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E has taken a break from grading papers to grading TV shows, and notes that The Class has room for improvement. TV comedy writers (including ninja experts and former receptionists), take heed.

Step two would be to please GOD let the Kat and Ethan relationship remain platonic. Men and women can be friends, really they can! We don’t need the When Harry Met Sally replay.

Sadly, the rebuttal is natural:

Harry: Doesn’t matter, because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story.

Ugh. You can’t tell from the web version (from which photographs and drawings are conspicuously absent), but this week’s Thresher was mistakenly printed with 72-dpi placement-only preview artwork instead of full-resolution, camera-ready photography. The only exceptions are advertisements (which always undergo some kind of bizarre print-rescan-reprint cycle, making them all halftone-fuzzy in a completely different way), the editorial cartoon (better than usual this week), and the front cover’s Owls football photo. (Very important to get that one right.)

Update: I shouldn’t be too hard on this week’s paper. I have to say that the football preview (and accompanying strategy pieces: offense, defense) is a well-written and engaging piece that’s actually got me kind of excited about the season. I thought this was pretty interesting:

Armstrong is not the only player forced to play a new position. Even players listed at the same position as last season have had to learn a completely new set of techniques and responsibilities — like the wide receivers, who often serve more as blockers in an option offense. Expect to see a constant shuffle of jerseys at the receiving spots, as every receiver has a chance to see playing time. Four of the new recruits are wide receivers, and no redshirts have been declared.

“All four [freshmen wide receivers] have a chance to play,” Applewhite said.

While many teams redshirt most recruits to give them time to learn the playbook, all of Rice’s players are learning a new system at once, so that particular rationale does not necessarily apply.

Add to that an intervew with Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson of Clerks II, and you have a pretty robust issue.

Notwithstanding the photos.

Update 2: Over on riceowls.com I see that we have a new athletic logo. Anyone out there have photos (or, preferably, line art) of the new design? (Aside: What’s with the “War Owls” thing? Weren’t we just “owls” before? And what exactly is a “war owl”? I’m basically imagining Hedwig with a leather battle helm.)

I’ll be in Vancouver all next week for USENIX Security. No, I don’t have a paper or a demo; the first Electronic Voting Technology workshop is contiguous and co-located, so my advisor and I are attending the whole week. The ACCURATE group will also be getting together to share ideas and WIP.

Of course, you gentle readers won’t really notice, since my writing here has been so erratic and sparse of late. Even E has been better about updating over the last few weeks.

I don’t think I’ll bring a proper camera (as my advisor will most certainly have his vastly superior photographic equipment on hand), but I’ll have my phone, so you may see some photos appear over here from time to time.

I’ll leave you with this excellent little exchange from last night, as Glenn and I discuss the prospect of catching a midnight screening of The Wrath of Khan at the Drafthouse.

Naturally, I am conflicted about about The Prestige (for which there is now a trailer for your viewing enjoyment). On the one hand, the cast and director simply cannot be beat. On the other hand, does this mean there won’t be any interest in a film version of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell?

The following (somewhat incoherent) blog entry is best justified using the following formula:

B = a × p(t) × E^-1 + h

a = Attempt to clear out excess beer from previous parties
p = probability that beer has gone bad since time t
t = time of previous parties
E = rationalizing force usually in effect around the house
E^-1 = lack of said force
h = HBO film schedule for summer
B = sappy blog entry

This entry is thusly subtitled:

Luigi the Car has posted an audio review (MP3, 1:40, 690K) of the new Pixar movie “Cars.”

(An explanation of this nonsense continues inside.)

Fig. 1.   Mel Gibson is weird.