Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with weird

Bank closed old account for overdraft. How much will this affect me?

Anonymous — Tue, 14 May 2013 18:29:52 -0800

An old (free) checking account in another state started becoming inconvenient (no local locations and bad phone service), so I moved my direct deposit elsewhere. I left a little money in the account, thinking having an older account would help with credit. I recently found out, however, that several months ago, they closed down the free checking service and switched to a fee checking service. While this was happening, it eventually drained the money out of the checking account and went negative. They apparently also closed the account for overdrafting, How badly is this going to affect my credit? Can I take any steps to mitigate it? Additional details:

- I found this out by logging into my web banking, only to find that there was no actual statement whatsoever, so I have no idea how and when this actually even took place. I'm actually assuming on the fees, since I was looking around at what their accounts currently offer. The checking account is just gone.
- There was also a savings account attached, that was supposed to have overdraft protection on it. The savings account has a minimal sum still left in it and is still existing.
- There is an online notification saying that my billpay has been closed since the account was closed for overdraft.

Additional question:
- How to find out what actually happened?
- Is there any way I can dispute this with the bank?
- Will this affect any other things besides credit score? (Ie future bank accounts, obtaining a mortgage, background checks, etc)

3 Left Hands. Weird.

PenguinBukkake — Mon, 06 May 2013 08:03:25 -0800

I see three left hands. Why?

Weird Auckland?

supercrayon — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 19:51:43 -0800

I've lived in Auckland (on the Shore) for a year, and I've seen all the really popular touristy stuff (the Sky Tower, Waiheke Island, the War Memorial Museum, etc). Now I'm wanting to find the fun weird stuff that locals know about. Like if Auckland had a UFO museum (it does not, to the best of my knowledge)? That's the sort of thing I mean. Any suggestions? Can be places to go, things to do, stuff to eat, whatever. Anything outside Auckland is okay too as long as it's not, say, more than an hour or so's drive away.

Does this weird animated CGI music video description ring any bells?

TheAlarminglySwollenFinger — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:29:07 -0800

I'm looking for a bizarre animated music video, possibly originating from Korea or Japan, which I've spent an hour googling fruitlessly. It's a CGI very cartoony thing, I think it has two Japanese-animation-style figures on an island in a scenario that becomes increasingly depraved, featuring massive sexual organs spattering fluid everywhere, ending in gory fashion. It may have featured on Metafilter but I haven't found it. I think it dates from last year.

The music itself is fairly atmospheric pop, perhaps Flaming Lips-esque.

If it's just a weird dream I had, apologies!

Help me find weird medical/human stuff!

agress — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 07:51:39 -0800

I like weird/creepy (but not "boo" scary!) stuff. Do you have that itch too? If so, help me scratch it! What are some good books or sites on the internet that I haven't seen with weird stuff? I've always had an interest in abnormal things, aberrations, bizarre, just "weird" stuff. It's been going on for years. I don't believe in the paranormal or anything (ghosts, UFOs, ESP, etc) so I don't really mean that stuff. Fiction is totally ok. I tend to like unsettling/creepy stuff more than actually frightening/scary stuff, and I've had more luck with that in the written word or in museums than in videos/audio, but if you have any suggestions on that front, let me know!

What I like:
--Ripley's Believe it or Not (the books/museums, was less excited about the TV show)
--House on the Rock (my favorite place in the world)
--York/London Dungeon, or at least I did when I was there in 1995 (still pictures/descriptions of gore are OK though I'd prefer for that not to be a major focus of this)
--the SCP website (when I first found this, I REALLY wanted it to be real)
--Guinness records (specifically the ones about medical stuff, the chapter about "most children birthed" and lowest body temperature etc was always my favorite)
--Wikipedia's list of bizarre deaths
--There's a thread at SA right now about "Creepy Wikipedia articles" and a lot of it is serial killers and plane crashes but I really like that thread
--In high school, I don't remember the context of this but our science class went to the local university for a big lecture with slides on "things that can go wrong during pregnancy" (birth defects but also cell division problems, etc) and I probably thought that was more interesting than anyone else in the class did.
--I've always wanted to go to the Mutter Museum but don't live close to there and haven't found the justification to make the trip.
--I thought Bodyworks (and other Gunther van Hagens stuff) was pretty cool.

What I don't like:
--Things that jump out and go boo
--Being actively startled
--Videos/audio of gore/deaths

Re-reading this, my tastes seem to run more to human/medical stuff, which I wasn't consciously aware of but sure! What are some books/websites you think I might like, based on the above? The person who wrote this thread seems to have similar tastes to me although I don't live near Spain and I'd prefer stuff I can read about from home. :)

Interesting blogs about weird technology?

GenericUser — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 02:17:58 -0800

I'm looking for blogs that cover old and/or niche technology, in the vein of Something Awful's "Obsolete technology" thread or JWZ' "retrocomputing" tag. Suggestions?

Is there anything I should do?

antgly — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 17:18:24 -0800

Trying to be rational here. Is it possible that I might be targeted by a group of people? A day ago, I was sitting on the train and the seats right behind me (some trains here in NY have back to back seats) were occupied by a couple of thuggish individuals. I was sitting on the train for around 15 minutes and then I'm putting my headphones on and I overhear one of them say "He should've put his headphones on sooner." The next stop I got off and got out of the station (I was walking, not running. Either way I had to make a call to one of my friends as there was no reception on the train and I wasn't sure if we were meeting up - this would influence which train I would be transferring to.)

So I think about it later and I think "oh well, I'm sure that was just an awkward moment."

So today (one day later), I'm walking home from the train station (another train station near me) and I see someone smoking a cigarette call out "Yo buddy..." and he's standing on the stairs leading up to the train station that are out in the open. I pretend to ignore him and then I hear him say "Yo get him... get him..." I start walking a bit quicker than usual (not running) and since there were more people walking towards me on the street it would've been a bit more difficult to get to me if someone were to try to chase me.

Should I be concerned? I usually shrug things off, but this is just making me feel slightly paranoid.

What the hell just happened?

cincinnatus c — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 16:00:21 -0800

What are some of the light-hearted, bizarre news stories of the past twelve months? For a Christmas quiz, I'm trying to get something for each month. September, there was the woman who painted over Jesus. For this month, Darwin the Ikea monkey. But I'm stuck on some of the other months. This is in the UK, so ideally things we would've heard of over here.

Mystery Puking

Andrhia — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 10:24:21 -0800

My daughter throws up after she showers. (And a few other times, too.) It's been going on for nine days. What could be causing my kid's mystery vomiting, and what can I do about it? HELP HELP Dr. MeFi, I'm becoming panicky and don't know what to do.

On Monday Dec. 3, my 10-year-old daughter took a shower before bed, and unexpectedly threw up after she got out. She'd been fine all day up until that point. Since then, she's thrown up nearly every night. On a night when she showers (this is every other night), right after she gets out. Otherwise, she's woken up in the wee hours and been sick. She's had no vomiting at all on two nights. Oh, and she threw up once at the doctor after they did her strep swab.

We were operating under the assumption that it was just some passing virus. Aside from the puking, her head hurts, her throat hurts, her stomach hurts. After a while she started coughing, which turned into a distinct wheeze, which wound up in nebulizing her for a few days.

We've been to her pediatrician for this twice, now. On Saturday, they renewed her asthma meds and said to wait out the virus. All day Sunday she was fine until... shower time. All day Monday and through the night she was fine, too! We thought we had waited it out! So we sent her back to school yesterday. Then she threw up after her BATH, not shower (See? We were trying to change it up.) And then again after we woke her up this morning. Poor kid.

So today I took her BACK to the pediatrician, and they basically said, 'This is really weird, I guess talk to the gastroenterologist?' and gave me a prescription for Omnicef in case it was something like a sinus infection or pneumonia presenting in a nonstandard way. As loathe as I am to overuse antibiotics... we figure it can't hurt...? And maybe it will help...? But I haven't started it yet.

And she's, you know, mostly fine? You wouldn't look at her and think "That there is one sick kid." She's not perfect, but she's not exactly moaning in bed, either. She was coughing for a little while in the beginning, but that's over, and her lungs are clear as a bell now. No sneezing, no runny nose or congestion, no fever. She's eating well, no bowel problems. What she eats doesn't seem to matter. She's thrown up on chicken soup and kept McDonald's down just fine.

We have not started using new shower products. We've told her to take cooler showers, and again, one incident involved a bath. No new foods or laundry detergents or anything that we can think of. We have a new roof on our house, but it was put on *after* she got sick.

The child in question has a peanut allergy; history of asthma; a mild dairy allergy; and as we discovered after a lengthy investigative process for her two-year recurring stomach aches, fructose intolerance.

It bears noting that the gastroenterologist in question diagnosed her with IBS last year when we were trying to get to the bottom of her fructose-caused stomach aches. "Eat more fiber" was all we got from the gastro, but it just wasn't working (at least she confirmed no celiac, so there's that). In the end we had to take matters into our own hands and do a Serious Elimination Diet. This application of the scientific method led us to self-diagnose and actually find a way to make her feel better. Which she does! Though she misses smoothies a lot.

So basically: If you were her parent, would you give her the antibiotic? Is there anything we can try before we get in to see the gastro? Should we see the same gastro, or someone else? And have you ever, ever heard of an illness like this?! It's just... weird. Really weird.

Never thought I'd see bacon in the air

one4themoment — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:50:52 -0800

Flight change... details inside Keeping it simple. (Quasi) Boyfriend supposed to fly to Las Vegas Friday. Get a text tonight saying flight has been changed to tomorrow. Supposedly he has no idea why. I've done some cursory google searches that seem to indicate flight time changes in hours. But days? Not seeing anything like that, and it's bothering me. Common sense tells me that an airline would not change your flight by 2 days earlier, ESP without explanation on such short notice. What little flight experience I have... has always been within minutes of the itinerary.

So here's the question. Is this something that actually happens, and I'm just clueless? Or is this something that does not actually happen, as I suspect.

If relevant... this is a pleasure trip (to visit a friend).

What is causing this inexplicable video problem with my monitor?

dougrayrankin — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 09:59:29 -0800

What is causing the strangest video error I have ever come across? My monitor gave me a "No Signal" message, which I assumed meant the computer had died (it was a Linux machine in the midst of a large compile) and so rebooted it. Still no signal. Hmm, maybe the machine died and it will now need to be reinstalled? Anyway, I change the cable over to my Windows Desktop. No signal. Aha! Faulty cable, I hear you say. I swapped the cable. Still nothing. Aha! Faulty monitor I hear you say. I swapped the monitor. Still nothing.

What the hell is causing me to have a signal failure between any machine and any monitor using any cable?

Non-intuitive food combinations that work

Blasdelb — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 15:22:49 -0800

So when I was little I was the weird kid who mixed up food in weird and non-intuitive ways that grossed out many of my peers, but many of those combinations, discovered through largely blind trial and error, turned out to work really well - What are ones that you've discovered? For example I found cucumbers to go shockingly well with all manner of sweet things like berries and ice cream, also fresh jalapeños but in a totally different way. Every time I've asked friends with similar habits I've always gotten unique and amazing combinations, and there have got to be plenty on AskMetafilter.

Let's creep again like we did last summer / let's creep again like we did last year

item — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 09:25:00 -0800

The dark months are approaching: it's late October and it's time to be scared, but not by your typical Halloween spooks and haunts. Help me discover all that's disconcerting and downright disquieting online (and possibly off). Similar versions of this question have been asked a few times before, but as the internet grows so does the amount of weird crap on it.

Ultimately, I'm interesting in compendiums of the creepy, such as the site featured in this post or other similar blogs, articles, and forums. I'll definitely take being pointed towards one-off weirdness, though.

There's not a set type of media I'm interested in - I'm just looking for the best of the best to fill up my bookmark bay for nights when I should be fast asleep, but am very much not. Videos, lengthy & involved stories, mysterious web sites, pictures, fucked-up audio recordings - anything that fits into the categories I've listed in my tags over on the right of this page. There has to be a ton of material out there that I've missed that hasn't been linked to in the threads I mentioned above and that will send chills down my spine. Where is it?

There's a hole in the countertop, dear Liza, dear Liza

raztaj — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 14:36:20 -0800

What should we do with this big 1'x2.5' hole in the top of a bathroom countertop? We're doing a little fixing up of our 1978-built family home. Our goal right now is to rent it out for a few years, then sell at some point. We're not interested in any big or costly fixes for the time being.

The bathroom is mostly navy blue and beige. When we moved into the house in the mid 1980's, the hole had a galvanized tin container that fit over the hole, and was meant for plants and some other greenery. The container has since been thrown up, after it was found in the garage with some super gross stuff in it.

The question is, what do we do now with the hole? What can we build? We don't have any more of those tiles, so closing it up seamlessly isn't an option. What would look the least weird as possible?

As for what's around it - to the upper right, is a bathtub. Opposite that, is a wall with a big mirror. The countertop continues with two beige sinks. I don't have exact measurements, but it's approximately 1 foot by 2.5 feet, and the hole continues to the floor.

Eat your dinner or you get it for breakfast. Cat.

AthenaPolias — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 15:57:16 -0800

Cat food filter: When presented with the same brand and same flavor of wet cat food, my cat will wolf it down at my mother's house and at a friend's house, but not at my house. He used to eat it constantly at my house as well, but suddenly stopped last spring. What gives? I can't believe I'm about to go this into detail about my cat's eating habits for non-necessary food, but here goes. My cat, Gatsby free-feeds dry food all day, so he's not going hungry. He does get half a can of wet cat food every night, and it's a routine he adores - nay, insists upon (in a way only a cat can). When he was a kitten he'd eat just about anything, but as he's gotten older (he's 3 now) he's slowly become more and more picky. Last summer I hit on one flavor that he adored and would eat without fail - Friskies salmon dinner - so I started giving it to him every night. Seemed like serendipity, until last spring when I bought a new case of it and he suddenly wouldn't eat any of it - wouldn't lick it, would barely even smell it. The problem went deeper, though, as he wouldn't eat any other Friskies, or even other brands. I slowly traded up and up until he started eating Weruva brand food, about 80% of the time.

(Meanwhile, he was perfectly happy to receive canned salmon, so there wasn't anything wrong with his health. I had my vet check on him just in case - verified healthy, if a little odd.)

I went away this summer for 2 months, and my mother took care of the little monster. When I came back a month ago, she said, "he's eating the Friskies again!" Sure enough - Friskies salmon dinner, wolfing it down. Great, I think - problem solved. He's happy, I'm happy he's happy, oh bly dee, oh blah dah.

A week ago, we drove back from my mom's to where I live, about 12 hours away, and for the first two nights we were back in town we stayed at one of my friends' apartments instead of my own. While there, I bought him a can of the same food from CVS, and again he scarfed it - no issues.

Then we came back to my apartment. For the first two nights he ate another can I'd bought at CVS, with no issues. Thinking there are no problems like we had last spring, last night I opened a can of the Friskies - from the same case he'd rejected last year - and found the same problem still present. He won't eat it, smell it, backs away and won't deal with it at all. So tonight, I bought another can from the grocery store, thinking maybe there's just something in that case he doesn't like, but no - same deal, won't engage with it at all.

So, here I am again with a cat who demands dinner every night, but who won't eat what he's eaten perfectly happily in the past. When this happened last spring I went through can after can of other brands, flavors, textures, and threw them all away. It's a waste of food, of money, and it just leaves him (and me) disappointed.

Does anyone have any ideas what this could be? I wondered if maybe there was a way to track cat food by its label code, thinking maybe my food here in Ohio is coming from a different plant than what gets distributed on the east coast, but didn't find anything. Is there anything that could explain this odd rejection of food, seemingly only in my apartment.. sometimes? He always asks for dinner, and will eat canned salmon at any point but that's a little excessive. It just makes me sad to not be able to give him one thing that he loves so much (I always grew up with indoor-outdoor cats, and this one is purely indoor, so there's a little bit of guilt there, too). Help?

I should just bail, right?

ablazingsaddle — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 22:27:56 -0800

Should I give notice one week after moving in? I just moved into a new place, and it's going horribly. There are a lot of things wrong with the apartment, and I'm keeping this vague on purpose, but it's not a good situation. The straw that is breaking my back, honestly, is that the landlady is extremely nosy and strict about my dog. We moved in less than a week ago, and every day there's another problem with my dog.

He smells bad! I should bathe him more. (He's a German Shepherd - you're not supposed to give them baths very often).
He barks sometimes. Maybe I should keep him tied up in the yard? (Hell no).

Etc., etc. I told her tonight that I thought that things were not working out, and that I more or less felt like she was asking me to leave. She replied that she's not asking me to leave, but . . . she's basically asking me to leave.

All my stuff is in boxes. It's just a huge pain in the ass to move after one month. Has anyone done this? Should I try to stay, or just suck it up and move?

What is thisJ

phunniemee — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 08:33:50 -0800

A person I correspond with ends every email with the letter J. At first, I thought it was just a typo, but now I see it's consistent over dozens of emails. Now I'm curious if it's a thing, or if maybe it's some artifact of some unencoded character, or what. This is generally how it will occur:

Hi myname,

Thanks for the blah blah blah! I will let everyone know about the blah blah blah. I'll be in touchJ

Best,
hername

Capital J, no space, no ending punctuation.

It looks like her (work) email gets routed through gmail (to my gmail address, which I check on gmail). The font of her emails appears to be the default outlook reply (blue text, whatever non-gmail font that is), but nothing really special.

As soon as I realized it wasn't an errant typo, I thought maybe she was using it to sign off, since my name starts with a J. But she does it on other emails that are sent to multiple folks who don't have J names.

For what it's worth, I've met this person in real life and she has both of her hands and all of her fingers and appears to have all of her mental faculties.

Anyway, I'm very curious. Any ideas what might be going on here?

Is this a normal offer for licensing a bit of music?

Beardman — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 06:55:59 -0800

A big media company wants to license a recording of my old band to promote an online role-playing game. Can you help me disambiguate the terms of the offer, and tell me if the money sounds standard? Our band wrote, recorded, and self-released the song. The company wants to use it for "background instrumental (no vocals), up to full use within trailers, advertising and promotions, including excerpts and clips therefrom."

Then they say their offers are as follows: $1,500 for use "via the Internet only, worldwide, in perpetuity"; and $2,500 for "option for all broadcast media, worldwide, in perpetuity."

Question about the meaning: do you think that the $2,500 includes the $1,500? Or is it in addition (for a total of $4,000)?

Question about the money: is this offer pretty much normal for this kind of thing? I have no idea. (If it's relevant, the company is a worldwide household name, and the online game is also big.)

To be clear, we're not expecting to make a fortune here. I just want to check if this is standard fare for licensing a song forever. Any input would be appreciated. (I know, you are not my/our laywer.)

What was that van?

zjacreman — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 10:46:07 -0800

Please help me identify a strange, retrofuturistic van that I saw. A very odd, striking van drove by me yesterday. I've never seen anything like it, and I'm really curious to figure out what it was.

It had an Omni-esque late 70s or 80s sci-fi look to it, like an old Previa mated with a TNG shuttle. Wide, long, and boxy, with rounded corners. Sized like a very large van or a small bus. The windshield sloped down at a severe angle to a flat front - no hood, or not much.

There was an identifying logo on the rear panel, lower right corner. It was a script face and the word started with V.

This was in League City, TX.

So, hive mind, what did I see? Thanks!

Eroguro nonsense

shii — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 07:14:19 -0800

Recommend me smart films that celebrate abnormal romance. My girlfriend and I are weird people and want some happy romantic films to put us in the mood. We both enjoy psychological stuff, and both of us have slight tendencies towards BDSM and eroguro; a film where two people fit their abnormalities together would be great, although other kinds of film would also work. This is way too much information, so I'll give some examples of films in the right category.

Amelie would be perfect, but she's seen it many times already. The girl seems to match some aspects of my girlfriend's personality.

L'Histoire d'O will probably work, but it depends on our mood. It's a pretty damn erotic film.

MIND GAME could work. (This is a Japanese existentialist film where an introvert falls into a whale with his lifelong crush, and they make love inside the whale. There's also a lot of flashbacks and time travel.)

Secretary matches the general idea, although I thought it was a kind of simplistic and unintelligent tale.

Let The Right One In is not exactly upbeat, and could leave us cold for most of the time, but we will both enjoy the eroguro.

Kill Bill is not a romance film at all but could possibly work depending on our mood, due to the eroguro factor.

I have never seen The Phantom of the Opera -- does it fit?

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is not the sort of thing I have in mind. I don't want to rant in a question space but it seems utterly mundane to me-- I mean, I'd rather watch "Love Actually", which at least has a really philosophical sense to it.

What do I need to know to be an effective and prepared expat American in Belgium?

Blasdelb — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:18:43 -0800

What are the quirks to living in Europe that will surprise me as an American and what do I need to know to be an effective and prepared expat American in Belgium? I'm going to Belgium this summer as a PhD student in the biological sciences in most awesome lab ever at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Leuven, Belgium. I visited the town and the lab once, and fell in love with it, but I've realized that I have very little idea of how to go about the business of actually living there.

I'm looking for:

Practical advice I'm likely to need as an American planning to live in Belgium,

Challenges and bonuses I'm unlikely to be expecting,

Useful anecdotes,

Expectations I will need to get used to,

How living in Belgium, and Europe more generally, different from living in the US,

Non-obvious things I might want to be careful to make sure to bring with me,

Things that will be weird

and other things I haven't thought of that I might find useful or interesting.

Also answers to some stupid questions,

What is the best way to move my stuff? I have 8 shelves of books, which I can store if moving them would be cost prohibitive. I also have a reasonably nice bike, a desktop, and a nice big monitor that I love but has a Massive box. Which of these things make sense to take with me? How should I do that?

For money, I can just get my bank (USBank) to print up a check in Euros and make a new account with a Belgian bank using that right?

How do I go about looking for a house/apartment/roommate situation? Particularly while still in the States.

I've heard people don't use checks even for large exchanges of money like paying for rent, does it really happen in cash? I at least get a receipt or something right?

I am already reasonably familiar with Belgian history, politics, language issues and geography and so do not need a primer. I also already know some usable French and am learning Dutch.

Authors who write (or wrote . . . if they're dead) Twilight Zone and Outer Limits-esque stories?

GlassHeart — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 03:02:53 -0800

Authors who write (or wrote . . . if they're dead) Twilight Zone and Outer Limits-esque stories? I'm a long time fan of the shows The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone and am seeking out authors who write (or wrote . . . if they're dead) the type of stories that could have been adapted into Twilight Zone and Outer Limits episodes.

J.G. Ballard and Clark Ashton are two authors I can think of at the top of my head whose stories make me think "This could have been adapted into a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits episode" when reading them. Can anyone think of any other authors that would probably be my cup of tea?

What is this Japanese thing?

ninazer0 — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 22:30:58 -0800

What is this mystery Japanese product? I bought it at a 100 yen store in Sydney, Australia because it had a picture of an angry wasabi on it. Here's the back and the side.

Inside is a silver foil packet with two sachets (forgot to take a picture)

So, what the heck is it? Do I eat it, plant it, rub it on my body??? The front has a big 30kg figure on it - I can't imaging was 30 kilos of grumpy wasabi would be doing in a tiny little packet.

What to get for the guy who has everything (including the kitchen sink)

oxfordcomma — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 10:46:03 -0800

My dad is turning 67, and he's a rather eccentric guy. I want to get him something unique for his birthday. Help me find a gift for him! Details inside. I'm wracking my brain trying to find the perfect gift for my dad. He has a lot of eccentric interests, but he runs an antiques/oddities shop and collects everything he deems "neat" (Believe me, we have a early 1900's children's coffin, a polygraph machine, and 1950's-era hot dog machine). It's extremely difficult to pinpoint one area of interest, but again, he likes anything that's a little odd or offbeat.

+ He really, really likes history. He tends to veer more toward American history, but I caught him reading a book on European social folklore.

+ Buying my dad new books is out of the question. He has literally thousands of first edition books.

+ He doesn't really watch television, but he makes an exception for British dramas/comedies [Think "Are you being served?" and PBS programming rather than "Monty Python" or "Doctor Who"] I might be inclined to get him some DVDs or memorabilia, but I'm not quite positive what shows he's already seen.

+ He already has a desktop computer/laptop/cell phone/e-reader/etc. He's pretty satisfied with the level of technology he has, and getting him, say, a new cell phone will just lead to months of frustration and accidentally calling New Mexico.

+ He's also really interested in legal matters, especially of a historic nature.

+ I'm considering taking him somewhere for the day. We live in Upstate New York [near Albany] so anything within a 2-3 hour drive would be good. He's in pretty decent health, but outdoors-y things aren't really his style.

+ I'd like to get him something under $100.

Thanks!

I'm weird, boring, or untalkative. How can I stop being these things?

jumelle — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 23:30:23 -0800

So, being myself isn't quite working out, in that I either wind up being entirely untalkative, boring or entirely strange. How can I stop this? I'm not really sure how to describe this issue, but it seems like I'm currently operating between extremes. In social situations, I'll either wind up being entirely untalkative, or according to other people, bizarre.

I spend most of my time in my untalkative state, being mostly unaware of what's appropriate to say and of what the point of saying anything at all is. Small-talk is obviously somewhat irrelevant, simply by virtue of what it is. If people need concrete information on something, they can always look it up. More serious ideas can be difficult to accurate convey in spoken words, and it's not always appropriate to discuss them. Personal issues are personal. For the most part, I feel like there's no practical reason to talk at all. In most situations, I have difficulty coming up with anything besides a one-word answer.

When I do talk more freely the experience can be somewhat...disorienting? Apparently I'm weird, even though I have difficulty seeing how. At least once a month, I get told something along the lines of, "You always sound high even though you're not," or, "Nothing you say ever has anything to do with the conversation," and this bothers me to no end. Being the "high" or "random" person in no way strikes me as desirable. Sometimes I seem to have offended certain people, and I'll have no idea as to why. In general, I have a difficult time determining why I come off this way to other people, and as it stands, I'm terrified of saying or doing something more inappropriate than what I'm apparently doing now. It seems I'm incapable of monitoring myself.

I've tried balancing these issues out by attempting to be talkative while also editing out anything potentially controversial from what I have to say. But the end result of this is that my reaction times to other people's remarks is highly delayed (making me seem slow), and everything I have to say is devoid of sincerity or personality. As I mentioned before, I don't talk that much, so being boring on top of that is a deadly combo. I don't have that many friends to begin with, and all of this in combination- the quietness, the weirdness, the blandness- is putting me on the fast road to dying completely alone. Instead of ineffectively playing a part all the time, is there a way that I can genuinely tweak myself so that I can want to talk to people and avoid weirding them out once I do? Advice on this issue...?