I'm 100 Today

No, not in years -- in blog posts. No, I'm not anal enough to keep up with my blog count on my own, but blogger shows the number of posts and I just realized this is number 100. Hmm, 100 posts, maybe some time for introspection?

The first and most obvious question, to me, is why do I do this every day? Do I have something monumental and life-changing every day? Are you nuts? Of course I don't have anything mildly important every day. Heck, I could probably count my noteworthy (even to me) posts on 1 hand. I did like my early rant about the misuse of statistics in public policy and I'm still tickled by the account of my disastrous trip to the grocery store during the World Series. I've also enjoyed exchanging book notes with some readers, but I don't think those rise to the "I Must Share This With The World" level. So why do I blog almost daily (at least M-F)?

Given my love of quotes, I'll "borrow" a reason from Daniel J. Boorstin (evidently an American social historian and educator):

I write to discover what I think. After all, the bars aren't open that early.

Now I'm not really much of a barfly, but I like the quote. Plus, I think there's a kernel of truth in it. By writing I do develop my thinking on an issue. Sometimes it's a silly, meaningless issue, but sometimes it's something more serious. On these latter issues, especially, I tend to discover my true feelings as I write. Of course given that blogging is an instantaneous sharing of thoughts, I sometimes share before I fully develop my thinking or I just make a mistake. I made both goofs in a single post last week.

I irritated Ang by implying that it doesn't really count as going to church unless you read the right version of the Bible and, just for good measure, wear sackcloth smeared with ashes. While I really didn't mean either of those things, and Ang didn't accuse me of that, in retrospect I can see that my thoughts weren't clearly spelled out. Heck, I don't even know if I have clear thoughts, but that didn't stop me from sharing. In the same post, I also managed to (potentially) insult Melusina by suggesting she was a private school snob (though that's not what I meant; it was supposed to be funny). That was just a case of pure writer error. I guess I figured all the Hume-Fogg folks I'd known were so damned brainy that it must be a private school.

So, I write to figure out what I think (or just because I can't resist a soapbox), but that sometimes leads to "whoops" moments. Oh well, I have LOTS of those in class (especially when doing math at the board), so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I have those blogging. So, dear reader, keep reading if you wish. Maybe you'll find something interesting, informative, or maybe just amusing.

In an attempt to provide a little bit of that, here are a few things to check out:

Top 10 Things I Hate About Star Trek. I never was a big Trekkie, but I found some of them amusing -- especially the one complaining about the predictability of many Enterprise "crises": "Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and 'Ensign Gomez' beam down to a planet. Which one isn't coming back?" Of course I'm not sure the 10 combined are as "funny" as the first (at the time of writing) comment: "I lost my Trekkiedom when they made fun of Capitalists and abolished money--that was way too lefty for me..." C'mon people, it was a SciFi show with analog clocks and counters on a light speed capable craft and you're going to be offended by the politics?

If any of you have the Encore Love channel (no jokes, DISH gave it to us to make up for losing another network), tonight it's showing The Station Agent. There aren't a lot of movies that I absolutely love, but this was one. I actually went to see this during the New England Patriots vs. Carolina Panthers Superbowl a couple of years ago. Yes, there was a female involved, but the Superbowl is a wonderful time to go to the movies. Anyway, the movie isn't really "about" anything, but I really enjoyed it. The characters, the story, the setting, ... It all just seemed to work. It's well worth a little TiVo space.

Speaking of movies, did any of you see Daltry Calhoun? Caffeine Brother tells me parts of it were filmed in Columbia, TN, but the soundtrack is what's caught my attention. My internet "radio" station has played a few songs from the soundtrack and I've liked them all. In addition, the movie sounds like one I'd like. So, did ANYONE see this movie? I'm not holding out hope. The Station Agent is sort of an "underground" movie, yet it has generated 9877 votes on IMDB. Daltry Calhoun, by contrast, has 46.

Well, that's it. Hopefully I'll make it to post 101.