A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness. - Miller, Repo Man (1984)



I was just in the process of putting this post together. I was trying to think of a suitable theme pic. The thought came to mind to use Billy Bragg, because of this song - Milkman of Human Kindness. At that point, on the soundtrack of the comedy short I was watching came Billy Bragg. Given his last album was 2002, it's not that common for him to crop up these days.

Struck me as a coincidence of some merit and no consequence. As the man said, a plate o' shrimp.

Anyone else got any coincidences to share?

This happens to me all the time but of course (when put on the spot) I can't think of a single instance. I'll get back to you on this.

I was going to answer with just about the same exact answer as dolly...which I guess is a weird instance in and of itself.

Neat trick when you can pull it off.



BTW Repo Man rocks

I went to a concert today, and Ashley Tisdale was supposed to show up. We weren't all that excited to see her, and she ended up not showing up to the concert.

Unfortunately this didn't happen to me, but it DID happen to my father. It is one of the greatest coincidences I have ever heard of. I can swear that to the best of my knowledge, this is 100% true as I heard about not an hour after it happened, and it is talked about in my family on a semi-regular basis.

My father was driving in downtown Atlanta scanning through channels on his radio trying to find a good station while stopped at a red light. He tuned into a local station right in the middle of a news broadcast. Lo and behold, the news announcer was his niece (my cousin) who had just recently moved to Atlanta and gotten a job at a radio station. My father looks up at the building on his left and reads the name of the company that owned the building just exactly at the same time as my cousin says the name of the same company in her news cast.

Nothing I have ever seen or heard has topped that one for me, and that was 20 years ago.

i was in class in 7th grade and we were watching Brother Bear.

well me and my friends were talking, not paying any attention to the movie. i forgot what we were doing or talking about but i said to my friend are you nervous? and a split second later, it says it on the movie.

it was like,

ME: are you nervous?
MOVIE: are you nervous?
ME and my FRIENDS: OMFG. WTF HAHAHA

it was soo funny.

Once I told someone I was going to kill him. He died right there on the spot. That freaked me out.

Here is a real one... I was going to use the Go to Bed Thread again soon. Someone else did tonight.
(play dramatic music now)

I just watched Repo Man for the bazillionth time last night.

Miller the bum of infinite wisdom is THE best character.

Same.
It's usually a word people hardly use, or a phrase that pretty much noone uses anymore.

I once saw a pretty girl riding a horse in a field, and the guy I liked at the time was watching her, and I kept saying to myself "I hope she falls off that horse and gets hurt so bad she has to go to the hospital" [Yea, I know, it's mean, but this was years ago.] I s**t you not, 2 minutes later, she falls off the horse, breaks her leg in two different places, and has to get picked up by an ambulance and taken off to the hospital.

..I felt so powerful.

Happens a lot in our house, we will be humming a tune and it will come on the next advert etc.

The strangest one was when we were out driving one day with MIL in the car and an old lady was walking very slowly across the road and MIL said "100 points for hitting her". We laughed about it as we usually do but it kinda stuck in my head that it was a really strange thing to say and why do people say it.

A little bit of interweb research later, I discovered it's from the old movie Deathrace 2000.

Now at this time I had never even heard of the movie, but figured it would be worth a look. Amazon and Ebay beckoned but I couldn't find it at a price I wanted to pay for a 30 year old movie I had never seen. Eventually after searching long and hard I found it for 5 inc. p&p and bought it.

Didn't turn up after 2 weeks so I called the guy and he apologised and said that the disc was scratched and couldn't send it and would refund my money. Fair enough.

While I was on the Phone to him I happened to turn to the TV and see an advert for Deathrace 2000 showing on that channel at 9 pm that night.

Edit - I downloaded Skype yesterday with the intention of starting a Skype related thread. I just found this

I often have songs playing in my head, sometimes I sing them aloud; and shortly after I flip on the radio and that song is playing. I tell people that I have a radio in my head all the time.

I just looked over at my video camera, and remembered the story behind it.
One day me and my mother were at the "Market of Marion" It's a flea market in town.
We were walking in right when the auctioneer was holding up a camcorder. [I had been begging my mom for a camcorder for almost a year, since it was around xmas time, I decided to beg for it.]
She eventually said yes, bid, won at $130. We got home, tried to make it work, there was a video stuck in it that we couldn't get out. I tried for hours, couldn't figure the damn thing out. The next day I try to give it a go again, it works! So I figure out how to play the tape inside, and watch it.
It's of a man in his twenties and his mother in New York at Ellis Island. Looking on the wall of immigrants at the last name "Guinen". My last name. They looked at "Timothy Guinen" and said "There goes grandpa Timmy!". I already knew my family history and knew my great uncle or whatever was named Timothy Guinen came through ellis island. So I flip out! Brief history of the name, back in Ireland, some great whatever had a falling out with another one of my great whatevers, it was two brothers I remember that, and he changed his last name from GuinAn to GuinEn. So there are very few of us with the last name GuinEn. If you have the E, you're family to me basically. Well, out of shock I call my parents in, they watch it, they're in shock. We've never seen these people before, and had no way of getting in touch with them, they only called eachother son and mom. Didn't use first names, and the auction takes donated stuff and sells it, so they had no history information for us. These people are from Jersey we know [they said it in the tape] and we've been searching, but still can't find them. It's just too much of a coincidence to brush off. We've never met another GuinEn, not even a GuinAn for that matter, that we didn't already know as family. I love telling the story because it gives me goosebumps, we ALMOST didn't get the camera, I begged my ass off, mom almost gave up, she said her cut off was $130, and that just happened to be what the other person didn't want to pay for it. If we would have made it there 1 minute later, we never would have gotten it.

Holy Sh!t.

I was working today and Plime was quiet, as was work, so in my boredom I resorted to googling Plimers names.

Googled xiatethebish and most of the entries were from Plime but one stood out; A geneology website with the history of the Guinan/Guinen family name.

Spooky or what.

Scott Adams talks about this in the book God's Debris. It's an excellent book, and I recommend that all you Plimates out there read it.

Lol, well atleast you know I'm not lying.

Alright, this one is kind of odd, but it happened to me a year ago. No one ever believes me when I tell it, so I'll understand if you call me a liar. Anyway here it is.

I was driving home from work late at night. I kept glancing at the gas gauge because it was near to empty and I didn't want to get stranded in the projects area that I go through on my daily commute. If the car dies before or after then I'm fine, but if it breaks down there, there's a good chance I'll never make it home.

Anyway, a thousand thoughts run through my head. The last of which was my car sputtering to a halt as the last few fumes left the engine. In this fantasy I got out of the car and cursed a bit, finally kicking the side of the car in frustration. My outrage brings about the attention of several thugs in the projects who were smoking crack or whatever just waiting for some white guy in a tie (I have to wear a tie to work, which only lessens my chance of survival should I break down in the PJs) to come along so they could mug and murder him. They start talking tough-guy like and threaten me. One of them says he's going to kill me, but just as he draws the gun a ninja-cow in a super-hero outfit comes out of nowhere and kicks their asses. "Moo-yaaaaa!" it yells as it performs roundhouse hind-leg kicks and savate udder-chops. Super Ninja Cow saves my life and he helps me push my car to the nearest gas station (on the other side of town) where I fill up my tank.

Not a moment after I laughed at this, my car stopped running, choked out the last few fumes of gas and sputtered to a halt. I got out and cussed a bit, pounded my fists upon the hood a few times, and finally kicked the side of the car. I screamed to the heavens about how unfair it was that there wasn't a single gas station between work and home.

Unfortunately this drew the attention of a local street gang who had just got finished smoking crack and mentioned that they had been waiting for a white guy in a tie to break down so they could mug and kill him. They taunted me for a while until one of them said flat out that he was going to shoot me; he started to reach for his gun when a resounding "Mooooooooo-yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" came from behind him. He turned around as Super Ninja Cow dropped his friends one by one.

Then they guy shot the gun three times, plugging Super Ninja Cow with three bullets. During this, I snuck up behind the gang member and clobbered him into uncounciousness.

Unfortunately, Super Ninja Cow perished that night. I walked myself to the gas station and got a ride back to the car where I filled up the tank.

Not wanting Super Ninja Cow's life to be wasted, we took him to my cousin the butcher, who cut him up into steaks and burger meat.

Now everytime I bite into a burger a tear rolls from my eye.

Mooooo-ya, Super Ninja Cow. Moooo-ya.

This happens to me every day. I now look for it.

Whatever I think about in the morning, usually in the shower, will somehow relate to something later in the day.

For example, the other day I was thinking about Ninja Turtles. Then at work that afternoon, someone found a little Ninja Turtle action figure.

Honestly, it happens every single day and has for years. I love it; it keeps things interesting.

Edit: I've told you all about the time when I had told my mom for years that I would be the passenger of my own car when it was hit by a white semi and then it happened. I haven't told you about dreaming with someone and then they talking to me about it the next day... It freaks me out.

Saw it for the first time on Friday.

Ok I've collected myself. This is about my car, my old car that I won't get rid of, in a way.

It's an '85 Cutlass Supreme nicknamed the Black Mariah for it's color and speed. The car was a charm from the start but I didn't know it. When I first meet the car it's 1991.

My ex-BIL called from the car lot he worked at to tell ex-hub and I about it. We drove out to look, took a test drive. During the test drive I break a nail and hubby drops a cigarette and burns the carpet a bit. We decide not to buy the car and leave. The next morning I wake up and I know we have to buy this car. I wake up hub and we go off to buy the car. This is the best car I ever have owned. No matter what, this car starts up. It does this for [over] 10 years.

Fast forward to 2001. Hubby and I have split. I have problems making the mortgage payments and I'm going to lose my house. I have been looking for apartments but it's dismal and I don't want to have to move. On my way to work the car breaks down. Just stops for no reason about a mile from my house on a convenient block and a cop is right there. I get the tow company out to bring the car to the shop and the cops drive me home. First time ever the car breaks down.

Upon arriving home I flip on the TV (not much else to do) and an advert or PSA comes on that says "If you're in trouble and about to lose your house and it's funded by the VA call this number, don't lose your house". Well, my house is funded by the VA, so I call.

Long and short of it...the VA had a workout plan that I'd not been aware of and I never would have known about if the car hadn't broken down.

The mechanic couldn't find anything specific wrong with the car. It ran for another 3 years until I retired it.

I cannot bear to part with the car. It isn't running anymore (but would with a little incentive) but I had it towed to my new house from NJ and have it covered. I hope to eventually restore it but I refuse to let it be "parted out".
I love the Black Mariah.