This is how much emailing and using online message boards has corrupted me:

In commenting on one of the chapters, I indicated that the author included far too much detail (for an introductory class) on life tables and demography. I made the remark that "I’d prefer for them to get a good general feel for the patterns rather than worrying about the numbers."

And then I added, parenthetically:" (Ecology is when they can worry about the numbers!)" And I stopped just short of putting a smilie :) or a winking smilie ;) at the end of that comment.

Egad.