Day: February 3, 2004

Well, it looks like digging my car out from the snow is a losing battle. It’s flanked by two empty parking spaces and, therefore, knee-deep snowdrifts. I tried shoveling away as much as I could from the rear of the car, but there’s no guarantee that tomorrow morning I’ll be able to get to the car, that the wheels will be able to move, or that the snow plows won’t have piled snow behind the car all over again.

I’m trying to decide if this is a bad thing.

Anyway. In my search referrers this morning, there’s the following question. At least, I think it’s a question:

who wrote: alas poor yorick! i knew him!

Well, you did, Mystery Searcher. The actual quote you’re probably looking for is:

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is!

But that’s just being pedantic. The truth is, there’s some debate. Most people you ask would probably say William Shakespeare. (And did you know you can just type the word “complete” into Google and get that link as your first result? Pretty keen, huh?) Some would say Francis Bacon or Christopher Marlowe or Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. And still yet others would claim that it was actually Mr. Norman Voles of Gravesend, but that’s one claim that usually falls to the ground pretty quick. It’s a pretty old debate and seems to have arisen largely due to an incomplete historical record and literary snobbery. It’s used to quite nice comic effect in Jasper Fforde’s book The Eyre Affair, in which Baconians go door-to-door Jehovah’s-Witness-like, proselytizing on the true and only author. (Incidentally, did you also know that if you type just the word “proselytizing” into Google, the first result is the definition? I find that amusing.)

Personally, I tend to favor William Shakespeare as the author. I’ve never much held with snobbery, and people much smarter than me have pored over countless books over countless years and still haven’t reached a definite conclusion. I’m not sure it matters, really. As old what’s his name also said, “the play’s the thing”.

I’m having a very difficult time trying to figure out why we’re open today. I suspect it’s because it didn’t start snowing until 7 am. Of course, in that time, it’s snowed about two or three inches already and shows no sign of letting up. See?

And now I see that, as of 8:08 am, “Penn State University Park is open for business today. However, all classes for today and this evening are cancelled.” Which doesn’t make any sense to me. Not that I think the students should have to go to class in this, but for the most part they friggin’ live here. It’s the roads that are really bad.

I really don’t think we should be here today.

Addendum: Never mind. Just now, at 8:28, my boss called to tell me I could go home. (He tried me at home, but like an idiot I’m already here. Time to not be anymore.)