Oh, can it be 100 entries already? It seems like just yesterday that this site was a tiny little corner of the internet tucked away where nobody could find it...oh right. Anyway:
Did you ever think that the Universe was listening to you? Can it be coincidence that I write an article about long-awaited sequels, only to wake up and find this on the internets?
Paramount is developing a fourth installment of Beverly Hills Cop with Eddie Murphy
reprising his role as Detroit detective Axel Foley. Murphy reportedly
took the idea for another movie to the studio, which was looking to do
another project with him following the Karey Kirkpatrick-directed NowhereLand, which Paramount releases in June 2009. The fourth Cop movie is set to start production some time next year for a summer 2010 release, with Brett Ratner in talks to direct.
For the record, the abortion that was Beverly Hills Cop 3 was released in 1994, meaning it will be a 16-year gap once the next one is released in 2010. Or, if you prefer to think that Beverly Hills Cop 3 never happened, as many do, it will be a whopping 23 years since Beverly Hills Cop 2.
Brett Ratner, in case you weren't aware, was the high-priced directorial talent with such masterpieces under his belt as Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2, and, uh, Rush Hour 3. Oh and that last X-Men movie that sucked alot.
On a scale of 1-10, how excited do you think Judge Reinhold was to hear this news? 100? 1000? He's probably sitting by the phone right now in his Beverly Hills Cop jacket, chewing on his fingernails...
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just cleaned up at the box office, despite a 19 year wait since the last installment in the franchise. Way to capitalize on that momentum, guys. I'm not even sure the target audience was alive when the last one was released, but that didn't seem to stop them from buying tickets. So, in honor of the success of the sequel everyone forgot they wanted, I give you today's List of the Obscure: Sequels That Got Made...Eventually.
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Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Released: May 19th, 1999 Sequel to: Return of the Jedi, released May 25th, 1983 Time between movies: 15 years, 11 months, 24 days
Why the wait: This would seem to be the least important question we could ask about the prequel trilogy. Some more pressing questions are why, how come, and seriously, what the fuck. Enough ink and nerd tears have been spilled over this. Let's just move on.
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Basic Instinct 2
Released: March 31st, 2006 Sequel to: Basic Instinct, released March 20th, 1992 Time between movies: 14 years, 11 days
Why the wait: Development hell. Originally slated for a 2002 release, the film was delayed when they couldn't find an actor willing to get naked and sweaty on screen with Sharon Stone. On the bright side, this left an open spot in her schedule for Catwoman.
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Clerks 2
Released: July 21, 2006 Sequel to: Clerks, released October 12, 1994 Time between movies: 11 years, 9 months, 9 days
Why the wait: The film was planned as far back as 1999, when the end credits of Dogma promised the return of Jay and Silent Bob in the upcoming film, Clerks 2: Hardly Clerkin. The title was subsequently changed to Clerks 2: Rude and Unwrapped and Clerks 2: The Passion of the Clerks before Kevin Smith decided that he wasn't as witty as he thought he was and just called the damn thing Clerks 2. The delay could probably best be blamed on Smith's participation in such brilliant counter-culture fare as Daredevil, Jersey Girl, and Catch and Release. Seriously, what happened to him? At least he was finished with Clerks 2 in time for...
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Live Free or Die Hard
Released: June 27, 2007 Sequel to: Die Hard With a Vengeance, released May 19, 1995 Time between movies: 12 years, 1 month, 8 days
Why the wait: The Die Hard series has always been a little strange. The 3rd movie in the series was not originally written as a Die Hard movie, but was adapted from a script called "Simon Says." This one was based off a script titled "WW3.com", stalled after the 9/11 attacks (what wasn't?) and eventually rewritten as a Die Hard movie. Got an idea for a movie that isn't going anywhere? Change the name of the main character to John McClane and...magic!
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The Two Jakes
Released: August 10th, 1990 Sequel to: Chinatown, released June 20th, 1974 Time between movies: 16 years, 1 month, 21 days
Why the wait: Aah, the best laid plans... Chinatown was the first film in a planned trilogy. The events of the first film took place in the 1930s. The Two Jakes was set in the 1940s, approximating the amount of time that actually passed between the two movies. The final movie, which would have been called Cloverleaf, would have taken place in the 1950s if The Two Jakes hadn't been a total bomb both critically and at the box office. The planned plot for this movie very closely approximates Who Framed Roger Rabbit, although presumably without the giant cartoon knockers.
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The Color of Money
Released: October 17th, 1986 Sequel to: The Hustler, released September 25th, 1961 Time between movies: 25 years, 22 days
Why the wait: Well, the book didn't come out until 1984. So why did it take so long for the book to get written? I dunno. I'm not researching books here. My guess is the author was hungry.
With prose that is both evocative and beautiful, McCarthy conjures a post-apocolyptic vision more unflinching and hopeless than any other I can think of. An unnamed man and his son travel across a dead, ash-covered world in hopes of finding some more habitable place. They scavenge for canned foods while hiding from roving bands of cannibals. The man keeps a gun that has only two bullets; they are not meant to fight off attackers, but rather to allow the man and boy to escape into death.
This is not a book for the faint of heart. The book does not paint a picture where there can be a happy ending. The only happiness to be found here is the existence of a story at all; it would have been easier for the man and his son to take the easy way out. We soon find out that is why there is no wife or mother on the journey. McCarthy paints a landscape so dark and hopeless that the light that is the relationship between the man and his son shines incredibly brightly.
Also, this one time, they see a pregnant chick with two dudes, and then later they find that the woman gave birth and chopped the baby's head off and put the baby on a spit to eat it. Yeah. This book is awesome.
Hey, look at Jim's photography portfolio! It's really good. Wait: if only Jim reads my blog, and I tell everyone on my blog to look at Jim's portfolio, does it make a sound?
Are low real-estate costs a good reason to move somewhere if the reason real-estate costs are so low is because nobody wants to live there?
Listen, Bill Simmons: I have enough of a hard time generating content for my website as it is without you stealing my idea to update your readers on what former cast members of The Wire are up to. Please go back to justifying how your pick of Kevin Garnett as NBA MVP wasn't a homer pick, please. (PS: Love your columns.)
I wanted to congratulate Karl Voigtland and his wife for convincing me they weren't Gerard Depardieu and Andie McDowell by successfully procreating, but then I realized I didn't know how to spell her name. Sinai? Sanai? Sinay?
Okay, I'm as surprised as you are. Obviously, I started watching this show because the Suze wanted to watch it. It was clearly conceived by the producers of American Idol as another way to cash in on the reality competition formula.
Audition shows where you get a "ticket to vegas" (instead of hollywood)? Check.
Vegas Week (instead of Hollywood Week), where the competition is whittled down to a top 20 (instead of a top 12)? Check
10 weeks of eliminations, losing a boy and a girl each week, until a champion is crowned? Check and check.
Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with the formula, and this time they nailed it. And honestly? I think the producers themselves were a little surprised by the show they ended up with. So how did they get it right this time?
Instead of smarmy Ryan Seacrest, the show is hosted by the charmingly British (and leggy) Cat Deeley.
The auditions take place in awesome theaters instead of a cheesy room in a convention center.
The judges, except for the token brit (producer Nigel Lythgoe) are a rotating panel of talented dance choreographers that keeps the commentary fresh and interesting. This may not sound important until you've heard Randy Jackson tell another contestent that for me, for you, that was a little pitchy dawg.
But this is all window dressing. The real reason this show works is that good dancing is inherently watchable.
Without exception the people on this show are talented. The "bad" dancers are the ones that can only do one type of dance incredibly well; the show requires that you succeed in a whole range of styles. Oh, and did I forget to mention that girls who dance are all pretty much really attractive?
Look, it's summer. we all know the networks are going to be filling their schedules with unscripted programming, which usually gets a bad rap. But if they are going to do it anyway, we should at least take notice when one of these programs actually succeeds at entertaining us.
I'm not usually a big magazine reader, but sometimes you are in an airport for 12 hours and finish the book you brought and are tired of listening to your iPod and your wife has your laptop so she can look endlessly at real estate listings in Texas. Sometimes these things happen. Unsurprisingly, this cover caught my eye.
My immediate thought was: false premise. The two places I see false premises the most are in advice columns and magazine articles. In an advice column, an example of a false-premise question would be: "How much should I tell people to spend on wedding gifts for me in the invitations I send out?" The false premise, of course, is that you should be telling people to spend any amount of money on you at all. (Sidenote: if I wrote an advice column, I would spend half my time screaming at the selfish, selfish people planning their weddings.) In a magazine article, a false premise reads like this: "If you're serious about global warming, only one thing matters: Cutting carbon."
The appropriate phrase that comes to mind is "missing the forest for the trees". Global warming is an important topic, but it is only part of a larger issue: sustainability.
When you go camping, you'll often find signs that say "leave the campsite cleaner than you found it." That is the basic concept of sustainability, except the campsite is, uh, the entire world. If there is to be enough energy, food, water, and raw materials for a growing global population, then you must generate your energy, food, water, and raw materials in such a way that there is as much (or more) of these things left when you are done as when you arrived. How is this possible? By using renewable resources in a renewable way. Overfishing would be an example of using a renewable resource in a non-renewable way: fish are a renewable food resource until you eat them all.
Let's look at some of the assertions that Wired makes, and see how these change when you look through the prism of sustainability instead of just reducing carbon.
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A/C IS OKAY
What Wired says: The US uses more energy on heating than it does on cooling every year. Additionally, air conditioning cycles are more efficient than heating cycles; that is, it takes less energy to cool a given volume of air by one degree than it does to heat that same given volume of air by one degree.
All these things are true. My rebuttal: so what? What, exactly, does this do to help anyone understand global warming or shape public policy? Some people live in hot areas, and some people live in cold areas. The carbon-based arguments for living in cold New England vs. hot Arizona are much more complex than heating vs. air conditioning. How much energy is spent delivering food and water and air conditioners to the desert? I don't know, but this is an example of the poorly thought out arguments used by Wired to make controversial statements to sell magazines rather than contribute to the readers understanding of sustainability. Sustainability demands that we reduce the non-renewable energy required for both heating and cooling through use of renewable energy and building efficiency (i.e. better insulation, reduced building heat gain, and maybe wearing a sweater indoors).
BUY USED CARS NOT HYBRIDS
What Wired says: The production of a hybrid car releases so much carbon that it is better to continue driving your old SUV.
Nobody should be making decisions about what car to buy based on carbon emissions. Instead, you should look for the mode of transportation with the highest level of sustainability. The vehicle that uses the least fossil fuel is the one that you should drive. Life cycle analysis of carbon only matters because hybrid vehicles are new enough that there are no used ones available. The sooner we get old gas guzzlers off the road, the better. If you buy a used vehicle now, or buy a new hybrid now and then sell it used down the road, I fail to see the difference in the long view.
The short-term minded approach to reducing carbon output ultimately results in a higher consumption rate of fossil fuels. Instead, you should look to acquire the vehicle that has the most sustainable energy consumption. If you take care of fuel consumption, the rest takes care of itself.
EMBRACE NUCLEAR POWER
What Wired says: Nuclear power emits no carbon.
Again, missing the point of sustainability versus carbon reduction. Until there is a solution of what to do with the nuclear waste, this is not a sustainable option - plain and simple. And as of right now, there is no solution.
The effort and expense that would go into building new power plants could instead be put into the development and production of truly renewable resources, like solar, wind, and wave power. Plus, last I heard, a wind farm never took out an entire region's population when it malfunctioned. I'm just saying.
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I don't disagree with every assertion made by Wired. For example, I think intelligent use of forests, genetically engineering food supplies, and living in cities are all important steps towards a sustainable society (even though they got to these conclusions ass backwards). However, if Wired wasn't trying so hard to throw carbon reduction in the face of environmentalists to make a controversial magazine cover, they also would have made the point that riding a bike, buying used everything (not just cars), and being a vegetarian are also ways of reducing carbon out AND building a sustainable society.
But maybe the biggest step we can take as a society towards sustainability, carbon reduction, and reduced natural resource consumption?
There are some that say I'm too quick to make enemies. "Oh Jesse," they say, "so what if your food got here 30 minutes later than everyone else? Does that really mean that you have to never go to Bombers again?" Yes it does motherfuckers! I want my nachos!
But this isn't about nachos. Oh, if only it was about nachos. Nobody is going to call me out for overreacting on this one.
Saturday, 4 am: Wake up to return my rental car and check in at the airport in Houston for my flight home via Charlotte.
8 am: Arrive in Charlotte. Flight scheduled to depart at 1:15pm, so it's already going to be a long day.
1 pm: "Due to delays in Newark, we will be pushing the departure time back until 2."
2 pm: Been on the plane for 30 minutes. We are parked on the tarmac with the engines off, meaning the air condition is off. We are now notified that departure has been pushed back until 3:30, so we will be pulling into a gate so that passengers can deplane until we are ready to depart.
3 pm: We pulled into a gate, alright, but it's in the international concourse, so customs won't let anyone off the plane. The flight attendants hand out cups of water. Hooray, my problems are solved. I lean over to Suzi and tell her: We are not leaving Charlotte tonight.
5 pm: After three and a half hours of sitting on a cramped airplane with no air conditioning, we are told the flight has been canceled by Newark air traffic control. Oh, and by the way, since the airline is "not responsible" (whatever the fuck that means), we will not be compensated for any hotel or food expenses. Have a nice evening. I am not told to go fuck myself; they probably don't care either way.
6 pm: The bags have all been off-loaded from the plane. The bag with my suit has arrived, but the luggage with the rest of my and Suzi's clothes has not. I am told that they don't know where the bag is, because this is the connecting flight. Did it get on the plane at Houston? They don't know. Will it be arriving tonight? They don't know. Can I file a lost baggage claim here? No, you have to file that at your final destination. Suzi becomes visibly upset, and needs to be soothed with chocolate. After 12 hours in airports, sweaty and disgusting, we will not have a change of clothes.
So here I sit, in an Econolodge in Charlotte, North Carolina. Chinese food is on the way, and Law and Order is on. I'll be on the 11 am US Airways flight back to Newark, and then I'll never be on a US Airways flight again.
What's the strangest question you've ever been asked on an interview? For me, it is now this: "So, you think American Idol is fixed, huh?"
Yeah, it seems like the guys at Lynntech found my website address before my interview there today and did a little reading. So, if any of you are still checking the site out...hi there. Uh, hope you didn't find anything too embarrassing.
Stop reading if you don't watch American Idol, because you won't care. But there is now conclusive proof that the fix is in.
For weeks it has appeared that David Archuleta and David Cook were the choices of the judges, and the producers, to make the finale. But did judge Randy Jackson spill the beans on last nights performance show? Jump ahead to the 3 minute mark on the video below.
Did judge Randy Jackson just congratulate Syesha Mercado for making it all the way to number 3? Uh, Randy, I think you meant to say top 3, but was it an innocent mistake, or a Freudian slip? A few weeks ago there was similar confusion about Paula, when she appeared to be critiquing a contestant for a performance that he had not given yet.
Also involved? Mr. David Cook. Does Paula's excuse make any sense to you? She seems to be contradicting herself to me. First she says the "2nd performance" was not good, but when she thinks her mistake is that she was rating David Cook, suddenly she loved it. Well, which is it? Either she'd already made her critique of Jason Castro and screwed up, or once she realized her critique was actually about David Cook, she had to change her story and say he was fantastic because that's what she was told to say. Scandalous!!
American Idol, despite the horrifying commercialism and mostly mediocre singing, could at least sometimes deliver drama in the form of the competition. But this season, even that is boring. The fix is in. Syesha Mercado is definitely going home tonight. You heard it here first.
This is a joke, right? This looks like a Saturday Night Live skit making fun of an M. Night Shyamalan movie.
This is actual dialogue from the TV spot they've been playing during the NBA playoffs:
News anchor: "There appears to be an event happening." Woman on bench: "Did you hear that?" Mark Wahlberg in voice-over: "What's going on?"
There appears to be an event happening? Aren't you supposed to tell me what your movie is about?
"So, what do you want to do tonight?" "Oh, how about that new Shyamalan movie? An event happens." "An event? Like what? Aliens attack? War breaks out? Creatures from another dimension?" "Uh... Mark Wahlberg is in it!"
Well, if you won't tell me what your movie is about, I'll just make up my own movie. Here are some possible plot synopses:
Mark Wahlberg is a dead superhero alien who lives in the forest for some reason.
There appears that something is happening, but, in a dramatic twist, nothing happens.
Instead of going to see the new M. Night Shyamalan movie, everyone stays home and watches classic Twilight Zone episodes.
People start jumping off of buildings rather than be forced to watch Lady in the Water.
New York is attacked by the furious re-animated corpse of Alfred Hitchcock.
I still remember beating a particularly difficult mission in GTA: Vice City back in college. You have to go up a staircase to a landing on a building where you can get a vantage point to take a picture of a politician canoodling with some bimbos. You are spotted, and need to get back to your safe house. Unfortunately, that politician has called in some favors, and now the police and FBI are after you. Just little old you as heavily armed cops storm up the staircase and pursue you with helicopters and squad cars. How to do it?
In a lesser video game, there would be a "right" answer. The makers of GTA, however, don't really care how you do it. Get yourself a heavily armored transport and go up the steps with a camera and an assault rifle? Go for it. Try to make the run across town in a Ferrari? Take your best shot.
I did it with a motorcycle and a helicopter. I drove the bike up the staircase, took the picture, and then drove back down, taking out police by running them over and firing an uzi as I went. At the outlet from the building I took so much fire that my bike was immediately set on fire. I continued driving the burning bike until I was close to my helicopter, and then leapt off. The bike continued for a few more feet and then exploded. I got in the copper and flew it across town until it, too, was on fire, before I got to my destination. I jumped out of the chopper outside my safe house from 50 feet up, nearly killing myself. The chopper exploded midair and crashed close by, and I ran the rest of the way without getting hit by the last bullet that would have killed me.
The violence is the hook that catches you, but what keeps you playing well after the novelty of being a thug wears off is the infinite possibilities and incredible detail. Playing the other day, I got into a head-on collision, and the occupants of the other vehicle shot out through their windshield. I blocked a tunnel with a dump truck and took out a police escort with a rocket launcher. I went on two dates.
Too bad this was all at Jim's house. I need to get a job so I can buy a PS3. Hmm. Maybe I can steal a few cars...
Suzi's nephew (which I guess also makes him my nephew) Junior graduated from Georgia Tech last weekend, and Suzi and I were the event photographers. Yes, Suzi has a nephew who just graduated from college. I'm not hosting the pictures on ObscureCraft, I guess because Suzi is afraid that her family might backtrack through my website and find this. Or this. Or maybe this.
It's been over a month since we last checked in with the cast of our favorite dead TV show. Too bad the cast hasn't really been that busy in the meantime. But before we catch up with all our old friends, let me offer an apology to Sonja Sohn, better known to you and I as Detective Kima "Huge Lesbo" Greggs. Last time we caught her was slumming it up in Step Up 2 The Streets playing foster mother to some obxnoxious white girl. Well, flipping through the channels the other day, looking for another playing of Drumline or Stomp The Yard, I caught a scene of the original Step Up. And who did I see playing the mother of an obnoxious dancing white girl?
That's right, it's Deirdre Lovejoy, better known as sassy redhead and Assistant State's Attorney Rhonda Pearlman. Sonja, I apologize. You thought playing the mother of sassy dancing white girls was okay, because your fellow cast member set a bad example. For shame, Deirdre. For shame. Now, on to the update.
Melanie Nicholls-King Played Cheryl, baby-crazy scissoring-partner for the aforementioned lesbo Detective Greggs.
Oh come on, don't tell me you don't know what scissoring is. Okay, well, as usual, I'll let South Park explain. But don't play unless you really, really want to know.
Moving on.
Last seen in: Commercial for the new Viera TV, playing a housewife, or something.
Whatever.
Thomas McCarthy Played Scott Pendleton, Baltimore Sun reporter and Philip Glass surrogate
Last seen in: Baby Mama, on date with Tina Fey. Lucky bastard.
When I first saw the trailer for Baby Mama, I had such high hopes. Hey, I love Tina Fey and 30 Rock. And Mean Girls was surprisingly good. Maybe Baby Mama, despite it's kinda lame jokes in the trailer, could be another notch in Tina Fey's belt. Plus, the whole Baltimore Sun storyline was the weakest story played on all five seasons of The Wire. Could this be the first ever not-down arrow given to a former Wire cast member?
Well, then the reviews came in, and I got so discouraged I didn't even see the movie. So, uh, no.
Frankie Faison Played Ervin Burrell, police commissioner and part of the problem
Last seen in: My Blueberry Nights, as Travis
Honestly? I didn't even see this. I only know about it because Jim gave me the heads up. This movie looked retarded. People love Wong Kar-Wai for some reason. Uh, well, the second half of Chungking Express was sort of entertaining.
Method Man Played Cheese Wagstaff, street thug who was too disrespectful for his own good
Last seen in: CSI, reprising his role as nightclub owner Drops.
Did you know his first name is Clifford? Anyway, just because you acknowledge that you are ripping off the plot from 48 Hours in a line of dialogue doesn't make it all okay, CSI. I expect this kind of nonsense from CSI: Miami, but not you. You're better than this.
Wendell Pierce Played Detective Bunk Moreland, murder police
Last seen in: Commercial for the upcoming television show In Plain Sight
Haven't seen the show yet, haven't read anything about it. Doesn't matter. Detective Bunk Moreland is in the discussion as the greatest police detective ever portrayed on series television. He should do what Richard Belzer does, and just play Bunk Moreland on every show he's on.
We all know the game Battleship, but Sophie has taken it to another level in an unheard of episode of beginners luck.
The past few weeks Sophie has graduated from Dominoes and Candyland to
Trouble (with the pop-o-matic) and now Battleship. She's not fared too
well with Trouble, but is undefeated (5-0) in Battleship and on Sunday
she took the game to a new level, one that I have never seen before
(and I've been playing since the 1960's). It took Sophie only 18
turns get the 16 hits to sink my entire fleet! With 100 pegs on the
board and only 16 hits available to opposing players the odds of
getting one hit at the beginning of the game is 6.25 to 1 or the
obvious 16%. The odds change slightly as each player takes a turn, but
the odds of hitting all the other players ships in only 18 turns
is.....I have no idea, but it's pretty crazy!
Was there foul play involved? I can find no evidence. Sophie's Aunt
Laury was in the room at the time, but she was on Sophie's side of the
room and board. Also, if Sophie was getting my coordinates from a
Sophie sympathizer (Laury, Molly, Rose or even Otis), at not yet 5
years of age her poker face has not yet evolved to keep this intel to
herself. So, all I can conclude is this unprecedented once in a
lifetime Battleship rout is legit and thought this was news worthy
enough to share it with you.
The picture below was taken right after the final shot was fired.
Wow. 16 out of 18 hits. Is this possible? No, because it actually takes 17 hits to sink everything. But 17 out of 19 hits? Is THIS possible? Yes, obviously, it is possible. That's a dumb question. The real question is: what are the odds? Aha! Time for math! (PS: I really need to get back to work)
We calculate the odds by calculating, after each turn, the likelihood of getting another hit. If the previous hit sank a ship, or this is the first shot, we calculate the odds of hitting a ship as (remaining open pegs in a ship)/(total pegs remaining). In Eric's example above, at the beginning of the game, there are 17 possible spots to hit a ship, and 100 total pegs, so the odds of hitting a ship are 17%. If the carrier is sunk, these odds change to 12/95, or 12.6%.
If the previous hit did not sink a ship, then the odds will be calculated depending on the number of pegs already in the ship, the type of ship we are trying to sink, and the position of that ship on the board. We will work through the carrier as an example.
You have just hit a ship. It is the carrier, although you have no way of knowing this. You just see a peg sticking out of the board. Your next move is to choose one of the 4 surrounding peg locations. What are your odds of hitting again?
The carrier has five locations. If you have hit either end of the carrier to start, your odds are 1/4. If you hit somewhere in the center, your odds are 2/4, or 1/2. So, your chances of hitting again are (1/4 + 1/2 + 1/2 + 1/2 + 1/4) / 5 = 40%.
Now you have two locations hit. What are your odds of hitting a third time? If the two hits are at the ends, the chances are 1/2. If the two hits are in the center, your odds are actually 100%. (1/2 + 1 + 1 + 1/2) / 4 = 75%.
Fourth time? (1/2 + 1 + 1/2) / 3 = 67%.
Fifth time?? (1/2 + 1/2) / 2 = 50%.
Now, we can calculate the odds of wiping out the cruiser without a miss, once you get that first hit: (0.4 * 0.75 * 0.67 * 0.5) = 10.05%.
If the ship is butted up against an edge, these odds are modified.
So, how do we distill all these facts down into the odds of this specific outcome? With computers! First, we look at the picture again, and assign each ship a position type: center of the board, longways against edge, shortways against edge, or corner.
carrier: center of board battleship: center of board submarine: center of board destroyer: longways against edge patrol boat: corner
Next, we'll fire up ye olde computer to crank out the odds of successfully hitting everything without missing (we'll get to the issue of the two misses in a second).
The odds of hitting all the spots without a single miss? 1.7 billion to one against. Really.
Okay, so how do the two misses affect the outcome? Not much. If we modify the original calculations so that there are 98 spaces to begin instead of 100, the odds drop to 1.5 billion to one against.
Oh, Sophie, you had a good thing going with your 5-0 record, but clearly you got greedy. Buy that girl a deck of cards, Eric, because her poker face is better than you think.
No, I am definitely awake now. There is a woman somewhere outside my window crying for help. I should call 911, I think to myself. I am still half-asleep.
Where am I going to tell the police to come? I don't know where the voice is coming from, only that it is outside. I pull on my clothes and stumble into the living room. I find my keys and my phone, and I can still hear her crying outside.
I get to my front door, and look around. I don't see anything at first. It is hardly passed 5 in the morning, and it is still dark. She cries out again, and I see her across the street. She is in the doorway of a neighbor's house, and...what is going on?
She is holding a towel against her neck. Is she cut?
I stumble across the street, incredibly unsure of what to do. I can hear the sirens in the distance. Somebody has already called the police. Is this man at the doorway, is he helping her, or is he the problem? "Is she alright?" The man looks at me, but I get no answer.
Her throat can't be slashed that badly, she is able to speak. The first police cruisers arrive. I walk back to my side of the street, and she is taken into a cruiser and, I assume, driven to the hospital down the street. There is some commotion a couple of houses down, and the police go to investigate. I listen to police radio:
"...the on-call detective has been notified and is on his way..."
"...cancel first aid..."
Cancel first aid? What does that mean? More police arrive, and now other people are coming outside. I heard a woman scream, somebody tells me. It didn't look good, somebody else says.
The commotion dies down. I go inside before the ambulance arrives, and eventually I get back to sleep, still unsure of what exactly I just witnessed.
[Scene: At the hotel pool of the downtown Atlanta Marriott. It is my niece Deja's 10th birthday. After pizza and cake, the adults sit around the tables while the kids play near the pool. At the party are Suzi's 4 sisters - Selma, Sueli, Sandra, and Sheila - Suzi's parents, Sandra and Sueli's husbands, and Sandra's son Junior, who is graduating from Georgia Tech the next day.]
Selma: So, who is everyone voting for? I'm voting for Hillary.
David, husband of Suzi's sister Sueli: Well, if she doesn't win, the Democrat's can always have one of Bill's girlfriends run. [David and Sueli are big Republican supporters]
Suzi: [indignantly] You know what? My president can get as many blowjobs as he wants as long as he doesn't fuck up the economy and the war. Okay?
[a few moments of stunned silence ensue]
Sandra: You know, when I first moved to this country, I thought a blowjob was what the guy who blows the leaves around was doing. I used to say, "That guy out front with the blowjob is so loud!"
[Scene: Suzi and I have arrived at her sister Selma's house. We are sitting in her kitchen when Suzi notices that Selma uses the same type of bag as her to pick up dog poo.]
Suzi: We use these same doggie bags. Did you know they are biodegradable?
Selma: Yeah, they are great. I'm on the green wagon now. They don't sell these in the pet store. We had to get in the boat, drive across the bay, spend $150 a night at the marina, and spend $400 on diesel to get these.
Me: That doesn't sound very green.
Suzi: [finishing her can of soda] Selma, where do you put your cans for recycle?
Selma: Oh, we broke our recycle bin so we had to throw it out.
["Ask Dr. Tracy" is published monthly. For the original column, click here.]
Dear Dr. Tracy OC, I have had a girlfriend for about 6 months. We live in different countries that are on opposite sides of the world. We knew each other as youngsters but did not begin our relationship until she moved away. About 4 months ago, I saw a photo of her and another man on her website. In the picture, they looked a bit more than friends. I sent my girlfriend an e-mail asking her about the photo. She hasn't responded since then. I don't have her phone number so I can't call her. I'm sure my e-mails are getting through. I am ready to move on but I feel that I owe my girlfriend an opportunity to at least tell me if she wants to end our relationship. I have waited two months. How much longer should I wait for a response? Thank you.
Dear waiting,
Do you hear that? Be quiet and listen hard. That is the sound of me laughing at you. Are you sure this person was your girlfriend? I mean, would this person be surprised to hear you characterize your relationship as such? I bet she would. She probably thought you were just friends keeping in touch, then she posts a picture of herself with her boyfriend, and all of a sudden she gets this out-of-the-blue e-mail from you saying that she is your "girlfriend" and "who is this guy" and "I'm a spooky internet stalker". So she hasn't emailed you back. No shit. I wouldn't either. If I may borrow a line from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I bet you think strippers like you, too.
Heh. Heheh. Heeheeeheee.
Dear Dr. Tracy OC, I need some advice, and definitely some perspective on a relationship problem. I am very much in love with a kind and wonderful man and am getting married next month. We are both 30.
About three weeks ago I borrowed his computer, and found that he had been looking at a significant number of pornographic websites. This is not a big deal for me, I know it is normal, and every past boyfriend I've had has admitted to looking at porn.
However, my fiance has told me any time this has come up in the past that he doesn't like porn, and that he finds it degrading to women and distorts mens' view of 'real sex.'
So of course I asked him about these sites and he flat out denied it -- and promptly deleted all his internet history and cookies. I tried to make it safe for him to tell me by assuring him I think it is normal, but he continued to angrily and vehemently deny he ever looks at it or likes it.
So I let it drop, and then this weekend I noticed him in our home office looking at pornographic sites on the computer. I checked his internet history (which is sneaky, I feel bad about doing it) and he had indeed been cruising various porn sites while I was just in the other room. I let a day go by and then asked him about it-- trying to be really gentle about it and non-accusatory- and he completely lied about it, and got very very angry at me for bringing it up again. I told him that I clearly know he was, and it is no big deal, but he will not admit it.
Please give me some perspective on this. I am really worried because we are getting married really soon. I completely trust him not to cheat on me or abuse me, but I am really hurt by his lying over this. What do you suggest I do to put my mind at ease? I don't think there is any way he will ever tell me the truth about this, and I really don't want it to come between us.
Thank you for your help!
Dear porno detective:
I'm going to take you at face value that you were actually cool with the porno you found, and there wasn't some non-verbal communication going on that made your man feel like he needed to hide his porno addiction. Cause that's what it sounds like. Yeah, we all look at porn, but constantly? And the obsessive need to hide his tracks like Danny at the end of the Shining? Yeah, I'd say he has a problem. You'll want to straighten this one out before any vows are exchanged, probably with counseling. And if he doesn't agree to counseling, then be glad he revealed his true nature before the wedding and saved you the expense and heartache of a divorce. It's a cliche, I know, but if he'll lie to you about this...
Dear Dr. Tracy OC, I'm 27, never been married, and involved with a beautiful man who just may be "the one." The issue at hand revolves around our very different backgrounds. He was raised in a wealthy, laid-back small-town-type liberal community in the rolling hills of Oregon, and went on to attend a very liberal private college, then Stanford for a doctorate. I, on the other hand, was born in Detroit to a very blue-collar, conservative family. Parents were divorced in my infancy, and we moved around a lot. There were years of financial struggle, compounded with emotional and sexual abuse, with sporadic physical abuse thrown in for good measure. I drifted through my teens and twenties, smoking too much pot and running from my past. I'm just now graduating college with my Bachelor's degree this April.
My education has revolved around Psychology, and due to years of therapy and self-analysis, I feel I've come very far in "growing into myself" both as a woman and a human being. One thing I can't seem to get past, though, is the "unfairness of it all." Ridiculous, right? But when he speaks of his high school years or the fancy private college (my terms, not his) he went to, I get this surge of envy and frustration. He had this gentle, privileged life, while I've done nothing but struggle. I tell myself I ought to be grateful that a man like him would even be interested in someone like me, but it still hurts. And yes, that thought right there shows there is more going on than this "opposite sides of the tracks" background issue. It is just something that pops up more and more lately, and I fear that if it continues, it will push him away.
Any thoughts?
Dear psych major:
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Get the fuck over it.
Nicole Atkins, your reign of terror as my listen recommendation is over. (Your time will come, too, Blood Meridian. Just wait until it's beach season.)
It isn't that I don't listen to music, because I do. It's just that I listen to the same stuff over and over again. Sometimes I'll go months without updating the music on my iPod shuffle that I use when I'm biking to and from work. I have a really high tolerance for that. So it makes sense that I'm recommending the new Flight of the Conchords album, since I've already heard all of the songs on it through their TV show.
That's right, Flight of the Conchords had a TV show on HBO before their first US album was released, or even before you knew who the hell they were. Somebody at HBO should definitely get a raise for finding these two guys and realizing the awesome potential. FotC is a two-man folk-parody novelty band, or something like that. This is comedy for people who really pay attention, because Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement don't seem to mind if you actually notice they are being funny. Understated is, well, an understatement. Their comedy is not so much dry as it is parched.
Really, I want to recommend the TV show, but it isn't coming back for season 2 until January of 2009. Gah.
