(Yes, I intended to write an entry for every day. Alas, my parents� net access died the day I got there, and thus I�m posting the paper journal entries I wrote instead a few weeks late. Sorry �bout that.)

1/2:

"Without them coming through, I�m pretty much not able to do this." �John Edward

Mom went back to work today. Poor Mom. Dad and I sat around and watched Frequency, which is an awfully artsily-filmed flick, but you gotta love Dennis Quaid and the actress who plays the mom. (The adult son is kinda bizarre, though.)

After that, Dad wandered into the bedroom and I start watching Caroline Rhea on Rosie. She�s a hoot, and I think she�ll make an excellent host later. I loved the gift return game, where people who got bad gifts (fish head beer coasters, reindeer poop dispenser) got expensive replacements. And we thought we used to have it bad?

She had John Edward on the show (apparently she�s a big fan). Now I had never seen this guy�s show before or really paid any attention to him whatsoever. I do recall him coming up on 3WA and some folks being very much "he�s a fraud," etc. Though the other night I saw a spoof of him on SNL where Will Ferrell was guessing every letter of the alphabet, and laughed my head off.

So anyway, she was asking him how he got into the psychic biz, and he said at the age of 15 he went to debunk a psychic his grandma saw- she said she saw Tony around his grandma, and JE said that since Grandma was Italian, that�s a pretty good guess there�d be a Tony in the family somewhere (true!). Then this woman predicted he�d end up a big shot psychic someday. This at 15, when he wanted to own a deli.

I did well, relate a bit to his "coming out." I don�t really know why, per se. Maybe I just relate to the skepticism. But he seemed to be, well ... not full of shit. Wouldn�t you know that right after Rosie ended, I was flipping channels and found Crossing Over broadcasting? So I figured hey, I�ll watch it and see how accurate he really is.

Here�s most of what I saw during an hour:

Case #1: (already in progress when I turned it on) JE claims one guy had a hair color change that the dead person (brother?) is acknowledging. Guy says "it�s always been this color," though he comments that he did something to it awhile back but it�s gone by now. There�s a "Fonzie" reference, Dad says he was nicknamed Fonzie. There�s a "mermaid" reference, they read that as "well, he liked to dive, and he had a web page, and there were a few mermaid pics on it..."

My analysis: I didn�t see the whole thing of this, but the hair and the mermaid seem fairly vague. Fonzie�s specific, though (you wouldn�t guess that nick from looking at the guy). I wondered why someone coming back from the dead would comment on an old hairdo and some pictures, though.

Case #2: JE picks up on a young male who had leukemia or a blood disease, who was the boyfriend of one woman and the brother of another. He referred to a black and white profile photo of the guy, and sis says she has that in her home. JE picks up on a reporter (there isn�t one), which may be named Jennifer (sister�s name). JE picks up that he wanted to propose to the girlfriend and had the sister go looking for rings for him (true). Messagewise, JE says the guy fought to live, but hit a point where he couldn�t any more, and then said he was still fighting.

My analysis: Honestly, this isn�t hugely specific beyond the photo, but struck me as pretty accurate otherwise (i.e. not fanwanked to make the reading make sense, which I suspect happened in some other cases, like #1).

I liked how after this reading, he had a talk with the two, and the girlfriend asked why she couldn�t get messages from him on her own (good question). JE said she could, just had to figure out another way.

Case #3: JE picks up on this girl�s mother. She has a ring of her mom�s. Do you wear it all the time? Not today. Do you wear it on a chain around your neck? No. "I need to acknowledge what�s around your neck"- turns out to be a cross. (He uses the word "acknowledge" a lot, which is odd and I don�t really get it. "Tell me to acknowledge this," that kinda thing.) He picks up that she�s redoing her roof (true). There�s twins in the family (true). He picks up on a "Susan or Sissy"- the twins have sibilant foreign names that start with S and sound similar to Sissy (those names were unguessable, and I sure can�t spell �em), and one of them was nicknamed Sissy. (He does get pretty close when trying to guess foreign names.) He insists the twins have different birthdays, she says no, he says that might not be acknowledged in the family.

My analysis: The "Sissy" and twins is actually pretty good, as is the roof. The ring around the neck and birthdays, however, seem really forced to me. (I�ll get back to that later.)

Case #4: JE gets a message from this guy�s brother than there has been or will be (he�s not sure, but tends towards already happened) a big huge fire, where a whole town burns, a lot of people die, there�s something involving a lot of people on a train, this is huge�happening in another country (he never says the name of the country, but the family is Indian and I think he knew that, since one of them works for him). A few weeks later, there was that earthquake in India... No reports of dead relatives in the family, though.

My analysis: I don�t think this one was close at all!

Case #5: This one guy JE was reading just wasn�t really er, playing the game. He didn�t answer to his name when it was called and generally sat there stupefied throughout. JE picks up on someone who�s "on the side," which to him equals "husband, brother, cousin or friend", i.e. a contemporary relationship to the readee (Peter). This person had a sudden and unexpected cardiac death. Peter denies it entirely, with his only suggestion being that his brother (still alive) is a cardiac surgeon. JE says that�s not it, and insists this relative must exist, and eventually says "I�m not asking you, I�m telling you!" this person exists. Peter also at some point made what JE called "The Face," which is apparently the biggest mistake you can make on this show! He also promises him there�s a California connection to him, which Peter also denies (but eventually the woman he�s with tells him he has a nephew living in California).

My analysis: Boy, was this pretty weak. While I do think it�s entirely possible Peter�s just not real swift on who his relatives are, the insistence thing (again) bugged me. Dude, if it�s not registering, then you�re probably not right! Maybe he�s picking up something else, for all I know, but insisting just makes JE look bad. And again, why would someone come back from the dead to say "hey, your nephew lives in California?" Makes no sense.

I keep wondering with this show�some people pass on deep messages, while others apparently pop in to ID a few random things, then disappear. Why, if you could pass a message on to your lost loved ones, would you refer to your child getting a new roof on the house or your sibling doing a bit of hair dye testing (unless either of these activities might kill �em, which didn�t seem to be the case here).

He�s not as ambiguous about these things as I thought he would be (guessing every letter of the alphabet), though, which is interesting. He fishes for specific stuff a lot of the time, not just "anyone with a J name" stuff. He�s also a damn fast talker, especially when he starts out. I had a hard time keeping track of what he was talking about there.

Do I think this guy�s psychic to some degree? Sure, he does seem to get some stuff right. But do I think he�s always right? Hell no. He does pick up some specific stuff that relates to the person (one reference about someone being tied to a clothesline is just too specific to be guessed, I think), but other specific stuff is just off. I don�t know why. He seems to be off or at least kinda fishy a fair amount of the time. I do understand why anyone who thinks he�s a fraud believes that!

What this reminds me of is a book I have (cheesily titled "You Are Psychic!"), in which the author talks about some psychic advisors. Some he�d seen he could tell they weren�t getting anything specific about something they�d been asked about, and then they made it up. He felt they should just admit they�re not getting anything. I think that might be a good thing for JE to do if/when he has those moments, but then again, I doubt he could get a show if he admitted to being iffier about things.

On another topic...gah, it happened again!

We were supposed to go back to Pleasanton tonight when Mom got home. Dad was to be hauled to the hospital for more yucky tests, while I got dropped off at the mall until they were done. Ironically, Dad was all freaked out at 5:15 that I wouldn�t be ready to go in time. I thought "Oh please, she won�t be home until six and then it�ll take you a half hour to get off the can before we even think about leaving the house!"

I nearly called it. Mom didn�t get home until six. I don�t know what Dad was doing (I obviously didn�t want to check), but Mom sat around reading newspapers till nearly 6:30 ... then she called the hospital and it turned out they didn�t have his paperwork. So we didn�t go. I must have shown my disappointment, because she looked at me and was all "Do you have a problem with that?"

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