2017 Best-Ofs!

The Sixth Anniversary Best-Ofs, where your host, Hopper, bloviates, expounds, pronounces, and passive-aggressively entices you to experience what he experienced as the “Best Ofs” read, watched, listened to, and done in the year 2017.

Phew.

First, a note. I am a bibliophile. As such, I read a lot. A lot. My record of complete, cover-to-cover books read occurred in 2014, where I put away 60. This year I only made it through 45, due mainly to the length of the books I chose to read and in part to the fact that doing tax returns January through April put a kink in my reading life. No matter. I put away some great stuff. A good variety of stuff. More SF than usual. Some World War II and Civil War. Some baseball, some Zen, and some baseball Zen. A summer beginning with an examination of string physics and ending with an examination of the travesty known as Vatican II – a neat Science / Religion dichotomy.

Anyway, without any further ado, the 2017 Best-Ofs!

[Cue applause and swirling spotlights]

Best Read:

Fiction = Downward to the Earth (runners-up = Nightwings, Tom O’Bedlam)

Went through an immensely rewarding tour through of Robert Silverberg’s oeuvre (love how that word’s pronounced = OOV) from May to September, traversing a half-dozen novels (and a half-dozen more remain on deck). Downward to the Earth was the best, reviewed here, only edging out Nightwings and Tom O’Bedlam. Good, good stuff.

Nonfiction = Pickett’s Charge (runner-up = Seven Brief Lessons of Physics)

Pickett’s Charge is the best book I’ve read on the Civil War dedicated specifically to one battle. Excellent for the novice, excellent for the expert (I’m somewhere in between, I suppose). I recommend it, and reviewed it here.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics is a short read touching on various topics in modern physics that was, in a bizarre way, surprisingly moving and respectable despite a lack of equations.

Worst Read:

Tie: The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle / The Haunted Mesa by Louis L’Amour

Don’t want to dwell too much on these misfires, ’cuz I like both these authors. But neither book clicked with me due to … boredom. I was overwhelmingly bored reading them, which is why I finished neither. Life is too short, and there are too many books to read! But I have read great works by both these writers. Just not these.

Best Movie:

It

Finally, a filmed version to do the book justice. It is the #3 greatest book I’ve ever experienced. Perhaps it might not rank so high if I read it now, but I read it at a very emotional time in my young life and it resonated deeply with me. I thought the 1990 miniseries to be completely miscast, badly written, polluted with embarrassing special effects and recommend it to no one. This version, focusing on the kids’ encounter with the It entity, moved up into the 80s from the 50s, while not perfect, is probably as best as it could have been, perfectly balancing the horror with a minimum of schlock (i.e., “spring-loaded cats”) and keeping It’s true nature tantalizingly hidden. Grade – A+

Worst Movie:

Dunno. I’m at the stage in my life where if I’m watching something that sucks, I won’t continue watching it just to say I watched it. That being said, the girls and I watched in entirety more than a few unremarkable turkey’s in bad horror / science fiction. Notably 2016’s Shin Godzilla, better known as Godzilla versus Japanese Board Room Executives. Other than that, can’t really think of any off the top of my head.

Best TV / Worst TV:

Not really a TV-watcher. (And we as a family are considering “cutting the chord”, as I pay $187 a month for phone-internet-cable, of which we never use the home phone – it’s solely a telemarketer landing site – and I watch only about ten of the 400 channels I pay for with any degree of regularity).

This being said, Impractical Jokers still brings me to tears. Watched a couple of hilarious old and new Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes this month.

But the most shocking development in my TV-watching this year has to be my family’s NFL boycott. Watched the first three games of the season. Then the mass kneeling protests began, and we said goodbye to the NFL. Only watched the game where the Giants benched Eli, and realized I liked my Sundays better without the loud bread and circuses of football. So, good riddance. I watched a dozen NHL games instead, and enjoy that much better.

Oh, and the $200 we would’ve spent on NFL gear for the girls were spent elsewhere this Christmas.

Best Song:

Supper’s Ready, 1972, by Genesis

Got into Peter Gabriel / Steve Hackett Genesis back in August, listening to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway CD late at night on the balcony of our villa overlooking Hilton Head Island sound. The first “side” of that double-CD is phenomenal. Blew me away. A couple of weeks ago I was late-night exploring some earlier recordings of the band and stumbled across this video. Floored me. Words can’t express how unprepared I was, especially for the ending. Goose bumps along the arms that didn’t recede until I went to bed. Watched the 23-minute Supper’s Ready three times, until nearly one in the morning.

Basically, if you’ve ever wondered what a musical journey through the Book of Revelation would sound like, click on the video with some headphones on.

Fads N Phases:

   Travel (Sanibel Island, Hilton Head Island twice) – three times more vacations in one year than I’m used to …

   Robert Silverberg – great SF voyages hearkening back to my youth …

   Physics Revisited – great cutting-edge science voyages hearkening back to my youth …

   SSPX and anti-V2 Reading – eye-opening, scary, yet oddly inspiring

   Electric Guitar – my fiftieth birthday gift! Play from over 250 riffs daily to annoy the family …

   The Lower-Yer-High-Blood-Pressure Regimen – dropped nine pounds in 21 days and feel a thousand percent better …

   Civil War Redux – most bizarre topic to interest me, yet interested in it I am …

And, like last year, the winner is … them all! Loved each and every one of these fads and phases, and encourage you to dip your toes in these waters, or explore something out of left field yourself!

Have an awesome and safe New Year’s Eve and a “get better” 2018!!!

Christmas 2017

Well, we’re wrapping up our week-long Christmas jaunt down to Hilton Head, South Carolina, visiting with the wife’s family. This is the first time in seven years I’ve been down here this time of season. In 2010 it was a mild 50s/60s experience. This time around, however, temps averaged 10-20 degrees colder, the skies being rainy and overcast the last few days (though Christmas Day was truly beautiful).

The island sans tourists is a lonely place. We rented a villa a hundred yards from the Atlantic Ocean for a little more than the cost of a regular hotel room, and feel we own it since the resort is at most hovering at 10 percent capacity. On the beach, though, there’s usually anywhere from a dozen to over a hundred people meandering, jogging, walking canines, observing wildlife, communing with the Sea. All depends on the wind factor, I suppose.

Egretta thula that stalked me over three days …

Santa was, of course, good to the girls. Very good. A trip to Disney in the near future. Pajamas and gloves and bathrobes and mugs and stuffed animals and jackets and art supplies and games. Patch got a pop-up tent she’s wanted for months, and Little One got an iPhone upgrade. The wife got a gift certificate to the local fancy spa as well as some little trinkets from the girls. Me, I got clothes (desperately needed), plus another desperately needed item, a 20th-century piece of technology known as a CD player / Walkman.

No books from the fat man in red, but I have plenty to read. Indeed I’ve put away nearly two books of SF short stories – maybe twenty tales all told. Plus a book on Carl Jung (always been meaning to dip my toes in those waters) and a field guide to local bird life down here.

Also been maintaining my lower-the-high-blood-pressure routine. Walking every morning for 30 minutes. Kept up with my glass of red in the early evening and chocolate square in the afternoon. Ate pounds of blueberries and a bunch of apples and bananas, and took all my supplements. One night I had a few too many beers (really the only night I had beer) and the next morning I could literally feel the blood vessels constricting. It was a lesson learned.

Was also a bit of a working vacation, too. Spent a little over six hours finishing my pre-tax Tax Season, which involved two more online classes, registering in New York state, and studying my 120 pages or so of notes from over the past two months. I don’t feel as prepared as I should, but I’ll be in good shape when I start sitting with clients to prepare tax returns, probably in a month’s time.

What did we do? Well, my in-laws are serious gourmands, so just about every night we dined like royalty. They belong to a club down here (their house is situated on the 11th fairway), so lunch was eaten there. I’ve sampled a couple different varieties of salad. And while I don’t feel that I’ve lost any significant weight, I don’t think I’ve gained any holiday pounds either.

The girls swam in the resort’s indoor pool just about every day. One night we walked around Harbor Town and moseyed among the vibrantly-lit Christmas displays. The girls and I invented a fun volleyball-ish game to play in Nana’s driveway which entertained us with laughs and giggles for over an hour. They played their instruments for their grandparents (clarinet and saxophone). We’ve done about 75 percent of a puzzle on the living room floor. Tonight, in honor of 20 years since our first date, the wife and I are going out for a bite by ourselves.

Tomorrow we begin the fifteen-hour trek home, leaving the villa around 6:30. This time tomorrow we should be entering North Carolina. A bittersweet ending to the year. After New Years Eve and Day (which we have no plans but to rest and relax from our “restful” and “relaxing” vacation) it’s roll up yer sleeves and back to the grindstone.

Next up – Hopper’s “Best-Ofs” for 2017 …

Three Penny Madness

Let’s say you take three pennies and toss them up in the air simultaneously. What are the odds they all come down on the same side, either heads or tails?

Well, obviously, there’s a 50/50 chance a flipped coin will result in either a head or tail. A one in two chance, or 1/2.

For three coins, the probability of all landing all the same would be

(1/2) x (1/2) x (1/2)

Which is 1/8. One out of eight times, or 12.5% of the time.

But …

When you toss three coins up in the air, at least two will come down the same, right? If they don’t all land either all heads or all tails, at least two will be heads or tails.

So that leaves the third coin in question.

It has a 50/50 chance of agreeing with the other two coins. A one in two chance, or 1/2.

Therefore, the odds of flipping three coins simultaneously and getting three matches would be

(1/2)

Which is 1/2. One out of two times, or 50% of the time.

So ….

Which is the correct probability? One-eighth of the time or one-half?

Why?