Friday the 13th

Well, today's the dreaded Friday the 13th. And you know what that means.

It means absolutely nothing. Today is a normal day, just like every other day.

The 13 is due to our arbitrary calender with arbitrary numbers for every day and the non-arbitrary, roughly 24-hour period the Earth completes a single rotation around its axis. And believe it or not, our habit of assigning arbitrary numbers to non-arbitrary days doesn't change reality and make things either lucky or unlucky. If we had a different calender, today would be the 24th of Heptober or the 57th of Juneuary.

But today's Friday the 13th, a day saturated with superstition. Fortunately, National Geographic has a helpful article on the subject. (It's from 2004, but it's not like the superstitions ever change)

An expert's advice: think positive thoughts to keep those unjustified fears in check.

The woo-woo advice: "climb to the top of a mountain or skyscraper and burn all the socks you own that have holes in them" or "stand on your head and eat a piece of gristle"

I have a better idea: how about we try to act like we're sane people today and not do anything reckless, dangerous, or...gristle? Eat gristle?! What's wrong with these people?