Category Archives: Total trivia

The flip-floppers of ‘Lost’

John Locke at his most obsessed. Trust him, or not?

If you’ve never watched “Lost,” and intend to someday, don’t read this, because I’m going to give some stuff away.

I didn’t watch it when it was on, maybe because I had seen bits of it, and it made no sense, or so I inferred.

Now, I have almost finished watching all six seasons on Netflix, and I know for sure — without having to infer — that it makes no sense. I would have finished watching all of it by now, except that I turn it off and look for something else when my wife enters the room. Not because I’m sensitive to what she wants to see, but because I don’t want to be scoffed at. Because I know it’s silly, but I’m determined to see it to the end. NOT because I have any expectation of the ending being satisfying, but because I can’t help myself.

I thought it was a flawed show before I watched it, and now I know just how flawed it is, in great detail. And the greatest flaw, the greatest sin against storytelling, is its inconsistency.

I’m reminded of this by something Kathryn shared with me via email. It’s this piece, on a subject I addressed last week (“Let’s hear it for the flip-floppers — compared to the rigid ideologues, they are a breath of fresh air,” Feb. 28). It from NPR, and it says in part:

But we have lots of brain circuits that are making predictions about all kinds of things, every second of every day. And the brain pays special attention to other people, Linden says.

“We’re extremely attuned to the veracity, and the predictability, and the group spirit and the motivations of those around us,” he says

That’s probably from thousands of years living in groups. To stay alive, we had to know if the person who helped us yesterday might hurt us tomorrow.

Prediction is so important that our brains actually give us a chemical reward when we do it well, Linden says.

“We are intrinsically wired to take pleasure from our predictions that come true,” he says.

Get it right and you get a burst of pleasure-inducing dopamine or a related brain chemical. Get it wrong and dopamine levels dip, Linden says.

All that training makes us extremely sensitive to the consistency and predictability of people we depend on, Linden says.

“If we have a sense that there is a mismatch between our prediction and their actions, that is something that sets off neural alarm bells,” he says. And if we think they have been inconsistent about something fundamental, he says, we will feel betrayed.

“When we feel deeply betrayed, either by a leader, or by someone in our social circle, or by our beloved, that pain really is similar to physical pain,” Linden says.

In other words, we’re hard-wired to suffer from the inconsistency of flip-floppers. No wonder we don’t like them.

Well, maybe. And that would help to explain why I don’t like the central flaw in “Lost:” You can’t rely on the characters to be consistent.

Take John Locke, for instance:

  • First, you like him. You’re cheering for him because you’re glad he can walk again. And you like that his knowledge of outdoor lore (which I guess he got from books or something) — tracking, knife-throwing, boar-killing, etc. — can be useful to the castaways. He’s a reassuring presence, an avuncular figure who befriends the boy with the dog and makes a cradle for Clair’s baby.
  • Then, you start to wonder about him, as he starts talking about what “the island” wants and demands, and obsessing about “the Hatch.”
  • Then, you’re SURE he’s nuts, as he makes a religion out of pushing the button.
  • Then, you find out he was RIGHT, because not pushing the button was what crashed their plane to begin with. And leads to a catastrophic mess when it happens again.
  • Then, you find out about his miserable life before the island, and you really sympathize with him.
  • Then, he dies.
  • Then, he turns up alive after his body is brought back to the island.
  • Then, it turns out he’s dead after all, and the “Locke” we see is really the Smoke Monster.
  • Then, character A trusts him anyway, and tries to do his bidding, while Character B fights him as hard as possible.
  • Then, Character B trusts him completely, and Character A strives to frustrate him.

And… well that’s as far as I’ve gotten.

There are a couple of character arcs that are a little more consistent, but still jarring. Such as the steady degradation of Jack from Boy Scout Everyone Can Rely On to nervous, neurotic wreck who might do anything. Meanwhile, Sawyer goes from the guy you can’t trust to a fairly heroic figure, more or less.

Other characters will switch back and forth, sometimes more than once in an episode, from bad to good, trustworthy to untrustworthy. Note how many times we are led to believe that it’s a good idea to trust Ben Linus, only to find out, yet again, that it is not?

Beyond the characters, there’s the fact that the Explanation of What is Going On keeps changing. Something is revealed, then we learn that that is an illusion, and it’s deeper than that, on and on down the rabbit hole. (Speaking of rabbits, the occasional allusion is fun. Such as when a lab rabbit is referred to by name as “Angstrom.” Or the characters named for philosophers.)

“Lost” isn’t the worst in this regard. The worst case of this I’ve ever seen in a TV series was another cultish series, “24.” Within the bounds of a single episode, a character who we are led to believe we can all trust our lives to turns out to be the incarnation of evil, and then switches back. Which is made even more outrageous when we consider that this is all supposedly happening within one hour’s time.

I felt so manipulated and abused by that series that I gave up after two seasons.

So why am I still watching “Lost”? I don’t know. Maybe it’s the scenery. In any case, I don’t have far to go now…

Grow up and put your clothes on

Two weeks ago, when I arrived back at CAE from my trip to Key West, I saw an unusual sight in the baggage claim area. A woman had brought two children to greet an arriving man — husband and father probably, but I have no way of knowing — and the kids were in their pajamas. Fine. Made sense, I suppose, being a little before 9 p.m.

But here’s the thing — the woman I took to be the Mom was in her bathrobe and slippers. Presumably, also pajama-clad beneath the robe.

This seemed a bit much. It’s not like the arrival was not scheduled, and/or was taking place at 3 a.m.

Then, I ran across this on the Web:

Pajamas are on the rise. Across the land, according to the Wall Street Journal, teenagers have taken to wearing PJs all day, even in public—even to school! Apparel companies like Abercrombie & Fitch and American Eagle are cashing in on the trend, stocking their stores with leggings and sweatpants and other comfortable, flowy, elastic waistbanded apparel. Pajamas are even popping up in high fashion: Here’s Sofia Coppola happily, gorgeously stepping outside during the day in Louis Vuitton pajamas, and here’s designer Rachel Roy attending a movie premiere in her own brand of jammies. Last week Shopbop.com, a women’s clothing site that tracks new “looks,” exhorted its customers to “get comfortable with pajama dressing.” Among its wares were several silk blouses selling for more than $200 each; a pair of silk drawstring plaid pants with elastic cuffs for $495; and these $845 (!) wide-leg print pants constructed out of sateen, a fabric that I think is mostly used to make bed sheets.

As you might expect, a whole lot of silly and just-plain-mean people aren’t happy about this nascent pajama craze. A number of school districts have banned sleeping clothes on the theory that they somehow inhibit students’ motivation. The idea, I guess, is that taking the time to dress up for school makes you ready to learn—which sounds plausible until you think about it for five seconds. Isn’t spending time worrying about what you’ll wear an even bigger distraction from academics?

Some people are so upset with pajamas they want to bring in the law. Michael Williams, a commissioner in Louisiana’s Caddo Parish, won national headlines a few weeks ago by calling for a ban on pajamas in public. Under Williams’ proposed ordinance, people caught wearing pajamas—which he defines as clothes sold in the sleepwear section of department stores—would be forced to perform community service. (I wonder if they would be required to wear orange jumpsuits—which look like very comfortable pajamas—while serving their sentences.) Williams told the Journal that the daytime pajama trend signaled America’s dwindling “moral fiber,” and then added a nutty slippery-slope argument to bolster his point: “It’s pajamas today; what is it going to be tomorrow? Walking around in your underwear?”

Precisely. And there’s nothing nutty about it, given that that’s precisely what I wear to bed, and I’m guessing a lot of guys are with me on that. I have only this to say about the PJ trend: I don’t hold with it. I mean, come on, people — make an effort. Count me among the “silly and just-plain-mean people.” Somebody’s gotta draw a line somewhere.

There are related phenomena which I will also decry. Saturday night, I saw an SNL rerun from just before Christmas. The musical guest was someone unfamiliar to me, a Michael Bublé. He is apparently a crooner who aspires to the Sinatra-to-Tony Bennett spectrum. Although I’m thinking Andy Williams-Wayne Newton is more like his speed.

Anyway, he was perched on a barstool with a microphone, dressed in black tie. Which was appropriate, this being well after 6 p.m. But here’s the thing: He hadn’t shaved in a day or two. And if his close-cropped hair had ever known a comb, it was not obvious. He kept smiling at the audience in this particularly smarmy manner, and all I could think was, Hey, you want to ingratiate yourself? Take a minute to shave. It’s not that freaking hard. It takes less time than putting on a tux. Give it a try.

I really don’t know what is supposed to be achieved with the “I can’t be bothered to shave” look. It wasn’t even careful, Sonny Crockett can’t be bothered to shave. It was actually like he got up that morning and looked in the mirror and said, Nah. Not gonna do it. I’m just going on live national TV, and my thing is to look like somebody from the 40s, when men were carefully barbered, but nah…

Back to the PJ thing. Ladies, if that’s what you want to do, go for it. But be advised — full-length PJs are not a good look, for anybody.

As for guys, I’ve gotta ask — how many guys even wear pajamas to sleep? I’m thinking, not that many. I mean, what’s underwear for? I know that nobody wants to see me in public in what I wear in the sack, and I respect that. So should everybody else.

Born to rule, that’s me (Can a quiz be wrong?)

First, I think this quiz is fixed. Wes Wolfe Tweeted out that he’d taken a “which Downton Abbey character are you” quiz, and turned out to be “Robert, Earl of Grantham.”

So I took it — there are only seven questions, all multiple choice — and sure enough, I, too, am the lord of the manor.

Of course, as I was taking it, I was deliberately (but honestly, except when the questions were too silly to have an honest answer) answering the questions that I knew would take me in that direction — with one or two exceptions. In response to the question, “I have a whole weekend to myself! I’m going to…,” I did not answer “Attend a jolly good foxhunt, followed by billiards and cigars.” That’s because I enjoyed the answer, “What’s a ‘weekend’?” so much. I knew that another character said that — the old lady who is clueless how the world works outside of Downton.

But even when I turned away from that path, I still ended up being the earl. For instance, on “My favorite movie is…,” the honest answer for me was “The Godfather.” So I said that, knowing that the best answer for the earl was “Henry V” — which would have been my second choice. I ended up being the earl anyway. And when I went back and tried it again, answering “Henry V” this time, I was still the earl.

I have a theory that the thing is rigged. Would anyone, taking this, end up being one of the downstairs characters? I doubt it, unless they were trying.

If you take it, let me know where you end up.

Then they came for the people with good taste…

I really like this treatment, in The New York Times, of the silly-sounding new film, “Anonymous:”

“Was Shakespeare a fraud?” That’s the question the promotional machinery for Roland Emmerich’s new film, “Anonymous,” wants to usher out of the tiny enclosure of fringe academic conferences into the wider pastures of a Hollywood audience. Shakespeare is finally getting the Oliver Stone/“Da Vinci Code” treatment, with a lurid conspiratorial melodrama involving incest in royal bedchambers, a vapidly simplistic version of court intrigue, nifty costumes and historically inaccurate nonsense. First they came for the Kennedy scholars, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Kennedy scholar. Then they came for Opus Dei, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Catholic scholar. Now they have come for me.

Professors of Shakespeare — and I was one once upon a time — are blissfully unaware of the impending disaster that this film means for their professional lives. Thanks to “Anonymous,” undergraduates will be confidently asserting that Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare for the next 10 years at least, and profs will have to waste countless hours explaining the obvious…

No, I haven’t seen it, and don’t intend to. I mean, I saw “The Da Vinci Code,” and I’d like to have that time back. I also read Foucault’s Pendulum, which was essentially the same thing (grand, paranoid conspiracy, involving the Knights Templar, reaching back into ancient times). That one really disappointed me, because I had enjoyed The Name of the Rose.

Bottom line, what does it matter who wrote those plays and poems? Whoever it was was probably the most brilliant writer of English ever, largely responsible for the linguistic and cultural hegemony of the Anglosphere. But so what if it was Will Shakespeare or Joe Blow down the street? What’s in a name, yadda, yadda? It’s not like the actual person can enjoy our adulation today. We can’t shake him by the hand or anything. He can’t make any money out of it. Having that name, and that visage, associated with the works suits fine. And since no one will ever know that it was someone else — even if we found a document with a royal seal attesting to it, that could be a fraud itself — what’s the point?

Would it matter that Julius Caesar was actually someone else using that name? No. Gallia would still have been divisa in partes tres. (Latin scholars, help me out — I suspect that “divisa” is wrong with “would have been.” And to me, that matters.)

It remains most likely that

They may have come for Opus Dei and gotten away with it, but they’re not coming for me, not again.

Finally got into the Hatch, and here’s all I found

Yeah, I know this is stupid, but I was struck by this drain I saw in a public restroom this morning.

It reminded me of a logo I’d seen a lot recently.

Yep, I’ve been watching “Lost” on Netflix.

When I saw this drain, I felt like maybe I was supposed to stay there and push the button every 108 minutes. But I didn’t. So if really bad stuff happens today, you know whom to blame.

Empirical proof: Nothing comes anywhere close to “The Graduate”

I’ve always been aware, on a superficial, untested level, that “The Graduate” stood in a league of its own, defying characterization.

I suppose you could call it a sort of dark comedy, if you like, or social satire, or whatever. But try to think of another movie that makes you think and feel anything like what “The Graduate” does. You can’t.

I had empirical confirmation of that tonight. I saw it among the “Watch Instantly” flicks on Netflix. I didn’t need it in my queue because I have it on DVD, but I clicked on it to put it in my queue just to see how the algorithms of Netflix dealt with it.

And as I suspected, it could not come up with movies like “The Graduate.” Look at the lame attempt above. “Kramer vs. Kramer?” “The Paper Chase?” Both fine films, but neither of them anything like “The Graduate.” Aside from the incidental presence of Dustin Hoffman in one of them, which is meaningless.

And please, do not mention the execrable, silly “Tom Jones” in the same conversation.

Netflix is far from infallible. But it generally does a better job than this. Take another quirky film, “The Usual Suspects.” A challenge, yes?

OK, there’s nothing exactly like it maybe, but some of these selections — “Memento,” “Blue Velvet,” a Hitchcock or two — at least get its range, landing in a loose pattern around it. I’d throw some of these out, though (“Eight Men Out?” Fine film, but doesn’t fit here), and throw in a Tarantino, or “The Professional.” None score a direct hit. But they come a lot closer than anything does to “The Graduate.”

Esoteric word of the day: “quotidian”

I’ve always enjoyed odd coincidences, such as this one today in the WSJ.

How often do you see “quotidian” in a newspaper? Not, um, every day, I would think.

But today, it was in two pieces, right next to each other, on the same page of The Wall Street Journal. This piece, and this one.

If I were the main character in “Rubicon,” or John Nash, the schizophrenic genius that “A Beautiful Mind” was about, I’d attach significance to this double occurrence.

But instead, I just enjoyed it.

Yep, they pinned the tail right back on ’er

Here’s the typo of the day…

Personally, I have not followed the Sarah Palin emails nonstory, but my attention was grabbed when I saw the blurb under the headline on this Slate story:

Pro-Palin Vandals Hack Twitter in Revenge for Email Release

Crivella West faces retailation for uploading Palin’s emails electronically.

By Josh Voorhees | Posted Monday, Jun. 13, 2011, at 12:01 PM EDT

Yep, that’s what they did to ol’ Crivella West — they “retailated” her… pinned the tail right back on her.

Oh, wait… Crivella West is not a person. I had thought that maybe it was Cruella De Vil’s cousin, but turns out it’s an it, not a she. Apparently, it’s the “company that helped upload thousands of Sarah Palin’s emails to the Internet.” In case you care.

OK, so it’s not as funny that way. But I still smiled at it.

And then afterwards, a beer. Or two…

Cleaning out the old IN box, I ran across this Tweet I had sent myself meaning to blog about it last week:

Taegan Goddard @pwire

Taegan Goddard

New poll: Which presidential candidate would you want to have lunch with?http://pwire.at/mJNvAf

Turns out that far more Americans polled — 53 percent — would rather have lunch with Barack Obama than any of the GOP candidates. Sarah Palin came in at a “distant second” with 16 percent.

Last election cycle, all the talk was about who you wanted to have a beer with. Asking the question this way is going to foul up our stats, for comparison purposes.

But it may be a better, more rigorous question. Most of us are probably less picky who we have a beer with. Although it depends on who’s buying.

Ladies, forget Cosmo. We’re just not that complicated

A colleague shared with me this amusing post about what one can learn from Cosmopolitan about headline writing.

An excerpt:

Do you ask your audience mind-blowing questions?

As a reader, I appreciated how Cosmo asked me some thought-provoking, introspective questions. Do you do this with your readers?

Should You Be Gross Around Him?

What’s Up With Men Cheating Down?

Can Soy Harm your Fertility?

And finally, my favorite question:

Do You Work Too Damn Hard?

Um, not really. I just spent the whole afternoon reading Cosmo. But thanks for asking.

Of course, the only thing I know about Cosmo is the headlines that I see in the checkout line. Well, the headlines, and the come-hither babes on the cover.

And I am mystified that anyone would buy the magazine. Or rather, that anyone would buy one more than once. Because the lede headline is pretty much always about revealing the supposed mysteries of having a sexual relationship with a man. Like we’re complicated or something. Men and sex are about as complicated as a dog and his dinner bowl. Or, as the classic joke would have it:


How to Impress a Woman
  Wine her, Dine her, Call her, Hug her,
Hold her, Surprise her, Compliment her,
Smile at her, Laugh with her,
Cry with her, Cuddle with her,
Shop with her, Give her jewelry,
Buy her flowers, Hold her hand,
Write love letters to her,
Go to the end of the earth and back for her.

  How to Impress a Man
   Show up naked.
Bring beer.

And truth be told, it doesn’t have to be imported, or craft, or anything like that. Pretty much any old beer will do.

Beauty is Truth, and Truth Beauty

Wordle: Brad Warthen

Like a captain desperately busy clawing his ship away from th’ impervious horrors of a lee shore, I am busy today.

Later, I’ll try to post about last night’s debate.

In the meantime, I share this fun ditty that Doug Ross shared with me. It’s a graphic representation of this recent post, I think. Bet you didn’t know I was so artistic, huh?

And no, I can’t run it bigger here without it getting all blurry. You just have to click on it to see it full-size.

I have to get in shape; I really do

This morning when I arrived at the tallest building in Columbia — all 25 stories of it — the elevators weren’t working. The mezzanine area was filled with office workers who “couldn’t” make it up to their workplaces. Some went to the cafe on that level to get some breakfast and coffee.

But I had already paid for my breakfast, and it was on the 25th floor. So I headed for the stairs.

And I found out something: I am really, really out of shape. I only made it by stopping for several minutes, twice. But I made it.

You should have seen the looks on the faces of the wait staff at the Capital City Club when I staggered into the darkened (the power had gone out; that’s why the elevators weren’t working) Grille Room. They didn’t know whether to find me something to eat or call an ambulance.

But I ate, and then I headed back down. On that trip, I shot the above video. There would be narration, but I was saving what little breath I had left.

Such are the hardships of modern life. Pitiful, huh?

I wonder if I’m even going to make it through the three miles of the Walk for Life… By the way, we’re up to $707! Thanks to all of you who have contributed so generously.

Randolph and Mortimer Duke, redux

This afternoon at Rotary I found myself seated next to Boyd Summers, Richland County Democratic Party chairman. (Just to be ecumenical and UnParty, I also chatted with Richland County Republican Chairman Eric Davis after the meeting, so there.)

It was noted that he and I were wearing essentially the same tie, although mine was bow and his was not. Sort of a Palmetto variation on the old Brigade of Guards regimental stripe.

Anyway, having arrived way early for the meeting (I rode with Lanier Jones from ADCO, and as an ex-president of the club, he goes early), I had time for a digression. So I noted that we were like the Duke brothers, Randolph and Mortimer. I had to explain that the Duke brothers were the partners in Duke and Duke, the fictional Philadelphia commodities brokers in “Trading Places,” and that in every scene, they were wearing ties made from the same material, only Randolph (you know, Randy, like Randy Jackson of the Jackson five) wore a bow and Mortimer wore the more boring sort of tie.

When I was done with the explanation, John Durst said wow, you really notice detail, don’t you? I allowed as how I did, but that’s not really true. I mean, how could anyone NOT notice something like that — especially when one has seen the flick a certain number of times?

After the meeting, I got John to use my Blackberry to shoot the above photo, to record the moment. Aren’t you glad I did?

By the way, Joe Wilson noted to me that he, too, was wearing a similar tie. I nodded, but I was humoring him. His was like Boyd’s, except silver (as in, “Silver Elephant”) in the places where it should have been dark red. Obviously, Joe misread the memo.

Sorry Nevada, but your name is an actual word

I love this resolution submitted by Harry Mortenson (D-Las Vegas) of the Nevada legislature:

Whereas there are two common pronunciations of the name of our great state:

(1)   the provincial pronunciation utilized by approximately two-million Nevadans, using a flat A-sound — a sound not unlike the bleating of a sheep, and;

(2)   the cosmopolitan or Spanish pronunciation used by the other seven-billion inhabitants of our planet, using a soft “A” intonation—not unlike a sigh of contentment, and . . .

Whereas it is becoming a continuous, prodigious, and daunting task for the two million colloquial-speaking inhabitants to interrupt and correct the other seven-billion inhabitants of the Planet who utilize the Spanish/cosmopolitan pronunciation . . .

Therefore; be it resolved, that henceforth, there will be two acceptable pronunciations for the name of our great state:

(1)    the preferred pronunciation will be the colloquial pronunciation, and;

(2)    the less-preferred pronunciation will be the charitably-tolerated Spanish/cosmopolitan pronunciation.

I regret that he came down on the wrong side of the issue by choosing the wrong pronunciation as the preferred one, but I like that he had a strong sense of irony about it. He realizes that the way Nevadans pronounce it sounds to a literate ear like Anthony Hopkins seeming to make fun of an American accent by the way he said “chianti” as Hannibal Lecter. It’s jarring.

You know, I believe that South Carolina would be a lot better off if more of our lawmakers had a sense of irony about our own states foibles. If only we would all resolve to lighten up and “charitably tolerate” those whose ancestors did NOT fire on Fort Sumter. We need to clone James L. Petigru.

Pandora needs a “like it a LOT” button (although it’s doing pretty well without one)

Here’s a conundrum…

Pandora, the “internet radio” site that attempts to use your feedback to shape “stations” that play stuff you like, has a pretty simple system for your input: After you enter a song or artist (or multiple songs or artists) that you’d like to hear, it guesses what else you might like based on that, and you click on either a thumbs-down button meaning “I don’t like this song,” or a thumbs-up meaning “I like this song.”

That’s it. No gradations of feedback. It’s way binary; ones and zeros. I try to click on one or the other on most songs. I don’t sit there poised with the mouse, but every few songs I ALT-TAB back to Pandora to catch up with my decisions (except when I’ve gotten lost in my work and lost track of what I was “hearing,” and even then if I’m familiar with the song, I render a judgment).

But I find this frustrating everyone once in a while. Most of my “likes” mean, “I don’t mind if you keep this in my mix.” But every once in a while, they play me something I really, REALLY dig.

Examples… I have a lot of stations for different kinds of music, but recently I’ve spent a lot of time defining one called “Brad’s All-Purpose Station.” In the “I don’t mind if you keep this in my mix” on that station, I’d include “After Midnight,” “Angie,” “Another One Bites the Dust,” “It’s Money That Matters,” “Long May You Run,” “Oh! Darling,” “Smoke on the Water,” and so forth.

But there are other songs that I want to make sure Pandora knows I really like a LOT more than those songs. It may be an all-time favorite, or a really good song I seldom here and don’t own a copy of, or something I’ve occasionally heard and loved but didn’t know the name of… all sorts of reasons. Into that category I’d put: “Sexy and 17,” Another Girl,” “Baby, It’s You,” “Badge,” “Adagio for Strings,” “Bring it on home to Me,” “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” “Gymnopedies (3),” “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (the Al Green version!),” “I’ll Cry Instead,” “In Germany Before the War,” “I’ve Got A Woman,” “Naked Man,” “New Amsterdam,” “Simple Man,” “Werewolves of London,” and others. Oh, and on that last one: I’d much rather hear “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” or “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner,” but neither has yet been offered.

When I hear one of those, I want to say, Whoa, I’m sorry I clicked “like” on those last 10, because this is what I REALLY like! Don’t just lump this in with those… But all I can do is click again on the “like” button.

OK, so I’m frustrated that I can’t give more nuanced feedback, but here’s the perplexing thing: In spite of that, Pandora does an increasingly excellent job of guessing what I’ll like. As time goes by, I hit that “don’t like” button quite seldom.

Contrast that to Netflix, which gives me five levels of feedback, from one to five stars — and yet remains pretty much clueless as to what I’d like.

Not that I haven’t put the time in… I’m sort of embarrassed to admit this, but I’ve rated 2,144 movies on that site. I keep thinking, Give ’em more data, and they’ll figure me out. But they don’t. You give “Casablanca” five stars, and Netflix assumes, “He likes any movie that’s more than 50 years old.” Yeah, it’s probably a little more sophisticated than that — but not much.

Frustrating. But kudos to Pandora.

Richland Dems can’t count either!

Ya gotta love it.

Just now, I received a fund-raising message from Richland County Democrats that boldly asserts in the headline:

Get Active! 99 Days to the Election!

OK, so that means Richland Democrats agree with Nikki Haley, but disagree with Rob Miller, as to how many days there are until the election. Right?

Yo! Boyd! Get a calendar!

So which was it — 99 days or 100?

Meant to raise this question yesterday, which would have been less confusing, but when it occurred to me last night I didn’t feel like breaking the laptop back out, so here goes.

On Monday, I received a release from the Rob Miller campaign headlined “99 Reasons,” and beginning this way: “It seems far away now, but we are just 99 days from ending Joe Wilson’s congressional career.”

OK. Aside from that sounding excessively optimistic, it wasn’t particularly interesting. So I set it aside.

Then I got a release from the Nikki Haley campaign headlined “100 days,” and saying essentially that that was how many days were left. How she arrived at the number is further confused by this boldfaced passage:

Yesterday marked a significant milestone in our campaign — there are only 100 days left until Election Day.

So does that mean they were counting from “yesterday,” which would have been Sunday? If so, why does the sentence go on to use the present tense, saying “there ARE only 100 days left”? One is left to conclude that the Haley campaign was saying there were still 100 days left.

Was she counting Monday itself, as a way of asserting her wish not to waste a day? Perhaps. But I’m left with the impression, once again, that these Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on anything. But I set that aside, too.

Then last night, just before 10 p.m., I got a release from Karen Floyd headlined “99 Days of Bad Ideas” and just chock full of the sort of ranting nonsense you expect from parties:

We’re going to hear from liberals like Joe Biden, who just stopped in to raise money for John Spratt, saying that we should have spent even more “stimulus” money.  We’re going to hear fromCongressman Spratt himself that the budget he wrote is actually fiscally responsible, although we all know it increases our debts and puts our nation at risk. We’re going to hear from Rob Millerthat it’s okay for candidates to accept millions of dollars from liberal Washington special interest groups. We’re going to hear from Vincent Sheheen that English doesn’t have to be our state’s official language and that tax cuts won’t create jobs and grow our economy. We’ll hear from Matt Richardson (he’s the liberal running for Attorney General, in case you’ve never heard of him) that we don’t need to stand up to the federal government when they step on our rights every other day. We’ll even hear from their US Senate candidate who believes action figures of himself will fix our high unemployment rate.

Why don’t they just save themselves trouble by typing “liberal” once and then just pasting it into the text over and over? “Liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal…” It would make as much sense, and be just as relevant. They could italicize some of them and boldface others, for variety. “Liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal…” If they don’t think variety is ideological heresy, of course.

And where on Earth did they get the thing about English as an official language? What does that have to do with anything? And is that really the best they can come up with as an indictment of Vincent?

Anyway, the thing that interested me was that Karen Floyd was siding with Rob Miller on the number of days left. Just goes to show that there is room for finding common ground across the partisan divide. And it demonstrates how out of touch Nikki is, even with her own party.

Yes, that last sentence would have had a smiley face after it if I did smiley faces.

Governor faces 37 flavors, uh, charges

The AP has reported that:

SC gov faces 37 charges he broke state ethics laws
SC State Wire

JIM DAVENPORT
Published: November 23, 2009

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford faces ethics charges he broke state laws more than three dozen times by violating rules on airplane travel and campaign money, according to details of the allegations released Monday.

It’s up to the state attorney general to decide whether to file criminal charges. Sanford’s lawyers have claimed the allegations involve minor and technical aspects of the law.

The second-term Republican governor has been under scrutiny since he vanished for five days over the summer, reappearing to tearfully admit to an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina he later called his “soul mate.”

A series of Associated Press investigations into his travel showed the governor had for years used state airplanes for political and personal trips, flown in pricey commercial airline seats despite a low-cost travel requirement and failed to disclose trips on planes owned by friends and donors.

The State of Columbia newspaper also  questioned whether Sanford properly reimbursed himself from his campaign cash.

Of course, you come here for instant analysis, which I provide when I feel like it. My instant analysis of this situation, of which I learned while surreptitiously checking Twitter during Rotary, is that this revelation means the following:

  1. The number of charges leveled against the governor is a prime number, which means it is divisible only by itself and 1.
  2. The particular prime number is the one that comes right after the prime number that is the number of original flavors at Baskin Robbins. This is 20 less than the number of flavors for which Heinz is famous, which is not a prime number even though it looks like one.

Not bad for analysis done while eating dinner, huh? And no, I was not eating mushrooms or anything else untoward. My stomach is still a bit uncertain today…

I’ll get back to you when I have further observations. In the meantime, y’all have at it.

By the way, have you ever heard of that “State of Columbia newspaper” that the AP referred to? Neither have I. Perhaps they meant “The State newspaper of Columbia…” Oh, and by the way, as I’ve been stating for decades, you wouldn’t have to say “newspaper” if you’d just use the italics as God intended.