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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

Hey yeah, maybe he was guzzling the petrol from your car tank the way that crazy guy in the Strange Crimes thread was guzzling wine from the tanker truck. Are any of your sandwiches missing?
 
Yes as damaging your lungs has always been a foolproof way of preventing respiratory illness. :rolleyes:
I suppose it is possible - after all if your lungs are full of tar it might be harder for the virus to tunnel through the sludge. But i'm certainly not going to take up smoking to keep away COVID.
 
As I was reading the most recent posts on the "Signs From God" thread on these beloved Forums, I heard what sounded like a chorus singing one sustained note, the kind of sound used in movies to indicate epiphanies or the present/intervention of God. I heard it twice.
Mystery solved!!!--it's some kind of car, not the radio, but the engine (or something like that).
I saw it pull away from the curb while it made the sound. I'll try to find out what kind of car it is.
 
Mystery solved!!!--it's some kind of car, not the radio, but the engine (or something like that).
I saw it pull away from the curb while it made the sound. I'll try to find out what kind of car it is.

I'd be interested to hear it. I've never heard an engine sounding anything like a heavenly choir.
 
This has just reminded me - standing at the till at work I used to keep hearing a sound like a car refusing to start. You know that nyrrrrr-nyrrrrr-nyrrrr that an engine makes when it turns over but won't fire? And I thought it was someone who lived opposite the shop and had a particularly recalcitrant car that they kept having to go out in.

It took me several weeks to work out that it was the shop doors, when they were set to automatic close, that made that weird whining sound. I have no idea why it took me so long to figure it out!
 
It took me several weeks to work out that it was the shop doors, when they were set to automatic close, that made that weird whining sound. I have no idea why it took me so long to figure it out!
Maybe you were just focused on doing your job, and not being distracted?
Or maybe whining sounds are typical of some of the customers . . .
 
The car is a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid. It makes the celestial sound when in reverse.


Yep, that’s definitely a sound that says to me:

Half a ton of metal, inadequately controlled by someone distracted by their phone or the kids rioting on the back seat, is about to crush your legs and pelvis into oatmeal. Have a nice day.”

maximus otter
 

Yep, that’s definitely a sound that says to me:

Half a ton of metal, inadequately controlled by someone distracted by their phone or the kids rioting on the back seat, is about to crush your legs and pelvis into oatmeal. Have a nice day.”

maximus otter
That's fair comment, I guess. On the other hand, arguably, if, from behind, you heard a noise as though the final trump had just sounded and the choirs celestial were on their descent, might you just possibly be inclined to essay a glance, to make sure you'd interpreted the sound correctly?
 
That's fair comment, I guess. On the other hand, arguably, if, from behind, you heard a noise as though the final trump had just sounded and the choirs celestial were on their descent, might you just possibly be inclined to essay a glance, to make sure you'd interpreted the sound correctly?

l’m just visualising a generation of bedwetters, predisposed to panic during performances of Allegri’s sublime Miserere:


maximus otter
 

Yep, that’s definitely a sound that says to me:

Half a ton of metal, inadequately controlled by someone distracted by their phone or the kids rioting on the back seat, is about to crush your legs and pelvis into oatmeal. Have a nice day.”

maximus otter
How on Earth is it making a sound like that? I've never heard a car make a noise like that.
I'm guessing it might be an electric motor.

Edit: Oh, it's a sound coming from a loudspeaker. How odd. Normally, it's a beeping noise or a voice announcing a reverse is in progress.
 
Great video find, Maximus Otter, thanks for posting that!
I really hate the beeping noise that some other vehicles make when backing up, and appreciate the effort to find a alternative, but which corporate marketing poobah chose this sound? I've heard it for weeks before associating it with a car, and when I did, I thought it was the stereo system playing depression-defeating, stress-reducing, calming-in-the-era-of-covid music for my neighbor, who works at a hospital.
An alternative explanation, that I could be going mad, simply didn't occur to me.
 
I think there is a thread on here for time loss or gains, but I thought I would stick this one here.

Something very bizarre happened to me this morning, and I'm at a loss to explain how the following happened.

Most days to keep myself active through lockdown, I've been in the habit of taking the same fairly longish walk. Well the walk isn't massively long (a little shy of 5 miles according to mapometer) but Its reasonably hilly in parts, and I do get a bit of a march on, so it does give my body a decent workout.

I check the time on my mobile phone when I leave the house, and check it again when I get back, to see how long it has taken me, then try to beat that time, the next time I do the walk.

Anyway this morning, this happened. I left the house and my phone told me it was 10.02, so to make sure I get an accurate time of the walk, I waited for the phone to tell me it was exactly 10.03, then set off.

The first stretch of the walk, takes me up a steep country lane, that leads to a junction, and is 0.8 miles away from my house.

I was at the junction, and could hear a car approaching, so stood against a hedgerow to let it pass, and whilst doing so, checked my phone for any messages, and was shocked to discover that the time was only 10.06. There is no way on this earth that I could have walked 0.8 miles up a steep country lane in less that 4 minutes.

I don't even think there is an athlete in the world, could even sprint uphill for 0.8 miles in under 4 minutes.

Puzzled, I carried on with the walk, and got back home at exactly 10.54, so the walk had taken me less than an hour - the walk normally takes me around an hour and 15 minutes.

Seriously, WTF.
 
Did you cross-check the phone's time reading against another source at any point?

You didn't mention any subjective feeling of time loss or accelerated progress. Neither did you mention completing the walk at a notably faster pace than usual.

The amount of time by which your overall time was shortened is comparable to the amount of time you'd already "lost" when you checked the time at the junction.

My first guess is that the time displayed (or recognized / remembered) when you set out wasn't the actual time, and you first saw the actual time displayed at the junction.
 
Our neighbour asked if we had seen anyone hanging around the night before, we live in a quiet cul-de-sac in a village and get no 'passing traffic', you have to be down here for a reason so anybody out of place is very conspicuous.

During the night, somebody has wandered half way up their drive, carefully dug out a single peony, and nicked it.

My first thought was to blame an animal of some sort, but the hole is perfectly square and looks like it was done with a trowel.
 
Our neighbour asked if we had seen anyone hanging around the night before, we live in a quiet cul-de-sac in a village and get no 'passing traffic', you have to be down here for a reason so anybody out of place is very conspicuous.

During the night, somebody has wandered half way up their drive, carefully dug out a single peony, and nicked it.

My first thought was to blame an animal of some sort, but the hole is perfectly square and looks like it was done with a trowel.
Perhaps someone who had taken up gardening under the lock-down and had run out of plants?
It's odd.
 
On friday, BBC’s Gardener’s World did an item on taking cuttings from plants giving the ruthless amateur gardener all the info they needed.
 
...the hole is perfectly square and looks like it was done with a trowel.

Had the peony been recently planted, in a square hole? lf so, an animal (or human miscreant) could simply have applied force and had the plant pop out in its plug, having not yet rooted.

l would suspect a fox. They will sometimes uproot plants, especially if they have been planted atop smelly fertiliser, e.g. fish, blood & bone.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=511

maximus otter
 
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How on Earth is it making a sound like that? I've never heard a car make a noise like that.
I'm guessing it might be an electric motor.

Edit: Oh, it's a sound coming from a loudspeaker. How odd. Normally, it's a beeping noise or a voice announcing a reverse is in progress.

Fake - it's taken from No Mans Sky - I should know I play it when I get a day off.
 
I am a Chartered Building Surveyor by profession (for background)

I have had some quite minor things happen to me over the years, things that generally look like the universe is tickling you under the ribs, just to let you know it's there, I am sure most people have these experiences but discount and forget about them.

A few years ago, I was asked to survey a disused chapel at the local cemetery, the chapel was the last one standing (the other two RC and Non-conformist were demolished in the 60s and 70's) the chapel had been disused for many years (the last service held was in the early 90's) it's a very gothic looking building constructed in the 1870's for its purpose, it's now a grade two listed building which affords it some legal protection, but it's very neglected.

A colleague and I got hold of the keys (the cemetery workers used part of the chapel as a store for gardening equipment) and visited site, put the keys in the door and the door would not shift, it was a big heavy door as you can imagine, my colleague and I are both quite tall and physically fit, we kicked pushed at the door, the strange thing was there was no movement at all, it was as though there was a brick wall behind the door (the lock turned fine)

We called it a day and asked a local joiner to visit site the following week to help get us in, we both met him there, I put the key in the lock turned the joiner pushed the door and it opened with no resistance whatsoever, there was no sign of swelling or rubbing on the frame, and I am at a loss to why we could no open it.

A year or two late, I was at home with my daughter who was a teenager at the time, it was the evening (my then wife was out) I went into the garden to get something whilst my daughter was upstairs, I went to come back inside, and the door was locked, I hammered at the door and eventually my daughter came down stairs, the door had been locked (the key was in the lock at the time) I accused her of locking me out, but how? She had been upstairs the whole time it's a mystery?

Incidentally a few years after our neighbour died of a brain tumour, he died in the night, my daughter woke up at the very time he died (his wife told us all the details) feeling she could not breathe and with a choking sensation, could have been a coincidence but who knows
 
We have a discrepancy in the reversing car sound situation. @IbisNibs - is that the actual sound you hear from the car reversing [max's post 8017]?

Or is it a faked up version as Naughty Felid says?
 
Robbrent on the subject of invisible brick walls each time I tried to enter a jewellers to buy an engagement ring with the boyfriend I had before I met my husband I was unable to enter.
It was just like there was a brick wall stopping me, much to the annoyance of the boyfriend.
 
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