Is it the Sea air?

My mind has taken off on strange tangents during this visit to Victoria. I think bizarre thoughts and have most unusual daydreams...and night dreams for that matter. I am glad to know that I am not the only one though, has anyone seen the new movie:"The Number 23"? I haven't seen it yet myself, but I already had heard of the phenomena of #23.

For decades now people have been obsessing about the number 23. We have 46 chromosones in our body, 23 from each parent. The earth's axis is tilted 23 degrees. Julius Caesar was born on Sept 23 and was stabbed to death 23 times. George Herbert Walker Bush...23 letters in his name. Princess Leia was imprisoned in Block 23. In the background of the footage of the Rodney King beatings, there is a big sign in the background with nothing on it but a big "23".

Some people say that noticing all these number 23's is like learning any new word, you know, you've never seen or heard a word before and then all of a sudden it's everywhere? Well, maybe, but this 23 thing has been going on in strange places for a long time, even Popeye; in his cartoons of the 70's he is often seen pondering a 23, in the movie The Big Lebowski they bowl in lane 23 and in the infamous Seinfeld episode where they lose the car in the parking garage, where is it? Purple 23. Those are sort of "fun" 23's, but they do get dark.

It's mentioned all over in The Matrix and in Lost. What's it all mean?

It started with William S Burroughs who began keeping a scrapbook of 23 coincidences after he met a ferry captain in Tangier named Clark. The captain claimed to have been sailing the same route for 23 years without ever having an accident. That day, his ferry sank, killing all on board. Later that same day, Burroughs heard about an airplane that crashed en route from NY to Miami-it was flight 23 piloted by a man called Clark.

Doo, doo, dooo, doo. (you know, Twilight Zone music)

Then you can involve the adding of numbers aspect. Oklahoma and Waco were both on April 19th (4th month plus 19 days =23) Air India was June 23, 1985 ( the numbers in 1985 also add up to 23) Twin Towers? 9/11/2001, all those numbers add up to 23. Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on Aug. 23.

Coincidence? I don't know. I love this sort of stuff myself, and it always makes me think. I have been sitting here adding up my family's names and birthdates in all sorts of combinations and nothing adds up to 23. I think maybe that's a good thing since almost all the 23's seem to be either harbingers of doom (well, not really, but I have always wanted to use that expression: "harbingers of doom") or dates of unpleasant happenings. So go ahead...add up the letters in your name or your birthdate...I dare ya!