My Recurring Date

So it seems that no matter what, every July 8 is going to be my birthday. Stupid calendar. I guess we have to mark the passing of time somehow. And since most everyone knows that I could care less about my birthday (or any other holidays and so forth), I thought it fun to poke around the interwebs and see significance, if any, has ever been put on the number 33. And luckily my research did not leave me to feel like I was trapped in a shitty Jim Carrey movie.

Some things you may not know (or even care to know):

In math, "33 is the largest positive integer that cannot be expressed as a sum of different triangular numbers. It is also the smallest odd repdigit that's not prime (unless we consider 1-digit integers to also be repdigits)." Eric and Kelly once crushed one of my repdigits under a big-ass boulder when they dropped it without telling me.

Also in math, 33 is apparently a Størmer number, which upon being looked up is not nearly as cool as it sounds.

In science, 33 is the atomic number of arsenic, something my sister has probably tried to poison me with once or twice. 33 is also the number of vertebrae in the human spine, so that's nice (although I'd like to get them all working together to help my golf swing).

Oregon is the 33rd state. That's cool. I've always dug Oregon. Good cities, good people.

For you religious folk, legend has it Jesus was 33 when he was crucified ("though not verified historically" according to to Wikipedia ... yeah, no shit), and he also apparently performed 33 miracles. Not sure I like either of those as forewarnings. Though according to some guy named Al-Ghazali, the dwellers of heaven will exist eternally in a state of being age 33, so if he's right I better have a damned good year.

In literature, 33 is the coming of age of a hobbit in J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings," and since Kelly thinks I live in Middle Earth, that works out quite well. Just need to brush up on my ranger and spellcasting skills. The number 33 was also discovered to lead to the essential meaning of life (the Bible) in Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol." But that book sucked so I'm not jazzed about that at all.

On a total downer note, 33 is one of the symbols of Ku Klux Klan. So that stinks. Guess I can't expect everything to be peachy. But let's flip it and I'll mention that there are at least four brands of beer named 33, one of which is a Vietnamese beer that I actually have had many times, so that's cool.

Well there you have it. We'll see how the year turns out. Thanks for all the well wishes and reading along.