This one's for you, BUN ;) these are just bits of an article from the australian, 8 Oct 2004 (i'm too lazy to type out everything. it's not online so i can't cut and paste.) the absurdity of it all How You Can Break Murphy's Law "Boffins have come up with a mathematical formula that proves Murphy's Law really does strike at the worst possible time - and suggested tips on how to avoid it." "So if you haven't got the skill to do something important, leave it alone. If something is urgent or complex, find a simple way to do it. If something going wrong will particularly aggravate you, make certain you know how to do it." "...if you judge your ratings wrongly, you might become too optimistic - and calamity will strike." "The equation has 7 steps to forecasting a potential Murphy's Law moment, so you can work out which factors you need to change to avoid it: 1. Rate the urgency, importance and complexity on a scale of 1 to 9 and add the 3 figs together. 2. Rate from 1 to 9 how skilled you are at the task, then subtract this from 10. 3. Multiply answers 1 and 2 and divide by 20. 4. Rate from 1 to 9 how freq you perform the task and divide this by 10. 5. Rate the sine (or sin) of your answer to step 4 and subtract from 1. 6. Divide 1 by your answer to step 5. 7. Multiply your answer to step 3 by 0.7 and multiply this by your answer to step 6 and that's your Sod (Murphy's) Law rating. The close to 10 it is, the higher you risk of falling victim." did you just say WHAT THE?