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Columbo
1971 · TV series · 10 seasons
Created by William Link, Richard Levinson
Columbo is a friendly, verbose, disheveled-looking police detective who is consistently underestimated by his suspects. Despite his unprepossessing appearance and apparent absentmindedness, he shrewdly solves all of his cases and secures all evidence needed for indictment. His formidable eye for detail and meticulously dedicated approach often become clear to the killer only late in the storyline.
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107 comments on Hacker News
So I love watching 50s-70s television shows: honeymooners, I love lucy, twilight zone, alfred hitchcock, Mission Impossible, Columbo. (recent MeTV lineup).
I'm a millennial. It occurred to just the other day, the language they use, they say "dough" a lot. They need dough. Where's the dough. Any criminal is always involved with gambling and gangs and they need dough! And the normal working people storylines are pinned to their lack-of-dough situations.
I remember the internet very fondly too. There's always an age of innocence but it just takes time to realize everyone just really needs and wants dough. And that's what happens.
Unintended? Consequences. It encourages weaker passwords, since you are not going to type in 14 of more characters by hand. I tried.
On campus, one service timed you out pretty quickly if you dawdled typing your password. I suggested that you should fail if you type it too fast, instead, to foil shotgun password typing bots, and give users more time for longer passwords.
That was before password managers.
It's hard to get everything right. After some rounds of white-hat password cracking, (the ones I got were so lame)I decided to modify the passwd command to crack passwords on the way in. Much faster with the plain text.
I have distrusted facial recignition since the Columbo episode (spoiler) in which Dabney Coleman sends someone elseout in his car with a face disguise to be deliberately snapped by a traffic camera for an alibi.
The photographically-aware detective notices that the light is wrong.
The TV series Columbo was a brilliant inversion of the British deceive story. Naturally, every story started with an upper-class murder, but from the start the audience was shown who the killer was and how the crime was committed.
The "mystery" was how the detective was going to figure it out.
Alright, buckle up — here’s a *Curb Your Enthusiasm scene* where Larry takes the iPhone Air press release way too personally at the Apple Store.
---
### Scene: Apple Store, Santa Monica
*Larry* walks in, holding his old iPhone with a cracked screen. He approaches a blue-shirted *Apple Genius*.
*Larry:* So I hear you got this new iPhone Air. Thinnest phone ever, huh? Five-point-six millimeters. What is this, a phone or a Wheat Thin?
*Genius:* It’s our most advanced design yet. Stronger, lighter—
*Larry:* Stronger? If it’s so strong, why is it thinner than a Ritz cracker? You ever eaten a Ritz cracker? Crumbles right in your hand! That’s what I’m gonna be holding here. Crumbs! Phone crumbs in my pocket!
*Genius:* Actually, it’s titanium. Aerospace grade.
*Larry:* Oh! Aerospace. Yeah, good. Because when I’m playing Sudoku on the toilet, I really want NASA technology under my thumbs. Very important. “Houston, I got a number two problem.”
*Genius:* The new 48-megapixel Fusion camera—
*Larry:* Fusion? What am I, splitting atoms now? I just want to take a picture of a sandwich. I don’t need the Manhattan Project in my pocket. And the front camera’s square? Square! Cameras are round, wheels are round, even faces are round. You make it square, now I look like SpongeBob in every selfie.
*Genius:* Well, the square sensor lets you take landscape photos while holding your phone vertically.
*Larry:* Vertically? Vertically?! Oh, thank you, Apple, you’ve saved me from rotating my wrist. What a terrible burden it’s been. Centuries of humanity struggling, and finally Apple says, “Don’t move your wrist, Larry, we’ll do it for you.” Unbelievable.
*Genius:* It also has all-day battery life.
*Larry:* All-day? What’s “all day”? My day? Your day? A raccoon’s day? Be specific! At 11:58 p.m. the phone dies and you go, “Oh, sorry Larry, guess your day’s over!” I still got two episodes of Columbo left, pal!
*Genius:* It’s also eSIM only.
*Larry:* Oh, fantastic. No physical SIM. So if I lose signal, I can’t even take it out, blow on it, do the old Nintendo trick. I just stare at my \$1,000 “air” sandwich and pray. That’s the feature? Praying?
*Genius:* It starts at \$999—
*Larry:* Nine-ninety-nine! For a phone that could slip between two couch cushions and vanish forever. You should sell it with a metal detector. “Find your iPhone Air before it suffocates under the ottoman!”
(Larry storms out, muttering.)
*Larry:* Thin phone, thick price. What a world.
---
Want me to *write another one where Larry’s actually at the launch keynote*, interrupting Tim Cook from the audience like a heckler?
I have like a 500GB drive with about enough content for a year of programming.
It was for me — although it is fun to think the kids could plop down and watch Speed Racer like I did. Unfortunately the girls were grown up before I created it.
Yeah, it's running all the time. The wife stops and watches from time to time — having to check the web site to see what a particular movie is. She got drawn into Columbo on Wednesdays when she was supposes to be working (from home as it were).
I'll stop too from time to time to watch an old Little Rascals or How It's Made. There's something about it just coming on rather than your having to make an effort to pull up the content. I guess just like TV.
I remember discovering Beavis and Butthead in the 90s and showing it to my parents, and their being more confused than offended by the short (for the time) and scattered 15-minute episodes. I'm pretty sure if you went back 50 years and showed TikTok to people who were used to things like Columbo and Loveboat, they'd just be confused and wonder what the point is.
If anything, I'd say the people who enjoy absorbing entertainment in 7-second chunks have been reprogrammed and desensitized in a way that's not normal, though I wouldn't slap any psych labels on them either.
Mensa makes me think of two things:
Groucho's quote "I'd never be a member of any club that would have me as a member."
And one of our favorite Columbo episodes (all free on Tubi) that features a murder in a very Mensa-style club, titled "The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case".
This is also known as obfuscating stupidity.
If you remember the television show, Columbo, starring Peter Falk, he's the Ur example I go to.
The picture of that pool reminded me of this Columbo episode (S4 Exercise in Fatality) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRoVLfuADqw&t=220s
Reading the article, looking at pictures from the Beverly Hills Hotel in the 70ies and 80ies, and considering the fact that Irving V. Link acted in a movie once, I get the strong feeling that an episode of Columbo in which Link played himself as a wrongfully accused prime suspect (saved by Columbo in the end) would've been excellent.
Just imagine Peter Falk and Link conversing next to that pool: https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/travel/discover/photos/213/70875/1600/2021BHHPoolv1HR.jpg
Exactly. It's a classic magician's trick (and featured in a Columbo episode!)
Maybe if there is a way to see all predictions made by someone, it would be more compelling.
There was a Columbo episode set in a quirky high-iq society's think tank compound. The social dynamics were hilarious.
https://columbophile.com/2019/10/27/episode-review-columbo-the-bye-bye-sky-high-iq-murder-case/
Robby is prolific!
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1119475/
For example:
Star Wars: Phantom Menace
Gremlins
Mork and Mindy
Columbo
Lost In Space (not Robot)
The Addams Family
The Twilight Zone
I quit Prime when 2 day shipping turned to 5 day shipping. I was never that big of a fan of their subscription streaming programming although from time to time I would "rent" a movie I wanted to see.
The one streaming subscription I have now is Peacock because it is (1) well priced and (2) has some pretty remarkable sports content such as Premier League soccer (stupid of MLS to stay behind the Apple TV paywall because the one thing that will convince people American soccer is worth watching is... watching it) and events like the Rugby World Cup. That's despite my being entirely uninterested in network TV fare such as "Like Columbo but he never talks to anybody because he only uses forensic methods" and "Like Star Trek but set in a hospital" etc.
"In this case 0 were read in order to rush and make a low effort joke"
You should work for the NSA or the three later agency of your country, you can spot what people do possibly thousands of kilometers away! There was this one Columbo episode, one of my favorites, where the NSA wanted to hire such a guy. Sadly it was all fake. So the cynical side of me assumes you also can't spot what I'm doing at my computer, and your assertion you could see what I was doing, was fake :-(
"make a low effort joke"
You still have not understood my comment. You make no effort to understand the comment, even with my explanation. I guess this is because you don't want to understand people but get something out of attacking them.
My comment was not a joke, which was the point of my previous comment.
LineScan is basically a digital version of the circular flow system used in horse racing since 1937.
https://www.donttakepictures.com/dtp-blog/2019/5/8/winning-by-a-nose-the-history-of-the-photo-finish
(which IIRC was a plot point in a Columbo episode one time - but wasn't every interesting piece of tech?)
Funnily enough, I wrote a tool to dictate books that seems very similar to this [1]. I was inspired to make it by an episode of Columbo, though. I wonder if David Milch also took inspiration from the same episode [2].
[1]: https://orderly.cmgriffing.com/ [2]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066932/
I just built a tool that uses Whisper.cpp compiled to WASM in conjunction with SQLite WASM for a fully client-side book writing tool.
Basically, I want to write a book without having to type out the whole thing. I got the dictation idea from an episode of Columbo.
It is very much a work in progress and a proof of concept for another writing tool I want to make.
https://orderly.cmgriffing.com/
https://github.com/cmgriffing/orderly
It is in fact a reference to "How to Dial a Murder", an episode of Columbo.
Just one more thing:
One of my favorite Columbo episodes, "Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star", involved the murderer's girlfriend faking an alibi by wearing a paper mask of the murderer and running through a traffic light with a speeding camera, which Columbo figured out because the shadows were wrong.
The Mask of A Murderer | Columbo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_Zk90re50A
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101602/goofs/#not_a_goof
>Incorrectly regarded as goofs
>The killer's fake alibi hinges on a speed trap photo. An accomplice drove his car past a speed trap wearing a mask, a flat photo of the murderer's face. This is demonstrated by Columbo towards the end of the show.
>In that demonstration, it is clear that the person wearing the mask can't see, and Columbo helps her to exit his car. The photo of the speed camera also shows the killer's eyes, there were no visible holes in the mask. Allegedly, this means that the accomplice supposedly drove the car fast enough to set off the speed trap, while completely blind. However, a person can see reasonably well through the mask by simply poking a few pin holes through the eyes. These would not be visible on the police camera but are sufficient to allow the driver to see.
This is a great website. I think it would be a great idea to extend it to "knots in action" with a video showing how the forces (expected magnitude and direction) act upon each given knot. Specially the climbing ones. I few months ago I learned the knot that ties my shoes for good : https://youtu.be/aQ66r5vMqo8?feature=shared The problem with teaching knots is the hand action. Making a good knot involves good hand action. Surgeons spend months practicing sutures. There was an episode of the crime tv series Columbo where finds out it was not a suicide because the dead guys shoes where knotted backwards as someone else knotted the shoes when the guy was already dead (backwards). Very interesting.
This reminds me of the following: Of fictional crime investigators, mrs Marple collects all the clues and then invites everyone to the Great Summation at the end to reveal the murderer. Episodes of Inspector Columbo start with the very act of murder, and the perpetrator is clearly visible. We then follow Columbo collecting clues and discovering the motive.
We tend to be like Mrs Marple when we should be more like Columbo.
I think of Columbo where the first two seasons are brilliant (freaking Steven Spielberg directed the first episode!) but it quickly goes downhill but goes on for decades. (Of course, Columbo is almost impossible to binge watch because it is so formulaic. On the other hand, when I turn on the TV and catch it randomly on reruns I think 'Columbo is such a great show'.)
Columbo episodes were unusually long. Each was the length of a short movie: ~1 to ~1.5hrs.
One of the Die Hard movies had the "extract 1 gallon from a 3 gallon and a 5 gallon jug" puzzle in it.
There's an episode of Columbo with a similar problem, expressed as: there are a number of bags. Each bag contains many gold coins. The gold coins weigh 1 ounce each. However, one bag contains fake coins, which appear the same as the real coins, but have a slightly different weight - 1.1 ounces per coin. You have a scale, which you can only use once, and you must find the bag with the fake coins.
The solution is: Take one coin from the first bag, two coins from the second bag, three coins from the third bag, etc. Weigh all of the selected coins at the same time to get a total weight. Subtract from the total weight the triangular number of the number of bags[1], in ounces. The remainder, divided by 0.1, will be the number of the bag with the fake coins.
[1] eg, for three bags, 1 + 2 + 3 = 6
New tech became a trope in Columbo episodes which I always enjoyed.
The robot episode "mind over mayhem" is amazing and I still pretend to be the robot from it occasionally when I'm down and alone.
It reminds me of the episode of Columbo where a chemist blew up the director of a chemical plant with a boobytrapped cigar box. Columbo finds the collection of cigar boxes, one of which got boobytrapped, and I knew "he's going to smoke one of those cigars" and he did.
My first take is that making $50k your first month is pretty quick growth and looks suspicious. Also, something chatbot-based sounds a lot like spam content generation and that's something Google monopolizes for itself.
(I'd say at least half the time that somebody is complaining about unfair treatment by Adsense they are really guilty and trying to defend themselves like the murderer in an episode of Columbo.)
i would argue that in many cases, having multiple directors is actually one of the great benefits of television and even within the constraints of a show, they still have considerable freedom to define the tone. tv is also a great format for relative unknowns to find their voice. steven spielberg was an 'unremarkable' tv director until he worked on Columbo and his episode- The Perfect Murder was a breakthrough that still stands apart to this day. similarly, put together any two episodes of the x files and the range is pretty incredible, Grotesque and Jose Chung's From Outer Space are only a few episodes apart and they might as well be entirely different shows.
I think that's a consequence of reruns. My parents use Gilligan's Island or Columbo as background noise, because they know how they all go. The writers intended for each episode to be the focus of the room's attention, but it didn't work out that way later.
Cf. the Columbo episode "The Most Dangerous Match", where snail shells on a checkerboard tablecloth suffice,
>A lot of movie productions infamously do not have positive cash flow.
You're confusing cash flow with declared income/loss. The shenanigans pulled on shows like "Columbo" and "The Rockford Files", resulted in high-quality, long-successful shows showing "losses" by the studio, are classic examples. Search on "Hollywood Accounting."
That's a hilarious opening question. I just watched an excellent Columbo episode from 1976 on a 10 year old LED screen, willingly, and I didn't even throw up.
Columbo will be to TV what Sherlock Holmes is to literature. The last episode just makes the cut for 20 years.
The technology is almost there in terms of AI and deep fake so that in the future we'll able to ask for a remake of a movie with another (CGI) actor, dead or alive (licensing permitting) or ask it to generate a new episode of a tv show "I want an episode of Columbo but with Brad Pitt and he kisses Jason Momoa in a scene".
> Ricardo Montalban was also on Columbo before being KHAAAAAAANN
"Space Seed", the TOS episode that introduces Khan is from 1967 while the Columbo episode with Montalban is from 1976.
Also today's shows always feel so overblown. Crack investigative teams operating from luxury offices that could double as a nightclub, wisecracking all day. Earplug 'comms' with unlimited range. Explosions and gunshots in every episode.
Real police work is not like this. I feel like the shows of the 70s were a lot more realistic. Columbo, Hill Street blues etc.
Even though Columbo was not really a realistic depiction of detective work, it did make it feel like work and not just competence porn.
Then in the 80s the whizzbang started with Miami Vice and its blue night skies, cops driving Ferraris etc.
The good shows these days take a step back from this. Like The Wire. But must of them are just fluff IMO.
It's a generational thing yeah. Even in Holland Columbo was always on rerun. Everyone born in the 70s would know the format because it takes only one episode to know it :)
Good show though!
I haven't watched my old DVDs in a while, but my recollection is that (in most episodes, at least) Columbo would explain what detail from early in the investigation made him suspicious of the perpetrator and what evidence and/or reasoning he used to rule out the other suspects along the way.
> we observe him trying to figure out what we already know
Except that that's not really what happens. Somehow, Columbo seems to know immediately who the perpetrator is, and spends the rest of the episode just trying to figure out how to prove it.
"Blueprint for Murder"
https://columbophile.com/2016/08/14/episode-review-columbo-blueprint-for-murder/
Got a box set of Columbo a few years ago and I'd never watched it before and like many people here are saying, each episode is almost movie length and brilliant in its own right, and the format of 'you the viewer know who did it, how can Columbo figure it out' is fantastic.
One striking thing is that technology often plays a part - technology that would have been 'clever' at the time. e.g. "The Most Crucial Game" the bad guy uses a radio to pretend he's still in a private box at a football statium. In "Fade in to Murder" the bad guy provides an alibi for himself by drugging a friend, changing the time on his watch and then watching a VCR recorded football match with him, pretending that its live. There are lots of things like that, I suppose the never ending quest for clever twists led the writers to lots of gizmos and gadgets of the time.
Ricardo Montalban was also on Columbo before being KHAAAAAAANN
And Leslie Nielsen was in 2 Columbo episodes
I watched Columbo only recently and it seems like every famous person in the 70s guest starred at one point or another.
There is one Columbo episode "Forgotten Lady" that is somewhat unique in that his questioning technique doesn't exactly work out as usual, and even when he figures out the truth, it doesn't lead to justice. And he even wears a tuxedo! It is considered one of the better episodes of the original series, at least according to reviews at IMDB, and my own recent serendipitous viewing.
> The Columbo TV show is, in my humble opinion, a masterpiece in disguise.
Why in disguise? It’s just simply a masterpiece, not just as a detective show but also as a vehicle for the actors to enjoy themselves. It made it so much better watching the stars of the time do something they clearly liked. Everyone is in on the gag, the writers, the star, the guests, and the audience. It was more of the next verse in a familiar song than it was a show every episode.
> Conversations are done with no malice, but with that clear objective in mind.
At first, but by the middle of most episodes, he knows all he needs to already and is just playing cat and mouse with the villain, and the audience.
Some quotations I took from Columbo, to try to gain some insight into his methods:
"I like to get that background information very precise if I can."
"You know what it's like; you get hold of half of something, and you can't get a hold of the other half."
"Tell me about these movie stars. What do they do? They drink a lot?" (great open-ended question)
"Do you think you could just talk about the suture, sort of describe it in so many words?"
"It's just one of those things that gets into my head and keeps rolling around in there like a marble."
"There is something else sir, but I don't know where all that leads to just yet...I'll just wander around sir. Thank you very much."
"When people do something for the first time, detectives always want to know why."
Columbo also was unlike many other crime shows of the time in that it showed the viewer the crime in opening minutes. Through the show, you knew who the murderer was, even if you didn't know all the whys or twists. Watching with that knowledge changes the story, as you see how the detective weaves together threads to get to where you know he needs to be by the end of the (somewhat overly drawn out) episodes.
I think that was the show.
VERY surprising how many people talk to the cops and give them all sorts of information that the cops then disprove, stories that make no sense, or even hand them info / leads that leas right back to them so on.
I want to say maybe the folks in a Columbo episode wold be more likely to talk to a lawyer first / not talk but ... Martha Stewart talked herself into jail...
I rediscovered Columbo a number of years back and playing the original series is my way of having background noise while working. But every time I watch the same episode, I deepen my understanding of asking questions and how they lead to the next. Much of this is how I moved my thoughts into work postmortems, not just asking how this broke, but why did it break, how was it possible.
For added thoughts on Columbo, here's a short breakdown if the tactics used to find the guilty party was legal in court.
https://columbophile.com/2017/05/17/what-happens-when-columbos-cases-go-to-court/
I watched Columbo for the first time in the past year and I *don't* think the format is well known (I was born in the 90s, so it may be a generational thing).
I want to expand on it because it's really unique and amazing.
For those who don't know, each episode opens with us seeing the crime being committed and covered up. We always know who it is, immediately.
Then in the 2nd act we're introduced to Columbo, and we observe him trying to figure out what we already know.
For all of the reasons stated in the parent article, Columbo is one of the most perfect representations of a "real smart person" in media. Another favourite of mine is Jonathan Creek
well yeah. the premise of the show is not to discover the perp or their method. i dare say, you’ve missed the point.
in real life, we know that crimes are often “solved” not by evidence at hand but by confession of accomplices. i mean that’s why “snitches get stitches” is a thing. columbo takes that to the next level, extracting the suspects own admission through his apparent bumbling. in every single episode, if the perp had only just kept their mouth shut …
I was once home sick from work and watching daytime TV between naps on the sofa. After I'd been watching an episode of Columbo for about three hours I realised it was actually an episode of Columbo, Diagnosis Murder, and Murder She Wrote (I think) consecutively with a few common bit-part actors and I'd nodded off between them :)
Edit: I remember it as being Dick van Dyck in all of them, but it was a long time ago and that seems unlikely!
There might have existed a moment where every broadcast television signal on Earth was showing John Fiedler (Mr. Peterson on the Bob Newhart Show, Piglet in Winnie-the-Pooh, a thousand other credits). He was everywhere in the same way people make fun of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
For Columbo side-roles, Vito Scotti is a fun one to spot. I think he was in four or five episodes.
I too watched Columbo, together with my mom, when I was younger, and later watched some older episodes on my own. At some point at my job I found myself "debugging" people's requests for help/support using his "one last thing" technique.
Especially if they are the type of enthusiastic, semi-sophisticated users, who try to second-guess how the application is written or why it crashed, without actually knowing anything about the code, and often make silly guesses and make suggestions which have little to do with reality.
Before I started doing that, I would often be quite rude to people and cut them off, saying things like "no, that's not how the code works, I know that for a fact because I wrote it, the bug is somewhere else entirely".
Then when I started using it instead, I would stare at them and say something like "oh, well, that's a very interesting option! Why didn't I think of that!" Then shut up for a few seconds like I'm deep in thought, then say "Oh, wait, I just thought of something. Do you mind showing me what you did on that screen again? I apologize but I have just this awful short term memory, can't remember what you wrote on that bug ticket ". Then they would indulge me, and I would say "Oh, wait, stop right there, that gave me a great idea what could have gone wrong, thank you".
And then explain them in some details what caused the bug and how to work around it.
Or I would say "thank you", get up and go after they showed me, and then pause at the door and say "oh, wait, there's this one thing I just thought about, do you mind if we try just one more thing? Sorry for taking your time" and then try the workaround, show them that it works, and explain it.
All this when I actually understood what was the problem a few seconds after they showed me the problem.
So I wasted a few more minutes being nice to this person and pretending I'm kind of dumb, but I know now they will won't be afraid to report future bugs to me or to suggest features, without fearing they will look dumb themselves.
Unfortunately I have to be in the right frame of mind to do this, and lately I've found myself slipping more and more often back to the "that's not how the code works" retorts.
It's good that this came up on NH today, it's a good reminder to try and go back to being a little more Columbo and a little less rude to people who try to be useful to me.
One thing might interest this community - the amusing amount of common actors between the Columbo and Star Trek series (and Quantum Leap, if you want to extend this).
Obviously Shatner and Nimoy, but also the lovable John Fiedler (of 12 Angry Men fame, as the possessed Mr. Hengist in TOS's "Wolf in the Fold" and a cardiologist in Columbo) and the fantastic Theodore Bikel (as the murderer in Columbo's "Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case", and as Worf's adoptive dad in TNG's "Family"). Ed Begley Jr, whose father was in 12 Angry Men, is in ST:VOY as Henry Starling, and in Columbo's "How to Dial a Murder" as Officer Stein. Laurence Luckinbill is Sybok (STrek V) and the victim in Columbo's "Make Me a Perfect Murder". Michael Strong: Columbo's "are you a witness to what he just did?" scene, and TOS's Dr Korby.
There are metric tons of links with minor characters, for example James Greene in the Columbo classic "Columbo Goes to the Guillotine" is also in TNG and DS9.
Dozens more are discussed here: http://pub10.bravenet.com/forum/static/show.php?usernum=806565873&frmid=6&msgid=1308831&cmd=show
There are other amusing non-Star Trek but sci-fi-related coincidences too, like Robert Culp (IMO the best Columbo villain, a first-rate actor) voicing Dr. Breen in Half-Life 2.
Obviously you could do this with absolutely any TV show, since there aren't that many actors in America, but this is a fun exercise and fans of both shows have a lot to be happy about. And if you're a fan of one, and start watching the other (I started with Columbo, possibly unlike most people here), try spotting common actors as a fun exercise.
The Columbo TV show is, in my humble opinion, a masterpiece in disguise. The basic scheme of each episode is well known. But the beauty is in the details. The few minutes in each episode where the character is not in representation and you can grasp a few moments of his mental process.
That's where you discover that:
- he takes NOTHING as assumed
- he works A LOT (usually not shown on screen, but sometimes mentionned by him, and you can infer that a given piece of information took a lot of time to discover)
- he always starts from the ground up, asks (what seem to be) stupid questions
- All of his actions are here to close the options. Conversations are done with no malice, but with that clear objective in mind.
I do a lot of the Columbo way at work, and it works surprisingly well.
Every Time Columbo Asked One More Thing | Season 1 | Columbo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB-jlomZhHU
I seem to recall one episode where Columbo kept bouncing between three equally motivated suspects. I wasn't a big fan of the show then, but it struck me as an interesting device.
I might be wrong and it is an exception that tests the rule.
I too am a Columbo fan- since I was little and watched them on TV-- its been a few years since I last watched the box set... but I'm pretty certain there are a several episodes where Columbo does not know for sure who the murderer is right off. I also seem to recall one where he is unable to catch the murderer?
> Columbo shows the benefits of having reality bent around the assumption that you know the culprit instantly even if you don't know why.
The shows don't show everything, but what they do imply is that Columbo starts by pulling on all the strings and then doggedly chasing the inconsistencies and loose ends. Also, in a lot of cases there could only be a handful of suspects. The main thing they actually is the interplay between Colombo and the culprit, and the rest is (almost always) offscreen.
IMHO, the main weakness of the show are how over-eager the culprits sometimes are act like they're helping Columbo. Not just answer his questions, but play detective with him.
> Is there a single Columbo episode where he asks "just one more thing" of someone who isn't the murderer?
I haven't watched the whole series and don't recall a specific episode, but I'm pretty sure he's done that episodes where the murderer is trying to frame someone. There was also a not-great episode where the owner of a boat-builder was murdered and there were like 5 suspects (this one: https://columbophile.com/2019/08/11/trying-to-salvage-last-salute-to-the-commodore/).
Yes, I should have been more specific; I meant "you, the detective" and not "you, the viewer". I'm speaking as a huge Columbo fan, btw; I've seen most of the episodes multiple times, and last year I watched the entire box-set in order.
Well, in the case of Columbo, you (the viewer) have the benefit of knowing the culprit, because the murder is shown at the beginning of the episode. That's why Columbo is less a "whodunnit" and more a "howcatchem". But yeah, this infallible instinct that leads him straight to the perpetrator is pretty unrealistic...
Columbo shows the benefits of having reality bent around the assumption that you know the culprit instantly even if you don't know why. Is there a single Columbo episode where he asks "just one more thing" of someone who isn't the murderer?
One of the better Columbo episodes, "Any Old Port In A Storm", features Donald Pleasence as a California winery owner with some telling descriptions of American wine culture in the 70s.
>>> My friend, you need to entertain the possibility that pharma companies would do be bad things...
>> Do you mean "be bad" or "do bad"?
> Both.
On the "be bad things" front, I think you need to entertain the possibility that things aren't so black and white.
> When a corporation brings in a former media exec on their board, its bc they want insight on how to run an effective PR campaign, and pharma cares about that, given how much more money they spend on marketing over r&d.
That kinda sounds plausible, but it's too much of a stretch. IIRC, Thompson Reuters' bread and butter is actually accounting software, and that's the part Jim Smith had been focused on for the last 20+ years, per his Wikipedia bio. If "insight on how to run an effective PR campaign" is what they wanted, they'd probably do a lot better by bringing on an actual PR person. Also, is it even plausible for a member of the board to be involved in planning a PR campaign?
You should watch some old episodes of Columbo. It's fiction, but also a fun exploration about how plausible narratives can fall apart if you actually pay attention to the details.
> card-carrying CIA operatives
I realize you're just using that as an expression, but I recently watched an old Columbo episode [1] that featured just that, and if it were true it would be the literal dumbest thing.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072804/
Also, Columbo's Peugeot 403 Cabriolet shows up in each of the first-season episodes (according to imcdb.org the "Internet Movie Cars Database" that I just discovered the existence of):
• 1. "Murder by the Book" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_147439-Peugeot-403-Cabriolet-1960.html
• 2. "Death Lends a Hand" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_88435-Peugeot-403-Cabriolet-1960.html
• 3. "Dead Weight" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_66108-Peugeot-403-Cabriolet-1960.html
• 4. "Suitable for Framing" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_94005-Peugeot-403-Cabriolet-1960.html
• 5. "Lady in Waiting" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_71913-Peugeot-403-Cabriolet-1960.html
• 6. "Short Fuse" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_36906-Peugeot-403-Cabriolet-1960.html
• 7. "Blueprint for Murder" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_75558-Peugeot-403-Cabriolet-1960.html
But there were two TV movies (the second one made as a "pilot") before it became a TV series, and in the first one Columbo is briefly shown with a different car, a Chevrolet C-Series:
"Prescription: Murder" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_876671-Chevrolet-C-Series-1967.html
(He doesn't seem to complain about his car in either of them though, so by the time he's complained about it, the car has already been shown on screen, including multiple times in the first episode.)
What a coincidence! I think I got to watch a single Columbo episode when it aired originally and had become a fan. So, over the past few weeks, I've been watching the entire series.
It's a really down-to-earth and charming series with some real laugh-out-loud lines.
Here's one when Columbo is visited by a girl whose fiance has disappeared right before the wedding -
Columbo: [to Ric's fiance] You two didn't have a fight or anything, did yuh?
Joan Stacey: No, but...
Columbo: Maybe he got cold feet. That's been known to happen. Was he married before?
Joan Stacey: Three times.
Columbo: Three times. I guess his feet are warm enough by now.
Some of the better episodes and their guest murderers:
"Swan Song" features Johnny Cash as a gospel singer with an unconventional murder weapon,
"Any Old Port In A Storm" has Donald Pleasence as a wine aficionado,
"Double Shock" has Martin Landau playing a pair of twins and Columbo harassed by their uncle's fastidious housekeeper,
"Columbo Goes To College" is one of the best of the 90s-era revival episodes, and features a couple of cocky frat-boys murdering their criminology professor.
Colombo always had a such hilarious proletariat vs bourgeois "Marxist" class struggle element hidden just below the surface of a major Hollywood series whose pilot was directed by a promising new young kid named Steven Spielberg.
The criminals were always rich, powerful, famous. Columbo was an unimpressive civil servant dressed in a shabby overcoat and driving an equally unimpressive old Peugeot. Every episode contained some bit of banter in which he or the villain called out explicitly the huge gulf in class between them, generally including some mention of Mrs. Columbo, who was never seen in the real series but was always held up by Columbo as cultured, intellectual, and wise in all the ways he professed to be ignorant (yes, they did eventually spin off a series about her, but it was terrible in as many ways as Columbo was great).
At the end of every episode, the honorable masses would triumph over the evil bourgeois as Columbo caught and humiliated yet another arrogant villain just before viewers were advised what brand of products to buy to look better than their neighbors.
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but 'Try and Catch Me' is my favorite episode (it has everything: the car, Dog, and IMHO, the best "villain"), and addresses the kindness:
> Abigail Mitchell: I'm beginning to be very fond of you, Lieutenant. I think you're a very kind man.
> Lt. Columbo: Don't count on that, Miss Mitchell. Don't count on it.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075866/quotes/
My wife and I discovered columbo in 2014ish. Ever since then we have become crazy fans. I have all the episodes from 1968 thru 2003 on DVD, ripped with subtitles and backed up on multiple SSDs and also backed up to Amazon glacier just in case... Columbo plays in our house every weekend since 2014, we are probably watching the series 7th or 8th time now and it never feels boring. My biggest regret is that, I found columbo after peter Falk died. I would have loved to meet him or just write to him when he were alive. Peter Falk was a legend, I almost feel like we are related and share some weird bond. Thanks Peter Falk and the whole Columbo crew for a masterpiece show.
Pay attention to the camera & directing the next time you watch an episode, it's an absolute masterpiece.
One example to look out for is the back-and-forth between Columbo and the baddie. They would usually stand in opposite ends of the room and shot from two (sets of) cameras. One camera is closer to Columbo and the other is closer to the baddie, so when the detective is "winning" an argument, he'll look bigger on the screen and vice versa.
This usually starts with a shot where Columbo looks super small somewhere in the back of the room, then he'd ask his famous "just one last question", and then they switch the setup. Now Columbo is bigger in the front, and the baddie looks small while they are in trouble.
>Nowadays there is a big focus on series where every episode ends with an addictive cliffhanger. I hate that.
Me too. And most of the cliffhangers are stupid, you know they were added in just to pad out the episodes.
> Lately everything has to be dark and quirkiness is used to explain how someone is directly rude.
Yeah, I've stopped reading crime fiction (and watching crime drama) for exactly this reason: Every detective *has* to be rude/obnoxious, hate their life, be an alcoholic with marriage problems.
And I'm like, why can't we have a mentally stable detective who solves crime because of duty, and not to excorcise their "inner demons" (or other such psychological BS reason usually given).
For this reason, I love Columbo, Poirot and Midsomer murders: The detectives are honourable people, very polite and respectful, but polite doesnt mean they let people walk over them.
It seems to me most crime writers cannot grasp the fact that one can be polite and ruthless (or relentless) at the same time.
This series is one of the very rare ones in which my favorite actor, Patrick McGoohan, makes a couple of guest appearances, and even directed one episode.
https://columbophile.com/2020/08/30/episode-review-columbo-agenda-for-murder/
Apparently this episode is in the public domain, and is available on the columbophile's website[0]
[0] https://columbophile.com/2018/03/25/full-episode-columbo-murder-by-the-book/
>They based the character squarely on Porfiry Petrovich, the astute but meandering lead investigator in Dostoevsky’s Crime & Punishment – a book both had studied at college.
Perhaps, but I would find it difficult to believe that the creators of Columbo hadn't also seen the 1955 French film Diabolique (also known as Les Diaboliques). This film features a detective who seems very friendly and not very competent but who is cleverly setting up a rhetorical trap for the murder suspect, very much like how Columbo acts.
I hate Columbo because in the Double Exposure episode they explain the cue marks that appeared during movies to indicate to the projectionist they need to switch reels, and after that I couldn't not notice those cue marks (Fight Club did the same reveal, much later).
But really, I love Columbo. RIP Peter Falk. 10 years already.
Oh, so they’re ‘rebooting’ it. I wish they would hire a writer with the imagination to do something completely new without all that baggage. …I agree - there’s darkness in Columbo, but it’s much subtler and is tempered by the kindness and charm of Columbo himself. I see why they do it, but the ‘just one more’ episode netflix-thing easily gets tiresome and ends up prolonging some plots/story arcs unnaturally and unsatisfactorily. The little of ‘Discovery’ I watched I felt no engagement with at all - the writing I thought was generic and boring and the characters seemed two-dimensional - but maybe I’m just behind the times: ‘Enterprise’ grew on me a few years down the line (though not the opening theme!)
Columbo is my and my wife's favorite series. There are many things that separate it from most. Nowadays there is a big focus on series where every episode ends with an addictive cliffhanger. I hate that. You can watch a single episode of Columbo and be satisfied. There are a few things mentioned from other episodes here and there, but overall nothing important. I also love how the lieutenant is above all kind. Lately everything has to be dark and quirkiness is used to explain how someone is directly rude. I like the fact that they did not bend and show Mrs Columbo (I now that there was a separate show with that title).
I'm sure, that it will get a reboot sometime in future. I just hope that it will not receive the same treatment as Star Trek with Discovery. I would appreciate i.e. Natasha Lyone to make it something different enough not to look like a cheap uncanny valley copy. But kindess and clear separation of episodes is a must.
I think there are 4 things that make a Columbo episode enjoyable:
1) Peter Falk 2) Creative murder ideas 3) Great plot 4) Supporting performances
In "Any Old Port in a Storm" the acting by both Falk and Pleasence is outstanding. Regarding 2), I always adored "Now You See Him" (the magician episode, also with Cassidy) and "Swan Song" (the airplane murder with Johnny Cash).
I was introduced to Columbo by a housemate a few years ago and was instantly hooked. The episode you mentioned is excellent, as are all the Jack Cassidy ones.
For me the standout episode is 'Any Old Port in a Storm' (1973) with Donald Pleasance.
One of the earliest (and also one of the best) Columbo episodes ("Murder by the Book", 1971) was directed by Steven Spielberg. If you watch it, it is immediately clear (even during the initial shot) that this episode is simply in another league. Not only when compared to other Columbo episodes, but also when compared to other TV shows during that era (see for example this short documentary [0]). It is crazy to think that Spielberg was only 25 when he directed this.
If I remember correctly, the quality of that Columbo episode was what really started Spielberg's career. He got the offer to direct a TV movie afterwards, and he presented Duel [1] (also in 1971), which is simply a masterpiece and got a theatrical release after the TV success. It established Spielberg as a major film director. Just watch the title sequence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0707XtiFPs
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb62FxCH-Ks
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duel_(1971_film)
I knew that already because of a pretty good Columbo episode ;)
If you’re up for it, go watch an old episode of the show Columbo [1]. Each episode from this 1970’s era TV was over an hour long with no commercials. It’s full of slow, long, quiet scenes. There’s so much time. It’s really amazing to watch. It helped inspire me while making YouTube videos to give more time when cutting things, even if it’s not optimized for algorithmic advancement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbo
Talking about detective stories and unusual narrative structures, I've really liked the American series 'Columbo' with Peter Falk while growing up. It's very popular in my country (Hungary, there's even a statue of him in Budapest), not sure about elsewhere.
It turns the typical detective story to its head. You see the murder and who does it as the first thing in the episode. The rest is how the detective intuits it and then most importantly the psychological battle and clever tricks required to corner the murderer and prove it was him.
Ha! Just watched that episode a few days ago.
I think a more HN oriented Columbo murder was the high-tech, computerized phonograph...
"The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case"
https://stereonomono.blogspot.com/2010/10/adc-accutrac-4000.html?m=1
https://columbophile.com/2019/10/27/episode-review-columbo-the-bye-bye-sky-high-iq-murder-case/
"Rosebud." https://columbophile.com/2020/01/12/episode-review-columbo-how-to-dial-a-murder/
In Dostoyevski Crime and Punishment, there is a similar 'reveal' monologue with an extremely interesting twist (spoiler alert): the narrator knows the murderer, the reader knows the murderer, the detective knows the murderer, the reader knows that the detective knows the murderer - but the murderer, a naive student who is convinced he is the Übermensch and committed a perfect crime, is unaware that everyone knows he did it. It's both an extremely tragic and extremely funny scene: at one point they have a lengthy conversation where both of them "try" to find out who the real murder is, and the student, thinking he is helping the dumb detective with his superior mind, suggests one murderer after the other, one theory after another. The detective dismisses them all. Finally, the student grows frustrated and blurts out: "Then who is the murderer?". And the detective just answers: "The murderer? Why, you are, of course!". The silence that follows is one of the best moments in literature and a testament to Dostoyevski's genius regarding character development.
Of course, as many people know, that scene and in particular that seemingly clueless but extremely clever 19th century St. Petersburg detective inspired the Columbo series, which repeated this particular kind of "reveal dialogue" in basically every episode.
For me it has to be the right kind of junk. There's junk, like in a junkyard, and then there's a toxic waste dump. Stick with the junkyard. The stronger a show's resemblance to your current reality, the more likely you'll find someone in it with whom to compare yourself. So right off the bat, so-called "reality" TV is off the table. Anything where you're able to forget about "you" and be transported into someone else's world, is good. That takes good writing, i.e. yes, an actual script. Old stuff works too - anything so old that you can't possibly imagine yourself in that milieu, that helps. We watch old Columbo episodes from the 70s on network TV on Sunday nights. Granted we are then bombarded with ads for Sono Bello, Consumer Cellular, and every drug on the market (and then ads for the lawyers suing the makers of last year's drugs), and anything else an advertiser has deemed likely to appeal to the demographic that cares about Columbo or the 70s... and all those ads in themselves are an assault on your self-esteem, so just mute that shit or do chores.
Mostly though it just takes time to build a life, and a you, that you love enough that you win most of those comparisons to celebrities. Think about how most celebs are basically slaves in various ways: slaves to public opinion, to the Hollywood social hierarchy, to the crappy contracts under which most of them are laboring, and especially to the fear of not being famous/loved/accepted tomorrow, of being replaced by one of the thousands of others who (maybe just as tragically) would jump at the chance to have that person's shitty contract and precarious perch on the ladder of fame. Slaves to the empty holes in their souls that they have been filling with the quest for fame probably their whole lives. Ah, but to the extent that you spend time on social media, seeking approval from strangers, you are (or your avatar is) kind of a micro-celebrity and would tend to be plagued by all those same problems! So yeah, that ruins it. All the more reason to get the hell off of there, ideally permanently!
Probably off topic but Patrick McGoohan was in a couple of good series for those at home at the moment, apart from The Prisoner, Danger Man was another (A bond like spy), and he also turns up in a few episodes of Columbo. If you like those then try the Avengers - the one with Patrick McNee and Emma peel, there are other series but the Emma Peel one is recognised as the best. Surrealist Spy dramas were at their height in that era, if you want to go further 'The Champions' is another - three spies crash land in Tibet and monks teach them some powers.
Anybody remembers the tv series Columbo? Maybe this explains why he was always snooping around in beautiful mansions.
I've watched a few episodes.
- He gets high-profile guests across a decently wide spectrum and at an overall high volume. >95% of his interviews don't interest me, but for the 5% that do - say, John Carmack - the name is the main draw. These people just don't get interviewed all that often so it's an event regardless of the MC. Probably the same for his entire audience, just different 5% slices.
- If you know the old mystery TV anthology show Columbo, he does a similar routine to the titular character: He plays the unassuming everyman and then asks unexpectedly smart/pointed questions, using simple terms but with reasonably deep implications. His interviews seem generally well-prepared. They don't go particularly deep on any subject matter, but if you're familiar with the subject matter they still prompt interesting responses from the guests - you can see someone like Carmack or Musk go into rubber-duck debugging mode trying to digest complicated thoughts into succinct answers and that has an interesting information side-channel to it (it tells you what they really think is important to say or highlight, and Rogan seems to be aware of this - he is good at getting the bits they personally find important).
- Related to the above, the macho/masculinity slant aside he acts humble and un-obnoxious. I might feel differently if I watched any episode with a guest I really dislike (because he seems to be more accommodating than challenging/critical, for sure), but in the episodes I watched I wasn't annoyed with him.
- Part of his prep is also clearly to read up on recent/controversial things related to a guest and probe for it during the interview, so there's the shock value/titilation factor that adds to the entertainment. His skill is that both him and the interviewee anticipate this but he still puts his subjects at ease enough in the moment to make the responses compelling. It has your brain constantly working to sort through what is guarded and what is not (=real), just like quality reality TV (everyone knows reality TV is scripted -- the entertainment is in trying to identify the sliver of authenticity in people's emergent behavior on camera).
Johnny Cash guest starred in the best Columbo episode ever, "Swan Song":
https://columbophile.com/2018/03/11/episode-review-columbo-swan-song/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtLYJ4STuXY
He was humping the pretty young girl singer, and murdered the mean old lady bible thumper in an airplane crash, then when Columbo finally (but barely) caught him, he was so remorseful he said he wanted to get caught all along.
I started near the end and thought that Columbo had been shot by the mafia. As in Lieutenant Columbo. The horror!
More seriously, though, they're great movies and I enjoyed them.
Can't help feeling though that some people come away with the wrong message: they think that mafia morality is how the world really works and so they must now embrace it.
Instead of noticing that Michael Corleone was trying to escape from it all and create a different life for his children. A life without the threats and violence.
(And then I think, hmm, perhaps mafia morality is still alive and well. It's merely that instead of being assassinated people are being deplatformed, disemployed, etc.)
There’s two plots in a mystery novel: what actually happened, and how the detective figures it out. My understanding is that the short story he describes is the former, and defines the puzzle part of the mystery: what clues are available, where are they, and what do they really mean?
The actual novel, though, is the story of the investigation. It can be written in any way the author likes, so long as the detective only uncovers clues that the prewriting indicates should exist.
One clear example of this distinction is the old Columbo TV series, where the murder happens onscreen at the beginning of each show. The bulk of the time is spent on the mental sparring match between the culprit and the detective.
Very often I like watching old shows. I find many new ones to be overloaded with style and cuts. I feel that it only appeals to new generation that buy into it. When I run into a Columbo episode, I'm so liking the slow pacing, the simplicity, the filming; even with the shallow bits at times.
Also there's a format thing, the only way they could decorate shows was with freeze and a bit of thrill jingle. I kindof like this way.
There's also the spirit of the day. 70s to 80s shows were often sunny forever life style. It's soothing.
Even supercars shows, with highly disturbingly bad effects [1] have a stupid simple formula that I find honest, even if it's often dumb. It's just entertainment, I find it less pretentious in a way.
[1] be ready for a shock if you ever watch Knight Rider again.
I got a few things out of it, but nothing I didn't already know.
1) Real life isn't often like CSI. Things aren't easily tidied up like in a 1 hr TV episode. Many times these things aren't solved at all.
2) Most real life crimes aren't investigated by a Lt. Columbo, who shows up at the scene, immediately figures out who the likely suspect is, then badgers the suspect until that person confesses just to get some piece of mind.
This was cuttingly compared to watching an episode of Columbo with an elderly relative with alzhimers by comedian Frankie Boyle (NSFW):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtWA3jQN1Pg
I really do think the same. Actually the crime sera drama "Columbo" worked that way as we knew beforehand who the culprit was. The point of the whole episode was to discover why the victim was killed and not how or who by.
Also, business used to have have counter checks available for customers (if they took checks). Basically a standard blank form, sort of like what banks have for withdrawals but were less formal. Sometimes mentioned in 70's TV shows/movies like Columbo.
Nimoy made a splendid adversary to LAPD detective Columbo in the 1973 episode 'A Stitch In Time'[1]. I'm surprised that the New York Times article doesn't mention it at all because it is one of the best Columbo episodes, with a couldn't-see-it-coming twist in the end.
[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069900/
Incidentally, William Shatner played the villain in 2 episodes of Colombo: 'Fade in to Murder' (1976) [2] and 'Butterfly in Shades of Grey' (1994) [3].
[2] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074328/
[3] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109458/
Apple fanbois will be interested to learn that Columbo loved to use the innocent-sounding phrase "Just one more thing ...." while faking an exit.
I remember a very old episode of Columbo where an air capsule system to open wine bottles was used for poisoning...
Is that satire? I can't tell, but I don't think it's meant to be that.
There's no justification for the assertion that "A good theorem should read like a good novel." Why can't it read like a good travelogue or biography ... or ballad, for that matter?
Then again, I can't watch Hitchcock films - I can't stand contrived suspense.
For what it's worth, one of the rank top detective series in the US is/was Columbo. Quoting from Wikipedia:
> Almost every episode begins by showing the commission of the crime and its perpetrator; the series therefore has no "whodunit" element. The plot revolves mainly around how the perpetrator, whose identity is already known to the audience, will finally be caught and exposed.
So it seems that the suspense could be in figuring out how the details go together, and don't require keeping the end-goals hidden.
I can tell you how I do it, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend my path to anyone else. I'm not even 100% sure I'd recommend it to a younger version of myself, although I'm also not sure I'd recommend against it either.
Basically, I'm single and childless, and darn close to my every free minute goes into the startup project. When I was working full-time, that meant "after work" M-F and the majority of my Sat and Sun. hours. I make an exception during football season to watch the Dolphins game on Sunday (yeah, yeah, go ahead, say it... I'm a glutton for punishment).
I force myself to take a break every once in a while and read a novel or watch a movie or something... but truth be told, lately, even when I watch movies or something, there's an angle related to the startup. For example, I've been reading and studying a lot about sales lately, and I've seen more than one sales book mention "be like Columbo".
I had kinda wanted to rewatch some old Columbo episodes anyway (yeah, I'm old, deal with it) so I've been watching Columbo and thinking about "how do you apply his attitude / approach to this 'diagnostic business development' thing"? And the movies I make time for tend to be ones that I find inspirational (Rocky, The Karate Kid, Rad, etc.) that help keep me motivated.
About 6 months ago, I dropped down from full-time status to part-time status at my regular job to free up more time for the startup. I had a little bit of money saved, but not enough to quit outright... luckily the owner of the company was willing to be flexible and let me do that. I've pretty much burned through my savings though, and we aren't profitable yet, so I'm going back to working full-time next month.
These days I forgo most social activities like dating, parties, and most non-technical social events. I rarely mountain bike anymore, and almost never set foot in the gym. I bailed on going home to see my parents for Christmas so I could use those few days of "down time" as recovery time. I stay amped up on more caffeine than could possibly be healthy, and do everything I can to the tune of heavy-metal[1] or hard-rock of some sort. My mantra right now is "Caffeine, heavy-metal and adrenaline". \m/
I know, I know... you're thinking "dude, you must be miserable". Nah... I enjoy this in a certain sense, and since I'm 40 now, and haven't achieved anything yet, my mindset now is to say "fuck it" and go for broke. It's now or never, ya know? My mindset is to achieve the biggest and most ambitious of my dreams, or - when life finally breaks me - pull a Leaving Las Vegas deal and go to Vegas and try to drink myself to death.
Do not try this at home...
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQQcOQsCFnw
>OT, but do you know anything about how that worked?
Well, remember to also take the "absolutely perfectly lip synced" and "couldn't even tell" with a grain of salt.
If we were to see one such lip synced episode now, I bet it would be quite crude and obvious.
It's probably just that being a kid at the time, and remembering it afterwards (maybe with some nostalgia), it appears better than it was.
Here's a Hungarian lip-synced Columbo episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzl4b23cZg4
Not "absolutely perfectly lip synced" at all.
That's hilarious. Columbo was my grandfather's favorite show on Hungarian TV back in the day. Every episode was absolutely perfectly lip synced - you couldn't even tell that Hungarian wasn't the original language.