In December it’s Christmas carols and in March an Irish ditty.
Every Fourth of July there’s the sound of fireworks while in September school bells ring.
And every year, usually about October, champagne glasses ting as the ’72 Dolphins toast that last undefeated team (or two) goodbye.
I don’t think anyone really knows the origin of Friday the 13th superstitions, but I discuss a few with my guest today on Math and Musings.
Of course we discuss unusual food items as well, and the usual tangents that do occur as a matter of course.
It is, after all, math… and musings.
Every month I read NEA Today, trade publication for members of the National Education Association. (I’m not a member but I like to know what’s going on in the biz.)
In each issue there’s a full-page ad for a company specializing in financial services, specifically one that helps clients escape from unwanted time shares.
(Pause with sheepish look.)
That’s just embarrassing.
Until a year ago I had never heard of Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
Until last week I didn’t even know how to spell it.
Apparently the term really is peoples, so if we’re celebrating their day it’s really peoples’. The day of these peoples.
(It’s Presidents’ Day and Veterans’ Day all over again, and I’ve written about those two so many times I can’t even link a definitive answer.)
Dangling an apostrophe off the edge like that is the most dangerous form of punctuation there is, but I believe in this case it is apt.
Didn’t know you were getting a grammar lesson in addition to the history lesson.
Of course there are some agencies still calling this holiday “Columbus Day.” (They don’t know Columbus has been canceled.) I get trying to whitewash Coumbus, but if you really wanted to draw attention to this you should have deleted the holiday altogether. That would have made people notice. Would’a pissed ’em off too, and would have brought about the greatest outpouring of Columbian appreciation since 1492.
Hey, how come it’s Columbus Day and not Columbus’ Day?
Guess it doesn’t matter now.
I’m flying solo today on Math and Musings, talking up the pre-release of my new album, I paid for this Christmas party! Tomorrow you can listen to one track, Track #3 as a matter of fact, and if you’re feeling especially generous you can buy it for a dollar-twenty-nine. I think. I haven’t actually bought music online since about 2010.
But I do know a lot about the music business. And I’m showing off today on the pod.
After four weeks in this NFL season there are only two teams with undefeated records.
And two teams who haven’t won a game.
One of those latter teams, the Chicago Bears, plays tomorrow night down the road from me against my hometown team, the Washington Commanders. Formerly the Football Team, formerly the blankety-blanks.
Here’s to keeping the Bears’ streak intact, and my hometown team celebrating this upcoming holiday weekend.
For those of you keeping track, it’s now called Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
How appropriate.
Cox Farms is the best fall festival in a hundred-mile radius of Washington, D.C. It’s the Inn at Little Washington of fall fests.
Not unlike its analogous restaurant, the allure of Cox Farms is not its majesty or opulence but its delightful humor. Little touches here and there of well-placed whimsy justify this “farm” that sits on about a trillion dollars’ worth of suburban terrain. If the choices are farm, condos, and a corn maze… I’ll take the corn maze.
And hayrides and apple cider donuts.
Not exactly the Inn at Little Washington, but you get the idea.
At the risk of being shown up yet again, I’ve got a guest on today’s episode of Math and Musings.
In classic O’Connell fashion my son starts with math and, well, it ends as cat jokes. Go figure.
I don’t know where he gets it from.
Today I learned that Snickers this Halloween is going green.
Not the usual way one does such a thing these days, for it has nothing to do with protecting the environment.
The green in question is green-tinted nougat filling those candy bars to celebrate the holiday.
Amazing.
Not even Willy Wonka thought of this one.
Good job, Snickers.
Is it better to lose a heartbreaker or better to have no shot from moment one and lose by a million?
I had both experiences this weekend, each of the teams I jinxed last Friday on the podcast taking really different paths away from victory.
That would be the previously undefeated Fighting Irish of Notre Dame and the previously undefeated Washington Commanders.
Pressure’s off I guess.