Fishing Guide to the Stars starting 4.26.2012

“O! That a man might know
The end of this day’s business, ere it come.”

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar [Vii.138-9]

Shakespeare coined the word, ‘sanctimonious,’ not that it’s ever been applied to me. We might do well to know this day’s business ahead of time. Isn’t that what horoscopes are about?

Taurus: Two of everything. That’s the new, happy birthday, mantra for Taurus. Get two of everything. Or even three. I bought a set of reading glasses at the big warehouse store. Came in a pack of three. One pair goes in a travel bag, one pair sits on the computer desk and one pair is on the nightstand. Got everything covered.

I’ll frequently wander off with the glasses perched on my head, and that’s the problem. Lose more glasses that way. As they are cheap, I buy in bulk. Cheaper, for me. When I spun around the birthday chart and the Taurus slice of the sky, I kept thinking about the back-up system I use. Two, or even three, of everything. I find something I like? I’ll buy two more. Just to be safe. Or, if it’s something I need? Like reading glasses? Buy two. Never hurts.

Gemini: The question for Gemini, I expect to hear a lot this week, the question is, “Are you still grinding on that?” The most common answer? Yes, yes the Gemini is still hung on that one problem. Situation. Issue. Bug. Let it go. “Oh sure easy for you to say that, Mr. Fishing Guide to the Stars, you weren’t the one who was (harmed, wronged, misjudged, blah-blah-blah)…”

Loathe as I am to delve into the “blah-blah-blah,” that’s part of the point. If you can, if you would, think about it, now, step back from that issue. The perception is that someone or some entity has wronged you. Might be quite right, too, for all I know. What I’m pushing you for, my dear Gemini now is not the time for retaliation. Or, for that matter, now is not the the time to loudly proclaim you were harmed. Injustice is injustice, and it will be eventually corrected. The planets, though, for the moment, the planets suggest you can’t win in the next few days. Didn’t mean you won’t win, just not as immediate as you would like.

Cancer: The quote I stumbled across, Shakespeare notwithstanding? “In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing is to do nothing.” (attributed) Theodore Roosevelt. Can’t find provenance, not that I did much research. I tend to prefer original material, and from me, there’s quite a collection of original material available. I just liked that one quote because it captured the essence of what a good Moon Child could do. There might appear to be no right answers, especially in the next few days. “The worst thing is to do nothing.” The big planet in Aries against the Sun moving into Taurus versus Pluto and mostly Mars, Mr. Mars is what I was really relying on for a good idea, as it’s time. Time for what? Action. Some type of Cancer (Moon Child) action — “The worst thing is to do nothing.”

Leo: My sister (Gemini) used to brag about living in a space, she was in a garage apartment, SF Bay area, great location, but certainly too expensive for my tastes, she used to brag about living economically in 500 square feet. She never saw the inside of a trailer that was far less than 300 square feet. Me and the cat. I was there for over a decade. However, after repeated conversation, I did glean something useful from Sister, if something new was to come into her house, then something had to go. As a Leo, think about this kind of serious restraint. In order to get something new, you have to first unload the old. I’m thinking I need to get rid of a few older fishing poles so I can get some new ones, myself. Same idea. You with me?

Virgo: Want to get to the bottom of this? As I poked around in your chart, what I kept coming back to were a couple of salient points. There’s been a nefarious, suspicious quality lurking in the back of your Virgo mind. Strains of “Suspicious Minds” play in the background. There’s a desire to get to the bottom of the problem. There’s a desire to clear this up, once and for all. There’s a push, an internal Virgo drive, to get this stuff sorted out, once and for all.

Done with Done.

Over.

Thirty.

Know where the expression “thirty” comes from? Stop. This isn’t about digging up arcane facts about methods no longer in use, this is about what’s happening, now, in your life. I’d suggest, after all, Virgo is a mutable sign. Earth, but mutable earth, and as such, there’s a desire to dig to the bottom of the problem. As Mars ramps up, and as Mars gets closer to strong and positively-charged angle with Pluto, there’s a chance to get to the bottom. One point. Won’t clear up everything, but now? Now is a good time to start digging and pinpoint the area you want to search.

Libra: I bought an Apple iPod, one of many, but this one, it was a few years back, I bought this one because it could take movies. Got it on sale, cheap, used a gift card, and I really used the camera. Couple of times. Then the phones got video and the rest, sort of fell by the wayside. Buried on the website, in some archive, there’s that clip. Basically, just about two minutes of video, clipped and edited down to maybe 15 seconds. Got three pieces I can recall shooting with that iPod. One was in London, UK, one was obviously El Paso, TX, and some was just travel footage. Three clips. Then technology changed and that musical toy became an accessory of little value. Although I didn’t use it often, the camera was used, and that footage was used, over and over again. Again and again. It’s digital, it can’t wear out. Sometimes, okay, there’s a message here, sometimes, I stumbled across some that footage, artistically framed and all but useless except as video wall-paper, sometimes, even the smallest of items carry meaning, and more important, useful functions. The little things, don’t overlook the little things.

Scorpio: I figure my job falls between priest and therapist. As an astrological consultant, which is how the title reads, properly, I fall in the middle between purely spiritual counseling and dealing with matters in a therapeutic manner. I tend to record my readings so the client has a record. That simple action is what, the way I see it, that’s what divides the professionals from the amateurs. I see many “housewife” readers, but the real take, the ones who record? They’re serious. What this is about? Careful about what gets recorded. Careful with that MP3. Careful with that one picture you took, and forwarded onto a friend, in private. This is one of the times when a little more than usual discretion is advised. To my Scorpio brethren and sistren. Discretion. If you don’t want it public knowledge? Don’t publish it.

Sagittarius: “Enjoy the crime/Do the time…” (Billy Idol’s Flesh for Fantasy). I rarely do much fact-checking. Occasionally, I’ll pop the term into a search engine, but even then, the results are dubious at best. I tried to verify the song lyrics, and while I could clearly hear them on at least two versions of the song I’ve got on file, one is on a real CD, the first half-dozen search results didn’t show that line. Neither, for that matter, could I get any kind of an official word. Billy Idol, November Sagittarius.

The message is the same, though, “Do the crime, do the time.” Although, I must say, I like the lyrical version better.

(None of this was fact-checked.)

Capricorn: One of my redneck friends doesn’t care much for Starbucks coffee. He prefers convenience store/gas station coffee. Brown swill that’s acrid and bitter to my tastes. Will do in a pinch, but only just. It’s about tastes. He loads his corner store coffee with half-dozen creams, artificial creamer, and then six packets or more of white, refined sugar. Strong, acrid, caffeinated bitterness. Go juice. It’s what he drinks. He’s used to it. It’s his preferred morning beverage. Store, whether it’s a 7-11, Circle K, Stop-n-Go, or the Stop-n-Rob Mart, the Kwik Stop, all that varies. There’s no discernible pattern as I’ve ridden with him before, but there is the same swill, each morning. Plus he complains at no end about Starbucks coffee. To each his own.

His singular experience with Starbucks was French Roast, and my buddy complained that the coffee tasted burnt. As opposed to the stuff he usually drinks.

It’s about perceptions. To my buddy, $1.95 is too much for a large coffee, but at a buck, one that he can load with additives, that’s okay. Perceptions, what one is used to. To be fair, I think most of the coffee beans at Starbucks are okay, but I steer clear of anything but an espresso-based drink there, myself. What are you used to? What needs to be changed? What can stay the way it is because even if it doesn’t meet my refined palate, that doesn’t mean that it is categorically bad?

Aquarius: Poke and prodding, gently, will help. Careful, though, this has to be a gentle poke and prod. I had a problem with a balky piece of telephony software. I poked. I prodded. Nothing worked. I ignored the issue and went on about my afternoon, met a client, and I was relaxed when I came back, and I popped the name of the software plus the issue into the search engine. Then I added the word “unofficial.” Got a quick, concise answer to a problem. Took some gentle poking and prodding. Didn’t use a big stick, used a little one. Walked away and gave it a chance to simmer on the old computer’s stove-like desktop thing. Answers are easy, when there’s no pressure, and the trick to get the answer to the Aquarius question is to put no pressure on the issue. No big stick. No big hammer. No hammer. Delicate, finesse the thing. Issue. Problem. In my example, it was a poor interface with non-intuitive reset instructions. Try the word “unofficial” in front of the search term. Or at the end.

Pisces: One of the best uses of time? Procrastination. What did we do before there was the Wide Web thing? I’ll assume that magazines were more common, in a certain era, but that’s just a guess. Me, I’d read more books, but that’s me. This is about having Mars, albeit moving forward, in position that is opposite from you. Procrastination is the by-word. “I’m way too busy to put anything off!” Familiar cry from a Pisces, these days. I’d suggest a little idle time. A little time looking busy, maybe not that busy, but looking busy. “It’s no joke, I have a lot to do!” Again, the Pisces chimes in. I’d suggest, just my suggestion, buy a little time, maybe spent looking like you’re working but more — or less — indulging the itinerant portion of the Pisces psyche, and letting that rove a little. A lot. Meander. Wander. Day dream. Your dreams and vivid imagination can come up with better answers if you trick and suggest that you’re not working. Procrastination is your friend.

Aries: Question came up, whether I liked being the webmaster or not. Actually, I do. I was messing around with the settings for the server, and I knocked my own website offline. Me. I did it. I pushed the wrong button. No one’s fault but mine. However, I was also able to fix it. When I first embarked on this venture, I liked hand-coding websites. Too much trouble, these days, but I know how to get from blank server space, empty cyberspace to a half-decent page with interactive and wiggly bits. How to make something happen. Then, too, I got to the point where I no longer wanted to be at the whim of some moronic geek, possibly halfway around the planet, and no control over my own processes.

So the answer, in all truth, is yes, I like being my own web dude. The tech is sufficiently interesting to entertain and sufficiently arcane to really be irritating at times. Is the irritation worth the control? In my situation, in this example, yes, it is well-worth it. Question now, as it applies to Aries, is the outcome worth the irritation?