GingerAle

Not Ale, troll-bait. Banana daiquiris.

 They are such a handsome troop!

Thank you, Miss Melody. It’s a great honor to be considered for the resident troll and chief position. And while today’s post was truly a great solo flight, my math skills are too primitive to be a troll master, or even a junior troll, on this forum.  I wish that were not so.

Of course, I will be happy to stir a pot when it’s needed or sterilize a post that has CDD, just like I did with this one.   This post didn’t have math, just dumbness. It wasn’t really contagious, either —just hidden.  

I am so pleased, Sir CPhill.  It is truly a great compliment when one sees the Master in the student. 

Did my nifty hat give me a way?

I am a member of A.P.E. but I’m not at a high enough rank to have assistants yet. Because of today’s post, I think I will be eligible soon.  I spent weeks seeking a position at A.P.E. before finally getting a reply from the top banana himself, LancelotLink.  Here’s an extract from our exchange.

. . .

Lancelot: Humm . . . This is very interesting, my dear. It is not easy to tell from your overtures, but just so I’m clear, do you want to join The A.P.E. organization or my harem?

Ginger: Well, being an apprentice to Lancelot’s A.P.E. organization would look good on my resume. Artistic adviser to the board of directors of A.P.E would look really cool. However, if I join your harem, I suppose I could put carpenter in my resume. Not as impressive, but still accurate. 

Lancelot: Carpenter? How do you derive carpenter from that honored position?

Ginger: By finding the root of the problem.  You need someone skilled at making your banana daiquiris and your banana stand.  A carpenter would be ideal for such a problem. Don’t you think so? 

Lancelot: After a banana-boat load of laughter, the board voted unanimously to approve your contract to join A.P.E.  . . .  Joining the harem is totally optional, of course. 

Though the troll master is not really my employer, he is my mentor and my dear friend. I sorely miss his troll posts and him.  

I found one of your questions (I’m a blŏŏdy mind reader). It wasn’t yesterday, though. 

Here’s the link. 

Alan answers and explains the details of the solution to this exact question here.

That is amazing you could tell it was me. I’ve made only a few posts using my account name and some as a guest. Some were snarky, trolling-posts and were deleted – they were not Scooby-snack-worthy.

My popping on and off happened because I logged on through a university library network.  I was going to post a question (details below) because my “private tutor” was off the grid.  When I realized I couldn’t log on, my Irish temper took over and I flamed the post with two of Naus’ thermonuclear grenades of humor and fire. It did cheer me up. It was still anonymous 10 hours later when I checked for responses.  It’s not beyond me to post something like this with my name attached, but it’s kind of dumb to do it and expect anything except an in-kind retort. 

When I was 7-years-old, I learnt it was much more fun to sneak a cookie than to ask. My mom and dad were amused by behavior, but my dad, being somewhat of a practical joker, stuffed a jack-in the-box, springy, caterpillar in the cookie jar. On top of that, he hid in the pantry with a cookie monster mask.  I managed not to drop the cookie jar when the caterpillar popped out, but when cookie monster jumped out of the pantry, the last thing I remember before fainting, was throwing the cookie jar at him, which he caught (it was Rubbermaid—my mother is a smart cookie).  I’m sure my father was more scared than I was at that point. 

I didn’t eat any cookies for weeks afterward.  It was at least a year before I again started sneaking cookies, but I carefully and slowly opened the jar. To this day, after more than 20 years, I still half believe something will jump out whenever I open a cookie jar. 

Thank you for the reply. I actually did find these numbers, but not directly. I did this by creating a spread sheet starting with a value of X and incremented each successive value of X by multiplying by 1.05. I also kept a running total.  When the 10th value = 100,000,000, I knew that was the correct starting value. (The 10th value was actually = 100,000,000.04 – a rounding error, I guess).  It took about a half-hour to zero in on the starting value.

What I didn’t know how to do was find the starting value directly. Even though it is not an interest rate problem, I tried using the present value formula, with the interest rate set at 105% per year with a FV set at 100,000,000. . . . Nope! Not even close.  I tried adjusting the “interest rate” by using a harmonic average, geometric average, and the median.  Nope!

Now that you‘ve pointed out this is a geometric series, I read the wiki on this subject and found the formula relating to this.

Oh, I hadn’t put the rum in it, yet. This banana daiquiri recipe calls for 80 ml of rum which is too much for me –and my cat :). I drizzle the rum (a few dozen imperial minims at a time) on top as I drink it. I drink this slowly otherwise it gives me a “brain freeze” headache.  My cat seems immune to these, but he wouldn’t be immune to the alcohol in the rum, though he probably could handle it better than me.

I am of very Irish heritage but I didn’t inherit much of a tolerance for alcohol. I would get a light buzz from just a few sips of communion wine.  In the scheme of life, this is probably a good thing.

Thank you Miss Melody. You are very kind.

Naus has always spoken very highly of you. And of CPhill, Alan, Heureka, Rom, Bertie and Geno, too, although he never refers to him by his name.  Always the troll he is.

I was making a banana daiquiri and the lid popped off the blinder. What a mess!!

 My cat is helping me mop it up.