WEEKLY WHINE

It's Advanced Probabilistic Analysis with Tara Reid!

We're nearly through with 2005, and that means we have to look back over it and decide where it all went wrong. The obvious answer may be "everywhere", but we want to think about it in more depth. Instead, though, we're just going to select things randomly, like always.

Note: 2005 may actually be incomplete in some jurisdictions, in which case you should disregard all statements made below.

GOOBNET 2005 REVIEW COMMITTEE MEMBERS

• Reginald J Goober, founder and CEO, GoobNet Enterprises Inc [which doesn't actually exist however]
• Debbie Myers, host, Interaction
• Edvard van de Kamp, former dynamite eater
• Deb Harratsch, editor, porthole.goobnet.net

Best Event: Landing of Huygens, Titan
Debbie says: Huygens landed on Titan on FRI 14 JAN 2005, and despite failing to conduct the GoobNet Relative Velocity Test, it successfully relayed its data back to Cassini. Nonetheless, one of the great fuckups in space history occurred when they forgot to turn on the Channel A receiver on Cassini, meaning that half of Huygens's 700 pictures were lost. But the surviving data suggests that there really is a methane sea on Titan, not far from where Huygens touched down.

Worst Event: Inter Milan-AC Milan UEFA Champions League quarterfinal second leg, Milan, Italy
Edvard says: Inter fans lit flares and threw them onto the field from the upper deck, forcing the referee to halt their match. After about fifteen minutes, the match got started again, but then even more flares rained down. As Austin Powers would put it, "Who does that? I mean, honestly?" UEFA went a little light on Inter, giving only a four match closed door ban. What do we have to do to put David Stern in charge of UEFA?

Silliest Event: Tom CRUISE losing control on Oprah, United States
Deb says: This was about when the world realised that Tommy Cruise has finally gone spare. And you can even see the going sparal look on the front of his head as he hops on couches on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Paris has reportedly agreed "never to welcome the actor Tom Cruise, spokesman for Scientology and self-declared militant for this organisation". Today, GoobNet agreed to the same thing.

Most Predictable Event: Separation of Jessica SIMPSON and Nick LACHEY, United States
Edvard says: We were all way off, but I won the pool with MAR 2004.

Best Film: None
Reg says: What's with all the crap films this year? Good Night, and Good Luck was quite good, and Serenity was enjoyable, but there was no film that made us go "Daaaamn" like The Good Girl, or Whale Rider, or The Royal Tenenbaums, our recent honourees back when we were actually honouring movies with this award.

Worst Film: Æon Flux, United States
Deb says: Did fans of the MTV series feel the same way about this film as Star Wars fans felt about Episode II? This really makes us start to panic every time those rumours about a Futurama movie pop up.

Best Football Match: Liverpool-AC Milan, UEFA Champions League final, Istanbul, Turkey
Edvard says: Milan were up 3-0 by halftime, but in just a six minute span in the second half, Liverpool equalised and went on to win on penalties. And this season, fans of Milan's rivals have found a new way to taunt them: banners reading simply 3-0. That is, when they're not hurling flares.

Worst Footballing Blunder: Toshimitsu YOSHIDA, Uzbekistan-Bahrain, 2006 Men's World Cup qualifier, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Debbie says: At the first leg of their playoff, Uzbekistan earned a penalty and scored, though another Uzbek player entered the area early. The referee should have ordered a retake, but instead gave an indirect kick to Bahrain. And just because of that, they had to replay the entire match a month later. It would have been comical if it hadn't been completely embarrassing for referees around the world. And with Bob Hoyzer and Edilson Pereira de Carvalho, embarrassment is the last thing the world's referees need.

Joseph A Wapner Judge of the Year Award: John E JONES III, US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, United States
Reg says: Did you ever think that we here at GoobNet would bestow this honour on a Republican judge appointed by George W Bush? But His Honor made the correct decision nonetheless: "Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs' scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator. To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions." [Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District, p 136-7]

Without Math, I Am Less Than Zero Award: ABC News
Debbie says: ABC News reported on TUE 13 DEC 2005 that an Oklahoma Pick 3 lottery produced the same numbers two days in a row. It claimed that the probability of this happening is one in a million, when it is in fact one in a thousand. Not content to fuck up once, ABC fucked up again just one week later, reporting that the probability of the same number coming up three days in a row, as happened in Kansas, is one in a billion rather than one in a million. Just to make things clear, here are the probabilities:
Same number 1 day in a row: 1/1
Same number 2 days in a row: 1/1,000
Same number 3 days in a row: 1/1,000,000
Same number 4 days in a row: 1/1,000,000,000
Same number 5 days in a row: 1/1,000,000,000,000
And if any of you media outlets fuck this up again, we will personally deliver a lottery machine to your office so that you can conduct the experiment yourselves.

Chris Farley Memorial 'Lah-Dee-Freakin-Dah' Award: Tara REID, United States
Deb says: Back on MON 31 JAN 2005, Reid went on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to claim that she was settling down and putting a stop to her partycentric life. In SEP 2005, Taradise aired. Draw your own conclusions. But on the other hand, we are pleased to award the Chris Farley Memorial "Lah-Dee-Freakin-Dah" Award to someone who is not Paris Hilton.
Reg says: Aren't Tara and Paris basically the same person, though?
Deb says: Well, one of them is a bad actress and the other... well, one of them seems to enjoy alcohol more than people and the other... okay, one of them has absolutely no grasp on reality and the other... dammit!