Trivial coincidences from everyday life.

[mike alexander]

Weak!

Maryland can't even list all theirs on one page. This is just the "M"s:

http://www.mva.maryland.gov/Vehicle-...NG=m&CATID=3|4

"Military Order of the Cootie and Auxiliary"?

[DonM435]

Florida provides for specialized license plates, if one pays an extra fee. There's one for every college in the state, with its own colors and logo. There are plates for several endangered species, and for special causes (e.g.: education, duck hunting, disabled veterans, women's rights), and probably other stuff I hadn't noticed. You can see ten cars in a parking lot, all from within the state, with no two plates the same.

I thought that these were supposed to be for IDENTIFICATION. Use a bloomin' bumper sticker for the rest, I'd say.

(Some years ago they issued special Space Shuttle plates. The orange paint used for the numerals faded quickly, so that every car with such a plate was indistinguishable as regards a license number. )

[Extravoice]

I thought that these were supposed to be for IDENTIFICATION. Use a bloomin' bumper sticker for the rest, I'd say.

A few years ago, I came across a budget projection showing how much additional income my state's general treasury was expected to make from specialty plates.
That pretty much explains it all.

[Buttercup]

Monday went for lunch with a lady friend. The restaurant we'd decided on and met at was closed (for renovations). So we went to nearest restaurant instead.

Today I went for lunch with 3 lady friends. The restaurant we'd decided on and met at was closed (unknown reason). So we went to the nearest restaurant instead.



Will see if this "goes in 3's" and it happens again soon.

[ToSeek]

"Military Order of the Cootie and Auxiliary"?

Apparently the Military Order of the Cootie is considered the "honors degree" for members of the Veteran of Foreign Wars. Plus they have a ladies' auxiliary: http://www.vfw4809.org/MOC.html

[Zentisan]

I play an online game 'wildguns' . So our alliance members decided to intro each other and locations et al. I mentioned 'kohima' and then another member from the US kind of reminiscences about 'kewhira'. I am amazed. Not many locals themselves are aware of the original name. Since he was ex army, asked whether he was involved in the 'battle of kohima' - point of Japanese withdrawal during WWII. Turned out post army, he was into military history.
Still it was quite something to run into someone in a tight clique who was aware of the campaign this side of burma.

[KaiYeves]

This was several months ago, but it's only now that I was back at the Museum of Science on Friday that all of the pieces clicked and I realized what exactly had happened:

Sometime in the fall, my mother came to visit me in Boston, and we spent a day at the Museum of Science, looking at their special exhibition on Pompeii. When we got our maps at the front desk, I noticed there was a room on the fourth floor marked "Bradford Washburn exhibit".

"Bradford Washburn. I know that name." I said to my mom.

"Really? What did he do?"

"I don't know, but I know I know I've seen that name somewhere." I said.

My mom rolled her eyes and she said she didn't believe me and the name probably just stood out because it was rather odd-looking.

As we went around looking at the exhibits, I remembered that there had been a display on the Alvin submersible on a landing in one of the stairwells the last time I had visited, and I wanted to see it again. While my mom was getting us lunch, I went up one of the flights of stairs, trying to find that display. I got to the fourth floor without finding it, so I figured they'd taken it away. (They did, but now they have a new Alvin display somewhere else.) But, since I'd never been on the fourth floor before, I figured it was worth looking around now that I was there.

I found the exhibit devoted to Mr. Washburn and discovered that he had been a semi-famous mountain climber and cartographer as well as the museum's first director. I figured that I must have read his name in passing in one of the many books about the history of exploration I'd read over the years, which explained why it had sounded familiar. I explained all of this to my mother after we met up again.

After the museum, we went to a restaurant near my school's campus to have dinner. The restaurant was in a fancy hotel that also included a gallery of Really Expensive Photographs (mostly artistic ones). They had a few hanging on the walls near the restroom of the hotel lobby, to encourage people to come in and look at the rest of their collection.

One of the photographs they had was a picture of an Alaskan glacier taken by Mr. Washburn on an expedition.

On Friday, I went back to the museum and visited that gallery again, just because the coincidence had been so interesting. One of the signs mentioned that he had received the National Geographic Society's Centennial Award, and I remembered having discovered a picture of all of that award ceremony online two years before while looking for something else. I hadn't recognized all of the names listed in the captions, so I'd looked them up to find out what they'd done. Aha! That was where I'd recognized the name from!

[Jim]

... I noticed there was a room on the fourth floor marked "Bradford Washburn exhibit". ... he had been a semi-famous mountain climber ...

Another coincidence?

[KaiYeves]

Another coincidence?

Ha! Didn't think of that!

[Gemini]

Monday, I went to luncheon for the Huntsville chapter of AIAA, and the speaker mentioned Maxime Faget's DC-3 space shuttle. At home later, I googled an image of it and one of the results was this odd beast: http://www.douglasdc3.com/shuttle/shuttle.htm

Well, today, someone posted this on the collectSPACE forum:
http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/004493.html

[KaiYeves]

Monday, I went to luncheon for the Huntsville chapter of AIAA, and the speaker mentioned Maxime Faget's DC-3 space shuttle. At home later, I googled an image of it and one of the results was this odd beast: http://www.douglasdc3.com/shuttle/shuttle.htm

Well, today, someone posted this on the collectSPACE forum:
http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/004493.html

In another coincidence, my friends were talking about this food truck on Tumblr today!

[NEOWatcher]

I don't call that one coincidence, I call it viral.

[Trebuchet]

Yesterday I was scanning the small town weekly paper from where we have a second home. It's an artsy town so the paper covers that a lot; I'm not an artsy guy so I don't pay much attention to those articles. My eye happened to fall on a name in an article about an artist in an even smaller town. "Hey", I thought, "I used to know a (Jane Doe) at work". Then I saw there was a picture. It even looked a bit like her, I thought. So I read the article to find a bio. "(Jane Doe) got a degree in Mechanical Engineering and worked for (my company) designing (my system) until her recent retirement." It actually was my former co-worker. I hadn't seen her in years.

[slang]

This has happened to me in several variations: I type a long, complicated unix command... press enter... and my co-worker's screen goes blank.. What the... Turns out to be just the screensaver.

[Solfe]

This has happened to me in several variations: I type a long, complicated unix command... press enter... and my co-worker's screen goes blank.. What the... Turns out to be just the screensaver.

That is too funny!

[Jeff Root]

It struck me as pretty funny, too. It seems very familiar,
though I can't think of a specific instance of the sort...
However... It reminds me of something that happened
that was *not* a coincidence...

Years ago, when I was using a CRT TV/monitor attached
to an Apple IIe, the TV/monitor suddenly and unexpectedly
made the "whump" sound of the power shutting off. The
screen went black. For a second I thought the power had
gone out. But lights were still on. This never happened
before. Did the TV/monitor suddenly die? I tried the
"on-off" button, and the TV/monitor turned on normally.

Then it slowly began to sink in. I had been sitting there
in the middle of typing something when the TV/monitor
went out. Specifically, I had just hit the "Enter" key.

Or had I?

The Enter key is a big, horizontal, rectangular button on
the right. The "on-off" button on the TV/monitor is a big,
horizontal, rectangular button on the right. Mmm-hmmm.
Yep. I had reached up and hit the "on-off" button on the
TV/monitor instead of the "Enter" key on the keyboard.

I suspect that Gus Grissom might have done the same sort
of thing when the hatch of his Mercury capsule suddenly
and unexpectedly blew off. He didn't have the luxury to
sit there thinking about what just happened, though, so
he didn't have a chance to remember what he was trying
to do and realize how it happened.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

[DonM435]

One time, having been distracted, I had just pressed the big button that would power down the computer when I realized that I still had an open file with lots of new work in it to save.

However, the shutdown wouldn't take place until I released the button, so I still had a chance. Typing entirely with my left hand (while keeping the power button depressed, of course, with a finger of the other hand), I saved the file and shut down a few other things. Then I let go.

That was lucky. More often than not, my brain would not have returned until it was indeed too late.

[Trebuchet]

I once caught myself hovering over the "enter" key after having typed "del *.*". On the root directory of the company's VAX which I was managing at the time. Woof.

[DoggerDan]

I fell in love with a girl who sat in front of me in my third grade class. She moved after that year, and I moved after sixth grade, more than 1,000 miles away. Guess who showed up in my seventh grade English class, assigned to the desk in front of me?

Yep! Fell in love with her all over again, but she still didn't want to have anything to do with me then, either. Ah, fate - it takes faith to make it work.

[Paul Beardsley]

Last week I recorded the film Hellraiser, and watched it a few days ago. Within about an hour of watching it, I found that Buttercup, originator of this very thread, had started a new Caption This thread with Pinhead and Clive Barker in it.

[Buttercup]

Last week I recorded the film Hellraiser, and watched it a few days ago. Within about an hour of watching it, I found that Buttercup, originator of this very thread, had started a new Caption This thread with Pinhead and Clive Barker in it.

A series of coincidences. How cool.

[Extravoice]

This isn't a coincidence, but it is an unlikely event.

I'm refurbishing an upstairs bathroom, and had recently removed and cleaned the chrome-plated pipe/fitting that the shower head attaches to. I was carrying it up the stairs in one hand, with a cup of coffee in the other when the chrome trim ring (about 2" in diameter) fell off. I looked as it began rolling down the carpeted stairs, but couldn't react quickly for fear of spilling my coffee.

I set the coffee cup down and turned around to see that the ring had vanished. It didn't hit the tile floor downstairs, or I would have heard it. Yet it was nowhere to be found.

I spent about 15 minutes hunting for the thing, imagining less and less likely scenarios. Finally, I spotted the ring inside a potted plant near the base of stairwell. Somehow, it gained enough momentum and bounced just the right way to leap the gap and silently embed itself among the leaves.

[DonM435]

I just managed to locate something I mentioned in August 2011

Deuces really wild!

I had just turned to the Little League playoff game on ESPN-2 (it's more competitive than an NFL exhibition game), Oregon vs Washington.

I noted in the info box on the screen that the score was 2-2, in the 2nd inning, there was a runner at 2nd, there were 2 out and the count was 1-2. I thought, "Gosh, if this next pitch is a ball, that'll make seven 2's right there.

Yep. ball two, high.

But only for a minute. The kid struck out on the next pitch.

This kind of thing can't be all that rare, but it was interesting to stumble on it like that.


[And in a later message, I added ... ]


I failed to note the batter's uniform number. It could have been a 2 or a 22, but I really don't know.

In the bottom of the 3rd, the score was 3-3, with the bases full (i.e., 3 runners) and two out. I was hoping that the batter would strike out on a 3-2 pitch so that, for an instant (it wouldn't be displayed this way)the count would be 3-and-3 with 3 out and 3 left on ... but it didn't happen.

[SeanF]

DonM, I was listening to a ballgame on the radio once, several years ago, and at the end of a particular inning, the announcer's recap was along the lines of:

"So, the Twins score two runs on two hits, and leave two men on base. At the end of two innings, the score is two to two." He didn't appear to even notice that every number he said was "two." Not to mention the bonus of it being the Minnesota Twins.

[DonM435]

There's one historical major league game wherein the teams played to a tie (due to rain or darkness), and they finished with the same number of runs, hits, total bases, walks, strikeouts, putouts, assists, errors, pitchers used, etc., etc.

It won't be easy, but I'll try to find that reference. That one really was a tie!

[DonM435]

Oh, and the Twins, in the early 1960s, often had a lineup that looked something like this ...

c -- Earl Battey
1b -- Harmon Killebrew
2b -- Bernie Allen
ss -- Zorro Versailles
3b -- Rich Rollins
lf -- Tony Oliva
cf -- Jimmy Hall
rf -- Bob Allison

You see that Battey and Oliva had to be pretty good to crack that lineup, as everybody else qualified via a double-L in their surname. They took the team nickname seriously. (They could have traded Battey for Bob Tillman and Oliva for Jimmy Piersall, but refused to make bad trades for the sake of uniformity.)

Dave Boswell was a pitcher, and Jerry Kindall a utility infielder for that team.

(I was so impressed with this that I was able to do that list from memory.)

[SeanF]

While we're on the subject of the Twins:

The Major League record for double plays turned in a game by both teams combined is ten. It's happened more than once, but one of them was the Twins at the Red Sox on July 18th, 1990.

There has only ever been one game with two triple plays. The Twins turned them both against the Red Sox on July 17th, 1990.

So those two teams set the triple play record, and then tied the double play record the very next day.

[Jeff Root]

Oh, and the Twins, in the early 1960s, often had a
lineup that looked something like this ...

c -- Earl Battey
1b -- Harmon Killebrew
2b -- Bernie Allen
ss -- Zorro Versailles
3b -- Rich Rollins
lf -- Tony Oliva
cf -- Jimmy Hall
rf -- Bob Allison

You see that Battey and Oliva had to be pretty good to
crack that lineup, as everybody else qualified via a
double-L in their surname. They took the team
nickname seriously. (They could have traded Battey for
Bob Tillman and Oliva for Jimmy Piersall, but refused to
make bad trades for the sake of uniformity.)

Dave Boswell was a pitcher, and Jerry Kindall a utility
infielder for that team.

(I was so impressed with this that I was able to do that
list from memory.)

Zoilo Versalles. I'm no baseball fan, but I heard the name
plenty of times when my dad was listening on the radio, and
I would have noticed back then if anyone was named "Zorro"!

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

[DonM435]

Zoilo Versalles. I'm no baseball fan, but I heard the name
plenty of times when my dad was listening on the radio, and
I would have noticed back then if anyone was named "Zorro"!

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

That was his nickname. Honest.

Edit: It's possible that the local broadcasters knew Versalles' preference and took care to use his given name, but the out-of-town crews didn't comply. I had one of his baseball cards, and the caricatures in the cartoons on the back even showed him with a mask and cape like the Disney Zorro.

Also: I checked, and for most of 1964, it was Allison at first, Killebrew in left and Oliva in right, but that didn't change the number of double-L's in the batting order at all.

I did have his last name wrong: Versalles it is.

[KaiYeves]

A sad one-- the day that Sally Ride's death was announced, I was talking with some other people at work about how newspapers and press offices have pre-written obituaries for famous people and how awkward it would have been to be the person tasked with writing them and hoping not to see your work published for many years.