For example, I once saw a man throw his hat down in anger. He didn’t stomp on it which was kind of a let down.
Kind of a lame example that depending on who you are may make you go, “Uhh… yeah? Duh?” but…
Y’know how Hollywood has been using the same library of stock sounds for like half a century? Wilhelm scream tier stuff? Like, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard one of those stock baby noises, or that ape screeching, you know the ones, I’d have a good chunk of change by now.
And if you ever encounter real world examples of some of these things, they never sound quite like those recordings. This is in large part because Hollywood loves pairing sounds of specific creatures or objects with footage of completely different creatures or objects that in reality sound nothing like that (e.g. no, bald eagles do not make that noise at all). So these sounds become reified in your head as “the sounds fake shit in movies make”. The acoustic equivalent of what fruit flavored candies are to actual fruits. Does that make sense?
All this to say, it’s really disorienting when you encounter things in the real world that actually make these noises. Particularly if you aren’t regularly used to being around them.
For me in particular, it’s roosters and horses. My mind is conditioned to assume that the stock noises for these creatures I hear in films and the like are, I dunno, extremely cherry-picked noises from some specific breed or species of the animal that aren’t the ones I’d commonly find around me. Not the case! They really do sound like that! To a spookily accurate degree, too. Being around them feels like someone is pranking me with a soundboard, I almost can’t believe it’s real.
It’s a bit depressing that sound design of film has disillusioned me to the point I’m shocked to hear that roosters in real life actually sound like roosters in movies and on TV, but nonetheless here we are.
I know what you mean. When I visited Hawaii, I was unexpectedly woken up by a rooster crowing in what was surely the most rooster-crowy way possible, right as the sun was appearing on the horizon. When I realized what was going on, it felt a little surreal, like you’re describing, even though it’s a fairly simple/common thing.
Hawaii is exactly the place that made me write this comment.
On the lunch long time ago, I was complaining to my colleagues about surprisingly expensive pizza: “20 euros for the pizza! In some countries you would get a blowjob for that kind of money!” Few minutes later, another colleague joined us and I immediately told him: “This is 20 euro pizza!”. He answered: “What?? Did you get a blow job with it?” One female colleague noted: “I see you both visit similar kind of … restaurants”.
That sounds straight out of Seinfeld, I read “Did you get a blowjob with it?” with Kramer’s voice hahahaha
I had sex once.
Nice.
Niiiiiiccee
I had sex once.
Doesn’t count here, because the sex in the movies isn’t real.
That’s cool, she wasn’t real either.
With someone else?
Oh shit, is that a requirement?
Once
I’ve seen that movie!
My husband had to evict his coke dealer at the apartment building he worked at.
Once I saw a car flying off the street in an accident.
It was going at good speed on the Autobahn, came off the road a little to the left, and the driver lost control. It went over to the right side crossing all lanes at once, then bumped the guardrails there a few times, started to spin and finally jumped up high and off to the right.
All the people in the car survived.
Was in an expressway pileup and man you sense of time just does go wack. I had somewhat the effect when I was young and we used to walk on the train tracks and we turned around to see a train coming and it seemed like it was ontop of us and we literally lept to the side and actually it was pretty far away we were just surprised by it. got all dirty and scratched up for nothing. Had time to get up and look and see it was a way aways and wait for it. Okay the last thing was not preciesly a movie thing but im just talking about wierd time perception things they sorta immitate with slow motion and such.
About 15 years ago I was giving a presentation at a technical conference. This was me giving a presentation in front of a room full of about 50 other engineers. At this point in my career this was still pretty new to me, so I was nervous. It was getting time for my presentation and I needed to do a last minute nervous pee before I did my presentation.
I went to the bathroom, peed in a urinal, and then went to wash my hands. I pushed down the bathroom faucet and it exploded sending up a geyser of water about air a foot or two into the air. Now had I really been on a TV show, my pants would have been soaked in the crotch area, but luckily in real life I stepped back and didn’t get wet. However, this was the perfect setup for a young nervous engineer giving a technical presentation to be thoroughly embarrassed. Luckily I’m either not on a TV show, or I’m not the main character.
I wouldn’t know where to start, a lot of what I’ve been through seem out of movies. Like the time my friends taught their pet talking bird the Wilhelm scream, or the time I tripped a thief, or being held at someone’s place like it’s Scooby Doo. What counts? Of the things I remember, I guess I’ll take a whim and say the third one. Wasn’t pleasant.
If The Thing happened to me I would be dead and a grotesque alien would be using my body parts
Had a shotgun put to my head and marched into a house of gang members because I dared to try to pick my sister up from a party. Got yelled at and threatened, and left without her.
Came back a little while later to try once more and found ems/police/fire all over the place. That same person with the same shotgun blew someone elses head off after I left.
I had a friend with me, we elected not to stop the second time. A day later the police questioned us, we were subpoenaed to testify, and both got threatened by gang members for years.
Good times.
…and what about your sister (he asked, trepidatiously)?
She was fine. She left after the shooting and got a ride home. We don’t talk anymore. She accused me of raping her when we were kids while she was in a troubled teen facility (I got to fly to Utah and talk to a room full of shrinks as a teenager!) got my whole family believing and accusing me… Until 10 years later when she did the same to our dad.
I feel for her, she’s had it rough but I’ve almost died, been ostracized and demonized by my entire family and the emotional shit that came with it as a teen. But she can get fucked.
She later (several years) went on to get arrested and convicted of selling coke, as well as conspiracy to sell. Got out, invited the police in while she had meth out on the table after calling them about methallucinations.
Well, this wasn’t a fun story at all.
Hard agree, and what’s worse is that I didn’t then, and even now 30+ years later don’t see it as a traumatic. I know it is logically but I don’t feel it.
Things leading up to it were that much worse, and the later years didn’t start to get better until recently.
Sorry, friend. I’m glad things have gotten better.
It sounds like you lived through some rough situations; it is a tough climb out but I am glad to hear things have gotten better for you. Keep climbing, friend!
She got eaten by a grue.
I could only hope!
Damn. This is almost the plot of Primer.
Whoa, you are right!
Commuting home via train. It derailed. I didn’t really notice it because I had my headphones on and read a book. It was a slightly bumpy ride, but that sort of stuff happens, right? I only realised something was off when people started smashing in the windees and breaking open the doors, climbing off and running away.
I packed my stuff, hopped outside and looked at the train. Sure enough, it was fully off the tracks.
I’ve never been in that small town before and had no idea how to get home. So, I did the only reasonable thing I could think of: Finding the nearest local pub, drinking a pint of beer, having a smoke and figure things out from there.
Met a sweet couple about my age over there who were on the same train and lived in that area. We had a lovely chat, a few more pints and then they dropped me off at the bus stop from where I could get back home. We became close friends.
The camera shows the wheel break from the track, throwing the hero and the henchman to either side of the room. It cuts to the carriage in chaos, with people panicked at the motion. Then it cuts to you to break the tension.
Checks out.
I do tend to have a calming effect on people. Mostly because I can’t be bothered by anything beyond my control, so I just think “Eh, fuck it” and proceed as normal.
Why were people smashing windows? Is it dangerous to be on a train that’s derailed?
They just panicked and lost their cool. It’s way more dangerous what they did instead of waiting inside until emergency services arrive. By the time I hopped off, the entire area was swarming with paramedics , fire brigade and the guards. I was the last person on that train
Are you Simon Pegg?
Why, what’s the reference I’m missing? _
Ah, lol, did you refer to the Winchester? I guess many people in Ireland act that way, too. That’s where it happened. A healthy “oh well…” attitude.
The Winchester, yeah. I wouldn’t have thought of it if it weren’t a meme that you partially quoted!
edit: Clarification.
Fair. It wasn’t intentional on my end, it’s just a not uncommon attitude in GB and IE, I suppose. ^^
In college, rowing for state championship. Sitting in the bow position rowing against the best team in the state. You’re not supposed to look out of the boat because you need to keep your head inline so as not to upset the boat. But because I was at the front I could see the other boat peripherally. When the gun went off and we started rowing I expected to see the back of their boat disappear, but it didn’t. And after pulling for a couple hundred meters they were still there. We were IN this thing. We weren’t losing.
To explain a little about rowing. The coxswain basically communicates with the stroke, the person right in front of him, the strongest rower that the rest of us follow. But he has a bull horn, or at least back then that’s what we used. So he communicates with the whole boat. If he calls a “power 10,” that means we are supposed to take 10 harder strokes to pick up some speed. A good coxswain knows when to call these. Obviously you can’t pull harder 100% of the time or you’ll burn out. But this time he was calling them more often than usual sending a subtle message that we were in the race of our lives. You can also hear the other boat calling power 10’s and we were matching them. The boat started to have what we call “swing.” This is when the rowers are all in sync producing a sort of harmony. The boat feels like it’s going faster. Like it’s up on plane (not a real thing in an 8 man racing shell).
As the race proceeded, we were neck and neck. At one point the boats got close. Our oars, nearly made contact with their oars. But it wasn’t our boat that was off coarse. It was theirs. We held the line as they corrected. They were supposed to beat us, but we were right there. We could hear the excitement in the voice of our coxswain. The finish line was approaching. We were all fighting from hitting the wall. Pushing harder than we ever had, knowing we had a chance. We heard the call from the other boat for a power 10 but our coxswain did not call one. I could see the back of the other boat pull slightly ahead and I thought, this is where they play their trump card. Ten strokes passed by and still nothing from our coxswain, we knew the finish line was coming up but nothing. At this point there is nothing else going through you mind. It’s just raw focus. Like tunnel vision. Then it happened. Our coxswain called out, “Power to the finish!” And then something like, “Row like hell! We’ve got this!” In my peripheral vision that boat was still right there, just like we were still at the start line. They had one of those old timey metal flag things that would rotate 90 degrees making a ching sound, then again when the next boat passed. It had gone ching-ching rapidly almost like a cha-ching, because we had crossed the finish line so close to each other. Then the moment we had been waiting for. He called, “Let it run,” meaning we could stop rowing the race was over. He kept us going straight while we all collapsed, laying backward in the boat, oars spread on the water haphazard. I could hear a guy in the other boat dry heaving. After a moment, when it momentum was spent, we were all just sitting there looking at each other asking the rowers on the other team, who one. No one knew. It was a photo finish. We had to wait for the results. It felt like forever. Our teammates were on the shore yelling something to us. There was some chaos we didn’t understand and I realized then, this was just like being in the movies.
Well… Did you win?
As a matter of fact we did! I’m a state champion from like 30+years ago. It was a shirt race, meaning the loser had to turn over his team t-shirt to the other team. I was the proudest owner of the t-shirt of our arch nemesis.
It’s was also a requirement to win at State, to earn my own team’s t-shirt. So I finally had my team t-shirt too!
For about 30 minutes, because then I stroked a four man boat to a 4th place finish where I lost it to another team. I thought I had earned the shirt and coach would replace it, but nope that’s not the way it works. I was pissed. I never would have run that second race if I had understood that.
But I just have to give credit to our coxswain. He called the race perfectly and in no small way contributed to our win.
Coxswains are often looked upon like a kicker in American football. It doesn’t matter how bad the team messed up for the last three hours, if the kicker misses that crucial last kick, the whole game was lost due to him. This is because coxswains are dead weight. Since they don’t row, all they do is slow us down. This is why they are usually women, because woman are generally smaller and lighter. Ours just happened to be a small dude that earned his ride that day.
You know when a scientist/expert warns people about a disaster and they don’t believe him and a short time later they actually suffer from that disaster?
Well. I was that expert. I do disaster response planning for a living.Told a large public company that they are at risk of a certain scenario. They told me that they don’t believe it would apply to them and basically kicked me out.
Two weeks later they were on national news for it.
Not that it would have changed a thing - projects we do take months and do not prevent a disaster, just deal with the risk much better.
But still. Felt surreal.
What was the scenario (if you don’t mind saying)?
Sorry, it would be easy to identify the customer then, so sadly I can’t.
My first kiss was in the rain.
Was the other person hanging upside down in a red and blue spandex costume?
Oh I wish! Although she would have probably asked why it wasn’t pink and black.
My second partner, I was with for about a year and a half. Our last kiss was in the airport, before they left the country for a year. We were both crying inconsolably. Their dad drove me home, the rain pouring down.
Then their ex followed them to that country and I was suddenly broken with after months of lovely video chats from afar. Ruined me for a good couple years.
Ouch, that’s definitely a movie plot. You failed, though, by not getting on a last-minute flight and chasing after her.
Ehhh it definitely worked out for the best—I’m married to the perfect person now hahaha
Was it raining? I hadn’t noticed.
