The Night of the Deadly Bed

Cheryl, safely arrived in Boston and staying in the hotel where we'll be for SMOFCon in December, reports on a story in the Guardian that says IKEA furniture could prove dangerous because 67% of male flatpack furniture buyers don't read the instructions. Yikes! I managed to mis-assemble a couple of pieces even when I did read the instructions. (Despite IKEA's best efforts to avoid it, there are times when they end up with parts that can be assembled in two orientations, one of which is wrong, and I seem to have bad luck in guessing which way is right.)

I'm too much of an engineer to not read the directions. But as I reckon everyone has figured out by now, I'm not much of a manly man.

The title of this post, BTW, is a tribute to a 1960s TV show. Some of you may even recognize it.

How Long Until Pitchers and Catchers Report?

And so another baseball season ends, and MLB manages to avoid November Baseball and late-season snow-outs. But now I agree with gridlore that the Red Sox are no longer plucky underdogs. Their curse is now well and truly broken. Personally, I was hoping Colorado would have been able to pull it out, as it would have been fitting for the Sox to lose four straight to lose the Series.

And, like gridlore, my first thought when I heard during last night's game that Alex Rodriguez will become a free agent was, "Hm, the Giants have money available now." However, given how much A-Rod was making at New York, the Giants would have to once more mortgage the franchise on a single player in order to pick up the superstar. Unless he were somehow willing to take a pay cut to get away from New York, which seems highly unlikely.

Joining the Flock, Baah

Particularly as my friends list seems to have been taken as a sample of what other fans' results are, I've taken the current version of the Aspie Quiz.

( Results graph )

It has been a minor article of faith that fandom has a higher-than-usual proportion of people with Asperger Syndrome. At least, it seems that some of the more negative traits associated with SF fandom also tend to exist in people with AS. As noted here, anecdotal, non-scientific surveying of the members of my friends list who have taken the survey suggests otherwise. But take large chunks of salt before forming any conclusions from either the on-line test or the survey of my f-list.

I seem to be hanging around the center of the chart, eh? Too weird for my co-workers and too "normal" for fandom?