If you only read the Washington Post for one thing, read it for its offbeat profiles of weird people in the Style section. Screw politics! Today they profile an author named Max Holland, who's spent the last 12 years—12 years!—working on a book about the Kennedy assassination. His big revelation in that decade-plus of research? That maybe there was a gunshot before the Zapruder film started filming. But, a shot that missed! So who cares, right? Are Kennedy assassination people the most serious-minded crazies in America? Very possibly:

Priscilla Johnson McMillan, who knew both Kennedy and Oswald, spent 13 years working on "Marina and Lee," a book that sought to be the definitive word on the assassin. It was published in 1977. Gerald Posner's years-in-the-making 624-page "Case Closed," which sought to be the last word on the case, was published in 1994. Vincent Bugliosi spent 20 years on "Reclaiming History," his 1,648-page tome that sought to settle everything, once and for all. That was last year. And still, here sits Max Holland, working on a book that he says will go a good 600 pages. He has to have a draft to the publisher by October. There is still, after 12 years, no publication date.

Twelve years he's been working. And he's not just some nut. He's a professor! Furthermore, his biggest critic: a guy who agrees with him!

"Transparently and pathetically irresponsible." Whoa! This last is from Dale Myers, who won an Emmy for his computer animation work on the Zapruder film. He studied the assassination for 35 years and developed a computer-generated, three-dimensional model of the assassination sequence. He thinks Oswald did it, too.

Maybe you people need to be introduced to Super Mario Bros. [WP]