Serious numbers

I'll just come out and admit it; today was my birthday (past tense is probably correct, since on the east coast it already isn't my birthday again).

I won't go into details; we'll just say that it's a prime number this year. A prime number, I would have you notice, is divisible only by itself or one--that is to say, by itself or oneself, or by itself or me; I think you can draw your own conclusions about what that might mean.

In any case, as I look ahead at the next year, a vast expanse that is already spreading out in front of me like the great Bonneville Salt Flats, I am reminded of this adage by Marcus Aurelius (or perhaps it was Tarantino the Elder, or maybe Hepatitis of Sciatica--I can't remember which):

Minutus cantorum,
Minutus balorum,
Minutus carborata descendum pantorum.

("A little song, a little dance, a little selzer down the pants.")

Words to live by, if you ask me.