Dr. Pepper

moish01- this story is for you.

Getting back to the pressure thing-

This story goes back to early 2001.

The shadchan is one of the most dreaded shadchanim (if the not the most) amongst my friends. Just the sight of her number on the caller ID sent terror into the toughest guys. (To her credit, according to my wife, most girls consider her a savior.)

One particular girl got my name from somewhere and put this shadchan to work on getting me to go out with her. I never answered when she called so the shadchan called my parents and eventually resorted to other methods of pressure (which is not the scope of this thread). At one point I had agreed to go out with a different girl and I thought that the pressure would end. But no! The shadchan told the girl and she actually flew out to where my date lived while I was there. The shadchan called my parents to let me know that she’ll be on standby just in case it doesn’t work out. (My date didn’t work out and I wasn’t about to take her out so she just flew home.)

About two months later I buckled under the pressure and agreed to go out. (Some friends in yeshiva begged me just to get the shadchan off their backs.) The shadchan calls back and says that the girl wants to go out on Sunday, April 29th 2001.

I told the shadchan that I simply can’t go out on that day since I have a Computer Science project due midnight that night and I was planning on doing it on Sunday. But the shadchan informed me that since the girl is flying in for the date she gets to decide when we go out. And besides, she already booked the ticket and it will cost $25 to change.

So I planned the nerdiest date in the hopes that she will say NO.

Comes April 29th, I pick her up and she says “so, where are you taking me?”. I bit my tongue and said with a straight face “Well today the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge turns 62 so I thought we’d go to Francis Lewis Park at the base of the bridge and celebrate”.

“Sounds good I love bridges.”

Oh no, what do I do? It’s too late to apply for a change of venue (is that what lawyers call it?).

We get off The Van Wyck Expressway and she says “Yippee, a suspension bridge! I love suspension bridges”. So I bring out the cake and soda and apologize for not having a cake with 62 candles which she said was fine. I then pointed out how bad I felt for the bridge, pointing at all the cars crossing her and not a single one stops to show some gratitude by wishing her a happy birthday. (She sympathised with the bridge.)

She then started asking all kinds of questions about the bridge and her history which I made sure to give long detailed answers to. (There was a massive reconstruction project that was to start in the next few months and I learned all about it in a engineering class I was taking.)

She then asked me what other bridges were in the area so I took her to a lookout where we saw the George Washington Bridge and I told her that about a mile and a half to the east is the Throgs Neck Bridge and she asked if we could walk there. (We did.)

After the date, when I dropped her off at the place she was staying, she said “Thank you so much, I had such a good time. I was never so close to a suspension bridge before, I only hear about them in stories from my uncle, they don’t have any where I live.”

Oh well, at least I tried.

squeak,

You still don’t know which sister it was.

Just kidding, sorry if the wording was confusing. I don’t know who the girl is so I made up the name Mindy. It was her mother that made the comment not my mother. Mindy repeated it at a Shabbos Seudah she was spending with my family.

This just happened to my sister (but not on a date).

A girl got into an accident with my sister (no injuries B”H, just a couple thousand dollars damage). She had just moved to the city and wasn’t used to “big city” driving. She became good friends with my sister and comes over regularly for Shabbos meals. At one meal she quoted her mother, “Midny*, when I told you to become friends with nice people you run into, I didn’t mean that way!”.

*Not her real name

Mayan_Dvash

Thanks- that’s a good one.

That wasn’t even on my mind, at that time I was years away from earning a Ph.D.

(Pepsi was on sale that week.)

I wouldn’t quite say “force”, I didn’t have a gun at my head, but the easiest way to end the harassment is to just go out with her. And yes it is cruel and unusual torture and should be banned according to the constitution.

I hesitated to post this at first because I thought that oomis1105 might have gone out with him http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/funny-shidduch-stories/page/2#post-42508 but I seriously doubt it (mainly because he never owned a lizard).

Before I even started dating I used to get a ride with a newly married guy to college. He’s a very funny person but I respected him for his sincerity in not being a faker and asked him some questions about dating. (He said that he would either answer them honestly or tell me that he won’t answer them at all.) At that naive part of my life, my biggest concern was how to say no to a girl without hurting her feelings.

He said what he does in those cases is he makes the girl say no, and told me a few ways he’s done it. For starters when they get to a red light he has a contest with her to see who could find the prime factorization of the numeric part of licence plate of the car in front of them. He was good at this so I assume that he’s done it numerous times before. He would also take off his left shoe and sock and pick at his callouses with his right hand while he drove with his left hand and right foot. (He demonstrated this for me.)

What reminded me about the guy that oomis1105 went out with was the way he would wait in line to wash in yeshiva. He would use his mathematical skills to predict how long of a wait he had until he reached the faucet (he would do this out loud for anyone who cared to listen). On dates he would complain in a really whiny voice about all his pet peeves. “It’s reeeeeaaaaallllly not faaaaaiiiiiir when peeeeoooople take the waaasshhiiinngg cups from the diiiiiinnnning rroooommm to the doooorrrrmmms, the waaaiiiittiinnnggg tiiimmmmee in the liiinnnnneee is increeeaaasseed by as much as 33%. (He is an actuary now, by the way.)

He found it amusing that two girls that he went out with told him stories of what happened to their friends on dates that were stuff that he was actually the guy that did. The first one will get the whole post deleted so I’ll wait until I get promoted to moderator to post it. The second one was when he took a girl that he already lost interest in to some sort of park, zoo, museum or something of the sort. There was a trail or path that crisscrossed itself over and over again but there was one direction that was supposed to be followed throughout. He told her that he did it so many times that he wants to do it backwards to make it more interesting. Being that it crisscrosses many time and they were going backwards, they kept on bumping in to a friend of hers, also on a date, over and over again. At that time he felt it was very important to tell her about his great aunts in-grown toe nail, in more detail than she cared to know about. Each time they passed her friend and her date he could sense her feeling embarrassed and making faces like “it’s our first and last”. (It was.)

He would also institute something called “window privileges”, he explained to the girl that the use of the power windows in his car are not a right, but a privilege that must be earned.

I actually used that line on a date with my wife. On our first date my wife tried to lower the window but it was locked. My wife wanted to know why I kept it locked (it was actually a rental I picked up that morning that I didn’t even check to see if the windows were unlocked or not). I explained that “windows are not a right but a privilege that must be earned, but you already earned your privileges”, I smiled at her and unlocked the windows. She didn’t laugh but after we got engaged (and she got to know me a little better) she said that she thought I was serious and it was really sweet of me.

Awwww, how romantic!

I filled out the questionnaire online for Dr. Pepper, got a confirmation number and e-mail. A few months later she got a letter saying that since she ignored the questionnaire she must either report to court the very next day or risk facing one year in jail plus a $1,000 fine. I called them, told them about the e-mail and they asked me to forward it to them. Never heard from them again.

As far as jury service is concerned, I never got called but Dr. Pepper did a few times. She just called and said that she’d love to serve on the jury but she’ll need a private room to feed the baby. They always gave her off for a few years. They might have made the system stricter recently though.

He also told me another story (similar to Ms. Ex-vegetarians-ex http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/funny-shidduch-stories/page/11#post-57443 ) but I’ll have to post it later when I have more time.

Here’s the story:

Guy is form Florida, girl is from Montreal. The girl has a wedding in New York so they decide to go out from there. The Shadchan asks them both to commit to two dates because of the expense of the flights.

Guy flies to New York, rents a car and goes to Flatbush to pick up the girl for the date. Here’s how the conversation starts:

Guy- Nice to meet you how was your trip?

Girl- Good, thanks, and by the way I need to be dropped of in Monsey after the date.

Guy- Uh, that’s going to be a problem since I don’t know how to get there and I have to return the car in four or five hours.

Girl- Well it’s the guys responsibility to drop off the girl where ever she wants to be dropped off.

Guy- I’m going to disagree with you on that. I think that the guys responsibility is to drop the girl off where he picked her up unless there is a prior arrangement made that was agreed upon.

Girl- Well, I really need to get to Monsey after the date and if you don’t take me I’ll have no way of getting there.

Guy- If you get directions and someone to pick you up halfway I’ll be glad to take you there.

So he spends the next hour or so in the car while she calls friends and relatives until she finds someone who is willing to pick her up from the gas station at the beginning of the Palisades, right off the George Washington Bridge. He drives her there, waits with her until her ride shows up and wishes her a good night.

He then calls the Shadchan and tells her what happened. The Shadchan sided with the girl explaining that she had another date in Monsey right after him and that’s why she needed to be there so urgently. The guy asks the Shadchan to tell the girl that it’s over but she reminds him that he committed to two dates and he must take her out again.

The whole next day he’s waiting to hear from the Shadchan when to take her out but the Shadchan hasn’t heard from the girl. After doing a little research he finds out that the wedding the girl was going to that night is at Terrace on the Park. Being that it’s on the way back to the airport he thought he’ll stop off there, find her, find out what the story is and change his flight if necessary. Otherwise he’ll just take a taxi to the airport.

He comes to the wedding during the chupa looks around to find the girl and decides to approach her after the chupa.

The chupa is over, the girl and her friends done walking the kallah to the yichud room, and he goes over to her and calls her name. She turns around, recognizes him, let’s out a scream and tries to run away. The only problem is that in Terrace on the Park there’s nowhere to run, you can’t run down the steps you have to wait until an elevator operator takes you down in an elevator.

He meets up with her again by the elevator and asks to speak with her. She justifies her actions by saying that if she flew in from Montreal it’s understood that she is going to be dating more than one person. He disagrees with her again and says that if he flies from Florida, rents a car, and pays for the expenses on the date (while he is not simultaneously dating someone else) then he should not have to compete with another guy.

He’s not in the mood of discussing this any further so he asks if he could please take a taxi to catch his flight. She readily agrees.

The next day the Shadchan calls him and says that the reason why the girl didn’t want to keep her commitment for a second date was because he left her off by a gas station after the first date.

Once a guy has his mind set on a girl he’ll do what ever it takes to get engaged to her. A person I know went as far as saying that he was going to give up his career and learn in Kollel for the rest of his life for a particular girl he was interested in. While he might say that he’ll quit, once they get married, the initial bliss is over and they are back to ordinary life, he’ll take up smoking again.

Here’s what’s so bad about smoking-

In the following mortality table “Age” is the left column, the next column is the probability of a non-smoker dying during a particular month at that age followed by the probability of a smoker dying during a particular month at that age. The last column is the percentage increase in mortality that a smoker has verses a non-smoker. (There are many mortality tables out there, I picked this one at random from a website that helps users determine the premium they should be paying for life insurance.)

For example a standard 33 year old non-smoker has a .00154 probability (about one in 650) of dying during that month while for a smoker it’s .00229 (about one in 437), an increase of 49%.

Age	 Non-smoker 	 Smoker 	Ratio

18	 0.00149 	 0.00199 	34%

19	 0.00153 	 0.00206 	35%

20	 0.00155 	 0.00209 	35%

21	 0.00154 	 0.00210 	36%

22	 0.00151 	 0.00208 	38%

23	 0.00149 	 0.00205 	38%

24	 0.00146 	 0.00200 	37%

25	 0.00143 	 0.00195 	36%

26	 0.00141 	 0.00193 	37%

27	 0.00139 	 0.00192 	38%

28	 0.00139 	 0.00193 	39%

29	 0.00140 	 0.00196 	40%

30	 0.00141 	 0.00202 	43%

31	 0.00144 	 0.00209 	45%

32	 0.00148 	 0.00218 	47%

33	 0.00154 	 0.00229 	49%

34	 0.00161 	 0.00242 	50%

35	 0.00168 	 0.00258 	54%

36	 0.00178 	 0.00278 	56%

37	 0.00189 	 0.00301 	59%

38	 0.00203 	 0.00328 	62%

39	 0.00217 	 0.00359 	65%

40	 0.00234 	 0.00394 	68%

41	 0.00251 	 0.00433 	73%

42	 0.00270 	 0.00475 	76%

43	 0.00291 	 0.00519 	78%

44	 0.00313 	 0.00568 	81%

45	 0.00338 	 0.00619 	83%

46	 0.00364 	 0.00673 	85%

47	 0.00393 	 0.00730 	86%

48	 0.00425 	 0.00792 	86%

49	 0.00458 	 0.00860 	88%

50	 0.00497 	 0.00934 	88%

51	 0.00541 	 0.01018 	88%

52	 0.00592 	 0.01113 	88%

53	 0.00650 	 0.01220 	88%

54	 0.00714 	 0.01336 	87%

55	 0.00784 	 0.01460 	86%

56	 0.00860 	 0.01589 	85%

57	 0.00942 	 0.01723 	83%

58	 0.01029 	 0.01864 	81%

59	 0.01127 	 0.02014 	79%

60	 0.01238 	 0.02182 	76%

When a smoker is in his late 40s to early 50s his chance of dying from smoking is almost equal to the probability of dying from everything else combined!

ames- I actually heard this from a colleague of mine while I was a teacher and I think he was very serious. Some of the authors list the names of the students who helped review the textbooks.

As far as the software is concerned- I agree that it’s very interesting.

Pretty often when I was creating an exam I started with an answer and went backwards to a question. (For example: X = -3 and 5. Now the question would be “Solve for X: X^2 – 2X = 15.)

The software would ask for ranges for the answers, say from -10 to 10, and design the question accordingly. An advanced option would create a different exam for each student (same questions but different numbers and the correct solutions were randomly placed from A to E for each student). Each test would have a bar code that had to be scanned before the answer sheet was submitted to the Scantron. Of course I couldn’t justify asking the Yeshiva to buy the necessary hardware to combat cheating when it was nonexistent.

I can’t begin to imagine how textbooks were written before PCs. Forget about coming up with problems, just think about the formatting and mathematical notations!

Start with the prime factorization of 1,000,000

= 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 5 * 5 * 5 * 5 * 5 * 5.

So the two integers must consist of six 2s and six 5s between the two of them.

Any integer that contains a 2 and 5 in it’s prime factorization will end in 0. (2 * 5 = 10 and any integer multiplied by 10 ends in 0.)

=> one integer contains all six 2s and the other one contains all six 5s.

I read this riddle when I didn’t have a calculator nearby (it must have been on shabbos) and the way I calculated (2^6) and (5^6) is by breaking it into squares.

(2^6) = (2^3)^2, we all know that 2^3 = 8 and 8^2 = 64.

(5^6) = (5^3)^2 was a little trickier. 5 * 5 = 25 and 25 * 5 = 125 (5 quarters is 125 cents right?) now 125^2 is what?

Using the trick from the second half of this post http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/the-riddle-thread/page/8#post-16043

125 * 125 = 100 * ( 12 * 13) + 25 = 15,625.

The two integers are 64 and 15,625 and that is the only solution.

moish01-

There is a solution using two integers.

Using the second part of this post http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/the-riddle-thread/page/8#post-16043 you should be able to do it in your head.

Good luck.

Two numbers multiply to 1,000,000. Neither number contains the digit 0.

What are the two numbers?

How did two guys, both chavrusas, get rejected for the same reason over the same weekend by two different girls?

He had the knowledge to take care of the software programming involved and the basic design, but he needed someone with a math background to help calculate how the parallel resistors should be arranged properly as well as the fine motor skills and experience of using a soldering iron on small connections without leaking any solder. I had experience in the use of soldering irons from high school, as well as the math background and was also the proud owner of a TI-89, so when he asked me if I also wanted to be one of the coolest on campus I jumped at the opportunity.

Heard this from a guy who was my roommate in yeshiva at the time. He told me this story right after the date but I think it’s greatly exaggerated.

He couldn’t borrow a car for the date (this I know is true, I was there when he made the calls) so he had to use a car service. Right from the beginning he got annoyed that she was asking what he felt were dumb questions. Eventually he gave up on the date and decided to give dumber answers.

So, um do you know how to drive?

Well, I had to stop recently until I can get my sleep apnea under control.

Yeah, so how was Purim? (The date was between Purim and Pesach.)

Good

Did you, like, get drunk?

No, alcohol is horrible for my stomach ulcers.

Aha, uh did you, ah ya know, smoke?

Nah, the doctor told me to hold off until my collapsed lung is fully healed.

How about dancing with your friends, did you do any of that?

Oh no, none of that, not until I lose some weight and my knees stop buckling.

So how is Pesach cleaning coming along?

Oy, I started but I got an asthma attack from all the dust so I had to stop. I’ll leave it for my roommate (yeah right)…

(No, they did not go out the next day, (he had to get his dentures fitted,) or the next (he had 47 ingrown toenails,) and no, they did not married.)

aussieboy-

raised to the power of

3^7 = 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 = 2,187

Just happened to my sister. I’m embarrassed to say which person she was so let’s just call them A and B.

So A and B are on a date. A is telling B about the recent wedding of a friend. B wants to know if A had a good time at the wedding. A admits to not dancing because “I was born with two left feet”. B is fascinated and says, “Wow, you must have a hard time buying shoes!”.

ames-

Consider this a take home test- you may use any resources you desire but your answer must contain a full explanation or you will receive no credit.

kapusta-

Not it my personal life, but if I wasn’t like this in my professional life my colleagues would have a severe advantage over me.

aussieboy-

Nice try but you’re trying to solve it from the wrong dimension.

Here are two hints:

1. The correct answer is over 10,000,000 and

2. The last three digits of the correct answer are the same.

Good Luck Everyone

*kapusta*

When I was studying civil engineering one of the textbooks would throw in some interesting facts. I don’t recall the vast majority of those facts except for a few that pertain to bridges (and tunnels) in and around New York.

(By the way- I did not graduate as an engineer.)

The longest in the U.S. is the Verrazano Narrows Bridge at 4260 feet (measured by length of main span or distance between towers). The Golden Gate Bridge has a main span of 4200 feet. The Verrazano Narrows Bridge lost the title of longest suspension bridge in the world in 1981 but remains the longest suspension bridge in the U.S.

I posted a riddle some time ago as to why the towers are further apart at the top than at the base. Anyone remember that?

Correction- There is no elevator access to the top floor of the Empire State Building. The highest floor served by an elevator is the 101st floor (which is incorrectly advertised as the 102nd). The plan was for passengers arriving on dirigibles to take a gangplank from the airship to the actual 102nd floor, walk down to the 101st floor and then take an elevator to customs on the 86th floor. Being that there is no elevator service to the actual 102nd floor the management just labeled the 101st floor as the 102nd.

The first Jewish mayor of New York City was Fiorello Laguardia. (His parents were Italian but his mother was Jewish.)

This happened to a friend of mine while on a date in Baltimore. I didn’t quite understand how he did this until I followed it on a map.

This guy has a date in Baltimore so he drives down and stops by some friends in the yeshiva there to change and get ideas of places to go. One guy gives him an idea of a park at the end of I-70 and gives him directions there.

“When you get to the highway (I-695) get off on the right. Look for I-70 and stay to the left. When you reach the end of I-70 there is a park there”. Sounds pretty easy right?

The problem is that the girl was boarding by a family on the other side of the highway so when he came to the highway he was coming from the other direction. He took the entrance ramp on the right side anyway. I-695 circles the whole city so he did end up reaching I-70 but about 50 miles later instead of 5. When they reached I-70 he remembered to get off on the left side as the instructions said- the problem again being that he was coming from the wrong direction. So they are going and going down I-70 and he keeps thinking that the guy said that it should only be two minutes on I-70. She finally realizes that they are heading towards Denver and suggests that he turn around. So he turns around and they find the park.

On the way home he managed to get onto I-695 in the right direction (getting on I-70 was a no brainer since it only goes in one direction from the park) but he got off the highway heading towards the yeshiva instead of her place of residence. She pointed out that he was heading in the wrong direction. He said, “I know, I know- my friends said that if it goes good I should bring you to the yeshiva and introduce you to them”.

They did not marry each other.

The copper sheeting of the Statue of Liberty is less than one tenth of an inch thick!

I heard this one from a friend who said it happened to his roommate. I have no reason to doubt it.

The guy and a girl decide to go to a ball game for one date. They look for a nice quiet section of the stadium so they could talk and watch the game and end up sitting on a bleacher about one foot away from each other.

During the game the home team mascot sits down between them and puts one of his arms around each one of them. To their horror they looked up and saw their picture with the mascot wrapped around them being shown on the giant screen.

(They did marry each other.)