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This is comedy4cast, Episode 767: Odds and Ends: Digit Dilemma,
brought to you by the totally awesome comedy4cast Patreon patrons.
Thank you.
I'm still in production on this year's big story. It's a 20 episode epic for your listening pleasure.
But I just took a peek in the oven and it needs a bit longer to bake.
Be patient and stay away from that oven.
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.
Or, more accurately, about things that bounce around inside my mind looking for the exit.
And I'll toss in an odd news story or two along the way.
Hence the name, Odds and Ends. It's a real smorgasbord of comedy4cast formats.
Oh, great.
Another food analogy. It's making me hungry. Hey, I said stay away from the oven.
Sorry.
All right, let's see. What's been bouncing around inside of my mind?
Well, this for one thing, I needed to count something the other day.
You know, one, two, three, four, five. I think we've all done that.
Okay, I know we've all done that.
And sure, it was easy, but the idea that we have names for numbers struck me as kind of strange.
It began bouncing around inside of my mind while I was counting.
I began thinking, wow, whoever it was that came up with the names for numbers,
ran out of ideas real fast.
Look at it this way, zero through 10, those are fine.
All of those have different names.
They're good to go. Same for 11, 12, 13, and then...
we get to 14. 13...14. Really? 15.
You're already out of ideas? 16.
Yep, more of the same. And where did this teen part come from anyway?
Then, when you get to 20 and think, maybe there's some hope there, nope, 21,
22, 23.
Total lack of imagination.
And now that I think about it, the pattern is all messed up too, right?
26, 16. Well, that's not right.
Shouldn't all those numbers right after 10 be tendy-1, tenty-2, and tenty-3?
Of course, I guess that would mean teenagers would be tentyagers, but sure, whatever.
This whole numbers thing kept bouncing around inside my mind because the shapes of the numbers
aren't any better than the names.
That five? Well, that numbers person just took a two and turned it around and upside down.
Three, well, that's just an eight with two bites taken out of it.
They put the five right next to the six when all they did was close up the circle.
Ooh, that's impressive.
And let's not even get started on the six and the nine because mostly family-friendly podcast.
But the point is, whoever the person in charge of numbers was,
why did we hire them?
You know, speaking of numbers, There's an odd news story that fits right in here.
Now that the number of humpback whales is back on the rise, they're singing a different tune.
Actually, no, they're not. That's the news.
Researchers think that the tunes the male humpback whales sing play a role
in attracting mates and asserting dominance.
It's kind of like a UFC boy band.
When the humpback whales were nearly hunted to extinction, some 20% of the male population sang.
But the population has built itself back up again to some surprising results.
Marine biologist Rebecca Dunlop had this to say.
Hold, hold on a second.
That's better. She said, it's getting more difficult to actually find singers.
When there were fewer of them, there was lots of singing. Now that there are lots of them,
no need to be singing so much.
And I know that this news has been devastating at the NBC television network,
because they were deep into pre-production on their latest series spinoff,
The Voice, Pacific Rim.
No, it's true. They'd already lined up their panel of singing judges and coaches.
And how in the world are they going to break this news to Jason Momoa, Daryl Hannah,
that sexy creature from The Shape of Water, and the wreck of the Titanic?
♪♪ Okay, and, you know, this whole numbers thing I was talking about is still bouncing around in there.
Why didn't we just hire whoever did the alphabet to deal with designing and naming numbers?
I mean, the alphabet seems to have it all together. Lowercase a looks way different than lowercase b or c and...
Wait, no, no, hold on a second. A lowercase d is just a lowercase b turned around.
Wow, three whole letters before they gave up? And then I guess they thought, well, if I spread this stuff out,
I can take that b and flip it upside down and backwards and call it p and no one will notice.
And maybe no one would have noticed.
But just like with the 5 and the 6, they put the lowercase p right next to the lowercase q.
Well, at least the names are all different.
Let's see, there's A, B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V. You know what? We should just start over.
Hold a contest. Name that letter. I'll take the letter formerly known as C.
C will now be pronounced Clinton.
But hold on a second. Does that mean if someone asks me to spell my name, I'd have to say Clinton.
That's Clinton. Like in Clinton. I'm obviously too hungry. I need something to eat.
Oops. Not in there. Let me know what you think of this format,
and I'll talk to you again next time.
My goodness, look at the time. Let's wrap this up, shall we?
Well, right you are, Sir Patrick. But first, a shout-out to our Patreon patrons.
Thanks to Charlotte, Stan, Zach, Barry, Amy, Howard, Crazy Joe Adventures,
Chuck from the Technorama Podcast, Paul, Kyle, Steve, Bryn, Gary, Darren, and Kalynn.
If you'd like to join these podcast heroes to help support comedy4cast,
for as little as a dollar a month, and get episodes before everyone else,
go to patreon.com slash comedy4cast. All one word with the number 4. Thank you.
As always, this is Sir Patrick Stewart. And I'm Clinton. As in Clinton.
Saying, that's it, we're done, done, done, done, done.
Music.