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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

Several days ago Mr Zebra and I were driving home from a trip out with ZebraPup. It was evening, about maybe 6:45, 7pm and sunny with clouds. Mr Zebra was driving, and I was gazing about at the sky (as I tend to do). All of a sudden, through the windscreen, I saw something very fast move from about mid-windscreen across to the left. I glanced through the side window, expecting to see it (there were no trees or buildings in the way) but there was no sign of it.

My immediate thought (you know, the sort of thought you have in a split second, before you rationalise things) was that it was one of those 'rods' that purportedly would fly about in the air. I can only describe it as cylindrical, perhaps 1 inch or so in length (as viewed, obviously much longer than this in actuality) and a sort of milky / pale brown / transparent sort of colour.

Now, it definitely wasn't a bird. I mentioned it to Mr Zebra (he hadn't seen it) and proceeded to look at the birds flying around to see if I'd just been mistaken, but none of them looked anything like this thing, and perhaps most importantly, none of them were anywhere near as fast. (In fact, as I watched the birds immediately afterwards, I was struck by just how slow they seemed, compared to this thing). It wasn't a bat (probably too early in the evening anyway, and didn't have that jerky sort of movement that bats have. It also wasn't an insect or a reflection of any kind.

It was very fast. It took less than a second to clear the half of the windscreen that I saw it go across (I don't know where it came from or where it went). It was just there for a split second, moving right to left, in a straight horizontal line. I'm not good at estimating distances but I think it was sort of just above tree height. (tall conifer forest trees). If it makes any difference, we were driving roughly East at the time.

It has me stumped.
 
Somewhat on the topic of glass, I was sat in the chippy yesterday teatime. The glass door was opened inwards and looking through the glass in the door, through the window, and through the nearside window of my car outside, I saw quite clearly the reflection of a large rose bush with huge blooms on the offside car window. The bush was waving about in the breeze and could not be mistaken for anything else. It was too big to be a reflection of a TV set. The strange thing is that the chippy is on the corner of a side street of terrace properties with no front gardens, and a busy main road of commercial properties. The car was parked on the side street. Going out, I had a check round and there was no rose bush in sight. (fond of roses me) I can only imagine that the image was being reflected several times on this very sunny evening, the actual roses being somewhere completely out of sight. Minor strangeness indeed.

The mystery of the roses apparently solved yesterday. About 100m down the main road from the chippy there is a florist/garden shop and during the day they had a load of rose bushes out on the pavement. On that evening I went home in the opposite direction so wouldn't have spotted them. Quite how the image travelled that far and round a 90 degree bend is still fascinating though.
 
T'other day I was in the garden with Simbah the cat. It was about 15 minutes before Techy was due home.

I suddenly heard him call out 'Hello!' from the back door, as he does when he arrives home and realises I'm outside. Simbah also seemed to hear him because she jumped up and ran off apparently to greet him. I went too, and we both felt puzzled when he wasn't there!

He didn't arrive home for another 15/20 minutes. We both have a phone tracking app which bleeps when the other's just round the corner, so I'd felt surprised he'd been able to sneak up on me. He hadn't though.

So I dunno what we both mistook for Techy's voice, but it must've been a close match to fool the cat!
 
In Brazil, I think there is a standard calligraphic pattern taught in public schools; some letters in private ones are different. Even knowing that, it was sort of uncanny when I found in a drawer a postcard made with colored glue, from my kindergarten school, back from the 1980s.

It had a tree drawn with the glue, and in red glue, my name was written on it, with my handwriting style. I am 100% sure it was made by one of my teachers. I found it remarkable; it seems I picked the handwriting from kindergarten (which I attended to in a private school; the rest of primary school and on, I attended in public ones--because of, yes, poverty).
 
T'other day I was in the garden with Simbah the cat. It was about 15 minutes before Techy was due home.

I suddenly heard him call out 'Hello!' from the back door, as he does when he arrives home and realises I'm outside. Simbah also seemed to hear him because she jumped up and ran off apparently to greet him. I went too, and we both felt puzzled when he wasn't there!

He didn't arrive home for another 15/20 minutes. We both have a phone tracking app which bleeps when the other's just round the corner, so I'd felt surprised he'd been able to sneak up on me. He hadn't though.

So I dunno what we both mistook for Techy's voice, but it must've been a close match to fool the cat!


Ooh I say, you've 'ad one o' them false arrival thingies, you 'ave. :nods: 'An the cat 'an all. Well I never.

'ere's a link... in keeping wi' the situation...

http://www.paranormality.com/false_arrival_apparition.shtml
 
T'other day I was in the garden with Simbah the cat. It was about 15 minutes before Techy was due home.

I suddenly heard him call out 'Hello!' from the back door, as he does when he arrives home and realises I'm outside. Simbah also seemed to hear him because she jumped up and ran off apparently to greet him. I went too, and we both felt puzzled when he wasn't there!

He didn't arrive home for another 15/20 minutes. We both have a phone tracking app which bleeps when the other's just round the corner, so I'd felt surprised he'd been able to sneak up on me. He hadn't though.

So I dunno what we both mistook for Techy's voice, but it must've been a close match to fool the cat!

That's an interesting vocal Vardoger. You don't normally get a voice with them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vardøger

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/my-first-person-vardoger.59376/ This thread also includes my cat Littlelun, (Juna not so little now), also hearing the Vardoger.
 
Chap on my Facebook just posted this. I think you can work out what his dad's first and last names were
 

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Adrian Andrew.

The awesome dad one pointing to it adds to the impact.
 
Adrian Andrew.

The awesome dad one pointing to it adds to the impact.

It's hardly a surprise that if his name is Adrian Andrew then it is likely his names are going to come up on a name mug stand which is in alphabetical order.
 
What do your mean and what?

He's going to scatter his father's ashes and in the course of the journey sees a display by chance arranged to form his full name , and declaring him an awesome dad. A pleasing and striking synchronicity in the eyes of the bereaved.

Does that not qualify for the minor strangeness thread?


It's not called the impossible miracle thread.
 
What do your mean and what?

He's going to scatter his father's ashes and in the course of the journey sees a display by chance arranged to form his full name , and declaring him an awesome dad. A pleasing and striking synchronicity in the eyes of the bereaved.

Does that not qualify for the minor strangeness thread?


It's not called the impossible miracle thread.

Love it! We should make one. :D
 
This morning I decided to 'screw my courage to the sticking-place', and pay for my Co-op supermarket shopping via the self-swipe boothes (this usually ends in tears, but I had my options forced for me through circumstance).

None of the traditional isles were open, and the queue at the kiosk stretched all the way back to the late Triassic, with alcohol/tobacco&hope addicts.

I dutifully put my bags-for-life into the bagging-area, swiped my membership dividend card, and began cautiously swiping my grocery items and newspapers across the chastising terror that is a self-service aisle. I was doing so well, right up until I reached the point of swiping the newspapers, whereupon the alarm went off with the warning "please wait, an assistant is coming" (this, of course, gives your fellow suffers an opportunity to see what prophylactics/pharmaceuticals/hallucinogens/bladed weapons you're trying to steal). Anyway, this interruption was just because the Co-op AI was unwilling to accept that newspapers weigh as little as a newspaper.

At last I was at my end...only to be presented with the words we all know and love "No Cash Payments! Cards only!". Suicide seemed a rather extreme mid-week response, but preferable to the prospect of having to reverse my bagpacking efforts, thereafter to join the end of that queue of addicts.

I briefly prayed to the Gods of Co-op, and had a sudden burst of possible redemption....on the screen, right-hand side, was a cryptic button marked "Pay with Member Benefits".

With a beating heart (I am currently alive) I pressed this button, to find that my 'Membership Balance' was £24.28....

And of course (but you knew this already) my totalised nett cost of all items was...£24.28.

Even after two-for-one, multisave buys, discount offers....cost to me was £0.00

So I pressed the 'Pay With Membership Card' button, snorted my derision at AI shopping, and stumbled out of the shop knowing that this time, I had won.

And I nodded to Derren Brown as he winked at me by the exit.

(ps this last bit was made-up, it was actually Dynamo, the Co-op can't afford Derren)
 
This morning I decided to 'screw my courage to the sticking-place', and pay for my Co-op supermarket shopping via the self-swipe boothes (this usually ends in tears, but I had my options forced for me through circumstance).

None of the traditional isles were open, and the queue at the kiosk stretched all the way back to the late Triassic, with alcohol/tobacco&hope addicts.

I dutifully put my bags-for-life into the bagging-area, swiped my membership dividend card, and began cautiously swiping my grocery items and newspapers across the chastising terror that is a self-service aisle. I was doing so well, right up until I reached the point of swiping the newspapers, whereupon the alarm went off with the warning "please wait, an assistant is coming" (this, of course, gives your fellow suffers an opportunity to see what prophylactics/pharmaceuticals/hallucinogens/bladed weapons you're trying to steal). Anyway, this interruption was just because the Co-op AI was unwilling to accept that newspapers weigh as little as a newspaper.

At last I was at my end...only to be presented with the words we all know and love "No Cash Payments! Cards only!". Suicide seemed a rather extreme mid-week response, but preferable to the prospect of having to reverse my bagpacking efforts, thereafter to join the end of that queue of addicts.

I briefly prayed to the Gods of Co-op, and had a sudden burst of possible redemption....on the screen, right-hand side, was a cryptic button marked "Pay with Member Benefits".

With a beating heart (I am currently alive) I pressed this button, to find that my 'Membership Balance' was £24.28....

And of course (but you knew this already) my totalised nett cost of all items was...£24.28.

Even after two-for-one, multisave buys, discount offers....cost to me was £0.00

So I pressed the 'Pay With Membership Card' button, snorted my derision at AI shopping, and stumbled out of the shop knowing that this time, I had won.

And I nodded to Derren Brown as he winked at me by the exit.

(ps this last bit was made-up, it was actually Dynamo, the Co-op can't afford Derren)

Talking of strangeness in shops.

Last Friday after work I popped into M&S to use their in store cash machine.

The cash machine is located on the ground floor level, and as I was 3rd in the queue I was looking around at the different products on sale.

Looking downwards at the floor below, (which is the food hall) I noticed an ex work colleague standing by the escalators dicking around on her mobile phone.

I saw movement on my periphery, so looked to my front and saw the guy at the front of the queue finish his transaction, so I stepped a pace forward.

I glanced downwards again to where my ex work mate was but couldn’t see her, at that moment I felt a touch on my elbow and looked round to see my ex work colleague who had recognised me standing there.

I’d only looked to my front for no longer than 2 or 3 seconds, so how did she ascend those escalators in such a short space of time.

After we had exchanged greetings, and I had finished with the cash machine, I counted how long it took for someone from the bottom of the escalators to reach the top – Just over 13 seconds is the answer.
 
Talking of strangeness in shops.

Last Friday after work I popped into M&S to use their in store cash machine.

The cash machine is located on the ground floor level, and as I was 3rd in the queue I was looking around at the different products on sale.

Looking downwards at the floor below, (which is the food hall) I noticed an ex work colleague standing by the escalators dicking around on her mobile phone.

I saw movement on my periphery, so looked to my front and saw the guy at the front of the queue finish his transaction, so I stepped a pace forward.

I glanced downwards again to where my ex work mate was but couldn’t see her, at that moment I felt a touch on my elbow and looked round to see my ex work colleague who had recognised me standing there.

I’d only looked to my front for no longer than 2 or 3 seconds, so how did she ascend those escalators in such a short space of time.

After we had exchanged greetings, and I had finished with the cash machine, I counted how long it took for someone from the bottom of the escalators to reach the top – Just over 13 seconds is the answer.
The fairies stole ten seconds from you. Be careful, they might get greedier over time.
 
With a beating heart (I am currently alive) I pressed this button, to find that my 'Membership Balance' was £24.28....

And of course (but you knew this already) my totalised nett cost of all items was...£24.28.

I feel a bit better about myself after reading your account, it seems I am in good company in my phobia about those damn self checkout things!! That could so have been me .. well apart from buying a newspaper, the only thing I do with them in a supermarket is turn them face downwards, a futile gesture I know, I know, I know but what can you do?

Anyway not wishing to burst your bubble or anything but could the membership balance thingy have been set up to only show what you needed to make the paying process easier (one button instead of 2 or 3) and that your actual balance is greater than that? I do so hope I'm wrong! But even if I'm not it was still great that you saw the button in time and you had a story to tell me to brighten my day. See you went through all that angst just to cheer me up. :)

btw Yes suicide did seem a bit of an over reaction but it would have been uppermost in my list of options as well! I suspect that I'd have just walked off and left the lot there .......... and never dared go into the shop again! (Yes I'm good at futile gestures) 'sides it would give work back to the staff that I'd taken from them by using the bloody thing in the first place!

Sollywos (or should that be Luddite) x
 
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I am slowly getting more sympathetic with the Luddites.

I appreciate a lot my paper books, immune to dying flash memory cells (fortunately I don't use mechanical hard disks anymore; rust spinning over a glass disk in a sealed container filled with helium doesn't inspire confidence). Of course, you must always be on the look for bookworms, but they won't go poof in a whim (except for the occasional travel; I organize my books by author and title order, so that I won't misplace them; my copy of Jacques Vallée Confrontations went out to fly with the grays for a while, and came back to its proper place some days later).

I am always afraid the credit and debit card network will fail, and I use to carry cash with me as a backup measure. With change, when possible; showing merchants a R$ 100 bill (worth about £ 20, but still the largest one) makes them look at you like Satan incarnate.

Don't get me started on the bloody small screws; these too often slip away through cracks in our reality in the cleanest rooms, to never be seen again.
 
This morning I decided to 'screw my courage to the sticking-place', and pay for my Co-op supermarket shopping via the self-swipe boothes (this usually ends in tears, but I had my options forced for me through circumstance).

None of the traditional isles were open, and the queue at the kiosk stretched all the way back to the late Triassic, with alcohol/tobacco&hope addicts.

I dutifully put my bags-for-life into the bagging-area, swiped my membership dividend card, and began cautiously swiping my grocery items and newspapers across the chastising terror that is a self-service aisle. I was doing so well, right up until I reached the point of swiping the newspapers, whereupon the alarm went off with the warning "please wait, an assistant is coming" (this, of course, gives your fellow suffers an opportunity to see what prophylactics/pharmaceuticals/hallucinogens/bladed weapons you're trying to steal). Anyway, this interruption was just because the Co-op AI was unwilling to accept that newspapers weigh as little as a newspaper.

At last I was at my end...only to be presented with the words we all know and love "No Cash Payments! Cards only!". Suicide seemed a rather extreme mid-week response, but preferable to the prospect of having to reverse my bagpacking efforts, thereafter to join the end of that queue of addicts.

I briefly prayed to the Gods of Co-op, and had a sudden burst of possible redemption....on the screen, right-hand side, was a cryptic button marked "Pay with Member Benefits".

With a beating heart (I am currently alive) I pressed this button, to find that my 'Membership Balance' was £24.28....

And of course (but you knew this already) my totalised nett cost of all items was...£24.28.

Even after two-for-one, multisave buys, discount offers....cost to me was £0.00

So I pressed the 'Pay With Membership Card' button, snorted my derision at AI shopping, and stumbled out of the shop knowing that this time, I had won.

And I nodded to Derren Brown as he winked at me by the exit.

(ps this last bit was made-up, it was actually Dynamo, the Co-op can't afford Derren)
I would have walked out. Hate the bloody things. I have had a sales assistant refuse to open a checkout as per my request so I just popped my shopping int he floor and walked out.
 
I would have walked out. Hate the bloody things. I have had a sales assistant refuse to open a checkout as per my request so I just popped my shopping int he floor and walked out.

It's not the sales assistant's decision whether to open a checkout or not so that person couldn't have done it.
 
I would have walked out. Hate the bloody things. I have had a sales assistant refuse to open a checkout as per my request so I just popped my shopping int he floor and walked out.
Like your style! I don't use them either, preferring to pay a real person for my stuff. Very occasionally Ms Petes insists on using these infernal machines so to embarrass her I always make a reply to the talking ones, much to the amusement of staff and other shoppers.
 
This morning I decided to 'screw my courage to the sticking-place', and pay for my Co-op supermarket shopping via the self-swipe boothes (this usually ends in tears, but I had my options forced for me through circumstance).

None of the traditional isles were open, and the queue at the kiosk stretched all the way back to the late Triassic, with alcohol/tobacco&hope addicts.

I dutifully put my bags-for-life into the bagging-area, swiped my membership dividend card, and began cautiously swiping my grocery items and newspapers across the chastising terror that is a self-service aisle. I was doing so well, right up until I reached the point of swiping the newspapers, whereupon the alarm went off with the warning "please wait, an assistant is coming" (this, of course, gives your fellow suffers an opportunity to see what prophylactics/pharmaceuticals/hallucinogens/bladed weapons you're trying to steal). Anyway, this interruption was just because the Co-op AI was unwilling to accept that newspapers weigh as little as a newspaper.

At last I was at my end...only to be presented with the words we all know and love "No Cash Payments! Cards only!". Suicide seemed a rather extreme mid-week response, but preferable to the prospect of having to reverse my bagpacking efforts, thereafter to join the end of that queue of addicts.

I briefly prayed to the Gods of Co-op, and had a sudden burst of possible redemption....on the screen, right-hand side, was a cryptic button marked "Pay with Member Benefits".

With a beating heart (I am currently alive) I pressed this button, to find that my 'Membership Balance' was £24.28....

And of course (but you knew this already) my totalised nett cost of all items was...£24.28.

Even after two-for-one, multisave buys, discount offers....cost to me was £0.00

So I pressed the 'Pay With Membership Card' button, snorted my derision at AI shopping, and stumbled out of the shop knowing that this time, I had won.

And I nodded to Derren Brown as he winked at me by the exit.

(ps this last bit was made-up, it was actually Dynamo, the Co-op can't afford Derren)

Made me laugh out loud on a horribly dull Friday am, Ermintruder. Thank you.
 
I use self-checkouts all the time. Scan your stuff, wait for someone to confirm that you're 'clearly over 18', swipe your contactless, done.

In the rare instances I'm not buying beer the second step is skipped so it's even quicker.

Why do people hate them?
 
I use self-checkouts all the time. Scan your stuff, wait for someone to confirm that you're 'clearly over 18', swipe your contactless, done.

In the rare instances I'm not buying beer the second step is skipped so it's even quicker.

Why do people hate them?
I hate them because they put people out of work.
 
It's now made by floating molten glass on a bed of mercury, to ensure that it is consistently flat.
Just to be a pedant , it's floated over a bed of molten tin. If mercury was used it would boil off resulting in some very poisonous fumes.. ;)
 
I hate them because they put people out of work.

Do they?

The Tesco I use still has queues at every till for 'big shops', three people work on the self-checkouts (at a time), and I'm guessing people (like me) are far more likely to go in and buy a few bits using the self-checkout than stand in a queue behind people with trolleys. I would say they generate more sales.
 
Just to be a pedant , it's floated over a bed of molten tin. If mercury was used it would boil off resulting in some very poisonous fumes.. ;)
I'm glad someone was awake! Thanks for pointing out my error.
 
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