The Best Things in Life Are Three

"Two's company, three's a party." -- Dr. Liesl Obrecht, General Hospital

For someone who was born in Switzerland with German as a native tongue and spends much of her screen time on General Hospital making disparaging comments about the uselessness of Americans and their language, Dr. Liesl Obrecht has certainly taken the time to master both. She's an expert manipulator of the American legal system (at least as it's depicted in GH's fictional Port Charles, New York), and she knows how to use a language she didn't grow up speaking (though her portrayer, Kathleen Gati, is Canadian) to maximum dramatic and comedic effect.

Case in point: "Two's company, three's a party." That's not the saying, as Prince Nikolas Cassadine so astutely pointed out (oh, there's another word Obrecht would use: "astutely"!), but I prefer parties to crowds anyway, especially parties without crowds -- and mad gun-wielding doctors. Plus, I'm absolutely mad about the number three.

33 3's

1. Three natural Cape Town wonders: Signal Hill, Table Mountain and Lion's Head

2. The tri-state area: New York, New Jersey and Connecticut

3. Three's Company: My guiltiest childhood pleasure and all-time second-favorite TV sitcom (after The Golden Girls, before The Jeffersons)

4. Three colors: red, white and blue

5. Variations on three: trio, triple, triplets, trilogy, triumvirate, trinity and, of course, threesome

6. Threes in Greek Mythology: The Fates, The Gorgons, The Three Graces, Cerberus

7. Three brothers: Greek mythology's Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, Bee Gees, The Gap Band, Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers Band, Hanson, The Isley Brothers (1991-96), The Jonas Brothers, The Brothers Karamazov, My Three Sons

8. Three sisters: August: Osage County, Charmed, Crimes of the Heart, Hanging Up, Hannah and Her Sisters, Hocus Pocus, Interiors, The Sisters Rosensweig, The Andrew Sisters, The Emotions, The Pointer Sisters

9. Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer in The Witches of Eastwick

10. Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler and Diane Keaton in The First Wives Club

11. The Three Faces of Eve

12. Return of the Jedi (aka Star Wars III, the only one of the original trilogy that I saw in the theater)

13. Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colors trilogy

14. Rocky III (for giving us Survivor, "Eye of the Tiger" and Mr. T)

15. Classical threes: The Three B's (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms), The Three Tenors

16. Goth Rock in three parts: Bauhaus vs. Tones on Tail vs. Love and Rockets

17. Trio: Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt's 1987 masterpiece

18. Honky Tonk Angels: Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette's 1993 Trio wannabe

19. Three '70s soft-rock trios: America, Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds, Three Dog Night

20. Three '70s female trios: Labelle, Love Unlimited, The Three Degrees

21. '80s Pop trios: Bananarama, Crowded House, Genesis, Heaven 17, The Outfield, The Police

22. '80s Hip-hop trios: Run-D.M.C., Whodini, Beastie Boys, Salt-n-Pepa

23. Late-'80s Latin-freestyle trios: Exposé, Seduction, Sweet Sensation, Cover Girls

24. Late '80s-to-early '00s R&B/Pop vocal trios: Atomic Kitten, 3LW, 702, Blaque, Brownstone, Destiny's Child, Jade, Sugababes, SWV, TLC, Total, After 7, Bell Biv Devoe, H-Town, Levert, LFO, Next

25. Rock trios (1990-present): Ash, Blink-182, Everclear, Foster The People, Grant Lee Buffalo, Green Day, Keane (from Hopes and Fears to Night Train), Muse, Nirvana, Silverchair

26. Dixie Chicks

27. The O'Jays

28. The Supremes

29. Two guys and a girl: Deee-Lite, Digable Planets, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, Loose Ends, Saint Etienne, Shalamar, Swing Out Sister, Thompson Twins

30. Three-hit wonders (click here)

31. Three and The Cure: Three Imaginary Boys, the then-trio's 1979 debut studio album, and "Three," track 5 on the band's 1980 follow-up album, Seventeen Seconds

32. "Three": Britney Spears' forgotten 2009 No. 1 hit

33. The Three Stooges