“The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.” - William Somerset Maugham

Alright so today's post may well be a cut-and-past of other people's brilliance, but some days that's the way it goes :)

Now your intellectual challenge for today -- see if you can figure out what these words have in common (Bev I expect you to have this solved by the time you get to the 3rd word :)

1 Banana
2 Dresser
3 Grammar
4 Potato
5 Revive
6 Uneven
7 Assess

and no the interesting (well in a geeky sort of way) answer is not that they all have at least 2 double letters. Keep thinking!

And while you're thinking about that we'll move on to other things.... Read this today, which has evidently been floating around the Internet since before the before the Internet existed (in the unique way hyperbole functions in my world this is, in-fact, possible :) but which I'd never seen before:

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
- Frank Outlaw (may or may not be accurately attributed -- couldn't verify w/ any reputable source)

So does this mean if I *think* about running a brilliantly successful riding school it'll be my destiny? hahaha don't I wish :) Methinks however that Joel Barker's statement that "Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes time. Vision with action can change the world." while far more intense, is also a little more realistic. Albeit I don't want to change the *whole* world, just my little portion of it. For now anyways :)

Technology today has been playing not so kewl games with me. My personal email has been rejecting messages from one of my best friends -- important ones too -- like dinner plans! >;-P And then my work email has been ignoring one of our bigger clients (fortunately I got her on the phone and figured out that this was happening, but never did manage to solve it). And the only person whose been getting my text messages today is the one who almost never gets them. hahaha classic. Ah well, at least it's Friday.

What are the odds the proposed thunderstorm for tonight will hold off till after I'm done @ the barn? Is it a bad thing that I'm actually looking forward to it raining all day tomorrow so I can get some work done? Sheesh. But I'm equally looking forward to Sunday being perfect weather!

So I was thinking about numbers and coincidence today -- heard a thing on the radio about Michael Jackson and the number 7 (namely "Michael Jackson has 7 letters in his first and last name. He signed his will on 7/7/02. His memorial was on 7/7/09 ... exactly 7 years after the will was signed. His two biggest hits -- "Black & White" and "Billie Jean" — were each #1 for 7 weeks. His three biggest albums — "Thriller," "Bad" and "Dangerous" — each produced 7 top 40 hits. He was the 7th of 9 children. He was born in 1958 ... 19 + 58 = 77. He died on the 25th ... 2 + 5 = 7. ") n my first thought was "somebody had way too much free time to come up w/ that!" hahaha and that you can manipulate numbers any way you like. There was a huge thing about the 911 #s after the 2001 attacks (Snopes even tackles this one (several times) and I gotta admit I love the response @ the bottom of their analysis: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/elevens.asp -- and if you do a search for coincidence on their site . . . well let's just say you'll be reading for a while!). And I'm sure all sorts of other ones about famous people who've died... Then there's the whole Abraham Lincoln/John Kennedy thing that's more coincidence than numbers but follows the same concept ("Two presidents with seven letters in their last names, and elected to office 100 years apart, 1860 and 1960. Both were assassinated on Friday in the presence of their wives, Lincoln in Ford's theater and Kennedy in an automobile made by the Ford motor company. Both assassins went by three names: John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald, with fifteen letters in each complete name. Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and fled to a theater, and Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and fled to a barn (a kind of warehouse). Both succeeding vice-presidents were southern Democrats and former senators named Johnson (Andrew and Lyndon), with thirteen letters in their names and born 100 years apart, 1808 and 1908.") Which lead me to wonder if everybody has a number that's in some way connected to their life (aka is there actually something to numerology? And if so, does it actually do you any good to know it?), or alternately if any number can be seen to fit your life if you're creative enough. I tend to believe the 2nd - my only hesitation lies in the whole fibonacci and pi thing where that sequence and one really strange number can be seen to be just about everywhere. But one site pointed out the flip side of the above ("But if we compare other relevant attributes we fail to find coincidences. Lincoln and Kennedy were born and died in different months, dates, and states, and neither date is 100 years apart. Their ages at death were different, as were the names of their wives. Of course, had any of these features corresponded for the two presidents, it would have been included in the list of "mysterious" coincidences. For any two people with reasonably eventful lives it is possible to find coincidences between them." - http://www.csicop.org/si/9809/coincidence.html) So basically everything logical leads right back to the if you're creative enough and have enough free time you can make the numbers line up argument. hahaha All I want is to be creative enough to come up w/ that! But really, I have better things to do w/ my time @ the moment... Anybody who can answer in plain English (no formulas!) for me why Pi is everywhere (other than that it's suitably yummy!) I'd love to hear it :) Or is that too a case of "just making it fit" :)

Ok so that's definitely enough babbling for now. See what happens when I don't get enough sleep? hahaha used to do me really well when I had to turn out an extra 50 pages or so overnight for a term paper, but it's "real-life" applications seem to be rather limited. Oh and for the curious -- re the word list at the top of the post (remember that :), in each of the words listed, if you take the first letter, place it at the end of the word, and then spell the word backwards, it will be the same word. Math in letters.

Argh.