Thursday, May 09, 2013

Trust Your Instincts, Murphy

(cross-posted from Mental Chaff

Tonight was a meeting of the Wyrdsmiths, and after we were done critiquing, celebrating the passage of the Minnesota House bill legalizing marriage equality, and before we'd gotten to naming Sled Dog Squee or going into the finer points of pelvic comb overs, we discussed our upcoming CONvergence schedules.

Now, if you'll remember, last week I posted my panels for CONvergence, and made this note about the panels:

"Every time I go check their programming portal, I find out I'm on another panel. It was one, then a few days later, two, then three. Now? I'm actually afraid to go back and check again, because as this point I'm on four panels, which is fine...."

It was in this vein, and referencing this piece I'd written above, that I suggested perhaps we could look up everyone else's schedule, but leave mine alone. After all, while I'm not particularly superstitious, I do recognize the difference between seeing a bull in a paddock and climbing into the Minotaur's Labyrinth.

But the Wyrdsmiths insisted that they wanted to see what panels I was on, and I capitulated.

BAD. MOVE.

Because now I have looked up my CONvergence schedule on five separate occasions, and so far, the data describing the correlation of the total number of panels on my schedule to the number of separate times that schedule has been looked up in advance remains inextricably linked. One to one.

I am now on five panels.*

I think I may contact programming to decline one of the panels, now that I'm well and safely above three. One of the panels I'm on, I don't know or care that much about. That's really neither here nor anywhere, though. The point is this: if you suspect something may be the case, despite the stirring efforts of your logical brain to suggest that it's mere superstition on your part, don't be so fast to discount it.

Quantum mechanics suggests that the mere act of observation changes the system being observed.

I must never look at the CONvergence programming portal again.

___

*Accordingly, my schedule listing on the previous post has been updated with my new panel.

1 comment:

Eleanor said...

Like.