The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep

And/or an apology. Or so saith Gavin MacQueen.

Mr. MacQueen, we believe you. Without even trying to verify the information you offer, we believe you. The overwhelming sense of ineptitude that characterizes the Quiz's storied history is so well-established that only the Justice Department and the Army Corps of Engineers have a stronger record for getting it wrong (though, sadly, we've never been able to link our bumbling to any kind of worthwhile political corruption). The probability of our having miscredited the insidious Alexander Samuelsson (even the number of s's in his name should have alerted us to his serpentine character) -- as well as having mischaracterized nearly everything about the patenting of the Coca-Cola bottle design -- is roughly equal to the likelihood that we're all going to be really sick of reading bad "farewell to the Sopranos" headline puns in the near future.

We regret the error.