Once and For All

Do do do, dusting off the cobwebs, couple of tumbleweeds, aaanndd... we're back. Rorry for the bear bit. (For "rorry," refer to Jetson, Astro. And by bear bit, I mean that I am sorry for the big paws, erm, pause.) Anyway, I figured I'd just turn over the ol' engine just to keep the wheels of this well-oiled machine a-tranglin'. I don't really have anything important to say, but since I'm one-dimensional, and I like to go out of my way to appear even smarter than I actually am, I'm going to jot down the Doomsday Calendar method so that people don't keep asking me how it's done. For those of you who are unfamiliar with my brilliance (read: for those of you who have never eaten a Shabbat meal with me), one of my many talents is the ability to determine the day of the week for any date. I can usually figure this out in roughly five seconds. Pay close attention; here's how it works:

1. This is called the Doomsday Calendar method, so for our purposes, "Doomsday" is defined as the last day of February in any given calendar year, be it the 28th or 29th. The first step is to determine what day of the week the Doomsday is for the year in question. This requires some memorization: The Doomsday for every century year, e.g. 400, 1900, 3000, can only be Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Friday. For argument's sake, let's use the year 1900. The Doomsday for 1900 is Wednesday. Going backwards in centuries, the Doomsday for 1800 is Friday, for 1700 it's Sunday, for 1600 it's Tuesday, and for 1500 it's back to Wednesday. The cycle continues like this, with those four days in exactly that order as you go backwards in time.

2. Now we must determine the Doomsday for a specific year in that century. Here's how we do it. Firstly, we know that there are 365 days in a non-leap year. Just to use some mathematical terminology for a moment, when you divide 365 by seven you get 52 with a remainder of 1. Or, in math-talk: 365 modulo 7 = 1. Another words, the year is exactly 52 weeks and one day long, az the same calendar date next year will be exactly one day of the week later. For example, if the Doomsday of 1900 is Wednesday, then the Doomsday for 1901 is Thursday. Obviously, in a leap year you would gain two days, so 1902 is Friday, 1903 is Saturday, and 1904 is Monday. Good.

3. But let's say you wanted to figure out the Doomsday for my birth year, 1982. It's extremely tedious to have to add 82 days plus 20 leap years onto the Wednesday from 1900. Az, in order to make it easier, we divide everything by twelve. Why twelve you ask? Listen closely: in twelve years you would gain one day for each of the twelve years plus three additional days for the three leap years contained in those twelve years. Az in twelve years you actually gain 15 days, which is really just two weeks and one day, which for our purposes is just one weekday. Just like tomorrow is Thursday, two weeks and one day from today is also Thursday. For example, the Doomsday for the year 1972, is just six days after the Doomsday for 1900, because 72 divided by twelve is six. So the Doomsday for 1972 is six days after Wednesday, or just Tuesday.

4. Now we need to deal with the remainders, because not all years are divisible by twelve. Let's continue using 1982. To determine the Doomsday for the year 1982, we need to divide 82 by twelve and take note of the remainder. Az 82 divided by twelve is six with a remainder of ten (82 mod 12 = 10). Now, for the ten remaining years we need to add ten more days, and in those ten years there are two leap years, so we need to add two more days. To sum up: for 1982 we add SIX days plus TEN days plus TWO days (Six because 82/12 = 6, 10 because it's the remainder, and 2 because there are 2 leap years in 10 years). Now, six plus ten plus two equals 18. Az to determine the Doomsday for the year 1982, we must add 18 days to the Doomsday of 1900, which is Wednesday. Az the Doomsday for 1982 is 18 days after Wednesday, or just Sunday. Great, that's the hard part.

5. Now that we know the Doomsday for our year, we need to determine the day of the week for any other date in that year. Here's how we do it: all you need to do is remember certain key dates. There are many easy-to-remember dates throughout the year that are the same day of the week as the Doomsday: 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, and 12/12 are all the same day of the week as the last day of February. Additionally, for the odd months: 5/9, 9/5, 7/11 and 11/7. Finally, July 4th and Halloween are also the same day as the Doomsday. For example, if the Doomsday is Sunday, then April 9th is Friday, because it's five days after 4/4. November 25th is Thursday, because it's two weeks and four days after 11/7. Great, we're done.

Just to leave you with an arbitrary example, let's see what day of the week the Declaration of Independence was signed:

1. The Doomsday for 1700 is Sunday.
2. 76 divided by twelve is six remainder four, so you add six plus four plus one, or eleven days to Sunday, so the Doomsday for 1776 is Thursday.
3. July 4th is the same day of the week as February 29th 1776, so America declared its independence on a Thursday.

If anyone has any questions, fire them over; I'll be sure to correct your spelling and grammar, I mean answer them.

Sorry, One Last Thing

I know I said I finished Bill Simmons's book yesterday, which is true, but at the time I wrote those words yesterday I actually still had a few pages left. Az this is really going to be the final word. While discussing Boston's signing of Josh Beckett, he quotes Jack McKeon, "this guy has got the guts of a burglar." Then Simmons says in his own words, "I don't even know what that means, but I'm excited." What a fantastic nickname! Allen Iverson is "The Answer," Karl Malone is "The Mailman," Gary Carter is "The Kid," and now Josh Beckett can be "The Burglar." I love it for a couple of reasons. a) The word "burglar" is an extemely funny word. The "rgl" construction makes for high comedy. More on funny words in a minute. b) I always associate the word "burglar" with the Hamburglar from the McDonald's family. Also, Bilbo Baggins is commonly referred to as a burglar by Gandalf and the dwarves in "The Hobbit." Az this goes back to the nickname post. I still haven't come up with anything for myself, but "The Burglar" is a really good one. I'm gonna keep working on it.

Now onto the inherently funny word buisness (not misspelled, see SBe-mail #104, Theme Park). Most inherently funny words have some sort of inappropriate overtone or at least sound like they do. Examples of such words are: derriere, masticate, jiggery-pokery, thespian, and hormone. Other ones just sound funny because of the letters, like: tomfoolery, kerfuffle, kumquat, fisticuffs, and callipygian (If you look up "callipygian" you'll see that it means "having beautifully proportioned buttocks" as in "the quest for the callipygian ideal." Ladies, get to work.) I'm investigating some websites to find other funny words. Here's what else I got: cromulent, bonkers, crapulence, gubernatorial, phloem, polywog, platypus, whirligig, hootenanny, brouhaha, malarky, smarmy, fulcrum, nincompoop, bamboozle, cheese, penal, barnacle, garbanzo, rutabaga, doppelganger, fork, egg, duty, trousers, fondle, squeegee, flibbertigibbet, sasafras, gerbil, doohickey, syphylis, ointment, flan, and noodle. If anyone has any comments about this endless enumeration of entertaining expressions, feel free to add to the list. Until next time, help control the pet population. Have your pet spayed or neutered. Heh, add "neuter" to the list.

Random Thoughts of The Day

So after a grueling nine days, I finally finished Bill Simmons's book. My final thoughts are as follows: During the afterword, Bill mentions that it was a great feeling when he was standing in Barnes and Noble, and someone picked up his book to buy. I think I want to feel that at some point. To think that someday, someone might actually spend money to read something I wrote. Cherish these days my friends. One day I might start charging $9.95 per month for access to my musings.

So, I was doing the crossword puzzle today, and one of the clues was something like "friends with Tinky-Winky." Now I rarely cheat at the crossword by looking something up online, but I knew we were talking Teletubbies, and I really wanted to remember the other three (Dipsy, Laa-Laa, and Po). If I ever meet a purple creature named Tinky-Winky, I'm demanding a hug. Oh, if anyone wants to offer professional help in exchange for tutoring in math, let me know. ASAP.

So yesterday was just an awful day. Before I continue with that train of thought, I'm noticing that I start paragraphs with the word "so." All the time. Not only that, but I'm also typing a few sentence fragments today. You're gonna have to let those fragments slide. The "so" thing is valid; it was just something I noticed. I think I'm going to replace the word "so" with the word "az," in homage to a great man, one of my heroes. Az yesterday was just an awful day. Aside from a catastrophic, collective brain-fart by 3/4 of my fantasy football team, there were also a bunch of little things, which drove me up the wall. Ever try to take public trans on a sunday? It's the worst feeling in the world to JUST miss the subway, because you know you're going to have to wait another 17-29 minutes for the next one. Twice. Reason number two: Garbledina (See SBe-mail #114, The Facts). Anyway, the day was just unpleasant. But it's amazing how a word here, or a joke there, or an IM mixed in that can make everything alright again. At the end of the day, it's just money, or it's just a girl, or it's just a smashed up car, or it's just an extra 17-29 minutes. Things will work out; they always do.

Az I signed up for urbandictionary.com word of the day a week or two ago, and the word today was "pre-walk." A pre-walker is someone who positions himself or herself on the subway platform so that he or she can get off the subway in the optimal place to exit the destination station (Ooh, that's like conjunction junction except not at all!). The listing claimed that this phenomenon is especially true of the New York subway system and its riders. I do this; I'm definitely a cool cool guy. This can also be evidenced by the fact that a friend quoted me on her faceblog (read: facebook note). Not only am I cool because a cool girl quoted me, but also the quote was very funny. "Just call me Captain Transition-Lenses." Yep, definitely a cool cool guy.

This weekend I visited my Alma Mater. Now, my friend claims that I'm still a household name there (I even got a shoutout during a speech), but I think that's totally false. Either way, I learned that I could still throw my weight around over there. I can still drink them all under the table, and I can say whatever I want to whomever I want. What are they going to do, expel me? What's gonna happen, I'll freak out the 17 year old first-year girls who didn't go to Israel? They'll get over it. It's a great feeling to know that you absolutely OWNED a place for a year or two.

Ok, az that's all for today. Until next time, happy Nigeran Republic Day.

The Big One

Continuing my on-going series of commentary/reactions to Bill Simmons' book "Now I Can Die in Peace," I want to discuss two issues. When Bill proceeds to rehash his feelings during the 1986 playoffs, he mentions that everyone has a team from their teenage years with whom they lived and died. They can remember every pitch, every emotion, every bittersweet tear. For Bill it was the 1986 team that lost arguably the greatest World Series of all time to the New York Mets. Now, I was too young to know what was going on; I was only four, and I'm glad. I don't think I would appreciate baseball as much as I do now if my team had won during my formative years. Anyway, for Bill it was the 1986 Red Sox; for me it was the 1999 Mets. For the second straight year, the Mets, who were in good position to make the playoffs as the wild-card team had to endure a seven game losing streak at the end of September. In 1998 the streak finished us off, but in 1999, we still had a chance to at least tie for the wild-card spot if we could win two out of three on the the last weekend of the season. Anyway, the Mets did, and were forced to play the Cincinnati Reds in a one game playoff, the winner advancing to the playoffs. Al Leiter pitched his best game as a Met and they advanced to face the Arizona Diamondbacks. Two of the four games of that series took place on the Sabbath, so I couldn't watch them, but here's what I remember. On that saturday afternoon, my friend and I walked across the Queensboro Bridge to pass the time. I was wearing my Mets jersey, of course, and just as we were returning to my apartment building, a gentleman on a bicycle callously told us that the Mets had won and were advancing to the NLCS. Little did I know what was in store for me on SportsCenter that night. I got to see Todd Pratt clinch the series in the tenth inning with one of the greatest home runs in team history. Next stop: Atlanta, a veritable gehinom for the Mets over the last decade. There is not much to say about the first three games of that series. My hatred for the Joneses was at an all time high. No matter who was pitching you couldn't get the guys out. I think Chipper had like a .500 OBP for that series. Anyway, I was at the movies with my girlfriend for most of game four. I certainly don't remember what movie it was, but I do remember the yellow radio I had with me. (At this point my brother would insert a clever rejoinder like "still not married, huh?") When John Olerud's bouncer deflected off Rafael Furcal's glove to score the winning run, we almost had to leave the theater. I don't even need to write more than two words to describe my feelings about game five: "Grand Single." I don't think I need to write more than two words about game six either: "Kenny Rogers." Yes, the same Kenny Rogers who looked like he was a flame-throwing 24 year old in the World Series this year. When he walked Andruw Jones to force in the winning run in the ninth inning I was in utter despair. This was my team: Fonzie, Olerud, Rey, Al, Robin, Turk, Mikey. They were like my family; they were at my dinner table every night. Those were good days, innocent days. Geez, that was only seven years ago.

Anyway, the other issue I wanted to discuss was winning the big one. Even in his Red Sox book, Bill prints his article from when the Patriots won the Super Bowl in 2001. He describes his feelings as his team raised the Vince Lombardi trophy after Adam Vinatieri won the Super Bowl with the greatest kick of all time. That got me thinking, how would I react when my team wins the big one. Since I became a coherent, rational human being, the only time a team I supported won a championship was in 1994 when the Rangers beat the Canucks for the Stanley Cup. Now that doesn't count, because even at the time I could probably only name half a dozen of the players. The Giants have won, and the Yankees have won, but neither the Mets nor the Jets have earned the right to be called World Champs over the past 20 years. I don't know how I will react, but at this point I try to compare my relationship with my teams to my dating career. As I'm so fond of saying, you can strike out every time; you only need to hit one home run. Bill says that it's worth it. Keep supporting your team because eventually, they will win the big one. That euphoric feeling you get when your team reaches the pinnacle of its sport is worth all the heartache. So I'm going to write the Jets off for this year, and the Mets obviously broke my heart in October, but at least I still have the four most magical words in sports: "there's always next year."

Favorite of All Time

So this post will be similar to the last post in that both are inspired by Bill Simmons's book, "Now I Can Die in Peace," and both have to do with how we view athletes. (On a side note, while I was at Random McRandom's apartment for dinner on friday night, I skimmed through a bit of the aforementioned "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves," which had been minding its own business on her living room table. I noticed the chapter about apostrophes, and concluded that I didn't realize how many people screw them up. Notice above where I use the word "Simmons's." Since "Simmons" is a proper noun, you must put an apostrophe-S to make it possessive. If, however, I wanted to refer to the Sports Guy and Gal as a unit, I would pluralize them and say "the Simmonses." If I wanted to make them possessive, I would have to write "the Simmonses's house." I know it's absurd, but that's the way it is. Oh, and Random McRandom, at whose apartment I ate on friday night, and I are inextricably linked since we both have a blog. You can check her out, I mean check hers out at http://mabakankan.blogspot.com. I haven't read it yet, but I'll try.) In the second part of the book, Simmons recounts a story about how his buddy Gus, who had Tom Seaver spend time at his house, got to catch for him while Tom was considering making a comeback with the Mets in the early '90s. Bill wants us to understand what was going through his friend Gus's mind while this was going down: "Pick your favorite athlete of all time, then imagine that entire sequence of events somehow unfolding with you and that athlete." Now, I'm trying to imagine being in that situation, but who would the athlete be? I'm trying to create a set of rules for selecting a favorite athlete, and I think I've been pretty thorough.
Disclaimer: Instead or typing "he or she" and "him or her" and "his or her" all the time, I'm just going to use the masculine pronouns. I fully approve of women engaging in sports, and everyone is free to select Sheryl Swoopes or Annika Sorenstam or Danica Patrick for their favorite athlete. Ok, here goes:

1. The athlete must have played for your favorite team for at least a few years, or at the very least made a large impact on your team over a shorter period of time. For example, Arizona Diamondbacks fans are allowed to select Randy Johnson as their favorite player because even though he was there for a short time, he helped them win the World Series.
2. You must have liked the athlete from the beginning of his career. He did not necessarily need to start his career on your team, but you must have liked the athlete even before he arrived to play for you. For example, Mets fans are allowed to select Carlos Beltran, but only if they followed his career in Kansas City from its early stages. Bandwagon jumpers will not be tolerated here.
3. This rule applies not only to favorite players, but also to favorite teams. You cannot choose your favorite player based on anything tangible. You can't say "Albert Pujols is my favorite player because he hits 500 foot home runs," or "Orel Hershiser was my favorite player becase he pitched 59.2 consecutive scoreless innings," or "the Mets are my favorite team because my house is geographically closer to Shea Stadium than to Yankee Stadium." What would happen if those criteria stopped applying? What if you moved to the Bronx? What if Hershiser's record was stricken because of a technicality? This is the same for any kind of love. Saying, "I love my wife because she is a smokin' hottie," is foolish for obvious reasons. There can't be a reason you love someone or something. You love your team just because. You can't explain it; it's a sensation you feel deep inside your very soul. It's not even a consious decision you can make. You know you love a team when everything they do affects you. It's the ones you love who can cause you the most pain. To explain this point, allow me to quote Simmons from later on in the book: "Twenty minutes after the Yankees eliminated the Red Sox, I called my father to make sure he was still alive. And that's not even a joke. I wanted to make sure Dad wasn't dead. That's what it feels like to be a Sox fan. You make phone calls thinking to yourself, 'Hopefully, my dad picks up, because there's at least a five percent chance that the Red Sox just killed him.'" You live and die by your favorite players and your favorite teams; you can't help it.

With these thoughts in mind, I need to decide who my favorite player is. I can't come up with a list of players I like and then narrow it down; I need to look deep within myself and let my emotions decide for me. I realize that my mind already knows who it is, but it's keeping its thoughts to itself for the time being. It might be Wayne Chrebet, who left his heart out on the field every time he put on the green and white, and gave me a concussion every time he got one. It might be David Wright, who looks like he won the lottery every time he strolls out of the dugout, because he knows he gets to play baseball for a living. He might not even be on any sports radar yet, because he's only 11 years old. It might not even be fair for me to have a favorite player yet, because I'm only 24, and G-d willing I have 60 more years of watching sports ahead of me. For now, I'll continue to watch the players I like, and hopefully the moment will come when I know who my sports hero is.

Potential Hero

Ok, I'm probably exaggerating about his being a potential hero, but Ken Tremendous is definitely a man after my own heart. Since their website firejoemorgan.com is so outrageously awesome, I've been looking through their archives. I was reading the comments for one of their posts when I came across this gem from Ken:
'KT:
Actually, I didn't write any of the above except for "No idea who wrote this, but it's something:"

Rest assured, I would never, EVER, use the word "less" in place of the word "fewer."'

If anyone can't figure out why he is a man after my own heart, please go give yourself Tommy John surgery or something. And then read my blog.

Heroes

So, yesterday I started reading "Now I Can Die in Peace" by Bill Simmons, aka. The Sports Guy. I can foresee that I will make numerous references to this book for the next week or two, because Bill is hilarious, and I love sports. Had I been writing a blog when I read "Moneyball," the same thing would have happened. I mean, all I could talk about while I was reading moneyball was Scott Hatteberg (sole member of the most potent lineup in baseball), Kevin Youkilis (the Greek God of Walks), and Jason Giambi. I tried not to talk about Scott Kazmir a lot because every time he was mentioned in the book, and subsequently on SportsCenter, I died a little inside. I guess this also happened while I was reading a couple of books about e, Pi, and the Golden Ratio, but I won't regale you with those tales of suspense because my purpose here is not to put you to sleep. Although, there was this time I was discussing the theory of Special Relativity as described in Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe," and someone actually asked me to explain it to her again, but that was a statistical anomaly.
Anyway, moving right along, all I've read thusfar of Simmons's book is the prologue, and already it's begun to have an impact on my life. On page 14, Bill explains how he almost became a Mets fan in 1985 because he moved to southern Connecticut as a result of his parents' divorce, the Red Sox had just given away his childhood hero (Fred Lynn), and the Mets had a solid core of young talent (Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, etc.). This innocent statement got me thinking about who my childhood heroes were, and who my heroes are today. It's only natural for a boy to embrace his favorite sports players as heroes, especially because they seemed to truly play for love of the game and not for the exorbitant contracts for which they play today. When I became sports fan at the age of five in 1987, it was also natural for me to embrace the players on my team as my heroes. But looking back, would it be fair for me to call Darryl Strawberry my childhood hero? When my parents set my bedtime at 8:00, I was always praying that the Mets would get a runner on base in the first inning, so Darryl would get an at-bat before 8:00. 1988 was a magical year for the Mets, who finished with the best record in the National League and lost an epic seven game series to Orel Hershiser and the Los Angeles Dogders, who then went on to defeat the Oakland Athletics in the World Series. When the Dodgers exploded for six runs to start the seventh game of that series, I really cried. The only other time I can remember crying because of a sports-related event was in 1999 when my New York Jets lost the AFC championship game to the eventual Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos. But back to my point; who were these misfits who captured my heart in the mid/late 80s? Were they my childhood heroes? What is a hero? According to Dictionary.com, a hero is "a person of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his/her brave deeds and noble qualities." In what way is an athlete a hero? I guess you could call Lance Armstrong a hero for overcoming incredible odds and inspiring millions of people across the globe. But Darryl Strawberry was certainly no hero. He was a tall, thin man who was gifted with the ability to swing a wooden stick well. Was Fred Lynn a hero? Was Babe Ruth a hero? Is Barry Bonds a hero? I want to think of someone whom I can embrace as a hero, someone who embodies all the characteristics I admire. First, I need to determine what these characteristics are. I think the biggest indicator of someone with heroic qualities is someone who's approval I would strive to seek. I need to consider this carefully. If anyone wants to describe a hero of theirs, just so I could know some sample responses, that would be terrific.

Oh, and as a side note, in order to maintain the grammatical integrity of my site, my brother added another comment to the Thanksgiving post, so that below the post it said "2 comments." So, if anyone wants to respond to my Heroes post, please put two up there if you're the first. Gracias.

1 Comments

So my friend was reading my ridiculous post, and as he was scrolling down the page he noticed that below the "Observing Thanksgiving" post was printed "1 Comments." I was so excited about this for a few reasons. Firstly, it strengthens my claim that when it comes to grammar, the blogger people have absolutely no idea what's flying. Another words, when I sue them for removing a space each time I put a period, the only way they'll get off is with an insanity plea. I mean, anyone who can't program their websites to correct such a simple error as "1 Comments" must have a few gears loose. Secondly it provides an extremely smooth segue into talking about one of my favorite Strong Bad e-mails, which makes fun of the very same thing. Now, I mentioned e-mail #122 earlier when I was expounding on the "another words" phenomenon, but this e-mail has so much more good stuff in it. Anyway, when SB begins to describe his "dreamail" in accordance with Danny's request, the dream begins with the lappy turning on and happily declaring in her sexy, robotic voice: "Good morning, Strong Bad. You're looking prooty hot. You have one unread messages." According to hrwiki.org, this is a reference to older computer programs and answering machines that would use the word "messages" as a default and would not correct it when there was only one. Another words, the people at blogger are LAZY. The programmers, g-get some real programmers. G-get some real gloves. (See Halloween Costumes '03) There all sorts of other fun things in that e-mail. The "dreamail" he would like to receive reads as follows: "Dear Mssr. Eleganté, You left your pocketwatch in the hot tub. When will you be back to retrieve it? -128 Hot Katies" And during his response he comes up with several gems, such as: "I will triumphantly/abundantly return to the chateau for my ruby-encrusted pocketwatch. I have plans tonight, however, but I will, furthermore, heretofore, be back on morrow next. Please tell Adelaide that the poached eggs were tremendous." I really like the "triumphantly/abundantly" and "furthermore, heretofore" business. The rhyming/archaic language makes me feel all jangly. (See SB e-mail #130, "Do Over")

The poached eggs being tremendous also reminds me of the main writer for firejoemorgan.com, who calls himself Ken Tremendous. This has all the makings of the perfect nickname; it's short, self-explanatory, has alliterative qualities in that "Ken" rhymes with "men," and the word "tremendous" happens to be quite humorous. So, in homage to Ken, and in an effort to cement my legacy in the blog world, I decided that I need to come up with a nickname for myself, so I don't have to keep referring to myself as "Schmutter." So, if anyone has any ideas, feel free to send them in. Only serious responses will be considered. Another words, "Noah Croatoan," or some other such nonsense will only get a cursory glance. That was actually pretty impressive that I was able to come up with an adjective that sounded like my name so quickly. If anyone wants to know what "Croatoan" is, a link is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Island

So last night, I watched the movie "Match Point," starring the sublime Scarlett Johannson. At one point, one of the characters asked another if he was cross. Apparently, words I thought were used only in fantasy books are also used by the British. I'm not sure how I feel about that. If all fantasy books were written using British style English, then maybe when I finally get around to starting my fantasy novel, I'll write using American English and it's treasury of idioms. I'll need to think about it. Meanwhile, I'll be back in my doghouse crying myself to sleep. Happy Thai Father's Day.

More Fun with Words

I'm sorry I haven't posted for a while. I've been entertaining myself at work with this fantastic website, which is right up my alley. It has 15 pages worth of interesting facts about words. The reason I'm posting about it now is that I'm up to the page where it discusses "uncommon double letters," which is directly related to my last post. Just a couple of tidbits before I go into excruciating detail on uncommon double letters. That last sentence is a fragment, but I'm going to leave it. Anyway, onto the tidbits:
-CONSERVATIONALISTS/CONVERSATIONALISTS is an example of a long transposal (words which are anagrams of each other). The longest "well-mixed" transposals (no more than three consecutive letters in common) are BASIPARACHROMATIN/MARSIPOBRANCHIATA (17 letters) and THERMONASTICALLY/HEMATOCRYSTALLIN (16 letters).
That's pretty cool. What else:
- Craig Kasper says GORAN IVANESEVIC (a top tennis player) may be the longest name of a relatively famous person that alternates consonants and vowels.
-In English, ignoring spaces, the longest palindrome in Morse code is INTRANSIGENCE (.. -. - .-. .- -. ... .. --. . -. -.-. .). If spaces are not ignored, the longest word is FOOTSTOOL (..-. --- --- - ... - --- --- .-..)
- Some common words which change from one to three syllables upon the addition of just one letter are: ARE/AREA, CAME/CAMEO, LIEN/ALIEN, RODE/RODEO, ROME/ROMEO, SMILE/SIMILE.
-At a dam, there is a flooddoor. The controls for the flooddoor are in the flooddoorroom. Let's say the the boss at the dam calls a meeting in the flooddoorroom. The people who go to this meeting are FLOODDOORROOMMEETINGGOERS. And James Lehmann suggests: In the flooddoorroom, there is a book, which explains how to use the controls for the flooddoor, a FLOODDOORROOMBOOK, in which all four double-O's are pronounced differently.
-SYZYGY and ZYZZYVA, when written in cursive, have five letters in a row which descend below the line. SYZYGY is also the shortest word with three Y's.
-CWM (a glacial hollow on a hillside) has the rare W as a vowel, as does CRWTH (a type of stringed instrument). Both words are in MWCD10. They are pronounced "koom" and "krooth" (rhyming with room and truth).

Ok, those were pretty cool. If my coolty was ever in doubt, I believe any of those doubts have been sufficiently squushed. Oh, btw, according to urbandictionary.com, the word "coolty" has an extremely inappropriate definition. For all those interested, the definition can be found here: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=coolty
Since this is a family website, I can't state the definition here. Just know that when I used the word "coolty" I really mean the word "coolness." I just use "coolty" because in Strong Bad e-mail #115, when describing what would happen when his time capsule is found, he states: "Ooh! Then I'd put some dry ice in there so when they open it up it looks all smoky and steamy and it says a-like "froosh" when they first open it. There'll be no doubt about my coolty." Anyway, back to the uncommon double letters!
I don't understand the order they use on the website, but here goes:
HH appears in words such as withhold and bathhouse, but only in such compound words.
UU appears in words such as continuum, vacuum, and perpetuum; these are all very similar.
We already mentioned the VVs last time.
WW also only appears in compound words such as arrowwood and powwow.
All the other ones are either trivial, proper names, or extremely obscure such as Yablonovvy and jghaxxaq.
There are also several triple letters, but the only one that is not obscure is SSS, like in goddessship or countessship. Okay, that's all I got for now, but if I see some more cool jazz on that website I'll let you know. Until next time, it's back to the doghouse with me. Hameivin yavin.