Astrology has always captivated me.

The idea that celestial bodies have an influence on the course of natural earth occurrences is somehow reassuring. If fate and destiny are dependent on which cycle the moon is in, or the color of Jupiter, life becomes a lot simpler. You can simply go online or turn to a newspaper and be told what to do.

It used to be that the Internet was used solely for pornography and school research. Thankfully, astrology has supplanted one of those two uses. Now, the Internet is used only for astrology and pornography. I constantly see people going to Web sites such as www.horoscopes.com and www.astrology.yahoo.com instead of seeking out peer counseling or some other waste of time.

I’ve been particularly intrigued by the work of the enigmatic Linda C. Black, whose horoscopes run in this newspaper. Her name evokes so much credibility and awe. Despite my fascination with it, I usually read Black’s horoscope and then forget it, as if it were a comic strip. It is a rare occasion that I actually go back after the day is done and check its accuracy.

So, it was on a whim that I started consistently checking my horoscopes both in the morning and at night in an attempt to reconcile what was supposed to happen and what did happen.

Unfortunately, I soon discovered a disturbing trend. Most of the horoscopes resemble something like this:

“Scorpio (Oct. 23 – Nov. 21) Your wedding will take place in a trailer park. The bride will be a deaf, blind girl with no sense of taste. Her first name will be something awful like Hitlerina. However, her first name isn’t as bad as her last name: Crapface. She will insist that she keep her last name after marriage. Therefore, you will marry Hitlerina Feltes-Crapface, a woman with no ability to hear, see or taste – at a trailer park. Today is a 4.”

What the hell does it take to get a zero? Repeated viewings of “Reba?” Attempts to register for classes at an underfunded four-year university?

Black’s numbering system strikes me as completely arbitrary. It’s as if she makes this stuff up with no scientific basis whatsoever for her prediction. That couldn’t possibly be the case though, could it?

No news organization would ever continually employ someone who runs fake news. If Dan Rather ran with a completely untrue story, I’m sure CBS would fire him immediately and not allow him to cover a presidential election in which he has a blatant bias against one of the candidates.

But then why, on Nov. 3, did Black report my day would be a “9” – the day my candidate, Sen. John Kerry, conceded. How is that a good thing?

I did some research at www.astrologers-online.com and discovered Black is a syndicated columnist whose prognostications run in newspapers all over the country. The “C” stands for Chamlee, so it’s no wonder she hides it. Most interestingly, she holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Cal Poly- San Luis Obispo, lives in the hills and owns seven peacocks.

This information caused a realization: Horoscopes are a fraud. Black should have seen this coming. After all, it was my great-grandfather who had a saying: “Never trust someone who is an English major, lives in the hills and owns five to nine peacocks.”

Columns reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily of the Northern Star staff. Today’s column is a 5.