A Simple Analysis On Why the 2014 Yankees Should Make the Playoffs

If you don't like baseball, you might not want to read this one - sorry.  Also, I don't do sabermetric analysis for a living, so it's very much possible that (a) I'm incorrect, or (b) I'm correct BUT someone's done a better job of explaining this than me.  Where I think I am pretty competent is in marrying objective data with anecdotal evidence to tell a story.  So here's a story for you:

As of the morning of August 9, the Yankees are 61-54, tied with the Seattle Mariners in being just a half-game out of the second American League wild-card spot (currently held, very tenuously, by the Kansas City Royals).

It's possible, over the course of a long, 162-game season, for teams to experience a net aggregate of being either "lucky" or "unlucky."  This is typically defined using Bill James' Pythagorean Won/Loss Record, which provides an estimate for what a team's win-loss record should be based on the number of runs they've scored vs. the number of runs they've given up, as a team.  In the screenshot below, you can see the current run differential for each of the teams in the American League East in the circled column, labeled "DIFF":

By this measure, the Yankees have given up 19 more runs this season than they've scored.  (The first-place Orioles, on the other hand, have scored 46 more runs so far than they've given up.)  Since the object of the game is to score more runs than your opponent, as a general rule the better teams in baseball end up usually having positive run differentials each season.

This season's Yankees, as I mentioned above, do not have a positive run differential.  In fact, if you look at their Pythagorean Won/Loss Record, their expected record right now should be about 55 wins and 60 losses, which should put the Yankees somewhere around the Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox in terms of overall team quality.  Thus, one can say the Yankees this season have been "lucky," to the tune of six games they shouldn't have won, but ultimately did.

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But can a baseball team, to an extent, control their own luck (or, alternatively, render the idea of a "luck" statistic useless)?  It strikes me as possible that a manager can manage each game in a season in such a way to make this happen, and my hypothesis is that Joe Girardi and the 2014 New York Yankees have been consciously trying to do so.

Since "luck" depends on a run differential, one potential way to make it look as if your team's been luckier than it actually is would be to (a) make decisions in such a way to maximize your team's chances of maintaining a small lead, while (b) also making decisions in such a way to essentially "punt" on certain games which appear to be lost, turning the types of games you might ordinarily lose by 2 or 3 runs into games you would lose by 5 or more runs.

Anecdotally, watching the Yankees this season, it's my belief this is essentially how Girardi's been managing the pitching staff and lineup changes in his team's games.  (Independent of whether it was his decision or something handed down to him as an edict, if it works to the point that this particular, very much offensively limited Yankees team makes the playoffs, Girardi should earn at least some consideration for American League Manager of the Year.)  To test this hypothesis, I pulled down the Yankees' season data (game-by-game) from baseball-reference.com, and using Excel, created a quick PivotTable to test my hypothesis:

Hypothesis: Are the Yankees disproportionately winning close games and are they disproportionately losing blowouts?

Results:

The data in each cell represents the number of games so far this season (as of August 8) with that particular result.  So as an example, the Yankees have a 19-16 record in games this season settled by one run.  They are also 6-3 in games decided by exactly six runs.

Typically when a team looks like they're playing lucky over the course of a season, a statistician would first look at the team's record in one-run games.  A one-run game can, in theory, go either way by virtue of the very close score, so if a team somehow wins a disproportionately high percentage of their one-run games (like the 2012 Baltimore Orioles, who somehow - ridiculously - went 29-9 (!!!) in one-run games), this must be due to just variance.  But looking at this metric, the Yanks' 19-16 record in one-run games isn't too far off from the theoretical prediction of a .500 record in one-run games, so in this sense, the Yankees haven't been that "lucky."

Expanding the analysis to one- and two-run games, though, the Yankees perhaps look a bit luckier.  Combining these numbers, the Yankees have been 38-26 in games decided by two runs or less - a .593 winning percentage, good enough on its own to make the playoffs most seasons.  So maybe in this sense, the Yankees have been "lucky" - but here we perhaps need to stop talking about numbers and start talking about the actual New York Yankees, as a team.

The one true strength of this year's Yankees team has been their bullpen.  Joe Girardi has the (uncommon) gift this season of turning each close game into a 6- or 7-inning affair, thanks to exceptionally strong performances this season by set-up man Dellin Betances and closer David Robertson.  Additionally, you could argue the team's greatest weakness (at least at this point in the season) is its patchwork starting rotation - even though they've pitched well of late, many of their starters are outperforming their individual predicted performance, so you'd expect some regression to the mean over time.  My point here is, the Yankees' strongest point (their bullpen) is inversely related to their weakest (the rotation) - whenever the starter isn't out there pitching, a reliever is.  If you have a lock-down bullpen, you're way more likely to win the close games (defined here as 2 runs or less), vs. lose them.  It's what the Yankees did in 1996 with Mariano Rivera and John Wetteland in the bullpen, and it seems to be working this season, as well.

What about the second question in my hypothesis: are the Yankees electing to essentially "punt" on games when they're down by 5+ runs, allowing them to turn into blowout losses?

Well, in games decided by 5 runs or more so far this season, the Yankees are 10-16.  These numbers suggest that in a directional sense, the Yankees are more likely to be blown out than to blow out another team.  This could very well be a direct function of the season-long anemia of the current Yankees offense, and I don't think 10-16 looks too strong in one direction or the other, so I don't want to put too much stock in these numbers until the rest of the season plays out.

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I have two main points of writing this:

1. When someone looks at just the numbers and says "Oh, the Yankees are luck boxes this season, screw them," they're sort of missing the point - the Yankees appear, to an extent, to be gaming the very idea of "Pythagorean luck" and disproportionately winning close games, through leveraging the use of the strongest parts of their roster and advantageously matching up in ways that have mostly succeeded (though most Yankees fans, including this author, agree that Girardi over-thinks match-ups in the context of individual games - for me, though, it's more of an aesthetic annoyance in the sense that I don't want to watch so many pitching changes.  It's not that I don't get his logic.)
2. Ordinarily when a team is six games "lucky" at this point of the season, you'd expect them to limp toward the finish, ending the season with a record which more reflects the "zero luck point."  For the Yankees, that would be a full season record somewhere around 77-85 (give or take a few).  But this season, at this point, I think you can actually argue the opposite.  The Yankees have made it this far with a completely anemic offense and riding on the backs of their Triple-A pitching staff.  Their offense should be producing BETTER than they are, so if their performance actually improves the rest of the season - and, if, somehow, the team can manage to get an injured starting pitcher or two back - there's no reason why this Yankees team couldn't sprint to the finish, ultimately making the playoffs as a Wild Card (or maybe even a division winner).

Anyway, right now, the Yankees' chances of making the playoffs are around 20 percent.  If someone offered me 4-to-1 on the Yankees making the playoffs, I'd take that bet in a heartbeat, and so should you.

Observations on the Modern Business Trip

I travel for business just often enough to always have some kind of trip on the horizon, but not often enough to acquire any of the perks reserved for frequent business travelers (e.g., airport lounges, first class seats, shoe shines at the airport).  I recently had the opportunity to travel to Charlotte, North Carolina for a quick, two day business trip (FACT: Charlotte is the United States' second-most boring city, ranking below only my home city of Jacksonville, Florida).

Business trips are, to me, a manic cycle between three psychological states: intense action, nervous preparation for intense action, and sheer boredom.  Sometimes they combine; on Wednesday afternoon, for instance, I was bored as hell waiting for my focus groups to get started, but also incredibly nervous because I knew my clients would show up in the back room of the focus group facility any minute.  Anyway, in an attempt to turn the nervousness and boredom into something productive, I took some notes on observations I made during the trip, which I plan to share below.

It's a story that seems simplistic but it's actually kind of an outline of what I do, how I manage to do it, and what business trips can be like at the present time.

Let's get to it:

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WEDNESDAY, 5:30 am: Alarm clock goes off.  Exhausted, I do some mental math and realize I've greatly overestimated the time it will take to get to the airport.  My flight doesn't leave until 10:15 am, and even though I'm flying out of Philadelphia (NOTE: flying out of Philly always seems like a good idea when price shopping, and is always a terrible idea the morning of the flight itself), I have more time to sleep.  I'm the world's worst sleeper (more on this later), and I rarely snooze after the alarm clock, but this time, I manage to fall back asleep.

6:00 am: Alarm clock goes off.  I do more mental math and convince myself I can sleep until 6:30 am.  I set the alarm for 6:30 but my travel anxiety rears its ugly head and after ten minutes of tossing and turning, get out of bed at 6:10, instead.

8:45 am: Parked at PHL - it took an hour and and a half to get here, which is a comical amount of time to travel to an airport, given EWR is only 45 minutes away, but at least there was no traffic.

8:54 am: Through security at PHL.  There's a little known security line in front of terminal B that often has a much shorter line than the main security lines at the other terminals.  I don't avail myself of this travel hack often enough, but this morning it works out.  I'm not kidding when I say I was out of my car and through security at one of the country's most clusterfuckiest airports in nine minutes flat.  Now, time to grab coffee...

10:30 am: Waiting on the tarmac, in 14th position to takeoff (NOTE: I always appreciate pilots willing to tell you the bad news.  Hearing bad news always beats the living crap out of hearing nothing at all), because a runway was temporarily shut down due to a bird strike.  I read somewhere once that birds are a leading cause of plane crashes; we all know about the plane that landed in the Hudson in 2009 - that plane was impacted by a bird strike.  I'm not the most nervous flier (though I certainly used to be, before I flew all the time), but I'd be lying if I didn't say that plane wasn't on my mind as we take off.

10:55 am: I was in something like boarding zone 17 on US Airways for this flight, which most people hate but I actually sort of like.  You get to spend less overall time on the airplane, and more time standing to get to your seat.  In 2012, I flew enough to earn Silver status on US Airways, which earned me nothing in 2013 except (a) access to the front part of coach and (b) the ability to board super early in the process.  Access to the front part of coach was nice enough, I suppose, but boarding early in the process is highly overrated.  You just sit there and wait for other people to herp and derp their way down the aisle for 20-30 minutes.  Not fun.

11:30 am: Grateful for the window seat, since I actually feel like dozing this time and I can rest my head against the additional three inches of space between my seat and the window.  I catch a couple of winks, then work on studying my discussion guide for tonight's focus groups.  Moderating focus groups is one of the more challenging things I'm asked to do in my work, and the typical difficulty is, in this case, is somewhat amplified by the groups being for a brand-new client, and with a challenging demographic (small business owners).  Small business owners aren't like you (most likely) and me.  They're successful by the very virtue of their business continuing to remain open in this environment, and they tend to be high-energy and aggressive people (even in Charlotte). There are no guarantees these folks will be easy to interview in a group environment.

12:45 pm: I am amazed at the line at this airport Burger King.  They called out order #82 as I placed my order, which was #8.  This is the type of comment which reeks of classist hegemony and guilt, but I'm surprised at how smart the person who took my order sounded.  They sounded like a professor or poet or something.  I felt, legitimately, like I couldn't sound that intelligent in a random interaction with a stranger - and that Burger King attendant earns $7.25 an hour.  The world is a really strange place, it strikes me, as I sit down and munch on some french fries and chicken tenders.

4:00 pm: T-minus 90 minutes until the first group starts.  My boss' boss, one of the greatest focus group moderators I've ever seen, once told me that when he was starting out "doing groups" (as we like to say), he would get so nervous he'd sometimes have to throw up beforehand.  I never look, or feel, that nervous before groups - but man, do I wish it were 5:30 pm.  It's always a breeze once the research gets started.

4:30 pm: What's difficult about moderating a focus group?  Well, nothing, I suppose, except for (1) keeping the discussion on topic; (2) making sure Quiet Jim in the seat directly to my right is speaking up enough, so the clients don't complain; (3) making sure Veronica the Dominator, sitting at the rear of the group, doesn't speak up first with every question I ask; (4) making sure the group is running on schedule and speeding up or slowing down the pace of the discussion, as needed, to make the group run exactly two hours; (5) wondering if the clients in the back room are getting what they need from the research; (6) trying to remember what someone said 25 minutes ago, in order to tie it into a question I'm going to ask ten minutes from now; (7) making a funny joke on occasion and keeping everyone having some semblance of fun and engagement (difficult when the topic of the group is insurance).

5:30 pm: The first group files in, and we get started.

6:30 pm: Feeling pretty good...

7:30 pm: Group one is finished - clients seem happy.  Group two files in AS group one files out, and I really have to pee.  This is going to be a fun two hours...

8:30 pm: The participants must think I'm acting kind of funny, walking around like crazy around the room while I ask questions.  It's really just a Modified Pee-Pee Dance, but hey, no one has to know this.

9:30 pm: Oh thank goodness, group two is finished.  I'm going to give someone back at the office a very hard time for scheduling these groups back-to-back, without a 15 minute break in between.

9:45 pm: Focus group facilities - at least, the very good ones - are supposed to take good care of moderators and make sure they don't go hungry throughout the process.  This facility in Charlotte, which is actually typically very good, make a crucial faux pas - they forgot to make sure I had something to eat for dinner.  I don't eat between groups, and tend to subsist on caffeinated beverages (e.g., coffee, Diet Coke), so I was REALLY looking forward to having some food after these groups.  Now it looks like I'm going to have to scrounge something up around the hotel.

10:20 pm: Thankfully for me, the hotel's "bistro" was open.  My dinner tonight was not very bistro-y: it consists of what appears to be a microwaved bacon cheeseburger and french fries.  I also grab a Sam Adams because, YOLO.  Tomorrow morning, I'm going to need to eat something healthy and nutritious, or else I'm going to come down with something.

THURSDAY, 6:20 am: Rise and shine.  The first thought through my mind is, this will be over with at noon today.

12:05 pm: DONE!  As cranky and nervous as I get before being "on stage," as it were, I feel like a million bucks right now.  The good feelings are amplified further by the client complimenting me on the job I did after finishing the research - never expected, and always nice to hear.

1:00 pm: As I sip a Corona with lime and eat a salad for lunch (healthy food, for the win) at the airport restaurant, I watch and listen to the group of suited-up alpha males next to me getting pumped up for their big sales meeting, and think to myself how grateful I am to not have their job.  There's an element of our good friend, the Fundamental Attribution Error, in what I'm about to write - these people aren't me, I don't know them and I don't know their life stories, so by default they're boring people - but I'm going to assume based on their conversation they probably sell industrial PVC supplies, storage solutions, customer retention software, or some other kind of widget where the only differentiators between their ability to sell and some other competitor's ability to sell are their aggression and salesmanship.  That's gotta be tough and also dehumanizing, as it sort of turns you into a bottom line-driven sales machine.  You might end up being good at it, but at what cost?  Your spouse leaving you?  A heart attack at 48?  At least, doing what I get to do, I get to win sometimes on the merits of my intelligence, creativity, and guile.

1:02 pm: I think a lot these days about income inequality and specifically the sense I get that we're becoming a sort of caste society in America, where the privileged ones are increasingly the "creative class" people who get to think independently and make active decisions as part of their day to day work (except for academics, who aren't privileged because grad school is an awful life choice).  It's been a long time for me since high school, the most recent extended period of time in my life when I was surrounded by a group of people who largely either did not want to - or could not - think deeply about stuff.  So I tend to assume that most people want more responsibility, and want to have more ownership of things in their world, but they simply can't, and this bothers me more than it (perhaps) should.  I don't think there's a solution to this issue; it's like solving world poverty.  But suffice to say people watching at the airport has got me thinking about too much deep shit.  Maybe I can order a second beer...

1:15 pm: The airport bar is an awesome place, when you think about it.  Other people have said this more eloquently than me, but airports are places where everyone has an origin and a destination, and they're in between those two places at the present time.  Thankfully there exists the airport bar, a watering hole where people from all over the place can congregate to sip adult beverages and make small talk with people they'll never see again.  I find the "Carolina Beer Company" in an out-of-the-way section of CLT's international terminal and sit down at the nearly empty bar for a delicious local IPA.  It turns out there is no actual "Carolina Beer Company" brewery, and there are no other locations for the "Carolina Beer Company" besides Terminal D at the Charlotte Airport.  I can't get over this fact, and probably annoy the hell out of my bartender with my disbelief that something like this would exist solely as a single location to serve local beers to travelers stopping through the international terminal in Charlotte, NC.  Let's say you're traveling from California to Munich, with a layover in Charlotte.  Are you really going to care that much about North Carolina beer to stop in for a drink?  I don't know, but the place stays afloat, so I guess people do this.  Anyway, I'm probably annoying you as much as I annoyed the bartender, so I'll shut up.

2:45 pm: This is a big airplane, specifically a Boeing 767 Extended Range, which is (oddly) taking me and about two hundred other passengers on a 474-mile journey from CLT to PHL.  I haven't traveled on a plane this huge since my honeymoon, and the aviation geek in me is thrilled to look around and see something other than a 6-foot maximum ceiling.  You can actually stretch out in one of these planes and relax, if you wanted to.  I look around and watch lots of people sleeping in oddball ways - some are sitting straight up with no recline; others are resting their heads against the window (like I did on the flight down, yesterday); others have their tray tables down and are sleeping curled over, with their heads in their arms.  I know I just slept on a plane the day before, but I can't help but wonder, how can people fall asleep so easily?  I alluded to this earlier in the post, but I am an awful sleeper - I don't need to be 100% comfortable to fall asleep, but unless I'm dead tired, I need to be at least 90% comfortable.  Other people I know, like my wife and some friends, can fall asleep under any set of circumstances - it's like a switch they can turn on and off.  I am envious of having this switch; I can only sleep when my body tells me to, otherwise I am completely awake.

4:30 pm: Landed in PHL.
5:00 pm: On the road again...
7:00 pm: HOME.  Business trip: pWned.   

Travel Log: The Very End of the United States (Florida Keys and Key West)

From a very young age, I've found myself fascinated with maps.  I would spend hours studying road atlases (this was the 1980s), looking for cool and interesting locations, and I especially liked the idea of exploring isolated, out of the way places.  As an adult, and as someone who likes to travel (NOTE: I initially typed "lives", which was sort of a Freudian slip, now that I think about it), I've made one of my travel goals to explore some of these places.  I recently had the opportunity to knock one such location off my list - Key West, Florida.  The Florida Keys region is home to many unique nicknames; one of them is "Flagler's Folly."  There was a wealthy man named Henry Flagler who saw value in connecting Key West, Florida, to the mainland - even though Key West was over 100 miles from it (this was the "Folly").  His railroad, known as the Overseas Railroad, was completed in 1912, months before Flagler's death, having been wrecked by two hurricanes (these are common in the Keys) in the years-long building process.  Years later, the Overseas Railroad was replaced with an extension of United States Highway 1, a single, mostly two-lane concrete road which winds 107 miles from Key Largo (to the northeast) to Key West (to the southwest).  This road, called the Overseas Highway, is the only way in (and out) of the Florida Keys by car.  Coasting from island to island, with bridges every few miles, you sometimes feel like you're suspended over the water itself.

If you've never made the road trip down the Overseas Highway, and you're interested in a mixture of beautiful vistas, odd tourist traps, Americana kitsch, and delicious seafood, you should definitely make the trip at some point.  Speaking of food, let me get this out of the way.  If you drive down the Keys, recommended food stops include:

• Craig's Restaurant, MM 90, Bayside (What do I mean by this? Most locations in the Florida Keys, outside of Key West and Marathon, do not identify themselves via postal addresses - as you might expect, or might want to plug into your GPS.  Instead, as there is only one highway, locations on the highway are given by the mile marker ("MM") combined with the side of the highway, Oceanside or Gulfside/Bayside.)
• Keys Marina and Restaurant (35th street, Marathon, Bayside) - Amazing bayside views, comfortable seating and friendly staff.  If you eat one thing, get the Lobster Reuben.
• BO Fish Truck, Key West - this is the picture to the left; as the Yelp reviews suggest repeatedly, don't judge a book by its cover.  While slightly groaty-looking from the outside, this place was awesome in ambience and in the quality of the food, I had the Grouper Platter with a Key Limeade. 
• El Siboney, Key West - Key West is only 90 miles from Havana, Cuba, and sometimes it seems like the city relates more to Cuba (or some other truly tropical/Caribbean location) than the United States mainland.  More people ride bikes or walk than drive cars around the island; there's a casual attitude toward sidewalk consumption of adult beverages; and roosters are literally everywhere.  It's no surprise that at one point in the 1980's, the city attempted to secede from the United States (only half-seriously), calling itself the "Conch Republic" in reaction to a Customs checkpoint designed to attempt to slow the distribution of illegal drugs through the Keys.  Anyway, in no way is the Cuban influence in Key West more pronounced than in the incredible Cuban food present therein.  If you ever get to El Siboney, try the roast pork or the ropa vieja.  Drink some sangria and eat tostones.  The next day, repeat.

Driving down the Overseas Highway toward Key West, you get the sense that you're in a place unlike any other in America.  People in the Keys are different; they're quirky, casual, extremely friendly, and don't like to rush under any circumstances.  This last attribute was especially welcoming, coming from the hustle and bustle of the Northeastern Metropolis and needing a break from a few months of full work, sans vacation.  The drive itself would have been frustrating (two-lane highways provide limited opportunities to pass slower moving vehicles), had the ultimate destination not been so interesting.

Our home base was on a nondescript island called Cudjoe Key, approximately 20 miles from Key West proper.  There's not much on Cudjoe Key - a convenience store, a few restaurants, and a giant Goodyear-sized blimp the locals call "Fat Albert," created as a way to conduct surveillance of the surrounding waters (again: that pesky drug trade thing).  There are also a smattering of beach houses and cottages, such as the one my wife and I shared with some family earlier this week. Surrounded by blue-green water, so clear you could see lobster, octopus, and crab scuttling along the sea floor, with coral reefs and excellent snorkeling just a short boat ride away, it was easy to have the concerns of life on the mainland melt away.

Boating and fishing are the two main hobbies of people who live in the Keys (extreme consumption of alcohol may reside in third place, depending on your level of cynicism and/or who you elect to hang out with).  Our cottage had room for boats to dock (unsurprisingly), and we were fortunate to go on a boating trip with a friend of my dad and stepmom's, on his Carolina Skiff. 

There are literally hundreds of islands in the Florida Keys, but only about forty or so are populated.  For most of the good snorkeling, you need to go to an unpopulated island, such as Looe Key.  The boat trip in our family friend's Skiff to Looe Key was choppy, interesting, occasionally frightening... and ultimately unsuccessful, as everyone on the boat grew tired of the roller-coaster like feeling of fighting both the heavy chop and the stiff wind.  So we turned to the gulf side, to a calmer destination called Marvin Key.

Marvin Key is not known as a snorkeling destination - it's more of a place to lie out and relax.  But an adjacent mangrove bunch, on that particular day, proved to be a motherlode of snorkeling activity.  Fighting a strong current as best I could, I managed to see crabs, yellowtail, red snapper, a small barracuda, and thousands of smaller fish (who, thinking I was part of their school, assembled around me and floated in my direction, no matter where I went - this was the coolest part).  As awesome as it was to chill with marine life up close, snorkeling is not natural to me; I often feel claustrophobic because breathing feels artificial through a long plastic tube, as if I'm getting only 85% of the required amount of oxygen into my lungs.  It's impossible, though, to stay worried for long in the Keys.  Everything - the daily thunderstorm or shower included - blows away in a short amount of time.

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Most visitors to Key West arrive via cruise ship, and many of them spend their time getting tanked on Duval Street at one tourist trap bar or another.  To me, a cruise is a wonderful vacation - I've been on several in the past few years - but one of the downfalls of a cruise vacation is the chance that spending such a small amount of time in each port might lead a person to make a superficial, silly decision about what to do while in port.  I'm a bit of a travel elitist - prior to a cruise, for instance, I'll spend time researching each port, looking for something to do that's off the beaten path and offers a taste of local flair.  (If you ever find yourself in Grand Turk, I have two words for you: Jack's Shack.)

It strikes me that in Key West, Duval Street is by far the least interesting place to visit.  Every street we walked down had its fun stuff and its quirks.  But if you need to stay close to port for some reason, the adjacent north-south street, Whitehead Street, has much more to offer.  For instance, there is the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum is on this street (educational and fun, though somewhat controversial, as local nature conservationists do feel that Fisher was a plunderer who did more to hurt the surrounding waters than help them), as is the Truman Annex and the "Southernmost Point in America," which is also controversial because there are other places on Key West which are technically further south than the buoy you see to the right of this paragraph.  And if you feel like having a drink or three, you could do much, much worse than the Green Parrot, a dive bar which nonetheless offers a wide selection of beer on tap (ranging from local Key West breweries to Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA) and brings in cool musicians and bands from all over the place.

Hanging out at the Parrot, which does not offer a bar menu but does provide unlimited popcorn to its patrons (hint: don't stand or sit near the popcorn machine unless you feel like doing an awkward dance every few seconds, which I personally deem the Popcorn Shuffle), it's easy to feel like a local.  While some Key West locals don't like tourists, the locals at the Parrot are friendly, perhaps because they assume anyone who's stopped by has consciously elected to avoid the tourist trap bustle on Duval Street.  And according to my wife, who doesn't drink beer, the bartenders pour a stiff (and damn good) margarita.  Watching the band play, sipping a drink and having an amazing time, I caught myself wondering how difficult it would be for us to move down here - my wife could open a used book shop, I would drive a bicycle taxi.  (Then, of course, reality hit - our lives in New Jersey are damn good, and it's hard to make a living in a tourist destination.)

I had always thought of Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville," the official anthem of the Conch Republic, as a sad song - after all, it's a song about loss, and about making obviously awful decisions in response to loss.  It always struck me as weird to consider the song as a sing-along, karaoke standard.  But thinking about the lyrics while in the Keys - living on sponge cake; watching the sun bake all of those tourists covered in oil - made me think differently.  Maybe it was meant to be a fun song, but in the same slightly twisted, tongue-in-cheek way that folks down the Keys think about stuff.  After all, we're all just moving through, following the currents as best we can, aren't we?  Might as well lay out in the sun and have another drink.  It's pretty much the way of life down there. 

 

The Most Annoying Trope in the Commercial World

As a dude who has no children, it's a little outside my comfort zone to comment on this phenomenon (and perhaps it is outside the realm of matters of which I should comment), but as a human being who pays attention to these things, I find the below type of commercial (a) is common; (b) pisses me off every time I see it; and (c) gives me an excuse to tiptoe back into the world of analyzing and criticizing TV commercials, something I kind of like doing.

I THINK this commercial is intended to be funny, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and say that the people who created it made the innocent mistake of telling an unfunny joke.  That aside, it's certainly possible that the process which generated this commercial started like this:

1. Advertising agency for Dish (or Dish itself) commissioned focus groups to determine a value proposition for its new "Hopper" device;
2. Said focus groups demonstrated that as part of the value proposition for the product, some subset of potential users or users mention offhand that on a tablet in the car, kids can watch videos and be quiet;
3. Some idiot decided this would demonstrate a potential commercial demonstrating the value in this product in keeping children quiet in the car.

The problem with this commercial, in my opinion, lies somewhere in the intersection of (2) and (3).  It's a very simple, Market Research 101-level lesson that what people say in a focus group may or may not apply to their feelings toward the actual world.  In blind focus group taste tests conducted in 1985, for instance, New Coke kicked the living shit out of the original formula.  But did New Coke work in the marketplace?  No, because customers were annoyed that the original formula of Coca-Cola went away.  The number one rule of business is DON'T PISS OFF THE CONSUMER.

But maybe you like this commercial.  (I personally don't like this kangaroo or the change in the Dish ad campaign - my personal preference would be to see the Irish Catholic family from South Boston hide under their bed in every Dish "Hopper" commercial, but hey, that's just me.)  If you do like this commercial, and if you happen to be a parent, you may want to consider whether you love your children enough to tolerate this kind of ad campaign.

Here's why:

• It's predicated on the idea that your children are terrible, you can't control them, and therefore you need their product to keep them satisfied: For all I know, this is true.  (I refer you to the first paragraph of this post.)  But I can only hope that one day when I am a parent, I'm competent and confident enough to be like F*** YOU, DISH, I CAN KEEP MY CHILDREN CALM BY MYSELF.  If you're reading this, you probably feel the same way as well.
• It's terribly executed: Why doesn't the mom in this commercial pull over to the side of the road and give their kids a serious talking to (at the bare minimum)?  Since this is a commercial and isn't actually real, why do people who are parents not complain when they see blatantly awful parenting displayed in a commercial?  If I were a parent, this would at a bare minimum turn me off to the product.
• No one (I know, at least) who is a parent feels this negatively about their kids: My guess is this commercial is designed, on some level, to tap into the feeling of helplessness some parents feel at times regarding their kids.  It's well accepted in academic circles that (most) negative emotions do not lead people to purchase products more often, so this is a bad idea on a theoretical level as well as a common sense one.  I'll focus mainly on the common sense, as I am no longer an emotion researcher: DON'T PISS OFF THE CONSUMER.  I'm sorry if you've heard that before, but it's pretty obvious that the association a parent might make upon watching this commercial is: (a) my children are better behaved than this; (b) therefore, I do not need the Hopper.
• It's kinda sexist: Note that commercials in the "helpless parent with shitty-ass children" trope rarely show TWO parents in the same place.  For instance:

This is a somewhat better execution of a TV commercial, relative to the Hopper above, as it keeps the viewer engaged throughout and the reveal is actually sort of funny.  But it, too, is kinda sexist - in a more traditional direction, relative to most commercials in this trope - because it implies that men are comically helpless with regard to keeping their children in line.

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What am I getting at here?  We are now well-ensconced in the 21st century, and anyone who has children in this country (*NOTE: Fundamentalist Christians aside) did so as a matter of choice.  No one FORCED you to procreate - and as a result of this, no one really wants to hear you bitch and moan about your children misbehaving or being out of control.  Also, people without kids may want to purchase a "Hopper," and seeing commercials like the above only makes them think, well, this product clearly isn't for me.

I see commercials like the above fading away over time, because consumers (my age, at least) are turned off by the whole complaining about kids thing.  We don't like it on Facebook, and we don't like it on TV either.  If you want to demonstrate need for a "Hopper," show a happy family on vacation catching up on the TV shows they can't watch at home (with their busy schedules).  Don't pick the easiest target; don't prey on negative emotions; and ultimately, don't insult the positive feelings many people have about their children.

Bad job, Dish.  Bad job, indeed.

Acquaintances Are My Weakness

As best as I can determine, human relationships fall into three categories: romantic relationships, friendships, and casual acquaintances.  I've realized over the years that if anyone exists who doesn't have a weakness in creating or maintaining at least one of the three above types of relationships, I haven't met him or her yet.

Adults, even the well-adjusted ones I count as friends, seem to fall into one of the three below groups:

• Weak at romantic relationships, but good at friendships and good at casual acquaintances: This type of person has a wonderful social network but, by active decision or by simply not caring, rarely enters the world of romantic relationships.  There could be many reasons for this, but I'm not this type of person so any attempt of my own to understand this better would be conjecture and likely inaccurate.  
• Weak at friendships, good at romantic relationships and good at casual acquaintances: This is probably the least common of the three groups, but I do know a few people like this.  They can date someone seriously, they know a thousand people anywhere they go, but they only have like four people they can confide in and would meet my criteria of a true friend.  Again, I'm not this type of person so I don't want to dive too deeply into motivations, reasons, or whatnot - but I suspect trust may be the fundamental issue here.
• Weak at making casual acquaintances, good at romantic relationships and good at friendships: This is the bucket I place myself in.  Let's explore this a bit deeper...

I haven't always been this functional, but maintaining a stable and loving relationship with my wife isn't difficult at all - we have a strong, constructive relationship; we value the same things, and we love each other deeply.  Neither of us like yelling at each other (though we do this sometimes, which is a good thing).  Anything can happen in a relationship, but I feel like ours is an especially high-quality one.

Keeping close friends around isn't a challenge for me, either.  When I meet someone who I find interesting, and if the feeling is mutual, you're my friend until you decide you don't want to be my friend anymore.  I treat my friendships seriously and I count my friends as some of the most important people in my life.  In quantity as well as in quality, I feel I have more close friends than most people.  I'm going to pat myself in the back (metaphorically) for this here, because I'm about to enter a world where I'm likely to get kinda hard on myself.

Acquaintances are my weakness.  It's my critical, yet casual, observation that other adults put themselves in situations where they get to know lots of other people to a greater extent than myself.  They are also better at getting to know these people - they share a greater curiosity regarding other people, and/or are less nervous of being judged by them than I am.  I tend to keep to myself at parties, and as a result I don't get to know as many people as I otherwise could.

This is a ton of self-analysis which may or may not be interesting to anyone else, but I think it's because of each of the below factors:

1. I really, probably, am a rare type of person: I have strange interests and it's pretty clear I am of reasonable intelligence, which already turns off half of the people in the world (who are scared of quirky, smart people).
2. I am terrified of rejection: Failure bothers me, especially in a social context, and it's safer to get to know fewer people vs. more if you're worried (irrationally, of course) about not being considered "cool" or interesting.
3. I was never socialized correctly: I grew up in a really strange environment where everyone around me was either super quiet or super insanely loud, so I tend to assume the worst when I don't know someone.  The number one trait I hope not to carry on to my child, whenever he or she happens to happen, is this one.  I actively want my future child to talk to strangers.  They need to learn at a young age that virtually everyone is harmless.
4. I'm not a "joiner."  It's next to impossible to get me to join a group - it's the hardest thing in the world for me to do.  Part of it is the self-deprecating old Mark Twain saying, that I'd never want to be a part of any group which would have me as a member.  Part is the social phobia and fear of rejection thing, from above.  Another part is my latent libertarianism (I just don't really like groups of people, due to groupthink and the potential for bad things to happen when people cluster together). 

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My next question is whether having acquaintances is even important; that is, of the three types of people I've listed above, is it the case that being the third type (which I am) makes a person less happy than being either of the previous two?  I have absolutely no idea whether this is the case - I suppose someone out there researches this kind of thing, but I haven't taken any time to look it up.  Perhaps I should, at some point.

I can say that personally (not generally speaking), the feeling that I don't know lots of people is important enough to me such that I've decided to take the time out of a lovely Sunday afternoon to write this blog post, so it must be a topic of at least some importance.  It's my opinion I'd be a happier, less anxious, and more well-adjusted adult if I knew more people.  My goal for this next decade of my life, my goal for my thirties, is to somehow end the decade knowing more people than I did at the beginning.

This will be difficult to do, because I'll have to work consciously to undo some of the mental barriers I've built over the first thirty years of my life.  It'll also be difficult because of the nature of being in one's thirties, a time in life when most people turn inward and spend more time at home with their spouse and child(ren).  But I still am hopeful I can pull it off.

There's no magic bullet for something like this, but some potential solutions may include:

• Sucking it up and joining a group: Eventually, I'm going to have to do this, right?  I've thought long and hard about joining some combination of a running group or a volunteering organization.  At some point I'm just going to hit a critical mass of motivation and/or desperation toward myself, and join a group.
• Having a kid: I'm pretty sure as I get older, the percentage of people who remain childless will continue to decrease.  If I really want to get to know more people, that's a nice secondary benefit of having kids.
• Not caring so damn much: This sort of defeats the whole purpose of this article, but if it doesn't matter to you, the problem doesn't exist, right?  I'm totally grateful for my wife and my friends, shouldn't that be enough?  And, borrowing from Eastern philosophy, shouldn't not caring so much lead to what you truly want coming true?  Something like this would be very far outside my comfort zone - I've spent the last thirty years grinding to make the things I want to have happen actually happen - but it's certainly a possibility.

What about you, blog reader?  Where do you find yourself in the categorization I described above, and do you feel comfortable where you are?  Have you ever dealt with anything like this?  Have any solutions worked well for you? 

SHUT IT DOWN! An Ode to "Bar Rescue," The Best Bad Show on TV

People spend their Sundays in various ways, but most agree that Sunday should be a laid-back day - it is, after all, the day of rest.  I admit to having spent many recent Sundays in front of the living room television, watching the "Bar Rescue" marathons on Spike (yes, I know, the bro-iest of bro channels). 

Today I'd like to write a bit about why I enjoy "Bar Rescue" so much, and why I think it's the best "bad" show on TV.  Your definition of "bad" may vary from mine; I conceive of "bad" TV as anything that doesn't aspire to high art or intellectual insight, doesn't explore any new ideas and doesn't differ procedurally from other shows of the same type.  Using these criteria alone, "Bar Rescue" does not vary notably from any of a dozen reality shows which center around the restaurant world ("Restaurant: Impossible" and "Dinner: Impossible" immediately come to mind, though one cannot completely neglect the extremely, reprehensibly Canadian "Restaurant Stakeout" and any number of similar shows on other channels, seemingly cut from the same Anthony Bourdain let's explore the gritty side of restaurant life in a reality TV show ideal).  But somehow, "Bar Rescue" is more interesting, more human, and keeps me glued to the TV all Sunday afternoon when I really should be outside pulling weeds (or something).

The premise behind "Bar Rescue" is quite simple: a bar is struggling and needs help.  Help comes in the imposing personage of Jon Taffer, a brusque teddy bear of a bar/leisure genius whose claim to fame (in addition to being a charter member of the Nightclub Hall of Fame, whatever - and wherever - that might be) is creating his own company which consults the bar/nightclub industries.  Whenever I hear Jon Taffer speak, I think of Mr. French from The Departed, who tells Leonardo DiCaprio's character (after roughing up a Southie local in a Boston bar): "Now, that's not quite a guy you can't hit, but it's almost a guy you can't hit."  John Taffer seems like almost the kind of guy you can't hit - he sounds like a connected individual, if you know what I mean.

But I digress: as far as I can tell, the show has nothing to do with organized crime.  Really it's about dysfunction, mismanagement, and the application of something vaguely referred to as "bar science" used - in combination with an overnight, extremely expensive renovation - to turn the bar around and make it more profitable.  "Bar science" is a combination of demography, market research, common sense, and psychotherapy (mostly, it seems, the psychotherapy part, because BAR OWNERS BE CRAZY).

You would probably know this already if you've watched any of the shows listed in the second paragraph above, but some people decide to own bars for really stupid reasons.  If you're like me, you've had that night at the bar with your friends where you decide opening a bar together would be the best idea ever.  You've got a (drunken) plan that sounds fantastic; all you need is start-up capital.  But then you go home, sober up, remember how much work it is to run a bar, and permanently shelve the idea.  Amazingly, there are people in the world who've already acquired start-up capital, get drunk one night and then ACTUALLY BUY A FUCKING BAR.  I don't understand how people forget crucial elements of starting a business such as "creating a business plan," "double-checking cash flow estimates," and "confirming you're not out of your goddamned mind," but hey, like P.T. Barnum once said, there's a sucker born every minute.

When I say these bars are in bad shape before Taffer gets there, I mean they are in really bad shape.  They don't clean their keg lines, so beer comes out contaminated and skunked.  Kitchens are never cleaned; basic sanitation rules are ignored; bugs can (sometimes) be everywhere.  You would never want to eat (or drink) at any of the bars on "Bar Rescue."  Additionally, mismanagement is rampant - some of these places have fights every night; others are glorified strip clubs.  There are countless alcoholics running these places (which may or may not surprise you, depending on how much you know about the bar industry). 

Others have the problems that don't belong to specific people, such as that of being an ill-defined concept - hookah bars in Omaha; golf-themed bars (apparently this never works), etc.  Still others are in unfortunate locations, like in nondescript strip malls and off of tertiary country roads.  Usually, it's some combination of the above.  Long story short, these places are really messed up, and "Bar Rescue" (to its credit) doesn't spare the rod in describing the problems with the bars - including getting into specifics about the magnitude of debt the owners possess, and how much time they have to float their small business loan before they go out of business for good.

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You should definitely watch the show if you're interested in watching how the bars actually get rescued.  I can't do this justice in a single paragraph, but essentially it goes like this: Taffer and his companions (usually a master bartender/mixologist and a chef, though this depends on the context) work collaboratively to fix the personal and institutional dysfunction in the bar.  First they observe the bar using hidden cameras, then Taffer enters the bar and addresses immediate issues. Then there's a "stress test", where the bar staff does the best they can without training (and falls flat on their faces, almost all the time).  Next, training happens - sometimes, one or two bad seeds get fired in the process.  The bar gets completely remodeled, often given a new name and/or a new concept, and three days later it re-opens under its new name.  You (almost all of the time) see improvement.  Taffer leaves; there's an epilogue where you learn how much bar sales have improved over the last six weeks or so. 

It's cool to watch the logistics behind how Taffer fixes the physical issues with the bars.  Whether or not you believe in "bar science," there's little doubt the dude hasn't picked up a ton of useful information in his 30+ years in the industry.  He sees through issues and fixes them with a combination of bluntness, bluster and yelling (and MAN, can Jon Taffer scream - he seems like a very nice guy, but dude has a lightning-quick temper).

I'm not sure I buy the epilogues, though.  It shouldn't be that easy to turn these things around.  Looking at these essential bar problems as a businessperson, there's no way you can fix issues like "the manager's a drunk and has self-selected an employment position where they are constantly around alcohol" or "the bartenders have no clue how to serve drinks" in only three days.  I worked as a waiter for a few summers before and while in college, and I was terrible at it.  I eventually got a job at a fine dining place in Sea Bright, NJ, and could barely manage four tables at a time.  I spilled wine on people constantly - I could barely balance a tray with three entrees on it.  I sucked, and I sucked for reasons that weren't very fixable.  You can't just come in for three days and fix suck. It takes a while to create a well-oiled machine...

But that's Hollywood for you, right?  When watching it, you get the fantastical sense that "Bar Rescue" works.  If I had the free time and disposable income, I'd want to go on a "Bar Rescue" road trip and talk to the people who work at these places - I have questions for them.  Did they immediately revert back to their dysfunctional ways, after Taffer and his team left?  Was it fun getting yelled at for a reality TV show?  That's the thing about the whole shitty genre of restaurant reality TV: even if you don't know the characters, if you've ever waited tables or bussed or cleaned dishes at a restaurant before, you know the characters.  There's a familiar yet odd combination of insanity, stupidity, back-breaking labor, gallows humor, substance abuse, and low wages about the people portrayed on "Bar Rescue."  It all ends up being humanizing.  With some (notable) exceptions, you want to root for them.  If I ever did go on that "Bar Rescue" road trip, and the bar was actually pretty decent, you bet your ass I would tip well.

********

To conclude, some cool tidbits about "Bar Rescue":

• Taffer's only walked out on one rescue (that shitty O-Face bar in Iowa), but a few of the rescued bars immediately reverted back to their original concept after the "Bar Rescue" team left.  Many more have since closed down - the Wikipedia page for Bar Rescue is a good resource for this (someone really pays close attention to this shit).
• According to iMDB, here's how the secret cameras work: The bars are told they are one of three bars in the area that might be selected for the show.  But in reality, they're the only bar selected, and this helps keep everyone off-guard for when Jon Taffer walks in.
• Also according to iMDB, the renovation budget for each bar is huge (up to $100,000 per episode), even though certain upgrades (like Point of Sale systems) are leased and ultimately it's up to the bar owners to keep up with the payments.

Fred's "A Partial Taxonomy of Kinds of Drivers"

As readers of this blog know, I spend a great deal of time driving, which I don't necessarily mind because it gives me time to think.  In fact, I was driving home from work earlier this week when the idea for this blog post struck me as interesting - interesting primarily because it's next to impossible to nail down entirely. 

Driving is weird, from a social perspective.  We're all around each other, but we're really not, being individually surrounded by thousands of pounds of life-protecting armor.  We can't communicate with each other, but really we can, because we have horns and two functioning middle fingers.  And we don't know each other, but really we do, because we make snap judgments about other drivers that, more likely than chance, at least, are correct.

This post enumerates only seven different kinds of drivers you might encounter on the road, which I've decided to classify based on overall driving tendencies/patterns as well as the type(s) of cars most likely to exhibit the driving pattern.  Other taxonomies might look at factors such as gender, ethnicity, and/or socioeconomic status, but I'm not enough of an asshole to start that particular flame war, so I'll leave those factors out (pretty much) completely.

Regardless, I'm sure the list presented here is incomplete.  One could easily break this list down to twenty (or more) additional types of drivers, if they really wanted to spend the time.  Maybe I'll write another post about this one day, with additional types of drivers.  That said, I'd be interested to hear who/what I left out, because only through greater understanding of the types of drivers that are out there can we better make fun of other drivers on the road.

Let's get started:

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Driver #1: The Left-Lane Hog
Vehicles Associated with Left-Lane Hogging: Old, dented Subarus with Pennsylvania license plates (or Michigan, or Florida, etc.)

This driver is going to make a left-hand turn EVENTUALLY, dammit, and if you have the patience to wait behind them while they lag behind the traffic to their right, you'll see it happen at some point.  New Jersey drivers have a particular idiosyncrasy about the left lane being for passing only, but that aside, it is undeniably dangerous to hog the left lane when not passing the cars to their right.  Why?  Because other drivers are flawed, and on top of this can be super-aggressive assholes, and will pass you on the right - one of the most dangerous moves to make on the highway.

These left-lane hogging drivers may be motivated by some combination of (a) intense fear of doing the correct thing, which is coasting in the right lane, entering the left lane a mere half-mile or so before making their left turn, and then successfully executing their left turn; and/or (b) a pervasive attitude I like to call "speed fascism" (this is the opposite of "speed libertarianism," something I'll let simmer for right now and elucidate a bit later in the post).  Either way, the only defense for a Left-Lane Hog is to either be the next type of driver, or have enough gamesmanship in you to allow the next type of driver to tailgate the Left-Lane Hog while you wait for your opportunity to strike.

Driver #2: The Small, Swinging Dick
Vehicles Associated with The Small, Swinging Dick: Relatively new, American-made pick-up truck (like a Dodge Ram) with top-level trim and modified large wheels, replete with some combination of overt patriotism and/or social conservatism on display via bumper sticker

Motivated by an intense, constant need to prove their masculinity, this driver will do anything possible within the rules (and often outside the rules) of the road to show they are in charge.  Miserably under-employed and perpetually angry at THAT LIBRUL PRESEDENT for their ill fortune at life, yet somehow capable of affording a $600 monthly payment on a $50,000 piece of Hemi-powered machinery, these drivers don't really drive with a game plan exclusive of GITTIN 'ER DUN.

And by GITTIN 'ER DUN, I mean you git out of their way before they start ridin' your ass!  These drivers are noted for their incessant tailgating, which can be followed by the lead car shifting to the right lane and this type of car slowing down.  It's not that they want to go fast, per se, it's just that they hate that you're there in front of them (especially if your car wasn't built in AMURRICA).  The (only) nice thing about this type of driver is that they are exploitable - as I alluded to earlier, a cognizant driver can let The Small, Swinging Dick tailgate the Left-Lane Hog to their advantage.  Just be prepared to pass two cars in a zig-zag, slalom fashion (which may not be the safest move in the world, but hey, YOLO, right?).

Driver #3: The Wealthier-Than-Thou
Vehicles Associated with The Wealthier-Than-Thou: German-made luxury sedans, SUVs, and convertibles, often proudly displaying one's educational pedigree (bonus points for a boarding school in addition to an accredited four-year undergraduate institution)

While these drivers can be sometimes classified as aggressive, they are better classified as a hybrid of many of the other driving types, a chameleon typified by the driver's immense sense of self-importance and distraction.  Counting down the seconds until they can become early adopters of autonomous vehicles, Wealthier-Than-Thou drivers can be found in their natural habitats chirping incessantly on their Bluetooth hands-free device (making huge business deals, or whatever) - not that it makes much of a difference that it's hands-free, because they're not paying much attention to the road in the first place.

Unpredictable by nature, the self-aware driver can nonetheless advantageously pass the Wealthier-Than-Thou driver by waiting for their nanny/au pair/cleaning service to beep into their existing cell phone conversation, distracting them even further - or alternatively, wait for them to fuel up on gas and recursively connect their car battery, setting a car fire a la "Breaking Bad".

Driver #4: The Senior Citizen
Vehicles Associated with The Senior Citizen: The last car they will ever buy.  Make and model matter less than age - if it's an old car (preferably a large one), you know what you're dealing with here

Included here for the purposes of completeness rather than illuminating something new, The Senior Citizen mostly keeps to themselves in the right lane, self-aware of their declining skill set and terrified of the increasing aggressiveness of those young whippersnappers out there. They're easy enough for the other types of drivers to deal with, so there's not much instructional material here.

But there is a nice Jerry Seinfeld joke about elderly drivers I'll paraphrase here: people should be allowed to drive their age.  If you're 86 years old, you should be allowed to go 86 mph on the highway - and they should, because they should be rushing, as they don't have much time left.

Driver #5: The Speed Libertarian
Vehicles Associated with The Speed Libertarian: Varied, but have in common the ability to go fast if needed

I'm a fan of the Speed Libertarian, and I don't have much negative to say about them, as I fancy myself this type of driver.  I alluded to the "speed fascist" vs. "speed libertarian" dualism earlier in this post, and I'd like to clarify it a bit here.  A speed fascist sees the speed limit on a given road as an absolute force, a number never to be violated by more than a certain amount.  They drive exactly the same as a speed libertarian in terms of technique, but if the speed limit is 55 mph, you'll never see them go over 65 mph (as but a single example).  This may be due to an extreme fear of getting pulled over for speeding, or personal discomfort about the possibility of an accident if they were to go too fast.  I think basically, speed fascism (like actual fascism) is driven by fear of an authoritarian state.

Speed libertarians, on the other hand, see speed as a relative variable and better understand that (for instance) if you're in the left lane, the proper speed to be driving is 5 mph faster than the person to the right of you, irrespective of the actual speed of the person to the right of you.  If a speed libertarian is uncomfortable with the speed of the car to the right of them, insofar as they'd prefer not to drive faster than that individual, they change lanes to the right and travel behind that person.  Speed libertarians are, at the end of the day, probably incrementally more likely to get pulled over for speeding than speed fascists - sometimes they fall into traps where they do go too fast.  But they rest assured that police officers generally look at speed relative to the flow of traffic when deciding to do so, so they drive in a more fluid stylistic fashion.

Speed libertarians are better drivers than speed fascists, in my opinion, though speed fascists may be somewhat safer (I'll leave the definition of "safe" open on purpose).

Driver #6: The "I'm Terrified To Be Driving" Driver
Vehicles Associated with the "I'm Terrified To Be Driving" Driver: Older, economy cars, for the most part - sometimes minivans, too

We all remember what it's like to be a new driver, but if we remembered it too well, it'd probably drive us insane and/or give us the yips.  Being on the highway as a new driver is absolutely terrifying, which is a main reason why we have learner's permits which require new drivers to travel with a licensed companion (and only at certain times of the day).  I am not talking here about new drivers, because I completely empathize with them and would never make fun of a person for learning a new skill.  I don't know about you, but whenever I see "Student Driver" on a car, I give them a wide-as-hell berth, because I remember being 16 and thinking to myself, I am WAY too young to be managing this process right now.

There's another class of driver though, far beyond the Student Driver in terms of experience but basically the same in terms of expertise, that I'd like to describe.  They're hard to define except in terms of their incompetence, which is dicey water to enter because observers tend to disagree on what defines incompetence.  Except for in this case, because everyone knows it when they see it.

You might see the "I'm Terrified To Be Driving" driver in the left lane going 20 mph under the speed limit with their left-hand blinker on.  You might see them waiting on a side street and pulling out JUST in front of a moving vehicle, cutting them off severely.  Based on their extremely dangerous and terrible driving behavior, you might think they are drunk and/or high on something, but it's 11 am on a Tuesday and the driver doesn't look drunk or high, they just look mortified.

I'll say nothing else about this type of driver, except that it's my opinion that driver's licenses should be more difficult to obtain (from a technique perspective) than they currently are.  At a bare minimum, drivers should have to display minimum levels of competency in actual traffic during a road test.  The rules about establishing driving proficiency come from a different time, when there were more farms and less congestion on the roads.  It'd be great to see someone change this, though it strikes me as the type of political debate where common sense and pissing people off are diametrically opposed (so nothing ever happens).

Driver #7: The Driving for Work Driver
Vehicles Associated with the Driving for Work Driver: Ford E-series work vans, semis

There's a fundamental difference in attitude and philosophy between people who commute to work and people who drive FOR work (truck drivers, delivery people, etc.).  When you're commuting to your job, you're trying to get somewhere to do work and ideally, you'd like to get there in as quick and trouble-free a process as possible.  I've always felt the most competent driving you'll ever see is between 7-9 am and between 5-7 pm on weekdays - these are mostly drivers who are going to the same place they've been going for years, and they're focused on getting there as quickly as possible.  They're experienced and they're motivated, which is a good combination.

People who drive FOR work, however, are often driving at the exact same time and are motivated by completely different things.  They have deadlines and quotas to meet, so it does behoove them to proceed somewhat efficiently toward their destination, but after years and years of driving for a living, there's simply no way that getting somewhere fast can mean as much to a semi driver than it does to someone driving to their marketing or sales job.  Plus, the vehicles they drive are by nature limited in terms of their acceleration and dexterity, intensifying the perceived differentiation between the Driving FOR Work driver and those who merely drive to work.

Passing a semi-truck on the right is the most dangerous move someone can make on the road, and as a result I (almost) never do it.  My commute to work is on a truck route (part of it is a two-lane highway for almost ten miles), and the best advice I can give (often spoken mantra-like to myself in the car) is to wait for a reasonable opportunity to pass one of these behemoths on the left.  But I will say this - there's no landscape pastoral or beautiful enough to counter-act having to stare at the back of a semi truck for ten miles.