7.07.07

The Baltimore Sun

It's your lucky day! Ours, too. The triple sevens of today's date have been hailed by gamblers and engaged couples as deliciously auspicious, making 07-07-07 the perfect time to bet your bottom dollar or else blow it on a fancy wedding reception.

The number seven is considered special because of various hard-to-understand reasons, some of them relating to math. We'd explain the whole business in minute detail, but - it's your lucky day! (And ours.) We don't have to sit through the boring stuff. Just know that numero seven recurs in the Bible and other sacred texts, and also in enumerable cultural references: seven dwarves, seven brides and brothers, Seven Wonders of the World.

"The number seven is a spiritual number, and triple sevens is more of a good thing," said Dr. Craig Wright, a Baltimore numerologist. Actually, he said, on the numerological calendar, today's date is slightly different, but again - we're not going to go there. More on sevens, please:

"On the seventh day God rested," Wright continued. "Seven is a safe, comforting, very relaxing number."

Even fortune's fools are hoping that their luck might change today. Will Boyett, a real estate investor and poker dealer who says the odds always seem to be against him, runs the site unluckyperson.com -complete with a Luckalyzer test - from his home in Orange County, Calif. Yet he's planning a big 07-07-07 fiesta, and is only slightly worried that the band he's hired will somehow get electrified in his backyard pool.

"We'll have fun if the luck is true," Boyett said.

The question is: What are you going to do today? Consider these seven ways to press your luck:

No. 1: Hit up Atlantic City, N.J. It's like Vegas, only closer and without all those distracting clothing-challenged showgirls. "Most gambling is luck," says Marc Cooper, author of The Last Honest Place: Paradise and Perdition in the New Las Vegas. "You have to be lucky to win or an extremely skilled gambler."

Anyone who'd like to place a wager and maximize his luck might consider playing roulette, the Wheel of Fortune or slot machines, games that are purely based on chance, Cooper said.

"Anyone who tells you a system is out of their mind," he said. "Every drop of the coin, every pull of the handle is based on luck, with the deck stacked against you."

Poker and blackjack? Well, that's a different story.

No. 2: Go sailing. Seafarers are obsessed with warding off bad luck. "They do everything to bring the fair weather," said Tiffany Smith, an instructor at Getaway Sailing in Baltimore. "No plants on board. Don't change the name of your ship. Don't bring any sort of wind instrument because it calls the wind."

But this is a lucky day. So pack your flute and your potted fern, and chat with all the redheaded and flat-footed people you want. Kill an albatross and cut your hair and nails onboard. Why not? The sea gods are sure to give you a pass.

No. 3: Shop. After Fourth of July sales, and as next season's fashions make their debuts, this is a good weekend to try your luck at the mall. First, make up your wish list from Lucky, the shopping magazine. Lucky brand jeans, perhaps? And if luck alludes you in the racks, just browse online. LuckylilDevil.com is "your ultimate source for alternative, gothic, metal, punk and rock clothing for children." Order up a pink cotton cardigan embroidered with skulls or a bib that says, "Hittin' the Bottle."

No. 4: Look for love. Giddy hordes are altar-bound today, but there are plenty of other opportunities to be lucky in love. So plant yourself by the Whole Foods cheese case or pretend to sketch earnestly at the Walters Art Museum, and who knows what comely creature might happen along? Also, don't overlook the obvious: Bars.

No. 5: Road trip! Today, Airtran plans to announce which lucky winner and seven guests will get a free trip to Las Vegas, in honor of the date and the airline's expanded Sin City service. But there are other charmed destinations besides Vegas. Think of Luck, Wis., or Luck, N.C. Good Luck Road in Lanham is a little closer.

Or head down to Arlington, Texas, where the Orioles are playing tonight. They can use all the luck you can take them.

No. 6: Treasure hunt. Misplaced a metallic object lately? Today's the day to find it, and whatever else turns up. "Most of my customers have lost rings and other things, and they have a 90 percent success rate," says Steve Noga, owner of the metal detector rental company Rebel Metal in Severna Park. Ninety percent, on a regular day! Who knows what treasure you might unearth?

"Oh, yeah, luck is a big part of it," Noga says. "It's not the most skilled person with the metal detector who finds stuff. It's the lucky guy."

He suggests combing Delaware's Coin Beach, just north of the Indian River Inlet, where you can often find corroded currency lost by shipwreck victims and other luckless individuals.

No. 7: Be a ring leader. It's high carnival season, as luck would have it. Perhaps, as macho Marylanders toss rings and fire water guns in the hopes of winning stuffed animals, today's good aura will compensate for a weak throwing arm or poor hand-eye coordination. In fact, however much athleticism they seem to require, most carnival games revolve around pure chance, said Jack Bubernack, a carnival game manufacturer in Lancaster, Pa.

"A lot of it is strictly luck," he said. "A little kid comes up and he's 10 years old, he hits the bull's eye, that's luck."

Of course, Bubernack says, there's also a certain amount of calculation involved, no matter what day it is.

As in, "if a real pretty girl comes by to play," Bubernack says, "she wins."

abigail.tucker@baltsun.com

WHY IS SEVEN SIGNIFICANT?

In cultures and religions around the world, the number seven is recurring and almost always positive. In Chinese culture, seven represents "togetherness," an appropriate notion for a newly married couple, and in Japanese mythology, there are seven lucky gods, which personify earthly happiness. In Judaism, God rested on the seventh day, and there are seven sacraments in the Roman Catholic faith. Seven is a sacred proportion in Islam, and Buddha is said to have taken seven symbolic steps at birth.

From wire reports

Copyright © 2021, The Baltimore Sun, a Baltimore Sun Media Group publication | Place an Ad
72°