In a story that almost had to be made up for Owl Chatter’s You Can’t Make This Stuff Up Department, Saudi Arabia unveiled a humanoid robot it developed, and one of the first things it did was grab a female reporter’s ass. But don’t take our word for it. When Phil heard there was a story with the words “female” and “ass” in it, he grabbed his equipment and hopped on the first plane to Riyadh. He returned with this footage, or, if you will, ass-age.

The robot, whose name is Muhammed (not kidding), later apologized, sent flowers, and asked her out for drinks. She declined, explaining she was already dating a washing machine. D’oh!

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It’s Pi or pie day today: 3.14. So the puzzle was math-y. There was a Greek letter Pi comprised of black squares in the center, flanked by STEPHEN HAWKING and ALBERT EINSTEIN, who died and were born on 3/14, respectively.

MJB noted: Pi Day was started at the wonderful Exploratorium in San Francisco by Frank Oppenheimer, its founder, physicist and brother of a better known Oppenheimer. 

Anony-mouse added: “3/14 is also the anniversary of Karl Marx’s death, which occurred in 1883. He thought the workers deserved not just a bigger slice of the pie, but the whole thing.”

Here’s a quote of Einstein’s on his early impression of America:

“Most of all it is the women, by the way, who dominate all of American life. The men are interested in nothing at all; they work, work as I haven’t seen anyone anywhere else. For the rest, they are toy dogs for their wives, who spend the money in the most excessive fashion and who shroud themselves in a veil of extravagance.”

Woof, woof!

Yup, Linda just picked up a few more veils of extravagance at Target. Looking good darling!

Thank you for the profound insight, Al.

But getting back to math, okanaganer says: the most beautiful equation in math is how you calculate the volume of a pizza. If the radius of the pizza is z and the thickness is a, the volume is: PIxZxZxA.

Mathgent offered: Pi is the most well-known irrational number but being irrational isn’t why it’s important. Square root of 2 is the first number found to be irrational (not the ratio of two integers like 22/7). When the Greeks learned that, it blew their minds. The classic proof that root two is irrational is often considered the most beautiful in all of mathematics. [OC note: Sort of the mathematical Ana de Armas.]

Don’t shoot, Ana! It’s just Phil!

I love this note by Dr. A: My daughter’s school makes a fun celebration out of Pi day, and if you have good grades in Math her teacher lets you throw a pie at his face which is so awesome.

Wait, oops — this is a face in a pie, not a pie in a face. Sorry. George! Send it back — it’s wrong!

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Frank Bruni’s “For the love of sentences” feature shared this entry from a eulogy for fashionista Iris Apfel by Anita Diamant describing an exhibit of the outfits Apfel wore. (Apfel passed away recently at the age of 102.) “Every mannequin was loaded with layers upon layers (upon layers) of garments and embellishments and gewgaws that challenged propriety, common sense, and in some cases, gravity. Elaborate fabrics in shocking combinations were accessorized with feathers, bells, mirrors and so much jewelry: bangles stacked from wrist to elbow, strands of enormous beads that formed a kind of breastplate. Pins the size of small birds. A flock of small birds. And as nutty as the juxtapositions seemed, they created a kind of harmony. A triumph of muchness.”

Nick Catoggio described House Speaker Johnson’s face during the SOTU address thusly:  “Visible in-frame over Biden’s left shoulder, House Speaker Mike Johnson struggled all evening to find facial expressions that conveyed disagreement without seeming off-puttingly disrespectful. The extended, more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger choreography of exaggerated grimaces and head-shakes he settled on was familiar to me instantly as a longtime fan of the New York Jets.”

Ouch!

Last, this gorgeous review in The Times by Oussama Zahr of a recital by pianist Igor Levit: “He was playing the Nocturne from Hindemith’s ‘Suite 1922,’ a collection of five genre pieces like marches and rags, and there are a few moments in which the pianist only needs to use one hand. Gesturing with his left one in a downward pressing motion, he seemed to tell himself, ‘Gentle, gentle,’ as he plucked starlight off the page and dispersed it through the air.” 

Here’s Anna Gourari, not so much playing it, as living it.

We’ll let her send us off tonight. See you tomorrow everybody.