (our comments are bracketed):

Alaska: "lisa ann" [star of Who's Nailin' Paylin?]; Kentucky: "free gay porn" [the top search term!]; Finland: "squirt compilation"; Sweden: "massage" [seems appropriate]; Iceland: "prostate massage"; Ukraine: "Kim Kardashian"; Romania: "mom and son" [oh god why]; Czech Republic: "castrated shemale" [!!!]; Kazakhstan: "playboy mansion" [how quaint!]; Kazakhstan: "squirt machine" [there we go]; Nigeria: "things i jack off to" [straightforward]; South Africa: "poop"

Those of you who love to find our lovingly hand-crafted issues of Tucson Weekly at your local, neighborhood Circle K will notice that you'll actually have a problem with that starting next week.

• azweeklymagazine.com
• Just what I needed: Information on Scottsdale art shows!

AZ Weekly is a free, Phoenix-based magazine that covers exactly what you'd expect: Phoenix events. Which, as I'm sure you're thinking, is exactly what denizens of Southern Arizona can't get enough of.

Furthermore, as Tucson Weekly editor Dan Gibson mentions in this week's "Editor's Note," AZ Weekly whores out their editorial coverage to the highest bidder—so if you're looking for objective entertainment coverage, you might want to take their articles with a grain of salt.

So what this means for you, the loyal Tucson Weekly reader, is that it might be just a bit harder for you to get your weekly, dead-tree fix of "Danehy," "The Skinny" and "Ask a Mexican!" But we've got a solution:

Where Can I Get a Tucson Weekly?

Heading to that page will take you to an interactive map we've set up to help you find issues of Tucson Weekly at our red boxes all over town — and while you're there, you may want to consider patronizing some of those establishments for supporting local journalism. It's a win for everyone involved!

Still, that leaves us the little matter of our issue with Circle K...and honestly, we figure we're not the only people in town who have issues with the corner store chain.

Thus, if you've got beef with Circle K, feel free to Tweet with the #CircleKProblems hashtag. We'll be doing so throughout the day, for as long as we damn well please.

Let it out, Tucson. We have:

Got 99 @tucsonweekly issues, but Circle K ain't got none. #CircleKProblems
— Brian Pedersen (@realBJP) March 13, 2013