Demon days

Today is 06/06/06. Depending on who you ask, this is the day of Rapture, the birth of the Antichrist, or the release date for the remake of The Omen. As I'm neither a Christian nor a numerologist -- I've only read 10 pages of The Da Vinci Code -- I'll call it Tuesday.

Still, I was unnerved by this USA Today article. This week, the 30-year rate on fixed mortgages is 6.66%. Seriously? Has there ever been a more demonic time to be a homeowner? It's like a buyer's market for haunted houses. I'd hate to be a real estate agent with hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.

Last week I heard about a pregnant woman whose child was due today, and she wanted the hospital to induce labor so she could have the baby earlier and not take the risk. They refused, seeing no medical reason to perform the procedure. I don't know what happened, but if she hasn't had the child already, I have to imagine she'll be holding it in until midnight.

What's it like having the Number of the Beast as a birthday? Well, Max August Zorn was born a century ago. He was a mathematician and numerical analyst (!) at Indiana University who lived nearly 87 years. However, there was a strange tidbit about how he was nearly hit by a car, and his name does sound like a Bond villain...

There are other neat facts about the Devil's Number, but certainly the most disturbing is one of today's book releases: Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism. At first I panicked, but then I remembered that Ann Coulter is a crazy, anorexic media whore.

No worries, then. As for me, I'm already concerned about the slot machine overload here in Las Vegas next year, when the calendar reads 07/07/07.