1. M A S T E R O F T H E U N I V E R S E Click to advance

2. http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/master-of-the-universe/?th&emc=th N.B.A. playoffs. The weather. Politics. Life is full of uncertainties. Luckily, I have found that fate can be manipulated with a little witchcraft.

4. Flower tower Crocuses blossom at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, making the monument more photogenic then usual. Remember the Knicks making it to the finals in 1999? That was me. The blizzard of 2006? I just felt like it. Barack Obama being elected president? You’re welcome.

5. Purple park People stroll through a sea of crocuses in a park in Husum, Germany. Those people may have 15th century monks to thank for the 4.5 million blossoms: According to a legend, those monks planted the first crocuses there.

6. How did it all begin? I first became aware of my supernatural powers in the winter of 1982. I was 11, and I loved nothing more than snow. By February there still hadn’t been a proper snowfall and I had an epiphany: if I managed to walk the whole way home from school without stepping on a single line on the pavement, my wish would be granted. The next morning I woke up to a whopping 8 inches.

8. English garden Snowdrops - celebrated as a sign of spring - grow in front of The Houses of Parliament in London, England. Most miracles I perform require that I accomplish a challenging task. For example: removing the peel in one piece from at least three consecutive tangerines will greatly increase the chances that an overdue check will arrive in the mail the following day

9. Trumpet player A narcissus plant - more commonly known as the daffodil - blooms in Tokyo, Japan.

10. As a kid, I spent a lot of time on the neighborhood basketball court. To a passerby, it may have looked like I was a lonely guy, mindlessly shooting hoops for half the afternoon. But I was actually developing elaborate systems, in which a certain sequence of continuous made shots would generate a decent grade in a math test or (more importantly) a lucky encounter with a girl I had a crush on.

11. Bird, meet blossom A Japanese white-eye perches on a branch of a cherry blossom tree at Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in Tokyo.

12. Visitors get a water view of the cherry blossoms surrounding the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. Teenagers spend hours staring at their phones, desperately waiting for the person of their dreams to call. Not me — I would grab life by the horns: Pacing through our living room I would scan the spines of all the books for the letter “J.” I knew that as soon as I had found 99 of them, she would call. Or 150.

13. Pretty in pink The delicate pink flowers of the Corymbia "summer beauty" flowering gum from the Myrtacae family are displayed in the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens.

14. At times I have needed support from those around me. A few years back I was watching a Knicks game with a friend. By strategically switching salsas late in the third quarter we had managed to engineer a turnaround. The Knicks were up by two as regulation time was winding down. Meanwhile, my pal’s girlfriend had fallen asleep on the sofa in an awkward position. Obviously there was a direct correlation between her posture and Marcus Camby’s remarkable free throw percentage. When she suddenly awoke, we had to beg her not to remove her left hand and right knee from under that pillow.

15. Balancing act A worker gets a pretty view of spring blooms while cleaning a river in Jakarta, Indonesia.

16. A dahlia in Delhi A photographer gets up close and personal with this full bloom Dahlia flower - part of the sunflower family - in New Delhi, India. To save a close game, I have often had to sit through an entire quarter with my tongue stuck in a beer bottle. However, with all those commercial breaks, a quarter can easily last 45 minutes. When you are almighty, you have a very tight schedule. Consequently I had to end my N.B.A. career in 2001, to focus on other responsibilities. Look at what has happened to the Knicks since.

17. Mustard pass A Kashmiri Muslim woman carrying cow dung in a willow wicker, which is used as a manure in fields, walks past a mustard field in Srinagar, Kashmir.

18. Despite his flawed campaign, John Kerry had a good shot to win the presidency in 2004. All it would have taken was me spotting five Kerry-Edwards campaign stickers on cars on my way to work on Nov. 2, 2004. There were only three. I gave the ticket a second chance on my way home, but when I failed to find a car with either an Ohio or Florida license plate on Hicks Street in Brooklyn, I knew that George Bush had it won

20. Fate is one sneaky chap. I often have to try out several maneuvers to find the one that clicks. Recently I was stuck on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport in New York, waiting to fly to Chicago. The burden on getting us going was on me. At first I thought it would suffice to slowly rotate my index finger around my thumb three dozen times (counterclockwise). Unfortunately, this was not the formula of the day, and it took me more than an hour of trial and error until I came up with the proper remedy (filling each square of the in-flight magazine’s Sudoku with cross-hatching — duh.) Only then were we ready for takeoff.

21. Merrily, merrily... People row boats as they enjoy warm spring weather and the cherry blossoms in full bloom at the Imperial Palace moat in Tokyo, Japan

22. My powers seem limitless when I am not emotionally invested in the outcome of an event: I didn’t grow up with football, so I watched the 2008 Super Bowl with blissful detachment. While my friends were nervously following the game, I quietly sat back. Using a Gummi Bear and a screw cap, I initiated the Giants’ stunning last-minute comeback.

24. A few times, my powers have failed me. Usually this happens when others distract me. Creating a late goal in a soccer stadium thousands of miles away is no small feat and requires utter concentration. Germany would certainly have beaten Italy in the last World Cup semifinal had it not been for the disturbing chatter in the New Jersey living room where I was watching the game.

26. Thanks For Watching ! Show By Cindy: [email_address] If you wish to alter my show, other than translation E-mail me for permission Show some respect PLEASE! These days I am so exhausted from running after my kids (who seem to be immune to my powers) that I haven’t been quite as active as in the past. I am afraid, however, that every time I hit a daisy with a cherry pit or find that the number of salt grains on a pretzel stick is divisible by three, I unwittingly topple governments, award undeserved grades to students and cause random people across the world to fall madly in love with each other.