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.
Once i had a bike accident. The car was parked and the driver opened the door milliseconds before i drove by.
The bike smashed into his door and i went flying onto the other lane, where luckily no cars were driving at the time.
The movie like thing was that i landed rolling a few times and ended up on my feet without any injury or whatsoever. The bike was trashed, as was the car’s door. The driver was also pretty shocked about what happened. I was just wondering why nothing happened to me.
Ok, i was young ( 26 ) and I’m sure my body wouldn’t be so lucky nowadays.
Drives me crazy how so many people don’t check for traffic, pedestrians, whatever before opening their door. Glad you weren’t hurt!
Nowadays with mobile phones it’s even worse. I see people walking around with their undivided attention on what they are doing on the phone. Other people usually walk around them.
Other people usually walk around them.
I don’t, I am the mean asshole they have to walk around. I see them imposing costs on me and I don’t accept.
You might be a ninja!
I had a similar experience (at a similar age but only one flip) and instead of a door, I stopped short to avoid an unexpected car and did an involuntary front flip over the handlebars of a mountain bike with the handlebars still in my hands. After I landed on my feet, the bike swung over my head (through the force of its inertia, I’m guessing) and landed on the back tire in front of me in a full wheelie position while I stood behind it. The driver just looked at me with her mouth wide open in shock. We had a laugh and continued about our days unharmed but shoook. I can’t even believe I did that. I certainly wouldn’t be able to do that if I tried.
Yeah, I’m sure that, without training, trying to do something like that on purpose, is bound to have you fail spectacularly.
In my case, i would probably jump too soon, before the door opens.
I was at Goodwill one time and I swear to you I heard a conversation almost exactly like this at the jewelry counter.
employee: hello how’s it going today?
customer: pretty damn terrible
employee: oh, uh… well I hope it starts getting better soon
customer: it never does
Sounds like somebody had a case of the Mondays.
Sounds like a typical interaction in New Jersey.
Was that customer perhaps a melancholy robot with a brain the size of a planet?
Lots of weird sex stuff
…go on…
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.
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.
I somehow got the highest possible score in an English exam without properly studying for it, and I ended up getting voted as the class rep after a single speech.
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 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. 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.
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.
Damn. This is almost the plot of Primer.
Whoa, you are right!
…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.
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!
Sorry, friend. I’m glad things have gotten better.
She got eaten by a grue.
I could only hope!
I saw a lady slip on a banana peel irl outside of the Disney store in Dublin, Ireland. I didn’t even know it was possible. I felt really bad bc I couldn’t go help her up because I was laughing so hard and had to go into the Disney store so it wouldn’t look like I was laughing at her. I was just more shocked that it actually happened.
In the early 2010s, Cape Girardeau, MO was chosen as a location for some of the filming of Gone Girl. I lived there and it was the talk of the town. People were running into Ben Affleck at the local Andy’s and shit.
Meanwhile they put out a casting call for extras. I didn’t care about it but of course my girlfriend and her cousin went psycho about it and signed us up. We waited in line with at least a thousand other people only to finally get up there, and all they did was take a headshot and send us on our way. The girls were all disappointed that there wasn’t anything else to it while I the introvert just laughed about it.
Until I was the one they called back. Not only that, but it turns out they picked me to be a stand-in for Boyd Holbrook. I spent a week hanging out on David Fincher’s set, occasionally doing work while trying to avoid getting in trouble for doing things like accidentally sitting in Rosamund Pike’s chair. Then one of the assistant directors’ mother died and he had to leave, so they “promoted” me to production assistant. At one point I was sent to look for and found David Fincher’s missing iPhone.
Fucking surreal man. But I’ve got the 20th Century Fox W-2s to prove it.
Is Fincher a kind person? He’s certainly talented. Thanks for sharing this story.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to have a conversation with him. But he did seem nice.
Been in several car accidents. Rolled a car down a hill. Was hit by a car and went over the bonnet, roof and landed on my feet behind the car bruised but OK.
Got run over by another car dislocated my knee and my heel burst open, the lady in the car gave me about 20 chocolate penguin biscuits for the shock, then I got on a bus and went to my mates house for a joint.
Done illigal bridge swings off of railway bridges and damns and abseiled away from the cops.
Climbed onto the roof of a moving steam train dressed as Indiana Jones walked along the carridge then climbed back in through a window, scaring the crap out of the people in there.
Then met the girl of my dreams, had kids settled down (a little) and lived happily ever after.I literally had the Talladega “Yep. I’m flying through the air—this is not good.” moment but mine was after i high-sided my motorcycle. lol
Only real crash I’ve ever had.
…So far.Ha, I had a similar feeling when I went off a jump snowboarding that I literally asked my buddy if they made bigger overnight on the chairlift up. As I’m in the air, thought “yep, they definitely made it bigger. Holy fuck, I’m still in the air, I’ve never been in the air this long.” I actually landed it for like a second, then I completely ate shit n broke my wrist. Fun times!
Snowboarding is so fun. I can’t wait for this season. I just wish it wasn’t getting so expensive—like everything else.
There’s one family owned hill in Tahoe called Diamond Peak that I still frequent. It’s unfortunate because it’s not the greatest hill in Tahoe (by fucking far) but hey, they let kids 6 and under ride for free, and while it is still expensive, it’s much less than their corporate counterparts. It’s also nice that I can bring my kids and not go broke. Most of my old stomping grounds have been bought by Vail and the like. It’s a shame because I would like to take my son to Squaw, Alpine Meadows, Northstar, and Heavenly but they are just way to God damn expensive now. I got a gondola pass for my wife recently at Heavenly. SEVENTY FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS. Mind you, that just gets you to mid mountain and no skiing/snowboarding. Those used to be $15 before Vail came along. They’re also charging for fucking parking now too. They’ve sucked all the fun out of the sport for sure.
Man… That adrenaline dump when something very bad is happening: senses shut off, you get “pre-death clarity,” and time slows down as you try to figure out a way of making the inevitable less painful…
Too bad the recovery time for those few micro seconds of superpowers is like a week!
Imagine if you could activate it at will. That would be wild.
I’m not sure what use it could offer but it would be interesting.
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.
Walked out of the shower with a towel around my waist, facing a tweaked guy with a gun. Took my wallet and ran out of the apartment. Good times.
Wtf? You were supposed to chase him out a window, down a metal fire escape into the rainy alley, past a bunch of Chinese food vendors, into traffic where you nearly get wiped out by a car that honks at you and you briefly lose sight of the guy…
And all of that^ in parkour.
