Absurdities

Three thing today have struck me as somewhat absurd...

1. Nature Publishing seem to have figured out that I only need (and subscribe to) one copy of their journal, as they have indeed stopped sending me two copies... This in itself is not absurd, but all the events leading up to this have been!

2. I am under consideration to be in the 2009 edition of "Who's Who America"... Seriously! This is absurd for too many reasons to list!

3. Finally, an absurdity from the world of sport... At the beginning of December Shaquille O'Neal (playing for Miami) was mistakenly fouled out of a game (he had 5 fouls and not the 6 fouls required for "fouling out"). This was a mistake by the scoring officials who were employed by the opposition team (Atlanta). The NBA decided that this was a major error as the scores were very close, and that the removal of Shaq from the game may have contributed to Miami losing. So the NBA declared that both parties were to replay the remaining part of the game (all 51 seconds!) when they next meet to play each other... in March! So, replaying 51 seconds of a game, on a different court, some 3 months later is absurd enough, but it gets worse... Yesterday Shaq was traded to another team (Phoenix), making him ineligible to play in the remaining 51 seconds, but Miami and Atlanta are still required to go through with it!!! So two teams are required to replay 51 seconds of a basketball game because a player who won't be able to play was mistakenly not available to play the original 51 seconds... Uh huh!