When does 97 percent pale as compared to an almost full 99 percent? We’ll deal with the rampantly seen 99.99 percent figure on virtually every bottle of water or whatever, at a later time. And what if the typically named for all kinds of things 10 percent, or even 15, is put to the test, as far as parts of the population, 85 or 90 percent unknown. Parts is parts?
When big events are the focus, it can be fickle, so don’t fixate on the number, when it comes to actually naming how many people were there. Especially when there is the sophomore jinx or boom, when the first year drew more than hundreds but maybe a thousand or two.
— Its Hudson Boosters Days again, from July 4-7, and the event founders continue their (could be seen as) longtime love/hate struggle with bringing in new blood or rerunning old tried and true bands. Which could be read as re-treads.
The Friday and Saturday headliners are the ones you usually see, Flashmob (with POP Syndrome opening), and Bigly (cool band). The festival could though, be in part the Days Of The New: Ragtown as Sunday night headliner (cooler band), 30 Minute Difference as the warm-up act on Saturday, Stephan Geisinger Band opening for Incognito on Thursday, and “stuck in the middle with you” on prime time Saturday afternoon, oops actually Sunday after church, worship director Sari Althoff and also Latria of St. Patrick. —
As the overall month comes to a close, bring in the recent Valleywide Pride Fest. (Long in coming, you these days need to specify which one.) Someone in the know downtown said that attendance was down just a bit, as she would normally be serving a certain crowd when the event wrapped up at 4 p.m. But the location had been shifted to Hudson High School, rather than the previous year’s Lakefront Park, as so much depends on the weather. Authorities who coordinated the shift say it’s likely to have been attended by 1000 to 1500 people. (Note, to Joe, be careful how many zeros you list, as they are not absolute. You can always beg off by saying you meant to hit a K as they are close to each other on the keyboard. Once, Twice Three Times A Lady, number-wise as far as distance between keys, if you take into account the angling that is basically a backslash. But now more on the zero to 100 barometer.)
Just how many people in the greater Hudson area of 50,000 and beyond are of an ilk – and here we get into a whole string of capital letters – where they would be interested in this end of the literal rainbow. The number in the population has been said to be 10 percent, now more likely 15 percent, and keeps going up, especially if you factor in the bi-curious crowd. So that’s a lot of people. A number to be reckoned with, and take note of all that you politicians.
More on that, but first I play more with the percentages. What are some others that hover around that-from-on-digit-to-two realm?
The same day as the Pride Fest, local version, there over in The Cities was Refugee Day. (Only a day? Really? We started having immigrants centuries ago.) With the local recognition, just in terms of numbers of people affected, both here and especially around the world, we now are really running up a tally. This blows that 15 percent figure out of the water.
Here are a few other such percentage instances. Over again, at Buffalo Wild Wings, I am waiting with bated breath for the finale of now, after-now-post-most-playoffs and the accompanying drink specials, how much of a dip there will be in beer sales. I suspect that here in Wisconsin it will not be a lot, but at BWWs elsewhere in the country it’s assuredly double digits. Triple in any places still holding to prohibition.
The COPA soccer cup currently on many sports channels is the next most popular of such since Copa Cavana, (is this Spanish or English spelling?) But now that the superstar from France broke his nose, not just nicked his lower femur, estimates are that viewership may be down a full 3 percent – wait a minute, that would be a typical if high number of goals scored, I meant to say 25.3 percent, a stat like all those in sports is very specific. And what effect will it have on online betting? None really, since the number of gambling addicts in our country, such as is its current nature, is said to be up 39 percent. They will find a handle.
The Boston Celtics celebrated their umpteenth NBA title with a parade through very high heat, although as a dissenting voice it was not unprecedented. Attendance was only down 8 percent when the temps were at 93 degrees, but rose to 17 percent once it reached 97. OK I’m kidding, as many brave Bostonians turned out and beat the heat.
But back to the Pride Fest. It was moved to higher ground, two miles eastward up multiple bluff lines, because of seemingly endless rain and its effect on flooding down by the river and its park, (more on this in a coming post.) But there may have been a potential upside, says this curmudgeon. The initial fest drew, also, lots of anti-gay protestors and if you want to find a method to the madness, consider that if you went out and bought an assault rifle, you could take out a lot more people in a position above the bluff looking down at the park, then at a tight-fit school. Although that hasn’t stopped riflemen from doing killer damage at such in the past.
So the number of attendees were actually larger and remarkable. But that sophomore jinx, seen by so many artists in music and elsewhere? Either you can find it tough to live up to the original, or if it comes to protests, they saw that they had made some traction, and came back louder and meaner.