bad luck

Currently listening to: Dizzy Gillespie - The Matrix Sessions

On New Year's Eve, an internet friend who is interested in astrology and the occult did two tarot card readings for me (each reading was based on a different deck of cards). The purpose of the readings was to predict what kind of year 2008 would be for me. In both readings, I was told that 2008 was going to be an incredible year for me--lots of opportunities, a very positive financial situation, etc. I don't really believe in that stuff, but it was nice to get the good news. The readings were certainly better than the ones another friend gave me several years ago, before I got married. In those readings, I was told, among other things, that my girlfriend was deceiving me about something important (turned out that she was). If I were a believer in tarot cards, I would have been very worried.

If 2008 continues the way it has been going, the cards will have been completely wrong. My bad luck started right before the end of 2007, and it has continued to the present:

- Anyone who knows me knows that I am obsessed with music. I always have it on, and I have way too much of it. Much to my delight, Apple came out with a 160GB iPod in the summer of 2007. Finally, a device that could hold almost all of my movies and music. A week before I went on vacation, it started locking up once a day. Not a good sign for a hard drive-based device. On Christmas Eve, I decided to plug it into my computer so that I could hear some tunes through my computer speakers. When I did this, I got a message stating that I needed to reload the iPod's software. Not good. The iPod had wiped itself completely clean. At the time, I had 131GB of content on it. A very traumatic experience, especially considering the fact that I had a week to go before I could get home to listen to most of my music or have Apple look at it. Fortunately, they replaced it when I got back, no questions asked.

- I left work early one day last week to pick up some vegetables at a local upscale grocery store (they always have the best produce). While I was waiting to turn onto the street where the store is located, I was rear-ended by a Subaru Outback. I have already been without my car for a few days, and don't expect to get it back until at least Friday. I love my car, and part of the reason I love it is because of the stereo system, which is half the reason I bought it and the primary reason I sought out the car in the first place. Once again, I've been deprived of quality tunes.

- One of my favorite movies last year was "The Bourne Ultimatum." I had received the HD DVD of this movie in the mail the morning of the car accident. After the accident, I no longer felt like cooking, so I ordered pizza and had planned on spending a quiet evening calming down and watching "Bourne." I put the movie in the player and pressed play, and the player locked up. I tried playing it two more times, but still nothing. Great, a defective disc. No "Bourne" was watched that evening.

- I caught wind of a potentially major problem with a product that I manage while I was on vacation. After further tests last week, we decided to pull the product off the shelf. This was not before lots of meetings, running around, talking to lawyers and PR people at my company. This also meant that I was not able to leave the office at noon on Friday, as I had planned. The madness is not over yet, either. We still have to figure out what to do about the 50,000+ people who bought the product before we learned about the problem.

Considering what I've been through, 2008 can only get better from here. It would have been nice if the tarot cards had warned me that the year would start out poorly and then gotten better, but then, it's not like I would have believed it if they had.