Just got back from the dentist, which was a 45-minute visit rather than the 3-hour visit I got to experience the last time. Everything went well and I have no more problems, yay!

Just finished reading "A Taxonomy of Barnacles" by Galt Niederhoffer, which was okay but which boasted the largest number of editing errors I've seen in a book in a long long time. For instance, one of the characters briefly turned into another character during one long paragraph. Another character opened his closet to see a row of colorful "Oxford shits". Well, maybe he did.

There was also a lot of sloppiness like this: "As Billy watched, Trot wiped down the counters and glass cases with almost religious concentration. He mussed his hair and untucked his shirt in an effort to distance himself from the Upper East Side." The sloppiness? The "he" starting the second sentence referred to Billy, not Trot. Confusing, no? On another page, a character declares "Here, here!" in approval of a statement. It should be "hear, hear!"

And one that really bugged me, in reference to an old dog: "Age had weakened his old bones, preventing him from alighting even the distance from the floor to the living room sofa." Alighting? Really? That's really the word you want? I don't think so.

Are there just no copy editors any more?