fuzzy-math

The Cable Movie Rewatchability Index

Brian Moylan · 02/01/10 03:51PM

With cable TV rerunning our favorite movies at a vicious rate, it is hard to determine whether or not one should give up two hours to the cable gods. Finally, we have a handy formula to help us decide.

The Equation for When to Quit Watching a TV Show

Brian Moylan · 11/30/09 02:14PM

Even the best television shows run out of creative juice if they stay on the air long enough. But, when is the right time to give up hope a show will improve and abandon it forever? Finally, a handy calculation!

Did Cindy McCain Take 80 Pills a Day?

Moe · 09/12/08 11:41AM

In case you didn't know, Cindy McCain is a recovering pillhead. Why is this news? Well, the doctor who lost his license for writing prescriptions for Cindy under the names of various employees just gave an interview to the Washington Post. Would you believe the whole sordid affair sort of ruined his life? Yeah so let's get to the real mystery: how did it not end hers? Because the available evidence suggests that Cindy was taking an unbelievable amount of painkillers as the height of her addiction. We went back and consulted the insane excerpts of the "Diary of a Madwoman" kept by her old employee (and registered — and convincing-looking! — Republican) Tom Gosinski. (Tom marked good days as "on Percocet" or "OP"; not good days were "NOP" but she seemed to enjoy Vicodin as well.) Did you realize Cindy had five doctors writing prescriptions for this shit? (Four of them didn't really know; Cindy just sorta hacked their DEA numbers.)Experts say she could have faced 20 years in prison if not for the whole centimillionaire heiress Senator's wife thing. But forget prison, how did she not die? Alternet estimates she was taking between 30 and 50 pills a day during the height of her addiction, but only the DEA knows for sure, and the sheer quantity of pills referenced in Gosinski's diary — in one case two prescriptions for 400 or 500-count bottles of painkillers written by the same doctor in two weeks — suggests, per the typical addict's "just-in-time" fulfillment policy, that she was probably up at least into the 70 or 80-a-day range around September 1992. 80 pills a day! Who lives through that? (Much less quits cold turkey, as Cindy allegedly did.) Well, this guy did, but he looks like he might have a somewhat hardier constitution than Cindy McCain. In any case, we have something newfound — respect? awe? complete bafflement?? — for Cindy McCain, who Gosinski described as a very hard worker in his early days working for her MASH-modeled charity team, before she turned into the Anna Nicole of the NGO community: