In that noisy college town

There's always something being given out free on campus. The givers can be worse than store clerks. Clerks also work in packs, so if you dodge one you're likely to run into another. But inside a store shelves can be used for cover.

They were giving away Get Real: The UnderGrad Magazine. I'm used to being mistaken for a grad student -- I've got that air -- but I'm way too old to be an undergraduate. This magazine's not substantially worse than U, which I didn't like when I was an undergraduate. It has similar trivial articles (``5 Worst Traits of your Hostel Neighbour'', ``The Skinny Truth: Dieting at its worst'', ``Coming Soon: Son of the Mask'', unless you duck pretty quick) and poorly done full-justification of sans serif typefaces. I mean, they're using Geneva and Avant Garde together. That can't be on purpose.

The faculty newsletter finally got up to the 75th Anniversary Dinner (see my October entries). It's photocopied, with pictures by someone unaware of the need for a halftone screen. It's quite dull for 2005 graphic design; I think I'd rather read Get Real.

And there's a new Mystery Science Theater 3000 set to be released in April, just about perfect timing. Scheduled episodes are The Killer Shrews, Hercules Unchained, Hercules Against The Moon Men, and Prince of Space, plus Assignment: Venezuela. I can't wait to see what they do to make it impossible to get the DVDs out of the shells this time.

Trivia: Over 40 canals were authorized and built between 1791 and 1794 in Great Britain. Source: The History Today Companion to British History, Juliet Gardiner and Neil Wenborn.

Currently Reading: Giants Unleashed, Edited by Groff Conklin. It's a nifty anthology of stories from the likes of William Tenn, Murray Leinster, Robert Heinlein, Eric Frank Russell, Arthur C Clarke.