3154

In March 2000, a leftover piece of French toast, half-eaten Justin Timberlake of N*SYNC was sold on a website. The entire group of N*SYNC was on the Z-Morning Zoo, some sort of TV show, on March 9th. On the show, Justin only ate one bite of his French toast! The seller said that the buyer would get Justin's half-eaten French toast, the fork he used, and the plate...complete with extra syrup! After a total of 40 bids and not even two days on the internet, the French toast was sold for a total of $3,154 dollars.

Read more: http://www.uphaa.com/blog/index.php/auction-bizarre/?section=6

3470

Here is an ad for the Ralph Lauren collection at Saks Fifth Avenue.

 

How much does this outfit cost? 

shirt = $425
belt = $350
jeans = $395
boots = $850
handbag = $1450

total = $3470

- 3 million

Average time, in millions of years, between mass extinctions on Earth: 62

Millions of years since Earth's last mass extinction: 65

124,627

The number of hairs on his body, counted by Stanley, a character in Stream of Consciousness, when the "Stream" network goes bonkers trying to get as much data as possible.

Outer Limits (second edition, running 1995-2002)
Episode 6 of Season 3
Stream of Consciousness

To view the episode:

http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi2220819225/

Info on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_Consciousness_(The_Outer_Limits) 


(posted by Don)

555 95472

555 95472, usually referred to as "5", is a character in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. He debuted in 1963, and continued to appear on and off in the strip until 1981. "5" has spiky hair and sometimes wears a shirt with the number five on it. 95472 is the family's "last name", or more specifically their ZIP code. In reality, it is the ZIP code for Sebastopol, California, where Charles M. Schulz was living at the time the character was introduced. "5" has to keep telling his teacher that the accent is on the 4 in his surname. Snoopy is confused as to whether the boy's name is spelled 5 or as the Roman numeral V.

As "5" once explained to Charlie Brown, his father, morose and hysterical over the preponderance of numbers in people's lives, had changed all of his family's names to numbers. Asked by Lucy if it was Mr. 95472's way of protesting, "5" replied that this was actually his father's way of "giving in." "5" also has two sisters named "3" and "4". ("Nice feminine names," in Charlie Brown's sarcastic assessment.) It can be assumed that their parents are named "1" and "2".

any arbitrary constant

70

A "weird number" is a number that is less than the sum of its proper factor, yet is not equal to the sum of any subset of them.

70 is the smallest weird number. 

Its proper factors are 1, 2, 5, 7, 10, 14, and 35.  The sum of these is 74.  But you can not add up a subset of these numbers to get 70.

(Amy)

1985

Debbie just hit the wall
She never had it all
One Prozac a day
Husband's a CPA
Her dreams went out the door
When she turned twenty four
Only been with one man
What happened to her plan?

She was gonna be an actress
She was gonna be a star
She was gonna shake her ass
On the hood of Whitesnake’s car
Her yellow SUV is now the enemy
Looks at her average life
And nothing has been alright since

Bruce Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on MTV
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she’s uncool
Cause she's still preoccupied
With 1985

She’s seen all the classics
She knows every line
Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink
Even Saint Elmo’s Fire
She rocked out to Wham
Not a big Limp Bizkit fan
Thought she’d get a hand
On a member of Duran Duran

Where’s the mini-skirt made of snake skin
And who’s the other guy that's singing in Van Halen
When did reality become T.V.
Whatever happened to sitcoms, game shows
on the radio was

Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on MTV
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she’s uncool
Cause she's still preoccupied
With 1985

She hates time make it stop
When did Motley Crue become classic rock?
And when did Ozzy become an actor?
Please make this stop
Stop!
And bring back

Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on MTV
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she’s uncool
Cause she's still preoccupied
With 1985

27

27 is the smallest 2-digit number in which the sum of digits is equal to the sum of prime factors:

27 = 3 x 3 x 3 and 2 + 7 = 3 + 3 + 3

6000

Chiune Sugihara (杉原 千畝 Sugihara Chiune^?, 1 January 1900 – 31 July 1986) was a Japanese diplomat who served as Vice-Consul for the Empire of Japan in Lithuania. During World War II, he helped several thousand Jews leave the country by issuing transit visas to Jewish refugees so that they could travel to Japan. Most of the Jews who escaped were refugees from German-occupied Poland and residents of Lithuania. Sugihara wrote travel visas that facilitated the escape of more than 6,000 Jewish refugees to Japanese territory, risking his career and his family's lives

On a personal note, one of these was my friend's father.

For more information:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiune_Sugihara

3

Camels have three eyelids.

Due to the swirling sand in the desert, camels use their third eyelid to act like a windshield wiper for their eyes.

 

 

8,503,985

There is a scene in Erin Brockovich where her neighbor asks for her number.

George: Give me your number, huh?  I'll call you proper and ask you out and everything.

Erin: You want my number?

George: I do, yeah.  I want your number.

Erin: What number do you want, George?.

George: How many numbers you got?

Erin: Oh, I got numbers comin' outta my ears. For instance: ten.

George: Ten?

Erin: Yeah. That's how many months old my baby girl is.

George: You got a little girl?

Erin: Yeah. Yeah, sexy, huh? How 'bout this for a number? Six. That's how old my other daughter is, eight is the age of my son, two is how many times I've been married -- and divorced; sixteen is the number of dollars I have in my bank account. 850-3943. That's my phone number, and with all the numbers I gave you, I'm guessing zero is the number of times you're gonna call it.

(I left out a few irrelevant lines)

I was trying to find the video from  the movie, but all I found was a bunch of videos of the dialogue being acted out by other people.  So here is one of them.

1/2

I took an informal survey of acquaintances to see how much pastrami you should have if you are throwing a dinner party.  The general opinion seems to be half a pound per person.  (Although I agree with Jim's answer that the person's weight should be the upper bound.)

119

119₵ is the most money you can have in coins and not be able to change $1.  (3 quarters, 4 dimes, 4 pennies.  Other arrangements are also possible.)

1.3

58 year old Peter Fowler holds the world record for drinking 1 liter of beer in just 1.3 seconds.

47 million

47 million is the estimated number of Americans that rush to get their taxes filed at the last minute.

17,600

Between 2002 and 2010, according to the March BJU International (formerly British Journal of Urology), an estimated 17,600 patients came to U.S. hospital emergency rooms reporting genital injuries from trouser zippers (presumably by accident, but researchers took no position on that). Seven authors (six from University of California, San Francisco) took credit for the report, funded by a National Institutes of Health grant, and found that "zip" wounds were only about one-fifth of emergency penile injuries.

7

A mouse, a human, and a giraffe each have 7 vertabrae in their neck.

2000

2,000th Member of Lost Tribe Returns Home

Israel marked an aliyah (immigration) milestone Thursday with the arrival of the 2,000th member of the Bnei Menashe community. Eighteen-year-old Mirna Singsit arrived in Israel along with 53 other members of the community, including her parents and three siblings.

The Bnei Menashe live in the Manipur state in northeastern India. They claim descent from the Biblical tribe of Menashe, one of the ten “lost tribes” exiled when the Assyrians invaded the northern kingdom of Israel.

The community is now returning to Israel under the auspices of the Shavei Israel organization, a group that encourages communities of “lost Jews” around the world, including descendants of Jewish converts to Catholicism.

Shavei Israel director Michael Freund gave Singsit a certificate naming her the 2,000th arrival. Singsit told him that her arrival in Israel is the fulfillment of a life-long dream.

“It’s hard to express in words how excited and happy I am right now,” she said. “This isn’t just my dream from the day I was born, it’s been my community’s dream for thousands of years, and now it’s finally coming true.”

She plans to complete a degree in political science that she began in India, and then work as a teacher. Her family will start its life in Israel in an absorption center, but Singsit says she hopes to someday move to Jerusalem, “the holiest place on earth.”

The arrival of the 54 new immigrants was “unforgettable,” Freund said. “After 2,700 years, the tribe of Menashe is coming home,” he declared.

The government allowed immigration from Manipur to resume last October after a five-year freeze. Since then 275 members of the Bnei Manashe community have come to Israel as new citizens. The latest arrivals will live in an absorption center in Givat Haviva, and are then expected to move to Akko and Migdal Haemek in northern Israel.

(copied from Ariz Sheva website)

You figure out the number!

Try this without a calculator or computer:


log (1/2) + log (2/3) + log (3/4) + log (4/5) + log (5/6) + log (6/7) + . . . + log (999/1000)


(answer will be posted tomorrow in the comments)

9

An analysis of the regime's significant dates shows a dynasty of Kims obsessed with the number nine.

Watch out on 10 April 13   [  10/4/13   and 1 + 0 + 4 + 1 + 3 = 9  ]


North Korea is a notoriously secret society, led by an equally secretive dynasty of Kims. But as hostilities with the west over the country's nuclear programme escalate, revelations from deep within the regime might shed some light on what is guiding its leaders' actions.

Apparently it's the number nine.

It all started at the time of Korea's liberation from Japanese occupation, when there were eight shamans representing the eight provinces of Korea. Out of these, the strongest shaman was thought to be the one from Pyongan-do. He is said to have told Kim Il-sung that the destiny of his bloodline was aligned with the ninth number, which is considered auspicious in east Asia.

Perhaps it was because of this that Kim Il-sung declared the founding date of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to be 9 September. Although there were five provinces at the time, he increased the number to nine. The Supreme Guard Command, Kim's personal bodyguard corps, was named Unit 963 (double nine is an especially lucky combination).

The Kims have their own food chain, also using the number nine. Throughout North Korea you will find so-called No 9 farms and No 9 work details, specially assigned by the central party's financial administration department. Their produce is used to feed the Kims, and these meals are called No 9 products.

The second Kim is said to have repeatedly stressed the fact that his birthday fell on 16 February (1+6+2=9). He decreed that the numberplates of his vehicles should read 2.16; and then, so as to disguise his personal vehicles, assigned this as a common numberplate for all of North Korea's inner elite.

Kim Jong-il was appointed to the highest military post on 24 December (2+4+1+2=9). His appointment as party secretary, which effectively formalised his powers, was made three years and three months after the death of his father, Kim Il-sung.

Applying this to recent North Korean history, we note that Kim Jong-il gave his son, Kim Jong-un, his first public role as general of the Korean People's Army on 27 September 2010 (2+7=9, plus the 9th month, equals double nine). On 11 April (20)12 (1+1+4+1+2=9) Kim Jong-un was appointed first secretary of the Workers' party. Then on 18 July 2012, he was appointed to the rank of marshal.

When North Korea makes international news with an impending rocket launch or nuclear test, outside analysts often cite recent birthdays of the Kims, or other state anniversaries, as influencing the choice of date. But a closer look suggests it has more to do with the number nine.

The country's first nuclear test took place on 9 October 2006. The second long-range rocket launch was on 5 April 2009 (5+4=9 and nine of 2009, double nine). The next one was successfully launched on 12 December 2012 (1+2+1+2+1+2=9). There was a nuclear test on 12 February (20)13 (1+2+2+1+3=9). A recent North Korean propaganda video released on YouTube, in which the east coast of the US is consumed in a "sea of fire", features a rocket labelled No 9.

So, it all adds up. Three generations of the Kim family fixated on nines. On Friday the North Koreans announced that they could not protect foreign diplomats after 10 April (20)13.


[This article cut-and-pasted from some UK news website except for the parts in brackets.]

8000

A disabled man who suffers from panic attacks was stranded on the "Ït's A Small World" ride at Disneyland, when the ride broke.  He was stuck on the ride for half an hour while he had to urinate and the song played continuously.  He sued, and was awarded $8,000.

A number no one is quite sure of, but is over 6,000

Chiune Sugihara was the Japanese ambassador to Lithuania beginning in 1939.  In 1940, Jews began to come to him for visas to Japan to get out of Europe.  Japan told him he may NOT write a visa for anyone unless that had a visa to another country to go to after Japan.  He ignored these, and wrote as many visas as he could.  Estimates are that he saved over 6,000 lives, including my friend's father.

Wikipedia entry:  Chiune_Sugihara


Article from the Jewish Virtual Library:  Holocaust/sugihara.html

100

15-year-old rape-survivor sentenced to be whipped 100 times in public in Maldives

The girl's stepfather is accused of raping her for years and murdering the baby she bore. Now the court says she must be flogged for “sex outside marriage”!


article:  maldives-teen-100-lashes

1037

How fast do you have to drive to always stay in the sun?  1037 mph.


(at least according to Greg on Dharma and Greg)

-50

Today is the -50 th anniversary of the first meeting between a Human and a Vulcan.

The First Contact took place on the evening of April 5, 2063, when a Vulcan survey ship, the T'Plana-Hath, having detected the warp signature of the Phoenix, touched down in Bozeman, central Montana, where they met with the Phoenix's designer and pilot, Zefram Cochrane. This event is generally referred to as the defining moment in Human history, eventually paving the way for a unified world government and, later, the United Federation of Planets. The event also became an annual holiday called First Contact Day.  (source:  Some article)

62

The world's longest traffic jam took place in Bejing, China. It was 62 miles long, stretching from Beijing to Inner Mongolia, and lasted 11 days. !!

220

220 is the smallest amicable number.

The proper factors of 220 are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55, 110.  They add up to 284.

The proper factors of 284 are 1, 2, 4, 71, 142.  They add up to 220.

This makes 220 and 284 an amicable pair.  Each one is an amicable number.

Other amicable pairs include 1184 and 1210, 2620 and 2924, 5020 and 5564, 6232 and 6368, 10744 and 10856, 12285 and 14595, 17296 and 18416, 63020 and 76084.

There are 4316 pairs less than 2.01x10^11.

336

There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.

102

The record for the most Peeps eaten in thirty minutes is 102, eaten by Dennis Gross.

19 ( 6 + 13 )

The numbers 6 and 13 must be lucky numbers for the Mackey family.  Dick Mackey and his sons, half brothers Rick Mackey and Lance Mackey all first won the Iditarod race for the first time on their 6th attempt, when they were all wearing randomly assigned bib number 13.

151

There were 151 people on line at Voodoo doughnuts at 4:32 in downtown Portland, OR.  I was NOT one of them.

27

Flintstones vitamins were produced for 27 years before they included Betty.

2

8513

On January 1, 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt shook 8513 hands.

32

Writers for Sid Ceaser's comedy shoes said that 32 was the funniest number. 

They later explained that thirty sounds like "dirty" and the ending of two can be stretched out like twoooooooo.

forty

Forty is the only number whose letters are alphabetical.

10

Marilyn Monroe had 10 toes (5 on each foot).  There was a rumor that she had 6 toes on one of her feet, because  a lump of sand next to her foot in a photograph looked like a toe.

2

2 is the only number to appear only once in Pascal's triangle.

8

8 is the largest perfect cube in the Fibonacci series.

28

The movies "28 Days" and "28 Days Later" have no connection to each other.

4489

N is a whole number, a prime to the power of a prime. Each of its digits is also a prime to the power of a prime. What is N?

 There are several answers.  (I'm not sure if there are infinitely many or not.)

 The first 5 are  

                 4      8      9     49      4489

There are no others with fewer than 10 digits.

 

(I put this page under 4489 because it is the largest, which makes it the most fun.) 

 

251

If you add up the values of the letters (so that A=1, B=2, C=3, etc.) of

TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY ONE

they add up to 251.

7.07

In a survey of favorite numbers, one woman put down 7.07, explaining,



0.875

The average horse can work for an extended period of time at 0.875 horsepower.

5

In an article where people were writing about their favorite number, one person chose 5.  Here is why:

5 is both a round line and a edge line so the child has fun learning the 5.

Drawing on the fog glass. Turning 5 years old and learning all those kids and the new freedoms of kindergarten.

5 is the dominant in music (Fifth interval). Five is a useful concept (eg .5= one half).

Fingers, plant and animal design human wheel (star) the pentatonic and penta design, even in the heavens.

It is like the grass green or blue sky or yellow sun or red blood of the number kingdom.

999

After a 7 mile hike to Tianmen Mountain (Heaven's Gate Mountain), China, or a 7455 meter long cable car ride, you still have to walk up 999 stairs to get to Heaven's Gate.  9 is good luck in the Chinese culture, and 999 even more so.

pi

The Babylonians are credited as having recorded the first value for Pi (around 2000 BCE) and they used (25/8).

Ludolph Van Ceulen (1540 - 1610) spent most of his life working out Pi to 35 decimal places.

In 1947 it took ENIAC 70 hours to calculate 2037 digits of pi.

9/1/2010, Shigeru Kondo, a Japanese systems engineer and Alexander J. Yee, an American computer science student, have calculated the value of pi to five trillion digits - setting the new world record for the most digits of pi calculated.

9 + 7/24 + 39/1440 + 56/86400

Mitch Seavy finished the Iditarod in 9 days, 7 hours, 39 minutes, and 56 seconds.

16

A ban in New York City forbids theaters, restaurants, concession stands, cafeterias, and other places where food is bought to be eaten there from selling sodas or other sweetened drinks larger than 16 ounces.

This ban does not apply to supermarkets.  It also does not apply to convenience stores where they sell drinks like a "Super-Gulp". The ban does not limit the number of drinks a person may buy or how many refills they get.

It also does not apply to diet sodas, alcoholic drinks, drinks that are low in calories, drinks that are more than half milk, or drinks that are at least 70% fruit juice. 

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said “This is the single biggest step any city, I think, has ever taken to curb obesity.  It’s certainly not the last step that lots of cities are going to take, and we believe that it will help save lives.”

New Yorkers for Beverage Choice, a group sponsored by the soft-drink industry, plans to fight the ban.

2.9

Match-tip tiny, Brookesia micra (juvenile pictured) is the smallest of four new chameleon species found on the African island country of Madagascar. With an average adult length of 2.9 centimeters (just over an inch) from snout to tail, B. micra is among the tiniest reptiles in the world.

Scientists think the diminutive new chameleon species might represent extreme cases of island dwarfism, whereby organisms shrink in size due to limited resources on islands.


"The extreme miniaturization of these dwarf reptiles might be accompanied by numerous specializations of the body plan, and this constitutes a promising field for future research," study leader Frank Glaw of Germany's Zoological State Collection said in a statement.

7

The 7 deadly sins are: Pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony, lust.

The 7 virtues are: Faith, hope, charity, fortitude, prudence, justice, temperance.

The 7 dwarfs are: Dopey, Sneezy, Bashful, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Doc.

The 7 seas are: Red, Adriatic, Black, Caspian, Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean.
The 7 days of the weeks are: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

The 7 wonders of the ancient world are: The Colossus of Rhodes, The Great Pyramid of Giza, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Lighthouse of Alexandria, The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, The Statue of Zeus at Olympia, The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

The 7 new wonders of the world:  Christ the Redeemer Statue, Great Wall of China, The Colosseum in Rome, Petra in Jordan, Machu Picchu in Peru, Chichen Itza in Mexico, Taj Mahal in India

5.4 x 10^-44

The smallest physically meaningful unit of time is one Planck time, or the time required for light to travel one Planck length. It is about 5.4 x 10^^-44 seconds.

One Plank length is the distance light travels in one Plank time.  It is about 1.616 x 10^⁻³⁵ meters.  

This was all set up by Max Planck.

15

The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

37

Some fans of 37 in the eastern US call themselves The 37 Group of Boston.

Hannibal brought 37 elephants with him on his conquest of Rome. 

From 37th American President Richard Nixon's resignation speech: "This is the 37th time I have spoken to you from this office."

37 seconds elapsed between the sighting of the iceberg and its collision with the Titanic.

"Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss was sentenced to 37 months in prison.

There are 37 holes in the mouthpiece of a telephone.

There were 37 extramarital affairs on "Dallas" during the 1980s. 

Tyrannosaurus Rex has 37 vertebrae in its tail.

Andy Capp lives at #37.

There are 37 genes in the mitochondrial genome.

"Normal" human body temperature is 37 degrees Celsius.

The first touchdown pass in Super Bowl history was for 37 yards.

There are 37 steps in the staircase leading downhill across the street from the Jayhawk Bookstore at the University of Kansas. 

There are 37 pages in the rulebook for "The Great Dalmuti".

The 37th Pillsbury Bake-Off was won by contestant #37.

William Shakespeare wrote 37 plays.

158

The National anthem of Greece "Hymn to Liberty" has 158 verses.  Officially, they only use the first 3 and last 2 verses.

8

The shortest 5 syllable word in the english language is ideology (8 letters)

293

There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar
(This includes a $1 coin as one of the ways.  It considered half-dollars, quarters, niclkles, dimes, pennies.  It does not include 1/2 cant, 2 cent, or 3 cent coins, all of which were minted at one time but are not currently.)

13

"two plus eleven" and "one plus twelve" not only give the same result but use the same letters

10

A 10 foot tall emu was spotted walking the streets of New York in 1973, it had accidently escaped from a circus that specialized in large exotic birds. When police questioned the circus owners they responded saying "George was constipated, so we thought a run around the grounds may help him feel better" Police fined the circus 25 dollars, and 5 months later a bi-law was passed stating that all emus within New York City must be on a leash.

7

9

The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."

3

Don't you hate it when you are waiting on line, and whoever is being served just stands there like a moron, trying to decide what they want to order?  And the clerk just stands there waiting for them??  I saw this sign at a food counter in Talkeetna.

739397

739397 is a prime number.  If you get rid of any number of digits from either the right side or the left side (but not both) the number you are left with is a prime (as long as you don't remove all the digits and are left with nothing.  This is the largest number that has this property.

This is called a "two sided prime".  A "left truncatable prime" is a prime where you can cut off any number of digits from the left and still get a prime.  A "right truncatable prime" is a prime where you can get rid of any number of digits from the right and still have a prime.  A "two sided prime" is both.

The 15 numbers that are considered two sided primes include 1 digit prime numbers that don't have anything you can take away.

2, 3, 5, 7, 23, 37, 53, 73, 313, 317, 373, 797, 3137, 3797, 739397

7

When you divide 7 into any number that is not a multiple of 7, the repeat of digits will be 6 units long.  The number of digits in the repeat must be less than the denominator.  7 is the lowest denominator where the repeats are all the maximum length.

1/7 = 0.142857 (repeating)

2/7 = 0.285714 (repeating)

3/7 = 0.428571 (repeating)

4/7 = 0.571428 (repeating)

5/7 = 0.714285 (repeating)

6/7 = 0.857142 (repeating)

Notice that all of these are the SAME CYCLE of numbers, in the same order, they just start in a different place.

13

On the back of a dollar bill, there are 13 steps on the pyramid. The motto above the pyramid has 13 letters (annuit coeptis). E pluribus unum, written on the ribbon in the eagle's beak, has 13 letters. 13 stars appear over the eagle's head. 13 stripes are on the shield. 13 war arrows are in the eagle's left talon. The olive branch in the eagle's right talon has 13 leaves.

32

In a survey that asked people for "best number" someone wrote:

For a long time I thought 32 was the best number. 32 is 2 to the fifth - so it has a lot of power. Mostly it was the number of some of my favorite athletes - Koufax, Carlton, Jim Brown, Magic. And then OJ came along and ... I had to look for a new best number.

- 3 million

Average time, in millions of years, between mass extinctions on Earth: 62

Millions of years since Earth's last mass extinction: 65

32/999

1/37 = 0.027027027027027027....

1/27 = 0.037037037037037037....


(I couldn't decide whether it should be listed under 1/27 or 1/37, so I took the average.)

0.0000000109603

0.0000000109603

By my estimation, the speed hair grows (in miles per hour).

50

According to the song by Paul Simon, there are "50 ways to leave your lover".  However, he only lists a few:



1. You just slip out the back, Jack
2. Make a new plan, Stan
3. You don't need to be coy, Roy / Just get yourself free (though this isn't really a way)
4. Hop on the bus, Gus / You don't need to discuss much.
5. Just drop off the key, Lee / And get yourself free.

45

5, 17, and 23 are the sacred numbers of Eris, Goddess of Discord.  (I listed this under 45 because it is the sum.)

For more information:  Eris

23,740,703,487

I added one because I first saw this yesterday.

1,078,222

A meteor exploded over Siberia today.  This is not the meteor that I mentioned coming near Earth in yesterday's post.

17,200

Today an asteroid will come within 17,200 miles from the earth at 2:24 pm Eastern Standard Time.  The asteroid is approximately 150 feet across.

for more information:  asteroid-pass-close-earth-friday

7

What is the "7" in 7UP? We'll never know for sure. The soft drink's creator, Charles Leiper Grigg, went to the grave without ever revealing where he got the name. But there several interesting rumors regarding its origin.

When Grigg introduced his drink in October 1929, it had neither a "7" nor an "UP" in its name. He called it "Bib-label Lithiated Lemon-lime Soda." Imagine trying to order that bad boy from a Taco Bell drive-through! Bib-label Lithiated Lemon-lime Soda is perhaps the single worst name for a soft drink in soda history. How did he come up with this extraordinarily crummy name?

"Bib-label" referred to the use of paper labels that were placed on plain bottles. The "Lithiated" related to the mind-altering drug lithium. No kidding.

Besides having a very bizarre name, Grigg's concoction hit stores just two weeks before the 1929 stock market crash. It also faced competition from about 600 other lemon-lime sodas. Despite all of these daunting factors, the new drink actually sold pretty well. Chalk it up to the cool, refreshing taste of lithium.

But even with its success, Griggs soon realized that Bib-label Lithiated Lemon-lime Soda was a little tricky to remember (you think?) or maybe he just got sick of saying it himself. Griggs changed the name of his drink to "7UP."

Here's the most persuasive (and logical) explanation for the name: The "7" refers to the drink's seven ingredients, and the "UP" has to do with the soda's rising bubbles. This version is supported by an early 7UP tagline: "Seven natural flavors blended into a savory, flavory drink with a real wallop."

The seven ingredients were carbonated water, sugar citric acid, lithium citrate, sodium citrate, and essences of lemon and lime oils (technically two ingredients).

Of course, it's entirely possible that as executives devised the ingredients angle to fit the name rather than vice-versa. There are other possible origins, but these theories range from the unlikely to the preposterous. These include:

* Griggs saw a cattle brand that looked like 7UP.

* Griggs was rooting for a seven in a game of craps he was playing in .

* The original 7UP bottle held seven ounces.

* "Seven Up" contains seven letters.

It's quite possible that the "7" refers to nothing at all -Griggs may have simply devised the name to stir up people's interest. In any case, the new name seemed to work okay.

But 1940, 7UP had become the third most popular and best-selling drink in the world. And even when the delicious lithium was dropped from the recipe in 1950, the drink remained a hit.

Is 7UP an aphrodisiac? Remember Wilt Chamberlain, the great basketball player who claimed he had made love to 20,000 women in his lifetime? Well, Wilt the Stilt's favorite drink was 7UP. According to Wilt, "I used to drink the stuff all the time."

Hmmm...

Four and Twenty

Several poems include the phrasde "Four and Twenty". For example:


Four and twenty weavers went out to kill a snail,
The bravest man among them trod upon his tail;
The snail turned round with horns like a cow -
`God bless us', said the weavers, `We're dead men now.'

or

Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing;
Wasn't that a dainty dish, to set before the king?

43

Originally McDonald's sold chicken McNuggets in packages of 6, 9, or 20.  If you wanted 12 McNuggets, you could buy 2 packages of 6.  If you wanted 35, you could buy a package of 20, a package of 6, and a package of 20.  But if you had a craving for 8, there was no way to buy 8.  There was no way to buy 25.

What is the largest number of McNuggets that would be impossible to buy?  43.