It's an addiction.

My favorite person in all the world sent me this link last night. Yeah, he was sitting beside me giving me a not-bad back rub when he sent the link, but I like email, and he likes hearing that phrase "favorite person in the world," so there you go.

Apparently, "Study: Chocolate, BBQ addiction may be real" was the most emailed link on CNN.com yesterday. Who knew there were so many, many chocoholics?

(A rather lengthy aside: If you clicked that last link and liked it, visit their homepage, "The Why Files." Bookmark the site for "the science behind the news." It's got autodidacticism written all over it. And speaking of autodidacticism, if you haven't been with M-mv since its first entries, you may have missed this article, which we linked on our second day. I just loved John W. Osborne's observation: "[S]elf‑educated people—autodidacts—react to their reading in a manner that is personal and unpredictable. The result may be extreme individualism and disdain for common tastes." Ayup. Terrific stuff.)

And now back to this entry's original point. Folks, it's an addiction. The chocolate, the Mountain Dew, the Cafe Luigi's pizza, Chili's cheese-brocoli soup... all of it. Doesn't that make it easier to bear?

From the article: "A brain scan study of normal, hungry people showed their brains lit up when they saw and smelled their favorite foods in much the same way as the brains of cocaine addicts when they think about their next snort."

So, here's a question: Does that same part of my brain "light up" when I drive past Borders or Powells or Barnes and Noble or Barbara's?

I'm just asking.