A Subject Line Guaranteed To Send Your Press Release Into The Trash

HEY! LOOK! OH MY! GOOD NEWS! HOLIDAY GIFT CERTIFICATES & FOUR DAYS LEFT in the NEDA charity auction!!!

ThinkGeek Adds Cast Puzzles

I noticed that ThinkGeek now carries a few Hanayama Cast puzzles. These are, to my mind, among the very best commercially produced puzzles. The folks at Hanayama, spurred on years ago by the late Nob Yoshigahara, seek out quality designs from the best designers in the world. In the ThinkGeek set, I particularly recommend Enigma, Baroq, O'Gear, and Chain. Star and Laby are entertaining, but not particularly interesting. And as I've mentioned before, Puzzle Master has an even better selection.

Grammar In The Times

For once, I'm not writing about a publication's grammar in a scornful way. Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl, "tweeted" a link to this great Q&A with Philip Corbett, the man who tries to keep grammar in line in the New York Times. Readers got a chance to ask questions in advance, and Corbett does a great job of parrying the thrusts of grammar sticklers while shedding light behind the scenes at the Times.

Paging An Editor: Life Begins With Pancreatic Cancer

My friend Dietsch gets credit for spotting this editing oddity in this NY Times obituary of biochemist Leslie Orgel:

Dr. Orgel had also advanced a novel idea about life’s possible arrival from outer space.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, said a spokesman for the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, where Dr. Orgel had been on the faculty since 1964.

Maybe our extraterrestrial forebears were dying of pancreatic cancer and left their home world to seek a cure?