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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

Ringing Wet?

Elisheva and Laura - has it been damp where you've been? Could be short circuits caused by moisture and getting better when it dries out.
 
I don't know if this is the right thread for this. I'm not even sure this wasn't just my imagination.

I was at the supermarket today when I saw a heavily pregnant lady. For a second, when I glanced at her, I could have sworn I saw the shape of the baby inside her. Only, it was the wrong way around. Its bum was facing out and down, its head near her ribs. I guess it probably was just my imagination, but it left me...a little surprised, perhaps bewildered, for a moment.
 
It's possible, Mossy_Sloth. IIRC, babies are this way up for a while then they turn round. Some don't, and come out feet first, this is a breech birth.

My only question is - what the heck was she wearing that was so tight you could see the outline of the baby? :shock:
 
She was wearing a white t-shirt - a bit tight around the widest part of the belly - but otherwise fairly loose. I think I must have just automatically fit the figure of a baby into the shape of her belly. I don't know. It seems weird when I think of it now.
 
This happened a few weeks ago. I was doing a piece of work that involved looking at a certain section of out customer's cases. I had to request these cases from various offices situated around the country and wait for them to arrive through our courier system. Once they arrived I had about 100 cases all stored in the cupboard. I set off looking at the cases and putting certain info from them onto a spreadsheet. I had looked at about 70% of the cases when I came across a case where the customer had died. Now this isn't particularly strange. I then picked up the next case and again the customer was dead. This kept on happening until I got up to 7 cases in a row, all where the customer had died. In the end I actually felt like I was killing the customers as I picked the case up from the pile. Thankfully that was an end to it and and rest of our customers were alive. It just struck me as odd that out of the 100 or so cases I looked at 7 of them were dead and they all managed to somehow get together in the cupboard. Like I said the cases had come from several different offices round the country and I had been through the 3 piles that they were stacked in on several occasions to look for specific cases/check which ones had arrived/were outstanding. There is no way in the world the only 7 cases where the customer had died should all have been stacked together.

I tried to get my head round it, but there was no explanation. I wondered if maybe it was a portent of my own death, but after several weeks of careful road crossings I am feeling a little more confident so have decided to share the experience. Was a strange one.
 
S'a weird coincidence. Satisfyingly spooky. 8)
I wonder if the first case you looked at after the 7 is in good health... :shock:
 
Any clarification will be greatly appreciated:

Yesterday my wife and me took an evening stroll in the park. I saw a light above the city and looking better I saw a line of airplanes traversing the city. I (almost) always carry a camera so I made a few pictures. I had no tripod so it's bit shaky. The pictures are here:

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/uair01/airplanes.jpg

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/uair01/airplanes2.jpg

The weird thing is that I never saw this before. I actively look at the sky and am very interested in night lights. How is it possible that I never noticed this before?

===

Then there's this weird stripe in the clouds:

http://s39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/uair01/cloud.jpg

===

And a white elephant ... is it art?

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/ ... ephant.jpg

===

Finally a bag made from whale penis skin (believe it or not):


http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/uair01/whale.jpg
 
The bag - yuk. :(

Reminds me of the stories about tobacco pouches made from Native American warriors' scrotums. Can't remember if they're true or not, but still, yuk.

Reminds me, how's Creamstick these days? :shock:
 
uair01 said:
Any clarification will be greatly appreciated:

Yesterday my wife and me took an evening stroll in the park. I saw a light above the city and looking better I saw a line of airplanes traversing the city. The weird thing is that I never saw this before. I actively look at the sky and am very interested in night lights. How is it possible that I never noticed this before?
At most major airports (OK, I'm referring to nearby Birmingham International, but I'd be amazed if it weren't generally true), if you position yourself at night-tme in line with the main runway, you will be able to spot two or three aeroplanes on approach at any time. You'd be able to see them in the daytime if you knew where to look, of course, but the landing lights make them so much easier to spot. So this phenomenon seems fairly explicable, assuming you are near a decent-sized airport.

As for you never having seen this before, maybe the wind was blowing in an unusual direction for the area, or one of the airport's runways was shut for some other reason, so planes were coming in to land from a direction not often used. It may be that this phenomenon is commonly seen in other parts of the city (or the other side of the airport). Just a thought... of course, if you now say that there is no big airport anywhere near, then I'm afraid that you may be getting a visit from the MIBs soon - those black helicopters are not meant to be seen!
 
Peripart said:
if you position yourself at night-tme in line with the main runway, you will be able to spot two or three aeroplanes on approach at any time. You'd be able to see them in the daytime if you knew where to look, of course, but the landing lights make them so much easier to spot. So this phenomenon seems fairly explicable, assuming you are near a decent-sized airport.

We have a smallish airport in Rotterdam that cannot possibly handle all this traffic (I saw at least 6 planes in 30 minutes). Seeing that the airplane queue is heading North, and the planes being so low, I assume they're heading for Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, about 60 km away.

Peripart said:
As for you never having seen this before, maybe the wind was blowing in an unusual direction for the area, or one of the airport's runways was shut for some other reason, so planes were coming in to land from a direction not often used.

That's what I assumed too. But still I'm very surprised that I had never seen this before - it's so striking. Certainly it must happen more often. I will go through my pictures - I often photograph the night view of the city - and maybe I'll see the airplane queue on more of them.

===

About the penis skin bag:

The whale was killed somewhere in 1956 in the "Northern Ice Sea" (have to look for the exact geographic name) and the bag was made in 1958 by a Rotterdam leather worker. It was bought by the biology teacher of the Rotterdam latin school. Now it's in the collection of the Rotterdam Museum of Natural History. Label in more detail here:

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/uair01/whale2.jpg
 
LaurenChurchill said:
I kept trying to use it for a week or so, until I finally faced the music and left it at home last night.
When I got back it was working perfectly. :splat:

It doesn't like to leave the house: cell phone with agoraphobia?

Actually, it may be degaussing when you leave it alone, so it works properly for a while. I had a scientific calculator that did that.
 
Re: Ringing Wet?

markbellis said:
Elisheva and Laura - has it been damp where you've been? Could be short circuits caused by moisture and getting better when it dries out.

Good thought. It has rained here recently. Still, I would hope that a brand-new auto wouldn't exhibit such behavior. The other auto is 13 years old, so it might get up to anyting (teenagers, you know).

I stopped a point-of-sale machine at the grocery yesterday; but, I've been known to have strange effects on electronic cash registers, so that event wasn't so far from the usual.
 
I had a weird hypnopompic experience early one morning last week. I was dozing in bed when I suddenly felt that something was trying to lift me out of my physical body. For some reason, it didn't occur to me to try and open my eyes, but I had the impression that I was surrounded by a small group of purposeful little beings.

The beings successfully 'detached' me from my body and began to levitate me upwards. I wasn't floating straight up - they seemed to be spinning me round and round. It really did feel absolutely real.

"Aliens are here! Aliens!" I yelled rather madly, and with some difficulty. As I live alone, no-one would have heard me anyway, but I wasn't thinking rationally. At that, the beings instantly vanished, and with a slight jolt I was back in my body. Then I sunk straight back into normal sleep.

I didn't see or hear anything - the experience just consisted of physical sensations. I rather wish I hadn't interrupted it now, as I'd like to have seen how it developed. But at the time, I was rather panicked. The whole incident only lasted for a few seconds.

I've made quite a few attempts to deliberately induce an out of body experience before, but have never succeeded.
 
This morning, about 6 am, I saw something odd twinkling through the bare branches of trees to the west of my bedroom window.

I also saw the loom of a lightning flash, followed by thunder a few seconds later.

(I'm not absolutely sure, but I think I saw the 'twinkler' first, and that is how I came to notice the lightning.)

I watched the twinkler through binoculars for quite a while. It was twinkling in a range of colours, and at first I thought it was one of the RN helicopters doing some night flying, as we get plenty of them round here.

But it seemed to stay in the same place for too long to be a chopper, so then I decided it must be a bright planet, because when low in the sky atmospheric turbulence does lead to this twinkling effect.

However, when I checked Heavens Above, there were no planets in that part of the sky, and the most likely object was the bright star Rigel, in the constellation Orion. (If it hadn't been for the trees, I'd probably have spotted the distinctive constellation straight away.)

As for the lightning, there was just that one instance. I'd been awake for a while, and would have noticed any earlier thunder, and there was none afterwards.


Anyhow, nothing really weird, but it got my day off to a nice Fortean start! 8)
 
I had my first run in with sleep paralysis yesterday, and I have to say it was fascinating.
I laid down for a short nap before having to pick my son up from preschool. As I only had about 2 and a half hours until I needed to pick him up, I could easily imagine sleeping more deeply than intended and not hearing the alarm clock... So I went to sleep in a sort of careful state, trying to be especially aware of noises so that I would wake up on time. (This almost always works for me. I can sleep through my alarm with no problems at all if I don`t need to be up, but if I make sure I leave the "Need to be up!" flag in my mind, I wake up easily on the very first sound it makes.

I fell asleep, and something woke me up. (I`m guessing a car sound from outside) I started to wake up, but realized it wasn`t my alarm, so opted to go back to sleep. Then I felt it. Something large and heavy sort of came down on top of me. I could feel it pressing down harder and harder, holding me down. For the first few seconds, I found it frightening.... And then I realized - This is sleep paralysis! The fear disappeared, and I noticed several things. The weight had no specific points. It was even, like a huge lead blanket had been slowly put down on to my body. It was also only on top of me. If something were actually pressing down on me, I would feel pressure from below also, as I would be feeling resistance from the bed. There was none of that, and I was actually quite comfortable. I also wasn`t having any of the breathing difficulties that I would imagine having if something really were on top of me. Maybe this is because I was on my side? Or maybe it was because I wasn`t feeling any fear...

I tried moving, and managed to open my eyes and look up. I was hoping to catch a dreamy glimpse of the dark forms people often report seeing - but nothing was there... And it seemed that the movement broke the spell, and I was able to move. Went quickly back to sleep - and it happened again. I tried to move my arm, but either wasn`t able to or the movement was so feeble that it didn`t make much difference. But it was enough to snap me out of it.

When I went back to sleep again, it happened almost immediately, and I was able to open my eyes and look around a bit at my blurry but normal room. I tried to roll over, but couldn`t, and decided that despite the strange sensation of weight it really wasn`t all that uncomfortable, so didn`t try to snap myself out of it, relaxed, and slept peacefully until the alarm went off.

I wasn`t all that scared - the second I realized what it was, it was more of an experiment to me. But I could easily see how people could be scared out of their wits. I found it quite cool in it`s own way! :D
 
tamyu said:
I had my first run in with sleep paralysis yesterday, and I have to say it was fascinating.

Thank you for that report: very, very interesting.
 
The other week the council came round and lopped off all the dead vegetation in our garden. Admittedly it had been rather over-grown before. The result is my corner of the building is now much more exposed to view.

Walking home today after lunch, I glimpsed something out of the corner of my eye, and had to take a step back to identify what I'd seen. It turned out to be a small sickle, tucked in behind the drain pipe, and resting on the supporting bracket.

So now I wonder if it had been there all the time, and has only come back to view now the vegetation has been cut back. But if so, why didn't I spot it days ago? Maybe the workmen left it behind? But again, why did I only spot it today? Anyway, in these days of power tools, sickles are a bit old fashioned.

I just hope it's not a sign that the Grim Reaper is coming for me....! :shock:
 
Was it golden? If so, there's a Gaulish druid looking for it...
 
gncxx said:
Was it golden? If so, there's a Gaulish druid looking for it...
Fraid not - blunt and rusty looking.

After my previous post, I went out and recovered it. Only the point of the blade actually touched the white painted wall, and it had left a small rust mark on the wall. Going into Sherlock Holmes mode, I deduced that it couldn't have been there more than a couple of weeks, or the rust streak would have crept further down the wall.

Now I reckon the council gardeners found it in the undergrowth, and decided it could be dangerous on the ground, so put it up out of the way.
 
rynner said:
I just hope it's not a sign that the Grim Reaper is coming for me....! :shock:
Don't worry, Ryn, I think he usually goes for a scythe, not a sickle, so you're probably safe for now!

Unless you're very small...
 
The fairies stole my brown sugar.

A few weeks ago, I went to make cookies and had no brown sugar, so I substituted molasses (with mixed results), then on the next grocery day, as usual, I bought a pound and stored it in a big Tupperware. Since then, I have made two batches of cookies and some brown sugar syrup for apple dumplings; nothing like a pound of usage! But when I needed brown sugar to put a French crumb topping on an apple pie and glaze the carrots for Christmas dinner, the sugar was gone! It's not in the pantry, it's not in the Tupperware cupboard, it's not in the breakfast food cupboard (where I might have absentmindedly stuck it after adding brown sugar to apple-raisin oatmeal, a practice I recommend), it's not in the refrigerator, or the kitchen closet, or on the sideboard or anywhere!

So I glazed the carrots with honey and made a graham cracker crumble topping, but I'm really, really wondering what the fairies want with so much brown sugar! I'm also annoyed at having to buy it again so soon. Stupid fairies...
 
The fairies stole my brown sugar.

I had a similar experience last month.

I was going to make brownies (the flour free kind) when I realized that I didn't have any dark enough chocolate, the recipe demanded at least 70% cocoa solids you see. So I went out to the shop to buy some dark chocolate since using regular cooking chocolate would probably ruin the recipe.

I made my brownies to much success, my whole family loved them! A few days after this (they were a big hit) I decided to make them again but once again I found that I had no dark chocolate! I'm almost certain that I never used all the chocolate for my brownies and nobody would dream of eating 70% cocoa solids as a snack, so where did my chocolate go?

Those darn fairies!!!
 
OfficeRabbit said:
....and nobody would dream of eating 70% cocoa solids as a snack...
Ah-ha. I think your answer may well lie there or thereabouts ;). 70% makes a damn' good snack, IMHO.

Welcome to the board, by the way.
 
minor strangeness?

about 5 years ago I got a book from the local library, upon getting home I opened it and, as I usually do gave it a "browse" before reading it properly. As I opened it a photograph which I assume a previous reader had used as a bookmark fell out. the photo was obviously taken at my 21st birthday party which had taken place 24 years previously. I had never seen ths photo before but I recognised friends, relatives, the venue and yes myself in the grinning throng.

Felt a bit strange looking at it, on the back was written in faded pencil "Phil's 21st, Shay Hotel June '78"

No idea who took it but I've still got it at home.
 
Could have been worse. :lol:

I once made a working paper model of Gillian Taylforth doing that thing she says she does well and left it in a library book.
Remembering just a minute too late when returning it, I was only able to watch in horror as the librarian found it. :oops:
 
escargot1 said:
Could have been worse. :lol:

I once made a working paper model of Gillian Taylforth doing that thing she says she does well and left it in a library book.
Remembering just a minute too late when returning it, I was only able to watch in horror as the librarian found it. :oops:
What? You mean the librarian had never seen someone relieving their partner's appendicitis in a layby before?
 
I once made a working paper model of Gillian Taylforth doing that thing she says she does well and left it in a library book.
Was this model your own design, or is it commercially available?

(I have a friend who might be interested... :oops: )
 
I'm ashamed to say that it was all my own work. :oops:
 
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