37zone

It was a sweltery summer's night when Nick decided to rent out the excellent movie "Clerks" (directed by Kevin Smith, the same guy who did "Mallrats" and "Chasing Amy") - a hot, sweltery, very, very, very late, hot, sweltery night. It was even later, say, around 5am, when everyone seemed tired enough to stop the shave-the-cat games and start watching videos. Now, without spoiling one of the most salient points in the film, there is a part where the main character (Dante) questions his girlfriend (Veronica) just how many men she has ... EHEM! ... EHEM! ... (loud throat clearing noises ... get those young kiddies out of here) ... EHEM! ... gone down upon and/or shared a place of sleeping with. The reply is, naturally, "36". HOWEVER - the reply is not wholly accurate. "What about me?" says Dante. "Oh," replies Veronica. "I guess that would be ... 37."
At that point, the doors suddenly fly open and a huge kickline of buxom women ran in and did a dance to the tune of "How Much Is That Doggy In the Window?", but with the word "37" replacing every word containing a vowel. The whole of the cast then run all the way to the top of Mount Everest and proclaim that it should really be called "Mount 37" and the movie closes with a magnificent zoom as the helicopter flies away.
That is, it appeared to, but bear in mind that this was around 7 o'clock in the morning after a night of depraved letterbox stealing. The truth is, nobody thought anything of it that night - we just laughed it off and watched the rest of what is a truly great movie.

A number of days later, Nick started acting 5% more wierdly than normal. He came up to me at school and said - "Thirty seven!", then offered no further explanation.
"What's that meant to mean?"
"Think about it!" he said, laughing maniacally, and ran into a pathetic little kid trying to eat a tub of yoghurt with his bare hands.

So I did.

I kept thinking about it for quite some time, really. Possibly a bit too long (I'm writing this aren't I?). I thought and thought and thought and thought and thought just what Nick was talking about. Of course, I had forgotten all about having ever watched Clerks (which was the reference that Nick had picked up on) and wandered all the way home wondering (a) what he meant and (b) how I could avoid him without making him suspicious. I then picked up a copy of a certain Australian underground comic known as 'Platinum Grit' and saw the following picture:

(For those who can't read the speech bubble, it says "Thurrrty Saivun! Thairs baiter!" which, to the best of my knowledge, is Scottish for "Thirty Seven! That's better". For those who can't understand what's going on in this frame, the guy saying "37" in Scottish is ripping out the other guy's tongue, to get the number that he will take in the queue at a job office. He doesn't like any of the numbers that are written on the guy's other tongues, only 37. For those who still don't understand, there's probably a lot of background information that you need to read. Quite a lot.)

Being two people who were prone to going off at tangents and following circular paper trails and picking up on even the smallest and most insignificant coincidences, we leapt on this one with all the vigour and energy of a couple of guys with nothing better to do. Soon, everywhere we looked, there were 37 references. Seeing a group of numbers together prompted us firstly to look for embedded 37s, then patterns that would somehow incorporate 37, then ways that the numbers could somehow be multiplied/added/divided/subtracted to become the increasingly magic number. For example:

1997 becomes 1⁹ x the square root of 9 and 7 = 1 x 3 and 7 = 37

Gradually, we told more and more increasingly annoyed bystanders about our theory, and gathered more and more evidence. A few examples from movies and TV are:

• In Pulp Fiction, The Wolf arrives in "Nine minutes 37 seconds".
• Clerks repeats the appropriate figure a number of times, together with appropriate slurping noises
• In the movie "Scream", during the scene where Neve Campbell (the one from 'Party of Five') goes to sulk in the school toilet, for no particular reason, the graffiti on one of the cubicle doors says "37".
• In one of the latest of Jerry Seinfeld's ads for American Express, (the one where he's at a petrol station, and showing off how he can always do a 'perfect pump' - exactly $20.00 worth of petrol) his second NOT-QUITE-PERFECT pump is exactly 37 cents over $20.
• The Simpsons also has quite a few 37 references. Do you remember:
  Marge is 37 years old (and won't shut up about it!).
  Homer is also 37, but doesn't tell everyone.
  When Homer is choosing a random number "between 1 and a hundred", to see which parent will see Bart's teacher for Parent-Teacher Meetings, Marge correctly guesses it as "37".
  The 37th full-length episode of the Simpsons (the one where Homer gets sent to a mental hospital) is a deadset classic.
  And lots more...
• The Swat Kats have a 37blaster. You know, they didn't really call it by name, but they did use it. See, Jake said at the beginning "look at this new weapon. We'll use it later in the show and you'll never see it again." and the next bit, where he actually calls it the "37blaster" was edited out in syndication. Truly.
• The director's cut of "A Few Good Men" has an excellent scene in the courtroom. Jack Nicholson shouts "You want the truth? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!" then Al Pacino does a cameo and walks in saying "Oh yeah? Wanna bet?" and Jack says "How much?" and Al says "37 dollars". Hello? Come back! I was just kidding!
• Zone 38 is an Australian movie. That's true.

• All of Nick's and Tom's science pracs exhibit more than uncanny tendency to include 37 in the results. Surely this statistical anomaly is something more than just coincidence!
• Windows 37 was a complete roaring failure.
• 37 Zone is an internet site.
• All of the Geocities sites that have 37 in them have already been taken.
• Nick's hard drive is type 37.
• More often than not, whenever I choose a random number, it turns out to be 37.

This is just a cursory list, much of which is unimpressive, but if you remain unconvinced as to the validity of our crusade, we suggest you visit "37 Heaven", which was formed by a man we have never met, and which we discovered only a few months ago.

Of course, if you haven't been convinced by now, you probably never will be, but otherwise, it's worth keeping your eyes peeled! 37 is everywhere and you can't escape it! Ha ha ah hahahah! If you see any worthy 37-events, e-mail them to us.

So remember - keep watching the skies. There may just be a 37 out there with your name on it.

- Tom Murtagh