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Music. The comedy4cast network. Let's dog-ear that for now.

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Oh, hi there. You're here. Then let's get started.

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This is comedy4cast, Episode 767: Odds and Ends: Digit Dilemma,

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brought to you by the totally awesome comedy4cast Patreon patrons.

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Thank you.

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I'm still in production on this year's big story. It's a 20 episode epic for your listening pleasure.

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But I just took a peek in the oven and it needs a bit longer to bake.

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Be patient and stay away from that oven.

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It's hot. So, while we wait, I thought I'd do a few good old just you and me episodes about things on my mind.

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Or, more accurately, about things that bounce around inside my mind looking for the exit.

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And I'll toss in an odd news story or two along the way.

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Hence the name, Odds and Ends. It's a real smorgasbord of comedy4cast formats.

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Oh, great.

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Another food analogy. It's making me hungry. Hey, I said stay away from the oven.

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Sorry.

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All right, let's see. What's been bouncing around inside of my mind?

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Well, this for one thing, I needed to count something the other day.

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You know, one, two, three, four, five. I think we've all done that.

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Okay, I know we've all done that.

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And sure, it was easy, but the idea that we have names for numbers struck me as kind of strange.

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It began bouncing around inside of my mind while I was counting.

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I began thinking, wow, whoever it was that came up with the names for numbers,

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ran out of ideas real fast.

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Look at it this way, zero through 10, those are fine.

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All of those have different names.

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They're good to go. Same for 11, 12, 13, and then...

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we get to 14. 13...14. Really? 15.

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You're already out of ideas? 16.

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Yep, more of the same. And where did this teen part come from anyway?

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Then, when you get to 20 and think, maybe there's some hope there, nope, 21,

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22, 23.

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Total lack of imagination.

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And now that I think about it, the pattern is all messed up too, right?

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26, 16. Well, that's not right.

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Shouldn't all those numbers right after 10 be tendy-1, tenty-2, and tenty-3?

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Of course, I guess that would mean teenagers would be tentyagers, but sure, whatever.

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This whole numbers thing kept bouncing around inside my mind because the shapes of the numbers

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aren't any better than the names.

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That five? Well, that numbers person just took a two and turned it around and upside down.

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Three, well, that's just an eight with two bites taken out of it.

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They put the five right next to the six when all they did was close up the circle.

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Ooh, that's impressive.

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And let's not even get started on the six and the nine because mostly family-friendly podcast.

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But the point is, whoever the person in charge of numbers was,

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why did we hire them?

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You know, speaking of numbers, There's an odd news story that fits right in here.

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Now that the number of humpback whales is back on the rise, they're singing a different tune.

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Actually, no, they're not. That's the news.

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Researchers think that the tunes the male humpback whales sing play a role

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in attracting mates and asserting dominance.

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It's kind of like a UFC boy band.

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When the humpback whales were nearly hunted to extinction, some 20% of the male population sang.

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But the population has built itself back up again to some surprising results.

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Marine biologist Rebecca Dunlop had this to say.

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Hold, hold on a second.

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That's better. She said, it's getting more difficult to actually find singers.

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When there were fewer of them, there was lots of singing. Now that there are lots of them,

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no need to be singing so much.

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And I know that this news has been devastating at the NBC television network,

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because they were deep into pre-production on their latest series spinoff,

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The Voice, Pacific Rim.

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No, it's true. They'd already lined up their panel of singing judges and coaches.

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And how in the world are they going to break this news to Jason Momoa, Daryl Hannah,

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that sexy creature from The Shape of Water, and the wreck of the Titanic?

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♪♪ Okay, and, you know, this whole numbers thing I was talking about is still bouncing around in there.

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Why didn't we just hire whoever did the alphabet to deal with designing and naming numbers?

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I mean, the alphabet seems to have it all together. Lowercase a looks way different than lowercase b or c and...

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Wait, no, no, hold on a second. A lowercase d is just a lowercase b turned around.

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Wow, three whole letters before they gave up? And then I guess they thought, well, if I spread this stuff out,

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I can take that b and flip it upside down and backwards and call it p and no one will notice.

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And maybe no one would have noticed.

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But just like with the 5 and the 6, they put the lowercase p right next to the lowercase q.

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Well, at least the names are all different.

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Let's see, there's A, B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V. You know what? We should just start over.

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Hold a contest. Name that letter. I'll take the letter formerly known as C.

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C will now be pronounced Clinton.

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But hold on a second. Does that mean if someone asks me to spell my name, I'd have to say Clinton.

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That's Clinton. Like in Clinton. I'm obviously too hungry. I need something to eat.

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Oops. Not in there. Let me know what you think of this format,

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and I'll talk to you again next time.

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My goodness, look at the time. Let's wrap this up, shall we?

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Well, right you are, Sir Patrick. But first, a shout-out to our Patreon patrons.

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Thanks to Charlotte, Stan, Zach, Barry, Amy, Howard, Crazy Joe Adventures,

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Chuck from the Technorama Podcast, Paul, Kyle, Steve, Bryn, Gary, Darren, and Kalynn.

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If you'd like to join these podcast heroes to help support comedy4cast,

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for as little as a dollar a month, and get episodes before everyone else,

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go to patreon.com slash comedy4cast. All one word with the number 4. Thank you.

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As always, this is Sir Patrick Stewart. And I'm Clinton. As in Clinton.

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Saying, that's it, we're done, done, done, done, done.

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Music.