Extra Sensory Deception

Do you sometimes get in your car and start humming a song you haven't heard in a while, and then you flip on the radio and that very same song is playing? Or have you ever been thinking about an old friend you don't talk to much any more, and then later on that very day, they call you for no good reason? Ever feel like you might have psychic powers?

Well, you don't, because that doesn't exist. Sorry to disappoint you.

It's not that I won't allow for the possibility our brains might be capable of sensing future events before they happen. After all, science has determined that we use less than 10% of the total processing power of our brain. What if you could power up the other 90%, even for just a few minutes? You might finally figure out what the hell's going on in those Matrix sequels, for one.

But I doubt it's possible as technology stands right now, because no one's ever verifiably been able to predict anything. Think about it...if ESP existed, and if even a really small sub-set of the world population (say, less than one-tenth of one percent) had it, someone would have made some incredible predictions by now that would have shocked us all. Like, say, a big earthquake, or the lottery numbers for the following day, or even that whole planes-slamming-into-two-buildings thing. But so far, nothing, nada, zero, zip. Not one single prediction we can go back to and say, "that guy was exactly right!"

Did you just say Nostradamus? Don't make me reach through this Internet connection and slap you upside your fool head. He's just a really bad poet, not a psychic of any kind. Don't believe me? Here's the verse many Nostradamus "experts" claim predicts the 9/11 tragedy:

In the year 1999 and seven months
The Great King of Terror will come from the sky,
He will bring back to life the great king of the Mongols.
Before and after the God of war reigns happily.

Wow, it's so amazingly accurate! Except that it gets the year wrong, the 9/11 tragedy was masterminded by a political dissident rather than a king and it had nothing to do with any Mongols (who don't even exist any more in the way Nostradamus clearly meant to invoke them). And let's not even get into that whole God of War thing, cause it's stupid.

You should really check out that Nostradamus-9/11 link. It's remarkably insipid.

I got on to this whole rant in the first place because of a link on the thoroughly amusing blog The Green Lantern. It's run by Gretchen Ross, who has the coolest blogger pseudonym I've encountered in a while. (Don't get it? Watch Donnie Darko immediately!)

The link leads to a series of online tests to determine whether or not you have any psychic ability. Want me to save you some time? You don't. Any answers you get right are purely coincidental.

But it's kind of fun anyway. I like how you can just hit your browser's "back" button and go put in the right answers. Apparently, the site's creator lacked the psychic abilities to close this loophole in advance. Anyway, go check it out.

Oh, and you do have to provide an e-mail address to "register," which I know dissuades a lot of potential visitors. Just do what I do and give a fake address...they don't check or anything. Might I recommend bustermcdermott@ucla.edu. Don't worry...it's not a real guy at all. Just a funny name I tend to use whenever I have cause to use a fake name. Which is surprisingly often, as it turns out.

By the way, you should definitely check out this Nostradamus site I linked to. The woman who operates this thing is totally loopy in the best way possible. Check some of this stuff out:

I tend to look for messages in clouds as they speak to me.

The billowing smoke formation [coming out of the Twin Towers after 9/11] appears as the tricksterwho goes by many names: Bin Laden, Hussein, Hitler, Lucifer, Devil, etc

In late August of 2001 - I wrote in my daily column Ellie's World that he came to see me as a clown several times before the attacks. Each time I wasn't sure what he wanted as he doesn't say anything.

How could she tell it was Satan if he was wearing a clown suit, that's what I want to know. Couldn't he have just been some evil clown? Maybe he had a nametag. ("Hi there, I'm Lucifer. Ask me about our Lake of Fire!")