Before going to sleep, I like to watch an episode or two of Seinfeld to unwind. I like that series in general because there’s very little in it that gets me in trouble. Shows about married guys making mistakes can be way too stressful, as my wife may transfer the mistake on teevee to me. Not good. No, the guys in Seinfeld are different enough from me that I can count on them to do stuff I’d never do. Hence, it’s great to unwind to.

It’s also one of the best comedy series ever done. Nine seasons of classic comedy. Well, more or less…

See, that’s why I’m ranking them. I have seen other people’s lists and they don’t ring true. They pick episodes because of a cultural impact or because they remember some aspect vividly. I don’t see any criteria used for judging. Without criteria, any system of ranking is flawed. My system is based upon awarding up to 30 points per episode. Here’s how it breaks down:

MAJOR CHARACTERS: Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine can each score up to 3 points per episode, one point per third of the episode as a general rule. Truly exceptional blow-ups, outbursts, etc. can warrant a 4th point – so far, I’ve only awarded that 4th major character point in two episodes, one for Kramer dumping cement into a washing machine (exceptional physical comedy) and one for Elaine’s attempted eviction of a do-nothing boyfriend, culminating in her celebrated “Van Wyck” monologue. That’s it. Everything else can top out at three. To earn a point, the major character basically has to have a decent chunk of lines. If all the character does is play straight man, no point for that third.

In the first season, there are episodes in which a major character appears and has nothing but dud lines. That’s the low end of the scale, for sure.

OTHER CHARACTERS: When other characters make life difficult for Jerry and the gang, the show powers ahead with comedy gold. When the other characters just go on dates with Jerry and the gang, the show tanks. This isn’t a relationship comedy. It may be a show about nothing, but we need to see how even crazy, colorful, larger-than-life characters can get sucked into the nothingness. When the others show up and crack wise, the show is richer for it. Up to five points per episode can go towards what other characters do.

DIALOGUE: When we get those extra zingers, the episode scores dialogue points. This is more than just a great scene: this is a great line, that we want to repeat over and over in order to relish. Up to five points per episode go towards the “No soup for you!”-type lines.

SITUATIONS: For a show about nothing, we still need great situations for the characters to not learn from or to grow personally from. These are the situations that become cautionary fables, the plots to collect cans in New York and drive them to Michigan, the plan to buy back the Cadillac from Jack Klompus, the need to bring Mr. Steinbrenner a calzone. Each major character can score a point for a great situation that they fall into: if all the situations tie into each other, or one goes over the top, situation point number 5 can be scored.

PERVERSE ENDING: Season one tied things up by the end of the show and we were left with nothing to talk about during the closing credits. Later seasons realized the potential for having fate deal one last blow to the characters. They would not learn a moral lesson from these things, but they would potentially sharpen their animal instincts in knowing what to avoid in the future. Up to three points can go towards George showing up in the coffee shop wearing a sheet, Susan licking the envelopes, or an Ohio farmgirl pledging her love to Norman…

ENOUGH ALREADY: Penalty points, no limit on them. When I’m watching an episode and going, “Enough already with this” over a scene or a bit, I take a point off. Season one is loaded with these moments of pain as we endure Jerry or George having a normal date with a normal person that’s just going bad by a little bit. We need things going off the rails. We need explosions on the launch pad. We need avalanches and landslides, not rainy weekends in Vermont.

That’s my rubric. It is somewhat subjective, true. However, it allows me to justify my rankings for the shows and to let me see what’s needed to make a show truly epic instead of just good. I’ll write more about my rankings in the coming days, since I’ve got this spreadsheet of numbers and totals and I might as well get into the science of comedy with this data I’m collecting.

Just moved to a new web host after many great years with my friend, Dave Rolling at Infovue. The seasons change, and he is discontinuing his services. It’s sad that I won’t be getting tech support from a good friend, but life – and the Internet – goes on. Best of luck to Dave and his work, and I know I’ll always fondly remember my 17+ years with his hosting.My new host is bluehost and i got a nice deal from them trough a BlueHost Black Friday Deal.

This is always a good question to ask. There’s a very wry bit by the British comedy duo Mitchell and Webb (no close relation, I think) in which they portray German SS officers on the Russian Front. One asks, “Are we the baddies?” and then notes how they have skulls on their uniforms, and how that’s never a good sign.

I’m currently touring Civil Rights sites in the USA, and although not all the horrors visited upon those who fought for their rights were done by men with skulls on their uniforms, there were clear signs of “bad guy” behaviors that should have been reviewed and then abandoned by those who did not want to be actual bad guys. Keep in mind that merely fighting other bad guys alone is not sufficient evidence of being a good guy. There are lots of times that bad guys fight other bad guys.

So, here’s a checklist of things that bad guys do. If you are doing them, please stop. If people on your political side are doing them, please get them to stop or, failing that, disavow their extremism vocally and oppose it at every turn, so as not to have your own political position undermined by its association with bad guys. Now, the list:

1. INTIMIDATION… this is a big one. When, in response to a reasoned argument or appeal to mercy, one chooses instead to emphasize one’s power of one form or another, that is intimidation. Bad guys are always doing this thing, and it underlines the lack of justification for a particular position.

2. VIOLENCE… this one is frequently employed when the intimidation fails. If one has to initiate aggression in order to maintain one’s views and preferences, one likely has views and preferences that are wrong. At any rate, concessions won through violence are either tainted, temporary, or both. Winning through violence does not imply that one is right: it merely indicates one is perhaps better-armed and/or more desperate and inhuman in the application of that violence.

3. MISREPRESENTATION… this is insidious, as one appears to be offering one thing, but instead proffers another and then uses that confusion to entrap another person. If this happens accidentally, good people resolve the confusion and apologize sincerely without using the language of the contract or agreement to extract unwilling concessions from the other party. Bad guys do this stuff intentionally most of the time and, should they find a bonus area for entrapment, seize upon that, as well.

Individuals are, of course, capable of much more bad stuff. These three things, however, exemplify what groups of bad guys will do in order to further their agenda and increase their power over others. Take a possible scenario with individuals out of the picture and consider instead a group conflict. Good guys can disagree on a political point of view: they do so without resorting to intimidation, violence, or misrepresentation. An opponent is not necessarily a bad guy.

However, as I noted earlier, if one’s side is doing any of the above things, one may be on the same side as the bad guys. If this is not desirable, consider either a gradual or abrupt shift away from supporting that side. In a recent example, both Trump supporters that initiate violence with protesters and protesters that initiate violence with Trump supporters are bad guys. Protesters and Trump supporters can both be good guys, provided they abstain from intimidation, violence, and misrepresentation.

Why does this make a difference? Well, I hold the view that a person’s actions determine a path that person will follow beyond this mortal existence. There is a value to being a “good guy”, no matter what suffering one endures in this life. For those who built up their power through intimidation, violence, and/or misrepresentation, shame, regret, and sorrow await them in the eternity to come. In that sense, there is great value, nobility, and dignity in heeding the words of those who said that mercifulness, nonviolence, and honesty were principles by which to live one’s life.

So, take some time and ask the question, “Are we the bad guys?” If not, hooray, you’re on the path towards light, love, and joy. If you are, then you have a crisis of the soul ahead of you, either now, later in your life, or when you’re dead and can’t do much about it.

Choose this day whom you will serve.

Something very satisfying about hacking code in config files and then having everything run correctly. When the new stuff displays and looks right, I can say to myself, “I still got it” and smile.

The completion of the annual revolution of the earth is marked with celebration and reflection. Our limited mortality prevents us from doing the same when our sun completes a trip around the galactic core or when our galaxy finishes its path around the central attractor of the local cluster… to say nothing of when the local cluster or its containing supercluster complete their cycles. And yet, nature has the biggest bash of all: after the heat death of the universe, quantum tunneling can lead to a release of baryonic matter and energy, in a new big bang event, starting another cycle on its way. Happy New Year, in perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALod4hAorHw Slow, but steady, survives the traffic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_OuBz6R3Jg

If you look at this and are terrified, India is not for you. If you look at it and are intrigued, you need to go to India.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itO8AsqLYqg

Rather than join in the fun everyone else seems to be having by piling on to the teacher that disciplined a student, I’d like to instead take a look at what might have been going on in there, and how I would have reacted.

It’s a big video. But it’s also highly informative and without commercial interruption. I did a big tour of Civil War battlefields and such-like some years ago and wrote a lot about it after taking a lot of pictures. High time I got them loaded up on the Internets somehow.

What most people call the Confederate Flag is actually an elongated version of the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, which itself would have been an interesting footnote in Confederate history were it not for the use of that flag as a symbol promoting the Lost Cause movement and, later, the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. I explore the facts and mythology surrounding the flag in this video. If you enjoyed it, be sure to like it, share it, and subscribe to my channel.