PIR Archive, i.e. Best of...

Here's a few of the early PIR musings, I will try to update more regularly, but for now here's 3 of the previous posts. If I don't give something fresh and new soon, be assured I will reprint earlier postings without humility. Enjoy.


Six Degrees and the Price is Right

When I was young my ideal job and my answer to the "when you grow up" question was to be a cab driver. I thought it would be fun. I like people. Unfortunately I have yet to realize this dream and I still have to grow up.
I've had a few jobs.
When I turned twenty-one I walked out of one job for shorting me what worked out to be right around three dollars and seventy five cents. I walked to the beer store, got a six pack and went to a friends. When I got there he offered me a job cooking at a bar.
Here comes the point.
My boss (whose name I cannot for the life of me remember, I know, I know Carson forgetting a girls name, how could that ever happen, I mean it's not like I forget names all the time, and it certainly hasn't happened in the last week,) my boss, had a step-sister whose name I do remember, Gena Lee Nolin.
Gena used to be one of Barker's Beauties.
Let me rewind that for you......
Carson- to- Boss (whose name I don't know)- to- Gena Lee- to- Bob Barker. That's three degrees by my count.
Your turn.


PIR update for the ladies.

This morning on the Price is Right, Bob answered an age old question.

I do have to say, as Bob today himself said, do not shoot the messenger, I'm just going on what he said and Bob's just going on the numbers.

The audience, being far too demanding, wanted a female on stage because the other three contestants in the row were male. Bob then went on to say that they had done the research and actually more woman compete on the Price, but that more money is actually won by the fewer amount of men. Bob continued to say that they had taken the statistical data to an independent female psychologist who concluded that men are in fact smarter than women.

Incidentally the remaining contestants for the day were female. Also they had three cars to give away today.

p.s. I do not have access to said data. Also the views of Bob Barker and CBS are not necessarily the same views held by those in charge of this here.





Skeeball, with a little Price mixed in.

Some prefer drinks, some drugs, some ice fishing, some sunbathing,

Others may need long walks, cultivating gardens, even religious ceremony.

But I think I've found the key. And while I haven't yet instituted a strict routine or even a lazy routine, I thought now would be as good of time as any to let you know what I've found. It's important.

A great man once said,

"(buzzer sounds) You've all overbid. The lowest bid is (insert number). Erase the bids, please. Go lower than (insert previous number), (Name)."

And I know now that he's right. It's easy to overbid. It's easy to over think, overreact, become overwhelmed. So we drink, we complain, we overanalyze. We come to conclusions on what should be and when and why. And it doesn't matter. If it did change we would have a thousand more things to think about, and we would wonder why it wasn't so simple anymore, so routine.

I'm wandering, I know, but I'll get to that key statement in a moment.

In a recent arcade trip I became bored with company, complaints and even drinks. I needed something else. Something I didn't have to strive toward, something I didn't have to change, something that would be ridiculous to complain about. So I played about an hour and a half of Skeeball.

I'm not at all sure how much it cost me and by the end I had enough tickets to drown a child in stuffed animals and shot glasses. ( I'm not sure what that means either. ) I didn't need the tickets, they may as well have been confetti, or a bright light. The tickets weren't the point, I gave them to the other Skeeballers near. I didn't need them, I have enough trinkets left over from the last failed experiment to feed all the street children of TJ. The tickets weren't the point.

The points weren't important either. I know they translate directly into tickets, tickets into trinkets. Yes, I get it. But when you stop thinking that a 50 is better than a 20, 20's become kind of cool too. An occasional 100 made me feel a bit better, but not much better than a 10, not as if I saved someone's life for example. All I wanted was to roll balls into cups. No reason, no rhyme, no purpose, it was fantastic. I accomplished nothing, it was a waste of time.

Skeeball has been roughly the same since 1909. With the same mundane purpose. No one in all that time has found a better way to play Skeeball.

I forgot where I was going with this, I'll think about it and try to edit a purpose in. Ummmm..... but Bob Barker likes Skeeball too, or he did anyway. They had a pricing game based on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Ball%21%21