LARRY

Figure 1. Name Track For LTL Immediate Family

I have started a new vein of research into my lawsuit with Hollywood. You can go to the Social Security website and lookup the rankings of registered baby names for the past 125 years. I used the website to provide the ranking of "Larry" as a baby name for the past 125 years. The plot revealed some interesting facts about the popularity of the name LARRY.

1) Just as I have been preaching to you guys over the past 10 years, something happenend in the late 70s/early eighties that really damaged the name LARRY. I searched IMDB.com for all characters names LARRY. I was surprised at the response. Hundres of characters named LARRY. But, if you look a little deeper, no hero is names LARRY. LARRY is the name for the goofy guy next door, or the shoe salesman, or the dim witted cop. I don't think the 3's company is totally to blame for the downfall of LARRY. I haven't quite found my missing link, YET.

I decided to search IMDB.com for plots that include the name LARRY. To my surprise, I found a few titles with leading characters (notice i didn't use the moniker hero) named LARRY. Here are a few of my favorites

"Trouble with Larry, The" (1993)During his honeymoon, the irrepressible Larry Burton is dragged off into the jungle by a large-sized male baboon and is presumed dead - eaten by apes. However, defying all odds, Larry survives and, after many comic-strip-type adventures, returns home to re-establish himself as head of the household - little realising that his wife, Sally, has married the staid and conservative Boyd Flatt during the intervening ten years, and that she is now the mother of a bright and lively nine year old daughter. Larry's return home causes considerable upheaval and consternation for the family - not least being his subsequent attempts to woo a reluctant Gabriella, his former sister-in-law, who had taken a distinct dislike to him prior to his disappearance and is still definitely opposed to the idea of getting to know Larry on a more intimate basis
(Not exactly the hero story)

Aerobic Man (2000)Larry Snorkendorf, a uncoordinated nerd boy, walked into an aerobics class changing his life forever. While at the gym he confronts Cindy the evil aerobics instructor and vows to defeat her. Sandy trains Larry while Igor eats Funnyons. Eventually Larry becomes the mighty Aerobic Man and
(I shall now and forever be know as "Mighty Aerobic Man")

Personal Hygiene for Boys (1952)Larry, a popular young boy, is looked up to and admired by his friends. it turns out that the reason he is so popular is because of his personal hygiene habits. He constantly washes his hair, cleans between his toes, lines public toilet seats with paper, and has other somewhat disturbing obsessions. As the narrator says, Larry's squeaky-clean hygiene habits "are
(Maybe this was the LARRY downfall)

Life of Larry, The (1995). The story deals with a slob named Larry and his companion, the talking dog, Steve. Larry worries that distance is forming between himself and his son Milt, so together with Steve, he looks for a way to bond with the boy. The short is full of flashbacks, and scenes which would eventually end up in episodes of MacFarlane's breakout series, "Family Guy". It also allowed for MacFarlane's first break into the industry. The short won a student film award from Hanna-Barbera who eventually hired MacFarlane. It paved the way for his first televised animated short "Larry and Steve" for Hanna-Barbera which
(I actually want to see this one. If its by the creator of "The Family Guy" its gotta put LARRY in the right)

2) Almost as interesting is what caused LARRY to launch from a 300 ranking in the early 20's to a top 10 name in the 50's. More research is required. Who was the LARRY that inspired a generation of popularity. Who is this LARRY and what happened to him?

3) The name track appear to be cyclical. I guess parents don't want to name their kids after themselves, less the legion of Jr.'s in the world (like Phil), but grandparents names are valid. Amanda's name fell from grace and then rebounded with a vengence. I think I need to calculate the rate of change in the name rakings to see if any other names rise and fall within as short amount of time as LARRY. James, if you could get your class to perform a regression analysis, I would really appreciate it. I could fit an autoregressive moving average (ARMA) model to the name track to predict the future trend (Another project for your class James). Clearly more analysis is required, and I probably need to increase the sample population of names included in the analysis.

4) Other interesting name tracks:
Dorothy - Very popular in the early century, no where to be found today
Many of the names that are currently in the top ten jumped in popularity between the 40s and 50s. I attribute this to WWII.

In conclusion
I am still trying to figure out why LARRY has become the name of choice in commercials for "the IT guy that doesn't understand that Dell is best" or "the Christmas elf that buys all the worng stuff for Christmas" or "the goofy cucumber cartoon character". I'm tired of it. I challenge anyone to find a name that is picked on more that LARRY. I and the rest of the LARRYs of the world have to fight the Hollywood stereotype of the geeky, dorky, low self-esteem sidekick. I am sure there is a book in Hollywood that has suggested character names for specific roles. I am on a quest to find this book. LARRY will be a hero's name someday. My analysis has just begun.

Stupid is as stupid does

Apparently there was a report on 20/20 about how America is throwing money at public schools and out kids are consistently being out performed by international students from less afluent countries. I didn't see it, but I read through the article. Kind of interesting, but I just feel there is so much more to it. I personally believe that the decline of family in this country has as big an impact as anything. Our kids are raised by pop music, celebrities and Everwood. It's like we have to entertain kids to teach them. Sure, I think we should teach in a way that engages them, but should they learn math because a celebrity said they should. My experience is unique due to the communities that my kids come from. I'm going to be in for a surprise when I get into a district where parents don't understand why their kid made an A- and are yelling at me for not giving them an A. Anyway, since my friends are much more educated than I, I'd thought I'd see what you thought.

Thinking of our public education makes me think how much I took it for granted. I coudn't stand highschool when I was in it, but now I realize that I was very, very fortunate. I had a lot of opportunities and I felt very prepared for college.

Boner Visit Plans

When are you going to be in Huntsville on the "I bid you adou" tour? I think its the first weekend in Feb. I will be on a church retreat Friday night. Are we planning to get together somewhere on Saturday night. I will volunteer my house for Saturday night if there aren't already plans that I have not been invited too.

By the way, I would clean house on Beauty and the Geek!

Moves

Gotta few moves for you fellas to watch. I think I saw Phil in there a couple of times.

A star in the making

So Jeremy calls me tonight and makes me turn to the WB to watch Beauty and the Geek. Apparently one of the "geeks" is someone we know. So I flip it on wondering how Larry filmed the show without his family knowing (just kidding). Well, I couldn't guess it from just seeing him, I needed help. If you haven't heard the story, which I'm sure you probably have, here's his bio from their website. Click on meet the contestants and look for Wes. Classic stuff.

Youth Sexuality Workshop

Amanda and I are group leaders for the Youth Sexuality workshop next weekend. We had our training tonight. There is some crunked up stuff going on in the lives of young kids today. James, do you know what playing "snap" is all about? Its pretty eye-opening. I bet if we surfed this website, pretty soon we would come across a teens blog with very questionable info. James, I read where schools have blocked all blog sites and live journal sites because kids were on them all the time at school (Thats why you can't access our clean, wholesome blogsite). I'll let you know how it goes. James could probably enlighten us with his stories.

Slight change in plans

Well, I was planning on working through the end of the month. Instead, today is my last day at eFunds. I was going to tell my boss about the trip and my plans to resign on Monday morning. Unfortunately some other events took place today (another co-worker resigned unexpectedly) that forced me to reveal my intentions a little earlier than planned. I told my boss and he said we'd talk Monday about how we would work the transition the rest of the month. About an hour later he called me into his office and told me he'd talked to HR and I'd get paid for the next two weeks but that today would be my last day. I was a little taken aback at first, but then he called Robyn in and told her the same thing. They just want to really start fresh and reassign territories Monday morning and have people start working our prospects. I will lose about one week of pay we were expecting but I will have much more time to work on the trip, plan for a career change when we return, and we'll probably save the same amount of money I would have earned in gas savings alone. I no longer have the 55 mile round trip commute!

So anyway, direct emails to my hotmail account starting this afternoon.

Championship Game

Did anyone see the Trojan marching band performance at halftime? The tribute to Michael Jackson was priceless. The played "Beat It", and acted out parts from the video - fight scene, moon walk, croth grab - it had it all. I was our band was that cool. They have been playing the Emperial March from Star Wars and Crazy Train for well over 12 years now.

Stanely Mclover is skipping hiw senior year to go pro. I don't blame him, I wouldn't want to play for a splineless defensive coordinator either.

Hey Charlie

A little birdie told me that you still check the blog, so I thought I would send you a shout out.

Are we still driving to Alaska this summer??