Dear academic reader, your advisor was or will be chosen by rolling a one hundred-sided die against a table much like this. You may find this explains many things.
Roll : Result
1-2 : Nice
3-12 : Raving lunatic psycho
13-14 : Serial killer escapee
15-17 : Rubber fetishist
18-21 : Charles Manson
22-23 : Mute
24-25 : Ex-drill sergeant
26-27 : Narcoleptic
28-29 : Affable but clueless
30-32 : Feedbacker (“Ah, but what do you think about what you thought about what I said about your feelings?”)
33-35 : Unstable (“And this form of an integer is, is fine, because it decomposes better than the rotting body of a skinned lady-of-the-evening in a midsummer Tuskegee swamp!” (blinks) “I didn’t mean anything by that.”)
36-38 : Stalker (“This is normal academic supervision. Now proceed with the lady, please.”)
39-42 : Recursion tasker (“Easy. You prove Lemma A with Theorem C, just add that. C is proven with E — that’s a corollary of Theorem 5.1, which follows from chapters 1-4…”)
43-44 : Law savvy (“Well, actually, I do own you. Study plan section 5-C.”)
45-46 : Zen (“When the pupil is ready to learn, a teacher will appear. You clearly aren’t ready yet.”)
47-48 : Believer (“Problems with your thesis? Let us pray.”)
49-51 : Token hippie (“Turn on, tune in, drop out.”)
52-57 : Fund-a-mentalist (“Ah yes, you… I have funding for you from the Imperial Zoo of Hamburg. The cage arrives tomorrow.”)
58 : Tinfoil man (Has an irrational fear of cellphones and computers. Communicates by slips of paper thrust under his office door. Attends official functions in a tinfoil suit.)
59-61 : Technohazard (He enters your room and your thesis is replaced by a blue screen of death.)
62-65 : Mystic (“I cannot help you. You must seek the answer from Beyond.”)
66-67 : Yoda (“Mudhole? Slimy? My office this is!”)
68-69 : Chewbacca (Has some communication problems.)
70-74 : The Emperor (“Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design.”)
75-77 : Darth Vader (“You have failed me for the last time!”)
78-81 : Saruman (“And yet you did not have the wit to see it. Your love of the Halflings’ leaf has clearly slowed your mind.”)
82-84 : Sauron (Secretary tells you that “My Master, Sauron the Great, bids thee welcome. Remember, he doesn’t allow his name to be spoken or expressed in any form.”)
85-87 : Gollum (“My preciousss… Precious funding… Gone! All gone! The grad student! We hates it! We hates it forever! It shall pay!”)
88-89 : Great Old One (Probably either Dr. Atlach-Nacha or Dr. Glaaki. Says “I live again!” a lot.)
90 : Cthulhu (“Ph’nglui mglw’bhok Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn” or “In his office at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming”.)
91 : Conan the Barbarian (“Black-haired, sullen-eyed, [...] a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth.”)
92-93 : Sadist (“Pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”)
94 : Proverber (“If you don’t crack the shell, you can’t eat the nut. Understand?”)
95-96 : Lao Tzu (“Wise men hear and see as little children do… Wanna cookie! Wanna cookie!”)
97 : The advisor is dead, but the department can’t afford losing his prestigious name. The secretary recommends using an Ouija board.
98 : The advisor is held in the local correctional facility. He apparently did something to his previous grad students. You have to remove your tie and shoelaces before you’re allowed to see him.
99 : The advisor is your mother, father, son, daughter, brother or sister. This is not good.
100 : The advisor is a difficult person.
