So, does it reflect well or poorly upon me that my thesis adviser is also the creator of the Bulwer-Lytton bad-writing contest?

The 2004 winners have been announced. If I’d been a judge, this would have been #1:

Johnny’s first kiss with Melissa knocked him back on his heels like the bass line of the “Theme from Peter Gunn” — an odd sensation since Johnny wasn’t born until 1972 and Peter Gunn was over because Blake Edwards, who created Peter Gunn, had begun the Pink Panther movies starring another Peter, Peter Sellars, best remembered for his performance as Chauncey Gardner in “Being There” but whose truly great role was in “Dr. Strangelove” co-starring Slim Pickens who rides an atomic bomb to earth where it explodes — and that was what Melissa’s first kiss was really like.

Kent Neely, Edwardsville, IL, 7/02/2004