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Attack of the Awesome and Neat Moments.
Jinnigan
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I was hanging out with this guy I’d just met – Andrew was his name. He seemed a pretty cool dude, and we’d been talking for an hour or so, about music and movies and whatever. You know, general friendliness stuff, nothing really personal. Then, out of nowhere, he asks if I played the piano – and I said yes, over a decade ago, when I was 8. I was caught off-guard – I’d really only shared about my recent college endeavors.
This is where the cool part kicks in.
He told me that he guessed this from watching my hands – the way I picked things up, the way I moved my fingers, etc etc. Which was kinda cool, when I thought about it – things I did for a few years in my early youth are still affecting me now, when I’m 19.
So, yeah. This thread is for sharing awesome or neat or cool or interesting stories that have happened to you, like the one time my friend and I re-enacted the Star Wars III: Higher Ground scene on an obstacle course at our graduation party and I, being Anakin, was thrown from the top and had an air time of almost 3 seconds and also came out with a nosebleed.
Like that.
This is where the cool part kicks in.
He told me that he guessed this from watching my hands – the way I picked things up, the way I moved my fingers, etc etc. Which was kinda cool, when I thought about it – things I did for a few years in my early youth are still affecting me now, when I’m 19.
So, yeah. This thread is for sharing awesome or neat or cool or interesting stories that have happened to you, like the one time my friend and I re-enacted the Star Wars III: Higher Ground scene on an obstacle course at our graduation party and I, being Anakin, was thrown from the top and had an air time of almost 3 seconds and also came out with a nosebleed.
Like that.
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So i instinctually just jumped up and back, and i essentailly backflipped to avoid it. I was the only person in the room, but it was still awesome.
I call schenanigans. Even if you were only falling for 2 seconds (actually falling, as opposed to rising in the air), you'd fall 19.6 meters.
Unless this obstacle course was on the moon.
Still cool though. Except for the nosebleed part.
but it certainly felt like 3 seconds
I'd be a bit creeped out if some other dude commented on my thin, nimble fingers. eeew.
Anywho, ever since I was a kid, I've had a bullet-time-esque reflex when it comes to dropping shit on (or in the direction of) my toes. I remember when I was 5, I was playing around with a high-end remote control car (the kind with the big, long-ass batteries from the '80s), and I dropped the battery. Instinctively I did a tap-dance and avoided the thing falling, and ever since then I've never really dropped anything on my feet.
Recently I was in the kitchen, doing kitchenly things with sharp pointy (also kitchenly) things, and I dropped a bigass knife (direction: feet). I looked down and it was like the fucking Matrix.
I could see it as it fell, hilt down, blade up, towards my right foot, which I moved out of the way. When it hit, however, it bounced up and rotated blade-down towards my left foot. This is all in super-slo-mo, mind you.
In what seemed to be an eternity, I managed to replace my right foot and move my left one to avoid the sharp steel blade. I was instantly reminded of the incident with the battery and I thanked my lucky stars that I have the reflexes of a cat.
The reflexes of my cat, you bastard. That's why she got hit by that car *sob*.
It was the first few days of college and my buddy and I had moved into the same dorm room together. Due to a technical failure, he had to reload everything on his computer. My computer was fine and I was downloading drivers for him.
Back in those days, the best method for copying shit was on floppy disk. We were doing this back n forth for a few minutes; copying drivers onto floppy and tossing them back and forth while a third friend watched TV on the couch in between us.
He casually lifted his left arm in the air (with his elbow still on the desk) with his fingers extended and palm reclined back a bit in a kind of half-assed attempt to catch it. I lobbed the disk, with a spin, into the air. It was like a football movie; everybody's eyes followed the disk as it flew in super slo mo through the air and PLOP, the motherfucker landed right on his hand. Didn't bounce or anything, just SMACK. It took a few seconds for our brains to process what had just happened, but jaws dropped as soon as the realization was made, followed by geeky high-fiving and glowing smiles and sheer disbelief.
I was once in a store, I think it was Kroger's, picking out a lock for my gym locker in highschool. As I was standing there I hear two kids, a boy and a girl around 8, begin a threecount. I don't really think anything of it, as the mom pushes them by me, the little shits hit 3 and then spit on me. I was pissed and tried to explain to their trailer trash mom what her little inbred fucks had done, but she didn't give a rat's ass. Anyhoo, they moved on about their merry business.
So I waited a bit and started working up as much phlegm as possible in my throat. I started a search pattern in the store hunting for my prey. Ahoy, they were in the produce section! The mom had walked off to look at the assorted fruit. I walked up behind the kids, made an exclamation to get them to turn around, and then spit in their face. Hurray for justice.
Of course, when ever I tell this story in real life, people act like I'm some kind of monster.
:whistle: did you ever know that you're my hero
you're everything i wish i could be
Cause of this a more than a few occasions other folks have noticed it in me, and I've done the same in other people. It's kinda neat, and frequently leads to discussions about deaf siblings or whyever they learned it. Hell, it even got me laid once, which was both awsome and neat.
I'm not really big on sports or large crowds, but I was over in germany during the world cup this year. I didn't get to any of the games but watched a lot of them on TV in pubs and on big ass projection tv's set up in public parks. It was rather neat to get to blend in with people so dedicated to something.
While I was in amsterdam, I got to see Holand get knocked out, while a victory would have been nice it was still extreamly cool to be surounded by locals and feed off thier excitement. That I was baked from some fantastic herb and stuffed with some amazing food didn't hurt either. Honestly, I have never felt so connected to a large group of people and just so very comfortable. Just an huge change from my normal mode of being on the ouside looking in. I'd conside awsome a rather apt discription.
I was at the airport. I pass through security and see a guy standing near the table at the end while one of the security guards is going through is bag. He's got his hand on his forehead and he's saying "Oh god, I didn't even think, I just stuck them in there, it was just a mistake" etc etc. The security guard says "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to stand over there while I call your flight and tell them you won't be on it." She turns around and in her hand she's holding two clips. Like, for a gun. Apparently this guy just stuck them in a side pocket of his carry-on at the last second.
So she leaves to make the call or whatever, and while I'm putting on my shoes, I hear a bit of a commotion behind me. This security guard is escorting a man through the metal detector, and as he passes through, she says to the guard on the other side of the X-ray baggage machine "Do we need to get someone for him? I think he has 'issues'." (Yes, she did the quotes thing with her fingers). The rather large black woman behind the machine grabs a plastic bag with a box in it from the conveyor belt and says "Well, I can tell you right now, he's got some big issues right here." She puts the bag on the table at the end of the conveyor belt and says "Sir, come over here." Now, this guy evidently doesn't speak much English. He says "What wrong?" and she says "Why are you bringing these on the plane?" I peer at the bag, and I can sort of see through the plastic at the box inside. As I keep staring, I can see that it is....A KNIFE SET. Like, a box of kitchen knives, with a little wooden block to store them in and everything. The dude is like "I can't bring on plane" and she says "Hell no you can't bring this on the plane!" At that point I was catching strange looks from another security guard, since I was ready to go, but I was just standing there watching the scene. So I had to jet.
Still, a rather interesting experience all in all.
Fortunately, he wasn't the sharpest tack in the box. He failed to realise that his 6" height advantage became significantly less of an advantage when you stand toe-to-toe with someone and try to head-butt them.
I think he learnt his lesson at the point his nose contacted my forehead. If you're going to head-butt a short guy, you need to get your technique and range sorted out first.
Only after that I noticed there was a pole in the way, it was sort of an automatic reaction from my years of Judo-training: instead of falling, you roll and get back on your feet asap. Only, usually that's done when fighting someone and not when you're walking around on the streets o.O
Some old lady saw it happen and was all like "wow!" and I was all like "heh" and the crowd rejoiced.
Yeah, things similar to that have happened to me, like when I accidentally backed into somebody at the restaurant, and he was carrying a bunch of wine glasses on a tray. One fell off, and I reached behind me and caught it. Everybody was like "Wow, awesome!"
The best part about things like that is that they don't know about the 999 other times when I missed.
Years ago, I helped out a buddy of mine with a self-defense course for battered women and assault victims. Most of these women were pretty well off after a few weeks, but we had a small group of women who needed "extra" help getting over their trauma.
Enter Darth, stage right. My job was to get tossed around like a sack of potatoes and get kicked in the balls while praying my cup would hold out.
Enter Shrinking Violet, stage left. This girl had been through a pretty brutal assault (rape) and had no spirit left in her; she was almost completely broken. Any motion on my part would cause her to flinch in fear. Now, I'm not a big guy (5'11" and 160lbs.) but this girl was tiny, maybe 5'2" and 100lbs. soaking wet. The head instructor and I had a plan for women like Violet and it involved teaching them the nastiest, dirtiest tricks in the world for causing pain. This shit worked like a charm.
Fast forward about one month and the cops are knocking on my door and driving me to the hospital; I was afraid Violet had been hurt but the police kept laughing and told me to, "wait and see."
Turns out, Mr. Would-Be-Rapist picked the wrong girl to jump and ended up with four shattered teeth when she PUNCHED HER KEYS THROUGH HIS CHEEK. The injuries became more and more embarassing (broken jaw from a well placed elbow, dislocated knee from a kick to the inside of the leg...); basically, Violet just dumped all of her repressed emotions out on this one guy and forgot to stop. Shrinking Violet had become Violet Beauregard.
She looked at me when I got to the hospital's waiting room and asked, "Did I do okay, Darth? Or am I in trouble?"
No, sweetie. You did just fine.
I remember hearing a similar story involving a man that liked to beat up his ex-wife. One of her friends bought her a shotgun and taught her to use it.
Well, he decided one Sunday night to try climbing through her bedroom window.
He didn't make it, and got a nice hole through his chest for his effort.
I love stories like that.
She didn't go to jail for it, I hope?
@aesir: you're supposed to walk behind the guests and serve the glass from their right side. At least, that's how its done in decent restaurants. :B My uncle (chef in such a restaurant) tells me that reaching over the table is a big no-no. :O
We have a mile-long hill that goes down to our nearest beach (Richmond Beach), and at 3am during the summer, 3 buddies with bikes, and then a buddy and I with blades all decided to make the short 3-mile trip down there for the heck of it. With no cars on the streets, the skater-friend and I bolted to the top of the giant hill through spurts of holding onto the bikers' seats and doing fun little tricks. We arrive at the top of the hill.
The skater-friend isn't extremely proficient at skating, but he's fairing well. We start our decent after the bikers, slowly making zig-zags across the 4-lane road's large curvy corners, lit only by yellow streetlights. Eventually, a mutual 'fuck it' is expressed between us, and we aim straight down the hill without any attempt to slow ourselves. With our skates wobbling like Micheal J Fox, we reach speeds of 30-40 MPH, trying our best to 'hold firm'. I look back, (a feat in itself, believe me) and I see my friend slowly bend foward--while going 40mph--and suddenly get sucked towards the ground, tumbling around with precision and grace. I grind my wheels/break to stop, going about 40 yards before finally stopping and run back up towards him, expecting blood and gashes.
He's completely fine, not one single pinprick of blood shown. Just red spots and warmth where his body made contact with the ground. An amazing night overall, indeed.
And another time in high school, at night, me and a friend synch'd up our mp3 players to the same linkin park song and then la parkour'd all around the streets of our neighborhood in time with the rhythm of the song, it felt--and looked--awesome.
Something interesting I found once, it takes about 10 seconds to fall form the top of the Eiffel Tower to the ground (it might have been Blackpool tower). In the deepest shaft mine in the world, located in South Africa, it would take 57 seconds to hit the bottom. You'd almost have time for a cup of tea.
One of my closest friends was raped. This story gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling. My only complaint is that she put her keys through his cheek - why aren't you teaching them to go for the eyes?
A friend at a party is demonstrating a lighter trick. It's the one where you hold it like a pencil, then let go of it and sort of snap it and lift your thumb in a manner that causes it to spin around the back of your thumb and return right to its original position. People do this with pencils a lot. Not really that great, but it looks cool if you've never seen it and someone does it well.
People are drunk and several of them have never seen it so they're all gathered around and watching and are like "cool, do it again, how do you do it" etc.
Anyway, meanwhile, friend #2 is being a general annoying geek and is off to the side tossing his own lighter around and trying to play solo hacky-sack with it (kicking it and bouncing it up and down and stuff).
Now, here's the insane part. Friend #2 does a basic outside kick to his lighter, causing it to fly right between two of Friend #1's audience, right into Friend #1's hand, directly and exactly into the starting position of the spinning lighter trick (immediately next to #1's lighter), and without any pause or thought, Friend #1 instantly does the trick with both lighters, spinning both of them around his thumb and back to the original starting position. The entire thing happened in one fluid motion, such that Friend #2's lighter never stopped moving from the time it left his shoe until the time #1 finished his impromptu double-lighter spin. It was quite literally surreal, like watching corny special effects occur in real life, and no one watching knew exactly what to do about it.
Also, one time I threw a hat like a frisbee all the way across a very long room, and it landed neatly and perfectly on a the owner's head while he was messing with the stereo - as if had walked up and placed it there.
That was one of the tricks; in the heat of the moment, she ended up with the cheek. When I asked her about it, she said she wished she had gone for his throat. I miss my little psycho-girl. She had real serial killer potential.
To SithDrummer: Yeah, she went from nice to naughty in nothing flat.
I wasn't watching when it fell, but I snatched it out of the air about a foot off of the ground without looking. I felt like a jedi.
I don't believe you.
Junior year in high school, hanging out at the edges of the school, jabbering with my associates. One of them, the guy whose name I never bothered to remember, decided to see if I did the Dough Boy laugh.
He poked me.
I sweep-kicked him, Sub-Zero style, and he landed on his ass. Sadly, it was on soft leaves.
--
Same school, possibly even the same semester, another associate, a girl who looks like she was slowly moving towards the "Bull Dyke" physical appearance stereotype, for whatever reason, wanted a hug from me. I, being morbidly shy, refused, and started backing away, and she started chasing.
Tried to dodge her for a few minutes, then slipped on those same damned soft leaves, and it gave her enough time to tackle me to the ground, breaking my shades, to hug me, and then to punch me in the back. Hard.
Suffice to say, that area is known for having high uranium levels in the water.
Awesome #2 Army night driving in Germany. My buddy was driving one of these in a night convoy. The night vision goggles we were using have only one objective lens but two eye pieces, thus you think you have depth perception but, in fact, you don’t. While attempting to make a turn my buddy turned too soon and went off the shoulder and down a sloped five foot embankment into a field. The angle of the embankment was just perfect to balance the truck up on five wheels. Still turning (and swearing and yelling) the truck and it’s load of artillery shells made a neat three quarters circle before landing heavily back on its full complement of wheels. My buddy had to get out and sit down for about ten minutes till he stopped shaking. It looked like one of the NCOs was gonna start yelling at him but he was saved when the Platoon Sgt. Burst out with “Baker, that was GODDAMN AWESOMEâ€.
It was the last round, and I was completely out of ammo cos I rambo it and shoot like 10 rounds at everything I see. Anyway, capture the flag, the flag is in the middle of a small course, on top of a hill, so everyone can see you go for it and you normally get the shit shot out of you. But as soon as the round started, without any ammo, I just ran as fast as I could for it, charged up the hill, pulled the rope to raise our flag, then dived off the hill.
I fully expected to get hit so I was completely tense and my body was all prepared for a barrage, but somehow nobody had seen me from the other team, I dived away, and spent the rest of round faining shots, like if someone popped their head up i'd click off a few blank shots and they'd duck, the flag stayed like that for the rest of the round, and we won. Was fucking awesome.
Also, witnessed an out of the ordinary moment from pointblank;
If anyone lives/works in a city you know how bike couriers act, ie, cutting in and out of traffic, doing crazy crap and weaving in and out of crowds of people. Anyway, I work in Sydney CBD, was at a crosswalk waiting for the lights, headphones in, and a bike courier comes flying around the corner to my left, and to my right a taxi (equally crazy in the city) travels around the same corner. The bike hits the bonnet headfirst and he flips over slamming into the windscreen.
I had headphones in but the crunch of the dude hitting the windscreen and the screech of brakes deafened me, scared the shit out of me. Being all cool and such I dialed 000 (emergency in Aus), though im pretty sure everyone around me was doing the same eventually. The windscreen didnt even crack, but the courier was out cold, on the road to the side, and cars were stopping and screeching, was chaos.
Just a bizzare event, was not neat for the guy cos I assume he was seriously injured, but the fact that it happened directly in front of me, like a foot away, with most sounds muted by headphones, just creeped me out. I spent the whole lunchbreak watching the paramedics and the taxi driver and shit, was one of those strange/awesome experiences. Makes me really freaked out of traffic walks now.
3DS: 2852-6809-9411
1) It's deer hunting season and I'm camping out on our back deck watchin for deer. He's about a mile back in the woods sitting on an abandoned train track, which he can see several hundred yards in either direction. I hear the crack of his rifle and wait patiently. Awhile later he stumbles out of the woods covered from head to toe in god damn blood. I though he had been shot. Turns out, he was on the tracks and a deer popped out in front of him and spotted him before he could raise his rifle. The deer subsequently charged him and in the process of being run over he shot the deer in the fucking jugular point blank. The deer died like 10 feet from him.
2) I did not witness this so it may be heresay. My dad was camping up north with some of family members who are not apted to do such things. This is the boundary waters of Minnesota, which if you are not familiar with, there are not motorized vehicles allowed, so it's all canoes and hiking with tents. The whole ten yards. They are camped out and there's a tree apparently like 20-30 yards away with a squirrel nibbling on the bark. My dad says "Watch this" pulls out his huge buck knife, throws it and hits the squirrel square in the back, sticking it to the tree. He played it off, but man it surprised even him.
I have a similar driving-justice story. I'm driving home from college over thanksgiving break and there's this huge traffic jam. So this genius thinks he'll just drive on the shoulder past the traffic jam. Less than a mile later I see the inconsiderate prick's car stuck in the ditch. No major damage or injury or anything, but it sure served his ass right.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/BlindProphet
Amazing Kid Stories:
When I was in my later years of taking the elementary school bus It became the duty of the older kids was to keep the young ones at the bus stop in-line (this was before parents regularly chaperoned their children for fear of them being kidnapped or whatever). One child in-particular was a clear-cut case of what we would now likely diagnose as ADHD. He constantly ran around, made fart noises and tested the patience of those of us who were supposed to keep things under control until the bus arrived.
One day this little kid brought his plastic Batman toy to school (the line that had those really pointy spikes on the head). He decided not only to annoy but also to poke people with the head of the toy. I had enough and demanded he stop it but he'd run out of my reach and do that "Nyah nyah" thing kids do.
I got fed up and kicked the toy out of his hand. My foot didn't physically touch him, but the way he was holding it I kicked the feet of the toy so that it shot up through his hand and fell a few feet away. After a moment of dead silence where he just stared at me in horror, he began to cry. I had to explain to the bus driver that he was okay, he just got upset when I "yelled at him to stop hurting kids with his toy".
A repeat of this incident occurred when I was left to watch a bunch of kids during a super bowl party a bunch of years back. A kid was running around all hopped-up on Capri Sun, since his parents had this awful habit of giving the kid sugar and caffeine without digression. He was in a laughing fit and squirting people with his juice-box. I was trying to tune the kids out, they were loud and I really didn't want to have to watch them. When I finally got squirted I decided to do something about it. Without getting up from my game of DiabloII I kicked the juice-box from his hand, caught it in mid-air and sprayed him with it. Then, after tossing it in the garbage and putting my hand back on the keyboard, I used my foot to pin him in the corner of the room for 15 minutes until he stopped struggling and let him go.
He was a lot quieter after that.
Amazing Waiter Stories:
I twice managed not to dump whole trays of dinnerware even after loosing my balance and falling to one knee on a slippery kitchen floor. The first time was a tray of champagne flutes, of which 4 out of 20 broke and the second I managed to save an entire overloaded tray when I took a wrong step around some people and onto a soapy tile floor. The second time I did manage to spill a little coffee creamer down my back though, but not a single broken dish or glass. I'm proud of that one.
I have a few Amazing Reaction Time stories too, mostly about driving, but unless I want to write some Amazing Getting Fired from Work stories I should leave them until later.