Yesterday's popculturejunkmail answered one question that's been troubling me for several years. "Yes, DEK, one of your students for whom you're trying to teach math, is in fact trying to smell like a cake, on purpose. It's not a happy accident."

On Tuesday, Mark went into a little more detail about the sort of thing that I mentioned as making sense at the time at Trashmasters. TiVo and Amazon have similar ideas about data collection (I think they might even share databases), where they use previous known views/purchases to supply a set of upfront options for you, because the software thinks you might like them. Applying this logic to quizbowl, and specifically to what you answer in a trash tournament, however, would result in remarkable stupidity. Especially after playing with teammates who are faster than me on a lot of things that we all know, leaving that very extreme tip of "knowledge without shame" as my primary contribution. It would probably bear a frightening resemblance to Smithers' Amazon wish list (were such a beast to exist.)