leonardcohenforum.com

Right - Ma Vie en Rose. That was good.

There is a moment in the movie that I don't understand, so maybe someone can explain it to me.
The little boy has come down in the morning for breakfast, and he is wearing white shorts. There is some music on, and he is grooving a bit. He goes to the fridge to get something, and we see his backside as he bends over. The shots are orchestrated to insinuate that the mother is seeing something important in that shot of his bum. I've never been able to figure out what we're supposed to be seeing there. Is he wearing girl undies? Are the shorts girl shorts? Anyone know? That moment always trips me for a sec.

I don't think it's all that sugar coated - the dad loses his job because of it, both parents each have their own little freak-out-all-over-the-kid moment over it, and the kid gets shipped off to Granny's for a while. French movies do tend to be fukt up, and this is no exception, with its freaky dreamy Pam & Ben moments, tho. What did you mean by sugar coated?

I don't think I've heard of this movie before but it sounds interesting, I'd like to see it.
I don't have a good video store close to me, I'll have to see if I can download it.

youtube clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r3CPsVK ... re=related

There's a great serial killer/transvestite in John Irving's - Son of th Circus. Great book! Very creepy character.
He had a much nicer transvestite or maybe she was transsexual in the World According to Garp.

Manna wrote:....which just leads to circular mystery after mystery and awe that.

That what? You let a period step on your thought. And who is Jack?

Casey

Cate wrote:How many weighings are required to identify the heavier ball? Explain

I think it depends on who you are. If you buy vegetables and fruits a lot, it would take zero weighings, you could tell as you load the balls into the bowls.

If you're a jeweler it would only take two weighings, because your ego would tell you can differentiate between the last two balls without scales.

If you're just not experienced at anything at all, three weighings: first compare four balls against four, divide the four heaviest into two pairs and repeat, take the heaviest pair and weigh each ball separately.

The scales would have to be honest though, and you would have to have that bit of common sense you mentioned. And who knows for sure if one has that?

Casey

Casey Butler wrote:

Cate wrote:
If you're just not experienced at anything at all, three weighings: first compare four balls against four, divide the four heaviest into two pairs and repeat, take the heaviest pair and weigh each ball separately.

The scales would have to be honest though, and you would have to have that bit of common sense you mentioned. And who knows for sure if one has that?

Casey

I'll take this as your answer - good try - but nope, your on the right track though.

Cate wrote:

Casey Butler wrote:

Cate wrote:
If you're just not experienced at anything at all, three weighings: first compare four balls against four, divide the four heaviest into two pairs and repeat, take the heaviest pair and weigh each ball separately.

The scales would have to be honest though, and you would have to have that bit of common sense you mentioned. And who knows for sure if one has that?

Casey

I'll take this as your answer - good try - but nope, your on the right track though.

Before I put more effort in, why do I want to know which ball is heaviest using scales as few times as possible?

I'm a "high-level" programmer-type, Visual Basic actually. I gave up assembly language because I'm disorganized. Same with C. I didn't keep libraries and always had to write everything from scratch. But if I'm really motivated I can look at the API examples and sort of figure out what they do.

Casey

you can do it with one weighing, but you'd have to be lucky.

If you're unlucky, but clever you can do it in 2.
Start by putting three balls on each side.

Manna,
U can weigh my balls anytime.

georges.

Casey Butler wrote:

Manna wrote:....which just leads to circular mystery after mystery and awe that.

That what? You let a period step on your thought. And who is Jack?

Casey

Jack is the guy who goes by Lazariuk (pronounced Lazar-ik) on this forum. I think you've crossed paths here.

My "and awe that" was a play, because people often say "...and all that." Jack tends to strive for a child-like awe of the world's mysteries.

Georges: ew.

There's no reason - it's just a puzzle - it's just for fun.

It's a little math like / logic like which makes me think of Manna, Greg and Jack - it's something they all seem to have in common - they seem to be good at this type of thing.
My husband has informed me since I posted it, that it is not a very elegant puzzle though.

The answer by the way is 2.

Yes Manna - I thought you'd get it.

weigh 3 and 3 if they're the same, one of the 2 you held back is the heaviest
If one side is heavier then the other - weigh 1 and 1 if they = the same the one you left out is the heaviest

Manna wrote:you can do it with one weighing, but you'd have to be lucky.

If you're unlucky, but clever you can do it in 2.
Start by putting three balls on each side.

I'll take that as your answer... But you forgot to explain so you lose 50% of your grade when I grade you.

Casey

Cate wrote:There's no reason - it's just a puzzle - it's just for fun.

It's a little math like / logic like which makes me think of Manna, Greg and Jack - it's something they all seem to have in common - they seem to be good at this type of thing.
My husband has informed me since I posted it, that it is not a very elegant puzzle though.

The answer by the way is 2.

Yes Manna - I thought you'd get it.

weigh 3 and 3 if they're the same, one of the 2 you held back is the heaviest
If one side is heavier then the other - weigh 1 and 1 if they = the same the one you left out is the heaviest

Very cool, Cate! And Manna, if I was clever or lucky I'd have been here 3 years ago.

Casey

Yes, well I must confess to being an avid Car Talk listener since ~1996.

Cate wrote:
There's a great serial killer/transvestite in John Irving's - Son of the Circus. Great book! Very creepy character.
He had a much nicer transvestite or maybe she was transsexual in the World According to Garp.

Cate – I love John Irvings work! He has the wonderful ability of treating good and ulgy things with equal importance, and applying humour to render both less ponderous. I remember Dr. Daruwalla (sp?) well from A Son of the Circus My favourite is A Widow for One Year.

Manna, the little boy (Ludovic?) in Ma Vie en Rose was charming and innocent. He didn't hate himself for wanting to be a girl, he seemed quite assured of who he really was inside and his world was transformed into a fairytale when he cross-dressed. That's what I was thinking of as 'sugar-coated', compared with the tortured boy/man in Georges' poem. But I don't remember the fridge scene in Ma Vie en Rose, I'll have to rent it again...

Manna wrote:Yes, well I must confess to being an avid Car Talk listener since ~1996.

Ah ha.

Well, with me it's motivation, if there's a good reason I'll take the time to figure it out - assuming I can, of course.

I used to make furniture but one day all my tools were stolen. My wife was taking a computer class (this was 1986) and came home with a problem about 5 coconut thieves and a monkey. I was intrigued and figured it out in tiny math steps using our kids' Commodore 64. The computer teacher was really impressed (nobody else in the class figured it out). And so I was motivated to learn programming.

Good thing, or we would have starved. :-)

Another of my multitudenous dreams: I was in a cave and a relative of mine was digging for treasure. I walked over and looked down the hole, and about a foot down there were gold coins and jewels and stuff in a layer several inches thick. But this fellow had kept digging several feet beyond that layer and had ignored the gold and stuff he'd already dislodged.

He just kept digging, finding nothing of value, only dirt. Then he turned to me and told me there was no treasure there. I was busy picking up and pocketing gold coins and jewels he didn't seem to notice.

Dreams of mine like that do a great job of outlining a situation in some perverse or poetic way that I haven't considered. Interpretations, again, are my struggle, however.

I stopped listening to Car Talk when the jokes began outnumbering the answers on how to fix my car, and more and more problems were answered by "take it to a shop". So I didn't get the weekly puzzles either.

Casey