My Quasi-Psychic Abilities

Over at Snackie's World, I had mentioned my skepticism of astrology and the paranormal, while at the same time maintaining that I do possess a low-level psychic-like ability.

Now I wasn't imbued with the power to predict future events, or the winning lottery numbers... no powers to improve my lot in life or anything so majestic. No, I got an ability which suits my blog just fine however.

You see, I have media precognition, and I am being totally serious. Whenever I think about an episode of a show in syndication or movie that I liked, it is usually on television within 3 days. It has happened thousands and thousands of times to me, so it isn't like its been a few of isolated incidents. It happens 2-5 times a day... and I don't even watch that much TV to begin with.

And it triggers at weird times too. I mean, within two days, every Simpsons that has been reference in the Transmundanity award has been on(I really enjoyed seeing Pieman again). Or I'll think casually, "You know I haven't seen that episode of King of the Hill or CSI for a while," and it will be one for some reason. Or I will think of a line from a movie for a second, and on it comes. And the key word is casually, because if I really think about an episode or movie, well, then its never on. I think its Murphy's Law or causality or something, because that's about the only time it fails.

Or take this weekend. I read an article at Snopes last night about this guy who was suing a girl for her share of a dinner because she breached an oral contract that her date would pay for the dinner if she would go out with him again, and she reneged, and the woman's name was Joanne, and it reminded me of a certain incident from the movie Better Off Dead, where Lane Meyer gets set-up on a date by his father with the daughter of one of his partners, whose name was Joanne and neither party wanted to go on the date. So she suggested that he just pay her what the date would cost to end the evening early. Of course, the IMDB was acting up at the time I wanted to look that up. So I get up this morning, turn on the TV and lo and behold, Better Off Dead is on, and it is at the scene where Lane's father is telling him about the date.

Then went to my blog, and I notice Michelle had written a comment on my story about TV murder and my preference for cons where she mentioned Goodfellas having its language cut for television viewing, and I briefly thought I wouldn't mind seeing that, and wouldn't you know it, there it was uncut on basic cable, and by a strange coincidence, I was at a sidewalk sale and the first book I saw was a single copy of "The Con Artist Handbook," which details not only the psychology of the con and why people are drawn to stories of the con artist, but most of the major variations on the crime as well. I come home and the first movie I find is The Spanish Prisoner, and then I switch to another channel and young Chris Rock on Everybody Hates Chris is selling cookies by telling people they fell off a truck. It would be really freaky if I saw that episode of The Simpsons, where Homer and Bart become con artists after a sturgeon falls on the car.

Of course, this ability seemingly works in an more immediate fashion to Launch and other online radio stations too. I'll think about a song I really want to hear, and it plays within 2-3 songs. There's somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50-100 thousand songs on Launch, so it seems to be a bit more than a coincidence. And if I want to see a video on YouTube and they don't currently have it, if I check back in 2-3 days, someone has usually placed it on the service.

Again, I am not into this kind of stuff, but I swear, this is sort of freaky to me. I just don't get it, but its too weird to ignore.

Tags: psychic, king of the hill, simpsons, good fellas, everybody hates chris, con, spanish prisoner, better off dead, lane meyer, snopes, imdb, television, launch, murphy's law, entertainment, movies, youtube, csi