{"id":18355,"date":"2019-01-27T09:03:37","date_gmt":"2019-01-27T14:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=18355"},"modified":"2022-08-01T07:42:52","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T11:42:52","slug":"thoughts-at-large-59","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2019\/01\/thoughts-at-large-59\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts @ Large: 59"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2022 On a recent edition of CBS Sunday Morning<\/em>, host Jane Pauley interviewed cartoonist Garry Trudeau.\u00a0 My spouse remarked how odd it must be to interview one’s own husband.\u00a0 “Trudeau is Jane Pauley’s husband?” I said.\u00a0 “Yes, how could you not know that?” she said. In my defense, I do know who was the first to verify Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity (namely, astronomer Arthur Eddington, in 1919).\u00a0 But how could anyone not know that?<\/p>\n

\u2022 Speaking of Einstein: Alan Lightman, author of the 1993 novel Einstein’s Dreams<\/em>, made a seemingly innocuous observation in the third paragraph of his prologue as he described “… the young man’s desk … cluttered with half-opened books …”\u00a0 I had nearly finished the paragraph when I stopped to ask myself, what exactly is a half-opened book<\/em>?<\/p>\n

\u2022 Life is like calculus: a lot of unnoticeable differences make a difference.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Rank these Nabisco snack products from highest to lowest fat content: Oreos<\/em> cookies, Cheese Nips<\/em> crackers, Chicken in a Biskit<\/em> crackers, Ritz<\/em> crackers,\u00a0Nutter Butter <\/em>cookies.\u00a0 Answers below (and no fair looking at their so-called “Nutrition Facts” labels).<\/p>\n

\u2022 The actor Meryl Streep has appeared in over 55 films and has won three Oscars and eight Golden Globes.\u00a0 Netflix streams only three of her films, Julie and Julia<\/em>, Mamma Mia!<\/em> and The River Wild<\/em>.\u00a0 These may have been very good films, but they clearly do not measure up to Happy Gilmore<\/em> or The Ridiculous 6<\/em> — just two of the thirteen films on Netflix starring zero-time Oscar or Golden Globe winner Adam Sandler.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Ritz<\/em> wins with 28% fat, followed by Chicken in a Biskit<\/em> at 26%, Nutter Butter<\/em> at 21.4%, Oreos <\/em>at 20.5% and\u00a0Cheese Nips<\/em> at 20.0%.\u00a0 See, Oreos aren’t as bad as you thought.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Saying “oops” when you accidentally honk your horn and no one is around.\u00a0 Closing the bathroom door for privacy when you are alone in the house.\u00a0 Reaching for the light switch when you enter a room during a power outage.\u00a0 These are a few of my behavioral things.<\/p>\n

\u2022 A guy with an identity crisis answers the phone and says, “Hello, is this me?”<\/p>\n

\u2022 In early 2017, I wrote here about the so-called Trump Rally<\/a> in the U.S. stock market and pointed out how the rise in stock prices after his election was nothing unusual, despite all the chest-thumping by Trump and his shills.\u00a0 Now, as Trump enters his third year, there is not even a mirage of a rally for him to take undeserved credit for — the S&P 500 index is exactly where one would expect it to be based on its long-term trend (7.1% per year).<\/p>\n

\u2022 I like to think of myself as an evidence-based person — I am skeptical of product (and political) claims, I never buy extended warranties (companies would not sell them if they didn’t make money) and I don’t pray.\u00a0 Yet I harbor my own superstitions.\u00a0 I take lutein every day on the off-chance<\/a> it will preserve my eye health.\u00a0 I don’t root for athletes to fail (except for Tom Brady) because of the what-goes-around-comes-around principle.\u00a0 And I always tip well, in the belief that those extra couple of dollars will matter to someone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2022 On a recent edition of CBS Sunday Morning, host Jane Pauley interviewed cartoonist Garry Trudeau.\u00a0 My spouse remarked how odd it must be to interview one’s own husband.\u00a0 “Trudeau is Jane Pauley’s husband?” I said.\u00a0 “Yes, how could you … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts-at-large"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18355"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18554,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18355\/revisions\/18554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}