Tag: randomness

yeah I know you did not ask!

Señora for Christmas last year bought me a tear off calendar with daily puzzles. Most are fairly easy, but some require a little thought.  This is the one that popped up October 14.

Which one does not belong: 22  45  51  96

It was proof positive that 30 years of programming have warped my mental processes.  I looked at this, and immediately decided that 96 was the odd man out.  Why? We all know about 2 character state codes, AL, MO, AR, OK, MS, etc.  But there are many software applications that use a two digit state code ranging from 01 to 51, and for the purpose of these applications the District of Columbia being counted as a state.

When I looked at the answer I knew my logic had been twisted by bits and bytes.  As you are racing to tell me, the correct response is 22, being the only one when divided by 3 that does NOT result in a whole number.

yeah I know you did not ask!

I’m at the dentist getting my teeth clean.  The young female hygienist needs to move a piece of apparatus  that is on a pivot from my left side to my right side.  As she is doing so the vertical bar holding the tray bumps into my feet.  She tells me, “I need a couple more inches.”

My internal dialogue responded, “You’re not the first female to tell me that.”

All which reminds me of my most frequent golf joke.  When a putt or chip comes up a little short I have a tendency to say, “Just like my ex-wife used to tell me all the time, ‘another couple inches and that would have been pretty good.'”

yeah I know you did not ask!

I’m driving in big city morning rush hour traffic, on I-64 attempting to get the 25 miles or so to downtown St. Louis.  It dawns on me suddenly that I am in a K-Mart world.  Every few miles are so there is Blue-Light Special due to drivers playing bumper cars.