Libraries kill -- or at least maim

This morning, late for a meeting, I rounded a flight of stairs in our brand new, multi-million dollar library and gouged my shoulder on the pointy brass bannister. It hurt like a motherfucker and scraped a bit of skin off.

Apparently, I'm the fourth reported case of bannister-gouging. My boss nearly impaled himself through the chest last week (he would have demonstrated the nice progression of his bruise for all of us in the meeting, had he not been in full business attire). Others have similar bruises and scabs. I got off light.

Our library has been ballyhooed as a gem of collegiate gothic architecture. It seems the architects weren't content with arches, and fieldstones, though. No, they went for the full Dark Age experience and made as many the fixtures as pointy and weapon-like as possible. If there's ever an earthquake, I fear for the librarians, who will be skewered by falling light fixtures with multiple dagger-like protrusions.

Also exciting: we're undergoing a massive spam attack, and the spoofed sender address happens to be an alias ("webmaster@...") that feeds into my inbox. I've gotten three angry replies from people not smart enough to realize they've just opened a virus, and hundreds of returned messages for recipients that don't exist. It is truly a joy.