Lords of Fun

Dear First Lord of Fun,

    Can CowboyMetrics prove at the 95% level of statistical significance whether John Wayne or William Boyd was the better cowboy actor?

- Horace A., Vancouver, British Columbia.

Dear Horace,

    Why, of course, it can. I await with a great deal of excitement imminent results from the cowboy cells of the Rand Group and The Heritage Foundation.

-Paul R. De Lancey, First Lord of Fun and active member in The CowboyMetrics^TM Society

visit Paul’s website at www.lordsoffun.com

    Did you ever wonder how the film critic Leonard Maltin assigned the number of stars to those great Hopalong Cassidy movies of yesteryear. How could he have seen all 66 movies. Did he use econometrics? Perhaps he used

stars = 1.55^ + 1.13^*Ellison + 1.38^*Janey + 0.96^*Hayden + 0.24*King + 0.44^Kirby + 0.10*Reeves + 0.54^*Rogers +

          0.08*Hayes - 0.50*Clark - 0.00*Darien -0.10*Wood + 0.42*Clyde

where all the names represent dummy variables (0,1). The names in the top line are Hoppy’s impetuous, youthful sidekicks. The names in the second line of the equation are the hero’s older, humorous sidekicks and ^ represents statistically significant at the 95% level.

    The most salient result is that four of the youthful sidekicks had a 95% chance of affecting Maltin’s viewing in a positive way while none of the older sidekicks did. Many of you no doubt noticed that the young pup, Rand Brooks, is missing from the equation. This was, of course, done so that the (X’X) matrix could be inverted. But you surely also remembered the the coefficients on the sidekicks represent how much better or worse they did than Brooks. Similarly for Toler, an older sidekick.

    It is also interesting that the Brooks era coincided with Boyd’s reign as producer. These latter movies generally received fewer stars than the earlier Hoppy movies. If this effect is analyzed none of the coefficients on both types of sidekicks are statistically significant.

    But as Hoppy would have said, “Aw, that’s all right.”

-Paul R. De Lancey, First Lord of Fun & active member in The CowboyMetrics^TM Society

visit Paul’s website at www.lordsoffun.com

First such award in decade

* * * Remember Monday is always poetry day * * *

REGRET

by

Paul De Lancey

Said the mother penguin to her chick,
“Bring your furry ass over here
I need to regurgitate
and make room for beer.”

“No, mom, no I want a pizza
A pizza eater I shall be.”

“No, son you’re a penguin.
A fish eater you’ll be.”

“You’ll be neither,” said the fishermen
as he harpooned them both.
“I’ll mince you and can you
For Penguins of the sea.”

“Bummer,” said the expiring penguins.

Paul De Lancey, First Lord of Fun
Visit Paul’s website at www.lordsoffun.com

    My humble city of Poway has been ripping up or blocking off parts of its two main streets for the last seventeen years, or so it seems. Since this is rapidly becoming an annual event why don’t we make a festival out of it? Let us have a three-day festival starting in May where we serve foods from around the world, watch acrobats perform, and let our energetic kids drive the backhoes.

    Of course, we will have to shut down traffic on these streets for the festival. But that shouldn’t be much of a problem as construction? on those streets will have already down a number of lanes already.

    On March 13th, we will celebrate for one day more as we bid fond adieu for the winter to all the construction workers who have so conscientiously impeded our way for months. Please bring hankies as this promises to be an emotional event.

    Please voice your support for this cultural event and let me know of successful, similar festivals in towns and cities across this great land.

 - Paul R. De Lancey, First Lord of Fun

Visit Paul’s website at www.lordsoffun.com

Kant, Freud, Chopin. KFC. What if those greats also sold chicken? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? But it can never be. Kant, Freud, and Chopin probably wouldn’t win any trademark fights. Also, being dead, the learned trio would not go out of their way to entertain visitors to their chicken eatery.  Ah well, extra crispy is always good by itself.

- Paul R. De Lancey, First Lord of Fun

visit Paul’s website at www.lordsoffun.com