thanks for coming out for bday drinks by the way – great to see you. malc’s coming to town for halloween so we’ll likely end up at

http://www.spacecowboys.org/articles/2008/10/09/ghostship-dia-de-los-muertos-on-treasure-island

come along for a ghostly celebration of your first day of a new decade!

I figured “Return of the Douchebag” would be the perfect post title under which to make my first comment in years on your blog (or any other meaningful contact.)

Google Trends is a lot of fun. Let’s play “Biggest Splash in the Pan.” Try to find the highest peak in Google Trends. It’s a sad commentary about our world (maybe just the parts with high Net activity) when the winners of this game all appear to be tragedies. My current high score is for “Virginia Tech” ( http://www.google.com/trends?q=virginia+tech ) with a peak in the low 60′s.

Also… it appears our Christmas Spirit is fading ( http://www.google.com/trends?q=christmas ) … I know! Someone should write a really cheesy movie about how nobody believes in Santa anymore.

fac·toid /ˈfæktɔɪd/ – noun
1. an insignificant or trivial fact.
2. something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact, devised esp. to gain publicity and accepted because of constant repetition.

And further…

“Usage Note: The -oid suffix normally imparts the meaning “resembling, having the appearance of” to the words it attaches to. Thus the anthropoid apes are the apes that are most like humans (from Greek anthrōpos, “human being”). In some words -oid has a slightly extended meaning—”having characteristics of, but not the same as,” as in humanoid, a being that has human characteristics but is not really human. Similarly, factoid originally referred to a piece of information that appears to be reliable or accurate, as from being repeated so often that people assume it is true. The word still has this meaning in standard usage. Seventy-three percent of the Usage Panel accepts it in the sentence It would be easy to condemn the book as a concession to the television age, as a McLuhanish melange of pictures and factoids which give the illusion of learning without the substance. · Factoid has since developed a second meaning, that of a brief, somewhat interesting fact, that might better have been called a factette. The Panelists have less enthusiasm for this usage, however, perhaps because they believe it to be confusing. Only 43 percent of the panel accepts it in Each issue of the magazine begins with a list of factoids, like how many pounds of hamburger were consumed in Texas last month. Many Panelists prefer terms such as statistics, trivia, useless facts, and just plain facts in this sentence.”

So I guess we’re both sorta right on the matter.

“32% of all physicians in the US have prescribed themselves painkillers, according to a recent survey.”

Sounds authoritative, but it is complete BS. Just made up by me minutes ago. That’s a factoid.

I know, I know — current parlance uses “factoid” and “fact” interchangeably. But I suspect that is further indication of the problem.