A Pixelated Mind

My friend Daniel and I have been doing this test for years. I call it the Bronx Tale test. It comes from the movie the Bronx Tale. It comes from this line:

Sonny: Alright, listen to me. You pull up right where she lives, right? Before you get outta the car, you lock both doors. Then, get outta the car, you walk over to her. You bring her over to the car. Dig out the key, put it in the lock and open the door for her. Then you let her get in. Then you close the door. Then you walk around the back of the car and look through the rear window. If she doesn’t reach over and lift up that button so that you can get in: dump her.
‘C’: Just like that?
Sonny: Listen to me, kid. If she doesn’t reach over and lift up that button so that you can get in, that means she’s a selfish broad and all you’re seeing is the tip of the iceberg. You dump her and you dump her fast.

The idea is that if you go through some very obvious effort for a girl and she doesn’t extend a fraction of the same effort to you, then she’s not worth the hassle. It’s a simple concept and it makes sense. The problem is that cars no longer work this way. We now have automatic locks on most cars, so there’s really no way to run this test anymore.

What we need is a new Bronx Tale Test. We need some way one person can extend large amounts of effort for their date, which can be reciprocated with only minor effort.

Until then, we’re just going to have to talk, listen, and *gasp* get to know our dates… and who has the time for that?

I’m trying to get back into the habit of posting. Here’s a short question that’s been in my conversational repertoire this week:

If you won the lottery tonight. (Say $100 million after taxes.) What would you do that evening to celebrate?

My friend John, is an ethicist. His answer: Vegas. He’d fly out eight of his best friends, give them each $100,000 on the condition that they absolutely must waste it that weekend.

His brother Paul is a doctor. His answer: Have a nice dinner, then start planning how he would save the world.

My answer: Also Vegas. I’d put it all on black.

What would you do?

Kyl-Santorum Fallacy: What begins as a bare assertion – when it is pointed out that the statement is false – the speaker replies that it was merely a rhetorical statement. This can either be simply admitting the rhetorical maneuver, as in “not intended to be a factual statement” or claiming it was a statement of sentiment, as in this was “true in my heart.” Arguably, this is a strategy of avoiding accountability rather than a fallacy, albeit an absurd one.

I can’t figure out how to make this look nice. Just click on the first one and cycle through it using the lightbox.