Coincidences
Posted in Blog by Twenty Major on September 1st, 2008
At the moment I am reading a book and one of the lesser characters in it is a chap called Pulaski.
This morning I got up and found two very odd comments on an old post. I decided that I would look up the IP address of these comments to see if I could try and make more sense of them. Off I went to one of those IP address checker websites, stuck in the number and the town the comments were left from was Pulaski, Tennessee.
That’s a bit weird, innit?
I’m no great believer in the Gods, nor do I subscribe to the theory that we’re all here for a reason, our fates mapped out before us, but stuff like that is sometimes so odd it makes you think. Like the time (seriously) before I went to see Llloyd Cole and the Commotions in the National Stadium way back when and I had to spend the day working with a chap called Lloyd Reilly and another chap called Coleman. If that is some kind of sign from the universe then the universe must be bored, but it was strange all the same.
I’d love to give you more examples but it’s Monday morning and I’ve been drinking all weekend long and my brain, such as it is, refuses point blank to do any of that ‘thinking’ stuff.
So I’ll throw it over to you. What’s the biggest coincidence type thing that ever happened to you?
A guy in the Centra in Swords bought Twenty Major eerlier on this morning.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:03 am
Was walking through the Donnybrook area chatting with a friend about various issues (sport included). The topic turned to the strangest of sports - cricket. We mentioned that nearby there was a cricket ground. We couldn’t remember the name of it.
A few minutes later up pulled a car. “excuse me I was looking for Merrion Cricket club”
We stared blankly at each other for a few seconds, shook our heads and walked away.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:18 am
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Was once in Paris and we got chatting to this Dutch backpacker type in a cafe. He was waffling on for about 15 minutes but we didn’t get to the whole whereyafrom whereyabeen whereyagoin banter before we had to leave. Anyways, we left for Dublin later that day and I traveled on to Galway to meet my brother. Sitting in a small pub later that night just outside the city and in walks the same guy. He didn’t even seem very surprised when we said hello to him…he didn’t find it strange or odd that we bumped into each other again….I got scared at that point and backed off verrrry slowllyy….
September 1st, 2008 at 9:24 am
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A spooky one, but didn’t happen to me. When I was at university two friends were killed in a car accident. A couple of days after the accident, the guy who had roomed with the guy who was killed was going for a walk. (They roomed together in the previous year.)On his walk and he saw a big sheet of paper blowing across the road, he picked it up and discovered it was a poster they used to have up in their room in the Halls of Residence.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:37 am
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So that was YOU RedLeeroy, was it??? Thanks to you I missed Railway Union’s crucial league match against Merrion, ya bollix! I was meant to be opening the batting!
September 1st, 2008 at 9:44 am
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damn it JL - I ruined your life all because of “coincidence fear”
you were probably due a ton too
September 1st, 2008 at 9:46 am
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Great first comment, SG.
Years ago when I was travelling around Eurpoe we met an English family on the train from Calais to Paris.
Ten days later we met the same family in Brindisi in southern Italy, waiting for the ferry to Greece.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:59 am
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I fell asleep ten days ago whilst reading a really boring blog post.
Wow. It’s after happening again. Shit that is spooky.
September 1st, 2008 at 10:20 am
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I don’t really have one that springs to mind. Though the first time my husband and I went on holiday we met Henry and Rose from the Henry and Rose chipper in Bray, on their way home from a food convention. I hope they believed it was a coincidence, and not us stalking. ‘You cannot leave the country! Return and fry us chips!’
I have a book I had as a child, called ‘The Secret Kitten’ and the shop keeper in it is called Mr Pulaski. I’ve never heard the name other than that til now.
I also lost a handbag on the train in Prague, on the way back to the airport. No sign of it in lost property etc. Four years later I got a call from my old gym, who’d got a call from the embassy - I rang them and somehow the bag had been sent back there, after all that time. Not a coincidence, but unexpected. THere was a scratchcard with €4 on too, but it had expired - bastards!
September 1st, 2008 at 10:27 am
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Its not a mad one or anything but i have one that happens quite regularly.
I’ll be texting my girlfriend and as im typing the message she will ring me..
September 1st, 2008 at 10:48 am
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I often had experience weirds coincidences just can’t remember most of them. But what happens me a lot is meeting people I know when I’m abroad. I get a feeling that I’m about to meet someone I know and then I do. Might be something to do with flying to Ryanair destinations, so there’s 200 other Irish people plodding around the same city.
September 1st, 2008 at 10:56 am
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I was reading a book once, and one of the characters told another character to “Go fuck a duck!”
I had never come across this expression before.
By coincidence, I just happened to be in St Stephen’s Green at the time…….
September 1st, 2008 at 11:05 am
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I think Irish people are drawn to eachother, though it’s a good point about Ryanair. Friends of mine were alone one eveing at the grand canyon, away from the car park, when a van came rattling across the sands. IT parked right near them, and they were annoyed at the unnecessary intrusion - until a friend they hadn’t seen in years got out and went ‘Anne! Mike!’
That’s the best one I know.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:07 am
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That’s incredible, our local Sky installer is a guy called ‘Kotka’ Pulaski from Poland.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:08 am
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Polish eh? It looks like it’ll be Pulaskis everywhere from today on.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:13 am
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Hers’s a Coincidence…I’m sitting on the jacks as i’m reading these stories!!!
September 1st, 2008 at 11:29 am
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When I was living in the US many years ago, I was hitch-hiking one night and got a lift to the next town, where I was living. In conversation the driver asked me if I knew me.
He was a friend of my brother’s whom I had never met. He was passing through the town and had agreed to drop off a book at my house.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:30 am
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About twelve years ago I was in one of the dingiest bars in the Barrio Chino of Barcelona. (El Bar Kentucky, my favourite establishment at the time) It was the last night before they closed for August and as always, they were throwing a wee shut-in party for the regulars. I was surprised to meet two guys from my year in school in Dublin who had come there separately. The two Irish girls with us knew people that these old schoolmates knew. Lung the Elder, being American, could not believe this amazing coincidence. I had to explain to basic facts to him:
My alma mater being what it was - if I had to find an old classmate in a foreign European city, the first place I’d look would be in the cheapest shittiest bar I could find, especially if the tavern in question was having an all night happy-hour party.
The population of the Republic of Ireland is approximately 4 million. That’s about thirteen families.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:33 am
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That is excellent. See, I don’t think it’s about predestination or fate, more people being magnetically drawn to each other somehow.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:34 am
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All the time.
Ever notice how all the days of the week end in ‘day’ and so does ‘today’?
Spooky.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:35 am
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Ok well here’s a really fucking strange one. I once met a girl through friends on a night out about 5 years ago and she looked like a bloke I was in primary school with (in 1980).
Of course I didn’t tell her this but I found out that she was in fact that guy’s sister. She was very pretty though thank God. I went out with her for a few months and was always dying to say it to her but just couldn’t.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:38 am
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There’s a very fine tobacco called Count Pulaski.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:38 am
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This comment isn’t spam or anything, but if you want to read a book about all this, try Rupert Sheldrake and his theories of “Morphic Resonance”.
I’m serious - he even tested the telepathic powers of a parrot.
http://www.sheldrake.org/
September 1st, 2008 at 11:52 am
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Parrots are related to penguins - and penguins are cunts. There’s a coincidence.
September 1st, 2008 at 12:09 pm
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Ahhh that lunatic Sheldrake, what was it again “morphogenetic biological fields” if I remember correctly ….. Built a Kirlian camera once, inspired by his lunacy… I just got a nasty shock and an intense dislike for Sheldrake……
September 1st, 2008 at 12:32 pm
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Open Letter;
Hey Cunto,
Previously a long time reader, currently a short time agitator (not to be confused with alligator).
I don’t think you’re a bastard, far from it. But I do have a number of questions.
If you are interested in semi-intelligent discourse, then, I’d be more than interested.
At the very worst you could turn me into some sort of object of ridicule for your minions to chuckle about or on more realistic terms, I could be some sort of right/left wing foil for your discourse.
As Marty McFly once said “Don’t call me chicken”.
September 1st, 2008 at 12:40 pm
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Chat to you later yellow belly, or something to that effect
September 1st, 2008 at 12:44 pm
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Just before I read this post I was watching an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and it was one of the ones with Dr Pulaski instead of Dr Crusher. Of course, I’ve now just admitted that I’m a trekkie…awkward…
September 1st, 2008 at 1:04 pm
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In my eyes, Chuck Pepsy, you lose some credibility for ‘Cunto’.
Hey, yamadyoke, I read about Kirlian photography! Interesting! Your camera not having worked, do you now no longer believe? How were you meant to build one? I thought you just left the lense on :)
September 1st, 2008 at 1:06 pm
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Feel free to email me any questions you might have, Chuck.
September 1st, 2008 at 1:07 pm
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No, you see for a real Kirlian camera you need two charged plates with a thin dielectric between them. I overestimated the charge and overestimated what “thin” is meant to mean. I was being literal when I said I got a “shock”…..
I believe they work, but am sceptical as to what they are meant to actually show…..And too darn lazy to bother repeating the experiment….
Christopher Moltisanti: You ever think what a coincidence it is that Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig’s disease?
Tony Soprano: You’re gonna make that same stupid joke every time that comes up?
September 1st, 2008 at 1:21 pm
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Do you want me to be ignored? How about this? You are a pig ignorant cunt, who deserves to be ignored ya’ fuckin’ sepo.
Comments welcome.
September 1st, 2008 at 1:44 pm
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Sorry Twenty,
Can’t find an address to contact you on. Please mail me. The address is; chuckpepsy@googlemail.com
September 1st, 2008 at 1:48 pm
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Contact link at the top of the page. It’s twentymajor AT gmail.com
September 1st, 2008 at 1:49 pm
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Not personal but made me shiver a bit- a neighbour was friendly with an old boy who drove a digger for the council- against all the health & safety rules etc he was always accompanied by his dog- one of those wee shaggy teriers, brown & black & white with a difficult temperament (snappy bastard)- he & the dog lived alone in some falling-down stone cottage which has by now been redeveloped into a mansion. Anyway the dog took sick & died & he was seriously depressed by the loss. A few days later he went in to the yard about 7 o’clock one morning & sitting on the digger shovel or whatever it’s called was another terrier- as good as identical , brown & black & white (& nasty). he firmly believed God had sent it to replace Bob or Ted or whatever the other beast was called & became religious.No-one in the yard admitted to setting this up (& they were not overflowing with kindness either according to the neighbour, who was seriously spooked by the whole thing)
September 1st, 2008 at 1:53 pm
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Wow, coincidences are so amazing.
I once looked up a word in the dictionary and then the next day I saw it in a newspaper.
Freaky man.
Definitely some sort of divine plan at work.
September 1st, 2008 at 2:09 pm
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I’m going to play a trick on you all.
You will all notice the word “Smorgasbord” over this week on the TV, the newspaper, radio, etc.
SMORGASBORD
September 1st, 2008 at 2:14 pm
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Is the above Chuck Pepsy the Chuck Pepsy who has contributed to the Literary Kicks website?
Just curious.
September 1st, 2008 at 2:17 pm
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morgor, Holemaster…
… yes, yes, we know already
September 1st, 2008 at 2:25 pm
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Yes!
I, Indeed, have contributed to lit kicks.
September 1st, 2008 at 2:35 pm
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Chatting to some friends at home while listening to music from the computer, I mentioned that a folk band I saw the night before threw a few bars of “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple into a trad tune, which was fun.
Then, iTunes, which was set to Shuffle/Random seelction from about 5 days of music, decieds to play Deep Purple - “Smoke on the Water”
September 1st, 2008 at 2:37 pm
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miller will explain it to you…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4QKiYar9pI
September 1st, 2008 at 2:46 pm
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Was driving on the Pulaski Highway outside of Baltimore last night.
A few years ago I was watching the wildlife on Melrose Ave in LA when I spy a sunburned head sticking out of a Munster replica.Turned out to be the next door neighbour of da mudder.
“Your a long way from home” sez I trying to be nice.
“Yeah..well so are you.You fuckin’ gabhal” was the lovely response.
Limerick or LA..still a twat.
September 1st, 2008 at 3:38 pm
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The O’Sullivan family are still monitoring this blog.
Yeer names are down in the book back at Head Quarters.
Come the Day.
September 1st, 2008 at 3:39 pm
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I worked with a lad at Butlins one summer when I was a mere stripling. We never exchanged numbers or addresses- I was in HMV in Dublin two years later and just thinking I wished I’d got his details and wondering what happened to him when I was tapped on the shoulder. Sure enough it was your man.
Ten years later I bumped into him in the street in London as he emerged from a phone-box. (He’d only gone in there to phone someone, mind. He hadn’t been in there for 9 years and 364 days or anything mad). Thing is, he was only in London for one day after flying in from Israel and was getting a flight back to Dub that evening.
We decided there’s no point in swapping contact details. I’ll see him when I see him. Its got so bad I keep an eye out for him in airports.
September 1st, 2008 at 3:45 pm
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The biggest coincidence for me was right before going away on holiday when I was 17 and had a dream and convinced myself that someone would be dead before the end of it. I thought it would be a boating accident. A guy did die, but he was burned to death when a truck smashed into the rear of the van on our way to the cabin.
Horrible.
September 1st, 2008 at 3:53 pm
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I’ll go and get Batty out of the back garden. He likes talking about death.
September 1st, 2008 at 4:04 pm
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What kind of truck was it?
September 1st, 2008 at 4:06 pm
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I only ever have incidents happen to me. Nothing co about them. My life is so unspooky it’s spooky.
September 1st, 2008 at 4:24 pm
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Why the sarcasm, morgor the sarcastic? You don’t ‘believe’ in coincidence??
September 1st, 2008 at 5:03 pm
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Thats crazy. I decided to have a type of Scandinavian meal served buffet-style for dinner this evening… and there it was, a smorgasbord related posting.
Damn you holemaster…
September 1st, 2008 at 5:12 pm
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Where is Mrs Genevieve O’Sullivan- surely she has some ‘clouds looking like Mother Teresa’ or ‘buns looking like the Pope’ coincidences
September 1st, 2008 at 5:36 pm
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Years ago, on a business trip to Paris.
Stepped out of my hotel of an evening, looking for some entertainment. Right next door to the hotel is an Irish Pub named the James Joyce.
In I go. A quiet evening, the bartender takes a sandwich break and we get to talking.
I let on that I live in Japan, and he remarks that he has a friend out there.
When he mentions the name, I realise that I know the guy, and point this out to him.
That is not the coincidence….
The next thing he says is, offhandedly,
“Oh yeah, Barry Teabags has a son out there as well.” (False name to protect the innocent)
I need a second to process this fact.
I know that name….
“That would be me!”
Without batting an eyelid, he called over to the other bartender on duty;
“Hey! This is Barry Teabags’ son!”
Second bartender nods a “Howya!”
(My father had never been to Paris. They both knew him through professional connections.)
The Follow Up:
Months later my brother was at a wedding in Galway. He is greeted by an old friend.
“I hear you’re out in Japan now!”
……………………….
Then of course there was the guy I worked with who took his family on a camping holiday in the south of France only to find that the tent next to theirs was their next door neighbours from Dublin.
September 1st, 2008 at 5:43 pm
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What always amazed me about it was the way he said my father’s name as if anyone would recognise it.
September 1st, 2008 at 5:46 pm
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I think that expectation of knowing everyone is firmly lodged in our psyches. Irish people ask two questions - where are you from, then do you know Barry Teabag. It must be a self fulfilling prophesy that we so often do.
September 1st, 2008 at 5:53 pm
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I saw an elk eating a pie once
September 1st, 2008 at 6:19 pm
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So did I
September 1st, 2008 at 6:48 pm
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colgy wins hands down.thats the best story i’ve ever heard.and no mere coincidence.i can smell the hand of god in that one.
September 1st, 2008 at 7:05 pm
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Batty, it was one of those big rig tractor trailers. I remember very little of the whole thing, luckily. He fucked up six of us and killed the seventh.
The following year he killed a young woman in his truck.
September 1st, 2008 at 7:08 pm
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Why the sarcasm, morgor the sarcastic? You don’t ‘believe’ in coincidence??
pissssss
September 1st, 2008 at 8:26 pm
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He sounds like someone to avoid, Medbh.
September 1st, 2008 at 8:41 pm
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Dave Gormans ‘coincidence’ in Googlewhack. Outstanding! (Check it out on YouTube)
September 1st, 2008 at 9:51 pm
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Abandoned ship and came to Oz in 1986. Used to play a lot of snooker in Ned Kelly’s in O’Connell Street so went looking for a game in my local club out in the sticks north of Sydney.
First night in the local club got playing against a woman , in her 60’s, in the nightly chicken competition. (1st prize a chicken, 2nd : 12 eggs etc etc) We got talking.
It seemed her mother had arrived out in Australia with the family in 1904. Came out from Ireland. They used to live in a small village called Ballymac**, lived in the coastguard station.
I looked her in the eye and informed her that that house was now owned by my family and had been for about 30 years.
Much spooky music…
It’s a small world allright…
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:54 am
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Another bloke called No Good Boyo has stalked me for years. He won the University of Wales Inter-Collegial Eisteddfod prize for translating a Chekhov story into Welsh - I came third but took the praise anyway. Perhaps I’ve been stalking him without knowing it. Is that possible?
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:15 am
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I had coincidence once.
But, I got better.
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:55 am
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My mate Paul Ence once was fishing off the coast of Skerries, back when you could actually catch something other than typhoid. His grandfathers lucky old one shilling round his neck on a leather strap. Well between this and that he somehow caught the strap on the rod and flicked the damn thing into the water.
Weeks later we were strolling on the beach looking for crabs and there was a dead fish with a leather strap hanging out of its gills. Thing had swallowed the shilling and choked or something and here it was, dead. Paul pulled the strap and held the pendant aloft. ‘What the fook is that?’ I said.
‘Its my coin, said Ence’
Sorry.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:13 pm
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I was playing five-a-side footie recently. We were a man short and I was talking to my teammate before the game about who we could ask at short notice. Thought of a good player we know called Mike and just as we were talking about calling him he walked through the door of the bar (and ended up playing).
That wasn’t so weird as we knew he played there sometimes. But the next week at the same place we were telling our other teammates about the coincidence. We also mentioned how Mike looks just like a bloke called John we knew from school (15 or so years back) and hadn’t seen since. Just as we were doing that John appeared out of nowhere at our table to say hello.
Next time I’m there I’m gonna try talking about Keira Knightley. Not that she’d be much use in our five-a-side team I guess.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
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Jesus, Medbh. Glad you got out of it. If I was involved in an accident like that and was the driver who killed someone I don’t think I could get behind the wheel again.
Unless I knew there was a whole load of Fianna Failers going to a convention in Galway.
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:45 pm
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Is a moose the same as an elk ?
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
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Testing
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:32 pm
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I was living in Adelaide and wanting to move back to my home town of Whyalla so I asked my dad if he could get me a job where he worked. He said I should talk to a bloke called Gary Hall and that he would get me his number.
A couple of days later I went on a business trip to Brisbane and I was sitting in the bar at Adelaide airport waiting for my flight, when a bloke I had never met before came up to me and said “You must be Barry Banana’s son.” (Name changed to protect the general public.)
He was right of course. He said that he knew my dad and had spotted the family resemblance. I asked him his name and it was Gary Hall. He was waiting for his connecting flight from Brisbane to Whyalla.
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:02 am
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I was wasted at a party about 4-5 yrs ago, it was pretty late and only a few of us left having a smoke. My mate was telling me about this band he liked, the Killers. So he muted the TV & went to his laptop. After a bit of messing around he put on “All these things that I’ve done” from Hot Fuss.
At the exact same time, the song came on MTV, which was of course turned down. I started telling the boys look, it’s on TV, but they just told me to shut up that I was mashed.
After about 60 seconds I got them to look at the TV, and I sware the song almost exactly at the same spot as the video on the TV.
WHOOAAA was all we could say
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:26 am
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Another one that I always found interesting;
A tragic traffic accident in northern Japan about ten years ago. A bus with about eighteen schoolkids on it was crushed as it went through a tunnel under a mountain. In the mountain was a friggin huge rock, estimated at 70,000 tons, which somehow slipped out of place and crushed the tunnel, the bus and two other cars.
What spooked me was that it was a bog nowhere road with an average traffic of two cars per hour. I couldn’t help thinking that the rock, bored and suicidal after half a million years sitting at an uncomfortable angle, saw it’s chance at infamy and siezed the moment to get one back at those annoying little pests that had drilled a hole under him just a few years before by taking out a score of them in one go.
Sort of like the satisfaction you get from farting just before you leave an elevator.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
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Hmmmm.
I once phoned my girlfriend at the time, and must have mis-dialled. A bloke answered, and I said: “Is Natasha there please?”
“No, there’s no Natashe lives here. Is that badgerdaddy?”
“Erm… Yes. Who’s that?”
Turns out it’s my old mucker Lyndon, who I haven’t seen for months.
“Oh right, did I dial your number by mistake? I didn’t even know I knew it!”
“No… Do you know Jill and Jim Bananaberry?”
“Nope, never heard of them.”
“Well, I’m house-sitting for them while they’re away.”
Now that was fucking strange – a wrong number at a house I don’t know and a number I’ve never known, and someone I know answers. Spooky-ass shit.
September 8th, 2008 at 9:12 am
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When I put my debs photos in for developing, many years ago when people still developed photos, the claim number was the same as my leaving cert exam number, which I still knew off by heart cos I’d only sat them a month before.
The following year in college my exam number was a childhood friend’s phone number.
Fierce difficult trying to fill an exam booklet with the eerie sense of the universe poking at you for the fun of it hanging over you.
September 16th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
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