Tropes that make no sense - the 'I Love You' pickup line

I was watching the first episode from the new season of House the other day, and found myself irritated that they decided to repeat one of Hollywood's most nonsensical staples: characters who declare that they love someone, either immediately after the first kiss, or (even worse) before they've even kissed for the first time.

Honestly, is there anyone who is a) above the age of 13, and b) not a functional retard who has actually done this? Is there anyone, man or woman, who would not frantically start looking for the exits if presented with this pearler of a pickup line?

I suspect part of the reason for this is that scriptwriters need a quick way to create emotional tension. Just putting a margin note to the effect of 'have a bunch of slightly awkward pauses and uninspired sounding conversation as you both look a little too long at each other, then look away pretending it didn't happen' might be a bit hit-and-miss for some actors. But Hugh Laurie? Really?

In the episode, Cuddy remarks that 'I told you I loved you, and you didn't say it back.' House has some throwaway joke to brush it off, which sounded jarring given his character. Surely someone with such a piercing (albeit cynical) understanding of human nature, along with a healthy dose of misogyny, wouldn't just let that slide?

My answer would have been 'No $#!7, eh? That's because we hooked up for the first time less than 24 hours ago, and that's not quite how love works for me.'

Rain and Profligacy

Rain is the great equaliser of cars. If you're a slacker like me, it's 'Nature's Free Car Wash'. If you're diligent in keeping your car clean, it's less of a cause for celebration.

I always found it hilarious that people would get frustrated that they had just washed their car and it was raining. Now, I can relate to the thought process that goes 'Dammit, I could have been sitting on my ass on the couch last Sunday instead'. THAT makes total sense (to the extent that regretting ex-post outcomes ever makes sense).

But the people who are irritated because the rain will ruin their wax job, leaving water streaks? Those folks are truly living on a different planet to me.

Privacy and the Success of Facebook

A long time ago, my good friend AL once observed that the notion that people valued privacy was vastly overstated. As he put it, 'Give people a chance, and they can't wait to tell you everything about themselves.' Amazingly, this holds true for unflattering things too - law enforcement has known for a long time that criminals will confess an enormous amount, if given the right encouragement. The urge to tell people about ourselves is deeply rooted in human nature.

Given all that, what exactly do people mean when they say they want 'privacy'? For most people, it's not that they want to be left alone. Celebrities aside, very few people suffer from having so many damn people wanting to hang out with them that they never get time to themselves. As a wagering man, I'd say most people have too few people calling them to invite them out to do fun stuff, not too many.

What people really mean, I think, is that they want to control the image of themselves that other people have. Often they want different images for different people, but that's part of it too. As long as you can give them that power though, they'll tell you everything. I think that distinction is why privacy advocates never understood how many people signed up. "They're all being fooled! Don't they know that anyone can see this stuff?" Of course they do. But as long as it's flattering stuff, who cares?

The narrative of every photo album is the same:

"Look at me! Here's me out at this rad party that you never heard about! Here's me surrounded by these three hot chicks, and it's implied that I might be sleeping with them, even though I'm not! And you're sitting at home on facebook! Here's me on holiday at this fabulous tropical island, while you're at work trying to waste time without catching the boss's attention!"

The worst offenders were friends who went off to Oxford and Cambridge, and apparently became infected with a burning desire to tell everyone how awesome things were there, in photo form, constantly.

Honestly, with the business plan of 'let's give people the chance to broadcast contrived, idealised versions of themselves to the world, with the explicit aim of making their friends and acquaintances jealous', how could you NOT make money?

Yellow

I've often thought that many songs are made by a single good line.

I think Coldplay's 'Yellow' is a great example of this. The subject is a girl, and it's a love song. If ever there was a more tilled field in the annals of poetic inspiration, I don't know what it would be. It's damn hard to say anything original about love. Most of it is pure boilerplate, too:

'Look at the stars.

Look how they shine for you,

And all the things you do.

Yeah they were all yellow.'

Not very inspiring stuff.

But there, right in the middle, is a line that always stuck with me:

'For you I'd bleed myself dry,

For you I'd bleed myself dry.'

It works so well, for many reasons.

They say it twice, with the pause and drop in the instrumentation before the repetition to make sure you pay attention. Then the great guitar riff comes in powerfully. But that's it -it's never uttered again, even though it's clear that the whole song is building to that point. The worst thing you can do with a good idea is bash the audience over the head with it by repeating it over and over.

I think it's the most interesting sentiment about love that I can recall being said in the last 10 years.

From the Department of Casual Empiricism...

In my experience it's a good rule of thumb that in any programming project, there will be at least one part that takes somewhere between 100 and 1000 times as long as you think it should. You imagine it will take you 5 minutes, and 3 days and much yelling at the screen later it's still not working.

Inspired by yesterday's powerful day of coding!

Opening Thoughts

Bob Dylan, describing the concept of opportunity cost:

"I can tell you fancy, I can tell you plain.
You give something up for everything you gain.
Since every pleasure's got an edge of pain,
Pay for your ticket, and don't complain."


True dat.