OOO Donuts!

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.