"Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting." John Russell

This new board was pretty boring but it looks like Mall has got things rocking again - definitely more interesting. What is the "probability" of finding the term "inverted Hegelianism" (I could swear that I have heard that term before. I think maybe it was the name of a radical snow-boarding trick I saw during the Olympics...) and a quote from Laplace all in the same string on the TG message board? Probably about the same as the chance of cats and dogs living together, Officer (that pig) winning the Derby, or Friedman and Brown sharing a pitcher of beer in a Manhattan pub...ba dump!

Who knows? Maybe some of the other "usual suspects" will also start to show up on this board again. By the way HP, don't worry about anonymity. Your name and email are suppressed when you post. It does look like they are going to be displayed when you are typing in your message but all that information disappears when it gets posted. I think this might be what is scaring away some of the other posters from the old board. (Note to Nicely Nicely - maybe you can somehow make this clearer to people when they post.)

I am tempted to weigh in on the Alydar/Mall debate but I think I will heed the words of the not-so-famous cowboy poet (isn't that an oxymoron?), R. Lewis Bowan. He is not exactly Hegel or Laplace but he is my Dad's friend and he did give me a calendar full of all his "wise" (his adjective) quotes. Anyway, his words of advice for today are to "never stand between a dog and a fire hydrant."

Oh well, I cannot resist at least one parry. Let me start with a quote from Mets announcer Ralph Kiner "Statistics are like a bikini…they show you a lot but not everything." Beyer had a lot of contradictory stuff on weight in his book (I don’t have a copy and I am going from memory) but he did say that 5 pounds is about equal to 2.5 Beyer-points, which is pretty darn close to what TG uses. Of course, he also said it doesn't really matter unless you are trying to pick horses down in Australia (maybe you have to invert Hegelain-style figures to get them to work down there...) Quirin had even more contradictory stuff on weight (again I am going from memory) and I have to agree with Alydar that his methodology was pathetic. He did however conclude that horses getting 9 or more pounds from the high weight in route races are break even bets (i.e., they beat the take). Of course, he also said that weight did not matter and also that more weight actually correlated with better performance (of course he was comparing high-weight horses with low-weight horses rather than comparing the same horse carrying high weight and low weight – which I think is what we are all really interested in understanding).

OK, just one more item. I do not have an opinion regarding "song of the year" but I will weigh in on "picture of the year." My vote goes to "A Beautiful Mind." I have not even seen it yet but the main character is a mathematician (Of course, he does have a few personal problems...). I figure the only thing better would be a movie in which the main character is a thoroughbred racing legend. Come to think of it, they are planning to make a movie out of the Sea Biscuit book next year (sounds like they could use TGJB as a consultant since I think Charlie Heston is busy...).

That's enough. I will end this message with another quote from the cowboy poet that actually is pretty wise, "If yer gonna drink, gamble and chase women be sure ya do 'em one at a time."

Don't stop the madness.

Chris