sorting list of tuples by second (third...) tuple item

[kevin parks]

Thanks to all for your help. I am learning much by looking at this
code. I am always amazed at how many things are built in to Python.
bisect is one of those things that you always forget is there... I am
going to look at what folks posted a play around some. Though I am
really happy too see those lambdas get explained I was about to pop a
vein trying to get my head 'round those things.

I sort of guess you were goofing on me, but the funny thing is that
those functions did mostly work....

Thanks for your help everyone I am amazed that you could all figure
out what i was getting at. I think that I made a mistake or two in my
examples (i did on the fly) but i will play with the code now to see
that it give the results that I am after.

cheers,

-kevin