Hidden talents.

Working in academia is a pretty grueling experience- a treadmill of teaching, publishing, researching, grant writing and, occasionally, having some sort of social life. And when you're done with all that, then you're denied tenure. As such, I am always very impressed when I realize that some academics manage to branch out beyond the norm. In fact, some academics manage to do things that are very much out of the ordinary for we crazy scholars. Take John G. Cramer and Harry Turtledove, a physicist and historian, respectively, who are also successful science fiction authors. There's Victor Vroom, an organizational scholar and accomplished jazz musician, and Dan Myers who, judging from his blog, may just play rock guitar. I even seem to recall that a few academics have spent some time as stand-up comedians, though I confess the names elude me right now.

Recently, however, I realized that there's another name I have to add to this list of scholars who have secret other lives. Last night my Sainted Fiancee was blowing off some steam by playing a little Civ III. I happened to glance over at her computer while she was plotting her next technological advancement, and saw a screen that looked like this:



Almost immediately, something about this image caught my eye. Specifically, the little dude in the upper right hand corner caught my attention:



I've circled him in red and, as always, you can click on the picture for a larger version. Something about this "science advisor" reminded me of someone else. But who? Who was I reminded of? And then, ladies and gentlemen, it hit me:



Jeremy Freese is the science advisor in Civ III. The resemblance is simply uncanny and I have no choice but to assume that Jeremy is moonlighting as a model for video game companies.

I tell ya, just when you think you know a guy...


Jeremy's picture is used without permission so, of course, I'll remove it if he wants.