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Off-Topic -- even more Coincidences - 2018
You would enjoy the museum at Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. It was decommissioned by Clinton after the end of the Cold War, when he figured we probably didn't need stocks of mustard gas and other similar gases lying around outside of Denver. Since it was federal property, the easiest thing to do was to transfer it to another federal agency, and since it had a large buffer area of fairly unspoiled tall-grass prairie around it, the USFWS was the logical one. It now features bison, coyotes, prairie falcons, and a large war museum describing the items that were stored there over the years. Quite interesting, if you're ever in the Denver area. It's right next to the airport.
Oh, my dad would have been crazy to see that.
Two days ago I caught myself wondering whatever happened to this woman I met years ago. We were interviewing for a counseling position at the rape-crisis center where I worked and when asked why she wanted the job, she immediately put us off hiring her by saying blithely that she intended to take clients from our agency so she could see them in private practice. Well, yesterday I was at a meeting where the mom got out her laptop and pulled up the list of providers who take her insurance. The first name I saw was that woman's. Apparently she is still in business.
I just watched a favorite movie over the weekend, a Korean flick called TRAIN TO BUSAN. Then today I wanted to see a weather report online and pulled up a random weather site and typed in my zip code. It gave me 2 choices: the town where I live or Busan, Korea.
The last TC anniversary I typed in last night was a murder by a man named Harold Jones. I went home and watched the first half hour of Summit, about the K2 mountain-climbing disaster, while walking on the treadmill.This morning as I got in the car to come back to work, I turned to the Double Play Café and the first one I heard was 2 songs by Howard Jones. The first song they played by him has this line in it:
"You can see the summit, but you just can't reach it..."
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Next morning the super rang my bell and asked if I was the tenant who wanted roach traps. "No but you can put one in my mailbox."
Why even ask? If one of you has roaches, all of you have roaches. :)I had a doozy today. I pulled up at a stoplight and noticed that the car in the left-turn lane had the initials of someone I care about very much who died a few years ago. That made me think sadly that it's been a while since I felt his presence. Then the light changed and I put my eyes on the truck ahead of me. To my astonishment I saw that the mudflaps on the truck named the town where he was born!
This was unexpected. I just got through typing in the narrow escape of Norma Countryman in the TC Anniversaries for July 18th. I dashed out into the heat to go to an appointment, came back here to the library, and on my way from my car to the door saw that a car had backed into the space next to mine. It said "COUNTRYMAN" across the back in big chrome letters.
I was just posting on another forum about the prison lives of people who kill children for sexual reasons and it reminded me vaguely of good old Ronald Bailey, local serial killer who preyed on 13-year-old boys. I thought that we might be somewhere near the anniversary of one of his murders because I knew they were both in summer. So I looked up both the names and one of them -- Kenny Myers -- was murdered 35 years ago today. If he had never crossed paths with Bailey he would be 48 now. Man.
RIP Kenny, 7/16/1984
This seemed a little strange. So, to start off, I like to watch classic movies once in a while. Last night I watched a bit of fluff called Gidget with Sandra Dee. Today I was reading a book called Glitter and Glue by Kelly Corrigan and on page 63 it said "Your father makes it sound like a Gidget movie, Kelly". That movie is from 1959!
That's because Gidget is immortal! Immortal I tell you!
Fishface wrote: "That's because Gidget is immortal! Immortal I tell you!"Nah! She died.
Fishface wrote: "Sandra Dee or Sally Field?"Sandra Dee. As far as I know Sally Field is still alive.
Not a coincidence but we've said before it happens quite a bit when we are reading at the same time the tv is on and we hear a word at the same time we read it in a book...today I had a game show on while I was reading and one of the answers was Patrick Swayze and just a few seconds later I read the name Patrick Swayze in my book.
I just stumbled across a fresh vein of Satanic Panic child-sexual-abuse books and went to add one of them to the "Sex Crimes" shelf. I noticed as I did so that there were already 666 books devoted to that subject.
Not a coincidence that happened to me, but...I just found out about the Erdington Murders in the U.K. Talk about some crazy coincidences!https://the-line-up.com/erdington-mur...
Fishface wrote: "I just stumbled across a fresh vein of Satanic Panic child-sexual-abuse books and went to add one of them to the "Sex Crimes" shelf. I noticed as I did so that there were already 666 books devoted ..."So now there are 667?
668, not counting the 8 zillion I've been too lazy to chase down and add -- ones that I know are scattered hither and yon on other shelves.
I was at the library over the weekend and decided to check out A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE to see if it was as great as everyone said. (It wasn't.) So I finished it up tonight and went back to reading Under the Trestle: The 1980 Disappearance of Gina Renee Hall & Virginia’s First “No Body” Murder Trial.. I turned the page to start a new chapter and what was the heading? "A History Of Violence."
This coincidence literally made my jaw drop and I'm a little freaked out. It's another coincidence where the tv is on while I'm reading a book. I'm partially watching the old game show Match Game while reading Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties. I heard the name of the contestant on the game show was James Brown and I was thinking I had just read that name in the book. Sure enough, two pages back was the name James Brown, a well-known football player in the 60's. I googled James Brown and it wasn't the same guy. Maybe I'm channeling Charlie!!
And the weirdness continues with the name James. Today, in our little daily newspaper, there were 3 obits and all three were named James! If you know anyone named James I would tell them to be careful!
Here's another one related to that, Koren. I turned on COLD CASE FILES and was startled that the first words I heard were the of the crime victim, who has the same name as the mother of one of my clients. The client's name is James...
This was just eerie. I was just mentioning Ricardo Montalban at another website and with my usual cellphone typing skills I made his name look all Mont?lbkkc/&q. The autocorrect interpreted that macaroni as "Khan" -- Montalban's famous role from STAR TREK.
Fishface wrote: "Here's another one related to that, Koren. I turned on COLD CASE FILES and was startled that the first words I heard were the of the crime victim, who has the same name as the mother of one of my c..."Last night I saw my brother-in-law named James and told him he should probably be careful. James' are dying like crazy. He told me they are done with the J names. K names are next!!!
Oh, oh, oh...my sister (her husband is the James I was talking to last night) just told me James' son is coming to stay with them this weekend. His name is James too!!!
I have a brother named James. I hope he is alright.
I have a brother James. I would not want to have his stress level right now, but when I saw him Wednesday he was, you know, alive.
James is one of the most popular names in the English-speaking world. From 1940 - 1960 it was THE most popular male name in the U.S. It was in the top five names for all of the 20th century and remains in the top 20 now. There are lots of people named James around to collide with one another.
So I did some math today out of curiosity and it came out pretty strange.I am 57, and my Mom died at this age, something that has been a bit on my mind. I calculated exactly how old she was when she died (57 years 213 days) and then calculated when this year I would be 57 years 213 days old and thus exactly her age when she died. That date will be October 14 of this year.
October 14 is her birthday.
K.A. wrote: "James is one of the most popular names in the English-speaking world. From 1940 - 1960 it was THE most popular male name in the U.S. It was in the top five names for all of the 20th century and rem..."I believe that but you have to realize I live in a small town, around 1000 people and the biggest town within 60 miles of us is 10,000 so to have 3 people in the obits with the name James is a bit of a coincidence. Occasionally I have seen two people with the same name but never 3, and then to happen 2 hours after I saw and heard the name James Brown both on Tv and in my book within a few minutes of each other and then see my brother in law James the same day makes me wonder what is going on with the name James.
K.A. wrote: "So I did some math today out of curiosity and it came out pretty strange.I am 57, and my Mom died at this age, something that has been a bit on my mind. I calculated exactly how old she was when ..."
Oh my. If we dont see or hear from you after October 14 we will be wondering what happened. Maybe you could leave a note for your next of kin to come on here and tell us what happened.
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As I continued to catch up, I saw a post where FF was talking about .....
the Plymouth Brethren.
K.A. wrote: "So I did some math today out of curiosity and it came out pretty strange.I am 57, and my Mom died at this age, something that has been a bit on my mind. I calculated exactly how old she was when ..."
That is just plain odd. I read about another odd one last night in Absolute Madness: A True Story of a Serial Killer, Race, and a City Divided: Joe Christopher (the absolutely mad party mentioned in the title) and his family came home from the hospital where his dad had just died, only to find that the clock had stopped at the exact minute of dad's death.
Fishface wrote: "K.A. wrote: "So I did some math today out of curiosity and it came out pretty strange.I am 57, and my Mom died at this age, something that has been a bit on my mind. I calculated exactly how old ..."
(cue twilight zone music)
I almost dropped my e-reader when I read this. Yesterday I started Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe. I am also trying to finished a book by a Nashville songwriter named Bobby Braddock called Bobby Braddock: A Life on Nashville’s Music Row. It was startling to read on page 96 that Bobby's favorite book of all time is Look Homeward, Angel. On the same day I started Look Homeward, Angel, which was written in the 1920's.
Koren,Since you appear to be interested in "Look Homeward, Angel", you might also be interested in a book called "O, Lost" ( slightly awkward title), written by a diseased Thomas Wolfe distinguished scholar, a professor at the University of South Carolina, named Dr. Matthew Bruccoli, a preeminent expert on several authors (among them Thomas Wolfe) who went back to the primary sources for "Look Homeward, Angel" and reconstructed the original manuscript.
Hari wrote: "Koren,Since you appear to be interested in "Look Homeward, Angel", you might also be interested in a book called "O, Lost" ( slightly awkward title), written by a diseased Thomas Wolfe distinguis..."
I'm only about 30 pages into Look Homeward Angel but so far I am liking it. My favorite classic fiction author is John Steinbeck and so far I am finding Wolfe to be similar to Steinbeck and Faulkner. Will check out the book you mentioned.
I seem to be surrounded lately by reminders of Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth, the inventor of Norwegian black metal music, ever since I finally saw the movie Lords Of Chaos, which is based pretty loosely on the book of the same name, Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground. I noticed quickly for example that a new app I was using on my phone, called GrowIt, was flooded with people using the app to ask "what kind of plant is this in my yard?" and for a while there, something like 3 out of 4 of them were asking about a plant called a Euonymous -- one letter different from Aarseth's stage name.And yesterday, when I was adding photos to the 50th anniversary Manson Murders Images discussion (q.v.), I found a photo of Paul Watkins that looked uncommonly like the guy. It struck me that Euronymous, a dedicated Satanist, followed essentially the same religion that Watkins did. Watkins believed Charlie Manson was Jesus Christ AND the Devil in one person without seeing any contradiction there, apparently. Oh, and they were both rock musicians.
Here is the "Separated At Birth?" pairing that resulted from the most recent coincidence:
Paul Watkins, Manson Family defector and rock musician...
(Paul is shown at R with bandmate)
...and Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth, murder victim and rock musician?
(shown at R with bandmate)
Oh, and Paul Watkins left the Manson Family for good after the good followers of Charlie (almost certainly) tried to kill him by setting fire to the van he was sleeping in. Aarseth was killed by a guy in his band. A guy he helped make famous. If he had survived the stabbing, I wonder if he would have walked away from the band and started over. It seems quite possible.
Koren wrote: "Hari wrote: "Koren,Since you appear to be interested in "Look Homeward, Angel", you might also be interested in a book called "O, Lost" ( slightly awkward title), written by a diseased Thomas Wol..."
Hey, Koren,
I was mistaken about that book by Dr Bruccoli I have recommended to you. It's actually entitled "O, Lost" (equally awkward) not "O, Look".
Here's a Manson one. To give myself a break from all the 50th anniversary Mansonosity, I turned back to watching season 3 of The X Files and right after my 2nd favorite, "Humbug," I found an episode I never saw before, "The Calusari." It was about a homicidal little boy with burning black eyes and mysterious powers. His name was Charlie.
Today I had the radio on while mixing up cookie dough and they were interviewing an economic researcher named John List. Later I put on my Pluto TV app to watch Forensic Files and one of the investigators proved to be a computer specialist named Greg Olsen.
There is no escape from TC.
Fishface wrote: "Now this is a really, really unlikely coincidence:https://www.mansonblog.com/2013/02/th..."
Interesting!
How's this for a TC coincidence? I learned this week that they broke ground to start building the Pentagon on September 11th, 1941.
Fishface wrote: "How's this for a TC coincidence? I learned this week that they broke ground to start building the Pentagon on September 11th, 1941."That IS a coincidence.
It was news to me as well that Project Phoenix, to restore the damaged Pentagon after 9/11, was deliberately completed 1 year to the day after the attack. Not a coincidence but a fitting bookend.
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The next day, the sister of the friend I went to the concert with posts an article about DkM on Facebook.
The day after that, I was on Facebook again, on my Union page was a post about the State Agency providing security at the New York State Fair for, you can probably guess, the Dropkick Murphys.
I haven't heard about that band in ages. Glad to hear they're still drop-kicking Murphy!
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Obsessed with True Crime
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So I logged onto Words With Friends and in the very first game the Scrabble Word Finder suggested I play YPERITE. I looked up the word in curiosity and discovered it's another name for mustard gas. Like the tanks discussed in the book above, mustard gas was specially invented for the Great War.