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."

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?)

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!