As my friend so aptly reminded me this week, I've only written three posts in March. I realize that I've been slacking, but it's because I'm not working! While I was at work I wanted to futz around, so I had a reason to post all the time. But now that I'm not working, I have all sorts of other ways to waste time, like by watching movies and playing fantasy baseball. Okay, obviously I'd still be doing fantasy baseball at work, but still. Anywho, for all my loyal readers, I humbly beseech your forgiveness on this, the day of my daughter's wedding, uh, I mean at this holiday season (See "Family Guy," season two, episode 16, "There's Something About Paulie"). I'll try to do better. It's my new year's(?) resolution.
Az, as everyone knows, I'm not only anal about grammar, I'm also really good with standardized grammar tests. Hold on, lemme break my arm patting myself on the back for a sec. Ah, there we go. Anyway, so I got a perfect score on the SATII Writing exam, and even back in high school, they made everyone in the entire grade take the same grammar test, and I got the highest score with a 98.5. What happened to the other point and a half, you ask? I still claim the teacher made a stnank. Whatever, who cares? Ehenyway, today I received a request for to bring, and I quote, "wine or grape juice and fruit?" for a Shabbos meal. Az even though I completely understood the request, I had to be the consummate mathematician/grammarian and responded, "I assume that's (wine or grape juice) and fruit." Another words, in order to determine exactly what was requested of me, I reverted to the old school Order of Operations. I thought that was sufficiently nerdy of me. I was quite pleased.
Az I was recently having a conversation with a certain acronymably delightful young lady about donuts. Just as an aside, during the course of this conversation, she asked me what kind of donut I would be if I was one, az I replied that I would be a glazed cream filled: all smooth and shiny on the outside, and all sugary sweetness on the inside. Ehehenyway, I just finished a book called "Beyond Numeracy," by John Allen Paulos. Basically it's just a collection of short essays on various topics in mathematics, ranging from Calculus to humor. In the entry on topology, he explains that a coffee cup is topologically equivalent to a donut. Another words, without tearing the donut, you could theoretically stretch it to resemble a coffee cup. I thought that was a nice way of explaining a relatively esoteric topic. Just to reinforce my coolty, allow me to explain the difficulty I had with this book. In one of the entries, he discusses Fermat's Last Theorem as being one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in mathematics. I immediately went to check the copyright date on the book, and to my immense chagrin, I saw that the book was published in 1991, a full three years before Fermat's Last Theorem was proved by Andrew Wiles. I don't think I can read a math book containing modern topics that was written before 1994. I just find it weird is all, unsettling... Wow, that's two references to the same part of the same Strong Bad e-mail two posts in a row; I'm starting to get repetitious. I'll try to mix it up next time; I'm a bit out of practice. Yep, that was two sentences in a row with semi-colons.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
By The Numbers
Remember a few posts ago when I mentioned I was having difficulties with my computer keyboard? Well, my new keyboard came in the mail today and I just installed it. Yay! Not only does this one actually work 100% of the time, but it also matches the rest of the computer; it's black! And anyone who knows me knows how I feel about matching. Plus, the buttons on Christina here press oh so smoothly, reminiscent of the HCHPAC, a reference which exactly one of my readers will understand. I'll explain that in a minute.
Az in an effort to break in Christina, I went to latimes.com to do a Su Doku. Now, for those of you who think that people who are good with numbers are better at Su Doku than other random folks, you're wrong. All those numbers in that big square (that guy. Unsettling! See SB e-mail #114, "The Facts") might as well be letters because you don't need to perform any operations on them. You just need to use each number between one and nine once in each row and column. Another words, they might as well be the letters between A and I, or for that matter the letters between K and S, or for that matter, the symbols: !, @, #, $, %, ^, &, *, and (.
Anyway, while I was doing that Su Doku, I was using the new number pad on my keyboard, and it occurred to me that number pads on keyboards are different that number pads on touch-tone telephones and on Automatic Teller Machines. On keyboards the 1, 2, and 3 buttons are on the bottom while the 7, 8, and 9 are on the top. But on telephones it's the exact opposite. If anyone has any idea why that is, please run it through my idiot filter "Edga Jr." (See SB e-mail #127, "Long Pants") before submitting it in any comments, and certainly if you wish to share your thoughts with me in person.
Okay fine, I'll tell the HCHPAC story, not like it'll improve anyone's opinion of me. Back when I was at CTY (The Center for Talented Youth. Yes, I'm a bloomin' genius. I know.) the summer after 10th grade, I took a three week course in high school level Number Theory. Now my professors, Timmer and Quimby, were pretty crazy guys, and they realized that we were studying Mathematics over the summer instead of playing sports like normal children, az they tried to keep class exciting by doing various skits and making lots of jokes. Anyway, my roommate loves to shower. Anyway, they liked to have each student come up to the blackboard to solve problems all the time, and everyone, and I mean EVERYONE wanted to go up to solve the problem when the rights to the HCHPAC were at stake. Nothing draws on the blackboard as smoothly as the Highly Coveted Hot Pink Artist's Chalk. So smooth...
There, happy now? That's all it is with you people; take take take. Ah well, I couldn't resist.
Az in an effort to break in Christina, I went to latimes.com to do a Su Doku. Now, for those of you who think that people who are good with numbers are better at Su Doku than other random folks, you're wrong. All those numbers in that big square (that guy. Unsettling! See SB e-mail #114, "The Facts") might as well be letters because you don't need to perform any operations on them. You just need to use each number between one and nine once in each row and column. Another words, they might as well be the letters between A and I, or for that matter the letters between K and S, or for that matter, the symbols: !, @, #, $, %, ^, &, *, and (.
Anyway, while I was doing that Su Doku, I was using the new number pad on my keyboard, and it occurred to me that number pads on keyboards are different that number pads on touch-tone telephones and on Automatic Teller Machines. On keyboards the 1, 2, and 3 buttons are on the bottom while the 7, 8, and 9 are on the top. But on telephones it's the exact opposite. If anyone has any idea why that is, please run it through my idiot filter "Edga Jr." (See SB e-mail #127, "Long Pants") before submitting it in any comments, and certainly if you wish to share your thoughts with me in person.
Okay fine, I'll tell the HCHPAC story, not like it'll improve anyone's opinion of me. Back when I was at CTY (The Center for Talented Youth. Yes, I'm a bloomin' genius. I know.) the summer after 10th grade, I took a three week course in high school level Number Theory. Now my professors, Timmer and Quimby, were pretty crazy guys, and they realized that we were studying Mathematics over the summer instead of playing sports like normal children, az they tried to keep class exciting by doing various skits and making lots of jokes. Anyway, my roommate loves to shower. Anyway, they liked to have each student come up to the blackboard to solve problems all the time, and everyone, and I mean EVERYONE wanted to go up to solve the problem when the rights to the HCHPAC were at stake. Nothing draws on the blackboard as smoothly as the Highly Coveted Hot Pink Artist's Chalk. So smooth...
There, happy now? That's all it is with you people; take take take. Ah well, I couldn't resist.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
A Coupla Random Tidbits
Firstly, I've never gotten as many google messages from different people as I have today. Why? Because today is Pi Day. Yes, that's right, March, 14th, 3/14 is Pi Day. 'Member Pi? That thing you learned about in elementary school that's defined as the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter? Well, since the decimal expansion of Pi comes out to 3.14 accurate to two decimal places, it was determined that 3/14 would be Pi Day. Someone asked me today how many digits I know by heart, so in case anyone else is curious I know these by heart: 3.14159265358979323. Yay, me. Remember my post "Technical Names" where I discussed quarks having a quantifiable characteristic called strangeness? I mentioned that my strangeness would probably be at least e^(i*Pi)+1. That's that crazy cat Pi showing up in bizarre places again. Btw, e^(i*Pi)+1 = 0, for all you curious folks out there. Mmkay, enough nerdiness for today.
Az, the urbandictionary.com word of the day a few days ago was "pre-pull." Here's the definition: "The act of pulling the car door handle at the moment the driver unlocks the door, rendering the attempt fruitless, and resulting in minor frustration and/or embarrassment." Seriously, this happens all the freakin' time! First people just try to open the car door, and then I reach to unlock all the doors, and they're still a-pullin'! Okay, that was my rant against pre-pullers.
Az, I'm watching Lost at the Ar-Aitch-Ar's place and she pulls out this generic soda for us to have. Apparently, it came highly recommended from her friend. Now, let me tell you, nothing quenches my thirst quite like a room-temperature, store brand, diet black cherry soda. So to spice it up a little bit, she added in ice cubes. But I felt bad drinking the soda until the ice melted, because her ice-cube maker has duck shapes in it. Az, I waited until those cute little ducks no longer resembled their flying, feathered brethren. That made me feel better about myself, especially since I gorged myself on chicken earlier in the day. Moving right along...
A coupla nights ago I applied to a job online, and they asked you to take an online typing test and have the results sent to them. They wanted to be sure that their applicants could type more than 55 words per minute with at least 95% accuracy. Guess who rocked that test! Yeah, that's right, 106 words per minute, 97% accuracy. Okay, now I'll look for a real job. Anyone has any leads on any entry-level finance jobs, lemme know. Or if y'all know any high school kids who need help in math I can do that too. I charge $80 an hour. :)
Az, the urbandictionary.com word of the day a few days ago was "pre-pull." Here's the definition: "The act of pulling the car door handle at the moment the driver unlocks the door, rendering the attempt fruitless, and resulting in minor frustration and/or embarrassment." Seriously, this happens all the freakin' time! First people just try to open the car door, and then I reach to unlock all the doors, and they're still a-pullin'! Okay, that was my rant against pre-pullers.
Az, I'm watching Lost at the Ar-Aitch-Ar's place and she pulls out this generic soda for us to have. Apparently, it came highly recommended from her friend. Now, let me tell you, nothing quenches my thirst quite like a room-temperature, store brand, diet black cherry soda. So to spice it up a little bit, she added in ice cubes. But I felt bad drinking the soda until the ice melted, because her ice-cube maker has duck shapes in it. Az, I waited until those cute little ducks no longer resembled their flying, feathered brethren. That made me feel better about myself, especially since I gorged myself on chicken earlier in the day. Moving right along...
A coupla nights ago I applied to a job online, and they asked you to take an online typing test and have the results sent to them. They wanted to be sure that their applicants could type more than 55 words per minute with at least 95% accuracy. Guess who rocked that test! Yeah, that's right, 106 words per minute, 97% accuracy. Okay, now I'll look for a real job. Anyone has any leads on any entry-level finance jobs, lemme know. Or if y'all know any high school kids who need help in math I can do that too. I charge $80 an hour. :)
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Some Good Ol' Stories
There are a coupla stories that I like to tell because they're somewhat cutesy wootsey(?) and appropriate for all ages. I think I'll even add in a new one because I found it hilarious. Mmkay, here goes:
1. As many of you know, I have a subscription to Blockbuster online, which allows me to rent a monstrous mountain of movies. I even get to rent movies that I otherwise probably wouldn't see, like "Brokeback Mountain." One Monday night a coupla months ago, I was engrossed in said film, and a friend of mine IMed me asking me if I wanted to join him to watch Monday Night Football. I told him I was busy watching Brokeback and I would rather do that. Obviously he won't let me hear the end of it. A few weeks later he said something like, "hey, remember that time I asked you if you wanted to do something really manly with me and you decided to watch 'Brokeback' instead?" Never gonna live it down.
2. Another one of my friends likes to remind me of one of the first jokes I ever made to her. I forget what the context was, but apparently she was wearing a jean skirt and a jean jacket. I said something along the lines of "do you have any idea how many poor denims they had to kill to make that outfit?" The highest of high comedy. Onto the new story!
3. Last night we went to our new building to have a meeting with their co-op management board in their package room. On the door to the package room hangs a list of all the apartments in the building with three check boxes next to each. The boxes are there to indicate what kind of pests reside in the corresponding apartment. The boxes read "rodents," "insects," and "other." Now, all of the apartments that have pests have the "insects" box checked, except for one. That apartment had the "other" box checked, and on the line next to the "other" box is written a single word: "monsters." They nearly had to call the board to tell them to come another night because I was in absolutely no condition to meet with anyone for the next 10-15 minutes. Great times all around in the new building. Should bode well for things to come.
1. As many of you know, I have a subscription to Blockbuster online, which allows me to rent a monstrous mountain of movies. I even get to rent movies that I otherwise probably wouldn't see, like "Brokeback Mountain." One Monday night a coupla months ago, I was engrossed in said film, and a friend of mine IMed me asking me if I wanted to join him to watch Monday Night Football. I told him I was busy watching Brokeback and I would rather do that. Obviously he won't let me hear the end of it. A few weeks later he said something like, "hey, remember that time I asked you if you wanted to do something really manly with me and you decided to watch 'Brokeback' instead?" Never gonna live it down.
2. Another one of my friends likes to remind me of one of the first jokes I ever made to her. I forget what the context was, but apparently she was wearing a jean skirt and a jean jacket. I said something along the lines of "do you have any idea how many poor denims they had to kill to make that outfit?" The highest of high comedy. Onto the new story!
3. Last night we went to our new building to have a meeting with their co-op management board in their package room. On the door to the package room hangs a list of all the apartments in the building with three check boxes next to each. The boxes are there to indicate what kind of pests reside in the corresponding apartment. The boxes read "rodents," "insects," and "other." Now, all of the apartments that have pests have the "insects" box checked, except for one. That apartment had the "other" box checked, and on the line next to the "other" box is written a single word: "monsters." They nearly had to call the board to tell them to come another night because I was in absolutely no condition to meet with anyone for the next 10-15 minutes. Great times all around in the new building. Should bode well for things to come.
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