That's still arbitrary. Then...what isn't? Well, in some sense you're always making an arbitrary decision as to when to begin if you make a blanket statement like that. For example, if you're analyzing Pujols performance to predict the remainder of the year, would it make more sense to look at his career or to attempt to do a weighted trend of his last three years of performance? Any blanket statement of when to begin and end all analysis is going to be arbitrary. In another sense, I like watching N&G's head explode. Yeah, I deleted my post, cuz I realized it was more about that last bit.