Random coincidences..

People are always freaked out by coincidences. However, given the almost unlimited opportunity for coincidences to happen I'm just surprised we don't see them more often.

Anyway, today The Tin Man sent me a job ad:

Qualifications:
Between 5'10 and 6'1"
athletic build
male or female
excellent acting skills
excellent drumming skills
willingness to relocate

He tells me its the Blue Man Group recruiting in LA, sure enough here's the ad on their site. Unfortunately I can't play drums, act and I'm not going to relocate. So that one is out.

Then today I'm looking at the stats for LDTT and notice a blip from an IP that resolves as Method Studios. I check out their website and click a few links in and stop a photo of the Blue Man Group. Turns out that Method Studios did some work with BMG and Intel on the Pentium III roll out.

Well that's a little coincidental given how infrequently I get job listings for the Blue Man Group (well actually, never before) and pay that much attention to my stats on the same day. After a bit I decide to blog about coincidences and I go back to the web site and the Blue Man group image is no longer there! Eventually I discover that they have a huge portfolio of work and rotate the images from them that they show on their home page. So that's even more coincidental - they list almost 588 items in their portfolio, and show only 14 at a time on their home page. That means there's a 1 in 42 chance of seeing the Blue Man Group portfolio image the one time I go to check their web site.

But wait a minute... 1 in 42 WTF!

WTF? Yeah WTF because 42 is the answer. I mean, not just the answer, but The Answer. As in the number dreamed up by Douglas Adams in his Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy series. And you know what else Douglas Adams did? Yeah, he wrote this book, called "The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul" about a holistic detective called Dirk Gently who believed in the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.

But wait, there's more....

Those of you who know the domain used in my personal email address should go look at the home page for that domain and read the introduction.

Okay, by now you should be freaked out by this massively impossible coincidence that surely must have some deeper cosmic meaning. The kind of thing that should make me stop in my tracks, quit my job, and walk the Earth like Caine did in "Kung Fu". Well guess what movie I just saw tonight? Yes, "Kill Bill Volume 2" which was directed by Quentin Tarantino and starred David Carradine (who played Caine in "Kung Fu") as "Bill". And Tarantino also directed the movie "Pulp Fiction" (a personal favorite of mine) in which the character Jules witnesses something that he swears is a miracle but the other observer believes in a coincidence. Jules decides to quit his job and walk the Earth like Caine.

Holy moly. Guess what I just did last week? Quit my job...

Well, sorry to disappoint, but I really could just carry this train of coincidences on forever but I'm not going to. However its all true - there's not a single thing I've mentioned so far that didn't happen today. However I don't call myself Blog Gently for nothing, its because I believe in the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. So really, this kind of thing is bound to happen almost daily.