Larry points out that next year’s SuperBowl will by XL (=ROMAN(40) in Excel). Then I read the same thing on j-walkblog. In true Daily Dose style, I post the news only after everyone else on Earth has heard it.
Based on the comments at j-walkbog, and other experiences I’ve had, I conclude that people who like computers generally don’t like American football. I don’t know why, that just seems to be the way it is. I, for one, like football more than any other sport. I like college football more than professional, but I’d take the NFL over anything else.
I’ve been a Cincinnati Bengals fan since 1984-ish. If you follow the NFL at all, you know that I must be the most loyal fan of all time. (If you don’t follow the NFL, it’s because the Bengals had the worst decade (’90’s) in the history of football.) I started following the Bengals when Dave Rimington played followed a couple of years later by Jim Skow (they were my favorite Nebraska Cornhuskers at the time). I don’t want to be one of those guys who gives up on a team just because a certain player leaves, or the team has a couple of down years, or the team paints their helmets really funky.
In 2004, however, I decided that this was the last year for the Bengals. If they didn’t show some spark, I was giving up on them and finding a new team. Well, they did reasonably well and I actually think they’ll make the playoffs in 2005. Now I have to stick with them. There’s nothing better than having a team do well and being able to say “I’ve been a fan for years.”.
I watched a bit of the half time show, and I generally liked it. It may be the only half time show I’ve ever seen that I even liked a little, so I guess it was pretty good from my perspective. If I were Paul McCartney, I would insist that people not call me Sir. I’m sure it’s a big honor and all that, but it makes him seem pompous. It’s like someone who gets a PhD in philosophy and insists on being called ‘doctor’.
This would have been a better post if I would have said something funny about the football and Excel. But there simply isn’t anything funny about that combination.
I fall in the category of non sports fan, although pure luck had me win the basketball pool at work last year.
The Bengals training camp is 3 blocks from my front door(Georgetown,KY), I’ve never been, although the fireworks they have from the field are nice to watch from my front yard :-)
Maybe Microsoft should sponsor Superbowl XL?
Sure, they’d have to make the field narrower and shorten the distance between the goal posts, plus the scoreboard would probably feature the blue screen of death for most of the match but …
=ROMAN() – cool!
=ROMAN(509) & ” ” & ROMAN(159)
Rob
I was also not aware of the ROMAN() function, but was wondering whether there is an inverse function that takes the Roman numerals back to numbers?
Cheers,
Ken
Ken: The Excel 2013 preview has an ARABIC function for converting roman numerals to numbers – that should be reason enough to upgrade :) For now you could hack it with this array formula:
=MATCH(A1,ROMAN(ROW(INDIRECT("1:3999"))),0)Hi Lori,
Thank you for the reply.
I am still using 2007 at the moment and an upgrade seems a very long way off.
Decided to have a bash at this myself and came up with this rather lengthy procedure:
sentence = txtSentence.Text
ReDim letter(Len(sentence) – 1)
For x = LBound(letter) To UBound(letter)
letter(x) = Mid(sentence, x + 1, 1)
Next x
‘calculate total
For a = LBound(letter) To UBound(letter)
Select Case letter(a)
Case “M”
Total = Total + 1000
Case “D”
Total = Total + 500
Case “C”
If a < UBound(letter) Then
Select Case letter(a + 1)
Case "V", "X", "I", "L", "C"
Total = Total + 100
Case "D", "M"
Total = Total – 100
End Select
Else
Total = Total + 100
End If
Case "L"
If a < UBound(letter) Then
Select Case letter(a + 1)
Case "V", "X", "I"
Total = Total + 50
End Select
Else
Total = Total + 50
End If
Case "X"
If a < UBound(letter) Then
Select Case letter(a + 1)
Case "V", "X", "I"
Total = Total + 10
Case "L", "C"
Total = Total – 10
End Select
Else
Total = Total + 10
End If
Case "V"
Total = Total + 5
Case "I"
If a < UBound(letter) Then
Select Case letter(a + 1)
Case "V", "X"
Total = Total – 1
Case "I"
Total = Total + 1
End Select
Else
Total = Total + 1
End If
End Select
Next a
where the user enters the Roman numerals into a text box (txtSentence) on a Userform.
Array formualas are something I need to get my head round :)
Regards,
Ken