I came to the realisation recently that I occasionally engage in behaviours that I think are, to put it bluntly, completely stupid. These are things that defy all logic, things I try just because I once hoped that they might work, because it would be really amazing if they did. And I was wondering if anyone else here does things like this.

Let me give you a couple of examples. The first was something I did frequently as a kid, though I still find myself trying it when I'm bored and in a situation with people around. Basically, it's an attempt at telepathy. I think as hard as I can at a person, trying to catch his attention without doing anything overt like looking at him. Or I'll try to influence someone's behaviour, forcing him to walk this way around a table, rather than that way, when both are equal choices (or, preferably, I make him do something inconvenient). When I was a kid, I'd try to use telepathy to talk to friends before I fell asleep, even though I knew it wouldn't work (though it did help me fall asleep). I know it's totally silly, but I still occasionally catch myself doing it anyway!

My next example is just as bad. I have a friend who was into witchcraft -- as in, totally into it. She knew the distance to the nearest ley line at all times, she was forever writing little symbols on stuff for luck or whatever, she tried to slip people love potions, and she held seances with her friends (I was invited to one, but apparently I give off negative energy that keeps the Ouija thingy from moving, so I never had to go again). Anyway, sometimes when I'm waiting for someone, or trying to track someone down, I'll catch myself etching the little symbols she used for those things into the ground. I didn't even try to learn it... they're just ingrained into me after years of knowing her. Silly!

(These are things that I think are unlikely to be real, by the way... no offense is intended to anyone who believes in telepathy or witchcraft. They are simply things I don't believe in but do anyway... that is what I find silly.)

Does anyone else do stuff like this? Do you obsessively try to show that P=NP? Do you demand that paper be taken out of the package and placed in the printer with a certain orientation? Do you habitually cover up your nose whenever you see contrails (chemtrails) overhead? Do you sometimes break out your telescope, intending to look for flying saucers?

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"It's turtles all the way down."

A habit I picked up a few years ago is that whenever I've eaten an apple, I throw the core at a piece of open ground while saying "apples should grow there".
The careful training of dice while playing RPG's ir also a habit, ie. between the times when the result matters, I throw them repeatedly, leaving those that fall on the most desirable(highest or lowest depending on the game) and only rethrow the rest until they have all "learned" what to do when I have to use them for real. I do this knowing perfectly well that it has not effect whatsoever, but it helps me get into the superstitious worldview of fantasy RPG's.

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"God bless thee, my son; I will give thee the greatest jewel I have ...
"The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible."Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

I go to work even when I've an illness worthy of at least one day out and then when it's an exceptionally beautiful day, I call in sick.

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Teri berry...quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
Width, silver, bells, cockle, shells, and prithe made all in aureole

I spend more time gaming than doing things that would last (like actually writing down the stories in my head).

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

This is an interesting, never-thought-of thread. I guess all or most people do have a habit of doing silly things. I have to admit, when I was a kid I used to think there maybe aliens (ET) in small caves in the mountains. I did palm reading a lot, to my friends. Used to tell them the age they were expected to live and how rich they will be in the future. And sometimes I wondered if I can think of something strange no human has thought of before, invent a word no human has said before.

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P.S. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.

-- Mitch Hedberg

There is one stupid and pointless thing that I do. I always shake a bottle before opening it. This habit formed when I was a young boy and we would shake up our milk bottles so that the cream would mix in with the milk. Of course, these days there is never any cream sitting at the top of the milk so I have no need to do it. But I do. And I shake just about every other kind of bottle too. Which means that occasionally I spray myself with soda.

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The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

Back about 10 years ago my friends and I used to wander around the neighborhood at night "ghost hunting". We were convinced that you could tell the presence of a ghost. And, if you listened to the thoughts in your own head just right, you could even tell what the ghosts were telling you. The trick to this is basically clear your mind and wait for any thoughts to pop into your head that isn't a thought you generated yourself. This is "spirit-speak". We knew all the local spirits, including a group of youngsters that liked to play hide-and-seek.

And now a decade later I realize it was pretty silly, but we enjoyed spooking ourselves anyway

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

I sometimes walk down the street and see a stranger in front of me. I'll yell, "Hey, Steve!" just to see if they turn around and look. Most of the time they do, even if they're not a guy!

I have to keep my fingernails free of dirt at all times. Even if this means stopping in the middle of a calculus test to clean them with a house key... dirt=bad...

Every time I see Ducky (see my signature) in the hall way, I have to stop to pet his hair. I heart his fluffy hair. Sometimes I just randomly pet people in the hall if he's not around... There's this one kid in the middle school who has hair I like, too...

I point at my friends as a greeting, rather than waving or saying hi.

--hippie

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Visit Mutated Genes, my X-men fanart site.

I heart Ducky. I stalk Ducky. His hair is quite fluffy, and he makes good cookies. (And now he's my prom date...)

I play Sudoku (and curse the vile individual who introduced me to the online website)

I stand in the rain and take photographs of locomotives

I stand in the dark, in the freezing cold, and look at little spots of light against a black background

worse, I have children!

I like to walk down train-tracks in the middle of the night. The one closest to me is elevated so you get a good view of the sky, as well as being able to peer into everyone's backyards - if that was your go. Only the occasional train to worry about, much less chance of being rudely interrupted than walking down a footpath.

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BugMeNot A portal to bypass free-site registration.

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident." Arthur Schopenhauer - renowned 19th Century German philosopher.

well, being a railfan, I used to walk the tracks... but having a sister who was in the NTSB - in particular, that division devoted to railroad accidents - I have changed my attitude. I give tracks a wide berth, I slow down and check both ways at crossings (even those with gates - they're reliable as all get-out, but occasionally they DO break, or the maintenance crew screws up) and I never never never ever stop on the tracks in my vehicles. (not that I ever did that, but now I'm adamant about it)

Now that I think about it, that is a pretty ridiculous thing to do. It's more so when I consider that I can see almost half as many dots from inside, where it's warm and there aren't small biting insects half the year and cold, wet, white stuff the other half.

But will knowing that it's ridiculous stop me from going out? Not likely.

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"It's turtles all the way down."

I tap the top of drink cans before opening them. I picked it up from my father, who does it before opening a can of pop; he insists that it prevents them from spraying. I don't know whether that's true or not, but I now tap everything from Coke cans to juice cans to cans of soup.

I used to talk to the Moon. Still do sometimes.

I set my alarm for that early Wednesday morning elective class.

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"The plan does not involve mayonaise."
"... I knew there was a catch."

You can't take the sky from me.

I smoke

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Not because it is easy, but because it is hard...

There is no way to happiness,
happiness is the way.

I continue to sleep in the buff, despite repeated evidence that the puppy will plant his cold wet nose on my posterior when he wants to go outside

I raise both hands when crossing over rail road tracks. People don't notice I do this, either.

now, that is weird...

I just realized, I count the beeps in elevators, even though I'm not blind

I do all sorts of things that make perfect sense to me, though I realize sometimes that anyone watching me must think I'm completely nuts!

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

I'll drink about 90% of a can of soda, then stick it in the refrigerator, forget about it, open a new can, and repeat the process.

I also won't study until the day before a major exam. For example, I have two exams tomorrow. I haven't even done any of my homework for my differential equations class, it's been five years since I took my last calculus class, I've been out of school for two of those years, and I can't remember how to do some basic integrations. But I'll waste time on message boards now and study later.

And very occasionally, I see an interesting news article and think to myself, "hey, maybe I can post this before ToSeek."

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The opinions expressed in the preceding message are not guaranteed to be consistent with any known universe, real or imaginary.

Strange things? Too many! Like Henrik I believe you can train dice, I frequently swear in a peculiar regional dialect from southern Italy that most Italians can't understand, I only wear black clothes, have a bizarre taste in beards (currently returned to Musketeer beard/moustache combo - somewhat singed after Sambuca incident at weekend )......

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Philip

I will not fear. Fear is the mindkiller, fear is the little death that brings total oblivion.

Frank Herbert, Dune