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I got an e-mail from a friend earlier, and if I didn't know any better, I'd say it was me, posing as a girl, sending myself an e-mail, because it was totally something I would think about. I immediately had to start writing this post. Here's what she said: "also i like that this year is gonn abe [sic] 2008 because i like writng [sic] the nuber [sic] 8. just thought you would like to know." (just in case some of you are not familiar with what's in the square brackets, here is the definition from wikipedia: "...in writing, [sic] is placed within square brackets and usually italicized to indicate that an incorrect or unusual spelling, phrase, punctuation, and/or other preceding quoted material has been reproduced verbatim from the quoted original and is not a transcription error." I, of course, never make transcription errors, or any other errors for that matter. Meanwhile, I have just been informed that the e-mail typer was "tired" az she should be given a get-out-of-jail-free card this time around. I've always used that excuse when I've accidentally ended a clause with a preposition, or when I've accidentally put one space after a period instead of two. Oh no, wait, how silly of me; there are no excuses.) At that point I started thinking, well, how many different ways are there to write an eight?

I determined that there are three ways:

1. I start at the top and move my pencil to the left and down, and do the entire figure eight without lifting my pencil. When I get back to the top I curve around again so I meet the beginning of the eight.

2. Some people like to do almost the same thing. The only difference is instead of curving around at the end, they just extend the line in the same direction, az it looks like the eight has a tail coming out of the top.

3. The weirdos out there like to draw two small "o"s that connect. IMHO, that takes entirely too long. I also don't enjoy when they are written quickly and the two halves don't actually touch. Then it just looks like a big colon.

I think my favorite numbers to write are "4," "5," and "9." Here's a funny story about writing the number nine. My junior year of college, I took a math course called Modern Analysis. It's a very theoretical discipline, az it's pretty hard to actually teach and learn. Anyway, a third of the way through the semester we had our first exam. Class went from 9:10 to 10:25 am, az the teacher, Patrick X. Gallagher, head of the math department and maniacal shirt-perspirer, would write the time on the chalkboard to let us know how much time we had left. Az since he wrote like "Time now: 9:35. Time left: 50 minutes," my friend and I actually discussed later how much we enjoyed the way he wrote the number nine. It occurred to us that we never noticed it until then because it was the first time all semester that he actually wrote the number nine. Modern Analysis is so theoretical that the only actual numbers he ever wrote were zero, one, and occasionally two. Otherwise he would only use variables. I hope I didn't lose any of you there. Better than writing about sports I guess.

Oh, and as long as I mentioned it earlier in my digression on "[sic]," I'd like to make sure that you all know the difference between parentheses, square brackets, and curly braces. Those things around the "sic" are square brackets. They're mostly used in math for matrices. Everyone knows what parentheses are, I hope. They're used in math to determine order of operations, in combinatorics, and when naming functions (e.g. f(x) is a function of x). Curly braces: { and } are mostly used in computer programming, but also in math for describing sets and probabilities, and for functions that have different definitions depending on the argument. For example:
f(x)
= {0 x<= 0
= {x x>0

Whenever I get a new student to tutor I always make sure that they know how to draw curly braces. If anyone wants a drawing lesson let me know. I charge $80 an hour. Good day all.

A Real Post This Time. Enjoy.

Az I've got a couple of items on tap tonight. Firstly, I'd like to add another product onto my ever growing list of things that are most commonly known by one of the brand names. Today one of my friends (you know who you are) e-mailed me, telling me that her coworker stole her whiteout, which made her sad, az she stole someone else's, which made her happy. Since it's right after Yom Kippur, and she needed to be punished for stealing, I corrected her usage of the word "whiteout" by saying that the brand name one is spelled "Witeout" without an "H." I'm kinda scared that she said that she totally knew I was going to say that. Anyway, put Witeout on the list, because nobody, and I mean NOBODY refers to the stuff as "liquid paper."

Moving right along... One of my friends referred me to a website called xkcd.com, which has a bunch of comics on it. As stated on the page, xkcd.com is "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language." Another words, it's right up my side street. I can't even begin to tell you how much I enjoy some of the comics, but I'd like to mention one right now that really reminds me of something from my childhood. Comic #45 shows people walking on a tiled floor, and one of the people subconsciously walks on only the black tiles. The point is that the caption on the comic states, "the worst part is when the sidewalk cracks are out of sync with your natural stride." Anyone feel the same way? I totally remember that when I was younger I used to take exactly two steps every sidewalk tile. Maybe I'm weird but I know I definitely did this. Like you know how some baseball pitchers never step on the foul line when they come on and off the field (a la Turk Wendell)? It's the same thing. I never wanted to step on the cracks in the sidewalk. Now all that nonsense started to remind me of the stairwells down and up which I walked frequently when I was younger. Par exemple, I grew up in my parents' apartment on the third floor of 45 East End Avenue. I know that there are two steps in one direction and then 14 steps to the left to go up from the lobby to the second floor, and then there is one step up to the left and another 14 from the second to the third floor. I distinctly remember positioning myself in such a way that if I were to take two steps at a time with each foot, I would land on the ground with my left foot. Everyone following? Like to get from the second floor to the third floor I would start by going up the one step with my right foot, and then take two steps at a time up the 14 steps to the third floor beginning with my left foot.

Everyone has clearly lost me, but I don't care. I'm doing this for me. In fact, I was reminiscing with my friend last night, and in order to remember something I actually referred to my blog! I was immensely pleased about that for some reason.

Anywho, in closing (this is where I would restate my thesis if I were writing the good ol' five-paragraph essay), I want to respond to someone who commented on my last post. Now, I was expecting at least one comment when I wrote:

Sample statements that would not be allowed:
"The Yankees are the best team in baseball."
"Derek Jeter is a good shortstop."
"Willie Randolph should be fired."

I'm not saying that any of the above statements are false (Only 1 of them is probably true)

The person who responded said "It's the Jeter one, right?" Now this might be someone trying to bait me into getting my dander up and attacking them with stats until their head a splodes (see Strong Bad E-mail #94, Video Games), or it might be a genuine guess as to which one is true. Well, let me tell you Captain Smarty Skirts, that is clearly the only one that is blatantly false. Derek Jeter, by every true metric, is a far below-average shortstop. I don't have his exact zone rating numbers or his defensive +/-, but when I do, you're gonna be sorry you ever messed with THIS guy. The one that was probably the most true was the first one. The Yankees, at this point, might be the safest bet to win the world series because their hitting is clicking at the right time, and their once suspect pitching staff has really become very solid with the influx of new talent (Hughes, Chamberlain, Kennedy, Mussina (sshh...(Ooh, three nested parentheses; good for me. And a semicolon to boot!))). But don't tell anyone I said that. Maybe I'm just bitter about giving up 13 fweakin' runs to the fweakin' Washington Mutuals in my last game of the season. I need to go to bed. Gnight me.

Just a Quick Word

Here's a real quickie because I'm insanely busy at work, what with all these holidays and such. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE must follow this rule, especially this time of year, and I'm going to put it in bold to indicate how strongly I feel about this:

IF YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT SPORTS THEN YOU CAN'T COMMENT ABOUT SPORTS.

There are a few exceptions to this rule. If you don't know anything about sports you're allowed to make blatantly obvious statements, such as:
"Man, the Yankees are playing well right now."
"I heard about that James Thome hitting his 500th home run."
"The playoffs are starting soon."
"The Mets pitching has been pretty awful recently."

Sample statements that would not be allowed:
"The Yankees are the best team in baseball."
"Derek Jeter is a good shortstop."
"Willie Randolph should be fired."

I'm not saying that any of the above statements are false (Only 1 of them is probably true); I'm saying that unless you have an armory full of ammunition to support a claim like any of those, don't say it, because I will attack you with stats until your brain explodes.