Q: Are the snakes big?

A: We have lots of different snakes. The quality of your work determines which snake you will fight. The better your thesis is, the smaller the snake will be.

So many layers of hilarity. The undertone of academic smugness and superiority. A++++

One of my favorite McSweeney's articles. It only gets more hilarious towards the end. Very funny satirical take on some of the more bizarre (but very real) traditions in academia.

> Although if you get a poisonous snake, it often means that there was a problem with the formatting of your bibliography.

The Python reimplementation of BibTeX can’t be done soon enough.