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In honor of Ides of March I'm going to tell folks the incredibly geeky but literate way I remember my own phone number I invented 20 odd years ago. It involves stabbing!

(I'm not too worried about sharing my phone number, it seems instantly google-able)

Ok. The number is 617-501-8251.

So it starts 617, which is like THE canonical Boston phone number. (it's "617 Strong" not "781 Strong", haters)

Alright. Then it's "501", as in "Levi 501 Blues". Easy enough if you grew up with television in a certain decade.

But now, I think about Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. "501" is transformed into a stage - 0 is Caesar in the middle, 5 and 1 are senators. And the senators stab him! And Caesar says "8 2 Brute?" ("et tu?") and dies, leaving the senators "5 1"

So... 617...501... 8 2? ... 5 1

Easy!

(So weird that most of us have semi-permanent phone numbers now. Back in the day kids, it was like your house that had the number.)