Be warned: this article deals primarily with shark attacks, the lottery, beer, and how to get a date using math. Is it a good decision to keep reading? Unfortunately, the answer is "you need to keep reading to find out."

Sound irrational? Good—your massively irrational mind should have no problem with it, then.

Consider this: every year when the Discovery Channel broadcasts "Shark Week" visits to Florida beaches decline. Presumably, the network's programming makes the waters no less safe (assuming sharks are not, in fact, empowered by cable television). However, after watching a week of kicking legs seen from below, the idea of shark attack is refreshed in our minds and we choose not to offer ourselves as bait.

This phenomenon is known as an availability heuristic — a heuristic being a rule-of-thumb. Our rationality is subverted by easily available sensationalist images.

It's been just over three years since I got married, and I remember thinking (amid the nearly debilitating fear that we would run out of alcohol at our mountain cabin wedding and thus trap our families in a scene from The Shining) that it would be wonderful to finally be free forever from the intrigue and confusion of dating.

You can't fault the optimism.

Now, through the lens of hindsight, I realize that I should have known that dating and even cohabitating were only warm-ups for the big dance.

Example: I didn't really mind the eggshell color of our living room walls——it provided a functional backdrop to both the climbing/skiing pictures taken by a friend in Patagonia, and to the portraits of Italian cafes and riverboats Kristi's father painted, which we hang in place of the climbing photos whenever he visits.

However, to Kristi, the color was "dead guy white." Let me also explain that we have rather complex crown moulding framing the stuccoed ceiling, making painting nearly akin in needed time and expertise to completing a PhD in particle physics. She wanted something "bright and cheerful, like a nice sunshine-pumpkin. Oh and blue trim."

I really had no idea what I wanted other than not to paint the living room sunshine-pumpkin with blue trim. Needless to say:

Due to a recent whirlwind bout of touring, I was excited to do nothing but plunk on my couch with the dog and watch many, many hours of pro sports. Ski videos would be nice, but really what I was looking for was a good cricket match — completely incomprehensible and hopefully extending across multiple days. Contract bridge and international chess competed for close-second.

This has happened before but, if you have small children and/or a pregnant spouse, you know your ability to sink into a vegetative stupor is tempered by relationship politics. This, I think, is not an issue relevant to me alone.

After using a previous equation to pair parenting styles with a parenting method book, I thought it might be fun to use a similar format to pair political ideas with a candidate.

The following equation is as non-partisan as I could possibly make it, and does more to measure and define your personal opinion than to choose candidates in the abstract. The crux, of course, is nailing down politicians' beliefs enough to accurately chart their numbers (though letting your bias, beliefs and opinions peek through this equation is as telling as the eventual result, itself).

First, order the following traits or political issues according to how central they are to the candidate’s message, or at least how important you think they should be in their central message ; 1 through 7 with 1 being most important and 7 least.

So, you've seen the WSOP on ESPN—big money, big personalities, big bluffs. But what these highlight reels forget to mention is the fact that, at the highest level, there's method behind the blood-pumping madness. Behind every good bluff is a strong foundation of numbers.

'Tis the season—the real estate season—and though this one isn't shaping up to be the boomer of two years ago, or even the desperate sell-off of last summer, people will nevertheless be buying houses. If you are one of these people, read on. It's a buyers market this year (or so my real estate agent tells me), but which house is right for you? Use this equation to find out—it works surprisingly well.

As you will notice, this equation is really just a way to quantify your opinions—and add some objectivity to the house-buying process! How important is something to you? Well, if you think a factor is a big deal, the equation weights it more heavily. Other than the basics of assigning ranks to factors like price and location and then adding everything up, the equation says the price of your dream house should be within about 25% of your ideal, with a little less being better than a little more. The opposite is true of bedrooms and square footage—a little more of each is better than a little less. Be careful with the term "W", for the fix-up Work you are willing to do—while you can't affect location or price with work, you can affect everything else and thus your Bob-Villa-ness is a powerful term (and a high value can turn a relative junker into your dream home). If you're not a contractor, stick to values below five. 

Lately they've been dropping like flies—Imus, Rosie, Rumsie. Who's next? Gonzales? Wolfowitz? And then there's Alec Baldwin—he doesn't, technically, have anything to resign from, but what are the chances his career can recover from the temper tantrum he left on his 12-year old daughter's phone? What about a more esoteric resignation candidate like Cheney? Is there any hope?

Well, it turns out there are some factors that correlate pretty well with a person's likelihood of resigning. Of course, the egregiousness of the crime matters, but what really counts is public outrage—how pissed are people? Really, the only thing that can save you once the tide of public opinion turns is a lengthy track record in the position and your degree of power/fame. This equation works best for famous candidates, but it wouldn't take much mathematical imagination to tweak this sucker to make it relevant to someone closer to home...say, your boss maybe?

Thanks again to the PRI radio program Fair Game for spurring me into investigative action. To hear the audio of the show including in-depth discussion of the Resignation Predictor, attempts at witty banter, and general good-natured heresey, follow the link below. It's the first segment after the opening.

What are the chances person X will resign?

I originally wrote this equation for an interview on the PRI radio program Fair Game, but we got to chatting and ran out of time, so I thought I'd blog it as well.

Let me first say that I think it would be a lot of fun to invade Trinidad. While I mean no disrespect to Trinidad, I'm fairly certain it would not be an overly cumbersome task for the U.S. military (even extended as they are).

And the exit strategy would be obvious: after Carnival, we come home. We could make it a yearly event — invade Trinidad, party for a couple weeks, and then bring the troops home.

In theory, if you could define all the factors that go into making a decision and could define exactly how important is each of these factors, and could define how these factors interact, you could make an equation that precisely solves any decision. Of course, to be perfect, this equation would have to be tweaked and amended to include the variables that are relevant to each person making the decision, and the framework of the equation would have to reflect their personal value systems, etc.

What a pain in the neck!

It's much easier (and funnier!) just to wink at the problem and shoot to mimic common sense as closely as possible with a minimum of variables. So that's what I try to do with these equations: match common sense, and hopefully provide a laugh. Will the equation provide the be-all, end-all answer to all of life's problems? No. But unless I miss some glaringly important variable (which I try very hard not to do—please comment if you catch something!) or somehow flub the math (which I don't think I've done yet, but I'm sure the day is coming), they should provide a fairly honest answer for the vast majority of people. And they're certainly much more accurate than that Magic Eight Ball you had in middle school!

In this equation, it's probably pretty obvious what you should do. But is your life ruled by should? Do you gimp through your week yessir-ing and nomam-ing and cowtowing to avoid punishment? Okay, so do most of us—but here's your chance to break the mold and stike a blow for the proletariat (viva la revolucion...). And at least if you get caught blowing off the rest of the day in favor of a four-hour, three-martini, expense account lunch at the pub, you can blame the numbers.

Usually when you turn on the tube, you can be fairly certain what you are going to see—you know a show’s genre, actors, and reputation and even supposedly unscripted reality television rarely bucks expectations.
    Enter the Academy Awards.
    Some years it’s great and other years David Letterman hosts. That’s part of the fun and one reason an average of nearly 45 million viewers tune in every year—we crave the potential to catch Madonna yelling at the sound tech after her microphone failed to emerge from the floor; we love the behind-the-scenes stories of Russell Crowe intentionally mucking the names of best actress nominees; we revel in Tom Hanks’ unintentional outing of his high school drama teacher; we merrily cringe at Antonio’s atonal duet with Santana.
    What will happen this year? Who knows, but we hope it will be memorable—for better or for worse!
    And that’s generally what this equation measures: how high were dramatic expectations and were they met? Kudos to originality, glitz and glamour, and woe be unto retrospectives and politicized acceptance speeches. Let's see how this year's Oscars stack up.

When you turn on the Oscars, what are you really watching? Most people admit it's a good excuse for a fashion show. And it seems an obvious choice between Keira Knightley’s elegant, wine-colored Vera Wang and Gwyneth’s 2003 gothic horror show. But then why, if it’s that obvious, do stars continue to mistake the Oscars for that other dress-up day on the 31st of October? With a cadre of stylists, trainers and designers, and without needing to fit the dress inside a small pocketbook, wouldn’t you think they could get it right every time?

Man-O-Meter
Which date should I accept this Valentine’s Day?