Okay, today is supposed to be Part I of the Law and Privilege series. But last night was Part VII of the Bruins-Hurricanes series, and of course it went into overtime. If that weren't bad enough, the Bruins lost ... along with two of the other three teams I'd been rooting for, all of whom were seeded favorites. It's enough to make my right brain tell my left brain to hush, that empiricism has its limits and sometimes curses are true.
Oh, and the stars are out, though they looked kind of blurry. Or maybe that was your intrepid Kossologist's eyes.
More below the fold....
Bruins and Curses
As a general rule, I try to be rational. My university career began as a physics major, though I bounced all over the maps of three campuses before graduating with a degree in theatre, then law school. But somewhere back in the Mesozoic Age, I was trained in empirical thinking. Coincidences do happen. Correlation does not infer causality. The fact that I favor one team over another has no bearing on who wins or loses, though it does have a bearing on whether I get enough sleep to write a complex diary on legal theory and privilege. But that quibble aside ...
... yeah right.
I mostly grew up in a small immigrant mill town in Massachusetts. We moved there when I was in 6th grade, and stayed there until midway through my junior year of high school. I played in the marching band, and ours was small enough that junior high students often played in the high school band. So from 7th grade onward, I played in the high school band, and that meant playing during the halftimes of the annual Thanksgiving Day football games with our arch-rivals, Evil People High School.
No particular reason they were evil. In fact, there was no particular reason they were our arch-rivals, or none I could find. They weren't even the next town over, or the next town after that. They were the next town after the next town after the next town over. Maybe it was because their town had a movie theatre and ours didn't. Date Envy explained everything else in high school. But I digress.
So year after year, we got all psyched up at the annual pre-Thanksgiving Beat Evil People Pep Rally. Our coaches and principal and teachers told jokes and put on skits making fun of Evil People High School. Looking back, they made more fun of themselves, and our "spirit week" was really about the teachers and administrators spending most of the week dressing and behaving in silly ways that bonded them to us and us to them, rather than anything to do with Evil People High School. The Evil People were an excuse. But again I digress, which happens with not enough sleep.
Year after year I got psyched up, as did the rest of the student body, and year after year Evil People High School beat us by scores that ranged from Oh Really to Why Did We Bother. I'll call us Murphy's Law High School, because if there was a way for our team to lose to Evil People High School, we found it. Whether the stalwart athletes of Murphy's Law High had a winning record was irrelevant. Whether those slackers over at Evil People High hadn't won a game all year was equally irrelevant. By the time the turkey was overcooked and the stuffing reduced to the consistency of sawdust - another digression - the Evil People High School score required the use of scientific notation while the Murphy's Law High School score could be counted on one frostbitten, mittened fist.
Turned out the Murphigators had begun losing before I began playing in the band. The last time we'd won was the year before my family moved to the town. The next time the Murphigators won? The year after we left, and that was the start of a three-year winning streak.
Maybe that explains the going away party.
This of course doesn't prove I'm cursed. Nor does the fact that the higher-seeded Boston Bruins lost to the lower-seeded Carolina Hurricanes, or the fact that the higher-seeded Capitols lost to the lower-seeded (but in fairness deeper and more balanced) Pittsburgh Penguins, or the fact that the higher-seeded (and cutely named) Vancouver Canucks lost to the lower-seeded (and cutely logoed) Chicago Blackhawks. You know you're not a fan when you choose teams to root for based on who has the cutest uniforms, team names, or logos. Yet another digression....
The empiricist in my left brain argues there's no Crissie Curse. After all, the defending Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings - another team for whom I was rooting - statistically dominated the last-seeded Anaheim Ducks ... and managed to eke out a one-goal victory last night and win their series 4-3. So much for statistics. But in the manner of curses, I chalk that anomaly up to the fact that most of the Detroit games began too late for me to watch, or were broadcast on networks I don't get.
The curse only works if I'm watching.
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And maybe the Kossascopes would be better if I looked at the ground....
Taurus - Your sign ends next week, so it's your last chance to blame your mistakes on the stars.
Gemini - Your mistakes, on the other hand, are about to have a better excuse.
Cancer - The reasons people say nice things about you vary, so they can't all be true.
Leo - This is a good weekend for logical decisions. Or next weekend. Flip a coin.
Virgo - There's lint on your dryer's lint filter. Worse, it's disorganized lint.
Libra - You may not remember that night with that friend, but your friend has the video on MySpace.
Scorpio - The makers of an anxiety medication called. They're offering you an endorsement spot.
Sagittarius - Yes, all of the good recipes do call for things you shouldn't eat. Sorry.
Capricorn - We polled the people who gossip about you, and the cross-tabs were disturbing.
Aquarius - You will meet someone exotic this weekend. Remember to say "Welcome to our planet."
Pisces - No, repossession does not involve exorcism. Your friend wins that argument.
Aries - Yes, the cat does think trimming her claws is life-threatening. Remember the betadine.
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Happy Friday!