From ages 8 to 12, I watched prime-time sitcoms every night of the week. I was old enough to understand what was going on (save for all the sexual innuendo). But not old enough to realized how fucking stupid the shows I was watching actually were. Because of this, there is a sweet spot in TV history, circa 1986-1990, in which I know virtually all the popular sitcoms (and their theme songs). A few of them are classics I could still enjoy today (The Cosby Show); a few of them are bad but could be watched ironically (Doogie Howser, M.D.); most of them are just randomly forgettable.
The show 227 falls into this latter category. I bring it up solely because this happens to be the 227th entry on this blog. 227 wasn't a great show, but it did have a pretty interesting cast. It was primarily "The Show that Marla Gibbs Did after The Jeffersons". But it also starred Jackée (who was a big deal for about five minutes) and a young Regina King. And let's not forget Kevin Peter Hall. You might not recognize his name, but you will definitely recognize his face:
I thought that 227 also starred the legendary Sherman Hemsley (his acting was almost as good as his name). But I was conflating 227 with his show Amen. I believe they came on one right after the other. I kinda dug 227, but I never liked Amen. I guess even at a young age I had an aversion to religion.
227 was set in D.C., which meant nothing to me in 1987, but now I might like to watch it to see if I could catch glimpses of neighborhoods I know. Like on Homeland when they go to Columbia Heights or some place like that. Although, I don't recall them going out on the town much in 227. I guess when you name a show after the number of an apartment building, you gotta stick mostly to the building. Also, my friend RT determined that 227 couldn't have been set in real-life D.C. based on the position of the Washington Monument in the opening (seen in the YouTube clip above) and the D.C. street grid. I'm serious. He actually took the time to painstakingly deduced this (you have to scroll past all the New Year's stuff). It's not that weird if you know him.
Anyway, enough about '80s sitcoms. Let's get to what the people really want: Me kvetching about my minor health problems.
I'm sick right now. It's just a cold, but it's done-whupping me good. Back in the halcyon days of my youth (when I blissfully rotted my brain with shitty TV) I never got sick. From kindergarten through undergraduate school, I think I missed about three days of school total from sickness.* But things changed when I moved to the D.C. area, and I started catching colds much more frequently.
I think it was new germs, and then right when I started building up an immunity to these germs I had a kid. Now it's game on -- and by "game" I mean sickness. For one thing, I don't get much sleep making me (presumably) more susceptible to various maladies. For another, kids are really just blobs of agar. Part of their evolutionary role in human society is to be a medium for transporting sickness. It's to help prevent overpopulation. Seriously, I'm not making this up.** It's science.***
Also, you might recall from a previous entry that I was having trouble with my right hand. It's better now. Kinda. As it turns out, my self-diagnosis of a partially torn ligament was wrong. There is no structural damage. This is both good and bad. It's good, because, well, it's obvious why not having a torn ligament in one's hand is a good thing. It's bad, because now the doctor doesn't know what is wrong with it. He gave me a shot of cortisone, and it helped, to the point I can barely feel the discomfort. (But I can still feel it.) The doctor said that sometimes people get inflammation in their hands for no good reason and then have to get cortisone shots a few times a year indefinitely. That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world -- lots of people have to do these types of health maintenance things -- but it certainly isn't something I was hoping to start at age 36.
Anyway ...
That last thing I want to touch on is the "nerd war" between Paul Krugman and Nate Silver. It's pretty interesting. Basically Krugman criticized Silver's new ESPN-based 538 website (he's not the only one), and Silver shot back with a satirical "analysis" implying that Krugman is being overly harsh on him because he left the NY Times (Krugman's employer) under somewhat acrimonious circumstances. Jonathan Chait (whom I now read regularly) does a pretty good job summing up the whole thing in this post.
I like Nate Silver; his election analysis was one of few in the mainstream media that relied on math instead of meaningless punditry, and I'm about to win my office March Madness pool for the second year in a row by relying heavily on his tournament probabilities. With that said, I'm definitely with Krugman on this one. For one thing, I think Krugman's general point has a lot of merit. Silver made his name using statistical modeling to accurately predict outcomes many "experts" got wrong. But he did his work mainly in two fields (sports and politics) where the experts aren't actually experts but "experts".**** Now he's trying to taking his game to other fields (like climate science), ones with true-blue experts, not just palavering talking-heads, and it's not working so well. (To be fair, the site just launched, so it might get better.)
For another thing, I seriously doubt that Krugman, even if he was wrong, is doing all this out of some sort of hard feelings over Silver leaving the NY Times. Why would he really care about that? Krugman can be pretty acerbic towards people he disagrees with, but he's usually not petty about personal things. Silver's comeback to Krugman is a stretch at best, an embarrassment at worst.
Speaking of stretches and embarrassments, I've started doing yoga. And I love it. It's true. I'll tell you about it later. For now, I gotta go.
Until next time ...
*Although I do remember missing the "tolo dance" my senior year because I was in bed experiencing what Mark Renton experiences in Trainspotting when he sees the baby on the ceiling. (I wasn't in withdrawal from heroin, by the way.)
**I'm making this up.
***It's not science.
****At least in the mainstream media. There were (and still are) plenty of smart, statistically savvy people in politics and sports who were doing good work long before Nate came onto the scene. In fact, I sometimes wonder why he became so famous when others doing equally good work didn't. I guess it's like anything else: a good product and better timing.
The show 227 falls into this latter category. I bring it up solely because this happens to be the 227th entry on this blog. 227 wasn't a great show, but it did have a pretty interesting cast. It was primarily "The Show that Marla Gibbs Did after The Jeffersons". But it also starred Jackée (who was a big deal for about five minutes) and a young Regina King. And let's not forget Kevin Peter Hall. You might not recognize his name, but you will definitely recognize his face:
I thought that 227 also starred the legendary Sherman Hemsley (his acting was almost as good as his name). But I was conflating 227 with his show Amen. I believe they came on one right after the other. I kinda dug 227, but I never liked Amen. I guess even at a young age I had an aversion to religion.
227 was set in D.C., which meant nothing to me in 1987, but now I might like to watch it to see if I could catch glimpses of neighborhoods I know. Like on Homeland when they go to Columbia Heights or some place like that. Although, I don't recall them going out on the town much in 227. I guess when you name a show after the number of an apartment building, you gotta stick mostly to the building. Also, my friend RT determined that 227 couldn't have been set in real-life D.C. based on the position of the Washington Monument in the opening (seen in the YouTube clip above) and the D.C. street grid. I'm serious. He actually took the time to painstakingly deduced this (you have to scroll past all the New Year's stuff). It's not that weird if you know him.
Anyway, enough about '80s sitcoms. Let's get to what the people really want: Me kvetching about my minor health problems.
I'm sick right now. It's just a cold, but it's done-whupping me good. Back in the halcyon days of my youth (when I blissfully rotted my brain with shitty TV) I never got sick. From kindergarten through undergraduate school, I think I missed about three days of school total from sickness.* But things changed when I moved to the D.C. area, and I started catching colds much more frequently.
I think it was new germs, and then right when I started building up an immunity to these germs I had a kid. Now it's game on -- and by "game" I mean sickness. For one thing, I don't get much sleep making me (presumably) more susceptible to various maladies. For another, kids are really just blobs of agar. Part of their evolutionary role in human society is to be a medium for transporting sickness. It's to help prevent overpopulation. Seriously, I'm not making this up.** It's science.***
Also, you might recall from a previous entry that I was having trouble with my right hand. It's better now. Kinda. As it turns out, my self-diagnosis of a partially torn ligament was wrong. There is no structural damage. This is both good and bad. It's good, because, well, it's obvious why not having a torn ligament in one's hand is a good thing. It's bad, because now the doctor doesn't know what is wrong with it. He gave me a shot of cortisone, and it helped, to the point I can barely feel the discomfort. (But I can still feel it.) The doctor said that sometimes people get inflammation in their hands for no good reason and then have to get cortisone shots a few times a year indefinitely. That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world -- lots of people have to do these types of health maintenance things -- but it certainly isn't something I was hoping to start at age 36.
Anyway ...
That last thing I want to touch on is the "nerd war" between Paul Krugman and Nate Silver. It's pretty interesting. Basically Krugman criticized Silver's new ESPN-based 538 website (he's not the only one), and Silver shot back with a satirical "analysis" implying that Krugman is being overly harsh on him because he left the NY Times (Krugman's employer) under somewhat acrimonious circumstances. Jonathan Chait (whom I now read regularly) does a pretty good job summing up the whole thing in this post.
I like Nate Silver; his election analysis was one of few in the mainstream media that relied on math instead of meaningless punditry, and I'm about to win my office March Madness pool for the second year in a row by relying heavily on his tournament probabilities. With that said, I'm definitely with Krugman on this one. For one thing, I think Krugman's general point has a lot of merit. Silver made his name using statistical modeling to accurately predict outcomes many "experts" got wrong. But he did his work mainly in two fields (sports and politics) where the experts aren't actually experts but "experts".**** Now he's trying to taking his game to other fields (like climate science), ones with true-blue experts, not just palavering talking-heads, and it's not working so well. (To be fair, the site just launched, so it might get better.)
For another thing, I seriously doubt that Krugman, even if he was wrong, is doing all this out of some sort of hard feelings over Silver leaving the NY Times. Why would he really care about that? Krugman can be pretty acerbic towards people he disagrees with, but he's usually not petty about personal things. Silver's comeback to Krugman is a stretch at best, an embarrassment at worst.
Speaking of stretches and embarrassments, I've started doing yoga. And I love it. It's true. I'll tell you about it later. For now, I gotta go.
Until next time ...
*Although I do remember missing the "tolo dance" my senior year because I was in bed experiencing what Mark Renton experiences in Trainspotting when he sees the baby on the ceiling. (I wasn't in withdrawal from heroin, by the way.)
**I'm making this up.
***It's not science.
****At least in the mainstream media. There were (and still are) plenty of smart, statistically savvy people in politics and sports who were doing good work long before Nate came onto the scene. In fact, I sometimes wonder why he became so famous when others doing equally good work didn't. I guess it's like anything else: a good product and better timing.
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