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Summer of Television

It is time to give an update about my current TV viewing habits.  Since last I wrote, we have adiosed DirectTV for Comcast. Long story, but the short version is that the DirectTV customer representative I was talking to made me so mad that I cancelled on the spot. Signing up with Communist-cast made me cringe but (1) it was ultimately cheaper since we already have internet through them, and (2) the X1 box gave me back DVR. I also finally junked my gen-1 Apple TV since Hulu was constantly re-setting. I picked up a Roku 3 which is a slick little machine that I primarily use for Hulu and Netflix.  So, the current itinerary of programs includes (August updates, September updates):

Current Shows (in Progress)

• Aquarius (NBC; Season 1) — One episode to go in Season 2
• Ballers (HBO; Season 1, 2) — New episodes start Sept. 11
• Gilmore Girls (CW and Netflix) — Re-watching the series on Netflix to get ready for the new episodes that are due out in November
• Ray Donovan (Showtime; Season 1, 2, 3, 4) — New episodes start Sept. 11

Caught Up

• Animal Kingdom (TNT; Season 1) — Renewed for second season
• Better Call Saul (AMC; Season 1, 2) — Renewed for third season
• Billions (HBO; Season 1, 2) — Renewed for second season
• Bloodline (Netflix; Season 1, 2) — Renewed for third season
• Casual (Hulu, Season 1, 2) — Renewed for a third season in 2017
• Elementary (Fox; Season 1, 2, 3, 4) — Renewed for fifth season
• Fargo (FX; Season 1, 2) — Renewed for third season
• Game of Thrones (HBO; Season 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) — Renewed for 7th season
• Girls (HBO; Season 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) — One season left
• Halt and Catch Fire (AMC; Season 1) — Two seasons out, renewed for third season
• Homeland (Showtime; Season 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) — Renewed for sixth season
• House of Cards (Netflix; Season 1, 2, 3, 4) — Renewed for fifth season
• Longmire (A&E and Netflix; Season 1, 2, 3, 4) — Netflix renewed the show for a fifth season
• Lucifer (Fox; Season 1) — Renewed for a second season
• Roadies (Showtime; Season 1) — No word on whether it will be renewed.
• Sherlock (BBC; Season 1, 2, 3) — Renewed for fourth season
• Stranger Things (Netflix; Season 1) — Season 2 is in the works according to the Duffer brothers
• The Americans (FX; Season 1, 2, 3, 4) — Two seasons left
• The Path (Hulu; Season 1) — Renewed for a second season
• True Detective (HBO; Season 1, 2) — Maybe a third season??
• Turn: Washington's Spies (AMC; Season 1, 2, 3)

Behind (but Still Watching)

• Empire (Fox; Season 1, 2) — I am only a couple episodes into Season 2, which is on Hulu; Season 3 is coming soon
• Madame Secretary (CBS; Season 1) — Waiting for Season 2 to hit Netflix; Renewed for Season 3
• New Girl (Fox; Season 1, 2, 3, 4) — Waiting for Season 5 on Netflix; Renewed for Season 6
• You're the Worst (FX; Season 1, 2) — Waiting for third season to hit Hulu

Behind (but Not Really Watching...Maybe an Episode Once in a While)

• Daredevil (Netflix; Season 1) — Although Season 2 is already out, I am still only 3/4 of the way through Season 1; Finally finished Season 1.
• Gotham (Fox; Season 1, 2) — Season 2 is on Netflix, but I have only watched the first few episodes
• Hannibal (NBC; Season 1) — Show was cancelled after three seasons
• Person of Interest (CBS; Season 1, 2, 3) — I am about half way through Season 3 on Netflix; The show was cancelled after Season 5 
• The Grinder (Fox; Season 1) — Show was cancelled after one season; I have watched the first 13 episodes

Finished

• 11.22.63 (Hulu) — Eight episode mini-series
• Hart of Dixie (CW; Season 1, 2, 3, 4) — Show was cancelled after Season 4
• House of Lies (Showtime; Season 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) — Show was cancelled after Season 5
• Last Chance U (Netflix; Season 1) — One season documentary mini-series
• Lipstick Jungle (NBC; Season 1, 2) — Show cancelled after two seasons
• Mad Men (AMC; Season 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) — Show ended after 7 seasons
• Making a Murderer (Netflix; Season 1) — One season mini-series
• Nashville (ABC; Season 1, 2, 3, 4) — Show cancelled after Season 4
• Parenthood (NBC; Season 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) — I watched all six seasons this spring on Netflix
• The Bridge (FX; Season 1, 2) — Show cancelled after Season 2
• The Good Wife (CBS; Season 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) — Show ended after 7 seasons
• The League (FX; Season 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) — Show ended after 7 seasons

Quit Watching

• Suits (USA; Season 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) — Quit mid-way through Season 6. Mike in prison is a dumb premise.

Some Good Advice on Writing

“Cut out all these exclamation points,” he said. “An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Photograph of F. Scott Fitzgerald c. 1921, appearing "The World's Work" (June 1921 issue). Photo in the public domain from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F_Scott_Fitzgerald_1921.jpg

F. Scott Fitzgerald, near the end of his life, began a love affair with Sheilah Graham. In her memoir “Beloved Infidel”, she describes the advice Fitzgerald gave to her. after reading one of her radio scripts:

“You don’t mind if I reword it here and there?” he asked. And though tired from his own writing at the studio, he sat down with a stubby pencil and a pack of cigarettes and painstakingly—and completely—rewrote my copy. He worked with the utmost concentration and as he worked he twisted the hair above his forehead so that a tuft stood up, as on a kewpie doll. It gave him a strangely boyish appearance. “Cut out all these exclamation points,” he said. “An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.” He underlined words I should emphasize, corrected my grammar. 

This is good advice for any writer. A well-structured sentence will emphasize all the content it needs to without shouting at people.

How I Spend My Money

Lauren sent me this comic which pretty much is a super-accurate depiction of where my money goes.

The original is from Sarah Anderson's book Adulthood is a Myth. Her stuff looks pretty funny, so it will probably be on our bookshelves soon!

Using Unix to Change Filenames

I have recently been trying to standardize my file names to keep a better consistency. I have decided to use all lowercase letters rather than the title case that I have been using.

View inside a folder that has file and folder names using title case (combination of upper- and lowercase letters.

I knew there must be a quick way of making these changes using Unix commands in Terminal. After a quick Google search, I found this site. After using the cd command to get in the directory, the syntax to change everything to lowercase looks like this:

for f in * ; do mv -v $f `echo $f | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`; done

To understand how this works, let's parse the syntax. First the semicolon is how we put multiple commands on a single line. It is akin to hitting <enter>. So it may be a bit easier to understand if we format this in a different manner.

for f in *
  do mv -v $f `echo $f | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`
done

The first and last lines are executing a FOR loop. The f in * just says do something (in this case the something is the commands issued in the second line) for each filename in the directory, that is where the * comes in. The f is an arbitrary variable name.

The do command of the second line tells Unix to actually do what follows it. The heart of this command is mv. In Unix-speak, mv can either be used to move files or rename files, depending on what comes after it. In this case, we use it to rename files. The -v is an optional flag that tells Unix to print to the screen everything that mv is doing (verbose mode). In general the structure of using mv to rename files looks like this:

mv old_filename new_filename

From the FOR loop, the name of each file is stored in the variable f. Thus we can get that name by accessing $f (the old filename). Notice the new filename is not given explicitly, but is a series of Unix commands. This is enclosed in a set of backticks (`commands`). Everything typed between backticks is evaluated (executed) by the shell. (The mathematical equivalent would be enclosing this in parentheses so order of operations is followed.)

The series of commands executed is

echo $f | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'

This echos back the filename ($f) and then pipes it into the translate (tr) command. This is like a pipeline, where the output of a one process is fed as input into a subsequent process. This is that vertical bar (|). SO the output of echo (the filename) is fed into the tr command.

The tr command translates the first thing into the second thing. Since these are characters, they are both enclosed in quotation marks. Both the first and second component are calling regular expressions. The first component, [A-Z], looks for uppercase letters, which are then translated into lowercase letters, [a-z], the second component.

After executing the command, the verbose flag outputs the following:

Andy -> andy
Dad -> dad
Fractals-and-Chaos-Workshop-Pamphlet.pdf -> fractals-and-chaos-workshop-pamphlet.pdf
Grandpa -> grandpa
Soccer -> soccer

The result is all the filenames (or folder names) are now lowercase

The same directory after running the commands.

There are other ways to do this as well. For example, the regular expressions can be changed so the commands are:

echo $f | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]'

Be careful if you use these commands. You can accidentally write over a file if it has the same name. For example if your directory contained two files,

myFile.doc
myfile.doc

and you issued this command, you would write over the 'myfile.doc' file.

Read-a-Thon (c. 1982/1983)

Going through some more old stuff, and came across the list of books I read for the Multiple Sclerosis Society Read-a-Thon. According to the "Book List Record", I read 35 books and had 9 sponsors. (The sponsor bit was not copied by my mom, so I do not know whether they donated per page or per book.) I also don't know how long this read-a-thon took place, but my guess is that it happened over Christmas break. Here is the list of books:

	Title	Author	Pages
1	The Littles to the Rescue	Peterson, John	95
2	The Littles Take a Trip	Peterson, John	95
3	The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood	Pyle, Howard	238
4	The Littles and the Big Storm	Peterson, John	80
5	The Littles Give a Party	Peterson, John	96
6	The Case of the Snowbound Spy	Hildick, Edmund Wallace	120
7	The Adventures of Tom Sawyer	Twain, Mark	238
8	The Count of Monte Cristo	Dumas, Alexandre	238
9	The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	Twain, Mark	238
10	The Secret of the Rosewood Box	Orton, Helen Fuller	120
11	Mystery in the Pirate Oak	Orton, Helen Fuller	120
12	Socks	Cleary, Beverly	156
13	Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Midnight Visitor	Sobol, Donald J.	112
14	Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Dead Eagles	Sobol, Donald J.	96
15	Encyclopedia Brown Tracks Them Down	Sobol, Donald J.	96
16	Encyclopedia Brown Takes the Case	Sobol, Donald J.	96
17	Crazy Horse, Sioux Warrior	Meadowcroft, Enid LaMonte	104
18	May I? Please? Thank You	Wilt, Joy	146
19	The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes	Heyward, DuBose	46
20	Encyclopedia Brown Solves Them All	Sobol, Donald J.	96
21	Encyclopedia Brown Finds the Clues	Sobol, Donald J.	86
22	Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Exploding Plumbing	Sobol, Donald J.	73
23	The Great Rabbit Robbery	Hildick, Edmund Wallace	101
24	Encyclopedia Brown Carries on	Sobol, Donald J.	72
25	Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes	Doyle, Arthur Conan	95
26	A Bear Called Paddington	Bond, Michael	128
27	Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective	Sobol, Donald J.	75
28	Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch	Sobol, Donald J.	96
29	Encyclopedia Brown Shows the Way	Sobol, Donald J.	96
30	The Case of the Nervous Newsboy	Hildick, Edmund Wallace	131
31	(Copy cannot be read)
32	Encyclopedia Brown Keeps the Peace	Sobol, Donald J.	96
33	Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Stolen Diamonds	Adler, David A.	58
34	The Mystery of the Dead Man's Riddle	Arden, William	45
35	Pirate Island Adventure	Parrish, Peggy	120

I clearly liked mystery, Encyclopedia Brown, McGurk, and The Three Investigators books appear in this list. The classics were the Great Illustrated Classics, so while the page count was almost always 238, about half of the pages were pictures.

Toooooooooo Much TV

It is time to update all of my faithful readers (1–2 of you max) about what I have been watching on TV.We got a new mini-genie receiver for our DirecTV setup this fall. This is awesome in that it takes up less space, but it also doesn not have a built-in DVR. Because of this I have completely switched to watching TV shows via apps on Apple TV, namely Hulu, Netflix, FX/Now, HBOGo, and the Showtime app.

• Ballers
• Better Call Saul
• Billions
• Fargo
• Game of Thrones
• Girls
• Gotham
• Hart of Dixie
• Homeland
• House of Lies
• Madame Secretary
• Nashville
• New Girl
• Ray Donovan
• Suits
• The Americans
• The Bridge 
• The Good Wife
• The Grinder
• The League
• True Detective
• Turn: Washington's Spies

Here are some shows that I don't go out of my way to watch anymore, but once I have some down time (maybe never) I might start re-watching.

• Arrow
• Big Bang Theory
• Black Mirror
• The Blacklist
• Criminal Minds
• Elementary
• Jessica Jones
• Longmire
• Luther 
• Person of Interest
• Rita

Shows I quit watching since my last post on this. Several of these have wrapped, were cancelled, or were mini-series. I also cut the cord on several shows this fall when I made the switch to the genie-lite, including, the Vampire Diaries, and The Originals—two shows I have watched for years.

• Battle Creek (cancelled)
• Bloodline (mini-series)
• Dallas (new series; cancelled)
• Daredevil (mini-series)
• Gang Related (cancelled)
• Graceland (quit watching)
• Mad Men (wrapped)
• Making a Murderer (mini-series)
• Masters of Sex (quit watching)
• Narcos (mini-series)
• Rookie Blue (wrapped)
• The Glades (wrapped)
• The Jinx (mini-series)
• The Killing (cancelled and wrapped)
• The Originals (quit watching)
• The Slap (BBC version; mini-series)
• Tyrant (quit watching)
• Vampire Diaries (quit watching)

Ray Bradbury's Poem Inspired by the Exploration of Mars

In May of 1971, NASA launched Mariner 9 to take picture of the planet Mars. Just prior to Mariner 9 coming into Mars' orbit, Bruce Murray hosted a public lecture and discussion at Caltech that featured a panel of authors and scientists, including Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan, and Walter Sullivan. These lectures were later turned into a book of essays entitled "Mars and the Mind of Man".

Ray Bradbury's contribution to this panel was a short poem entitled "If Only We Had Taller Been". It is poignant and haunting, linking, as blogger Jurgen Wolff puts it, the dream of conquering space with that of immortality. The words of Bradbury's poem are printed below.

If Only We Had Taller Been

The fence we walked between the years
Did bounce us serene.
It was a place half in the sky where
In the green of leaf and promising of peach
We'd reach our hands to touch and almost touch the sky,
If we could reach and touch, we said,
'Twould teach us, not to ,never to, be dead.

We ached and almost touched that stuff;
Our reach was never quite enough.
If only we had taller been,
And touched God's cuff, His hem,
We would not have to  go with them
Who've gone before,
Who, short as us, stood tall as they could stand
And hoped by stretching, tall, that they might keep their land,
Their home, their hearth, their flesh and soul.
But they, like us, were standing in a hole.

O, Thomas, will a Race one day stand really tall
Across the Void, across the Universe and all?
And, measured out with rocket fire,
At last put Adam's finger forth
As on the Sistene Ceiling,
And God's hand come down the other way
To measure man and find him Good,
And Gift him with Forever's Day?
I work for that.

Short man, Large dream, I send my rockets forth
between my ears,
Hoping an inch of Good is worth a pound of years.
Aching to hear a voice cry back along the universal Mall:
We've reached Alpha Centauri!
We're tall, O God, we're tall!

Recently Brain Pickings posted a YouTube video of Bradbury reading the poem. Hearing it read by Bradbury is goosebump worthy.

Update

Last night I was listening to a podcast that was reviewing several papers and presentations from the 2015 IEEE conference on visualization, and one of the papers mentioned was related to examining the sonic topology of a poem. The authors have made their software, called Poemage, for this examination freely available. There is also a paper available here.

Anyhow, I decided to examine Bradbury's poem. Pretty pictures, although I don't know if I fully understand them. The colors have to do with the sounds, rhyming, etc. I may need to re-listen to see if the aural experience conforms to the model proposed below.

NFL Trades

The old adage that teams should trade players to teams outside their division seems to be followed by NFL teams. The data used are the 275 traded NFL players from 2010–2015 (from http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/transactions). 

Of the 275 traded players, only three were traded within the same division. Two of those players were traded from the San Francisco 49ers—Kentwan Balmer (to Seattle) and Isaac Bruce (to St. Louis). Donovan McNabb (from Philly to Washington) was the only other player traded to a team in the same division. Curiously, all three of these trades took place in 2010. 

It doesn't look like particular divisions trade to any other particular division. The distribution of trades seems to be equally spread out to the other divisions. It also appears as though divisions are trading players away at about the same rate as they are acquiring players (rather than trading players for draft picks).

Minnesota Football

Here is a plot of the winning percentage by year (since 1986) for the Minnesota Golden Gophers football team. The trend lines are the estimated polynomial (quadratic) best fit lines.

Tim Brester....yikes! Jerry Kill has definitely improved the team, but it is unclear whether the Gophers are better off now than when we were in the Mason era. We will see if Jerry's trend line continues to rise, or whether he is also on the decline.

Books and Typography

I love reading the note that appears in some books about the font in which the book was typeset. I wish it gave more information; for example the font size and line spacing. I have a type ruler that measures in picas and points (in addition to inches and centimeters), so, over time, I might try to add some of my favorites here. Note: Here the line spacing refers to the distance between the baseline of a line of text and the ascender line of the subsequent line of text. Note 2: There may be some measurement error, especially in measuring the inner margin.

Title: The Children Act
Author: Ian McEwan
Publisher: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
Font: Garamond 3 (based on adaptation by Morris Fuller Benton)
Size: 10pt.
Line spacing: 10pt.
Line width: 9.7 cm
Inner Margin: 1.5 cm
Outer Margin: 2.5 cm


Title: Bridge of Sighs
Author: Richard Russo
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Font: Janson
Size: 6pt.
Line spacing: 6pt.
Line width: 11.5 cm
Inner Margin: 2 cm
Outer Margin: 2.4 cm

I really liked the weight and feel of the font in The Summons. Unfortunately there was no information provided, so I used the WhatTheFont! app to try and identify it.

Title: The Summons
Author: John Grisham
Publisher: Doubleday
Font: Garamond Premier Pro
Size: 6pt.
Line spacing: 12pt.
Line width: 11 cm
Inner Margin: 2 cm
Outer Margin: 2.4 cm

Fall (sigh)

It's almost fall. For academics fall begins not with the autumnal equinox, but with the week of orientation meetings and welcome-back faculty meetings. For me that is next week, which means this is the last week of summer.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. This is in part because I don't feel particularly satisfied with this summer.

I "accomplished" a lot this summer: Rewrote the undergraduate curriculum that we teach; published two books—the book I was co-editing and the third edition of our undergraduate textbook; put on a workshop for high school teachers from 14 different schools who will be teaching our undergraduate course this academic year as part of the College in the Schools program; had two papers that were co-authored with students accepted for publication; gave a keynote address at a conference; taught an undergraduate course; and managed to read 18 books since the beginning of June. I also watched a good bit of TV, did some gardening, and took a few naps.

Yet, I do not feel particularly ready for fall. I usually look forward to the beginning of a new semester, especially fall semester. It always feels like a fresh start—a chance to change things up. This year doesn't quite feel that way (yet). Perhaps because in order to have a start, there has to be an end. The work from the spring semester never really felt like it ended, it just continued into the summer.

So, while I feel good about what I did accomplish this summer, I am not quite emotionally ready for the semester to begin. Fall. Sigh.

Cars I have Owned

Another TV Update

The last two posts about TV watching are here and here. Currently my shows include the following (in no particular order):

• Arrow 
• Better Call Saul
• Black Mirror
• Bloodline
• Daredevil
• Game of Thrones
• Big Bang Theory
• Dallas (the newer version)
• Elementary
• Gang Related
• Girls
• Gotham
• Graceland
• Hart of Dixie
• Homeland
• House of Lies
• Longmire
• Luther 
• Mad Men
• Masters of Sex
• Nashville
• New Girl
• Person of Interest
• Ray Donovan
• Rita
• Rookie Blue
• Suits
• The Americans
• The Blacklist
• The Bridge 
• The Glades
• The Killing
• The League
• The Originals
• The Slap (BBC version)
• True Detective
• Tyrant
• Vampire Diaries

Shows I no longer watch

• Scandal
• The Following
• Walking Dead
• Reign

And several of my shows have wrapped or were mini-series...or I just quit watching.

• True Blood
• Justified
• The Newsroom
• Dexter
• Californication
• Sons of Anarchy
• House of Cards
• Vegas (cancelled)
• Broadchurch (mini-series)
• Reckless (cancelled)
• Mixology (one season)
• Southcliffe (one season)
• 
  

Orville Update

I recently had some new floor pans welded in to Orville. It is a bit more reassuring to not see the ground when you look down.

At the same time my welder modified my seat rails to accommodate the 911 seats I purchased this last summer. I was looking at refurbishing the old seats, but I found these on Craigslist and for the price $125 for the pair, I couldn't even get the fabric to re-do the old seats. Plus, now I have better seats. I also purchased some modern seatbelts which were military overstock...something like $20 (thanks for the #protip Samba posters!).

I started the wiring this summer. The old wiring was suspect at best and rotting out and rat-chewed in many places. (Because of teaching a course this summer that I was not expecting to teach, I didn't get nearly as far on the car as I wanted, but am reinvigorated after seeing the new pans and seats.) I am using a Watson Streetworks kit (which in retrospect maybe was not the best choice), and it has been a pretty smooth install right up to the turn signals.

Initially I had purchased some headlights with the LED turn signals in the headlight. I really did not like the turn signal lights that my '71 KG had, so we welded those over last year. But, after putting in the new signals, I was unhappy from an aesthetic standpoint. The new headlights were flat on the front which, to me, killed the lines of the car. So back to the old headlights.

But, what to do about the turn signals? After some muttering and contemplating, I opted to get some of the bullet turn signals from the earlier era KGs. The holes for install are drilled and ready. The only thing I need to get to do the install is the mounting rubber. The used signals I bought from the Samba forum had some old crusty rubber that needs replacing.

As can be seen in one of the pictures above, I also decided to move the battery and fusebox into the car. I picked up a gel-cel so the battery would not leak noxious fumes. We will weld in a battery tray to keep it in one spot and I will switch the fusebox and battery so the battery is behind the passenger seat and the fusebox is behind the driver's seat. (Should have done that from the start!)

I also added disc brakes to the rear wheels over the summer. The front brakes were already discs, but the back brakes were drums. While the disc brakes were not entirely necessary (the engine after all is only 1600cc), I figured if I were updating the car to something I like, why not do it.

The paint is a Volvo Blue, and I do not like it. I tried to go more era (and I wanted to try a blue), but the blue is too boring and light. I don't know which color I will eventually settle on. The VW Azure Blue is nice, but I miss the reddish orange that Orville used to have. I also like the Pearl White color of the old VWs...think Herbie.

Azure Blue

Pearl White

A KG in Pearl White

Orange

Fucking Developers...

...they screw up everything. Dinkytown used to be a pretty cool place. Multiple used bookstores; cool places to eat; cheap bars; coffee shops; independent businesses. Now it seems as though the goal is apartment central. How many places can they knock over and re-build with an over-priced apartment complex? And, judging from the way they look, these won't be inexpensive places for students to live. The only places worth going to there anymore are the bars....not that they are that special, but they are cheap.

Another old house gets knocked over for more apartments.

Now they want to knock over an entire block of Dinkytown to put in a luxury hotel?! It is going to be laughable when they have these apartments full of students and nowhere for them to hang out. Can you imagine the slogan..."Store your bed and your shit in Dinkytown, but you will have to go elsewhere to do anything."

The worst part about this is that they keep taking out parking. Where are the people who live there going to park? Oh, right, I forgot, they will ride the lightrail. Good thing we now have that handy route to St. Paul. Dumbasses. All of them.

June 2014 Reading

I have long been inspired to begin producing some sort of monthly report about my book habits (buying and reading) like what Nick Hornby does (did) for the Believer magazine. Every so often he writes a column in which he lists recent "Books Bought" and "Books Read". Like in my own life, the first list is generally longer. He also then writes about a select few books that appear on those lists. Many of these columns have been collected into the fine literary works: The Polysyllabic Spree, Housekeeping vs. the Dirt, Shakespeare Wrote for Money, and Ten Years in the Tub: A Decade Soaking in Great Books.

Rather than write about both sets, here I will only report the books bought. Two reasons for this: I have a GoodReads account where I report what I am reading, so interested folks can check there. And, more importantly writing about books I read feels like those dumb-ass book reports I had to do in elementary school. Nothing makes me want to quit doing something more than being forced to do that thing. Also, the anticipation of reading a book is almost as great (sometimes greater) as the very act of reading said book.

When you examine the list, there will be those who exclaim, "Holy Crap! That is a lot of books to buy in a month!" Others will have the opposite reaction, "Why so few?" I am without doubt a bibliophile. My house is filled with books. I can part with books, I have sold a lot, and given away more. However, books make me smile. I can't go into a bookstore without buying at least one book. The books I buy now are generally all hardcover (w/dust jacket), first edition/first printings.

I also collect Penguin Classics (black) and Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics (mint green). Almost all of the tomes I purchase are used from Goodwill, Arc, Savers, Half-Price Books, etc. It is like literary adoption. Also, many only cost a couple dollars.

So, without further ado...

BOOKS BOUGHT:

• Ill Wind—Nevada Barr (autographed)
• Endangered Species–Nevada Barr
• Borderline—Nevada Barr
• Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC—Joseph McCormick & Susan Fisher–Hoch
• Mystic River—Dennis Lehane
• The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents—Terry Pratchett
• Out of the Crisis—W. Edwards Deming
• The Day Lincoln was Shot—Jim Bishop
• Murder in Minnesota—Walter N. Trenerry
• The Killer Angels—Michael Shaara
• Second Nature—Alice Hoffman
• Brightness Falls—Jay McInerney
• Dead Air—Mike Lupica
• Fugitives and Refugees—Chuck Palahniuk
• Oblomov—Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov (Penguin Classics)
• The Heart of Mid-Lothian—Sir Walter Scott (Penguin Classics)
• Where Angels Fear to Tread—E. M. Forster (paperback)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban—J. K. Rowling
• Reamde—Neal Stephonson
• The Pale King—David Foster Wallace
• Distrust That Particular Flavor—William Gibson
• One Mississippi—Mark Childress

Some of these purchases were to replace paperbacks or other editions. The Killer Angels is a classic book about the Civil War (it even won a Pulitzer) by the same guy who wrote For Love of the Game (yep...it was turned into a Kevin Costner movie, but it's ok since he plays a washed-up sports star). His son, Jeffrey, later wrote the prequel (Gods and Generals), as well as several other works of historical fiction. This is a 2007 hardcover version and will replace an older paperback, as will Mystic River. The Harry Potter book was one of those "OMG...this is a first edition" moments in a thrift store and will oust a non-collectable version from the shelf.

I bought Mike Lupica's Dead Air because of his sports writing. This was his first work of fiction—published in the era of Air Supply (1986)—and will be put in the "to read" queue. For now it will join Wild Pitch on the shelves. Fugitives and Refugees is as the dust jacket blurb puts it, "the closest thing [Chuck Palahniuk] may ever write to an autobiography." Into the queue it goes. The same for the Terry Pratchett book (purchased because of his work with Neil Gaiman on Good Omens), and the Virus Hunters book (can't get enough of Ebola, Lassa, and Crimean Congo Hemmorrhagic Fever, see also Hotzone and Demon in the Freezer).

Alice Hoffman's Second Nature will join Practical Magic and Turtle Moon on the shelf. Some year I will read all of her works, but for some reason I associate her books with autumn, and since it isn't autumn, on the shelf they go. Same with the Nevada Barr books. They all include the character Anna Pigeon, a Park Service ranger. These books are meant to be read in the winter (Why? Because!).

Brightness Falls I am excited to read and that will move to the front of the reading queue. I read several of McInerney's books this year and two of the characters in The Good Life were actually introduced in this book. How can you not like an author who is part of the "literary Brat Pack"?

Murder in Minnesota caught my eye at Arc, and I put it in the cart. It was published by the Minnesota Historical Society in 1962 and recounts 15 murders that took place in Minnesota between 1858 and 1917. I have a penchant for the underbelly of Minnesota (got to shed that Minnesota Nice label). In fact, my friend Jeb and I once dreamed up a tour of the Twin-Cities in which tourists would be taken to several sites of shame and degradation (e.g., the parking lot of Red's Savoy in which Norm Coleman's dad got a hummer).  

The Day Lincoln was Shot was one of those books that takes you back to your childhood. As a younger lad, I was more of a reader than a socializer (yeah....really), especially during family events. Our grandparent's house in Duluth had the usual selection of Reader's Digest collections (magazines and edited novels), but the more interesting books were three small books by Jim Bishop, The Day Kennedy was Shot, The Day Lincoln was Shot, and The Day Jesus Died. I read, and re-read those three books a lot.

Although it was a paperback, Where Angels Fear to Tread had a beautiful cover. There are some books you covet only because of the cover, and this was one such book. It reminds me of an old bookstore, aisles overflowing with books stacked from floor to ceiling; literary mazes in which a person can lose herself for hours, emerging with dust-encased volumes and a feeling of satisfaction that can only come from the time spent perusing and pouring over hundreds of typeset cover flaps. In short, my dream home.

Deming's Out of the Crisis was another thrift store find. Typically selling for $40–$70, this book was a steal at $1.69. Deming's ideas of sampling and quality control led to Six Sigma. This book is like the Six Sigma Bible, albeit without as much begatting. (Aside: When the act of 'begatting' is taking place, is it called 'begetting'? As in, "Noah begetting some of that.")

69th Place or A Step Ahead for Next Year?

Since the Gophers won the N.I.T. there has been a lot of speculation about whether it will help them for next year. To provide some more informed speculation, we can turn to the data. After winning the N.I.T., how have teams done the following year?

I used Sports Reference to see how past N.I.T. champions have fared in the subsequent year. The data are based on 75 previous N.I.T. winners.

The year after winning the N.I.T., 43 of the 75 teams were ranked in the A.P. Top 25 at some point in the season! Five were ranked as #1. This is despite the fact that only 18 of the N.I.T. winners were ranked in the Top 25 at preseason. How did these teams do in the post-season? Fourteen of the 75 N.I.T. winners won their conference's regular season. Only six of the 75 won their conference tournament.

The Big Dance

When it comes NCAA tournament time, the N.I.T. winners don't fare as well. How did they do?

The good news for Gopher fans is that, since the NCAA tournament expanded to include 48 teams in 1975, two-thirds of the N.I.T. champions (26 teams) have made the NCAA tournament the year after winning the N.I.T.

Now for the bad news. Of those 26 N.I.T. winners that received a tournament bid, 10 were eliminated in the first round of the NCAA tournament and another 10 were eliminated in the second round, leaving a mere six N.I.T. winners playing after the first weekend.

These teams included,

• Kentucky (1976-77)
• Indiana (1979-80)
• Virgina (1980-81; 1992-93)
• West Virginia (2007-08)
• Baylor (2013-14)

Most of these six teams were dispatched in the region semifinals. The 1976-77 Kentucky Wildcat team lost in the regional final, and only the 1980-81 Virginia team made it to the National title game....where they lost.

Even if the causal claims of the N.I.T. leading to a team's eminent success were dubious before, the data suggest that a claim like that is just plain wrong. Maybe Minnesota will provide an outlying case. Maybe it's just a 69th place finish.

TV: An Update

I wrote a post a few years ago about what I was watching on TV, so I decided to update that.

What I am watching (in no particular order):

• Scandal: Crap but ok
• Nashville: Awesome!
• Justified: Yep.
• House of Lies: Get the afterwork!
• House of Cards: The first season was better.
• Reign: Arghhh
• Vampire Diaries: Should have stopped a couple seasons ago
• The Originals: Should have never started
• The Following: Arghhhhh
• Walking Dead: Zzzzzzzz
• Mad Men: bhdsbfsdbfj,sdb
• Sons of Anarchy: Can't wait til' it restarts
• Californication: Duh!
• Game of Thrones: OMG!
• True Detective: I will give it another season
• The League: Still cracks me up
• Graceland: Not bad. Definitely not good either.
• Suits: This one I like
• The Americans: Really good
• Homeland: Wasn't sure how well this was going to go, but they surprised me.
• True Blood: I want to give up on this one
• Masters of Sex: Masters of boring would have been a better title
• Girls: Since it is only 1/2 an hour, I can handle it
• Person of Interest: First season was good. Second season was less so. I will withhold judgment until I see the third season on dvd
• Vegas: I like those cowboy archetypes
• Elementary: The last few episodes haven't rocked my world
• Arrow: Watched the first season and thought it was pretty good. Waiting for the second season on Netflix.
• Dexter: I think this one is the last season...needs to end
• Luther: I watched two seasons I think...very memorable, obviously.
• The Newsroom: Really like this one. characters. writing, acting. all of it.
• Gossip Girl: Finally finished it!
• Big Bang Theory: we wait for it on DVD, and I am in no particular hurry.

Shows I gave up on

• Revenge: Should have been one-and-done
• 666 Park Avenue: Do they not have test audiences?
• American Horror Story: After season 1, I just couldn't commit to this one anymore
• Pretty Little Liars: Jesus Christ!
•  Breaking Bad: I watched the whole thing, but I should have stopped two seasons earlier.
• Hostages: Crap
• White Collar: 5-6 episodes would have been enough
• Portlandia: They could have called it Minneapolandia as well. This shit is too close to home and just makes me naseous and angry
• Lilyhammer: The first season was slow, but watchable. The second season I lost all interest
• 
  

Video Game Mashups

While sitting at the Acadia with Charles and Tom, I had my third billion-dollar idea in the last 6 months. The three of us are like idea ambassadors (don't know what that means, but a student used the word "ambassador" yesterday and I liked it). I think companies could pay us to come up with great ideas. We wouldn't even need office space. We could just chill at a pub and people could come to us, buy us beer, and we would supply great ideas….it would be like the Genius Bar…

The idea last night was simple…video game mashups. It would be amazing. Let me give some examples to get the creative juices flowing…

Shinobi vs. Duck Hunt

Take out ducks with your throwing stars. This could also be adapted for Big Buck Hunter.

Zork vs. Mortal Combat


West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.

There is a small mailbox here.
There is also a man in horse-stance standing in the field.

> attack man in horse-stance.

The man giggles and pulls his katana.

> open mailbox

Opening the small mailbox reveals a leaflet.

> get leaflet

Taken.

> attack man in horse-stance with leaflet

The man cuts your arm off with his katana. You inflict several paper cuts.

> f$%ck

That sentence isn't one I recognize.

> read leaflet

The leaflet contains Vogon poetry.

> read leaflet to man in horse-stance

The man falls to the ground clutching his ears.

> finish him

The man is finished.


Frogger vs. Oregon Trail