A woman in England claims to be an Asparamancer – she tells fortunes using asparagus:
Ms Packington, from Worcester, throws the asparagus spears onto the floor and makes her predictions based on how they land.
She says she stumbled across her asparagus-predicting skills a few years ago by chance, after some stalks fell on the floor and she made a prediction which came true.
As good a method as any other I suppose. Which is to say, totally useless. Half-assed, you might say. As useless as an Astrologer. I doubt it’s the dawning of the age of asparagus. Er, that’s all I got.
Packington shouldn’t be confused with Sylvester Stallone’s mother, Jackie – she tells your fortune by looking at your ass. Completely different thing.
I predict your pee will smell funny.
I'd be more impressed if she could predict how the asparagus would land before she threw them.
Posted by: Susan B. | March 15, 2008 at 07:12 PM
I am inclined to start promoting a method based on the combination of these two: predicting the future by inserting asparagus spears in your ass! "Assasparagology"!
Posted by: stavros | March 15, 2008 at 08:05 PM
Packington shouldn’t be confused with Sylvester Stallone’s mother, Jackie – she tells your fortune by looking at your ass.
Well that's no bloody use, I don't own any beasts of burden.
I'll just get my coat....
Posted by: Jimmy_Blue | March 15, 2008 at 09:26 PM
I wish all supernaturalists would take such a clear stance on the side of absurdity. Then I wouldn't feel bad for people who get taken in by it.
Posted by: Jaban | March 15, 2008 at 10:58 PM
Reminds me of the sticks used in Chinese temples. Don't know what you call them, but they look very much like chopsticks, except they have some Chinese characters painted or engraved near the ends. The two or three dozen sticks are inside a bucket and you lift the sheaf of sticks a few inches and drop them back in. You keep doing this until one of them fails to drop all the way in and so sticks out. If I remember correctly you then bring that particular stick to the resident seer and s/he then reads your fortune or something.
There's baloney all over the world.
Posted by: Edwardson | March 15, 2008 at 11:05 PM
Edwardson,
Yeah the Chinese are very into superstition. Even so far that sim-cards cost differently depending on the phone-number you will get (because some numbers bring luck and others bad luck). The price difference is up to 30 USD which is a lot of money in China.
Not falling for that kind of crap I of course bought the absolute cheapest sim-card I could find, consisting of all the "unlucky" numbers being repeated over and over again.
"Unfortunately" I lost my phone the next day, thus giving all my superstitious friends "evidence" for their beliefs.
AAARGH!
No, I am actually just an airhead who cannot keep an eye on my things.
Posted by: I'm Oscar.com | March 16, 2008 at 03:40 AM
"I predict your pee will smell funny."
Not for everyone! It turns out some folks have an enzyme that prevents that nasty smell.
-tech
Posted by: Techskeptic | March 16, 2008 at 07:57 AM
Ah, opting for the vegetarian method over sheep's entrails I see.
Posted by: King of Ferrets | March 16, 2008 at 11:15 PM
What.the.fuck?
Posted by: Evolved | March 16, 2008 at 11:29 PM
Techskeptik - weirder still, some people have a gene that prevents them from smelling it. Seems a lot of people were saying "doesn't work with me" until some lab coat said "lets have a sniff then". So we have crazy venn diagrams of those who can't get the smelly pee, those that can't smell it and the overlaps.
Posted by: Stewart Paterson | March 17, 2008 at 07:30 AM
The Jackie Stallone thing -- she's kidding, right? Please, please, somebody tell me she's kidding.
If she's kidding, it's hilarious. If she's not, then what an unbelievable scam. Getting people to pay her $125 to send her pictures of their own butts? Incredible. I'm actually sort of jealous.
But who am I to complain. There were people who took my Oscarology thing seriously... and people who thought that I did. Clearly I should have been charging.
Posted by: Greta Christina | March 18, 2008 at 04:10 PM
I can use asparagus to predict you will have really smelly pee.
Posted by: drbuzz0 | March 23, 2008 at 12:49 PM