Fries with that?

I saw an interesting documentary last night called "Supersize Me" about one man's journey into a McDonald's based diet. It catalogued his fast degeneration of health and mood. Of the many things that I came away from it with (other than an even poorer view of the efforts of humankind today to shift fault and blame for all kinds of problems onto someone else) was the thoughts of what is the measure of a life.

One of the men in the documentary had, at last count, eaten 19 900 Big Macs - and this seemed to be the most important feat achieved in his life. Curiously, he was also incredibly proud of the fact that not only did his diet consist of Big Mac's, but that his life seemed to revolve around their acquisition. Up until this point, I suppose that I had figured that a measure of someone's life was perhaps the good deeds they had achieved, the children that they had had, or less altruistically, the money they had made. Apparently, I had got it wrong! So for the record, the Big Macs eaten by me in my lifetime: I think 2. Hmmm, on this score I shall have to improve!