March 15, 2004

• but not a very good title. Geez, sorry.
• With so many things happening in an average day, things like this are bound to happen sometime. For instance - in light of all the people in the world locking themselves out each day (I was one of them only last week!), the story about the woman who was mailed her spare key in the nick of time seems neat, but for the author to say that somehow "greater forces are at work" seems pretty forced.
• In order for me to enjoy this book, I would really need it to be very well documented. Too many of these items seem uncorroborated, and I wonder how many entries might show up as fake at Snopes. Then there's: IN 1946 Mildred West, an obituary writer on New York's Alton Evening Telegraph, took a week's holiday. During her absence, and for the first time in the newspaper's history, there were no deaths recorded in Alton (pop 32,000). Normally they average 10 a week. To sum up: The obituary writer for the newspaper takes a week's holiday. During that time, no deaths were recorded. My first thought is, "Duh." But let's presume that they meant that the governmental agencies responsible for keeping track of such thing say that nobody died that week. In which case, I start wondering if perhaps the Coroner were in collusion with the obituary writer ("Could you hold off on reporting deaths while I'm away"), or perhaps was married to the obituary writer, and thus went on the same vacation. If the book has more in-depth entries than are listed on the linked article, then I might enjoy the book, but if the book is just quick paragraphs like that, I'd end up going "Fake, fake, coincidence, fake, collusion, only makes sense that it would happen that way, fake, fake." But perhaps I'm just cynical.
• Life is too complicated for there not to be continual coincidences, and we just have to come to terms with the fact that they merely happen and aren't ordained, that some things occur for no real reason whatsoever, and that this is not punishment and that is not a reward. good grief; the most copper-bottomed, platinum-card proof of divine intervention, of somy holy master-plan would be if there were no coincidences at all! That really would look suspicious. Iain M. Banks, Piece
• So two of my father's college buddies moved, unbeknowst to one another, to Patterson, NJ. After several years of unknowingly living just a scant few blocks from one another, they finally ran into eachother on the street -- while on vacation in Rome, Italy. That said, I agree with Sandspider. Sounds like Snopes fodder to me.
• The spelling mistakes in that quote above are mine, by the way...
• ok then, these might be fake or exaggerated. so, you got any interesting or fun coincidences from your own life that you can share? i assume that you can trust if it happened to you it's true, and not made up. i can think of one or two that are related to my own family, but they generally fall in the "amusing or slightly odd coincidence" category, not the "holy crap, how'd that happen?" category.
• on preview - rafter beat me to it with the personal story. darn. i've run into friends and family several hours from home, but never overseas...
• Nothing good. A friend of mine's parents apparently live down the street from Sluggy Freelance creator, Pete Abrams. Which is nice if I need a convenient base of operations for stalking purposes, but not all that exciting in and of itself.
• i've run into friends and family several hours from home, but never overseas... Holy SHIT, clf! Me too!
• coincidence?
• that's uncanny, unusual. UNCANNY. you don't, by any chance, occasionally enter a room you've never been into before, and get the distinct feeling that you have indeed been there before, do you? 'cause that would be beyond belief! the very same thing has happened to me! ps: your tag is really kind of hard to work into a reply, ya know...
• I once bumped into my next door neighbours on holiday in Martha's Vineyard.
• A GOLFER watched his perfect drive collide mid-flight with a ball hit by another player from the opposite direction. There's surely a limit to how perfect these drives can have been, given one of the players was presumably going in the wrong direction... (Don't like golf, may have misunderstood layout of certain courses, don't really care to be brutally honest...) I always remember Richard Feynman's story of the spooky coincidence whereby his wife's clock stopped at the precise time of her death - and his explanation of it.
• Coincidence? I think not...
• A GOLFER watched his perfect drive collide mid-flight with a ball hit by another player from the opposite direction. Astounded by the coincidence, both players met and introduced themselves - they were both called Kevin O'Brien.>/i> ...or maybe he was playing against a big mirror.
• *rim shot*
• Most of those really seemed fake. I'm too skeptical for my own good, I suppose. That said, while I don't believe in anything that would cause coincidences, other than karma, I find them interesting and have had lots in my life. Best examples are probably the summer I spent in Ireland. At one hostel in Cork, I met a girl who went to the other university in my town, and had her locker next to the one guy I knew going to that school; and I also met a girl at the same hostel who had done her practice teaching at the school right behind my grandma's house. I also find, however, that I usually pick up on coincidences more when I'm looking for them. A few weeks ago, I was discussing a random point of law with my husband, and then the next day at a lecture I went to, the speaker brought that very point up. For the next week, all I could see were coincidences and links and whatnot. But my mind was really attuned to them at that point, since I find it kind of cool and creepy.
• I had a great coincidence on Halloween. I was at a party where I didn't really know too many people other than the hostess. I got to talking to one of the other guests and we hit it off, and kept talking and eventually she mentioned where she went to college. I said, 'hey, i went there. when did you graduate?' it was the year before me. She asked what I majored in, i said "film", she said "do you know the Smiths?". I said, "I am a Smith" (my brother and sister had gone there as well). and it turns out she was not only great friends with my sister, but the cousin of the woman who had invited me to the party. And this was in LA, many thousands of miles from college.
• An Irish immigrant walks into my local bar and after some time, notices another man there, sitting across the bar from me, whom he thinks just *has* to be a fellow Irishman. So he sidles over to the man and says, "Hey there, you, you don't look like you were born around here. No offense or rudeness meant, but where are you from?" The man already at the bar says, "I was born 'pon the Emerald Isle, my friend." "Oh really? I'm an Irishman m'self! Where in Ireland were you born?" "Over on the west side of Dublin." "Such a coincidence! I'm from West Dublin too! What church did you go to, my friend?" "St. Mary of Sorrows, over on Alder Street." "No way! That's the very same place where I went!" Anyway, this goes on for awhile, the two of them thumping each other on the back and buying drinks for each other. Noticing all of this, I turn and whisper to the bartender, "That's incredible!" "Not really," the bartender sighs. "The O'Malley twins are just drunk again." Sorry. I couldn't resist.
• I didn't think about my own, but back in the mid 80's my parents lived in San Diego. I went out to see them for a few days and decided to go visit some bars. After visiting several bars, I was stumbling back to their house in the middle of the night, cutting through alleys, generally getting lost when I heard someone call my name. I shook it off to drunkenness and kept on. Heard it again. Turned around and it was the president of the student council from when I went to high school. Not so strange, but I went to high school in Houston. 4 in the morning, back alley of San Diego. Pretty cool.
• Went overseas to Turkey for two years as better half had accepted a civil service position working at Incirlik AFB. Took a brand new Isuzu SUV with us and drove all over downtown Adana and elsewhere. Ya gotta realize, Turkish drivers are from HELL. And the husband could out-Turk the Turks in holding his own. I was sure that SUV was gonna be toast before we left or we were gonna die. Guess where I wrecked it? ON the base in a 15mph zone. Some idiot in a huge tanker truck missed his turn and proceeded to BACK into me as I was pounding on the horn--I couldn't back up as the Turkish Commander's car was directly behind me--no WAY am I gonna back up and hit THAT fella's car! And the idiot GI proceeds to DRIVE OFF! (He probably never felt it, and couldn't hear over the blare of the radio and his gum snapping.) The Commander's security escort corrals him within 200 yards of the scene, and it turns out that he's some 18 year old doofus from Mountain Home AFB, Idaho. Mountain Home, my old home town. First Idahoan I had met since I'd been there. Didn't say one word to me, not even "Sorry lady." The accident report showed he had the same name as my husband, same birthday as my oldest son, same birthplace as my Dad. Go figger. Now is that weird, or just a PITA?
• Reminds me of the article that ran in a major paper in the aftermath of 9/11, noting the suspicious coincidence of many biological weapons researchers dying all over the world during a 6 month period. Made the rounds on all sorts of web sites. Conspiracy types loved it. Finally another reporter looked into it, tracking down info on all the scientists, talking to math prof's about the odds. Turned out the actuarial odds were very low on all the deaths, and the scientists weren't studying similar areas at all. I remember one death in particular, a scientist who fell off a bridge in the middle of the night, that sounded quite suspicious in the original. When it was double-checked, IIRC, it turned out he'd been drinking, people commonly stopped on that bridge at night to admire the view, and drunk people were also often falling off it or getting hit by passing cars. As Flashboy indicated, it's usually all in knowing the details.
• I liked the ones where somebody dies, which was like almost all of 'em.
• Once? I posted this link to monkeyfilter? And it was like A DOUBLE POST? But no one noticed. True story.
• coincidence: i lost a small totem when my chain broke. i looked everywhere for it; it had strong personal signfigance for me from when i was a little. it's gone. i move. twice. in passing conversation about jewelry, said totem comes up. one of my new neighbors has something just like it. it had been given to her by her boyfriend. a pizza delivery guy who had found it, on the steps of my old place. she was kind enough to return it to me. she couldn't believe it, and i try not to think about it to much.