Non Sequitur

From Amazon.com:

"We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated "Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (Nonpareil Book)" by Will Cuppy have also purchased "Y.U.M! (Your Ultimate Male!): A female critique of the male physique" by Jill Fraeyman."

Uh-huh.

Miscellany

1. This morning, as I was checking my e-mail, I noticed a message from the department secretary; the subject line was the single word "frig". Oh, my, I thought, she never uses language like that. She must be very upset about something. It was not until I opened the message that I realized she was talking about the refrigerator in the faculty lounge. (I always spell that short form "fridge", myself....)

2. Today, I met with a couple of other faculty members to discuss the possibility of adding a topology course to our curriculum; we've been assigned to design such a course, select a textbook, etc. In the course of the discussion, while flipping through one possible text, one of my colleagues grumbled that he hadn't thought about this stuff in about eight years. I commented that I had studied it thirty years ago. He gave me a rather disturbed look; in the conversation that followed, I learned that he hadn't been born at the time.... :groan:

3. This morning, needing a new bus book, I plucked Amartya Sen's The Argumentative Indian off the stack. For the moment, I'll only say that it's not at all what I expected, that it's very interesting, and that I will probably review it when I finish. But I want to mention one bit, in which he quotes the Bengali poet/savant Ram Mohun Roy:

Just consider how terrible the day of your death will be.
Others will go on speaking, and you will not be able to argue back.

Hah!