Having a Twitter account means gold-level access to the mind of Kirstie Alley. It means keeping up with Tony Orlando. Gold access also means a daily-ish dose of Paula Abdul -- it means access to this little gem from Friday:

Did you know??? Every time you lick a stamp, you are consuming 1/10 of a calorie. — Paula Abdul (@PaulaAbdul) February 5, 2010

As the resident celeb fact checker, I went to work trying to figure out the source of this spurious-sounding philatelic claim. In an attempt to find the science to back it up, I went through a Snopes message board and an old 'oddly enough-style' query in The Guardian; I consulted the Q&A at the Just for Kids section of the American Philatelic Society and was thumbing through Wikipedia trying unsuccessfully to find a legitimate confirmation of 1/10 calorie, when it hit me.



Who licks stamps anymore? Stamps issued by the USPS have been self-adhesive since 2002.

Then I thought, "And when do you think Paula Abdul last consumed a factually unproven number of calories by licking a stamp?" It was in that moment that Paula Abdul Fact Check was born.



usa44.jpg

I'm going to guess that she has assistants that take care of her personal errands. Pay the bills. Answer fan mail. I suppose she should ask one of them when is the last time they used a stamp. Then ask when's the last time they licked a stamp.

See what I'm getting at here?

In fact, if you navigate through the USPS site, and click through the five pages of current 44-cent first class stamps, there is currently only one "water-activated" option available. (See right.) So, it is not impossible, but merely unlikely that you have even encountered a stamp in the last decade that required a licking.



A caveat: If you'd like to order the water-activated version of the U.S. Flag definitive stamp, you must order it in bulk -- a coil of 3,000 stamps, which retails for the low-low price of $1,320 (and is intended for vending and affixing machines). If you licked the whole thing, that's 300 calories right there -- and a pretty expensive meal that would very likely be your last.

I'm still a little stumped about the cause for alarm that overtook Ms. Abdul on Friday -- a call that was retweeted by a hundred other panic-stricken folks. Today, I did the only thing there was left to do:

@CelebOutsider yoga ;) xoP — Paula Abdul (@PaulaAbdul) February 9, 2010

-Outsider

So I'm on Twitter (@CelebOutsider), you guys. I don't want to brag about it, although I've always prided myself on being an early adopter, always on the bleeding edge of the hottest tech trends. I'm sure everybody would join if they had the money to. Tom Hanks joined earlier this year, so I knew it would be a solid investment. I have a gold media access account, so that means I get exclusive access to all your favorite celebs. Tweet at me if there's anything you want to know. Whatever that means.