I was drawn into a debate yesterday, to settle a matter.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t much like being drawn into the debate, because there was a good chance I would not be authority on the matter, but there I was — two strangers called me over with one guy saying, “Okay.\u00c2\u00a0 Help us out here.”<\/p>\n
“You watch movies?”
\nA strange question, and one with the obvious answer of “yes.”\u00c2\u00a0 But this is vague and it’s as likely I haven’t seen whatever movie they’re going to give me as it is that I have.\u00c2\u00a0 Are they talking a Fellini classic or Weekend at Bernie’s 2?
\n“You see the movie… The Godfather?”
\nOh God, no.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t like the spot I’m in.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, I’ve seen The Godfather, but I’m not going to be able to provide anything substantial to settle a debate.\u00c2\u00a0 “Yes, but… um… not for a while.”
\n“Okay.\u00c2\u00a0 Fine.\u00c2\u00a0 Now… when was that made?\u00c2\u00a0 What decade?”<\/p>\n
Is that it?\u00c2\u00a0 I just have to say when it came out?\u00c2\u00a0 “Early 1970s.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m thinking, maybe 1973.\u00c2\u00a0 1974?”\u00c2\u00a0 (A quick google check just now shows that it was 1972.”<\/p>\n
“Get out!”
\n“No.\u00c2\u00a0 See.\u00c2\u00a0 I told you.”
\n“It did not.\u00c2\u00a0 It came out in the 1980s.”
\n“You’re just upset because he gave you the right answer.”<\/p>\n
“No.\u00c2\u00a0 Look.\u00c2\u00a0 Al Pacino.\u00c2\u00a0 Scarface.\u00c2\u00a0 Think about the age.\u00c2\u00a0 Scarface came out in 1988.”<\/p>\n
“Um,” I said.\u00c2\u00a0 “No.\u00c2\u00a0 That sounds… a lot later than it came out.”\u00c2\u00a0 As I said that, the other guy shouted out, “Scarface came out in, like,\u00c2\u00a01982!\u00c2\u00a0 Jeez-Uz!”<\/p>\n
A google search just now shows it came out in 1983.<\/p>\n
As this went on, I wasn’t quite sure what the terms of the debate were, or what the misguided man’s mindframe on the matter was — he thought Scarface came out in 1988 and extrapulated back to The Godfather with Al Pacino’s age, but I sort smiled and walked away, knowing what the issue at stake was.\u00c2\u00a0 And I breathed a sigh of relief that I had a reasonably accurate answer, even if my guage was that this was a pointless debate that demeaned anyone who wanted to argure over it.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0(People who care\u00c2\u00a0enough to argure over\u00c2\u00a0The Godfather or Scarface should be beyond its release date and be delving into other issues of minituae.)\u00c2\u00a0 But for me it is a bit of hit and miss, and I dodged a bullet in terms of providing something useful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was drawn into a debate yesterday, to settle a matter.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t much like being drawn into the debate, because there was a good chance I would not be authority on the matter, but there I was — two strangers called me over with one guy saying, “Okay.\u00c2\u00a0 Help us out here.” “You watch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-the-ground"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}