I did some Pay It Forward craziness this past week.  I combined a Guess The Movie theme with the PiF theme and then threw in some astrology, numerology, 11:11 phenomenon (unintentionally), Mr T-ology (unintentionally, Fool!) and comicbookology, all in one post!  I’m like the alchemist of the blogging era.  A blogchemist, if you will.

So here’s how it went down.  I asked the Universe a question, and that question was

Who should win the prizes from my Pay It Forward post?

And the winners are…. well, you’ll have to read it and scroll down (evil grin).

I’ve put all the interesting details below in the extended entry - click to read it all!  You know you want to!  (hint: there are pretty colors, fancy pictures and words that sound funny).

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In horary astrology, the standard practice is to ask a question and then cast a chart for the time the question was asked and understood.  Amazingly enough, I happened to ask the question and then looked down at my computer time and it was exactly 11:11pm.  The “11:11 phenomenon” has been happening to me for a couple years now, and how fitting that it pops up it’s head during this exercise.So now I have my chart, but without proper houses (the houses divide up the chart wheel into 12 pieces, and different housing systems split up the 12 differently).  For my purposes, I don’t need 12 pieces, I need the total number of commenters (which happen to be six, how fortunate am I with that?)

(click for full page version)

You don’t have to understand what all the symbols mean.  Just know that this is a picture of the heavens (entire sky, both above and below the horizon) at the exact time I asked the question.  The AC on the left is the Ascendant and represents the horizon from where I asked the question at that time.

Now for the Numerology part.  There were six (6) commenters who were ultimately eligible for the drawing.  Not bad, eh?  Three prizes and six contestants?  I like dem odds, no?

The six people eligible are (using their supplied commentor name):

• Dave2
• Poppy
• Absurdist
• Christine
• Hilly
• Raganator

In Numerology, you add up the letters in the name to derive a total, and then you “collapse” or “reduce” the total down to a base number.  Each person’s name can reduce down to a single number between 1 and 9.

We’ll take the name “Wayne” as an example.  Each letter is worth it’s place in the alphabet, so A=1, B=2, etc … Z=26.  The individual letters in the name “Wayne” are broken up into “W” (23) + “a” (1) + “y” (25) + “n” (14) + “e” (5), which adds up to 68, and then you keep repeating until you get to a single digit.  68 = 6 + 8 = 14, and 14 = 1 + 4 = 5.  So the name “Wayne” reduces down to a base number of “5″.

Then we re-examine the list of oh-so-worthy individuals and assign their base numbers.  I had also said that in the case of a base number tie, I would use their names alphabetically to determine their order. 

Now we have our names in order - Hilly, Absurdist, Raganator, Christine, Dave2, and Poppy.

Based on the rules I set out for myself, this means Hilly gets the first 60 degrees of the circle, and Absurdist gets the second 60 degrees, and so on.  To make it easier to see, assume Hilly gets the two slices of the pie labeled 1 & 2, Abs gets 3 & 4, Raganator gets 5 & 6, Christine gets 7 & 8, Dave2 gets 9 & 10, and Poppy gets 11 & 12.

As I look at the chart, and the placements, I see a big problem.  I didn’t account for multiple planets being in the same house, and thereby potentially having one person win multiple prizes.  I was using planetary rulerships to give me a pseudo-random placement of the planets.  I had set out that the house that has the ruler of the ascendant wins a prize, the house that has Jupiter in it (my planet) wins a prize, and the house that has the ruler of the 3rd house wins a prize.

I don’t expect YOU to understand the problem, at least not yet.  YOU don’t even know what I’m talking about. As far as YOU know, I’m pulling all this out of my astrological mind as I type.

Walk with me as I explain.  See that orange-ish symbol on the left, the one that looks like me sleeping if you were looking from the foot of the bed?

That, my friends, is Libra (not Nacho Libra). Because the AC line is contained within the sign of Libra, I need to find where Libra’s ruler is.  Most astrologers agree that Libra is ruled by Venus, so we need to find Venus in the chart.  The symbol for Venus is the one that looks like the female symbol.

Ah, there it is, nestled in the slice of the pie labeled “3″ (look at the inside of the wheel for the house numbers):

Based on this information, we see that Absurdist wins the first book!  Congrats Abs!  Whoop!  Holler!  Cajole!  Everybody raise your hands up and yell out for the Absurdistas!  ticker tape parade!

Whew, that was fun.  I was jumpin’ all up and down and whatnot and almost spilled my drink.

Ok, what’s next?  Oh yeah, — then we look at the second criteria for finding a winner - finding where Jupiter is.  Jupiter is *my* planet.

Um, does anyone here know what the symbol for Jupiter looks like?

Ah, there it is:

Oh.  Um, it looks to me like Jupiter is in that same house as Venus.  It looks like Absurdist wins again.  That seems a tad bit unfair, but those are the rules, right?

Hmm.  Well, let’s all congratulate Abs on her incredible good luck and fortune.  Yay.  Way to go.  Whoop-dee-doooo.  clap clap clap.  (*sigh*)

Let’s move on, shall we?  We got another prize to give away!

What was the third criterion?  Hmm, find the ruler of the 3rd house.  That should be cool.  Let’s see who THAT is.

The 3rd house cusp is placed in… um, crap.  Sagittarius.  Does anyone know what planet rules Sagittarius?  No?  Oh, ok, let me shows you.

Yup, um, Sagittarius is ruled by, um, Jupiter.

Abs wins again.  She gets ALL THREE books.

Ok, now I’m thinking all this Universe and Astrology and Numerology crap is just that - CRAP.  I tried to be fair, I tried to let Karma or Tai Cheek or Yin Wang help out and pick the absolutely appropriate winners for the contest, and all it tells me is that Absurdist should win.  Everything.

I already know if I tell her she won all three, she’ll just decline them.  She’s like that.

So I see only one way out.

Heck, I have enough comic books.  So I’ll give away one (1) Calvin & Hobbes book, one (1) Pearls Before Swine book, and four (4) Dilbert books.  I have Dave2, Absurdist and Christine’s addresses already, and I’ll see Raganator (Amy) at pool on Wednesday, so Poppy and Hilly should email me their snail mail addresses.

Please don’t decline.  It would make me cry.  And you don’t want to see me cry.

Congrats, everyone!

That’s because I am the most awesomest person on the face of the earth.

What did I win? Please don’t let it be the “pay for your 1and1 account for a month”…. Please let it be my fricken’ birthday and Xmas presents for the last 12 years as promised. Anything expensive works, since you have to make up for 12 years’ worth.

Hey, since this is pay it forward with guilt, dude, I got you something nice. Don’t send me a comic book.

Way to go Abs. You are ABSolutely Fabulous!

I have a 1212 clock, watch, time thing going on….

Jesus, Wayne.

Why not just pull random names out of a hat?!?

I WON! I WON!!!!

Wow I stole your PIF gift from Absurdist, and you have done the post. It was probably a good thing because I don’t think it was your color. Either way congrats to the winners. I will have my PIF up by then end of the week as soon as I finish editing the video.

Why not pick winners based on who answered the questions right? Because I’m thinking I totally nailed it…

Abs, hmm, 12 years. I *might* go 5 years, but I have to penalize you for the exaggeration. And what’s wrong with a comic book? It’s exactly what I promised ahead of time? Besides, it’s something important to *me* and isn’t this about me? Did I miss a memo? Hey, even “memo” is 50% me!

Christine, I’d like to see what you’d say if Mr. Fabulous had commented between Abs and you! And with respect to the times and clocks - 1111, 1212, whatever it takes (obscure movie reference some here will get)

Avi, I did! I just happened to use a magic astrological hat. Didn’t anyone actually learn anything from this post? I mean, other than the fact that I’m very Waynal…

Poppy, U DID! U DID!

Topncal, As Abs alluded to above, she sent me “a nice gift,” which in layman’s speak means she went to Amazon and looked up my wish list, which I made 5+ years ago. Lucky for me, she chose something on the list I hadn’t gotten since then, and now I’ve revised my Amazon wish list in case something like this happens in the future.

Dave2, in reference to your #3 answer, “well, enough about me. What do YOU think of me????”

Presents aren’t about you. It’s about what the other person would want.

Did I get you a stuffed pink teddy bear? No… I got you something off your amazon list. Did I get Fab some makeup? No, I got him a t-shirt. Five years is fine. But it better be one hell of a present.

I am in town for the next 7 days at least, so you won’t have to mail it.

Abs, sorry to break it to ya babe but my PiF isn’t about you. I never mentioned presents as part of what I was paying forward. I outlined the prizes in my PiF post, and what I was paying forward were comic books.

So really what I’m hearing you say is - you want makeup or a stuffed pink teddy bear, and you don’t want it in the mail.

But we’ll take care of your present present issue, seeing as how it’s Valentine’s day and all…

Are you crazy? You don’t feed a baby chili!

What is Ren talking about?
Also, what is Mr. Fab and the Abs thing yo mentioned? Don’t get it.

Ren, yes I know

Christine, Ren is referencing Michael Keaton in Mr. Mom, which is what I had quoted in one of my comment responses to you when I said “1111, 1212, whatever it takes”. In the movie, he’s getting electrical power installed to support an appliance, and the electrician asks if he wants 220 power, and Keaton says “220, 221, whatever it takes,” and it’s funny because power is either 110 or 220.

Not to butt in, but “220, 221, whatever it takes” is my absolute FAVORITEST part of Mr. Mom! I LOVE that movie. Ugh, now I wanna buy it and OD on it.