title: Retrieve only a portion of a string
body: <p>I want to retrieve only the first part of a VARCHAR(15) string. Which string operation is fastest? My data is like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>80:0:0:0
  100:00:00:00
  0:00:25:60
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'd like the results to be:</p>
  
  <pre><code>80
  100
  0
  </code></pre>