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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

This one left me scratching my head. I was filling a silicone mould the other day. I had filled it once before, so I knew it took about 400 ml of silicone. I mixed it up, 200ml base 200ml activator, mixed it and poured it in. Only half went in before it was full! I figured I must have misremembered and mourned the wasted material. A few hours later, I fill the same very same mould. 200 ml mixed this time, pour it in. It's only half full! What the hell?? The mixing vessel only holds 500 ml, so there's no way I could have mixed up that much too much by accident the first time. And yeah the product came out looking good with no missing parts.

Also has anyone noticed how much your perception of an area changes from the first time you see it to when you've become familiar with them? If I were to describe my current home town the first time I went there, it would sound very different to what I see and experience now.
 
Also has anyone noticed how much your perception of an area changes from the first time you see it to when you've become familiar with them? If I were to describe my current home town the first time I went there, it would sound very different to what I see and experience now.

Oh, yes. I find this quite fascinating.
 
tldr: my wallet went missing and turned up a week later in a place I had already looked, but in which it shouldn't have been.

What colour is it? I notice that black things go missing. Wallets, phones, TV doofers, socks, whatever, I've noticed they go walkies.

Not just at home either. Part of my job is dealing with lost property and the same applies.
 
Uncanny war memorial on the outskirts of Kleve (Germany), remembering both world wars. Three spooky heads, a text and not much more. Also placed in the fields at the city periphery:

kleve02.jpgkleve03.jpg

The on the other side of town: A deserted (?) factory on the outskirts of Kleve (Riswickler Strasse). This is made extra Liggotian (yes! see Thomas Ligotti) by the circus campground on the right. Why don't we have this kind of periphery in the Netherlands?

kleve04.jpgkleve05.jpg

This is Thomas LIgotti … "So I was going to tell you," Grissul began, "that I was out in that field, the one behind those empty buildings at the edge of town where everything just slides away and goes off in all directions. And there's a marsh by there, makes the ground a little, I don't know, stringy or something. No trees, though, only a lot of wild grass, reeds, you know where I mean?" "I now have a good idea," Nolon replied, a trifle bored or at least pretending to be. "This was a little before dark that I was there. A little before the stars began to come out. I really wasn't planning to do anything, let me say that. I just walked some ways out onto the field, changed direction a few times, walked a ways more. Then I saw something through a blind of huge stalks of some kind, skinny as your finger but with these great spiky heads on top. And really very stiff, not bending at all, just sort of wobbling in the breeze. They might well have creaked, I don't know, when I pushed my way through to see beyond them. Then I knelt down to get a better look at what was there on the ground. ...
 
I can't see the war memorial well. Are the heads human looking? I can't tell if they have faces.
I enjoy reading Thomas Ligotti.
 
I was wondering why, if it is a war memorial, it isn't kept in better shape. Then I reread your post stating that it's in Germany. So possibly there are ambivalent feelings about it
 
I was wondering why, if it is a war memorial, it isn't kept in better shape. Then I reread your post stating that it's in Germany. So possibly there are ambivalent feelings about it

Some cursory searching turned up more questions than answers ...

I found this webpage with photos of what appears to be the same memorial pillar:

https://www.tracesofwar.com/sights/9056/War-Memorial-Kleve.htm

5738091201171501.jpg

Location: Tiergarten Straße, Kleve
Date: Unknown

There are two other photos of the memorial on this webpage, one of which shows some text that only mentions the Second World War.

Uair01's photo is too faint to tell whether the text appears on the (same) face of the monument.

Also, I'm not sure why it would be painted or coated with what appears to be anti-corrosion primer of the sort used for metal objects.

This older photo looks like a stone monument; the later photo I originally thought might be steel because of the coating. ????? ...
 
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Mods may want to move this to a more appropriate thread. It is only a minor strangeness event where I live,

I just had a phone call from by daughter saying that armed police have closed off the roads just across the field from where I live.

Apparently there is a naked person laying on top of a car by the side of the road shouting 'Kill me now, kill me now'

I can see the area in question, but no activity or blue lights.

No helicopter yet, and the local kids have just come wandering across from the area.

Breaks up a boring evening.

INT21,
 
And the wiki page states that the city was virtually destroyed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleve As a result of the bombing, relatively little of the pre-1945 city remains. Those structures spared include a number of historic villas built during the heyday of the spa Bad Kleves, located along the B9 near the Tiergarten. Of those buildings destroyed, many were reconstructed, including most of the Schwanenburg and the Stiftskirche, the Catholic parish church. Constructed on high ground, many of these landmarks can be seen from the surrounding communities.
 
Update,

Apparently this is some bloke stood naked on a house roof.

I can see a police van.

Probably someone stoned out of his brains.

Certainly sounds like he's in a far-from-ideal state of mind, though quite why a naked man would warrant armed police eludes me. He can't exactly be concealing weapons, after all. Is bare skin truly that terrifying?
 
It's all gone quiet now.

Maybe he had done something very bad before climbing up onto the roof.

Everyone in my side of the family has quit Facebook, so we can't look for updates.

No doubt we'll find out in the morning.

INT21.
 
The naked man may not be woowoo strange, but I'd say it was strange if it happened in my neighborhood!

Also, I'm not sure why it would be painted or coated with what appears to be anti-corrosion primer of the sort used for metal objects.
Could the monument be made of friable stone, and the paint an attempt to keep it from eroding away more?
Then again, it looks like only the faces/heads have eroded—maybe the faces/heads have been shot at by bored locals. (?)

Also has anyone noticed how much your perception of an area changes from the first time you see it to when you've become familiar with them?
It might have to do with how much new information your brain has to deal with at once. When I was first on my own as an adult, and facing many new experiences at once, this happened to me a lot. But if new places had similarities to other places I already knew, then it was easier to retain a fuller sense of the new place. For example, if the architectural style or interior materials were similar to those of buildings I was already familiar with, it was easier for me to retain an internalized diagram of a new place, including positions of doors, windows and pillars.

Brian development probably plays a part, too: when I was a teenager and roaming around my hometown, I knew different areas like puzzle pieces that weren't connected. Over time I slowly put most of the pieces together. This amazes me now, because I've gone to many, many other cities for the first time since then and haven't had that much trouble putting together an internalized map of wherever it is I am. Then again, I've had actual maps to refer to in those new places, so maybe that's all there is to that. I still find walking indispensable to really nailing it though.

Wow, this is a long post! :doh:
 
Call me strange, but I actually enjoy the feeling of discombobulation one has upon coming to a new place, especially a town. You are able to see things in a way at the very beginning that will fade as soon as it becomes familiar. Very easy to spot oddities in a place at the very beginning.
 
Call me strange, but I actually enjoy the feeling of discombobulation one has upon coming to a new place, especially a town. You are able to see things in a way at the very beginning that will fade as soon as it becomes familiar. Very easy to spot oddities in a place at the very beginning.
That's a nice observation. It's easy to forget that first impression and I've pondered that myself, the half-recalled first impression and it's variance with one's current familiarity.
 
These days towns change quite dramatically. So much so that, as you mention, it is sometimes hard to remember what they were like only five years ago. my own town has had four major developments in as many years.

By the way, how is Brian's development coming along ?
 
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