three standard deviations

just now, before i took off to the dreamland, sam and i had an interesting conversation:

me: if you get a gf this summer, that means kevin sucks.
sam: yeah, but the chance of that happening is less than 0.05 percent though.
me: that's ok, that's like what, 3 standard deviations? (obviously not counting right, it's actually 4)
sam: yeah, that's true, it happens all the time. i get 3 standard deviations in all my labs.
me: yeah, me too. i mean, what else can you expect with all the old equipments around here?
sam: hey, my equipment is 3 standard deviations away from the average...
me: ....
sam: yeah...
me: wow, that small?
sam: dammit.