On The Precipice of Mediocrity, Teetering
|
|
|
| I Am John's Stomach Pains. On The Precipice of Mediocrity, Teetering |
|
|
|
|
Tuesday, June 24, 2003 Fact Cookies Suck Ass Our cafeteria had Chinese food today, so that meant we had fortune cookies, as well. I love fortune cookies, something I always look forward to, sometimes even play 'In Bed' with a group a friends, always a fun 10 seconds. But today, I got the worst fortune I think I've ever read, only because it wasn't even a fortune, but a fact: Well thanks a whole fucking bunch for that nice little biology lesson! Next, why don't you tell me if I exercise, I'll lose weight! Anyway, the rest of my table found it to be pretty lame ass well, and my friend B decided to call the company and complain for me. Here's his e-mail that explains how the phone call went: I called the fortune cookie company, and I explained that I did not get a fortune, I simply got a fact. When I said that the fortune cookie said that it takes 70 muscles to frown and only 14 to smile, she politely informed me that the fortune cookie means for you to smile. I informed her that correct fortune cookie lingo requires it to have some sort of future tense in the fortune, not a simple fact. I suggested that it read as "You will have many smiles with your friends" or even "you will have many days of not frowning". The operator told me that she will forward my comments on and thanks for calling. I gave her my name, address, etc.. and asked her if all of that company's fortunes are like that and she didn't know. I told her that as a customer, I would rather have a fortune that says I will be rich one day that a fortune that says that if you save 1000 per month for 30 years at a 6% interest rate, you will have $1,000,000.[Yes, Stomach Pains readers, that's an actuary joke] She said thank you and hung up. I thought that i was so clever and funny, aparently I was gravely mistaken. I am going to go get another one so I don't base my impression of the company on one data point. Well, at least I had that to make me smile today... Update! Just got another e-mail that is even better... I had to see for myself if there was any method to Minh's madness of fortune cookies, so I purchased two more from downstairs. One of them said "So many dreams are waiting to be realized" The other said "He who hesitates is probably right" We will take these one at a time. Have you ever heard that phrase " While you are waiting for it to happen, somebody else is making it happen"? I think the fortune cookie should have said "You will make your dreams come true". See, was that so hard? "He who hesitates is probably right". This is begging for statistical validation. I thought I would be able to turn it over and have a matrix with one dimension being Hestitate / Not hesitate, and the other dimension is wrong / right. The null hypothesis would be that each dimension is independant. There would then be a significant percentage in the hestitate-right cell and in the not hesitate-wrong cell. They could then compare it to the distribution if the null hypothesis was correct and use a chi-squared test of independence to reject the null hypothesis so we could conclude that "He who hesitates is right 82.4% of the time +/- 3.6% with 95% accuracy". Instead on the back it says that apartment is chinese is gong-yu. BFD I am calling the fortune cookie manufacturer now. Ok, I just blasted some poor lady that probably thinks that I am a freaking retard, but here is the information that I got. First off, the person that I spoke to did not write the fortunes, that much is clear. She had no idea who wrote them, but she tried to tell me that they were chinese proverbs passed down for 1000s of years. I told her that was not the case, because every fortune cookie I have ever seen besides these was a "fortune" that had something to do with the future. I admitted that the one about waiting with your finger in your nose for your dreams to come true was based on the future, but I tld her that perhaps the fortunes should have some sort of piece of advice too. I asked her if perhaps I could write the fortunes even though I am in California, and she is in Minnesota, and she said that she could have somebody call me back. I am still waiting.... "Good news will arrive today, stand near your phone" I just made that one up. The last thing I told her was that there was a typo on the bottom where it said Lucky # 4,6,9,23,43,49. Those numbers are highly UNLIKELY to be the next lotto numbers, so much so that I told her that I could calculate the odds of those particular 6 numbers being chosen out of 50 possible numbers, but while I was on the phone, I couldn't figure out how to easily with excel. I guess I could just multiply 6/50 * 5/49 * etc. But alas I told her that if she calls them her unlucky numbers, somebody might specifically go get a ticket that doesn't have those numbers and be pleasantly surprised when, surprisingly, none of the 6 numbers comes up. I think she was getting grouchy, so I let her think about that for a while and told her that she will have a great day and to be on the lookout for good news. Yes, these are my friends... posted by Holz | 2:40 PM | Rant & Rave, Bitches! (0) 0 Comments: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
||||
|
"Let a man get away with fuckin' you once, you stay bent over so's he can fuck you again whenever he damn well pleases. An' if one man can do it? Another will too. An' another, an' another still. So's being fucked, that's yer life. 'Til who you were, you ain't. 'Cause all you are is an asshole." 100 Bullets #42 | |||||
