I was recently in my university's computer lab, and the computers started to shut off for no reason.

I haven't been receiving calls from friends, even when I know they were trying to contact me. And my inbox has been missing quite a few emails. hmm...

YES! Our email at work won't send outgoing mail to anyone! Crazy.

Huh, maybe that's why my website was down for two days and Google couldn't get it back up and running...

This is possibly the dumbest post yet on this blog. The Planet Mercury made your email disappear??? Wow.

yes! i didn't get any emails on tuesday this week!

It's odd that this was posted because just yesterday my trusty blackberry did something it has never done before. It vibrated, blinked, and made the sound assigned to notifying me that I have a bbmessenger message. I picked it up, and not only was there no message, but no record of *anything* arriving in the call or messages log. Weird. I waited around to see if any message or voicemail or something else would come through that may have set off the message notifier, but nope. Really odd.

I've heard about this before. My MP3 player was freezing up really bad today. I think this is so interesting but really spooky!

Isn't the Retrograde just an APPEARANCE? Because the Earth moves faster than Mars...It appears as though mars is going backwards when Earth passes Mars in orbit. When Earth has already passed Mars, you can tell Mars is then moving forward once again.

A great example is 2 cars speeding on the highway. The Mustang is speeding and going faster than the Accord, but since the Mustang is still far behind, you can tell the two cars are going forward.
As the Mustang is passing the Accord, looking out the window in the Mustang, it appears as though the Accord is going backwards. When the Mustang is far ahead of the Accord, you can tell once again the Accord is going forward, just not as fast.

SO.....It really shouldn't affect technology, could it?

A secretary at my office lost almost all of one of her documents today . . . even though she was auto saving every 20 seconds. I totally blame Mercury

Yes. I couldn't get my webpage uploaded on the 26th. I also couldn't get a washing machine to work the same day. Outside of tech stuff, my life has been haywire for the past two weeks!

As an IT person I plan to use this to my advantage when I don't have an answer for someone. "Oh I'm sorry your problem is that Mercury is in retrograde" and then just walk away..... I've used the "solar flares" excuse for oddities before

I knew it. I meant to look up if it was in retrograde today. I could not do anything right from ESRI ArcMap to Excel today. I felt so stoooooopid.

Geek: something else is very interesting during mercury retrograde, don't say much, but listen carefully. People often say things they wouldn't normally say, yet can be very key pieces of information you may need! It affects all kinds of things like travel (delayed flights & trains due to equipment problems), signing contracts you don't understand, as well as communication problems. Also, if you were born during a mercury retrograde period this is when you will have complete clarity. The rest of the time nobody understands you, nor you them!

Yes, NickLovin it is essentially the "appearance" of going backwards. But its still considered an astronomical and astrological occurrence.

My phone froze up for the first time ever and some one left me a message with no identifying info (it was Wallgreens). Also, I got a cold this week, could my body not be communicating with the germs to die, die, die a horrible death?

hmm... i sent an sms saying i can't join a rehearsal and my leader never received it.. now we know why!

I'm not a huge believer in celestrial occurrences messing with everyday life, but my bb is going haywire. Telling me I constantly have one unopened bbmessenger message, voicemails that pop up with no missed calls in a great reception area, and emails arriving way later than they should.

Nothing strange here just yet, but now you know I'll be paying extra close attention!

Wow! Thats really interesting. Maybe that's why my BB (BestBuddy :]) has been making weird noises as if it was on speaker phone and someone was on the other side while I have been checking my texts. Hopefully what Punk Glam Queen says about the birthday thing is true since mine is the 15th and I have midterms the next day :/.

This is fascinating! I can't say my technology has been haywire, but extremely odd things have been happening to those near and dear. The world works in mysterious ways, especially when, in photographs, a planet resembles a round loaf of bread...

I don't know, all I can tell you is that I never win anything and since Mercury has been in retrograde I won 3 giveaways

TikTak21: "Wow! Thats really interesting. Maybe that's why my BB (BestBuddy :]) has been making weird noises as if it was on speaker phone and someone was on the other side while I have been checking my texts. Hopefully what Punk Glam Queen says about the birthday thing is true since mine is the 15th and I have midterms the next day :/"

I was referring to what Mercury was doing on the day you were born. You can find this out by having an astrological chart done. Here is a site that'll give a fairly good chart if you know your time of birth: http://www.astro.com/cgi/chart.cgi?rs=3&btyp=w2gw& It'll give you a page alerting you that you will have to enter your birth info (you can always make up a name if you are worried about identity.) Look for a little symbol that looks like RX next to the symbol for Mercury and that means it was retrograde at your time of birth.

Regardless of whether you were born with merc retro or not, a retrograde period is perfect time to plan, study, make strategies so use the retrograde period now to study and you will do just fine on your midterms!

Giggle: Now you've gone and made me hungry for a fresh loaf of peasant bread! That's it -- it makes sense that everything would go haywire with people so carb-phobic

HipMom: "I don't know, all I can tell you is that I never win anything and since Mercury has been in retrograde I won 3 giveaways"

Hmmm maybe you were born with it retrograde and now Mercury is smiling down on you!

WOW! I don't know how true this is but it sure is interesting. My AIM buddy list was gone from Adium and iChat a few days ago, and my phone delays my text messages and hasn't been accepting phone calls! Weird!!!

a friend of mine did not receive a yahoogroup email that I sent last week, my iphone has been draining it's battery since last night even after I charge it for the longest time.

This is one cool theory but I believe it's more AT&T's problem with their 3G network that caused the glitch on my iphone

I have noticed things but my electronics are never fully controlled..
My calls have been difficult lately, thats the biggest right now

I'm pretty sure we could post a "Anything weird happening with your technology" post in three weeks and you would get these same sort of comments in it.

O absolutely - on the 25th September, the day after the retrograde began, the air traffic control system all over Britain failed. Absolute chaos at all airports with flights being canceled and delayed.

On a personal side I have realized there is an increased tension where I work with tons of rumors flying around, causing all sorts of personality problems between co-workers - most accusations are totally unfounded but nobody seems to want to reason with one another and all they want to do is make matters worse for everyone else.

macgirl: "I'm pretty sure we could post a "Anything weird happening with your technology" post in three weeks and you would get these same sort of comments in it."

Totally! IMO gadgets have a mind of their own! But they've actually done studies and during a retrograde more than the usual glitches, etc. seem to occur. As I mentioned before, it doesn't just affect technology, but also communications.

As a side note, purchased my new MacBook the day before it went retrograde. No problems. But trying to get my printer to work with it took me over a week!

ibron totally scary about the air traffic failure! Thank goodness nothing tragic happened because of it.

A bit of advice at work: keep your mouth shut and your ears open. The tension may make it tempting to join in, but you'll benefit if you listen instead. Every single retrograde period someone around me slips up and I find out something important I shouldn't have been privy to. Its like people can't control their mouths and just blab away! It'll all cool down once we near the end of the retrograde period, as it usually does.

NickLovin you're right. That is exactly WHY it affects technology. Usually Mercury is going FASTER than the Earth, faster than our movements, events, and the non-tech, non-communication things we do. Just like technology, emails, word of mouth, electrons, protons and all of such are faster than we are.

This is the optimum situation. That is why our computers, ipods, emails, information and all things of the such can serve us and perform all the multi-tasks we need. If the Earth starts moving faster than Mercury it APPEARS that all things communication are moving slower than usual because we're moving faster. We're not use to moving faster. We're use having that email now so we can go out the door. But the computer which has a billion tasks to do to get us that email is now accomplishing those tasks slower.

So we act without the information we're use to. For example, under a normal Mercury you would get your gf's email about how she wants to break up with you. Under Mercury retrograde you would go and buy her a new ipod because your actions (Earth) are faster than information (which Mercury rules). The email gets backlogged or missing and by the time it catches up the damage is already done.

That's why they say never to make important decisions during Mercury retrograde or buy anything electronic. Communication, electricity, it all has to do with a certain energy that Mercury rules, as well as the mind and our processing centers. When Mercury is retrograde information is slower than everything else, our bodies process information slower than other functions, and the electric energy on earth works slower than the earth and actions on the earth.

When information catches up to the earth, and more so when Mercury gets back to being faster than the earth, you may just find out that that speaker you bought is malfunctioned (or you may find out before Mercury retrograde ends) because in astrology when certain transits are going on the actions you make under those transits are affected by those transits. Therefore the things you buy will always be messed up by Mercury retrograde.

There are ways to get around this and there are highlights of Mercury Retrograde. Buying refurbished items, returing items, rethinking things...anything with re, or anything that you do over again. Also a lot of times you hear from old friends, etc.

Sometimes, especially in this age, things are really hectic and people get ahead of themselves. This can really be felt two weeks before Mercury retrograde. The three times Mercury goes retrograde a year is the Universe's way of slowing people down and having them rethink things. If this didn't happen we'd probably overheat and some people would find it hard to change their minds.

@ Lalalaa987, thanks for the info!...so interesting.

I'm always aware of when mercury goes retrograde...its my ruling planet...trying to communicate is always harder. Last week, I had a job interview and I was at a loss for words (not me at all)so many times...not cool!

Well, I have a lot of problem with my computer connection and it goes very slow which it's not normal bcuz I have high speed internet.

Actually, I'm not sure if it's related to this though. But thanks for this. Very interesting... I like science.

so that explains it!
It's kind of like when the goofballs come out on a full moon but for gadgets!!

I know understand why the Tetris app I paid for kept crashing for the last few days.

Then again, I resetted my iPhone today, and it works just fine now.

Darn Mercury!

As hokey as it sounds, I believe it. My brand new cell phone has been doing really weird things lately, so has the hubby's. And our Internet connection has been slower than molasses, when it used to be absolutely perfect and super fast. Weird stuff...

I am a believer. My computer has crashed three times in the past two days (NEVER HAPPENS), plus, I've been involved in four incidents this week alone: verbal altercation on the bus (unprovoked even), witness to a hit-and-run, witness to shoplifting, and watched some guy rip up a tree outside of Walgreens for no reason. All this week! Crazy 'ish is going on, guys! These things never happen to me and I've lived in the city for over two years!