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Coincidences

I got in my car to drive to my brother yesterday eve. Put the key in the ignition, turned it, & a woman's voice shouted loudly "Hey Neil!" - my name. I was a bit wtf & looking around for the shoutee when it became apparent it was The Archers on the radio which came on when I turned the key.

What are the chances?
I had a similar experience a few years ago. I walked into the living room while a tennis match was on. There was a lull in the commentary, and as soon as I walked in, the commentator said 'Any thoughts then, Simon.'
Of course, I gave my opinion on a number of issues......
 
Went into a local Tescos this afternoon, and they were playing a local radio station. The song playing was by 'Into You' by Ariana Grande. I thought it sounded just like Jenifer Lopez. (I only found out the name of the song when the record finished - not my cup of tea).
They didn't have what I wanted, so I went to the next Tescos, just a five minute walk away. The song they were playing? 'My love don't cost a thing' by Jenifer Lopez!
The reason I'm posting this is because two minutes ago, I could here my wife flicking through the tv stations in the living room, and one of them was playing 'Lets get loud' by....Jenifer Lopez!
 
There is a particular film which I saw once on tv that I have been wanting to watch again for ages. I could not remember the name of the film, only the main actors' names. Finally, on Friday, I found the name of this film using the internet. I decided to buy it over the internet but not until tomorrow, Monday.

Yesterday, Saturday, I had to make an unexpected trip into town. Having completed my business I was driving home along the High St. when I noticed that one of my favourite shops, one that I had not visited for a while, had a convenient parking space available on the opposite side of the street. To find a parking space immediately opposite this shop at that time of day, was unusual.

The shop sells all sorts of things e.g. gifts, stationary, toiletries and....dvds. I went into the shop and the first thing I noticed was the stand of dvds which is the first thing you notice when you walk in.. My eye was drawn right to the bottom row of the storage rack and there I saw the title of the dvd that I wanted to buy. That my eye was drawn to the bottom rack was also unusual because one's eye is typically drawn to the racks at eye-level. Anyway, I bought the dvd.

Further, I do not watch broadcast tv, only films on dvd. I have three films lined up for watching and have just watched the beginning of the first of those three. Finding the new dvd the very day after I found out its name, and in such unusual circumstances, has made me decide that there might be something of significant note for me in that film, so instead of putting the film 4th in the queue, it has been placed 2nd in the queue and I will probably start watching it tomorrow.
 
I was chatting by pm today about people who pretend to have cancer for money or sympathy.

You'd think it's rare but just now a colleague was on talking on her phone about someone who's supposed to have cancer but nobody believes her!

Wasn't eavesdropping, honest.

Edit - it's worse. The woman isn't claiming to have cancer, she's telling people her perfectly healthy sister in law has it. Even weirder.
 
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I was just on Facebook, looking at the time-line of a friend of a friend. One of the replies to her post was a gif of Morticia Adams. Just then, an advert for a new Adams Family film just appeared on tv!
 
Last night I walked past Old Jock's house on the way home. I often go that route, and rarely, if ever, do I think of him. However, last night, I suddenly and strongly thought, 'poor old Jock, I wonder how he is these days?'

Sadly, I found-out this morning he died, last night. Fact.
 
Last night I walked past Old Jock's house on the way home. I often go that route, and rarely, if ever, do I think of him. However, last night, I suddenly and strongly thought, 'poor old Jock, I wonder how he is these days?'

Sadly, I found-out this morning he died, last night. Fact.


I would describe that incident as an example of the universe answering your question.

Sometimes when I have a specific question and that same night I am watching a film, then sometimes I see a scene in the film which actually answers that question. Weird.
 
I was helping out on the IT Helpdesk today - processing emails from customers who have typically forgotten or mistyped their passwords and need some software maintenance to unlock their accounts, reset passwords or user names etc.
Once I've confirmed a customer's identity, which includes checking date of birth and NI number, I call up their record to confirm its status - active, disabled, suspended etc.
My first customer today had the same birthday as me. I managed to resolve his technical issue quite easily and mentioned that we shared a birthday and wished him a happy birthday for a couple of weeks ago.
There's a coincidence, I thought.
Onto my second customer and, you guessed it, also the same birthday as me.
Now that is just plain weird!

Over the (very long) day, I processed another 40 or so customer queries, with no other DOBs coinciding with mine.
Those first two of the day gave me quite an unreal feeling though.

wow... taking a day off work as my head's swimming, my nose is bunged up, sore throat, aches and pains all over. My DB was kind enough to buy me the current FT (385) so I read it and now I'm feeling better I go to the forum and noodle around a bit. After psoting a couple of immeidate responses to FT385 and a bit of random sampling, I open the Coincidences thread and try to track back to the first unread post. i open what I think is the right page, i immediately go to this post.... and I have to ask, do we work for the same employer? Because guess the kind of thing I do for an almost-living.
 
Er, so I've got an un-coincidence that might have become a coincidence.
So, bear with me. At about 3pm-ish, I was watching an episode of detective series 'Instinct' with Alan Cumming. One of the key factors in this episode was a (made specifically for the episode) song called 'You Only Live Once.' I then realised that I had already come across that expression already today, as there was a post on my Facebook account about a book with the same title. This was about 9am-ish. About 11am-ish, I was in a department store, and the in-store music playing was 'Millennium' by Robbie Williams, which samples 'You Only Live Twice'. By the time I watched the episode of 'Instinct', it occurred to me to post it on here.
Now, here's where it gets weird. I've just gone back to my Facebook account to double-check that book title. It turns out its called 'A Whole Scene Going On.' I've no idea why I remembered it as 'You Only Live Once'! Mandela Effect in full-on action! I then scrolled down my Facebook account, and came across a post about The Liverbirds - a very obscure all-female girl group from the early 60s. It then crossed my mind that about 24 hours earlier, I'd posted something about them on Twitter. I've just gone on my Twitter account, again to double-check, and it turns out I'd posted about The Ladybirds, again a very obscure all-female girl group from the early 60s.
So, basically, two situations totally unrelated, and yet connected by their lack of coincidence!
 
I got in my car to drive to my brother yesterday eve. Put the key in the ignition, turned it, & a woman's voice shouted loudly "Hey Neil!" - my name. I was a bit wtf & looking around for the shoutee when it became apparent it was The Archers on the radio which came on when I turned the key.

What are the chances?

Also when you have a flashy hire car and you stop to offer a mate a lift, looking cooool, and the Archers theme starts...
 
Funny little coincidence at the beginning of the week. I dreamt that a good friend of mine had bought an articulated truck and trailer. It was all white with some sort of black livery. Now he has never driven one in his life, nor ever expressed any interest to me of owning one. In the dream he wanted to demonstrate its capabilities on an unidentified industrial estate so I went to watch. He drove up and down and I was impressed until he came to reverse near a loading bay. Somehow he lost control and crashed into the large roller shutter door, wrecking it and the trailer.

The following morning I was sat in a carpark waiting for an engineering shop to open on a nearby industrial estate when a white truck and trailer drove past, braked suddenly and proceeded to reverse onto the premises opposite. You guessed it, he misjudged and collided with the roller shutter door, fortunately with little damage, unlike in the dream. Not driven by my friend though! A little weird.
 
This is less a coincidence that happened to me than it is an odd coincidence between a TV show and life.

Over the weekend I saw the Adventures of Superman episode "The Drums of Death", filmed in 1951 or 1952. The plot revolved around an evil Haitian "voodoo chief" and featured two competing white guides named Masters and Johnson. Johnson is a common enough name, but since it was linked to Masters, I thought it was a clever reference to the sex researchers of the same name. But a little research shows that the real-life Masters and Johnson didn't meet until several years later.

The villain was clearly a white man in makeup, although the rest of the black characters, including a couple of sizable roles, were played by black men. While this would have just seemed acceptable to audiences at the time, it turns out that the bad guy is actually Johnson in disguise.
 
Over the weekend I saw the Adventures of Superman episode "The Drums of Death", filmed in 1951 or 1952. The plot revolved around an evil Haitian "voodoo chief" and featured two competing white guides named Masters and Johnson. Johnson is a common enough name, but since it was linked to Masters, I thought it was a clever reference to the sex researchers of the same name. But a little research shows that the real-life Masters and Johnson didn't meet until several years later.

The villain was clearly a white man in makeup, although the rest of the black characters, including a couple of sizable roles, were played by black men. While this would have just seemed acceptable to audiences at the time, it turns out that the bad guy is actually Johnson in disguise.

Would his nefarious plot have succeeded were it not for some meddling kids?

maximus otter
 
Would his nefarious plot have succeeded were it not for some meddling kids?

maximus otter
With a plot like that you would think so - and the cover of the novelization would look like this:
61rtqoBCSyL._SX319_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg





Edit:
I just found this very real image from a TV show involving a white man playing an ancient voodoo shaman.:
sDrFVnq5VchmJMLc0LGM1gkEXef.jpg


Now if only we could actually fit Masters and Johnson into this.
 
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Went shopping with my youngest and her husband and 2 year old to hopefully get her something for her birthday and maybe a few Christmas presents.
Her husband walked off with the 2year old while she looked at some nightwear she thought she might like.
Suddenly she wondered why she couldn't see them and rang her husband's phone which he didn't answer for awhile so we set off after them.
Turned out littlie had run off and a woman had brought him back.
The strange part was that she had recognised them as she worked at the childcare centre he attends each week.
It's near where they work and nowhere near the shopping centre near where I live and the woman was working part time at the store to get a bit of extra money as well as her usual job.
 
My life has always been full of strange coincidences. Most, of course, are impossible to compute but there is one that could be computed. I used to play a game called "hospital solitaire". If you heard the rules it seems easy enough to win but in practice it's almost impossible. My grandmother taught it to me and she said she had played it her whole life and never won. I played about 18,000 games and lost them all. My 18,001st game I won! Then I won my 18,002nd game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!... Then I lost a game and won my 18,004th game.

Then I played another ~18,000 games and lost every one. I then won my 36,001st, 36,002nd, and 36,004th.

I might be the only person who has won two in a row and did it twice. I'm sure I'm the only person to win three out of four. And I did that twice as well!!!

The game is 100% luck and depends simply on the shuffle. I am something of a mechanic but this game can't be "stacked".
 
Three weeks ago the person who sits next to me at work was talking about his grandson, and how there were problems at the grandson's school.

My colleague lives 15 miles from me.
I work eight miles from where I live.
The school is three miles from where I live.

On way home the week after this discussion, I found an item of school clothing on the pavement in my road.
It had a name on...that of my co-worker's grandson!

I returned it to the school.
 
Went out o lunch at a local Chinese with a friend today.
As we walked in a group of young people looked up, which I thought was unusual. The next thing my friend's twin granddaughters came bounding up the stairs to say hello to her. They live further down the coast so it's not local to them and were there to play a golf game with some of their friends.
 
I used to play a game called "hospital solitaire". If you heard the rules it seems easy enough to win but in practice it's almost impossible. . . . I played about 18,000 games and lost them all. My 18,001st game I won! Then I won my 18,002nd game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!... Then I lost a game and won my 18,004th game.

Then I played another ~18,000 games and lost every one. I then won my 36,001st, 36,002nd, and 36,004th.

I might be the only person who has won two in a row and did it twice. I'm sure I'm the only person to win three out of four. And I did that twice as well!!!

The game is 100% luck and depends simply on the shuffle. I am something of a mechanic but this game can't be "stacked".
Did you actually count, or are you using 18,000 the way that some people (like me) use "bazillion" for a random large number? (This is not intended as a rudely skeptical question, I'm just trying to clarify things.)
When younger I sometimes played solitaire for hours and the longer I played the more likely I was to win. I did my best to shuffle the cards well, but somehow over a series of games (not as many as you played), the cards seemed to become sorted in ways more favorable to winning.

Being a mechanic gives a good understanding of tangible things, but I think we need a mathematician to explain this one!
 
Did you actually count, or are you using 18,000 the way that some people (like me) use "bazillion" for a random large number? (This is not intended as a rudely skeptical question, I'm just trying to clarify things.)
When younger I sometimes played solitaire for hours and the longer I played the more likely I was to win. I did my best to shuffle the cards well, but somehow over a series of games (not as many as you played), the cards seemed to become sorted in ways more favorable to winning.

Being a mechanic gives a good understanding of tangible things, but I think we need a mathematician to explain this one!

"18000" is just an estimate. It's probably a little conservative. I'd guess the actual number was between 15,000 and 30,000 but I didn't count.

In this case "mechanic" is a term for a person who performs parlour tricks with cards. Specifically I can shuffle the cards to make them come up in a desired order. I was not "stacking' these that I won. Even if I did it subconsciously it simply wouldn't have much effect on my chances of winning.

"Hospital solitaire is a simple game. You pull cards off the bottom of the deck and spread them in a fan on top one at a time. If the 4th card is the same number as the first all four cards are removed. If it's the same suit then the two cards in between are removed. Go through the entire deck comparing the last card from the bottom to the 4th card back in the fan removing cards the same way. A "win" is when you have no cards at all left.

It "seems" like an easy game to win but is very difficult. My math was never quite good enough to actually compute the odds but I'm guessing it's on the order of 1: 6,000 give or take.
 
Thanks for explaining the game, and what kind of mechanic you actually are. I was completely unfamiliar with that type of solitaire and that definition of mechanic. I want to try the game now, though I don't expect to win!
 
Thanks for explaining the game, and what kind of mechanic you actually are. I was completely unfamiliar with that type of solitaire and that definition of mechanic. I want to try the game now, though I don't expect to win!

I should have mentioned that if you take only two out because of the same suit then you again compare the end card with the one four back so you can take out remove more than once with the same card. When you're done there should be no cards four apart that are the same suit or same number. It will feel natural after just a couple of games. Games go very fast.
 
Thanks for explaining the game, and what kind of mechanic you actually are. I was completely unfamiliar with that type of solitaire and that definition of mechanic. I want to try the game now, though I don't expect to win!

I never thought of this before but hospital solitair is probably one of the big reasons I taught myself to stack cards. The game is almost as much shuffling as it is playing and you need to be able to handle and manipulate cards in order to play it rapidly. There used to be a few famous mechanics when I was young who performed for TV. I'm not sure they were as good as they appeared (I never was) since their tricks may have been staged and trick photography.

It's not that hard to remember where a few cards are in the deck and order them. You need a good deck and practice.

I usually just tried to keep my cards at or near the top until I was ready to put them in order.

Oh, I do know a guy who can do the calculation. Mebbe I'll ask him one of these days. Try a game or two and you'll see why ordering (stacking) the cards isn't going to help. You'd have to be able to project 30 to 49 plays but how these change with each shuffle. Even if you just put the same top and bottom card your odds don't improve nearly enough to win three out of four.

I've always wanted to program a computer to play the game just to see what happens. It's simple enough it could play thousands of games a minute. It would be great for checking random number generators.
 
I don't know if this should go here or in another section (if anyone can move it to a more suitable forum please do). I guess it depends on whether you think its a coincidence or a message from the other side. I don't know what to think myself.

My father passed away last December. Throughout his life he was always a very keen gardener, his flower beds and lawns were always immaculate and well looked after. This wasn't just a few plants and the odd shrub, by the way, this included growing roses up the entire front of a 2 storey house.

As well as that for many years we rarely had to buy vegetable's for 9 to 10 months of the year because he grew everything on allotments. This was enough veg for a family of 9 with a huge amount of variety. As we got older and left home the veg patch may have gotten smaller but it never dipped for both variety and amount, enough to keep my mum and dad in fresh veg nearly all year round.

Apologies for the long preamble but I think I needed it to explain how big a part of his life it was. Any way since he passed the garden was far to big for any of us to commit to, and definitely not for my Mum. As you can imagine though she was very reluctant to do anything as she thought Dad might not have liked to see it happen.

So any way she decided to 'ask' my dad in her prayers (she is fairly religious) if he would send her a sign to ask if it was ok to make the garden much more manageable for her or us to look after and she also got a Quote of €200 from a local handyman for the job. While my Dad's passion was gardening I can nearly say for certain that my mum had the same passion for Bingo. So after asking for a sign and then getting the Quote of €200 she won exactly €200 that Sunday night at the Bingo.

I don't know what to think of it, I'm probably a bit of an agnostic when it comes to these things but to see the relief on my Mum's face when she told us I can help but wonder if it really was a sign. I know she did agonise over the decision for quite a few months.

That's it, feel free to move this to a more relevant thread if you think its necessary.
 
I don't know if this should go here or in another section (if anyone can move it to a more suitable forum please do). I guess it depends on whether you think its a coincidence or a message from the other side. I don't know what to think myself.

My father passed away last December. Throughout his life he was always a very keen gardener, his flower beds and lawns were always immaculate and well looked after. This wasn't just a few plants and the odd shrub, by the way, this included growing roses up the entire front of a 2 storey house.

As well as that for many years we rarely had to buy vegetable's for 9 to 10 months of the year because he grew everything on allotments. This was enough veg for a family of 9 with a huge amount of variety. As we got older and left home the veg patch may have gotten smaller but it never dipped for both variety and amount, enough to keep my mum and dad in fresh veg nearly all year round.

Apologies for the long preamble but I think I needed it to explain how big a part of his life it was. Any way since he passed the garden was far to big for any of us to commit to, and definitely not for my Mum. As you can imagine though she was very reluctant to do anything as she thought Dad might not have liked to see it happen.

So any way she decided to 'ask' my dad in her prayers (she is fairly religious) if he would send her a sign to ask if it was ok to make the garden much more manageable for her or us to look after and she also got a Quote of €200 from a local handyman for the job. While my Dad's passion was gardening I can nearly say for certain that my mum had the same passion for Bingo. So after asking for a sign and then getting the Quote of €200 she won exactly €200 that Sunday night at the Bingo.

I don't know what to think of it, I'm probably a bit of an agnostic when it comes to these things but to see the relief on my Mum's face when she told us I can help but wonder if it really was a sign. I know she did agonise over the decision for quite a few months.

That's it, feel free to move this to a more relevant thread if you think its necessary.

Brilliant!
Can only add that last week I was ordering xmas presents and had to grudgingly pay extra postage which came to £30. Same day, I won £30 on t'lottery! The Universe likes to remind us when we've done the right thing.
 
It's not that hard to remember where a few cards are in the deck and order them.
Maybe for you it's not! :omg:

I've always wanted to program a computer to play the game just to see what happens.
I hope you're able to do that someday. It sounds like it would generate some interesting outcomes.
 
Throughout his life he was always a very keen gardener, his flower beds and lawns were always immaculate and well looked after. This wasn't just a few plants and the odd shrub, by the way, this included growing roses up the entire front of a 2 storey house.
Two storey roses, that sounds beautiful! He sounds like he was very special. My condolences to you and your family, especially your mother. It doesn't matter if a loved one is elderly or ill or not, it's always a shock when they go.
 
I was once explaining to a colleague how cold reading works, and had reached the bit where the 'mindreader' gets something wrong but is able to recover the situation with bullshit.

So I said, 'I could tell you that your mother's mother's name was, er, Muriel!' - this name belonging to a long-dead friend of my own mother's who popped into my head at that moment.

Instead of denying it, when I would say,'Ah! Of course, Muriel was her best friend!' or somesuch, he went white and sat down hard.

Muriel WAS his Nan's name, and as a bonus, she was also dead. As far as this poor bloke was concerned I was psychic and probably in league with the Devil as well!

Last night when looking up a coincidence I'd posted hereabouts regarding my brother Ivor, I noticed this one further down the page.
The bloke's mother, daughter of Muriel, was a local councillor and her death had been announced that very day.
 
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