First of all, for all of you who stumbled upon my page while doing a search trying to figure out what Sarah McLachlan song was used in the season finale of Buffy, it was ""The Prayer of Saint Francis" on the bonus disc of
Surfacing. And yes, the finale rocked the house.

And now back to our regularly scheduled blogcast-

A friend of mine from my writing group spent last Saturday seeing a "Futurist." I'm not sure what the what was with the Futurist, as I didn't understand a lot of it, but it had something to do with psychology tests as well as the usual assortment of chi measurings, and mitochondrias testings. While I guess the Futurist told her some valuable, personal type things, she was also told this- that now's a good time to buy Oracle stock. Yes, the Futurist apparently also gives out stock tips. Apparently, he claims to have a 90% success rate.

I, of course, find all of this incredibly hilarious. I mean, stock tips from a Futurist?

I mean, if he was such a good predictor of the stock market, why is he travelling around the country reading people's auras instead of doing what most of us would do if we were 90% accurate in stocks- live somewhere in Bermuda and sleep with twenty-year, surgically enhanced bimbos. And just think about the power you could have if you were that good of a Futurist. If I could do that, not only would I be betting serious money on every football game, I'd be in Vegas like every other week. Screw helping people with their futures.

On the other hand, why not get stock tips from a Futurist? Does he really know anything more than anybody else does? Back in the dot.com craziness, the TV was full of financial shows dedicated to predicting what stocks to buy and what stocks would do what. It was like watching a football pre-game show except without the telestrator or Terry Bradshaw. Some guy purporting to be an expert would get up there and say things like "we really think lameassidea.com's IPO is going to explode this week and that the market is really ripe for ordering kumquat's online, so that's our Stock Tip of the Week." And they were often wrong. They didn't really know anything and were just pulling stuff out of their asses. Still are. Nobody can predict what's going on with the stock market. Well, except for maybe the guys in the Brokerage firms who were hyping a stock that they knew was total shite only because they had some sort of deal with that company.

It all reminds me of all those experts on the football shows predicting football games. You'd get some guy up there saying things like "well, the Redskins have a great rushing defense so they should be able to contain Corey Dillon and the Bengals, who are 5-15 when Dillon gets less than 100 yards in games played north of the Mason Dixon line." And they're usually, at best, 50% accurate. As a joke, a lot of newspapers or tv shows would sometimes have an animal or somebody who didn't know a thing about football pick the games. And not only did they do as well as the supposed experts, they usually did better. ESPN.com , for instance, did a great bit all football season where they had one of their columnists, the Sports Guy, compete against Bailey the Wonder Dog to see who was more accurate. The Sports Guy pulled ahead to win the competition only with a couple of last minute wins in the final weeks of the season. It's why the people who don't know a damn thing about football usually win the football pools.

So, in other words, why not take advice from a Futurist. Besides, Oracle stock has to come up eventually.