If you were ever the least bit curious, you probably know by now that my subheading at the top of every page comes from the Lewis Carroll poem The Walrus and the Carpenter, which in turn is from Through the Looking Glass -- and What Alice Found There, which in turn is public domain, its copyright having run out years ago.

What you probably didn't know (and what I didn't know until today) is that my subheading is also at the very beginning of Chapter 1 of my CS422 textbook, a rather dry Computer Science tome about Operating Systems. While an amusing coincidence that almost makes me want to read the rest of Chapter 1, it does not justify the exorbitant $90.50 price I paid for this book at our illustrious campus bookstore.

I had cleverly written down the ISBN number yesterday and found a copy of it online for $55, but when I tried to purchase this and many other cheaper copies on the World Wide Web of Lies, I found that it was sold out everywhere. Coincidence? Or clever plot by our damn bookstore to force us to shell out more than the list price for a book that we'll be lucky to sell back for $25? Either way, I dub thee arch-nemesis number one, WashU Campus Bookstore. I already have the knowledge necessary to evade your mindless security system, don't make me have to use it...