Day: September 8, 2004

Another era has come to an end.

Last night while I was grocery shopping, I happened to look closely at an endcap display of Coppertone™ products, and I noticed that the Coppertone Girl&reg has lost her tan line. That’s right, that’s what I said, she’s got no freakin’ tan line. I guess Coppertone decided that it was just not PC to have a tan line on their marketing mascot in the new era of SPF 150. I’m sure the sunblock line has been outselling the tanning lotions, so I guess they’re just showing good fiscal responsibility. But still…

In breaking news, a study in Exeter, England has confirmed something that I’ve suspected all along: you can do math problems faster and better if you memorize your times tables.

Alas, I did not bring this task to its full fruition, and even though I got a “C” or better up through Differential Equations, to this day I get really fuzzy in the 7-8-9 region of the multiplication problem space. Which reminds me of one of my favorite jokes:

Q: Why was six afraid of seven?

A: Because seven ate nine.

Well, that’s too bad… the Genesis probe has crash landed in the desert because its parachute failed to open. But then again, it’s amazing that we try to do some of this stuff at all.

Genesis : Search for Origins | JPL | NASA