Be My Valentine?

It's that time of year again. Too many of my favorite places are loaded with legions of lip-locking lovers. The traffic is awful too, as everyone rushes to the mall to indulge in the commercialization of human emotion. Grocery stores are out of everything, movies are sold out, and there isn't a flower to be found in the city. When Valentine's Day descends, it doesn't leave much room for the rest of us. And, to make things worse, everything is just so damn pink.

On this day of gazing paramours, groping teenagers, and desperate singles, all I can do is smirk. After all, the initials of "Valentine's Day" could hardly be more appropriate, now could they? I like to remind people of this at every opportunity.

Yes, my favorite part of Valentine's Day is ruining it for other people. How'd you know?

Hail to the 43rd Chief

Grover Cleveland is chuckling quietly at us from the grave. Why, you might ask? Let's observe this recent inauguration season. From Barack Obama's inaugural speech:

"I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition. Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath."

Right there. Pause. Did you catch it? Or did you see it on TV? Read it in the paper? Senator Obama is the 44th President of the United States!

Lies, all lies. You're all in Grover's pocket.

Our friend Mr. Cleveland was elected in 1884 to serve as the 22nd President. Cleveland had a well-earned reputation for honesty and independent thought, and worked hard to reform a corrupted Washington, strive for bipartisanship, change tariff law, and resolve the problem of the gold standard. Nobody really agrees on Cleveland's overall effectiveness, but the general opinion is that he was a decent guy, if not a decent president.

He ran for re-election in 1888, but because of his position on controversial issues, he was soundly thrashed by Benjamin Harrison. (Although Cleveland won the popular vote by a narrow margin, Harrison walloped him in electoral votes.) Harrison did some important work in business reform--namely the Sherman Anti-Trust Act--but is mostly remembered for having a pretty snooze-worthy presidency.

The election of 1892 was a savage rematch. Cleveland v. Harrison v. Some-Third-Party-Guy-No-One-Remembers-Oh-Wait-it-was-James-Weaver-well-Whatever. All three men campaigned fiercely, but in the end, Cleveland won both the popular and electoral vote, and Grover and his young, hot wife moved back into the White House to serve out his term as the 24th President. Cleveland's second term was marked by economic depression, further tariff and labor reform, and turbulent foreign relations.

The point is, folks, that Mr. Grover "Awesome Mustache" Cleveland is the only president to ever serve non-consecutive terms, and is therefore also the only president whose multiple terms count twice. Grover's pretty cool, but does he really need that extra slice of presidential cake? Not if he wants to maintain that svelte figure!

It's time to see through the bullshit, guys. Our presidential counting system is whacked, and Obama is really the 43rd Commander-in-Chief. It's all a conspiracy. One giant, outrageous government conspiracy. Only the quibblers can save you now.

The Mathematics of Anagrams

My friend and I have been in an ongoing discussion regarding the hidden nature of calculus.

One fine afternoon, I observed to her that if you mix up all the letters in "calculus," and then you add a few letters, and then you take some letters out, you get "witchcraft." Needless to say, we were stunned by this previously undiscovered relationship, and made immediate plans to alert paranormal researchers.

She later realized that "calculus" actually has more letters in common with "delicious" than it does with "witchcraft," although she insists that this does not necessarily represent her views on the gustatory properties of higher math.

But you know what, guys? Both "cancer" and "calculus" start with a "ca" and have a "c" as their fourth letter. What does this mean?

That they're both fascinating, until they happen to you.

Q.E.D., folks.