December 2007 Archives

...and Bill! (And Yuhas, for you TMG folk.)

So my brother showed me up this year by making his own Chanukah card. The only thing I'm creative at is making up riddles, so here's your end-of-Chanukah treat (true story too!):

My grad student friends and I sat down to play some driedel on the second night of Chanukah (the non-Jew wanted to learn how to play). The host didn't have any dreidels, but thankfully I had a cheap one that I bought at Wegmann's just before the holiday. As we began playing, we soon noticed a strange occurance: the pot was only growing in size. Of the four sides of the driedel, only Nun and Shin were landing. In fact, the dreidel landed on these two sides 24 times in a row (!!!) before we switched dreidels.

My question is: What is that chance of a fair dreidel landing on only two of its sides for the first 24 spins? I've worked out the calculation (it's not that hard -- plus, getting within an order of magntiude is fairly trivial).

Maybe I should give this problem to my game theory undergrads...if only I were precepting statistics instead, then I actually might.

I've never been much of an audiophile. In ninth grade, the school library conducted a survey of students to determine the tastes of the new class. Taking the survey was a breeze until I was asked to list my favorite radio station. I really had no clue; after some thought, I ended up listing the local sports station. Not only was that the station I listened to the most, but I actually didn't know the name/call number of a single local music station.

Music did enter my life, slowly and mainly through the women I've known. The first girl I had a real crush on introduced me to Jewel, and I shortly bought my first CD: Pieces of You. More recently, Janeite acquainted me with The Decemberists, and my BFF sent me some incredible mixed CDs, which really opened my eyes to independent music (thanks Chicklet!).

I looked to develop this newfound music knowledge and stick it to the RIAA at the same time by joining eMusic (yay for no DRM!). In January of this year, via eMusic, I discovered The Weepies, this incredible singer-songwriter duo, who have an amazing story behind their union. They have been in my "Top 3 favorite bands/artists" list ever since.

Normally, my proclivities are far outside the bounds of normal pop culture, but in this case, I appear to be ahead of the curve. Last week when I was watching TV, I was excited to hear The Weepies' song "All I Want" as the background for a JC Penny commercial. And that experience just repeated itself tonight with an Old Navy commercial, which features the song "Stars".

My music tastes are hip -- who knew?! A broken clock...

Chag Sameach everyone! I don't think I'll be able to light candles tonight, though celebration is in order as the Center for Jewish Life rented out an entire bar (Triumph, on Nassua St) for the evening. Plus, drinks are free from 8pm - 10pm: yay, no more $3 ginger ales! I don't want to think about how much that cost....

On the candle-lighting side, grad student lighting is tentatively planned for Friday night. Thanks to the large class of new Jewish Woo first years, I have confidence that we can organize a decent crowd.

What do I want for Chanukah? A high response rate for my survey that I'm sending out tomorrow and a reason to change my dissertation status which has been stable far too long....ah, the needs of a grad student :)

Also, next trip to DC (and the last of the year) will be the weekend after next (e.g., 12/15). Let me know if you want to hang out!