The Day My Buddy Started Talking Zodiac Nonsense
I swear to God, this whole ridiculous project kicked off because of Dave. Dave, my oldest pal, suddenly went completely off the deep end and got obsessed with these daily horoscope readings. Specifically, the ones linked to Daniel Whelland Dowd’s Virgo sign. It drove me absolutely nuts. Every damn morning, without fail, it was, “Man, the Dowd reading said today is critical for big emotional decisions! You need to watch out!” I kept telling him, this is generic feel-good garbage! It’s written vaguely so it applies to everyone, and if it’s right, it’s 10% pure luck.
He wouldn’t listen. He was convinced that because Dowd’s last public announcement vaguely lined up with a sentence in some astrology column from the week before, this specific Virgo slot had some cosmic edge. I told him I needed empirical data. I needed proof, documented day by day, to show him just how much of a steaming pile of nonsense these daily readings actually are. I had some downtime waiting for a new server rack to arrive—logistics delayed it by three weeks, those idiots—so I figured, why not turn that frustration into a stupid tracking exercise?
Establishing the Tracking Framework: Getting Specific on Vague Stuff
First order of business: I had to pin down the sources. Dowd is a well-known Virgo, so the daily content is everywhere. I wasn’t going to mess with niche psychic blogs. I targeted the four major, high-traffic daily reading sites that everyone shares on social media. The kind that relies on clicks and advertising revenue, not actual predictive ability. I spent a whole afternoon just setting up the documentation sheet. Just a simple Google Sheet. I didn’t need complicated formulas; I just needed cold, hard reality.
Columns were essential: Date, Reading Source 1, Reading Source 2, etc., Actual Public Event (if any), and my rating criteria. And defining those criteria? That was the real pain in the neck. Most readings are meaningless. “Today brings the promise of deeper self-reflection.” How do you verify that? You can’t!
So, I had to brutalize the classification system:
- Specific Hits: Must be a clear, verifiable public action or statement—like “a contract will be signed” or “a trip will be announced.” (High Bar for success).
- Semi-Specific Alignment: A general prediction about mood, energy, or private dealings that could be reasonably inferred from public statements or behavior changes. (Medium Bar, often a stretch).
- Generic Noise: Philosophical rambling, feel-good mantras, or predictions that could apply to literally any human being on Earth. (Automatic Zero accuracy).
I decided on a 45-day tracking window, starting immediately. I was determined to collect the daily intel and prove my point to Dave once and for all.
The Daily Scrape and the Inescapable Tedium
The first few days were almost fun, just the novelty of the mission. But then the reality of the daily tracking sank its teeth into me. Every morning, I had to log in, grab the four different Virgo paragraphs, and paste them into the sheet. What immediately became apparent was that the predictions were not only vague, but they were often identical across different sources—just slightly reworded. It was a massive echo chamber of generic advice.
Then came the hard part: verification. Every single evening, I went on the hunt for public events. I scoured news sites, verified social media accounts, and even glanced at the less trustworthy gossip blogs just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything related to Dowd. Did he look stressed in that picture? Did his assistant cancel a meeting? I was searching for proof of cosmic accuracy where there was clearly none.
I remember one specific reading that said, “Be prepared for a major confrontation with authority figures regarding intellectual property.” I tracked that one carefully. Nothing happened. Zero drama. The next day, another source said, “Financial peace is on the horizon, expect positive monetary news.” Also zero movement.
It was a grueling, ridiculous process that required more effort than it should have. But I had committed to 45 days, and I was going to see the data through to the bitter end.
The Final Tally: Just Four Percent
When the 45-day mark hit, I was honestly relieved to stop the daily data entry. I had collected 180 individual predictions. I spent a long Friday night going through every single one, matching it against verified public events, rating them using my brutal criteria, and calculating the totals. The results were perfect—perfectly terrible, that is.
Out of the 180 data points:
- 155 fell into the ‘Generic Noise’ category. Total waste of space.
- 21 were ‘Semi-Specific Alignment.’ These were the tricky ones, where I had to really debate if a slightly sour quote meant a “challenge to expectations.” Even counting generously, only 5 of these showed a weak alignment with reality.
- 4 were ‘Specific Hits.’ These were bold predictions, things that actually tried to pin down a date or a type of event. I tracked these four like a hawk. Every single one was dead wrong. One predicted a new product launch on the 40th day; instead, the company announced a delay.
If I was unbelievably generous and counted every single weak alignment as a win, the total accuracy rate scraped just over 4%. Four percent! That’s worse odds than just randomly guessing what someone is going to eat for lunch.
Closing the Case and Sending the Spreadsheet
I didn’t waste time making a fancy report. I just attached the spreadsheet to an email to Dave, highlighted the 4% total at the bottom, and wrote two words: “Told you.”
He actually called me instantly, practically choking on his laughter. He said he was half expecting some kind of complex graph, but the raw, pathetic number was better. It proved the point with absolute clarity. The time I sunk into tracking Daniel Whelland Dowd’s Virgo readings for a month and a half? It was completely worth the hours of tedious scraping just to have the hard evidence needed to shut down that kind of baseless thinking. If you want to know if something works, stop listening to the marketing pitch and just go track it yourself. That’s the only way to prove what’s real and what’s just manufactured filler.
