Mathematical story problems are a source of eternal amusement for me. The person who writes them probably has a ton of fun, probably almost as much as the guy who writes the predictions in fortune cookies.
A classic example of coincidentally hilarious results comes from a math test I (and many other children, both homeschooled and otherwise) took about two and a half years ago.
In this case it was a problem about four people who were running or something. There were five girls, all with beautiful names, in the problem.
It’s also important that you know of another family we know. They have… eleven kids, ten girls.
Now, coincidentally, each of these names in the math problem, was also the name of one of these ten girls. That‘s coincidence at it’s finest.
This year, I am working my way through Advanced Mathematics and this in of itself has it’s own share of unfortunately named participants. For example, a recent story problem started, “Lorijayne smiled, for she had purchased c cats for only d dollars.”
Another rather beautiful “‘coincidence’ occurred, for me, more recently, this afternoon.
The one really beautiful correlation that was overlooked occured in problem set 49, problem number five:
“Mugabee thought he was rich because he was paid $240 for a 40-hour week.”
To really get this effect, you must read it out loud:
“Mugabee thought he was rich because he was paid $240 for a 40-hour week.”
Here’s another sentence for you to read out loud, from a Wikipedia article:
“Zimbabwe today is in conflict over the reign of President Robert Mugabe.”
Apparently, my math book was written before all these problems in Zimbabwe. Apparently, it was written before the whole world new who President Mugabe was. Apparently, it was written before the whole world new it was cheaper to use Zimbabwe Dollars as wallpaper than as actual currency.
That quote about President Robert Mugabe continues: “Human rights abuses and economic mismanagment leading to hyperinflation and impoverishment have increased popular support for newly sworn in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai.” [emphasis added]
Conclusion?
You Just Don’t use ‘Mugabee’ as a name for some average guy who thinks he’s rich because he earned $240 dollars. Because my first thought was, ‘Wait, Mugabe uses ZWD… the one’s that have no value. Because 240 of them is only 3USD.’
Also, maybe we could just force these story problem writers to keep them selves updated on the news.
Foxtrot: Fibonachos
We have just recently watched The Pink Panther twice, and my new favorite movie one line part of a scene is most decidedly:
Inspector Clouseau is talking to the owner of all the casino’s and his cell phone rings the obnoxious little song that everyone has as their ringtone. Come on. You know the one.
Anyway, his cellphone rings, and he reaches to answer it (with a vase stuck on his hand), and as he does so, he says,
“It is my personalized cell-phone tone-ring.”
First, of course, is the fact that the ringtone is so not personalized.
Next, is the fact that he is calling his ringtone a ‘tone-ring’. Anyone who might have a personalized ringtone would have seen the word ‘ringtone’ often enough to know that it’s a ringtone, not a tone-ring.
*The stuffed eskimo might be able to stop laughing at some point, but not now.*
We left bright and late at 5pm Sunday evening. We’d gone to church, then come home and packed. And then sat. And. Waited. In fact, by 4.45pm, we were all sitting around watching Transformers.
At the end of 2008, Pepsi came out with new logo:
old logos:
new logo:
As I’m sure you can imagine (and google) this has caused quite a stir among the online community. To summarize, some people thought the change from wave to smile was genius. Others considered the change absolutely pointless and ugly.
This too caused expression of opinions. Most (everyone) thought the thing was bogus, pretentious, and just a way to make a logo sound impressive.
Personally? I think the smile is splendiferously genius. I like the plain cans with the simple sans-serif font. However, I agree that the off-centered words/logo/calorie count doesn’t work. The ‘si’ on the end is a little lost from the rounded ‘pep’.
What do you guys think?
2009_09_19 Update: I have turned comments off, because this is the post on which i get all my spam. If you have something to tell me, do it on a post not written eight months ago. Thanks.
Let me just say that, by South African standards, I am as pale as it gets.
But by English standards?
I might as well be from Brazil.
“I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood.
They’re beautiful.
Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.”
I looked at these, and my thought was ‘Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle‘!
^_^
Also? Unless I die within the next 36 hours, I will be in England (or on the plane) when this posts.
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