One of the things I like best about my cellphone is the ability to take photos anywhere I am of anything I see that happens to interest or amuse me. Here I post three photos of things that caught my eye because, well, the messaging is… off. Click the thumbnails to maximize the photos in a new tab.

1. The UCR campus is frequently visited by blood donation vans, either LifeStream or the American Red Cross. This van belongs to the latter, and because I have a keen eye for the grammatical mistakes of other people, this jumped out at me. What happened here? Is it the word “giveth” as a throwback to King James Bible language, and somebody put a space there accidentally? Is it supposed to say “give the gift of life” and they lost everything after the first five letters and decided it would be too much work to undo their efforts?

2.If you’re a Doctor Who fan, specifically of the Tenth Doctor, you might be able to figure out what episode this blurb is describing. Or you can just look at the episode number- season two, episode thirteen. The season finale. Who wrote this? “Two mighty armies… terror emerges…. the Doctor faces a dilemma”. A dilemma? That’s the best word they could come up with? And that’s not even considering what happens at the end of that episode! I don’t want to put spoilers, but if you know the episode (or look it up), you’ll see why “the Doctor faces a dilemma” is the lamest understatement ever.

3. “This computer” doesn’t exist anymore. “This computer” has been moved elsewhere. “This port” is no longer assigned to “this computer”, and somebody has in fact dared to “disconnect the network cable from this computer”. This is no longer a computer station in the library. This is now a quiet study station. This notice is obsolete and uses “this” way too much.

And I need to double-check, but I don’t think the outlets work anymore, either.