Tuesday, March 08, 2005

3/7/05 TV Commercials

Once again I have a beef with TV. I forget what I was watching, but some commercial came on for a financial institution. They were selling you on your future financial freedom and a bull jumped through a large pane of glass. The background music was "The Chain" by Fleetwood Mac. Which, if you don't know it, is about a nasty breakup between two of the bands' members. The lyrics are:
"And if you don't love me now, you will never love me again. I can still hear you saying, you would never break the chain."
Whoever decided that would be a good idea should be brought out back and shot. In the leg. I would never suggest killing anyone. But this person should be severely punished.

And just now I was sort of watching "Celebrity Fit Club" on VH1. There are 8 pseudo-celebrities who are competing to lose weight with diet and exercise. (Side note: Ralphie May is freakin' hilarious). To me, that's a noble show to put on TV. It promotes weight loss and health conscious eating, which is a wonderful inspiration for everyone watching. And a breath of fresh air from "Nip and Tuck" and "The Swan" and all of those other plastic surgery shows. Then I see a commercial during the show for a caramel sundae. It's moments like that where I'm ready to jab a pencil in my eye to numb the pain of the shear stupidity I have to watch every time I turn on my TV.

What's Special About This Number? - This is a mathematician's wet dream. It explains the significance of many numbers from 1-9999. For example, 6788 is the smallest number with multiplicative persistence 6. 1044 is the number of graphs with 7 vertices. 1033 = 8^1 + 8^0 + 8^3 + 8^3. 762 is the first decimal digit of PI where a digit occurs four times in a row.

Thanks to Jason P. for sending a Texas Hold 'Em Calculator. His books and online resources have helped my game tremendously. So watch out - I'm getting ready for the 2006 World Series of Poker.

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