Errata

I've been away from the helm for nearly two weeks now. If you were a dog left in a station wagon on a hot summer afternoon, you'd be attracting vultures by this point. If you were my child (God help you), I imagine you'd be industrious enough to scrounge out sustenance for the duration, but by now child protective services would have unburdened me of the responsibility of fatherhood. I imagine I'd be thrown in prison too, and once it got around that I was in there for neglecting a kid for weeks....well....I just better hope I shiv a guy that first night, or I will emerge, years later, a deeply changed man. And of course, I mean "deeply" in the most anatomical of senses.

Truth be told, of late I have been hit with a deluge of work. Regrettably this work entails grading papers and writing a prospectus for my dissertation, rather than the myriad other labors that stand as considerably more preferable--including, but not limited to: inspections at the tickle factory; finding out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop; fighting, beating, and tagging a hobo for future scientific inquiry; or naming the condiments in your fridge (i.e. Gertie, Duchess of Mustardia). As such, things have been rather tame, but per my obligation to keep this leaky vessel of digital text afloat, I've decided to make a short list of the dire omens that remind us the cosmos is askew and the grand clock of the universe is flashing 12:00.


My fantasy football team remains undefeated. Yeah, I'm just as shocked by this as you are. And no, we're not talking the kind of "fantasy football" where you can have a 12th level half-orc barbarian on your defensive line, though I readily confess that would be sweet. Of course, you'd lose every match, as you would be hit with so many penalties for unnecessary roughness (read: physically tearing limbs from the opponent) that it wouldn't be worth watching unless you are the kind of person that really enjoyed the Rambo trailer. No, I'm referring to an actual fantasy football team. Things have gotten so strange that last week, when I went up against the guy with the next best record in the league, his otherwise superstar quarterback (Payton Manning) and kicker (some guy on the Colts whose last name starts with a V--yes, that's how much I know/care about football) both essentially threw crap at a wall for the duration of their game and allowed me to slip by with another victory. However, we're getting close to the playoffs, so if my center fielder can just continue getting the wicket during the scrum, and my caddie doens't hand me a damn three iron for the penalty kick attempt, I should be okay.


Hollywood has greenlit and already begun casting a live action movie version of Dragonball Z.
I think this one pretty much speaks for itself. If you have no idea what Dragonball Z is, well, you probably also don't know what the hell I was talking about with the whole 12th level half-orc barbarian thing. You've also probably never seen a twenty sided die before in your life; of course, on the other side of the spectrum, I have friends who still carry theirs with them at all times...just in case. Anyway, Dragonball Z is a popular anime show from the 90's that basically involves martial artists from space who can shoot fireballs from their hands, fly, have their otherwise black hair turn platinum blond in a powerup known as going "Super-saiyan," and other such things that will translate splendidly into live action film. This one may very well come to rival Dungeons & Dragons (ironic, I know) and Pop Star as the worst movie I have ever seen in my life.

Computer programs that try to guess your interests from the content of your email. While this fits under the "errata" category simply because these programs are always wrong, it's also a happy mistake I look forward to every time I check my email. As many of you have no doubt noticed, Gmail in particular has a column to the right of any email's text that offers services based on the words you or your friend chose in that latest missive. For example, in a recent email Nicholas sent about the whole Golden Compass daemon thing, gmail proffered these two ads, among others: "Uh oh...I'm Emo! Are you Emo? Take the Emo quiz!" and "What's your purpose? A seven step program to find your purpose and change your life." So, when the Don sent me a series of "motivational posters" like this one


Gmail was nice enough to put forth these advertisements: "Life-coach for Mid-life" and "Positive thinking--Get into a Great State of Mind and Make the Most of your Life!" I can't help but love a program that essentially does nothing but provide non sequitors unknowingly. Indeed, that's the very same reason why I like my students so much.