Statistics Saturday: Reasons I Have Not Seen Various Auroras

Aurora	Reason
Aurora Borealis	Too cloudy
Aurora Australis	Too far north
Aurora, Illinois	Too not in Illinois [1]
Aurora, World of the Dawn and most powerful of the Spacer worlds in Isaac Asimov’s Robots novels	Too fictional (them), also not established for several hundred more years so too early.
Aurora, Colorado	Too not in Colorado

[1] I have seen its depiction in Wayne’s World and Wayne’s World 2 [2], but these are works of fiction and any relationship to the actual Aurora, Illinois is purely coincidental.

[2] If I have seen Wayne’s World 2 [2][1].

[2][1] Have definitely seen some Wayne’s World product [2][1][1] on the screens in a Suncoast Video in the 1990s but which one? Who can tell?

Reference: Nathaniel’s Nutmeg: How One Man’s Courage Changed The Course of History, Giles Milton.

[2][1][1] Discussion Question: was Wayne’s World set in Aurora, Illinois, or in Aurora, Colorado, and can you answer without looking it up? Be honest.

Statistics Saturday: Some Minor Star Wars Characters, So Far As You Know

• Dan Skywalker
• Security Guard #4
• Thrakozog
• ISO-14000
• Neutral Moresnet
• Oryctolagus Cuniculus
• Kyle
• The Adaptive Ultimate
• Tremolando
• Feared bounty-hunting space-otter Boba Wett

Reference: Space Shuttle: The History of the National Space Transportation System: The First 100 Missions, Dennis R Jenkins.

Statistics Saturday: Some Improbable Covers of _Ding, Dong, The Witch Is Dead_

• The Fifth Estate (1967)
• Barbra Streisand (1966, 2002)
• The Kinks (1976, imaginary)
• A nice soft blanket
• Paul McCartney (probably sometime while showering)
• A field of cactuses rustling their needles in the capricious breeze in a way that happens to catch the melody line
• A quarter-inch drizzle of melted cheese
• Meco (1978, and wouldn’t it make more sense if this were made than if it weren’t?)
• Yes (2026)
• Stephen Foster (1854? I dunno when he worked, just old-timey times)

Reference: This Is New Jersey, John T. Cunningham.

Statistics Saturday: Great Songs With “Goat” In The Title

• A Hard Day’s Goat Night
• The Number One Song In Goat Heaven
• Tired Of Goat Waiting For You
• The Washington Post Goat March
• Anna Sun Goat
• Goat Popcorn
• Goat Powerhouse
• You Goatta Have Heart
• Thank You For Being A Goat Friend
• Goat Theme to The Goat Muppet Show

Reference: Krakatoa: The Day The World Exploded, Simon Winchester.

For the purposes of this list instrumentals are being considered songs and if you don’t like that take it up with a goat, this is all the idea there was and deadline was right there.

Statistics Saturday: The Thoughts Filling My Day This Week

• Sunday: Wait, hotels can just give your reservation away if you don’t check in early enough? What are we going to do if that happens to us? I guess it’s warm enough to sleep in the car but that’s going to be miserable? Why is Ohio so far away?
• Monday: Oh. Oh oh oh. Oh that was transcendant. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be the same person.
• Tuesday: It was just — there aren’t the words for how unreal it was, it’s incomparable.
• Wednesday: Why is this computer thing not working? C’mon, you should just work.
• Thursday: Why do we even have computer things if they’re going to not work the way these things are not working, however much I sit around unsatisfied that they’re not working?
• Friday: I feel like I want to be mad about Funky Winkerbean but that strip isn’t even running anymore and Crankshaft has been okay lately.
• Saturday: Why when I made out this list did I try to type “Wednesday” as the first item after “Sunday”?

Reference: One Two Three … Infinity: Facts and Speculations of Science, George Gamow.

Statistics Saturday: Things You Should Know For The Solar Eclipse

• It’s best viewed from outdoors or at least a room with windows.
• It’s going to rain.
• You do not need to bring your own moon; in fact, most observing clubs frown on you doing so.
• You will want to stand underneath the Moon, but it doesn’t have to be directly underneath.
• Seriously, it’s going to rain harder than you knew it could rain.
• This is the most confusing time of year for Reverse Werewolves. Be kind.
• Do not stare directly at the sun, or ask for its autograph or for a selfie. The sun only provides these for charity events.
• Underneath the rain is going to somehow be an extra second layer of rain.
• Stay hydrated! You should have at least four heads to fully experience the eclipse.
• Even if the rain and clouds let up for a tiny bit Stumbo the Giant is going to accidentally be holding a box right where he blocks your view of the eclipse. Sorry.
• Stick around for the aftershow! Yes, there’s almost no chance they’ll talk Mercury into doing a transit right after the eclipse but on the million-to-one shot they do, do you want to miss it?
• It’ll rain through that too.

Reference: `T. E. Lawrence’: In Arabia and After, Basil H Liddell-Hart.

Oh, and a bonus tip for anyone considering using this as a chance to eat the Sun: it is spicier than you realize, so maybe tamp the intensity down a bit by making a sandwich of the Sun, using a dense roll, and a good bit of mayo and maybe some roast vegetables. (Do not pre-roast them.)

Statistics Saturday: Unsolved Mysteries About The Blocks Of Chocolate Smeared On The Side Of My Mask

• That there are multiple blocks of chocolate wedged into the mask, as if I didn’t know to take it off before eating.
• That I have no memory of eating chocolate anywhere near a mask-wearing experience.
• That the blocks are in several separate locations, like I jabbed a bar of chocolate in several different spots until it worked.
• That the chocolate is solid, not melted at all, as though I dropped some chips in and they stayed stuck by static cling or a desire to continue embarrassing me.
• That they are on the way side of my mask, where it covers my cheek, as though there were several ways I didn’t understand how to eat.
• That I wore this without replacing it at least two days after my dear love warned me there was chocolate on the mask. (Well, that one I can explain: I forgot I was told and, you know, it’s not like I see that side of it.)

Reference: Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Lutz D Schmadel.

Statistics Saturday: Episodes Of _Too Close For Comfort_ I Distinctly Remember Forty Years After Watching Them All

• The one where Ted Knight’s character dreams about what it would be like if he died without a will and it’s his surviving family all living in the downstairs apartment chanting about how their miseries are all because he left them no will.
• Ted Knight’s character gets an honorary degree from the University of South Cabana or something like that and he’s over the moon that he’s got a degree from some USC, even if it’s not the famous one.
• That one with Jm J Bullock’s character that got Internet Famous like a decade ago although I can’t swear that I remember it from the original airing or from everyone on the Internet going “wait, this dumb little show did that?” like a decade ago. Also, if you’re thinking of going and looking it up you should be warned that it involves sexual assault and that’s heavy material for a sitcom about a guy who draws a comic strip that’s Flash Gordon But A Cow even though his grown-up daughters live in the apartment downstairs.
• Pretty sure there was one where they were painting the downstairs apartment and that was just full of shenanigannery.

Reference: The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made The Future, Jenny Uglow.

Statistics Saturday: Some Famous Book Opening-Line Misquotes

• “It was the best of times, it was the best of times.” — A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens.
• “It was the best of times, it was the worst of formless voids.” — Genesis.
• “It was the best of times, it was the worst of tines.” — Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook And Eat, Bee Wilson.
• “It was the best of senses, it was the worst of sensibilities.” — Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen.
• “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” — Times Tables Made Easy, Joe Harris and Sean McArdle.
• “It was the best of times, it was the worst of da Vincis.” — The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown.
• “It was the best of times, it was the best of times.” — Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell.
• “It was the best of times, it was the worst of pelicans.” — The Pelican Brief, John Grisham.
• “It was the best of times, it was the worst of mines.” — Germinal, Émile Zola.
• “It was the best of gazookas, it was the worst of palookas.” — Popeye, The Movie Novel, Richard J Anobile.

Reference: The Origins and Development of the English Language, Thomas Pyles and John Algeo.

Statistics Saturday: What You Use Your Time Machine for as a Kid Versus as a Mature Person

When Young	When Mature
Preventing Hitler	Setting the nice glass away from the edge of the counter so it can’t fall off when you close the door too fast
Recording the Sermon on the Mount	Spend the weekend of Woodstock trying to find the Art Fair that was supposed to be going on too, maybe buy some lanyards or nice bookmarks or something
Saving some cool dinosaurs from the meteor	Sleeping in as late as you want and going back to when the alarm clock goes off

Reference: Platonic and Archimedean Solids, Daud Sutton.

Statistics Saturday: Some Common Biological Terms That Biologists Agree Have No Actual Definition, Despite Being Good at Their Jobs

• Species
• Alive
• Reptile
• Eye
• Parasite
• Extinct
• Tree
• Prokaryote
• Genus
• Cell
• Stimulus
• Response
• Egg
• Vertebrate
• Agree
• Common
• Grass
• Biologist
• Definition
• Polynomial

Reference: Shakespeare’s Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages, 1337-1485, John Julius Norwich.

Statistics Leap Day: Rating the Leap Days of the Past Half-Century

Leap Day	Rating
2020	Pebble where one should not be, such as in a bowl of trail mix
2016	The David Bowie channel on Sirius XM
2012	Final Fantasy VI so I hear (I never played it myself)
2008	Playing Reach For The Stars on the student newspaper’s good computer instead of getting any of the student newspaper stuff done
2004	Spotting a seventh difference in a Slylock Fox strip
2000	Playing Risk on the student newspaper’s good computer instead of getting any of the student newspaper stuff done
1996	This nice wallet with a good velcro cover
1992	SCTV reruns on Nick at Nite in like 1989
1988	No known records survive for comparison
1984	Getting to Ohio and back and only hitting two red lights
1980	Spotting an eighth difference in a Slylock Fox strip
1976	Unexpectedly hearing ragtime music

Reference: Who’s Who in Mythology: A Classic Guide to the Ancient World, Alexander S. Murray.

Statistics Saturday: Some Facts About Me (also February)

• Time since I last brought up that the Ancient Romans considered Leap Day to be the 24th of February, doubled up: 4 years.
• Time since I last mentioned the Ancient Romans regarded this as the sixth day to the start of March: 4 years.
• Time since I last mentioned this is why a Leap Year is sometimes called a `bissextile year`, as it doubles the sixth: 4 years.
• Time since I last brought up how this affects Dominical Letters, and how it marks a difference between the Catholic and the Anglican calendars: 4 years.
• Time since anyone was interested in hearing all this: my whole life so far.
• Except that: people are kind of amused-ish that the Romans were so bad at calendars they’d think it made a lick of sense to put the leap day in the middle of late February instead of the end of a month and then they get to hear how before there were leap days the Romans might sometimes just stuff a whole extra month in the middle-lateish part of February and they’re not sure if I’m making that up or not.

Reference: Zen in the Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury.

Statistics Saturday: US President Birthdays (Observed)

• Abraham Lincoln (12 February)
• George Washington (22 February) (ns)
• Calvin Coolidge (4 July)
• All The Rest (not observed)

Reference: Printer 1 & C, Navy Training Courses NAVPERS 10458, Bureau of Naval Personnel.

Statistics Saturday: Some Trademark-Law-Safe Euphemisms For The Super Bowl

• The Big Game
• Upersay Owlbay
• The Superb Owl
• Sapsucker Frog
• Igbay Amegay
• The Splendid Bowl
• The Inadequate Spoon [ Bizarro World only ]
• Uperbsay Owlay
• Thorax-In-A-Bog
• Pro Bowl 2: Pro Bowler Twoer
• They Tell Us We Love Advertising Today
• Thrakkorzog

Reference: A Short History of English Words, Bernard Groom.

I saw The Inadequate Spoon opening for Flint Eastwood at the Common Ground Music Festival once, they were really good.

Statistics Saturday: Popular Songs of the 70s

Not pictured: weird experimental instrumental compositions on a synthesizer programmed to sound like a bell but it’s also a violin somehow.

Reference: My love, who did the research and explained these findings to me. honest; thank you, dear.

Statistics Saturday: What You Think _Peanuts_ Specials Are Titled Vs What They Really Are

What You Think Peanuts Specials Are Titled	What They Actually Are
It’s Administrative Professionals Day, Charlie Brown	Now How About That, Charlie Brown
You’re In The Motocross Now, Charlie Brown	It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown
The Great Pumpkin Is Waiting For You, Charlie Brown	What A Week, Charlie Brown
It’s Arbor Day Again, Charlie Brown	A Charlie Brown Special
This is America, Charlie Brown: The Pullman Strike of 1894	You’re Wearing A T-Shirt, Charlie Brown
It’s Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown	It’s Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown

Reference: The Gathering Storm, Winston Churchill.

Statistics Saturday: Some Mild Clickbait

• You Totally Believed What Happend to This Co-Star From Married To The Mob but Forgot, and Would It Hurt to Have a Reminder?
• As Many New England States as We Can Name
• How The Wizard of Oz Made Judy Garland Appear To Talk to Bert Lahr On-Screen (It’s Like You Thought)
• Ten Celebrities Who Don’t Choose to Eat Grasshoppers
• Doctors Hate It When You Jab Them With a Stick Like This! Most Everyone Does, We’re Only Talking About Doctors Right Now
• Martin Van Buren
• You Probably Do Remember the Chorus of American Pie
• How Many 10-Piece Chicken Nuggets It Takes to Make a 20-Piece Chicken Nuggets
• Twelve Christmas Movies That Have Happy Endings
• This Novelty Stick-On ‘Magic Faucet’ Offers Two, Maybe Three Ways to Amuse and Prank Friends
• You’re Not Getting the Full Benefit of Your Shower if You Don’t Have This (It’s Water)
• Not Just You: It Is Weird Freakazoid Never Did an Episode Where He Got Swapped Into The Star Hustler’s Body or Transmogrified Into a Fancy Rat or Something

Reference: Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, Richard Wrangham.

It had to be a fancy rat because you know everyone on the show would pronounce it with this long, wavering emphasis, like, “FaaAAAAAAncy” and it would be so funny by the end of the episode.

Statistics Saturday: Records That Could Well Have Been The Last John Lennon Ever Bought

• Pink Floyd, The Wall
• Paul McCartney, Wonderful Christmastime
• Frank Zappa, Joe’s Garage Acts II & III
• Styx, Babe
• The Beatles, Love Me Do/PS I Love You (single)
• Rick Wakeman, Lisztomania (soundtrack)
• Supertramp, Breakfast in America
• Dickie Goodman, Mrs Jaws/Chomp Chomp (single)
• Motörhead, Overkill
• Frank Zappa, Joe’s Garage Act I

Reference: Moon Lander: How We Developed The Apollo Lunar Module, Thomas J Kelly.

Statistics Saturday: Best Days Of 2024 (So Far)

• January 1
• January 6
• January 2.75
• January π
• January
• The day it turned out the faucet wasn’t leaking, just everybody spilled the cup on the same spot.
• December 32
• January 5
• The day that weird bird showed up at the feeder.
• The day you bumped something and the TV sound suddenly was good again.

Reference: The King’s Best Highway: The Lost History Of The Boston Post Road, The Route That Made America, Eric Jaffe.

The Year In Review: Top Things Learned After It Was Too Late of 2023

• Where the scotch tape always is.
• LED Christmas lights actually flicker with the alternating current so if your digital camera takes too quick a picture the tree looks like it’s out or half-out.
• What happened to margarine that nobody talks about it anymore.
• They had a surcharge-free ATM in the basement all this time.
• Genies love dates (the fruit)!
• If you roll up the little foot stands the fridge has wheels you can roll it on.
• The Hanna-Barbera character was Lippy the Lion, not Loopy.
• You can just buy a sash that reads “Miss Slylock Fox of 2024” or whatever you like, it’s not even that expensive.
• They don’t pick contestants at random for The Price Is Right, there’s a guy who figures who looks likely to be good on camera.
• They put a bowling alley in at the mall!

Reference: The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville, Anthony Slide.

The Year In Review: Top Search Engine Prompts of 2023

• why did windows change and break the
• revert to old version of
• snork named gill or gil
• get back good working version of
• how to make door shorter
• circuit breaker kitchen switch
• make new version stop doing
• lyrics emerson lake palmer fanfare for the common man
• how to make door longer
• wait that was steamboat willie

Reference: The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers who Created the American Superhighways, Earl Swift.

The Year In Review: Top Losing Football Scores Of Of 2023

• 17 – 23
• 12 – 13
• 0 – 7
• 0 – 3
• 27 – 31 [*]
• 10 – 13
• 6 – 19
• 23 – 35
• 8 – 9
• 10 – 17

[*] Fifth consecutive Top Losing Football Score Of The Year placement.

Reference: It Happened Outside New Jersey, Fran Capo.

The Year In Review: Top Winning Football Scores Of 2023

• 23 – 17
• 13 – 12
• 7 – 0
• 3 – 0
• 31 – 27
• 13 – 10
• 19 – 6
• 35 – 23
• 9 – 8 [*]
• 17 – 10

[*] Third consecutive Top Winning Football Score Of The Year placement.

Reference: It Happened In New Jersey, Fran Capo.

The Year In Review: Top _Shrek_ Trivia Nights Of 2023

• January 11, 2023, The Bar (Hovell, Washington)
• June 7, 2023, Kyle’s Place (Springfield, Massachusetts)
• September 16, 2023, The Place (Homeboro, Vermont)
• July 12, 2023, The Hangout (Ceramic, Ontario)
• August 3, 2023, The Dive Bar (Miami of Ohio, Kentucky)
• June 7, 2023, Kyle’s Other Place (Springfield, Connecticut)
• December 1, 1023, The Door (Plain View, Montana)
• August 22, 2023, The Blue Place (Tatters, Virginia)
• June 7, 2023, Kyle’s Forgotten Place (Springfield, Maine)
• February 28, 2023, The Leaps (Kludge, New York)

Reference: Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress, Hasok Chang.

The Year In Review: Top Memes of 2023, So Far As You Know

• Handshake, handshake, handshake, BOMB!
• Nutrition label
• After the skin lotion …
• “You can trust me. I’m a [ rare earth magnet material ]”
• Still on the server:
• Sequence of “enhance” stills leading to non sequiturs
• The Broadway version:
• Competitive Haiku League Winner
• Hot dog; dog hot; hot; dog.
• The Ziggy [ insert date here ] Special

Reference: The Path Between The Seas: The Creation Of The Panama Canal, 1870 – 1914 David McCullough.

Statistics Saturday: Some Unwise Christmas Presents

• A hippopotamus
• Two hippopotamuses
• Canned hippopotamus within two weeks of its best-by date
• Three hippopotamuses and an elephant in the butter
• Hippopotamus seeds (this is less unwise, though)
• A non-transferrable debt of four or more hippopotamuses
• The mind-controlling supervillain Hypnopotamus
• Hippopotamus kit delivery service

Reference: King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, The Man Who Saved Geometry, Siobhan Roberts.

Statistics Saturday: Some Local Holiday Traditions

• To hurl a wheel of cheese at one another until a person is knocked unconscious. (Cheddaring, New Hampshire.)
• To wrap needed desks in blankets until it is an equally great inconvenience to dig them out or to not do what needed to be done on them. (Uptonshire-Upon-Mewling, Kent County, England)
• To insist, to the point of being tedious, that the act of making pudding is “to puddle”. (Dads, when you’re about age 4 – 7)
• To spin more than seems wise. (Bukit Twirl, Singapore)
• To make appointments willy-nilly to have minor home inconveniences repaired. (Quatorze, France)
• To resume trying to compose a coda verse for “You’re A Mean One, Mister Grinch” reflecting his transformation. (Estate of Thurl Ravenscroft)
• To tape together as many ribbon streamers as one can and see whether it can reach City Hall. (Los Angeles)
• To raise speculations about the fathers of the Snow Miser and Heat Miser since The Year Without A Santa Claus is clear that they’re step-brothers and both acknowledge Mother Nature as one parent. (Budapest)
• To be the first professional quarterback passing for four thousand yards in a 14-game season. (Joe Namath, 1967)
• To glare at a light until it stops doing that. (New Uptonshire-Upon-Mewling, Connecticut)
• To hold a family meeting in which you plan out your safe landing spots and rendezvous points in case you should all suddenly find yourselves falling up to the ceiling instead of down to the floor. (Redundant Beach, Delaware)
• To make popcorn bend to your will. (Lost Toledo, Ohio)

Reference: Degrees Kelvin: A Tale Of Genius, Invention, and Tragedy, David Lindley.

Statistics Saturday: The Last Six Listeners-DJ-Our-Christmas-Station Selections

• Frank (Pompous Lakes, New Jersey): Jingle Bell Rock; Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer; Silver Bells.
• Bob (Mendacity, Arkansas): Jingle Bell Rock; Silver Bells; Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
• Doris (Pavement Narrows, West Virginia): Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer; Silver Bells; Jingle Bell Rock.
• Ken (Fatigue Lake, Wisconsin): Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer; Jingle Bell Rock; Silver Bells.
• Angela (Polygon, Nebraska): Silver Bells; Jingle Bell Rock; Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
• Mitch (Garry with two R’s, Indianana) Silver Bells; Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer; Jingle Bell Rock.

Reference: Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II, Ronald Takaki.

Statistics Wednesday: Special Caster Wheel Update

Because my Dad is really curious how it’s going but too shy to ask:

• Saturday about 11:45 pm. I have a brilliant idea about how to get it all working right after all.
• Sunday about 1:00 pm. Yet another trip to Ace Hardware. If they recognize me they don’t let on.
• Sunday about 8:00 pm. I have it done and brilliantly completed.
• Sunday about 10:30 pm. I accept that it has failed.
• Monday 5:30 pm. I have un-done the new wheels and put the old ones back on … for now.
• Today. Ugh.