What is in a number?

A number can bring you happiness, such as getting that phone number of that good-looking person you have been eyeing all day or night.

Being No. 1 could make the best in a specific endeavour and bring with it fame and fortune.

Matching several numbers can make you wealthy as some lottery winners can attest.

Some numbers represent specific things . . . such as luck, both good and bad.

The past few days have brought more than my fair share of numbers, having sat through budget sessions for the city, province and several other organizations.

Unless you are the Count from Sesame Street or earn a living working with numbers, they really don't mean much to the average person.

It's interesting to watch how some interpret numbers.

One example is the city draft budget. During deliberations council removed about $600,000 from the proposed budget. This money had not yet been approved so removing it really had little impact since the bulk of the money was for new items.

On paper, the tax increase dropped from 4.4 per cent to 2.3 per cent.

Sounds nice.

In reality, how can you miss something you never had?

It's like saying if you buy a new fridge now you can save 30 per cent.

I ain't no accountant but if I don't buy that fridge, I can save 100 per cent.

A while back, the provincial government issued a news release saying it had increased front-line staff in a now forgotten department by 25 per cent.

Sounds impressive.

The huge increase actually represented one new worker. Staff jumped from four to five.

The figures were correct, but when put in perspective, not that impressive.

TV ratings are also fun to intrepret.

Two million Canadians watch that Idol show. That means about 33 million didn't watch.

So why not hype all those who are doing something else instead of watching that show?

Remember the days when you had to write a 1,000-word essay? Now that was a big number.

Baseball players can earn millions for batting .333.

The ballplayer is considered a superstar for getting a hit once every three times at bat.

In most other jobs, if we performed similarly, we would probably be looking for a new line of employment.

And on a final note, is the glass half full, or half empty?

If you are thirsty does it really matter?

John LoRegio is news director of 880 CKLQ AM and 94.7 Star-FM.