Friday the 13th

Me timbers are shivered.

Not really, but still, many people associate Friday the 13ths with either extremely good or extremely bad luck. Did you know that an estimated 17-21 million people have a fear of this day? According to the Wiki info on Friday the 13th, some people are so paralyzed by fear that something bad will happen to them that they will cancel flights, avoid driving, and in extreme cases, refuse to even get out of bed!

I'm not a very superstitious person. In fact, I'm fairly cynical about such things. Believe me, it drives my wife nuts because I will quite often make comments regarding tradition as superstition, which when you break it down is really nothing more than a belief based upon fear, rather than reason, logic, or knowledge. There are things people do here (in Eastern Europe) that I would personally term as superstition. I don't talk about these things in public, because while I am a somewhat blunt individual, I'm not callous or mean-spirited enough to tell someone to their face that what they are doing is sheer idiocy, because at the end of the day it's simply my opinion. Still, when I see people refusing to get out of bed because they are afraid the significance of the date bodes an untimely demise for them, or someone smearing goat urine on their lips to ward off evil spirits, or someone walking three times counter-clockwise around a church on a specific day of the year while holding candles because it will bring them good luck for the rest of the year...well, to each his own, I suppose.

But I still reserve the right to comment on it in my own personal time :)