St. Patrick's Day!!!!! March 17th

St. Patrick's Day!

If you have ever hung around the Almanac of Merriment in March, you might be aware that I have some love for St. Patrick's Day. It's not because I love green, so much that I love a day when everyone is wearing it... I just kinda like to see the phrase "Erin go Bragh" randomly placed around. I like that phrase. No particular reason.

Anyway, if your weatherperson just announced that today is going to be the same as yesterday, as mine just did, there might be more than one reason why. You see, yesterday was St. Urho's Day. St. Urho is the patron Saint of Finland, who was created in Northern Minnesota in the 1950s.

The legend of St. Urho says chased the grasshoppers out of ancient Finland, thus
saving the grape crop and the jobs of Finnish vineyard workers.

Thus, we have a Finish Saint Day that is celebrated in America, that is not celebrated in Finland.

We have a similar situation with our St. Patrick's Day. We Americans have built up a lot of traditions that are not quite Irish. We Americans eat corned beef and cabbage, and pinch people, and

celebrate St. Patrick's Day with green beer and parades.
Traditionally, St. Patrick's Day meant going to church during the Christian season of Lent. There was no beer drinking, and especially no feasting on that holy day.

But, don't let me rain on your parade. Go out and have some fun out there. Pinch those checky non-green-wearing-potato-heads and if they complain, tell them "go n-ithe cata thú agus go n-ithe an diabhaill an cata."

Pi Day, 3.14

Pi Day

Today is Pi Day!! Yeah! And it's not to late to celebrate with a piece of pie, either pizza pie, or your favorite dessert pie. Just remember to calculate the area of the pie before you eat it (by using pi )and then you will know how many square inches of pie you ate, if you ate a whole pie that is.

For Pi Day fun, check out the Official Pi Day Website which has a Pi Day Shop, where you can buy Pi Day t-shirts and a clock in terms of pi, has a link to make and send Pi Day ecards to your friends, and even a link to watch Pi Day raps on You Tube. I have to say, I didn't watch the nine minute one. Hello! Nine minutes of pi rap!? Really?

Another place for Pi Day fun is The Pi-Search Page. The Pi Search Page has 200 million digits of pi, and will search for your preferred sequence of numbers so you can see where in pi they are. For example, today's date 03-14-2009 came up with these results: "The string 03142009 occurs at position 78,157,637 counting from the first digit after the decimal point. The 3. is not counted." So, with this resource, for some one's birthday, you can send them a card telling them where their birthday occurs in pi! And you know they will think you are the coolest person on the planet!

Anyway, have a very happy Pi Day everyone, and if you want to check out my previous Pi Day posts, look here, here, and here.

Square Root Day, 03/03/09

Square Root Day

How much do we love square roots at the Almanac of Merriment?  So much that we are prepared to give up our lunch breaks to blog about them.  (Your wish is my command, Edgy.) 

Today, 03/03/09, is one of just ten Square Root Days that we will have this century.  To have a Square Root Day one must have a day and a month that equal the square root of the last two digits of the year.  

The other nine Square Root Days in this, or any, century fall on 01/01/01; 02/02/04; 04/04/16; 05/05/25; 06/06/36; 07/07/49; 08/08/64; 09/09/81; and 10/10/2100.  As you can see, the amount of time between Square Root Days increases exponentially as the century progress... much like the distance between um...prime numbers?  No, wait I remember... numbers with perfect squares.  (Whew!  It's been a really long time since my last math class.  My last math class that didn't involve Excel, that is.)

Anyway, Edgy thinks this is a perfect day to eat square root vegetables.  Root vegetables that are square is shape, that is.  I wonder if there are any restaurants that are offering square veggies as a special today?