Thank You, My Anonymous Reddit Secret Santa

All my Reddit Secret Santa really knew about me was that I was a math teacher (and an atheist, though that wasn’t relevant here)… and s/he sent me the following (after the jump)!

(A portable Tetris Nano game!)

(My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles by Martin Gardner)

(Four CDs: Ágætis byrjun by Sigur Rós, Separation Sunday by The Hold Steady, American Slang by The Gaslight Anthem, and Invented by Jimmy Eat World)

(A Zero-Gravity Fridge Rover)

(A Tin Can Robot)

The letter reads:

Dear Mpromptu,

First off, sorry for being tardy in sending your gifts to you. My deepest apologies, sir!

So, what does one get for an atheist math teacher for Newton’s-Day? I know you wanted something you could share with your students, and hopefully the logic & math puzzles and the robot will fill that wish nicely. I also wanted to get you something tou could enjoy while they’re taking tests — what better distraction than Tetris?!

Now, I don’t mean to be presumptive of your musical tastes, however music is a big part of my life. I’m sending you a few albums from a couple of my favorite bands. I hope they bring you as much joy as they’ve brought me.

Wishing you all the best in 2012; let’s hope the Mayans were wrong!

— Your S.S.

…

Greatest gifts ever 🙂 Thank you, whoever you are!

Charles Black

The thing I don’t understand is why people are willing to believe that a bunch of ignorant savages who lived over a thousand years ago are able to predict doomsday long after their civilisation is gone, but couldn’t predict the end of their civilisation.
It just strains all standards of credulity.
Michael

The Mayans believed that the world would change in 2012.

It has every year of my life so far, why should 2012 be different?
stephanie

It’s Reddit. The probability of the sender actually believing that is statistically zero.
stephanie

Awesome presents, Hemant! I am very jealous of the fridge rover! 🙂
Ninjasword17

It’s called a joke.
Rebel Yurack

I want that awesome wrapping paper. 🙂 And the stuff inside it was pretty cool too.
Kevin_Of_Bangor

That is some pretty awesome wrapping paper.
The Captain

The tin can robot looks awesome!
Cherilyn

Ah, some of my favorite albums! You will enjoy separation Sunday, it speaks of faith and religion and questioning as part of the normal human experience without being proselytizing even though the main song writer of the band is devoutly catholic. The gaslight anthem album has been my favorite album over the last two years, so amazing.
John Frazer

The Mayans weren’t ignorant savages, they were a highly cultured people, and from what I understand, the end of the Mayan calendar does not actually predict the end of the world, but rather, that 2012 is simply when it rolls over into their equivalent of a new millennium, and that the only reason it appears to stop short is because they were wiped out long before updating it ever became relevant (kind of like a stone-age y2k bug).

The end of the world thing came about because some hippies are basically racist.
Anonymous

What an awesome set of gifts.
Michael

I like the book by Martin Gardner. He got me interested in math while I was in high school, something no teacher had been able to do, unfortunately. It’s an odd coincidence that I ended up going to the University of Oklahoma, as he was from Norman, and they have a street named after him here.