10 Random Facts

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Postby lunarose » Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:09 am

listen to the violin:

'5. I think American Beauty is the worst movie I ever saw. '

just plain dumb, shallow, and stereotypical. and the blatant, ham-handed 'symbolism'....bleagh.
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Postby streeb » Mon Mar 31, 2008 12:59 pm

10. The Space 1999 episode Dragon's domain marked me for life.


You, me, and a lot of people.
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Postby FourthBase » Sun Aug 17, 2008 5:12 am

Best thread ever. I'm honored to be a member here, with you all.

I'm not really comfortable revealing personal info this personal, but shit if anything untimely (and external) were ever to happen to me then at least there'd be plenty here (and elsewhere on the forum) for you all to identify me by and know something was up.

As a baby: Developed a little half-inch scar-nub on the tip of my nose from repeated (and successful) attempts to climb out of crib. As a toddler: Fell onto a rocking chair leg tip and received half-inch diagonal groove-scar in the exact middle of my forehead. Now: Looks like a little piece of my forehead dropped off and got attached to the tip of my nose, lol. More toddler shenanigans: Stuck finger into socket (at least once) and don't remember if it hurt but do remember the numbing whoosh of its energy and then after that sitting in front of TV snow for lengths of time, enthralled (this was pre-Poltergeist, mind you); attempted to eat glass ornaments...twice; tried to "fly" out window during Superman phase (not an uncommon thing, I'm guessing); creeped out relatives by telling them I had been alive in 1936 on the other side of the world. My middle and last names are identical. My father narrowly escaped certain death at least 10 times (we counted) before I had been born, including a brain tumor for which he received "state of the art" surgery from our city's finest neurosurgeons. I was once one of the world's top 100 high school students in ancient Greek, but I have always despised Latin (fucking ablative!) and everything associated with the bloody Romans. I have worked in the same boring place, for a close relative, for over 10 years. Assorted "celebrity encounters": Once chatted pleasantly about life with Ti-Grace Atkinson for about an hour in her living room (random sub-fact: happened to be the first person to show her the Hermenaut issue in which I first read about her); stupidly told John Ashbery to his face that he looked like a dork on the cover of my vintage copy of Self Portrait; stupidly asked Nicholson Baker when he would start writing "important books"; ratted out Tom Brady to the national press after I bumped into him in NYC wearing a Yankees cap. My name is an anagram of "reach and pull". I once (stupidly) Fedexed a journal I kept during a hypomanic episode to Kurt Vonnegut (not an uncommon thing, I'm guessing). Am deathly afraid of great white sharks (who isn't) but swam anyway in one of the four places in the world where great white sharks are regularly spotted (right around dusk). Have lost 37 pounds since mid-February. Before my first comprehensive existential crisis 13 years ago, had been a Rush Limbaugh and then Ayn Rand devotee, ewwww.
“Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight,
that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.” - Bill Russell
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Postby sunny » Sun Aug 17, 2008 2:49 pm

Thanks for sharing 4thB! Lol, I bet your poor mother was a bald headed nervous wreck until you made it out of your childhood alive. :P
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Postby mentalgongfu2 » Sun Aug 24, 2008 3:28 pm

I've enjoyed reading this, so I'll put myself on display as well. This list seemed like a hard task at first, but put like this, I actually appear to have had a somewhat interesting life so far.

1)I have a fraternal twin brother. Ultrasound was relatively new when my Mom got pregnant and she was concerned about possible side effects, so she never had one done. My parents learned they were going to have twins when mom was at the hospital after going into labor. My brother's name was already picked out and the crib and been bought, etc. My existence was a sudden surprise. It was a C-section birth and the doctors took my bro out first, so he is two minutes older than me and shares my grandfather's name. I'm convinced I would have been the first born son if not for the C-section.

2)When I was a child, I talked to the birds. I understood what they were talking and singing about and communicated with them. The connection still exists on some level. About a year ago I was playing disc golf and lost my disc. There was a bird in a tree nearby and I asked him for help. He flew and showed me where my disc was.

3)When I was in fourth or fifth grade my parents became concerned about me and made me talk to the school counselor. I guess they thought I was depressed. I knew how to play the situation and told the counselor what I figured she wanted to hear, and I never had to go back. I recall little about what I was thinking during that time period, but what my parents thought was depression was more of a realization of the breadth and depth of everything in this world that seems so wrong to me.

4)My brother and I exchanged physical blows only one time in all our lives that I can remember. It was when we were teens, and it was maybe one or two punches from each party before we retreated to our rooms. After talking to other sets of brothers, our lack of physical aggression appears to be out of the norm.

5)When I was in high school the rock band I played in rented a practice room at a rundown building in downtown Davenport called the Slowfish along with about 8 other bands and some Djs. Each group had their own room, and it became a mecca of musical collaboration as well as place for all sort of illicit activity. I learned how to combat crackeads and trick the police and discovered the dirty underbelly of sex, violence and politics in the city. When too many of the preppy crowd at my high school started learning about this place as a party spot and drawing too much unwanted attention, I facilitated a series of outrageous rumors in order to keep them away and was successful.

6)I once stole a blank floppy disc from Kinkos. It was the only time I ever shoplifted. I almost got caught, and I felt incredibly guilty about it for a long, long time. I have a horrible sense of guilt at doing anything I believe is wrong, so I'm a horrible liar and have screwed myself over in many cases because I felt compelled to “do the right thing.”

7)Some quality about myself apparently causes people who've only just met me to confide deep personal secrets, even before I sprouted whiskers. One young girl once told me about being raped by her babysitter and how she forced herself to miscarry by abusing her body.


8)In 2002 I lived in France for six months and attended the Cours de la civilisation francaise de la Sorbonne. When I first arrived and was doing intensive language study in Nice, I went out with two girls I knew and wound up at a club by the harbor with a group of Moroccans. I brought up the subject of marijuana and this snowballed into a nearly deadly misunderstanding. The drunkest of the Moroccans got it into his head that I was a pimp and the two girls were my prostitutes. He wanted me trade them for the evening in exchange for drugs. It turned out he was in the mafia, and he threatened to send all his soldiers after me. He had a pistol and was talking about killing me, and the two girls were dancing and unaware of this spiral of developments. I managed to get their attention and eventually we all got out of there due to what I can only describe as divine intervention. For the rest of my time in Nice I carried a nail in my wallet and grew eyes in the back of my head.

9) When Jeff wrote a blog post dealing with Tulpas, I had a discussion with my parents and learned that as I child I had two imaginary friends. One of them was named “My green boy.” This seems very significant to me but I have no recollection of it and I have yet to make any real progress towards understanding what it means.

10)There was a park and a creek near where I grew up where my friends and I always played. Every summer we built a fort and then made traps to protect it. We dug pitfalls with sharpened sticks and used fishing line to set up tripwires that triggered buckets of rocks to fall or sent more wooden shanks flying. I wonder if there are any individuals walking around today who were maimed by one of our traps.
"When I'm done ranting about elite power that rules the planet under a totalitarian government that uses the media in order to keep people stupid, my throat gets parched. That's why I drink Orange Drink!"
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Postby freemason9 » Mon Aug 25, 2008 12:47 pm

I'd just finished my ten things, but realized--after it was too late--that I wasn't logged in. When I tried to post, the form gave me a login screen; after I logged in, my post was lost.

Oh, well . . . it was really only of interest to myself, anyway. I'm certain ya'll can live without it.
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Postby compared2what? » Mon Aug 25, 2008 1:41 pm

freemason9 wrote:I'd just finished my ten things, but realized--after it was too late--that I wasn't logged in. When I tried to post, the form gave me a login screen; after I logged in, my post was lost.

Oh, well . . . it was really only of interest to myself, anyway. I'm certain ya'll can live without it.


For the record, I'm interested. And also deeply sympathetic. In my experience, the feeling that accompanies the dawning realization that the work one has put into honestly expressing oneself has vanished to someplace from which it can't be recovered is a pure, lucid and unrelieved hell every time it happens. Though usually transient, thank [whatever or whomever is responsible].

Anyway. My condolences for your loss,

c2w
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Postby Penguin » Mon Aug 25, 2008 2:22 pm

1) When I was maybe 6 years old, I was visiting my grandmother with my brother. We were playing, and one moment, my brother and I were standing next to a mirror, and I was making funny faces. All of a sudden I got a very strong deja vu-feeling - I can still remember us standing next to the mirror like it was yesterday. Later we have talked about this with my brother, 3 at the time - and he also remembers this and more- he had dreamt about that very moment the night before, and thats why I also got the dejavu (understanding that something weird just happened, maybe myself also having seen that dream). We both agree that we had seen that beforehand in a dream. This is my earliest non-conforming experience.

2) On the very first day of school, I remember thinking to myself: "This is insane! They demand that I spend the next 11 years here?" Theyre teaching me things I already know!! (I could read and do maths before school, read piles of books at 6) "Ill promise myself I will never study another day when Im 16" - Today, Im in the university, but still feel the same way I did back then...

3) My uncle, who died when he was 7 years old, looks just like me in all the pictures there are of him - and even as a child, I felt he was me.

4) After my grandmother died, she called me three times on the phone at night (in a dream - a lucid dream) - and talked with me about everything - how I was doing, and so on. I felt she was saying goodbye to me. All three times happened within a couple weeks of her death.

5) When I was around 16-17, I had a mystical experience while walking in my hometown. I had been reading about string theory in the local library, and was walking home. At that time I had never done any psychedelics, tobacco or alcohol. While walking home, all of a sudden time stopped, I stopped existing, and my consciousness instantly spread out o encompass EVERYTHING. Everything. "I" did not exist, "I" was all. There was no form, just light and "everything". It probably lasted just a few seconds in real time - felt like eternity in between two steps.

This alone wasnt so much - but a little later (months) I was with a girl I had a crush on. She rode horses, and I was visiting the stables. We were standing outside, talking ... When out of the blue, the same experience befalls me again - and at the very exact moment I cease to exist, she looks up at me and says "Im sorry, but you dont exist". When she says that, a surge of energy coarses from the base of my spine, to the top of my head, and thru it.

After this - Ive had one other experience with this same girl, years later...I hadnt seen her in over 2 years, nor heard of her. I was at home, spacing out - when like a lightning strike, I think of her, and I think "I GOTTA call her NOW", grab my phone, look up her number, and wonder if shes still got the same number, and dial.

She answers, yelling into the phone - "Youll never believe it! DAMN what just happened!" Then she explains that shes been cleaning up in her place, and she just found a cassette Id recorded years earlier, with handmade covers by me, and started thinking about how Im doing...And at that exact moment, when she has just put the cassette on, I get the NEED to call her and do so :D

6) When I was very young, I often wondered what a humans soul looks like, and where it is. I imagined a small, maybe 2 cm, long fleshy-wormy looking thing, thats inside us, thats our conscience and soul - and if you dont take care of it and nourish it, you will lose your soul and conscience :)

7) I have always wanted to smoke cannabis, as far back as I can remember - at least since I was 12. I dont know why - its not so common here. When I smoked for the first time (16) - I had the biggest revelations of my life so far at that point - out of body, up into the exosphere, seeing the energies of humans shoot up like pillars of light, and form a sphere around Earth - like all other living species... No wonder I found Rupperts Morphologic field theory so palatable... One of the first smokes, I also had to stop eating meat after what the herb told me. Im convinced that Ive made a pact with the plant in some previous life - and in this too: I made a pact to grow hemp everywhere I can, as long as I live, in exchange for the wisdom she parts to me.

8) I was always picked on in school - I was fat, I didnt curse, I didnt listen to the music the other kids listened to.
As a result - Ive never been one to go with the crowd, actually Ive always been repulsed by people who just do something , because the others do it. I always tried to find a reason other kids picked on me - I never could come up with any, besided them wanting to please other kids - the ones who were in a "position of power" in the classroom.

9) Books, fantasy worlds, poetry, music and role playing games have been absolutely essential to my childhood. With role play, you could be anyone, anything, and act it out with your friends. When I read Lord of the rings for the first time, I cried when it ended, and spent the next few days still mentally immersed in the world of the story.

10) I know for a fact that the "sixth sense" is real, and works. I dont know how I know it, or how I use it, but I know, verifiably, that Ive received information about reality thru some channel that is in every human, but which we dont generally recognize or understand. Telepathy is real, remote viewing is real, visions are real.
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Postby freemason9 » Mon Aug 25, 2008 10:11 pm

Compared2, you motivated me. Ergo, my exercise:

(1) I sense that I am not like most on this board. I've never had anything exceptionally odd happen to me; I've never seen a ghost, a UFO, bigfoot, black helicopters, or alien implants. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they all exist, though, because I believe human consciousness drives reality.

(2) My family was poor. Mom and dad struggled to reach the level of middle class; they nearly did, but dad died of a heart attack whilst in the vegetable garden. He was about five years shy of retiring from his job at a non-union steel fabrication plant. He and mom were already planning for their retirement years, and they were still deeply in love after forty years of marriage. Mom remained heartbroken for her remaining two decades of life. In her later years, when she suffered from dementia, she saw her late husband beside her nearly every morning.

I miss dad, and I am now fifty-two years of age. My last image of him was lying in the garden as my older brother was administering CPR. My father had urinated himself; I knew he was gone at that point.

(3) I got really drunk at fourteen years of age, riding in the backseat of a Vega on the way to see the OU-NU game in Oklahoma in 1970. It turned out to be the Game of the Century. My brother drove; he was back on leave from the marine corps. Soon after, he was shipped off to Vietnam as a corpsman.

(4) My oldest daughter is 28, and my younger daughter is 16. The oldest has already established herself professionally with a good humanitarian organization, and her husband is in med school. My younger daughter is a fine, tall, athletic girl, but she struggles academically. She can't play volleyball when she is on academic probation, and I won't let her try out again until her grades are better. I blame myself, because she is the child of divorce. She is in my custody, and I love her dearly.

(5) I remarried to a beautiful, spiritually-inclined woman about nine years ago. To this day, she makes my pulse quicken. We make love frequently and hang out together; she is the common sense in our marriage, whereas I am the risk taker. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever met.

(6) I am the first in my family to receive a college degree, and that didn't happen until I was forty years old. Got two degrees, actually; one in business management, and the other in economic development. I wasn't all that interested in either, but they were available at the nearby college, and I needed something that would pay off quickly. And, over time, I actually developed an interest in economics.

(7) I have written two novels, neither of which are published. I had an agent for the first one, but he pissed me off by insisting that I cut the length of my first one in half. I fired him. That was probably the dumbest thing I've done in the last five years. Now I'm searching for another literary agent while writing my third novel.

(8) I was an amazing defensive end in my senior year. I still love football, and play it whenever anyone allows me in the game.

(9) I have never done hulluconagens because I don't want to yield to them. Lots of pot, speed, alcohol, and pharmaceuticals in my youth; I was a hippie, or so I thought. When I was quite young--ten or eleven, I suppose--I had a friend in the neighborhood that had access to his dad's stock of liquor (it was stored in the basement of his store, so my friend would crawl in through the basement window after dark). We used to get drunk (along with three or four of our peers) on brandy in the residential streets right outside our homes. I still remember stumbling around under the streetlights. It was a small rural community; our parents never found out, and I think the whole community knew nothing about it.

(10) I am an excellent stone mason, although that is not my trade. It is my pastime. My next project is construction of a suitably private spot outside for a hottub. I rather enjoy seeing my wife in the nude, and I intend to provide ample opportunities for that.

Like some megalomanic in the other forum, I used to believe I was unique and nearly immortal. Now I realize that I don't want earthly immortality, and that my feelings of uniqueness are not so special. I am a Freemason; I am a poor widow's son.

Thanks for your time.
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Postby jingofever » Mon Aug 25, 2008 11:10 pm

freemason9 wrote:I am a Freemason; I am a poor widow's son.


"Will no one help the widow's son?"
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Postby freemason9 » Mon Aug 25, 2008 11:17 pm

jingofever wrote:
freemason9 wrote:I am a Freemason; I am a poor widow's son.


"Will no one help the widow's son?"


Indeed.
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Postby barracuda » Tue Aug 26, 2008 12:59 am

Well done, freemason9. I had worried that you wouldn't recoup. I used to love those Vegas by the way. Mine was a silver '72 with an aluminum block and was one of the funnest cars I ever owned.
The most dangerous traps are the ones you set for yourself. - Phillip Marlowe
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Postby freemason9 » Thu Aug 28, 2008 11:31 pm

barracuda wrote:Well done, freemason9. I had worried that you wouldn't recoup. I used to love those Vegas by the way. Mine was a silver '72 with an aluminum block and was one of the funnest cars I ever owned.


Those were fun cars, Barracuda--I have to agree. A couple of years later, my brother let me drive it from time to time. Rode low, quick acceleration, nice 4-speed manual transmission, sky blue in color. Listened to Santana on 8-track.

Unfortunately, I think that soft aluminum block shelled out fast--they were only good for about 60,000 miles, as I recall.
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Postby FourthBase » Fri Oct 03, 2008 3:50 pm

We have descended, Now I find myself waiting on the second part of the prophecy.


Hey OP ED, how's the second part coming along so far?
“Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight,
that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.” - Bill Russell
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Postby OP ED » Fri Oct 03, 2008 5:58 pm

depends on who you ask.

if you're asking me, despite appearances, i'm actually quite optimistic about our chances. we're a very dangerous species, after all.

I think the term the communists use is "inevitable".
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