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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

No, all my mould is traditional Black!

The funny thing is, I nearly decided yesterday to give my bathroom a good clean, but never found the time. I must get it done this w/e.
 
Probably just a dinner medal dropped off your clothing.

Unless of course, aliens stopped time and visited you, tried the stew, found it unpalatable and didn't quite make it to the toilet before vomiting it up on the bathroom floor. Then fled in embarrassment. Happens all the time. Well, not to me like..;)
 
'Dinner medal'. What an excellent turn of phrase! I'll try to remember that one.
Couldn't find it online, so you may be its inventor!
 
Today I went with my SO to visit their father's graveside (he died a few years ago, and is greatly missed).

The term graveside is a misnomer - it's actually a memorial garden, with name-plaques attached to trees. We stood awhile in silence, absorbing the atmosphere, and I looked at the scene.

And then I read the plaque...not just looked at it, I properly read it. Thinking , in total disbelief....'wow, 2000, that's 15 years ago....time just flies'. Suddenly I thought to myself, properly this time...."Impossible!!"...and cautiously pointed-out this genuine inarguable mystery to my SO.

Because...he died only 5 years ago.

The memorial plaque on the tree is the right calender date, but 10 years too early!! (2000 marked, when it should've said 2010).

And here's where it becomes even weirder. All the way home, we argued over how on earth we could've missed that obvious error at the time of his death, and during subsequent visits to the graveside.

My SO practically ran into the house, and ploughed through piles of camera memory cards. And there we found the proof...the plaque *had* originally got the correct year of his death marked on it!!

So: someone at some point in the last year has replaced the plaque with an almost-identical replacement, but which has a wrong year-of-death.

We aren't talking stone monuments, here, just a thick A3 sized engraved tough plastic tablet.

But why might this have been done??? (We'll ask the people that look after the place, obviously....but this has been such a strange experience.

(And.... if there hadn't been original photo evidence that the plaque had been replaced, we'd've had to accept, incorrectly, that we were either incredibly-unobservant, or going jointly insane).
 
Last week, while walking in the woods in Alsace I saw this lifeform. I don't think they're insect eggs. I suspect some kind of fungus, lichen or slime mold. The length of the things is 2-3mm.

Edit:
A search of Flickr supports the slime mold hypothesis:
https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=slime mold
 

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Ermintrude said:
Today I went with my SO to visit their father's graveside (he died a few years ago, and is greatly missed).

The term graveside is a misnomer - it's actually a memorial garden, with name-plaques attached to trees. We stood awhile in silence, absorbing the atmosphere, and I looked at the scene.

And then I read the plaque...not just looked at it, I properly read it. Thinking , in total disbelief....'wow, 2000, that's 15 years ago....time just flies'. Suddenly I thought to myself, properly this time...."Impossible!!"...and cautiously pointed-out this genuine inarguable mystery to my SO.

Because...he died only 5 years ago.

The memorial plaque on the tree is the right calender date, but 10 years too early!! (2000 marked, when it should've said 2010).

And here's where it becomes even weirder. All the way home, we argued over how on earth we could've missed that obvious error at the time of his death, and during subsequent visits to the graveside.

My SO practically ran into the house, and ploughed through piles of camera memory cards. And there we found the proof...the plaque *had* originally got the correct year of his death marked on it!!

So: someone at some point in the last year has replaced the plaque with an almost-identical replacement, but which has a wrong year-of-death.

We aren't talking stone monuments, here, just a thick A3 sized engraved tough plastic tablet.

But why might this have been done??? (We'll ask the people that look after the place, obviously....but this has been such a strange experience.

(And.... if there hadn't been original photo evidence that the plaque had been replaced, we'd've had to accept, incorrectly, that we were either incredibly-unobservant, or going jointly insane).
Click to expand...

Some people like to mess with others minds. I don't mind the odd jest or p*ss take, but I reckon you need to draw the line at grief, race, sexuality, etc.
 
uair01 said:
Last week, while walking in the woods in Alsace I saw this lifeform. I don't think they're insect eggs. I suspect some kind of fungus, lichen or slime mold. The length of the things is 2-3mm.

Edit:
A search of Flickr supports the slime mold hypothesis:
https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=slime mold
Click to expand...

Yum! tree-caviare! :)

Ermintrude's plaque story is like the start of a thriller! I'd guess that the original plastic plaque was damaged or defaced by vandals on a spree and the quiet task of replacement handled carelessly. :confused:
 
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Cool! How does one get know things like that? :)

Now a complete Alsace trip-report with more minor strangeness: statues of Mary, storks, statues of liberty, WW-1 cemeteries, Roman dodecahedrons, slime mold and ... what's the last object? It looks totally un-functional but it has been deliberately constructed. It does not look like a scrap-iron construction.

http://uair01.blogspot.nl/2015/09/minor-curiosities-alsace-trip-report.html
 
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The last object with the taps looks like a stand pipe, but it doesn't appear to be connected to a water source.
I suspect it's there for police horses to use (or for homeless people).
Why it's not connected, I don't know.
 
uair01 said:
Cool! How does one get know things like that? :)

Now a complete Alsace trip-report with more minor strangeness: statues of Mary, storks, statues of liberty, WW-1 cemeteries, Roman dodecahedrons, slime mold and ... what's the last object? It looks totally un-functional but it has been deliberately constructed. It does not look like a scrap-iron construction.

http://uair01.blogspot.nl/2015/09/minor-curiosities-alsace-trip-report.html
Click to expand...


Uair, google image is my friend, plus an education in Conservation and Land Management helps - oh, and an insatiable curiosity as well.
 
I wonder if by 'no' Cultjunky means 'No! No! A thousand times NO!' :mad:

My main ex is nicknamed Cletus as he did indeed turn out to be a genuine slack-jawed yokel.

We used to have a Chat thread about Egregious Exes in which we'd discuss ideas for suitable punishments.

One vividly-described scenario involved someone's egregious ex being comprehensively stung by an armada of vicious mutant jellyfish. The recommended emergency treatment is fresh urine, which we thought would be best administered by tramps with serious bladder infections.

Ah, the good old days. :evil:
 
Cultjunky said:
No
Click to expand...
Didn't think so. Although Exes do tend to make their former partners cross, which is often what makes them excess to requirements.

Strange that the Greek letter 'X' / Chi has stuck with us, in the Anglophonic era, as a shorthand for Christ. A more-logical letter of the alphabet would've been a lower-case "t"....or 'T'.

So that's just 95days until Tmas Day, then...(if you buy that, other belief systems are available...in addition to Consumerism)
 
escargot1 said:
My main ex is nicknamed Cletus as he did indeed turn out to be a genuine slack-jawed yokel.
Click to expand...
That is indeed the only variety, known to us, from the US of A. Although isn't he also mentioned by the Eagles, in the lyrics for Hotel California? !-)
 
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Luckily I've been able to exorcize all surplus exes from my life. Well, having a very large Significant Other probably helps keep them at bay. ;)

Here's something a little strange - speaking of my SO, the other night he got out of bed (necessarily crawling over me) and he says that I was glowing. Not a scary, radioactive sort of glow, mind you, but as if I was emitting a soft light of my own. He came back from the bathroom and had another look, and yep - still glowing. He wasn't sure what to do about this, he says, so he just crawled over me again and went back to sleep. :eek:

I do remember waking a bit as he got back in bed, and - while I was having a very strange and wonderful dream at that moment - I didn't notice anything that might relate to a glow. :confused:

My skin tone is fairly sallow, so it's not likely to have a pearlescent sheen (oh, how I wish!) and it was cool in the room due to the air conditioning so it wasn't sweat causing it. And before anyone mentions it, I'm not pregnant, thank you very much :p

I dunno, maybe he was hallucinating due to being half-asleep, but still, it's a somewhat alarming thing to hear about yourself!
 
Ermintrude said:
That is indeed the only variety, known to us, from the US of A. Although isn't he also mentioned by the Eagles, in the lyrics for Hotel California?
Click to expand...

The warm smell of Cletus, y'mean? He certainly did hum at times. (However, as he believed that people only took showers in direct preparation for sex you'd think his personal hygiene'd be impeccable!)

That's actually colitas, which a longish discussion in the Guardian letters page some years ago concluded is a term for the discarded butts of marijuana cigarettes.

The song is full of drug references, to the extent that everything in it is symbolic of substance abuse and even the eponymous Hotel does not exist, and by the end the state of California itself has disappeared in a cloud of suspicious-smelling smoke.
 
escargot1 said:
The song is full of drug references, to the extent that everything in it is symbolic of substance abuse and even the eponymous Hotel does not exist, and by the end the state of California itself has disappeared in a cloud of suspicious-smelling smoke.
Click to expand...
A Hotel California does exist...in Baja, Mexico:
http://hotelcaliforniabaja.com/
 
escargot1 said:
The warm smell of Cletus, y'mean? He certainly did hum at times. (However, as he believed that people only took showers in direct preparation for sex you'd think his personal hygiene'd be impeccable!)

That's actually colitas, which a longish discussion in the Guardian letters page some years ago concluded is a term for the discarded butts of marijuana cigarettes.

The song is full of drug references, to the extent that everything in it is symbolic of substance abuse and even the eponymous Hotel does not exist, and by the end the state of California itself has disappeared in a cloud of suspicious-smelling smoke.
Click to expand...

Huh. And all this time I thought colitas must have been some desert shrub! Well, the more you know....:p
 
davidplankton said:
There is a Christmas tree up already in a pub near me.
Click to expand...
These ultra-orthodox Christmasians really get my goat....why do they insist on leaving it so late, mine's up straight after Easter?

It really makes me question whether we are as much a nation of Santa-worshippers as we might think...

Well, that just about wraps it up from me, for the present.

Christmas may be on the cards, but I'm in denial until the actual solstice, kneeling outside the 24hr Tesco, wearing my annual red-and-white sanctified sinner costume.

And once the last sunbeams have illuminated the offering to old Sol (usually a pack of After Eight Mints and a dodgy turkey) I can go into socially-conditioned panic mode, and go to buy "stuff". Maybe...
 
Ulalume said:
Huh. And all this time I thought colitas must have been some desert shrub! Well, the more you know....:p
Click to expand...

The way I heard it, colitas was a made up quasi-Spanish word The Eagles thought meant marijuana buds, but it actually sounds like a medical term for a bowel problem, colitis, which one hopes wasn't being referred to.
 
Ermintrude said:
Strange that the Greek letter 'X' / Chi has stuck with us, in the Anglophonic era, as a shorthand for Christ. A more-logical letter of the alphabet would've been a lower-case "t"....or 'T'.
Click to expand...


The Greek has struck as it was the language the Elite used in that neck of the woods at the time, especially if trying to give a text a sense of nostalgia or to romanticise it.
 
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