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Off-Topic -- the Coincidences Discussion - 2016
Friday I was driving home from work and this question popped into my head: How come I never hear about Zima anymore? I finally decided that I was no longer in college and that probably accounted for why I rarely hear about, or discuss, any alcoholic beverage these days. But just now I was listening to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me on NPR, and they started talking about Zima. Apparently it's been taken off the market. So, hey, question answered.
I didn't even remember that stuff until I looked it up, and now I have a vague memory of it. I think I liked it okay, but beer was better.
I never tried it. I have no clue on this planet why it would ever cross my mind.
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Well, this was weird. My dog was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in the joint of his front leg several years ago. This vet retired recently and today I took my dog to a new vet due to the fact my dog was having increasing difficulty walking. The new vet didnt think it was cancer at all and could be removed. Now here's the coincidence...one of the categories on Jeopardy today is called "its not a tumor". Wow!
I was reading an article on the Freddie Gray case and learned for the first time that of the 6 police charged in his death, one is named Caesar and another is named Nero. I can't wait to hear the names of the other 4.
Several coincidences yesterday and today. One I'm going to post in the author of the month discussion. The other two took place on our trip to Sioux City Iowa yesterday for a graduation. We were driving down the road when I saw a sign the said Daughtry on it. Just the one word, nothing else. Have no idea what it means. The group Daughtry was on the radio when I saw it. The second thing that happened was when we got to the graduation at my son's house my other son looked across the back yard where there was a gas station and several other businesses, one that was a Mexican restaurant. This was the first time any of us had been to my older son's house. My younger son looked at the gas station and said this looks familiar, is there a Mexican restaurant across the street from that gas station. Older son said yes. My younger son couldnt believe it. He had been there a year ago with a friend and didnt even know he was a block from his brother's house. Of course he got kidded about not calling his brother while in town.
This one hit me right between the eyes. I was walking downstairs and on the landing saw this book my dad was always telling me to read, My Name is Mary: A Memoir by Mary Fisher. I said to myself, I really have to get to that one of these days. So I got to the kitchen, started washing the dishes and turned on the radio -- and the first word I heard was "Fisher." They turned out to be talking about the same Mary Fisher, and even mentioned a relative of hers I happened to go to high school with.
You'll notice I posted a GG Allin gif on the discussion for those, and because I found some stuff on that loathsome individual he has been on my mind all day. Well, I got home from running errands, logged on and learned that my friend's husband just died today. She mentioned that his date of birth is 40 years to the day before GG died -- June 28th, 1953.
I was sitting in a parking lot downtown waiting for a friend who I was meeting for dinner, listening to the radio. There was an item on about the problem of train noise in some of the local cities and discussions about what to do about it. Unfortunately, the rest of the section was drowned out by the Burlington-Northern that came by 100 feet from where I was parked...
LOL!Justice Earl Warren's name kept coming up again and again when I recently read The Two Assassins. I mean, obviously, that's his name on the cover of the Warren Report. He also got mentioned repeatedly in the one I just finished, Ungodly: The Passions, Torments, and Murder of Atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair; he was one of the Supreme Court justices who heard the prayer-in-schools case.
Well, I'm a little ways into Beyond the Body Farm: A Legendary Bone Detective Explores Murders, Mysteries, and the Revolution in Forensic Science, and one of the first names Bill Bass mentions is a colleague named Earl Warren.
He also has a student in here named Bruce Wayne, but that's neither here nor there...
Minutes after I talked about someone who named her son "Meeko" after a name she found in a manga, I logged on at Pinterest and up popped a photo of a blue parakeet, labeled "Meeko."
Two days ago, I was flipping through The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars: Heroin, Handguns, and Ham Sandwiches and with great interest re-read the story of Joe Meek, vowing again to read a whole book about him, and added another photo of him to a Pinterest file on criminals. The next day, reading farther in Dead Men Do Tell Tales: The Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist, I found a guy in one of the chapters who was also named Joe Meek. Then, realizing I had missed my seasonal Father's Day movie viewing, I got out the only movie I had about a scary father, FRAILTY. I haven't seen it in years and had totally forgotten that the scary father and his two scary sons were named Meeks.
I was streaming Pandora on my TV for background music ('Adult Alternative') and also browsing the internet. I put the radio on mute for a minute so I could hear a newscast on the computer. When I looked up, the song that was playing (muted) on Pandora was called 'Enjoy the Silence'!
Addition to the Meek coincidence above: In the back of the book I read this week, Swift Runner, there was a list of people in Canada who "went Windigo" and ate, or tried to eat, someone. One of them was named David Meekis.
I was just Googling for images related to Alan Canty's murder -- a Detroit classic -- and that led me to click, out of curiosity, on a photo of Bernie Goetz, because I realized I had no idea of the date when that happened or who died. Somewhat to my surprise, I learned that one of the guys he shot was named Canty, and it was the look on that particular guy's face that scared him enough to make him pull out a gun in the first place. In a related coincidence, this happened on the same the day the daughter of a guy I went to high school with was murdered -- December 22nd. That killing is also rapidly becoming a Detroit classic.
Two books going at one time. Some People Are Dead: Part Essay, Part Memoir, Parts Unknown and Invisible Killer: The Monster Behind the Mask. Strangely enough, both books mention the song Joy To The World by Three Dog Night.
The theme of the week: Pike!
I found out about a book from the Jaws ripoff era, called The Pike. I immediately sent for it, having learned that Joan Collins was all set up to star in a movie based on it, but they never released it.
Well, people have been mentioning pike to me all week. I just got out of a therapy session an hour ago that mentioned pike, and I was approached by a client I haven't seen in a couple of years who wanted to show me a photo of himself with an enormous pike he'd caught on a fishing trip. The whole week has been like that.
Oh, here's Joan with her would-be costar:
I was browsing geocaching.com and looking for caches near me when I moused over one that popped up with the name "Mix CD Exchange". At that VERY second, someone on the show I was listening to on TV (Scrubs, Season 9, Episode 1) said the words "Mix CD". It was pretty weird.
K.A. wrote: "I was browsing geocaching.com and looking for caches near me when I moused over one that popped up with the name "Mix CD Exchange". At that VERY second, someone on the show I was listening to on TV..."When you think how many words are being simultaneously broadcast all over the world, and how many different topics are being mentioned in those broadcasts, that is really bucking the odds.
Yeah, this was one of my better coincidences. Do you think I should make a mix CD?
Maybe you better start now. I just got an e-mail titled: "B Fest 2017 mix discs."
I was looking at OTIS (Offender Tracking Information System) just now for any sign of Jamar Pinckney Sr. I'm amazed to see that there was no sign of him in the prison system, even though he got convicted of manslaughter a very short time ago. Then, out of curiosity, I looked up good old Nate Abraham. I was surprised to learn that his middle name is apparently Jamar.Nate, as he appeared on the day he was released from the reform school where I was working at the time:
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Shows me her ID, same birthdate.
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I was at the diner eating breakfast, watching in horror as they described the Cote D'Azur semi truck massacre on Bastille Day. When they went to commercial I noticed that the song playing over the PA was by Edwin Starr:"War! What is it good for? Absolutely nuthin'!
It's nothing but a heartbreaker
Friend only to the undertaker..."
And the undertakers in Nice are going to be pretty busy this week...
Lady♥Belleza★✰ wrote: "I was at a ball game last night and bought a beer. The lady asked for my ID, looks at it and says: "Oh WOW!"Shows me her ID, same birthdate."
Same year?
I'm reading Abandoned Prayers: The Incredible True Story of Murder, Obsession and Amish Secrets for the first time in twenty or so years -- there's a lot in here I never remembered. One of the murder victims, Glen Pritchett, shares my birthday. And when I was entering his deathday in the Book of the Dead, I discovered that he died on the same day as the victim in the last TC I read -- Charles Bravo.
You know, I found another coincidence in the same book. The last thing I did at work this week was talk to a respite worker to set up a meeting. And then I find in Abandoned Prayers: The Incredible True Story of Murder, Obsession and Amish Secrets that the killer may have killed a guy by the same name.
Fishface wrote: "You know, I found another coincidence in the same book. The last thing I did at work this week was talk to a respite worker to set up a meeting. And then I find in [book:Abandoned Prayers: The Incr..."Wow! That is certainly a coincidence.
This one made my hair stand on end. Reading A Killing In Amish Country by Gregg Olsen. I had an old movie on at the same time and was half watching it and reading. It was Jesus Christ Superstar. One of the last lines in the movie is Father forgive them for they do not know what they have done. A few minutes later I read a quote from the murdered womens diary: "I often think of Christ's words, "Forgive him, for he knows not what he does".
Koren wrote: "Two books going at one time. Some People Are Dead: Part Essay, Part Memoir, Parts Unknown and Invisible Killer: The Monster Behind the Mask. Strangely enough, both b..."This keeps getting stranger and stranger...last week I posted that I read two books in a row that mentioned Joy To World by Three Dog Night. This week a third book mentioned the song...P. 110 of When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris.
Three Dog Night is trying to tell you something! Something about happy fish!
Fishface wrote: "Three Dog Night is trying to tell you something! Something about happy fish!"Or bullfrogs.
I have been Googling in vain to track down a friend from high school. Her middle and last (maiden) names were Fairchild Jones. Well, sir, just now when I was looking for material for another of my devastatingly inaccurate and confusing trivia questions, I found an article about the nation's youngest jailed murderers: Curtis Fairchild Jones.Maybe it's a sign that I should have been looking for her all along using the Dept of Corrections site...
Fishface wrote: "I have been Googling in vain to track down a friend from high school. Her middle and last (maiden) names were Fairchild Jones. Well, sir, just now when I was looking for material for another of my ..."Interesting. Not a common name by any means.
Koren wrote: "Fishface wrote: "Three Dog Night is trying to tell you something! Something about happy fish!"Or bullfrogs.
The plot thickens. I saw a meme thingy on my Facebook page today that listed the top songs from 1971. Guess what the top song was!
For those of you on my Facebook page I re-posted it just so you could see that I'm not making this up!
Koren wrote: "Koren wrote: "Fishface wrote: "Three Dog Night is trying to tell you something! Something about happy fish!"Or bullfrogs...."
The plot thickens. I saw a meme thingy today on my Facebook page that listed the top songs of 1971, Guess what the top song was! I shared it so if you are my friend on Facebook you can see that I am not making this up!
We were talking about Obama's efforts to drone ISIS and Al-Qaeda leaders out of existence at another group K.A. and I belong to, and out of curiosity I looked up the date they 'droned' Anwar Al-Awlaki. He croaked on my birthday!
Not really a coincidence, but something unusual. A question on Jeopardy yesterday asked what vice-president was born in Ceylon, Minnesota. None of the contestants knew the answer but I did. Ceylon is a little bitty town of about 200 people that is about 10 miles from me and the fact that Walter Mondale was born there is pretty much their only claim to fame. Actually Walter moved away when he was 2 or 3 years old and grew up in another small Minnesota town called Elmore. By the way, Alex, the Minnesota town is not pronounced Say-lon like the country, but rather See-lon with the emphasis on the See.
Koren wrote: "Not really a coincidence, but something unusual. A question on Jeopardy yesterday asked what vice-president was born in Ceylon, Minnesota. None of the contestants knew the answer but I did. Ceylon ..."Similarly, I learned from reading Murder in Little Egypt that Eldorado, Illinois is pronounced el-doh-RAY-doe.
Another birthday coincidence: in Haigh: The Mind of a Murderer they mention how awkward it was for the killer's family and friends to call or visit the prison to wish him a happy 40th birthday when they all knew he was days away from being hanged. (Now THERE's a nice point of etiquette for Emily Post to tackle.) The author specifically said that his birthday was on Sunday, July 24th -- and I realized with a bit of a start that last Sunday was in fact July 24th.
Last night at a Wraparound meeting there was a long discussion about a psychiatrist I used to work for, 3 or 4 jobs ago. Well, I went home afterwards and opened up The Killer Bean Of Calabar And Other Stories: Poisons And Poisoners to finish it up if I could, and there, staring me in the face, was a research study by a woman with exactly the same (rather unusual) name as my former boss's wife!
I was in the dentist's chair this morning getting my teeth cleaned and almost didn't notice the photo of the little boy flashed on the screen by a local Detroit morning show. Then I saw that his name was Eric Armstrong, same as a local serial killer. Then I noticed that he lives in Romulus, MI, the same town where that serial killer worked at the time he was arrested for killing Wendy Jordan.
I dreamed the other morning about someone I used to work with who died a few years ago. I woke up thinking about Lucien Carr, for some reason. Then I turned to my Book of the Dead to write down more anniversaries for the discussion and that morning was the anniversary of Denise's death, swiftly followed by the day Lucien Carr killed David Kammerer.
This one caught my eye. I read in Fear of Our Father that the author's parents died 15 years apart, on September 11th. In the very next book I read, Albert Fish In His Own Words, I found out that Fish's mother Ellen died 100 years to the day before Stacey Kananen's: September 11th, 1903.
I learned about two books I wanted to read today and added them to my virtual TBR mountain. The coincidence is that both of them are about the Great Depression, a subject I'm rarely interested in.
There's a town about 25 miles from me called Truman. About 3:30 this afternoon my son from Iowa calls. He's in the area and wants to see me. He's by Truman so he'll be here in about an hour. So I call my husband to see when he's getting off work. In about an hour. He's in Truman. (Actually my son thought he saw him when he drove by the gas station but didn't know if it was him or not. It was). While I was waiting for my son to come I called a friend just to chat about the day. She said she was waiting for her honey to come home but he was in...you guessed it...Truman! LOL!
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Obsessed with True Crime
Books mentioned in this topic
Amityville: House of Lies (other topics)Amityville: House of Lies (other topics)
Cloris: My Autobiography (other topics)
Good Grief: Heal Your Soul, Honor Your Loved Ones, and Learn to Live Again (other topics)
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (other topics)
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One of the texts was the restaurant they stopped at had fresh pineapple salsa. Just now i was scrolling through my FB feed and saw a video on how to make pineapple salsa.