h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The conversation that I am most envolved with in h2g2 right now is the Haiku Challenge at http://www.h2g2.com/A494291. Recently when I was there, the next topic was posted as lemurs. I searched the web and went to [URL removed by moderator], a site apparently run by Duke University. After a quick bit of research I wrote this:

A prosimian,
Ringtail lemurs can be found
In Madagascar

Quite clever, I thought.

Just now (not really, since it's taking me a while to type this), at apx. 1:20a CST 01/04/01, I was flipping through the channels and stopped on a PBS program with John Cleese bitching about being in the jungle. It turned out that he was in Madagascar, looking for lemurs, and some of the researchers he was with were from Duke University.

Is this just a strange coincedence? Was I "primed" to notice something about lemurs if it came-up again? Did the person who posted the topic of lemurs just recently see the same show because it's "lemur season" on TV?

Who knows!!! But I notice strange little things like this all the time. Like, one weekend not long ago I heard or read something about Hitler being a vegetarian twice, and out of the blue. I never knew that and suddenly it comes at me from two different sources on the same weekend. Maybe I had heard it somewhere and it just stood-out because I heard it twice in a short time span. Either way it was kind of strange.

I'll add more as they jump-out at me to the conversation below. Maybe something like this has happened to you or you know of a scientific term for this phenomenon. Feel free to add to this discussion.

And just to get things started a bit, I'll try to write something here that's a bit obscure and as "random thought" as I can.

He stands-up. He grabs a book he found off the shelf. He opens to a page and looks: Bishop's Castle - Eng. - 52.29N Lat. 2.57W Long.

I was probably influenced some by the fact h2g2 has English roots. But I really didn't even know for sure what the book was when I picked it up. (Goode's World Atlas 13th Edition c.1970)

Anyway, if you notice coincedences like these, I'd like to hear about it. Talk to ya later

There is a strange trend I've noticed lately in American Television commercials that must be some kind of coincidence. Suddenly, well for the last couple of months or so, a lot of TV commercials I see have bears in them. Some ad with a bear eating some people's food and they jump the bear, I think it's a VW ad with some guy taking his picture with a bear and having to run, and I know there are more. It just seems strange, because there are quite a few. Like there was some documentary on bears presented at an advertising convention and everyone thought, "Hey, I'll put a bear in MY ad!!!" I'm going to watch some TV now and eat pizza. If I see more of these ads, I'll list 'em later.

I just saw one of these ads featuring bears for the first time in a while. It was for the Toyota Tacoma 4-door and shows 5 or 6 guys coming up on a bear eating their food. They attack the bear because they're so "tough", just like the Toyota Tacoma. It actually has a warning at the bottom in tiny, grey letters that says, "Do not Attempt". You would think this would be perfectly obvious. Then again, I do see people stopping on the train tracks all the time. More to come as I see them and if I remember to list them. P.S. - Before the merger with the BBC, I was Researcher U159106. That space since exists, I think.

Finally saw another one of those "bear" ads. This one was for Smirnoff Ice, a new vodka drink. Two guys come-up on a bear going after their booze and one of them squirts honey all over the other one so the bear will chase his buddy instead of going after the booze. I guess the hidden message of this one is, "Who needs friends when you've got alcohol". Touching, eh?

Just saw a new "bear" ad. This one was for Labbatt's Blue Beer. Some guys are waiting for their friend to hit his golf shot out of the woods. They think it will take forever, "Should have packed a lunch", but when he hits it out it almost goes in the cup. He comes out of the woods and it turns out to be a bear (guy in a costume, of course). I know there are a couple more I saw before I started writing them down here. I'll keep watching, though it looks like noone is reading this but me.