I see these all the time and it bugs me: "this is the worst blah blah blah since 2003" or "this is the lowest this or that since 1997" I think to myself that only cretins could write such stuff as if it were really bad news. The only one that ever got my attention as significant was the lowest savings rate since 1930. I mean, really, I saw one that said "the lowest wheat stocks in 20 years." So, OK wtf, we were just as low 20 years ago and what happened? You see what I mean?

I see this on all kinds of things, foreclosure rates, gasoline stocks, etc. I want to know the lowdown. But this business of saying breathlessly the THIS IS THE WORST BLAH BLAH IN TEN YEARS! doesn't impress me. Thanks for listening.

A petty gripe of mine is these people who keep approaching me asking "Where can I get a decent horsehair and yak rope? Supplies have NEVER been lower." How do you tell them politely that it isn't the end of the world? It seems these people just never got over the boar bristles for brushes crisis of the mid nineties, now it's the rope thing...Yada yada yada.

It is the magic of perception and statistics. An illusion much the same as this thing we call reality. Are you no longer amazed?

It is just a ride PMS and we can get off anytime we want... Bill Hicks

I'm looking for real END OF THE WORLD stuff and all I get is this lousy t-shirt that sez "the worst housing market since 1989".

Come now, you know it is a culmination of many things and not just one thing, death by 1000 cuts and all that...

And that all endings are simply new beginnings...

Ahhhh....so that's it, PMS. You crave excitement. You want the world aflame, rioting in the streets....AND the scarcity of boar bristles. Stick around...the planet is sure to oblige.

I will defeat your post count! Resistance is futile!!!

I know, but I saw this quote at the oildrum and it was the last straw for me:



It's a cumulative thing I suppose, and The Big Picture is what counts. But still, it bugs me. Just blowing off steam.

You'll have to bow down to your master on that one, both of you. And I haven't seen too much of Monte so that will leave me NUMBER ONE!!!

bitch, bitch, bitch! the last time i read such a petty griping thread as this was in 1998!

It was even worse in 1953! Though they didn't do it on the internet of course. (thanks for the laugh, and btw, gotta keep my post count up if I'm going to pass Monte and keep NEO at bay.)

Yep. This is the worst petty gripe thread, in years! There otta be a law.

wwwwell, i cannot even comment on the factual accurateness of this here statement, because, um, well, i was not yet even a glimmer in the eye of my mummy and daddy!

You know that's funny, because that was precisely the year that I was a glimmer in the eye of my mummy and daddy. Born in April, 1954. And I didn't even think of that as I was posting it! Life is strange. Freud said something about the selection of numbers. . .