Virgo-Pisces Alliance No.227: Plotting the perfect pasta dish

Oh how lost is my FoodNetwork!  As you know, football season has ended.  This means that there is only one thing to watch on the old HDTV, and we ain't talking about basketball.  We're talking about cooking shows.  Food season begins the second that football season ends.

Unfortunately, the Food Network has rolled over and died in the past year.  I didn't mind much last year, as I was undergoing rapid weight loss after gastric bypass.  This year, the state of the Food Network has become insufferable.

Why?  Let me enumerate the reasons why!

1. The Food Network is no longer in the teaching business.
2. The good old teachers such as Alton Brown, Tyler Florence, and Giada DiLaurentis have a minimal presence on the Food Network these days.
3. It seems that the Cooking Channel, in low-def only, has now become the haunt of all those who would like to improve our culinary knowledge and skills.  Better low-def than nothing, but the Cooking Channel really should make the leap to high-def soon.
4. The Food Network has gone over to the reality show dogs.  Am I alone here when I say that there is simply nothing worse than these stupid game-shows masquerading as reality shows?  Reality shows were bad enough, but now that they have gamed them, these shows are even worse.  Unfortunately, this absolute rubbish is the prime-time substance of the Food Network.  I am utterly  disgusted beyond words.  I cannot pour enough scorn and venom on this programming strategy.
5. Alton Brown doesn't seem to be cranking out any more episodes of Good Eats.
6. Tyler Florence is busy running a restaurant in Mill Valley California, recharging his culinary batteries, according most insider reports.  He's not doing any new episodes of Tyler's Ultimate.
7. Only Michael Symon is cranking out good teaching programming at this point, and only for the Cooking Channel.  He has never done a true teaching program in HD.

Nevertheless, it is quite clear that Michael Symon has slid right into the spot formerly occupied by Tyler Florence.  Astrologically, this is to be expected.  Tyler is a Pisces.  Michael is a Virgo.  These are 180 degree opposites, but more alike and complementary than you would ever expect at first glance.  The demographic Tyler appealed to is exactly the same demographic Michael Symon will appeal to.  You would expect their audience test scores to be very similar.

Is there anything more than that?  Well, I am certainly glad you asked me that question.  If you can, view the following episodes of Tyler's Ultimate and Symon's Suppers back to back, and tell me you don't see any resemblance in the food or meal plan.

1. Tyler's Ultimate Sunday Gravy, first aired on 2/27/2010
2. Symon's Suppers Childhood Favorites, first aired on 2/9/2012

In episode 1, Tyler is preparing a spaghetti  meal with pork shoulder, ribs and meat balls.  He braises these items in a sauce very similar to the base sauce for Bolognese.  In episode two, Michael Symon is cooking with his mother and father.  He prepares a spaghetti meal with ribs and meat balls in a base sauce very similar to Bolognese.  

Michael Symon proceeds from the statement that this is his mama's recipe, and his favorite from childhood.  You can't help but feel a conversation is taking place.  You cannot help but feel that Michael Symon is developing a dialectical culinary conversation with Tyler.  Obviously, these two gravies are vastly more similar than dis-similar.

Evidently, Mike's mom didn't use pork shoulder.  Too bad... the pork shoulder looked sensational.  I would not leave out the pork shoulder.  Also, Symon's use of Ricotta cheese in the meat balls is critical.  Tyler did not use Ricotta in his meatballs.  I would not leave out the Ricotta.  I am sure those meatballs were sensational.

Symon also braises with a cheese rind.  That is a sensational trick I learned from an Italian gent, and it works like crazy.

If that is not enough for you, then consider the following pair of episodes:

1. Tyler's Ultimate Winter Comfort Food, first aired 1/17/2007
2. Symon's Suppers Sunday Suppers, first aired 2/2/2012

In episode #1, Tyler prepares Tagliatelle Bolognese.  In episode #2, Michael prepares Tagliatelle Bolognese.  The key difference is that Tyler uses beef and pork with some panchetta.  He finishes with some Italian Parsley.  Michael Symon used some sensational Lamb shoulder and finishes with Mint.

Symon also reduces his sauce to a chunky thickness, he then loosens the reduction with pasta water.  I do this myself.  You concentrate the sauce as much as possible to a paste, then you re-hydrate with that starchy and salty pasta water.  This greatly enhances the flavor of the sauce.

You can't help but feel a conversation is taking place.  You cannot help but feel that Michael Symon is developing a dialectical culinary conversation with Tyler.  It is a fascinating conversation as well... At least from my perspective.

Personally, I would mix Pork and Lamb, use Black-forrest smoked bacon, and finish with Mint.  I would also home-brew my own fresh Tagliatelle pasta.  In fact, I just decided I am going to do this tonight.  Tonight is the night.

I am shocked Michael Symon didn't do his own fresh pasta in this particular episode.  I have seen him do this a hundred times before.  I got my vacuum-sealer stunt from him. That is when I really took my own home-pasta to the next level.  

Returning to the ultimate home gravy, for just one moment, I am going to have to do this recipe soon, but I won't do it until I have a bunch of people to help me eat it.  This stuff looks just too precious to waste.  It also is intended to be shared.  I know that just by taking one look at it.

A quick shout out to Tyler:  We need you to come back, man!  The Food Network just ain't the same without you.  We need you to do some new material, and we need Michael Symon to do his first HD teaching show.  Both shows needs to go into a prime-time slot, back to back.

I promise you, oh managers of the Food Network, that you will dominate that time slot if you will put this deal together.  Trust me.

HBO cancels Hung?!?!?!

When I decided to subscribe to the NFL Super-Fan/Prime Ticket this year, DirectTV decided to toss in a free 3 month subscription to HBO as a gratuity.  I was grateful.  Although I find these subscription channels to be extremely thin on unique content, recycling the same thing over and over again, I do like to catch up with their antics every couple of years.  

It had been more than 4 years since the last time I subscribed to HBO.  There should be something new on

Well, I was quite surprised to discover that that something new was a series staring Thomas Jane called "Hung".  Jane plays the title role, and is the 40-something Pisces gigolo king of Detroit... replete with a giant penis, which is the key to his success.

My only complaint is that the casting is astrologically faulty.  If the producers knew anything about astrology, they would understand that Pisces dudes cannot be gigolos.  The Libra guys have a natural monopoly on this business.  All male Libras are natural-born gigolos (on the inside).  If you don't believe me, ask David Lee Roth.  He's a 10/10 Libra.  Jim Rome can also be some help on this question.

Anyhow, I started watching this series and I found it hilarious.  It did lose it's critical path and get mired in confusion during the final third of this season, but this mattered little to me.  I figured the writers just needed an off-season to plan and recharge their batteries.

Unfortunately, HBO did not see it my way.  The second the tranny client showed up, the viewing audience plummeted.  I wasn't particularly fond of that subplot either, but I passed it by.  Rather than recognizing that the writers stepped over the boundary-line, even for this insane series, HBO simply interpreted this moment as the natural death of audience interest in the show.  There will be no season four.

I am disappointed.  This is one of the few unique and daring comedy ideas in the past 20 years of television.  Rather than simply accepting that there are some boundary points you can't cross, even in a series like this, and making a few adjustments, HBO simply decided to kill the series.

I hate to say it, but they just killed the only reason I had to continue my subscription.  You had me on the line for more money.  Now you don't.

Ooooppss! Rihanna did it again.

It would appear that Rihanna released a new jam late in October.  The title is "We Found Love".  The full title chorus is we found love in a hopeless place.

I was exposed to it early last week.  This could be the biggest groove monster she has released yet.  Unbelievably infectious!  It borrows a little thunder from Jim Rome's favorite tune, Sandstorm.  I can already tell that I am going to wear this one out just like Rude Boy and S&M.

I tell you, I am going to have to write a piece of high synastry and musical preference soon.

The video is dark.  It deals with quite typical Piscean themes of the struggle with basic pragmatics in life, escapism through drugs, alcohol, and sex.  Being very muscal people, Pisceans frequently compose music about these subjects, and deal with them as a single complex.  Kurt Cobain sure did.    For some reason, the fish seem to struggle with these issues more than anyone else.  For the record, here is the video for "We Found Love".

Rihanna is chosen by Esquire as the Sexist Woman Alive 2011

Hard to believe it has already been a year since Esquire Magazine declared Minka Kelly to be the Sexist Woman Alive (2010).  I guess it has been.

I blogged on the subject back in March of this year.  I have a pretty massive set of synastry scores vs. Ms. Kelly, according to Sirus 1.1.  I wouldn't care to deny that either.  It's not unusual for Virgos and Cancers to have a thing for each other.  It happens every day.  It is considered a 5 star match-up.

I have a strong hunch that this Esquire feature must be run by a 1966 Virgo born in close proximity to me.  He just went and selected another water-clan female who I have fairly substantial scores with.  This time it is the notorious, even infamous, Rihanna.

Rihanna is 23 year old woman born February 20th, 1988 in Saint Michael, Barbados.  She is a Pisces female if there ever was one.  For the record, my Synastry scores versus Rihanna are as follows:


 1. Romantic and Sexual Attraction:  167
 2. Similarity of Interests and Temperament:  171
 3. Mutual Success and High Achievement:  25
 4. Problem Solving, Communication, and Mutual Understanding:  113
 5. Mutual Kindness, Friendliness, Pleasantness, and Peace:  46
 6. Aggressiveness, Competition, Power, Success, or Violence:  163
 7. Adventurousness, Surprises, Disturbances:  53
 8. Shared Creativity, Imagination, and Inspiration:  128

As always, and for the record, any score above 150 is considered extremely strong.

Frankly the line-up of planets is more favorable than the scores indicate.  It would be difficult for a test-blinded Astrologer to justify how low these scores are.  Her Moon is in Aries, conjuncted with mine.  Her Mars is located at 28 degrees Sagittarius, which forms a nearly perfect Trine with my Venus at 22 degrees Leo.  My Mars is located at 5 degrees Leo, forming a near perfect Trine with her Venus at 13 degrees Aries.  It is a criss-cross Mars-Venus Trine situation.  Fire, fire, fire baby!  The exception is the Sun sign, in which case we have an opposition, the most powerful angle for attraction.

It's hard to justify the score of 167.  Am I disputing this score?  In this case, the answer is no.  I am comfortable with the verdict of 167.  I wouldn't care to move it higher.  I might want to move it lower, but that might be a dishonest move.

Frankly, those scores pale in comparison to Minka Kelly's.  For the record, you can see those scores here. Rihanna's scores can't hold a candle to those of the theoretically perfect Pisces female born 3/12/1986.

To say that I am ambivalent about Rihanna would be the understatement of the century.  I have spoken many times about the love-hate-love ambivalence astrological opposites experience toward one another.  This is certainly one of those cases for me.

On the positive side, I have to admit that I love Rihanna's music.  It is a guilty pleasure for a Heavy Metalist like me.  I can't seem to make it through the day without listening to Rude Boy at least 10 times.  This is probably my favorite song.  That may be an understatement.  I am steadily wearing out the CD in my car stereo.  I am playing it to death.  For the record here is that video:



On the negative side, you will never find a Pisces girl at her naughty, nasty, bad worst like this one is.  Consider some quotation from the Esquire article declaring Rihanna the Sexist Woman Alive (2011).

She grabs her own radiant ass--she handles it, offers it--like it's a rump roast.  She squats and spreads her legs, settles a hand between them, where it stays. Caresses her breasts.  She masturbates a dancer with the help of cane.  She pretends to go down on the keyboardist.
Rihanna doesn't really dance... Altogether it amounts to choreographed oozing.
She picks a member of the audience to have simulated sex with.  She guides the subject over to the platform in the middle of the stage.  She commands the subject to lie back.  She straddles the subject.  She grinds.  This part is not simulated.
... She is the indisputable champion of carnal pop.  At this moment, in this room, she is the essence of Fuck.

This dude is not going to get high marks for his prose poetry, but he does capture the essence of the phenomenon.  She is the next closest thing to a Porn Queen dancing at a strip joint.  Like I said a moment ago:  This is a Pisces woman at her naughty, nasty, bad worst.

As reserved, wholesome, conservative, and retrained as a Virgo woman is, that's how exhibitionist, dissolute, sensual and carnal a Pisces woman is going to be.  It is a perfect Matter-Antimatter dichotomy.

Grant that this is a relatively extreme case, but it is hyperbole that makes a very fine point.

I still find it bizarre and offensive that we polar opposites attract one another as powerfully as we do, but I cannot deny that we do.  Perhaps it is because we Virgos are not quite as wholesome as we pretend to be, and the Pisces are not quite the sensual party animals they pretend to be.  Perhaps we are just trying to balance-out by combining our strengths.  I don't know...

Ben Roethlisberger (a Pisces) was reportedly relieved to be busted by the Comish (who is himself a Pisces guy) because it relieved him of the obligation of being BIG BEN:  The hardest drinking, rootenist-tootenist, most carnal bad-boy the world has ever known.  He said he got caught up in an image he was never comfortable with, and this reputation forced him into things he was never comfortable with.

You have to wonder if Rihanna isn't in exactly the same spot Ben Roethisberger was at this point in her career.  Perhaps she isn't quite the carnal monstrosity she pretends to be, but she is caught in a game of "Can you top this!"

Maybe not.  Oh well, it was just a thought.

The gregarious Shaq, the aloof Kobe

If you live in Los Angeles, and listen to any sports radio at all, during the past 24 hours you have heard nothing but re-visitations of the historical divorce between Shaq an Kobe that went down after three consecutive championships. There is plenty of this on ESPN also.

Why now?  Why are we revisiting this sad turn of events at this moment in history?  What has occasioned this? Shaq has published a volume of his memoirs in the immediate aftermath of his retirement.  These are his first reflections on his life and career at this pivotal life-moment.  The notorious scandal-site DeadSpin.com got hold of it, and published a fairly sensational clipping that asserted the thesis that Kobe's sexual assault charge destroyed the Lakers (for a time).

In Los Angeles, this is like spilling a gas truck and tossing a lit flair.

Shaq and his ghost writer have been quick to try to compensate for the spin, declaring that this is a fairly sensationalistic interpretation of the book.  Shaq really does have a fondness for Kobe, and it might be true coming back in the other direction also.

There are a bunch of other ancillary issues in this famous divorce, but we won't go there.  Rather than recount this litany of crimes, I only want to comment on the nature, character and flavor of this relationship between Kobe and Shaq.

Shaquille O'Neal was born March 6th, 1972, the exact same day as my buddy and co-worker Tabish. Kobe Bryant was born August 23, 1978.  Kobe is about 6.5 years younger than Shaq.

I hate to break this to you doubters, and it will sound just like The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh, but this is another chapter in the history of the Virgo-Pisces alliance.  Shaq is a Pisces, and Kobe is a Virgo.  It should be noted that Phil Jackson is also a September 17th Virgo.  This story resembles the one found in the second half of the 1970s in the story of the Pittsburgh Steelers.  It was a rocky-road, at times, but you cannot deny the incredible success they had when working together.

I have listened to 4 or 5 hours of talk about this book now.  I have heard many interesting quotations.  Some of them were fairly long.  Every commentator on sports talk radio is reading this book on the air like radio preachers reading the Bible.  I have been repeatedly struck by how much this reminds me of the bad splits between me and few of my Pisces buddies in life.  It also reminds me of my relationship with my brother, who also happens to be a Pisces.

In short, it seems to me that Kobe and Shaq had a classic Virgo-Pisces relationship.  They had all of the success, complex contrasts, and bad moments that are typical in this relationship.  The phrase I keep hearing over and over again is "the gregarious Shaq, the aloof Kobe".  That is so Pisces-Virgo it ain't even funny.  The fact that the media has seized upon this description as the final summary almost fitting.

Why have they summarized things this way?  Shaq is out-going.  He loves to party and dance in public.  He is fond of drinking with his buddies.  He makes friends easily as he moves from one team to another.  He is a popular guy with his teammates.  People regard him as friendly, approachable, and fun loving.

Kobe is quite the opposite.  Kobe is known as an OCD worker.  He shoots hoops relentlessly in an effort to achieve perfection.  He has good health habits, isn't known for drinking, and sticks to a healthy diet.  He doesn't party much.  When invited to roll with hommies, he declines.  He keeps to himself.  He doesn't allow many people into his private world.  People regard Kobe as grim, serious, stand-offish , and aloof.

The descriptions people have given of these two look like they come straight out of the pages of an astrology book.  You could drop these descriptions into any chapter on Virgo and Pisces and they would not even be identified as a foreign teaching.  These descriptions would be acknowledged as orthodox descriptions of the contrasts between Pisces and Virgo.

You might as well be describing me and my brother.  You might as well be describing me and my former business partner Johnny Z.

My brother is a musician in a traveling band.  He spends a lot of time in bars for this reason.  He loves to drink and party.  In fact, he has a problem with that.  He makes friends easily.  He has had many girlfriends.  He does not have a problem opening up to people.  People regard him as friendly, approachable and fun loving.  He is a Pisces.

Many people have accused me of OCD on various subjects in my life.  When obsessed with a subject, I relentlessly strive to get it right.  I am regarded as grim and serious by some.  Others regard me as a clown, but only when I am fucking with people more powerful than myself, sticking a finger in their eye, so to speak.  when invited to roll with the hommies, even Pisces hommies, I often decline.  I keep to myself.  I don't allow many people into my private world.  I have been regarded as stand-offish and aloof.  As you know, I have pretty good health habits.  I don't drink, and I keep to a strict diet... which I occasionally break with popcorn and Crunchabunchas.  I just happen to be a Virgo.

Still, there is tremendous dynamism here.  You know the dynamism that the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s had.  You know the dynamism that Shaq and Kobe showed when they were together.  I know the dynamism that Johnny Z and I flashed on the L.A. software market for about 2 years.

You would never believe it possible when you see such contrasting styles and personalities, but there is enormous complementary qualities between these two types.  Further, there is a great deal of affection and closeness between these two types, although Virgo is not good at showing it.  There is a fine line between a Virgo and a Vulcan.  Just remember that.  It's all about calm, cool, collected, logical self-control.

I am sure Kobe takes exception to being called aloof, just as surely as I do.  I am sure he wonders why people are offended by simple desire for privacy and time to work at his craft.  Further, I know he is suspicious of the motives of people who approach him, just as I am.  We worry about what you want and what you are after.  We know that people don't always, or even usually, have the best intentions.  They usually want something when they approach you, and it might not be good for you.  We know there is no reason to worry, as long as we keep everybody at arms length.

I am sure Kobe has regrets about what happened, but he will never admit this in public.  I am sure he wished it might have continued, but circumstances arose that he considered intolerable, so he burned his bridges. Virgo is a little like Scorpio in one respect:  When we burn our bridges, we really burn 'em.  We never come back to revisit a past relationship we have discarded.  This doesn't mean we don't have regrets about it, or wonder if we--perhaps--made a mistake in burning that bridge.  Still, you never discuss such a thing in public.  You keep it private and internal.

In praise of Taurus women, Part 2

So what can I say about Taurus women after a gallery like that one? Not much. A picture is worth a thousand words. It is a strange thing that Taurus, the bull, is a feminine Yin sign. Nevertheless, this is the case.

In ancient Greece, the Cow was the mascot/symbol of the temple of Aphrodite/Venus, the goddess of love. Taurus is ruled by Venus. So is Libra. According to the lore, this imbues Taurus women with a sensuality, beauty, sense of aesthetics, and sex drive that is difficult or impossible to match.

Of course, attraction is a relative thing. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you will pardon me for turning into a brutally honest Virgo critic for just one moment, I'll level with you completely.

Taurus women lack the instant one-punch knockout power of the Capricorn women. I've never been knocked over on my ass instantaneously by a Taurus woman. Many Capricorn women have demolished me to rubble with an instant thunderbolt.

Taurus women also lack the spell-binding, mesmerizing witchcraft of the Pisces women... but that is a good thing. I've never been under a tormenting spell of anguish at the hands of a Taurus woman. Regrettably, I have been under a spell of torment from a Pisces woman. I did not enjoy it. I don't look forward to this happening again in the future.

Just remember Osama Bin Laden was a 3/10/1954 Pisces. Billy Devaney is a 3/7/1955 Pisces. Enough said.

What the Taurus women have is a pure, raw, simple beauty, and a whole bunch of sizzle. That's pretty damn good folks. That ain't a bad thing. There is no doubt they have a ton of allure in them. It usually takes sustained exposure to one over a period of time, by I have become obsessed with more than one Taurus woman in my time. Still, I have never had a Taurus girlfriend (yet). We'll have to see about this in the future.

For a Virgo guy like me, a Taurus woman is theoretically one of your top 3 potential match-ups in life. Those top three would be Capricorn, Taurus and Pisces. The order of those three would be heavily disputed by experts who don't necessarily see eye-to-eye. Nevertheless, all three would be at the top of the list.

Cancer, Scorpio and Virgo would come in as your second tier options. Most experts would expect good levels of compatibility and a solid chance of success with any of these three.

Leo, Libra and Gemini would rank as risky possibilities, pregnant with potential strife and failure. Aries, Sagittarius and Aquarius would normally be sited as the highest-risk candidates, fraught with the highest percentages of problems and failure.

I happen to be an odd Virgo. I happen to be an Air Adept. I also have a lot of fire under the hood. I have an Aries Moon and a pair of Leos on Venus and Mars. These Leos usually form an antagonizing 90 degree square angle with most Taurus people. This usually sends the romance scores down. These two Leos also form hellacious 180 degree oppositions with Aquarius women around the dark and wintery side of the year. This shoots the score way up. My Moon, Venus, and Mars form a bunch of spectacular Trines with Aries, Leo and Sagittarius women.

This is all a very long-winded and technical way to say that normal patterns and generalizations don't necessarily apply to me. Nevertheless, there are plenty of Taurus women with fire under the hood also. I don't have outlandish scores against Taurus women the way I do with Aries, Pisces, Aquarius, and Capricorn women, but my scores are high enough to warrant consideration in some cases.

Who knows... I just may go this route after all.

Happy birthday to my Pisces girls

So, for those who don't know this, Saturday marked the beginning of Pisces season. I happen to a Virgo. I am very Virgo, as in Virgo rising with a total of four symbols in that first house. Of course, this means Pisces is on my 7th house. According to the folklore, this indicates that I will someday marry a Pisces woman. It almost happened once or twice...

My scores are truly exceptional versus Pisces women. Remember, any score over 150 is considered extremely strong. Never was this more evident than today. The top three females listed on the IMDB.com birthday list are indicative of this theory. If the Sirus 1.1 synastry engine is to believed, here are my scores.

1. Ellen Page 2/21/1987 Halifax, Nova Scotia
2. Ashley Greene 2/21/1987 Jacksonville, Florida
3. Jennifer Love Hewitt, 2/21/1979, Waco Texas

Ellen Page and Ashley Greene are exactly the same age, give or take a few hours, and there scores are quite similar, with Asheley tipping the scale.

David A. Leon and Ellen Page

Category Totals
1. Romantic and Sexual Attraction: 241
2. Similarity of Interests and Temperament: 29
3. Mutual Success and High Achievement: 30
4. Problem Solving, Communication, and Mutual Understanding: 161
5. Mutual Kindness, Friendliness, Pleasantness, and Peace: 70
6. Aggressiveness, Competition, Power, Success, or Violence: 2
7. Adventurousness, Surprises, Disturbances: 161
8. Shared Creativity, Imagination, and Inspiration: 73

Ashley Greene and David A. Leon

Category Totals
1. Romantic and Sexual Attraction: 242
2. Similarity of Interests and Temperament: 29
3. Mutual Success and High Achievement: 30
4. Problem Solving, Communication, and Mutual Understanding: 165
5. Mutual Kindness, Friendliness, Pleasantness, and Peace: 68
6. Aggressiveness, Competition, Power, Success, or Violence: 2
7. Adventurousness, Surprises, Disturbances: 164
8. Shared Creativity, Imagination, and Inspiration: 73

Jennifer Love Hewitt and David A. Leon

Category Totals
1. Romantic and Sexual Attraction: 302
2. Similarity of Interests and Temperament: 57
3. Mutual Success and High Achievement: 61
4. Problem Solving, Communication, and Mutual Understanding: 14
5. Mutual Kindness, Friendliness, Pleasantness, and Peace: 128
6. Aggressiveness, Competition, Power, Success, or Violence: 0
7. Adventurousness, Surprises, Disturbances: 117
8. Shared Creativity, Imagination, and Inspiration: 203

So do I concur with these scores? Yeah, largely I do.

I have always thought Ellen Page was a charming girl. I would need to put her on a high-calorie diet. Like so many actresses in Hollywood, they have her on a starvation diet. I would consider it a pleasure to cook her some high-calorie meals. Did I mention she was great in both the X-Men and Juno?

Ashley Green is just a stunning knock-out with plenty of charm of her own. She's an amazing, ravishing girl. Believe me, I would loose my cool around her. She's a heart attack thriller.

Then comes Jennifer Love Hewitt. I've always thought she was devastating, smashing, ravishing, amazing woman. I've never changed my mind about that. Some complain she's put on weight. Believe me, I don't care about that in the slightest. This is a drop-dead gorgeous woman.

You know... I am starting to get that Capricorn kinda feeling again. We went through the entire season of Aquarius, I saw lots of knock-out women. I had great scores against more than a handful of them. Neverthless, looking back at, the Aquarians lacked the knock-out punch that both the Capricorn and the Pisces women seem to have.

As I have written before, Pisces men and women are known for having a few serious characteristic problems. I have witnessed these things first hand. For this reason, I am wary of becoming in involved again with a Pisces woman. Still, with bait like this... It would be extremely difficult to resist.

The synastry table predict it's going to happen sooner or later.

In praise of Ben Roethlisberger

Suddenly all of the media pundits have discovered that Ben Roethlisberger is a great QB. Suddenly, Ben is better than Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. Suddenly, he is most clutch guy in the NFL, and the dude you want in that life & death moment at the end of the game. Suddenly, there is a great out-pouring of praise for Ben Roethlisberger.

Where the fuck were you two years ago when Ben Roethlisberger out-dueled Kurt Warner in the Super Bowl? I though Kurt slew him. Ben popped right back up and led his team on the game winning drive. That hurt me like hell by the way.

This wasn't the first time Ben had done such a thing either. Far from it. He stole a bunch of games en route to the Super Bowl. He's been stealing games right and left in the final moments for quite some time now. They should call them the Stealers.

In case you don't remember, Ben was in deep shit a year ago. The Steelers were trying to trade him to my Rams. I wrote about this subject two or three times on Bleacher Report. You can find these pieces, written more than year ago, where I said that Ben was a clutch guy, and very under-rated. I also said he was greazie-basterd.

I am very ambivalent about Ben Roethlisberger. He embodies the best and the worst of the Pisces guy, which is what he is. I am a Virgo with Virgo rising. Pisces is on my 7th house. I am fundimentally biased to partner-up with a dude like Roethlisberger in just about any enterprise, especially football.

At the same time I say this, Roethlisberger manifests all those negative qualities of Pisces I have written about. He drinks like a champion, and this is why the comish sent him to rehab. He manifests impared jugement in situations away from the field. He's a morally grungy dude, and you know exactly what I am talking about. He does not analyze or assess risk correctly. This is both his strength and his weakness. On the field he is not afraid to gunsling. Off the field he is not afraid to continue gunslinging by other means.

There are two Ben Roethlisbergers: the guy you love and the guy you hate. He is like two fish lashed together at their tails, swimming in opposite directions, against each other. Incidentally, this is symbolic image of Pisces, which is what Ben is.

You might ask the following question: how can a conservative, analytical, hermit, Virgo partner-up with and risk-assessment impaired Pisces gun-slinger? It beats the hell out of me, par, but I've done it more than once in my life. I know it happens. It just happens naturally. We wind up in the same room somehow, and they have a tendency to seek me out. We gravitate together, and we strike up a partnership. We are opposites, but we form a complentary tao.

There is a saying in Spanish that goes "God makes them and they get together on their own." This is said whenever you see any strange partnership that seems to work. Pisces & Virgo are kind of like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

Just to give you one example: My current employers hired me because the most senior programmer in the shop just happened to be a Pisces from New Delhi, India. For some strange reason or another, he had a strong feeling that I was the candidate he wanted for the job. The bosses were not too keen on the idea. He advocated my case, and told the bosses I was the guy they had to hire. I found out a year later he was a 3/6/1970 Pisces dude. It turns out his brother is a Virgo. It turns out my brother is a Pisces. Go figure.

Incidentally, Terry Bradshaw is a Virgo and rolled with a bunch of Pisces partners including Franco Harris, Rockie Blier, Lynn Swann, and Mike Webster. No bullshit. Check it out, prove me wrong, then go figure. For whatever reason, we partner up.

The Synastry Files IV, The Rams love me back

So, I finally purchase my copy of Sirius 1.1. For those who don't know, Sirius is purportedly the next-generation product that followed Kepler. Kepler is now outdated, in the EOL (End of Life) category. They still sell it, but it is not their flagship product. Sirius does not look like a 100% do-over product. It certainly looks a lot like Kepler, but oh-well...

I have had some considerable fun with the new (old?) product. Using Match Maker, I have ground out over 2,000 comparisons between theoretical dates and my own natal chart. Of course, the term theoretical date is an odd one. These dates did occur in history, and we can say with something approaching metaphysical certainty that baby girls were born on all of these days. I call them theoretical dates because I know of no specific individual who was born on these dates.

If we look at the top 50 scores on my leader board, we will find an Aries with a score of 530 for Romantic and Sexual Attraction. This edges out La-La (my theoretical Pisces) by some 2 points. I have code-named this female Fire-Ewe. Fire Ewe was born on 04/13/1979, and is just about 31 years old now.

The problem is that Fire Ewe can't compete on other scores. We have a good problem solving score of 206, and we have a good shared creativity score of 152. That's it. The rest of the scores are average. There is nothing average about La-La's scores.

Still, I am impressed by how Aries took-command of the leader board. It is impressive to see so many high scores among Aries females. I guess the Rams love me back, after all.

I was also amazed by my scores versus Aquarius. Aquarius leaped over Libra by a considerable margin, and I didn't think that was going to happen. How about my poor scores versus Capricorn, and less-than-amazing scores versus Taurus? I don't have a single hot Capricorn score until the year 1992. Yep, that's right. There is an 18 year old Capricorn girl somewhere in Los Angeles packing a huge 409 score versus me. That's every daddy's nightmare.

This once again proves that I am a very weird Virgo. Virgo is not supposed to do well versus Aquarius and we are supposed to do great versus Capricorn. Not this Virgo. Quite frankly, my top Aquarius has dramatically better scores (overall) than Fire Ewe, and vastly better than most Capricorns. There are many similar findings with the the lesser Aquarius scores. Based on scores alone, the Aquarians look like damn fine choices.

The Pisces, Virgos, Leos, and several other good signs are not yet included here. Still, we know from previous research that there is are Pisces with better overall-scores. Soon they will be included, and we will have a more complete look at the picture.

1. 530 Aries 19790413 Los Angele
2. 522 Aries 19790412 Los Angele
3. 492 Aries 19790414 Los Angele
4. 463 Aries 19790411 Los Angele
5. 447 Aquarius 19800131 Los Ang
6. 432 Aquarius 19800130 Los Ang
7. 409 Aries 19790415 Los Angele
8. 409 Capricorn 19920115 Los An
9. 409 Aquarius 19800201 Los Ang
10. 401 Aries 19790410 Los Angele
11. 377 Capricorn 19920116
12. 373 Sagittarius 19801209 Los
13. 371 Aquarius 19880213 Los Ang
14. 369 Libra 19801020 Los Angele
15. 367 Taurus 19820424 Los Angel
16. 359 Aquarius 19800129 Los Ang
17. 358 Capricorn 19920113 Los An
18. 356 Aries 19790409 Los Angele
19. 354 Libra 19810930 Los Angele
20. 352 Aquarius 19880214 Los Ang
21. 350 Aries 19700407 Los Angele
22. 350 Aquarius 19720131 Los Ang
23. 349 Aries 19860417 Los Angele
24. 343 Aries 19800324 Los Angele
25. 340 Libra 19810928 Los Angele
26. 339 Aries 19700406 Los Angele
27. 338 Sagittarius 19841213 Los
28. 338 Aries 19800323 Los Angele
29. 337 Scorpio 19791026 Los Ange
30. 337 Aquarius 19880212 Los Ang
31. 336 Aquarius 19720130 Los Ang
32. 334 Sagittarius 19801208 Los
33. 333 Aquarius 19800202 Los Ang
34. 331 Capricorn 19920117 Los An
35. 330 Aquarius 19810126 Los Ang
36. 328 Scorpio 19781105 Los Ange
37. 328 Aquarius 19880215 Los Ang
38. 327 Aquarius 19720201 Los Ang
39. 326 Sagittarius 19801210 Los
40. 326 Aries 19790416 Los Angele
41. 322 Sagittarius 19841214 Los
42. 321 Aries 19860418 Los Angele
43. 317 Aries 19860416 Los Angele
44. 317 Aries 19790408 Los Angele
45. 316 Aries 19800322 Los Angele
46. 315 Sagittarius 19841212 Los
47. 315 Capricorn 19830109 Los An
48. 309 Scorpio 19791119 Los Ange
49. 309 Aquarius 19660123 Los Ang
50. 309 Aquarius 19660122 Los Ang

The Synastry Files III: Calculating the birthday of miss right.

As you know, my new favorite video games are Kepler 7 and Janus 4. The Synastry calculators and interpreters built into the these applications have furnished me with countless hours of fun over the past several weeks. It is terribly interesting stuff. I don't know if a single word of it is true, but there very interesting and evocative results when I run it against family, friends, and coworkers.

To wit, the hunt and peck method of simply entering data for women I find attractive has become extremely tedious and boring. I have become tired of the occasional bingo at a 300 level of attraction. While many of the scores I have stumbled upon have been extraordinary, so to have the downsides.

Consider Kim Kardashian. If this software is to be believed, we have a romantic and sexual score of 357. We also have a violence and aggression score of 535. Anything above 150 is considered an extremely strong score. That 535 will make you think twice about that 357. You don't want that 357 to signify 357 magnum.

Hence, I have become interested in harnessing the power of this software to calculate the birth date of little miss perfect. I want to know the birth date of the woman (or women), currently walking the face of the Earth, with the very best set of Synastry scores vis-a-vis me.

Presuming you were uninvolved with anyone at this point, would you not be interested in calculating the birth date of Miss perfect, if such a thing were possible? It would help in your glass-slipper quest, would it not?

Given the limitations of this software, which are considerable, how can the goal be achieved? Because I am a goddamn brilliant sonofabitch with no less than 4 Virgos jam-packed into my first house, I was able to reason out a solution.

The solution is to manufacture and import test data.

In the database development world, we need to test and debug software just as all software developers do. We have no desire to skupper our corporate databases with buggy software. These databases are chocked full of priceless data. Sometimes, you can't make a copy of the production database for testing purposes either. Frequently, confidential data cannot be released for testing and development purposes. The laws of the land won't allow it.

The solution is to populate a test instance of the database with artificially generate data. In practice, one smart coder gets the onerous task of writing VB or C# code that generates millions of records of utterly fake data and stashing it into the database. There are several different accepted approached to doing this. I myself have had to wear this hat on several occasions.

Returning to the Synastry files, I realized pretty quickly that it would be no difficult task to generate each and every birthday between 1961 and 1990, give each record a fake name like "Capricorn Jan 1, 1961", and use one of 10 or so fictitious birth locations.

Frankly, it doesn't take a bunch of C# code to generate something like that. It doesn't take much disk space or processor time either. The only technical challenge was to understand the data format Kepler and Janus expected to receive on import. Making the synthetic data fit that format precisely was the only challenge.

Well, I whipped out me ol' copy Visual Studio 2010 yesterday and had something working inside about 70 minutes. It was limited to Pisces only. I didn't want to waste to much time building out the frame until I knew I had the import format down pat. It turns out that Kepler wants a simple little comma delimited text file. It couldn't be easier.

I can hear someone asking now: "Dave, why Pisces! I have read you condemnation of their drug and alcohol problems." Not exactly condemnation, but plenty of trouble comes from these tendencies. The reason for the Pisces run is simple: My 7th house is in Pisces. This indicates that my spouse is supposed to come from this group. One of my objectives in the first test was to confirm that Kepler indeed scores up individuals whose Sun sign falls in your 7th house.

So I imported the Pisces run that exhaustively covered all Pisces birthdates between 1961 and 1990. I put them into their own data grouping. I ran the Pisces group against my own chart.

What did I find? The magic birth date is none other than March 12, 1986. On this date, Synastry scores versus my own chart are over 500 on the sexual attraction score, around 230 on similarity of interests, over 120 on success, over 300 on problem solving, around 300 on kidness, pleasantness and peace, and about 300ish on aggression. Because of the other high scores, we would expect the aggression score to flip and become a power and success score.

This is true all over the world, regardless of birth time, regardless of birth location. Birth time can make the scores flex up and down. Birth location (which affects time) also flexes the scores up and down.

Consider the following scores for a theoretical female I have code-named La-La. This female was born in Los Angeles County on 3/12/1986 at 9:00PM PST. Her scores versus mine look like the following.

La-La and David A. Leon

Data for La-La: Data for David A. Leon:

March 12, 1986 September 2, 1966

9:00 PM 6:05 AM

Standard time observed Daylight Savings Time observed

Los Angeles, California Fresno, California

34 N 03 08 118 W 14 34 36 N 44 52 119 W 46 17

Tropical PLACIDUS Tropical PLACIDUS

Time Zone: 8 hours West Time Zone: 8 hours West

Sun 22 deg 19 min Pisces Sun 9 deg 37 min Virgo

Moon 22 deg 21 min Aries Moon 7 deg 13 min Aries

Mercury 29 deg 01 min Pisces Mercury 2 deg 09 min Virgo

Venus 5 deg 03 min Aries Venus 22 deg 04 min Leo

Mars 22 deg 10 min Sagittarius Mars 5 deg 02 min Leo

Jupiter 4 deg 54 min Pisces Jupiter 25 deg 43 min Cancer

Saturn 9 deg 40 min Sagittarius Saturn 27 deg 33 min Pisces

Uranus 22 deg 17 min Sagittarius Uranus 19 deg 21 min Virgo

Neptune 5 deg 38 min Capricorn Neptune 19 deg 41 min Scorpio

Pluto 7 deg 04 min Scorpio Pluto 17 deg 56 min Virgo

Asc. 1 deg 15 min Scorpio Asc. 3 deg 32 min Virgo

MC 4 deg 57 min Leo MC 29 deg 54 min Taurus

Category Totals

1. Romantic and Sexual Attraction: 527

2. Similarity of Interests and Temperament: 229

3. Mutual Success and High Achievement: 129

4. Problem Solving, Communication, and Mutual Understanding: 329

5. Mutual Kindness, Friendliness, Pleasantness, and Peace: 309

6. Aggressiveness, Competition, Power, Success, or Violence 332

7. Adventurousness, Surprises, Disturbances: 97

8. Shared Creativity, Imagination, and Inspiration: 136

Given above are your compatibility scores in 8 different categories. A score of 100 is average. A score above 100 indicates that the trait is strong, and a score below 100 indicates that the trait is weak. More specifically, you can interpret the

scores as follows:

Above 150 is very high. This trait is VERY strong!

125 to 150 is above average. The trait is strong.

115 to 125 is slightly above average. The trait is slightly strong.

85 to 115 is average.

75 to 115 is slightly below average. The trait is slightly weak.

50 to 75 is weak.

50 or lower is VERY weak!

It looks like one of the legendary romances of this or any other age; one that all others will be measured by. This despite the fact that I am 20 years older than all these women. Oh well, I guess some younger women need older men.

Incidentally, Miss right may just have easily been born in Toronto Canada at 10:00pm. She may well have been born in Rio de Janeiro at 11:45pm. Flex the time a bit, and any location anywhere in the world will produce this kind of massive result set.

I have studied La-La's birth charts and there are several remarkable features to it. First, she is fire masquerading as water. La-la's ascendant is Scorpio. Her Sun sign is Pisces. She will appear to be a watery and mysterious, intensely emotional female. Under the hood, she is all fire. She has no less than 4 Sagittarius and 2 Aries planets in her chart, including an Aries moon to match my own. La-La does not have a single shred of air in her chart, just like me.

Go figure. Most of my high scores prior to this point involved females who brought a lot of air to potluck. Not in the case of La-la.

There is much to consider here. I have not generated test data for all the other signs. Ergo, I cannot definitively say that La-la will continue to have the top score, but do I expect it go any higher? I have great doubts about that. How do you go higher than 527-528? I know I said this about 357, but good Lord! Further, how can you possibly beat the combined score with problem solving, and peace? That is what makes La-la's chart nearly invincible.

Can you find 500s across the board? I doubt it will happen outside the boundaries of the 7th house. Given the fact that Pisces is on my 7th house, I strongly doubt a non-Pisces will post scores that exceed a Pisces.

What gives me cold chills is the notion of the approach-shot. How does a 44 year old man approach a 24 year old woman? With chart in hand? I wanted to meet you because I ran a bunch of test data that says...

Pisces Smoking...

So, I recently linked in a few vids by the Star Goddess in which classic Piscean problems with drugs, alcohol and escapism were described. I endorsed those comments and amplified on them. I also made the inflamatory comment that you cannot build a solid family around a Piscean mama, no matter how much you might be attracted to her. Guess who challanged that statement?

In the interests of bolstering my case I though I would link in this lovely video featuring Rachel Roxxx, of adult video fame, hitting the bong first thing in the morning, before work. For the record, Rachel was born March 2, 1983 in San Antonio Texas. This, of course, makes her a Piscean.

Lovely and tempting though she may be, you can imagine difficulties building a solid family unit around a mama such as this. This is not unusual for the Piscean clan, folks. In fact, it is par for the course.