Me: quick, without referring to anything, name the three stars of 1984′s Irreconcilable Differences
Suzanne: shelley long, drew barrymore, ryan o’neal
Me: right! i knew them too, when the movie title popped into my mind a few minutes ago
Me: WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?
Suzanne: we’re awesome
Suzanne: bonus question
Suzanne: what later to become huge actress had a small role?
Me: no idea. i never saw it, i only know the marketing. which makes it all the more baffling that i still know it 26 years later
Suzanne: ah
Suzanne: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

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After all, it’s not some hypothetical matchup against all other men that you’re interested in, is it? If you’re honest with yourself, what you really care about is whether yours is the biggest dick your partner’s ever had. And that’s where the bad news begins.

Suppose your size is exactly average; that you’re in the 50th percentile for penis length. That means that 50% of men are smaller than you, and 50% are bigger. Does this mean you have a fifty-fifty chance of blowing your lover’s mind? Only if your partner had one man before you. If your partner had two men before you, the odds of their both being smaller are 0.5×0.5, or 25%. If three, the odds they were all smaller are 0.5×0.5×0.5, or 12.5%. In other words, there’s an 87.5% chance — 7 chances in 8 — they’ve seen bigger.

Let’s say you’re one of the lucky ones in the 75th percentile. Your dick is bigger than that of three out of every four men you see. There’s still a 58% chance that your partner (who’s had three men before you) has seen bigger!

In order to have an even chance of having the biggest dick that a partner with three previous lovers has ever seen, you have to be in the 80th percentile for penis size (about 6.25 inches according to the condom manufacturer LifeStyles). But that’s just an even chance. To have a good chance — say, 90% — you have to be in the 97th percentile (about 7.5 inches). And that’s if your partner has had only 3 men before you. It’s not too unusual to be the fifth or tenth or twentieth man, especially of a partner who’s very desirable.

None of these numbers mean anything if you can’t get it up when the time comes, so now that I’ve given you the bad news — don’t think about it.

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A sign in [the cafe] proclaimed a table to be “REVERVED.” Seriously?

Another colleague, Aaron, wrote:

Reserved for someone revered? Or just verved multiple times?

I wrote:

It’s almost like reserved, reversed!

Tyler responded:

Perhaps. It was reserved, but now it’s not, so the situation, one might say, has been reverved.

Then I contributed this:

A verse:

A sign on a table, “Reverve”
Was written by someone with nerve
Was the writer just spelling-averse?
Or did they intend we’d converse
On the subjects “reverse” and “revere”
While away from our jobs we would veer?
Well, no more! I do hereby aver
I’m done with “reverve” fore-ver

and finally, Helen sent this link:

Forever

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• Shout by Tears for Fears
• Stand by R.E.M.
• Jump by Van Halen
• Wait by Wang Chung
• Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Any others?

Here’s where I’m supposed to concoct some trenchant observation about society in the 1980′s to explain why so many songs with such names became hits, as opposed to the 70′s, 90′s, or other times. Unfortunately I don’t have any handy, but maybe you can make one yourself with the added facts that:

• We elected an actor as president;
• The advent of widespread microwave cooking reduced meal preparation times from hours to seconds;
• Coca-Cola’s tagline, which over the years varied among “The pause that refreshes,” “It’s the real thing,” “Things go better with Coke,” “Coke adds life,” and many others, was reduced in the 1980′s to the hypersimplified, “Coke is it.”

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So I sent her this link: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=star+in+serial+number.

(If you haven’t seen lmgtfy before, go ahead and click through; it’s fun.)

She came back with:

Thanks, wiseass. If I had time to google or read any of the links google returned, I’d have done that myself. Do my homework for me, please.

So I wrote back:

Stars can appear in the serial number of U.S. bank notes of any denomination. A bill acquires a star when it passes through the hands of a celebrity, to show it once was handled by a “star.”

Because movie, music, and other stars are rich and handle lots of money, bills with stars on them are fairly common — though there has been a long-running controversy over whether cash that’s controlled by stars but physically handled by their money managers should get the star notation.

Much more rare (and therefore more collectible) than so-called “star notes” are “multistar notes,” which have accumulated two or more stars in their serial numbers. Savvy members of the service industry will drop everything in order to serve drinks, etc., at a Hollywood poker game, in hopes of being tipped with multistar notes whose collectible value is far in excess of their face value.

Hope this helps!

Apparently she didn’t read it until this morning. She sent the following at 8am:

This doesn’t make any sense. Why would they change the printing after it’s already been in circulation?

to which I replied that she’d better start drinking coffee in the morning.

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Within seconds after getting it home and opening the package I realized that what I’d just shelled out for was a piece of fuzz on the end of a string, with two paper eyes glued on — badly. In minutes the eyes were gone. In a few days, so was the fuzz. And during that time, its movements were not magical. They were, in fact, exactly like the movements you’d expect from a piece of fuzz on the end of a string.

Worst buck and a half I ever spent. Lesson learned: marketing is lies.

As I said, that was the last TV commercial to make me run right out and buy the product — until now.

This morning I followed these directions on the bottle:

and now look!

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Well, I didn’t want to disappoint him, but I also didn’t want to see my little boy flipping me the bird. He held up his hand and I pointed to his pinky. “Are you green?” I asked. “No.” Down went the pinky. “Do you eat shoes?” “No.” Down went his ring finger. “Are you very silly?” “Yes!” Up stayed the middle finger. “Do you like mashed potatoes?” “No.” Down went the index finger.

Now his middle finger and thumb remained pointing up. A big smile spread across his face as he thought he knew what was coming next.

I pointed to his thumb. “Should you put your thumb down?” I asked. “Yes!” he said at once. “Ah, that means it stays up!” I pointed out. So he recanted: “No!” “Ah, then I don’t want to make you do something you don’t want to do.” “Wait… yes! Um…”

I blew his little mind.

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The guy in this song hasn’t visited our house yet, but I can’t imagine it’ll be much longer.

You better have doubt
You better ask why
And think it all out
I’m telling you why:
Skepticlaus is coming to town

He hasn’t a list
That wouldn’t make sense
All the world’s kids?
That would be immense
Skepticlaus is coming to town

He sees you when you’re with him
And doesn’t when you’re not
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
If you tell him, or you’re caught

Reindeer that fly?
Or is it a hoax?
Which is more likely?
Don’t ask your folks
Skepticlaus is coming to town

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Archer: Are you Aunt Suzanne’s dad?

Me: No, you know what I am to her. I’m her what?

Archer: Her sister?

Me: No…

Archer: Her brother?

Me: Yes! Who is Aunt Suzanne’s dad?

Archer: Grandpa?

Me: Right. Who’s my dad?

Archer: Grandpa.

Me: Right! Who’s your dad?

Archer: You!

Me: Right. Who’s your brother?

Archer: Jonah.

Me: Who’s your sister?

Archer: Pamela.

Me: Who’s my brother?

Archer: [thinks hard] …Nobody?

Me: Right! It was a trick question. But I didn’t fool you, did I?

Archer: [excitedly] No. ’Cause my brain said, “I never heard Daddy say he had a brother before.” So I added that to my brain and then I took away the brother and my brain said, that’s right!

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I asked them to get together the things they’d need for an overnight. They disappeared into their room and came back out into the living room a minute later with an armload of stuff apiece. But Jonah forgot his socks, and he was feeling lazy, so he said to Archer, “If you go get me some socks, I’ll give you…” (and here he thought for a moment) “…a hug!”

Archer said, “OK!” at once and disappeared back into their room — whereupon Jonah leaned over to me and whispered, “I’m actually going to give him a hug and a kiss!”

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