Sunday Nov. 1 marks the resumption of what the old folks at home used to call "God's Time" - that is, the end of Daylight Saving (not Savings!) Time.

Being a morning person, I will rejoice to wake up to dawn, and to do my outside chores without aid of a headlamp. But I'll still feel that sense of tempus fugit when I look out the window at 4 p.m. and it's getting on toward dusk and I still have all this work to do!

A Facebook friend linked to this hilarious and squirm-inducing column in the New Yorker on the new face of marketing in the publishing world.

Or maybe I shouldn't say face, as many of the barbs point to how faceless it has become. And how much many authors are cast onto their own resources to flog their work, such as Michael Perry, a longtime friend and occasional contributor to some of the titles I have edited. (Note: humorist Dave Barry calls it "strumpeting," and who are we to disagree?)

At the recent Modern Day Marine Expo at Quantico, VA, I happened to see one of those typos so easy to make - hit the key next to the one you mean to and oops! This one was a reminder that, with the military using more and more robots to carry out all sorts of tasks, the machines are only as good as the people programming and directing them.

This reminded me of a non-typo that was still an unintended slip - a sign directing patients at a hospital to the adjacent Medical Office Building read "MOB Entrance."

Dust off your old copies of Writing in Style and the MLA Style Guide and celebrate this 24-hour period that has been designated National Punctuation Day. Read, or re-read, Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Engage your friends in spirited debates over comma faults, and when to use a dash and when to employ a colon. Heck, get a colonoscopy if you're really into it! (As a sometime writer for the trucking industry, I prefer the semi-colon myself, but each to their own.) Today is a day for proudly picking apart the latest issue of your daily newspaper!

Like Lucy Arnaz, Fox News has some 'splaining to do about an ad that appeared in three major newspapers on Friday, proclaiming that other major news outlets had not covered a recent massive "Tea Party" in Washington. The problem is, they did cover the event - and with more than just a passing clip. The ad appeared in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post, both of which are owned or controlled by Fox owner Rupert Murdoch, and in the Washington Post, an MSM outlet if ever there was one, which makes that buy somewhat mystifying. The whole thing is mystifying since it's so easily disproved - and it's probably already spawned some Internet email blasts that will circulate for years.

Though it probably won't join VP candidate Dan Quayle's "potatoe" in the Typo Hall of Fame, this press release from the U.S. Department of Education certainly deserves a dishonorable mention. Embarrassingly titled "President Obama To Speak Directly To Students In National Address On Educational Success," the release announces the Prez will address "Schoochildren." Here's a screen capture of the release, in case someone inside the Beltway decides to correct it.