Bizarre Coincidences

[mechaerik]

In 8th grade, my teacher was randomly giving out essay topics for a biographical essay. Basically she put scraps of paper with names on them and let people get a random one. I said "I better not get someone i've never heard of, like Heinrich Rudolf Hertz". Whaddaya know, I got Heinrich Rudolf Hertz.

In my 6th period computer class, there is a guy. Me and him both have the same birthday, Oct 28, '92. Another guy recently switched into our class. The new guy has the exact same name as the first guy.

 

[ZeletDude]

A few years ago, I was flying alone with my sister back from vacation in California and we saw people on the plane we knew, one of my baseball coaches once, and his kids who are one year older and the same age, it struck me as weird, since my entire valley has like 15K people, I wonder what the odds are.

 

[bombshoo]

These two involve my grandfather:

He was drafted at the height of the Korean War, and his ship over made a brief stop in Japan. As he got off the boat with the rest of his regiment there, some high ranking official came up and said "you two men, you are coming with me" to my grandfather and another guy. Two new men happened to be needed as radiomen in Japan due to a court martial on some other guys a couple days before. My grandfather's regiment ended up being one of the first groups to face the Chinese wave attacks and ended up suffering heavy casualties. If not for randomly getting pulled out, I might not have been born.

My grandfather also ended up in a movie theater while in Japan next to a friend from high school he had not seen in years. He was also a radioman.

 

[History_Buff]

CBC sent one of it's foremost radio personalities to Moscow to do a week long series on the city. Queue bombings.

 

[Tani Coyote]

In 8th grade, my teacher was randomly giving out essay topics for a biographical essay. Basically she put scraps of paper with names on them and let people get a random one. I said "I better not get someone i've never heard of, like Heinrich Rudolf Hertz". Whaddaya know, I got Heinrich Rudolf Hertz.

Reminds me of how I was assigned Hitler once in an 8th grade project... it wasn't random however, so I think the Geography teacher purposely gave me it, given that many would call me "Hitler" in those days due to my angsty dreams of world domination. Sure enough, everyone lol'd at hearing that I had gotten Hitler.

...Funnily enough, my main bully received Claus von Stauffenburg.

To me, this says that it was a premonition that he would fail to defeat me, regardless of his best efforts! (Except now the "good" and "evil" roles have been reversed.) Maybe the teacher, always being a fun type, purposely arranged the names for that reason, having a hidden good message despite the fact that my paper was on an evil person.

 

[warpus]

This isn't really that bizarre, but it just happened a couple hours ago.

I was lying in bed, watching the funniest late night talk show (Craig Ferguson) and he was doing his daily twitter/email read thing.. (he reads emails, responds to them, etc.) One was about eye laser surgery, and somehow he was going on about how a fly got stuck in the machine, and now he has to vomit on his food before he can eat it (yeah, it's my kinda humour).. Anyway, it's a reference to "The Fly".. Commercials come on, I flip the channel to a highly inferior talk show (Jimmy Fallon, bleh, nothing else was on), and who is he interviewing? The star of the 1986 The Fly remake, Jeff Goldblum

Not so bizarre but a coincidence nevertheless

 

[Lord Baal]

I and my ex-roommate have the same birthdate, only 3 years apart.

My sister and my girlfriend have the same name.

Several times I've dreamt about completely insignificant news stories, like a story about a dog falling down a well or something, only to see or hear the same exact story on the news the next day. The most creepy was a story about Jesse James' corpse being exhumed to determine if he'd faked his death or not. I dreamt I heard it on the car radio, only to see it on the evening news the next night.

I originally lived in Brisbane and moved to Sydney when I was a child. Who should I run into on the first day of high school but my old best friend from up north whom I hadn't seen in years? Later, he moved back to Brisbane, but who did I run into on my very first day of university? That's right, the exact same guy who'd moved back down to Sydney again, this time for university.

 

[RedRalph]

Wy wife once offered me a cup of tea when I was really in the mood for one

 

[holy king]

Wy wife once offered me a cup of tea when I was really in the mood for one

true love.

 

[Tani Coyote]

When my cousin gave birth early this month, I prayed the night before for a healthy birth for both her and her baby. The next day, the baby was born free of complications, my cousin perfectly fine, and there was a twist of irony: although the doctor had said that of all women giving birth that day, she'd be the sole one to get a c-section, it was reversed, instead she was the only one to give birth naturally.

The real coincidence is right after she gave birth, I fell ill, as if I had transferred my good health into them. I was sick for about a week. Oh god. That was horrible. I hope you're happy, missy!

---

Yesterday, I broke my phone. I intended to repair it but no matter what I did, it would not work.

Today, my mom got it to work just fine without adding anything new; she just slipped the phone cover back on. But now, her phone does not work.

---

The other day, when my friends were racing down the street, I closed my eyes and was more or less trying to curse the more athletic one to lose. Based on what I know, the less-athletic one was winning until I opened my eyes. I suppose the more athletic one has a higher top speed but poorer acceleration. Is it normal for more muscular people to have better top speeds/worse acceleration than super-skinny people?

 

[aronnax]

My partner and I both have American accents (despite living mostly in Singapore both of us), both enjoy celtic music, are like the only two Singaporeans for MILES to enjoy Baba Yetu (I discovered that on our first date), have the same surname(in English only though, it's a different Chinese Character) and for some strange reason, plenty of people think we are related at first sight.

 

[Tani Coyote]

2 months later, I have had some consistent coincidences to share.

Coincidence 1:

Spoiler long with a touch of vanity :

Some of you may know me as a short-term trader; i.e. I buy stocks and plan to sell them within a month, a week or even a day!

Now, what's the coincidence?

Whenever my Dad selects a stock, it crashes - case in point; he's lost 700 dollars in one company and about the same in another. He bought them both two weeks ago. Every time I advise him to sell, he tends to refuse, and what do you know, next day or two, he loses a huge chunk of his profit margin when he could have had that money available for something else.

By contrast, whenever I buy a stock, it shoots up almost immediately. The longest short-term stock I chose was held for 13 days, selling at a net profit of 1.5% I invest in sums of 2K minimum, 5K tops.

Stocks I get tend to sell within a week or two at a net profit of 1%. The profit margin is because I follow the discipline of selling as soon as you reach a target rather than buying into the "it'll keep going up!" nonsense my father falls victim too. The consistent profit? Likely luck.

For the tl;dr crowd, the coincidence is - if my Dad buys it it rolls downhill from that point on, whereas if I buy it, it skyrockets. It's getting to the point of consistency that he doesn't like picking his own stocks anymore and gives me just about all the keys so long as I keep him posted.

I hope the trend continues so whenever I next see my brother - who says "day traders/short-term traders never win" - I can mock him. Wait. I already can since all the stocks in his portfolio are losers; he lost 1/3 of his investment in one example.

Coincidence 2:

I wake up a few nights ago to an empty house in terms of food, but thankfully, friends call and ask if I want to go eat with them. I go squee since otherwise I would have starved.

Coincidence 3:

Ever since I watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show about two weeks ago, my sister/mother's undergarments keep finding their way into my clothes pile in my room. What the hell fate?!

 

[Gigaz]

There are four dimensions of spacetime, four elemental forces and four is the size of the Dirac-spinor. Now, is that really just a bizarre coincidence?

 

[GhostWriter16]

Given my birth date and appearance(blonde hair, blue eyes), I think Antichrist is what most would call me. All I'm missing is some sort of connection to 666...

Is your RL name Nicolae Carpathia

When were you born though? June 6th of some year?

Can you please do something about Glenn Beck?

How about you do something to Nanci Pelosi instead?

 

[Itzatrap XIII]

I once opened a fortune cookie that says 'May you live in interesting times'.

When I got home, I read some pamphlet left at the door saying 'Interesting times ahead! Call (numbers omitted)'

I then turn on the telly and some sort of documentary was on, saying something to the effect of '...and that is why we have the old saying "May you live in interesting times!" '

That night I locked all my doors, all my windows, checked the kitchen to make sure the ovens were off, turned on all the lights, locked my bedroom door and didn't sleep a wink.

I have the impression that the saying actually doesn't mean well, its more like something you'd fling at somebody you don't like.

Although I think of myself as not too superstitious, even if I believe that there is something to the notion of 'invisible mysterious entities/entity', I'm not taking any chances that night.

 

[pesgores]

I met a school friend in Disneyland in Paris without knowing where she was going that summer. What are the odds of that?! We were walking, and then...we meet in the middle of the crowd!

 

[pesgores]

I once opened a fortune cookie that says 'May you live in interesting times'.

When I got home, I read some pamphlet left at the door saying 'Interesting times ahead! Call (numbers omitted)'

I then turn on the telly and some sort of documentary was on, saying something to the effect of '...and that is why we have the old saying "May you live in interesting times!" '

That night I locked all my doors, all my windows, checked the kitchen to make sure the ovens were off, turned on all the lights, locked my bedroom door and didn't sleep a wink.

I have the impression that the saying actually doesn't mean well, its more like something you'd fling at somebody you don't like.

Although I think of myself as not too superstitious, even if I believe that there is something to the notion of 'invisible mysterious entities/entity', I'm not taking any chances that night.

...

I had a deja vu of that post a month ago! Now I'm shocked.

 

[W|M]

In my English essay (handwritten), when I finished the first part, it was exactly 2 pages to the line. When I finished the second part, it was exactly 7 pages to the line. I did some history homework the next day, and it was exactly 2 pages to the line.

There's two people in my class who have the same surnames and the same birth-dates, but aren't biologically related.

I was watching a football game between Fluminense and Vasco while eating a delicious 4-cheeses pizza at a restaurant in Brazil, with a few people. Now, we were all Flamengo fans, but and so equally hate Fluminense and Vasco with a huge passion, though we were supporting Vasco in the game, as Fluminense were (unfortunately) top of the league, and Vasco wasn't doing too good. Just after half-time, I reminded everyone that it was still 1-1. 4 seconds later, Vasco scored. (Final score was 3-2 to Vasco).

 

[Dachs]

One of my landlord's other tenants dated a girl in college who, as it turns out, also dated a guy on my high school quizbowl team a few years prior. I spent a large chunk of my birthday this year talking with her about Stuff We Both Knew and about how weird a coincidence this was.

 

[Darth Caesar]

...Funnily enough, my main bully received Claus von Stauffenburg.

I just watched the movie Valkyrie yesterday.