Fun fact: The 29th anniversary is, in some circles that I've been
able to find, the garnet anniversary. (There's also
something out there about furniture, but that's less interesting.)
I'm slightly impressed that the garnet lobby was able to secure
any anniversary at all. On the list of precious and
semi-precious stones, garnet, while worthy of inclusion, is surely
far down by any sort of accounting due to value, popularity, or
whatever the criteria for claiming an anniversary might be.
Even without tagging gemstones onto it all, these 29 bonus years
have, in the large, been good ones.
That is, all places where cold weather is
very possible on game day. This constitutes something
of an equalizer for Northern schools, even as it may be
short-lived.
I hold out no illusions that this is anything
more than a quirk of the early rankings, but it's vaguely
encouraging as a sign that warm-weather game sites aren't a
priority for the selection committee. Yet--we'll see what
happens in December.
M-->
*--That should really be the "FBS
Playoff", as there are multiple other college football
championship playoffs starting up shortly, but that's not a
fight I will win.
5 November 02024: Dispatch From Schrödinger's America 2
(Election Boogaloo)
One of the things I like about the
"Schrödinger's America" term, which I take to mean "a country
which is at the same time doomed and not doomed", as we wait for
the outcome of The Most Important Election Of Our Lives This YearTM,
is that both sides of the political spectrum would probably buy
into that description of things.
For entirely different reasons, of course, but we'd all wind up at
the same place.
An additional thought: If the Democrats manage to do well today, a
lot of "think" pieces on how the party failed in running this
campaign that have been crafted by the left side of the political
chattering class and are now residing on hard drives across the
country are going to be of only amusement value. And you
know that those pieces have been written.
M-->
4 November 02024: Dispatch From Schrödinger's America
While we wait to see what sort of country we'll
have after tomorrow, Sirius/XM started rolling out its holiday
channels on 1 November* as expected (Holly is at 79 this year, but
shuts down on 26 December.). WNIC and WFMK have not yet
flipped to ACATT.
In the spirit of biting holly, I've been working with this song
parody for a while now, and I think it's as good as it's going to
get:
O holly bite! The berries, they are
poison! Don't eat the leaves, they will tear up your mouth!
I think we've got a pretty good argument
against literal holly-biting there. (Originally, the
second sentence was "The berries are quite tasty!", but a] I
can't confirm that. b] The facts on the ground are such
that no reasonable person should put the idea of trying that
into anyone's mind, and I can occasionally be a reasonable
person.)
Would that an argument against the figurative version were so
easily rolled out.
M-->
*--Exception: SXM's Holiday Traditions channel
runs year-round in the app. I'm okay with this--after all,
Christmas music is a legitimate genre or subgenre that qualifies
for its own outlet. Just not 20+ of them, perhaps.
31 October 02024 (I got a rock.): Career Exploration
Another homeopathic fraction that I think about
occasionally is the probability that a Division III football
player will ever play in the NFL. The players that I
encounter seem perfectly aware of this.
It is encouraging to see that so many young men want to stay
involved with the game after their playing days end, and are
clearly working toward that goal by preparing for work as game
officials. At least that's one conclusion that their
sideline commentary might lead an observer toward.
If you listen closely, you can even hear some of them planning for
a future as instructors of officials. All to the good; I
frequently say that we need bright young people going into
teaching, and that applies everywhere along the educational
spectrum.
M-->
20 October 02024 (Happy birthday!): On The Law Of Unintended
Consequences
Sometimes doing the right thing backfires.
My rooting algorithm (The
Markives, 12 October 02004) as applied to the National
League Championship Series calls for me to support the Mets over
the Dodgers (Rule 1: Root against a team from California.)
My ALCS rooting interest did not require the algorithm: On the
question of whether it's better to root for or against the team
that vanquished your favorite team in the playoffs, I come down
firmly on the side of "root against them". Why should I
cheer for Cleveland to extend their run when it comes in part at
the Tigers' expense?
I recognize that there are cogent arguments for the opposing point
of view, along the lines of "if we lost, at least we lost to the
best", but I don't agree with them. It's a harmless
difference of opinion.
Except that this leaves me supporting a Subway Series: Mets vs.
Yankees, which is in many ways the worst of all possible worlds.
As if there aren't already too many people who think that the
universe (or at least the sports universe) ends at the outskirts
of NYC*, the last thing we need is for that universe to validate
their collective myopia.
I don't want to see this happen, just not enough to pull for the
Dodgers. I've seen some opining that MLB HQ wants
Yankees-Dodgers in the World Series for obvious ratings reasons,
but none of the 4 possible matchups was particularly attractive
this year.
M-->
*--In the case of MLB, there's a thread of that
universe that extends to metro Boston.
9 October 02024: Fifteenth In A Series
Or so some of the press coverage (including the caption on this
footage) claimed.
Here's the best video I've found so far of the demolition* of the
Tropicana in Las Vegas early this morning.
I get the need for safety, but it seems like
this one lost something without thousands of poeple milling in
the streets at a safe distance.
Laurie and I (who were in the crowd when the Stardust
did the big pancake in 02007) have made a pact to be present
when the Bellagio is taken down, which, given resort lifespans,
should be sometime around 02060 or thereabouts. Not
because we have anything against it (there's a good gelato place
there), but because that was among the newest and nicest resorts
when we first visited, and seeing it go away would be a nice
closing of some kind of circle.
M-->
*--Technically not an implosion, which is a very
specific way of collapsing a building with explosives.
1 October 02024: Celebrity Deathwatch--3 + 1 Edition
Kris Kristofferson: 10.
Dikembe Mutombo: 9.
Pete Rose: 13.
On the sunnier side of the street, I've gotten two emails today
specifically notifying me that Jimmy Carter is still alive at age
100. That's a nice change of pace.
M-->
27 September 02024: Thoughts On Magic
"The magic number is 1" is one of the best sentences that a
sports fan can hear, but only if the MN eventually goes to
0.
If it stays stuck at 1, it is conversely one of the saddest
sentences.
M-->
11 September 02024: On The Market
On my 530th recorded attempt at Wordle, I finally hit the
elusive "got it in 1" target.
Now I need a new starting word.
The day can only go downhill from here.
M-->
6 September 02024: It Was 20 Years Ago Today...
...that The Markives
launched its first entry.
A lot has happened since then, including but not limited to the entire
life of half of my nephices and both of my great-nephices.
With apologies to Messrs. Harrison, Lennon, McCartney, and Starkey.
M-->
26 August 02024: #56
It's the first day of school. Again.
While I was prepared for it, I was by no means ready for it.
There's a difference.
Part of the unreadiness is that it was a really good summer this
year. Part of it is that all signs point to a stressful year
ahead. Given some of what's happened around here in the past
few years, it's harder than usual to put a positive spin on
things.
Nonetheless, we move forward, time being unidirectional. It
would, however, be nice to live in precedented times for a change.
M-->
31 July 02024: Watching The Skies
In and among all of the recent changes to college athletics,
there's a not-yet-there movement that I'm kind of watching for.
How long before student non-athletes at some
of the top-funded NCAA schools rebel against the idea of
mandatory athletics fees charged to all students to support sports programs that are pulling in
millions of dollars and dispensing life-changing amounts of it
to some athletes?
If ever there was a case for mandatory
athletics fees--and I'm not sure that there wasn't--it seems
like the playing field (pun intended) has changed with recent
developments. I could see some social consciousness fans
getting worked up about this, and I think they might have a
reasonable case.
Provided they assert themselves reasonably, which is by no means
a guarantee.
M-->
29 July 02024 (Happy anniversary!): The Word O' The Day
is "regurgatilite".
That means "fossilized vomit". (Caution: This gets a bit
ichthyo-gastrointestinal, and might be worth skipping over if that
sort of thing bothers you.)
While traveling the last few weeks, we came across the following
display at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado:
So. Many. Questions.
Fish, when they throw up, are typically underwater[citation
needed].
Under water, one would expect that anything expelled from
an animal would dissipate fairly rapidly.
Yet this particular bolus appeared at exactly the right
time, and stayed together long enough, to be encased in
volcanic ash detritus--under water, mind you--and be
fossilized as a unit.
The probability of all of these things happening, often
enough that there are multiple researchers who study this
sort of thing, is another one of those homeopathic
numbers I point out around here. Yet when multiplied by
the number of fish, even if divided by the low chance of
fossilization, we see an example of the "everything happens,
given enough time" phenomenon that I certainly hadn't been
anticipating before this trip.
What's additionally amazing is that some people recognized
this for what it is. "Fossilized fish vomit" would not
have been in my top 100 guesses.
M-->
26 July 02024: Celebrity Deathwatch: The Vacation Edition
While I generally avoided a lot of my email while out West, a
fair number of famous people passed away while we were away, and I
couldn't not keep track. Here are the final standings:
Bob Newhart:
14. (Yep, there was another one of those "sad day[s] for
comedy" that I keep mentioning around here.)
25 July 02024 (Happy birthday yesterday!): The Purpose of
Aphorisms
...is to keep those who have memorized
them from having nothing to say.
Isaac Asimov had a point there, but there's a time or two
when aphorisms justify their existence, and the last couple of
weeks (when I've been out West, avoiding much of the worst of
American culture and politics) have been one such time.
Herewith, a wrap-up.
"Democrats fall in love. Republicans
fall in line."
Boy howdy. The past two months
have been a textbook-level illustration of this. The
challenge to the Democrats is to get over this sense of fickleness
that they seem to have developed.
"Be careful what you wish for; you might get
it."
It took a barely-noticeable amount of time
after the fact for the chattering class to lose their minds
about President Biden stepping out of the 2024 race, didn't
it? Oddly, some of the best commentary I have heard
about how this whole process has played out or not played out
comes from physicist Chad Orzel. You should read his
entire piece, but here's an excerpt that I found myself
nodding at a lot.
There’s also a level of naked self-interest
on the part of the political media that’s been exposed by this
whole business.
As I said on ex-Twitter the other day, it’s really remarkable
how closely the high-minded strategic advice being offered
from the commentariat
as to what course of action would be best for Biden and the
Democrats and the nation as a whole
has tracked what’s most fun and lucrative for people who make
their living generating #content for political media.
Exactly this.
"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
This one has considerable applicability in
my professional life, but there is no joy in watching it play
out in the political sphere these days.
M-->
28 June 02024: A Quest Not To React, Let Alone Overreact
I vowed only to read sports and entertainment news today, but
even those sources are chattering on about the debate last
night. The best take, as is so often the case, comes from Mark
Evanier.
M-->
20 June 02024 (Happy birthday, and Happy
solstice!): Celebrity Deathwatch: North American Division
Willie Mays (USA) 16, Donald Sutherland (Canada) 12. Some of
this, of course, can be attributed to home-country advantage in my
breaking-news sources. Toronto was the first to report about
Mr. Sutherland. Maine (which is in some ways a southern
extension of Canada) chimed in second.
No prominent (prominent enough to generate breaking news emails,
that is) Mexican citizen appears to have passed away
recently.
M-->
4 June 02024 (Happy birthday yesterday!) Times Change, And
Statistics Must Change With Them
Two things motivate today's missive, which has
been fermenting in my mind for quite some time now:
The continued prevalence of the fascism of absolute freedom
that Dennis Miller identified long ago, where everybody's got
an opinion, and everybody's completely unbending on that
opinion.
The continued effort of the media to attach significance to
polls about, well, anything these days, even in light of the
considerable shortcomings of Presidential polling in June.
As I see it, any opinion poll about pretty much anything
significant* these days starts out with about 30% of the
relevant population instinctively primed to object to it.
So let's leave them out of the computation, replacing
"per cent" (per hundred, remember) with "per sept", or "per
70%". Let's confine our attention to reasonably-achievable
targets.
For example, President
Biden's approval rating is running at 38.3% as I type
this. Excluding the 30% who won't approve of him even if
he were proved to be the second coming of Christ, this
translates to a 54.7 per sept approval rating, which is probably
a better indicator of what's going on out there.
This works in reverse. 34-time
felon Donald Trump's 41.6% approval rating translates to
59.4 per sept, suggesting that Biden has a little more--though
not much--room to raise his standing where it's realistic that
he do so.
"Per sept" could be abbreviated "0/7" for the moment; I'm sure
the font designers can come up with something nicer-looking.
M-->
*--While I doubt that "cookies" [the pastry,
not the snippets of computer code] could get a 100% approval
rating, or even 95%, I suspect they'd poll over 70.
24 May 02024: From The Emile Arturi Award Committee
One of the reasons that there is no Emile Arturi Award winner
this year is found in what is surely a contender for the most
useless rule ever promulgated anywhere, to wit:
When you spend 18 years setting up the
conclusion of a TV series, it may safely be said that your
ending was not ``artificial".
I refer, of course, to the end of Young
Sheldon, which can be tied back (as Chuck Lorre did in the
series' antepenultimate vanity card) to
the beginning of The Big Bang Theory.
With the "artificial closure" tag removed as a threat, it
was highly unlikely that YS would qualify for this
dubious recognition. It doesn't hurt that the eventual
last episode wasn't really a universal closure, either.
(That said, bringing back Tam Nguyen and Sheryl Hutchins seemed
kind of forced--but not enough to tip the scales.*)
No clunkiness here. The committee has spoken.
In a semi-related note, there was also admirable restraint
displayed in not setting up Georgie and Mandy's First
Marriage. Backdoor pilots are an occasional thing
among series that are on their way out the door; good on the
team at YS for resisting. There will be time for
that this fall.
M-->
*--I find it odd that the corners of the I'net
that are, in my opinion, a little too invested the the absence
of any mention of Paige Swanson from TBBT (because, of
course, that character didn't exist during most of TBBT's
run) haven't reacted to this in any meaningful way.
24 April 02024: On The Curious Nature Of
Human Memory
I am frequently amused by what sticks in
students' minds from what I tell them. Sometimes it's "Why
in the world did you remember that?". Sometimes
it's more along the lines of "Of all the important things I've
talked about, that's what stuck?"
Occasionally, I am pleasantly surprised. Last week was one
of those times.
As some of you know, I work with a lot of students who want to
be teachers someday. As perhaps fewer of you know, I have
a list of former students whom I would not want any child that I
care about to have as a teacher. It's not a long list, but
it's not an empty list, either. (This had a lot more
meaning when the Gang of 12 was collectively younger, but a]
I'll still have 4 nephices in the K-12 system next fall, and b]
Since my second great-nephice will be born presently*, this will
soon start over again for the next next generation.)
I have a rule that everyone stays off The List when they're
actually taking a class from me, and every once in a while, the
existence of The List gets mentioned in one of those
classes. One of my recent students, who was never on The
List, recently finished student-teaching and will be graduating
in 10 days. She asked me point-blank last week, "So, am I
allowed to teach your family?"
Well-played, although this may be the first time I've ever been
called on that after the fact. I assured her that she was
not on The List.
I hope she also remembers some of the math and science covered
in my classrooms.
M-->
*--That said, I anticipate that it will be a
while before that generation gets a book dedication.
22 March 02024: The Meaning Of 80-76 (Other
Than 4, That Is)
That would, of course, be the score of
yesterday's Oakland-Kentucky
NCAA men's March Madness first-round game.
Leaving aside the fact that a lot of coverage
has focused on the losing
side rather than the winning side, which might
self-correct later today as Round Two comes into prominence,
once thing worth noting here is that this is strong evidence
that the current chatter* about eliminating automatic bids for
conference champions is misguided.
Oakland beating Kentucky is getting attention that
Florida-Colorado won't get later today, disirregardless** of who
wins--to say nothing of a hypothetical Oklahoma-St. John's
matchup between two teams that missed the field and snubbed the
NIT. And ultimately, that's a good thing for the NCAA
(motto: "We Don't Have All The Money Yet").
I will say this: Conference tournaments, however much they might
be pitched as a way for any team*** to play their way into the
tournament, are farcical. Maybe there's room for some
fixing there, but given that regular-season champions of one-bid
leagues who lose in their conference tournaments have lost their
automatic bids to the NIT, I am not filled with confidence.
M-->
*--Calling it "discussion" suggests two-way
communication that isn't happening.
**--I know that's not a word.
***--Except Chicago
State, currently the lone D-I men's basketball
independent. That distinction aside, I'm not 100% sure
how that university manages to stay open, except perhaps for
the fact that public colleges aren't closing in quite the way
that private schools are.
28 February 02024 (Happy birthday!):
Speaking Of Not Getting Stuff, Or, $0.02 on Yesterday
I have a very difficult time
believing that most of the "Uncommitted" voters from yesterday's
Michigan Democratic Presidential primary honestly believe that
their interests will be better served if Donald Trump is
returned to the Presidency this November.
That may be giving them too much credit, since the ability of
people to vote against their own interests is astounding
sometimes. (That said, we've probably all done that from
time to time.)
While I respect their point of view, I think that their means
are rather on the shortsighted side.
I read something today about some of these resistors* demanding
"peace in the Middle East" as a condition for voting for Joe
Biden this fall.
Like that's even a remote possibility.
Jon Stewart had it right about that region: "Too many people
have too many claims on not enough land. Jesus, Mohamed,
and Moses all went to the same high school."
M-->
*--While my software does not flag "resister" as
an error, and "resistor" is more commonly used as a name for a
piece of electronics hardware, I think that sentence reads
better with the "o" form of the word.
2 February 02024*: On The Current Political Climate
You know the one.
A lot of commentary, reasoned and otherwise, from the citizenry
regarding the potential of a rematch of 02020 this November in
the Presidential election seems to include ranting about being
dissatisfied with both choices.
I'm not sure I've heard that so often expressed in past leap
years. Certainly not with the passion--bordering on anger
at not getting something they seem to feel entitled to--coming
from some quarters.
Leaving aside the threat to democracy posed by one side, I
cannot help but think of Bill Maher's pronouncement from some
time in the last century that he's never entered a Presidential
election thinking "I don't know which one to vote for; I like
them both so much."
That probably describes every election for most voters since...I
don't know. Maybe Eisenhower vs. Stevenson?
Certainly nothing since then. (Ford vs. Carter may have
been a case of two relatively inoffensive [by the standards of
the Bicentennial year] major-party candidates, but I don't think
"like them both so much" really applied.) When liking 2
isn't happening, expecting to like 1 seems like a lot to ask of
the universe (which, of course, cares not the slightest about
all of this).
My instinct when I read about someone issuing this complaint is
something along the lines of "Run for office yourself, then."
Not "Run for President"--we have some evidence suggesting that
inexperienced folks really shouldn't start at, or even near, the
top--but put some actual personal stake into the process.
It's easy to lament your choices when you're not willing to get
in there and do something,
M-->
*--I've been writing this in my head for the
better part of a month now. It's time to write it up and
move on. My absentee ballot for the primary election
arrived this week, which may have been the final nudge I
needed.
19 January 02024 (Or 9): Another Sad Day For Comedy
We have lost another icon (maybe two).
Peter
Schickele, a talented musician in his own right but
destined to be remembered more for his work on the works of
P.D.Q. Bach, has died at 88. (P.D.Q. himself only made it
to -65 or so, living as he did from 01807 to 01742.)
Schickele won a Grammy under his own name for best Classical
Crossover Album, and won 4 Best Comedy Recording* Grammy Awards
for P.D.Q.'s works. These were entirely deserved in a way
that that particular award hasn't always been.
Here's one of those Grammy winners: WTWP Classical
Talkity-Talk Radio. I am especially a fan of this
one because it's set at a radio station.
One track that's fun on multiple levels is #15, the "Safe"
Sextet. The idea of a classical piece written for piccolo,
English horn, bass clarinet, contrabassoon, harp, and celesta**
is inspired lunacy. If you don't want to wait for it to
come around, you can jump to it here.
RIP, Professor.
M-->
*--For my money, the most important Grammy Award.
**--These were chosen because they are 6 of the
"forgotten" instruments of the orchestra. I find it
interesting that 4 of the 6 are woodwinds. Surely there
are some forgotten brass instruments out there.
10 January 02024: For
The Record, I Did Enjoy That Last Year Of My 50s Take that, anonymous well-wisher from 02022.
The fact of the matter is that my 50s were, all in all, a
pretty good decade, which is one reason to be less than
excited about birthday #LX. All in all, I'd prefer not
to leave that behind.
Of course, that's not an option, and so we move forward in
time at the constant rate of 1 day per day.
I'll be back with more age-appropriate ranting in a day or
two.
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