Statistics

No, I’m not talking about university math here. I’m talking about random facts. In particular, baseball, hockey, and box office stats.

I don’t about you, but I’m a bit of a trivia buff. I love knowing and sharing random bits of information (ask my friends, they’ll probably roll their eyes and get belligerent). I’m not sure why I’m like this, only that I’ve always been this way. I even have an “award” that my hockey coach gave me when I was 9. Every player got this award, though each said something different on it, usually a quote or a quirk of ours that the coach picked up on through the season. Mine happened to say “Coach, Did You Know…?”. So I guess I’ve always been like this, and people have always known about it.

I’ve gotten so bad at times that one friend has imposed a strict ‘5 random facts per day’ limit on me. But I’ll have you know that I’ve rarely met or exceeded that number anyway. Disagree if you want.

Back to the topic. Currently I have a number of spreadsheets going on my computer. Basically I’ve kept a running list over the past few years of the all-time leaders in baseball, as well as the top 150 movies ever in the U.S., in terms of box office success. Don’t worry, I didn’t search the internet over to find out these facts. I got them from sites that already had them all listed. And I update my spreadsheets every Tuesday. Which begs the question: why do I do this? Why do I make a copy of a list that is there already, which updates itself all the time, especially when I have to write it all down from scratch, continually switching back and forth between pages? I can’t say I have a good answer to this, only that that is just how I am.

If you’re wondering why I mentioned hockey stats, it’s because I keep a mental note of all-time leaders, though I haven’t made actual spreadsheets. I imagine I may start adding that to my list of Tuesday updates come next season. I guess we’ll see. Or more likely just I’LL see.

I’m reminded of how back in the day, I would race Hot Wheels on this course we have in my basement. I’d sit there all afternoon with my stopwatch, timing them to see which could slide down the ramp the fastest. I’d even allot them points and rankings, not to mention individual names. Then I’d even load THOSE stats onto the computer, just for information sake. I haven’t done that in a while. Perhaps that’s a good thing. And now you know a little about the nerdish side of me.

-Bernier