← José Leitão

The good old days, and the lines I half-remember

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Near the end of the finale of The Office, Andy says something I think about more than I probably should. For a long time, all I could have told you was the gist: there should be a way to know you're in the good days before they pass.

That's how I remember most of the show. I go back to my favourite moments every now and then, but when I want to quote one, I only have the shape of it. Close enough to recognise, not close enough to send.

So I built Quoffice. You type the line the way you remember it, and it finds the real one, along with the conversation around it. What Andy actually says:

"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." - Andy, Finale

What I had wrong

Turns out I'm not the only one. Everyone knows "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." But search for it and there's no exact match, because the full line is Jim doing Dwight: "Fact. Bears eat beets. Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." We keep the punchline and drop the setup.

Searching "bears beats battlestar galactica" and the conversation around Jim's line

My top 3

Apparently my taste isn't original: the Finale and Stress Relief are two of the three highest-rated episodes of the show.

Got a line you half-remember? Try it.

The dialogue comes from schrutepy: 54,753 lines across 186 episodes.