HAS PERRIN GONE OVER THE EDGE?

Lakewood, NJ, resident Carl Perrin, seeking to establish his reputation as a computer nerd, recently acquired a binary clock—not digital, mind you, but binary. Instead of conventional numbers, the clock has a series of lights, which represent numbers in binary code.

We sent our reporter to interview the legendary nerd. Perrin was eager to show us his new toy. “The first light in each column represents one, the second represent two, and the third is four. It doubles each times it moves up one place. It’s a four-bit binary number. It’s really fascinating the way it works.”

Perrin’s wife, the long-suffering Janet, merely rolled her eyes. “You think this is bad,” she said. “You should hear him when he gets started on grammar.”