I meant to post this last weekend. But on Sunday — and most of last week for that matter — I was in bed coughing and wheezing with some kind of cold or sinus infection. Fortunately it was not the dreaded H1N1, though my mystery bug was still unpleasant.

At any rate, in addition to coming down with a sinus infection and not writing a blog entry, I attended the annual Harvard debate tournament last weekend. I could spend lots of time ranting about the questionable cases brought against me and my partner (e.g., prosecute a voodoo-worshiper for conspiracy to commit murder?), or even discussing the mobs of young, mostly Asian parents with small children forcing their youngsters to pose in front of John Harvard's statue. But that's not what I'm going to do. Instead, I have to say something about the chalkboards in Harvard's fancy new Northwest Science Building. In a word, the chalkboards are "amazing." In fact they're so amazing, even a team from Yale was willing to admit Harvard had better chalkboards.

While the boards do nothing to fix my principle complaint about chalkboards — the horrible residue chalk leaves on my hands — the boards in Harvard's new lab science building do have some kind of engineered graphite surface that offers two huge advantages over any board I've ever used anywhere else.

First, the boards' surface make it impossible for even the most inept professor or determined troublemaker to make unpleasant noises. No squeaks. No horrible "fingernails on the chalkboard" sounds. It's great. Second, the boards' harder surface make it a chinch to actually write on the board. Whereas even my hands, which spend a dozen hours a week pounding the absurdly heavy action of a Steinway grand piano, have trouble writing on most boards, the boards in Harvard's new science building made writing a breeze.

It has become my new goal to have the chalkboards at Bates resurfaced with whatever miracle material Harvard uses. It's really that good.