Some thoughts after having spent a few days bedridden with a low-grade fever:

There’s long been a fascinating line of study into parasitology and epidemiology that shows that certain diseases can cause their victims to behave in different ways, with results that are beneficial to the parasite. I’m reminded of a breed of ants which, when infected by a certain intestinal bug (or whatever passes for intestines in an ant), have an uncontrollable desire to climb up to the top of a blade of grass, where they get eaten by birds. The birds, naturally, deposit the ant remains and the still-living intestinal bugs some distance away, and this is how the wee beasties get around to new communities.

Therefore, I believe that poker is the result of a similar mind-alteration by disease. Think about it: you sit around a table for hours, passing small round objects back and forth with everyone else at the table. Invariably, you touch your face and eyes as part of your unconscious tell system, which also conveys anything on the chips from your hands to your mucous membranes, where they can wreak havoc.

Or at least, that the best explanation I have for why that coughing bastard was sitting at the table with me at Bally’s last week, who apparently passed along his cough along with several stacks of his chips. Granted that the amount I won is greater than my cost of meds since then — but sheesh, talk about a good reason for Internet poker.

Dear Sirs,

Considering that your hotel in-room products are, by definition, designed for customers who have not yet had their first cup of coffee, it would be splendid if you changed your packet design so it is more obvious which is creamer and which is sugar, especially for your customers who are so obstinate that they will pour in two packets of sugar waiting for their coffee to lighten.

Best regards,
Jeff Porten

Huh. I know the next president of Harvard.

Personal anecdote about Drew Faust: I was in her survey class, Am Civ 7: The American South, back when I was an undergraduate at Penn. Unlike most of my American Civ classes, this one was huge; fulfilled a lot of requirements and very popular. Maybe 300 students in the class.

A few weeks into the term, I had a question about something or other and showed up at her office hours. I’d been the front-row-sitting, ask-a-lot-of-questions kind of student in the lectures, but still expected to introduce myself. She looks up from her desk and says, “Hi, Jeff, what can I do for you?”

I’m thinking the Crimson made a good call.