Bullshit Rate

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's bullshit rate in February increased to 52.7 percent, a whopping 11.6 percent increase over January.

Experts cited the rapidly heating presidential race, another Academy Awards ceremony fraught with fake people lying through their teeth on the red carpet and in their award speeches, and Snooki's pregnancy and impending nuptials as primary factors.

"We usually see a bump in February, but this past month was just off the charts," said Kathy Shlabotnik, executive director of the Bureau of Statistics. She noted this is the highest the bullshit rate has been since 1987, when Iran-Contra was at its peak and a second incarnation of The Newlywed Game was in syndication.

"This is pretty unprecedented," she added. "Think about it, more than half of what people say is utter bullshit now. Usually only a third of what people tell you is crap."

On the street, people treated the new with a mix of resignation and skepticism.

"Just another sign of the times," said Joan Johnson, who was enjoying a night out at at Mohegan Sun. "You can't trust anything anybody tells you these days."

Her husband, Brice Johnson, disagreed. He had just returned from the casino slots, where he claimed he had just won $5,000. "Are there some bullshit artists out there? Sure. But for everyone who feel you a crock of shit, there's a nice Nigerian emperor's son who's letting honest folks like you and me know we've inherited millions."

Courageous Learning

If you're looking for some more reading material, check out Fairfield MFA faculty member Bill Patrick and co-author John Ebersole's Courageous Learning.

The book is available at the link above, and, if you happen to be currently incarcerated, it's going to be in six prison libraries in Connecticut and two in Massachusetts.

The book's premise is to encourage adults to finish their BAs through online learning. There are five really interesting stories, one being about a man who finished his BA while incarcerated.

Check it out if you get a chance.

Baggage

Ten years ago, I was preparing to leave the newspaper world and enter the financial services industry. I had to study for my Series 7 and 66 licensing exams and it made for some late nights. And I developed an addiction.

I became hooked on cheesy dating game shows. Channel 56 would air the following shows back-to-back: Blind Date (self-explanatory), Change of Heart (couple going through problems each get set up on dates with someone else, decide whether to stay together or move on), Shipmates (blind date on a cruise ship), 5th Wheel  (single, good-looking person crashes a double-blind-date), another episode of Blind Date, and the night would be topped off with my personal favorite, Elimidate (someone goes out simultaneously with four suitors, gradually eliminates three of them over the course of the night). Dating shows nonstop from 11 p.m. until 2 a.m.

I barely passed my licensing exams.

As the 2000s continued, though, the dating-reality-show became passe and by 2006 each show had been canceled. Life went on. I forgot about dating TV.

The other night, I couldn't sleep and was flipping through the channels and I stumbled upon Baggage  on Game Show Network. Cheesy dating game shows are back!

On Baggage, a single is introduced to three suitors, each of whom has quite of bit of personal baggage (i.e., "I still sleep with my childhood pillow," "I don't reciprocate oral sex," "I've done time."), each nugget of which is placed in a title card into three suitcases. The bigger the suitcase, the bigger the piece of baggage. The single gradually eliminates the suitors based on how much they feel they can tolerate the baggage, until only one suitor remains. Then, the single has to reveal a piece of baggage of his/her own, and the winning suitor gets the final say over whether the love connection will actually happen.

Jerry Springer hosts (good to see him moving on from lesbian-paternity-test talk shows with chair-throwing brawls). The show tries too hard to give him some canned one-liners. And sometimes the contestants' reactions to getting cut is also a little too scripted.

But, hey, all things considered, it's pretty entertaining. I asked myself what it is about these shows that I've always enjoyed, both 10 years ago and now. I guess it's a number of things -- maybe it serves as a primer on what not to do on dates, or it reinforces my already skeptical thoughts about relationships, or maybe I'm captivated by the eye many of the female contestants provide.

Wednesday night there's been a marathon on from 6:30 to midnight. This means I am enthralled. The news season premieres with another marathon next Wednesday. Apparently Baggage has been on since 2010. How did I not know this was on the air before now?

I can only hope this will lead to the return of Blind Date and Shipmates and Elimidate.

Massachusetts Primary

I like to vote. It's nice to live in a country where I can do so, do so with a ballot that has more than one candidate on it, and do so without a gun pointed to my head. So while today's Massachusetts primary really was a taffy-pull at best, I wanted to participate.

I'm a registered independent. This meant that Tuesday I had to decide whether to pick up the Democratic or Republican ballot. Apparently the Green Party had a ballot, too, but the folks at the polling place didn't ask me if I wanted one. President Obama, as the incumbent, is the only Democrat on the ballot. So it made more sense to me to be a Republican-for-a-day.

There were several candidates on the ballot -- some of whom have already dropped out of the race -- but I was struck at what a groundbreaking group of candidates this was.

For the first time I can recall, a chameleon is running for president.

Also on the ballot was someone who has trouble making a list.

And someone who won't stay out of my bedroom.

And someone whom nobody's heard of.

And someone who flunked history.

And someone who throws stones in glass houses.

This sucks. I take voting seriously. I'm not one of these people who the crosses party lines in the primary to pick the worst possible candidate and stack the deck for the general election. I think Obama has done yeoman's work considering the hand he was dealt. But to be honest, I don't like either political party very much and when November rolls around, I would much prefer to have a choice between two candidates that I can tolerate than have to pray that one candidate wins.

There was one candidate on the Republican ballot whom I think I could stomach as president, so I cast my ballot accordingly. It's probably a losing cause. I can't say it was a great day for democracy. But I did the best I could with the resources I had available.

I Write Like...

I feel like this is somewhat familiar, so I'm sorry if this is repetitive, but I stumbled upon a website that claims to analyze your writing style.

So I went on and pasted a couple of paragraphs from some of my writing (and also a random list that I wrote).

I came back with three pieces that said I write like David Foster Wallace, one James Joyce, one Chuck Palahniuk and one Cory Doctorow.

It's somewhat flattering, though I take it with a grain of salt. It's pretty randomly generated and who knows how accurate. (Especially since the random list was supposedly reminiscent of David Foster Wallace, though I suppose footnotes and lists are somewhat similar.)

My 1,000th Tweet

I've had a Twitter account since 2009, but for a long time I really didn't fully understand it. First I thought it was Facebook if Facebook was only the status update. Then I discovered it was a convenient place to post a link to my blog.

Over the past six months or so I've gotten the hang of Twitter a little more -- to the chagrin of those who follow me, who have discovered that I livetweet TV a lot. I think the turning point was one night when the Saints kicked the shit out of the Colts, 62-7, on Sunday Night Football. Rather than do the normal, sane thing (change the channel), I livetweeted every time the Saints piled on to their already gargantuan lead.

Now I try to tweet five times a day. And though some days I don't tweet at all, I more than make up for that on nights that The Bachelor or NFL football are on.

So as I found myself getting close to 1,000 career tweets, I started to think if there was something profound or clever or earthshattering I could say in my 1,000th tweet.

And then this morning I noticed that I just reached 1,000 with the following tweet:

"I like those lyrics better."

The content was OK. But I feel like that's an epic fail of a 1,000th tweet. Oh, well. I can only hope that five years from now I'll be composing my 10,000th tweet and it'll be more profound.

This Techie Thing Is Beyond My Competency Level

Once again, my icon has disappeared.

This has been a trend of late. I keep deleting my icon and repasting it, or some similar facsimile thereof, but it keeps happening.

Clearly this is an issue beyond my core competency level. I don't want to repost my icon every time I blog. So if anyone can shed any light on this, if it's happened to them, f they have any tips, I would greatly appreciate it.