shit_that_didnt_happen.txt: TRUE WISDOM FROM WHERE YOU EXPECT IT LEAST. AMEN!

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > shit_that_didnt_happen.txt: TRUE WISDOM FROM WHERE YOU EXPECT IT LEAST. AMEN!

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Glorified Scrivener posted:

The University in the town where I live is dealing with budget cuts and while the comments section of the local newspaper's website always contains a rich vein of STDH, today they struck gold on a story about the University Library.

And that man turned out to be Ayn Rand ...

# ¿ May 7, 2014 18:13

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 20:16

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Glorified Scrivener posted:

I suppose the writer could be the head of a band of brave citizen journalists dedicated to exposing corruption wherever it may be found.

Sounds more like a group of cranky libertarian retirees trying to inject some excitement into their lives by making their daily coffee klatsch into an intrigue-ridden story of how they took down the university with subterfuge and dogged determination.

# ¿ May 7, 2014 22:57

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Afraid of Audio posted:

Howdy

Someone actually tried to do this to our company, although not with a fancy written notice like that. We're an internet retailer so they would try to attack our servers then send emails asking for bitcoin in order to stop. They also kindly offered to attack our competitors for more bitcoin. We just ignored him and beefed up our security until he couldn't affect us anymore.

He was sending the emails to our general customer service email and it goes into a queue that anyone can read, so it was funny to follow the saga as he got more and more angry when we wouldn't respond to his genius Bitcoin blackmail scheme and especially when we made our site secure enough that he couldn't affect it anymore.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2014 22:53

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Where is that thread? I could really use something like that about now.

Meanwhile, on tumblr:

Minus creativity points for:

- No standing ovation from the women across the way
- Alternately, the women across the way do not burst into a round of "Bohemian Rhapsody"
- No one notices her heroics and proposes marriage

# ¿ Jun 20, 2014 18:52

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Aleph Null posted:

I was looking through birthday cards at [Big Box Retailer] when I heard a mother on the next aisle talking to her kid.
She said, "No you can't get that card; it's for a boy."
I was livid*, but what she said next calmed me down.
"You can't get that card either. You don't know how old she is but she isn't turning 30. Not that one, either. You are not her grandmother."

I don't even know if the little girl could read since when I saw them a few moments later, she was about two feet tall and yelling into a toy microphone. Maybe she just liked the pictures or colors on certain cards.

*not really

I think it would be awesome if someone gave me a card that said "Happy Birthday Granddaughter" and told me their two year old picked it out for me. That mom is ruining all the fun!

# ¿ Sep 5, 2014 21:19

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

walrusman posted:

A little plausible, I guess, but it has the unmistakable tone of STDH.

Cause students always address their teachers by their subject instead of "Mrs. Whatever"

# ¿ Sep 12, 2014 23:16

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

What would be even sadder is if that actually did happen, but it was just some guy loving with them. The girl is gonna be so sad when she comes back next year all ready to sing

# ¿ Sep 15, 2014 07:21

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Cashed out, with the proceeds from my 12 ecstasy sales per day. Made $100! Enough to live on through sophomore year. :smuggo:

# ¿ Sep 18, 2014 20:33

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

jabby posted:

To the point where I several times considered physically injuring someone for saying a word.

And spent 1000 words writing a description of a fictional person with autism that is completely offensive, holy poo poo.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 22:23

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Ghost Cow Goes Boo posted:

Americans call balaclavas ski masks? For some reason I always thought ski mask was synonymous with hockey mask.

Do people wear hockey masks to ski where you're from? I'm guessing not, but it would be hilarious if this were true somewhere.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2014 00:29

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

his grammar was killed by a Bloods member

This is actually a really old thing. I think I first heard it in the early '90s when LA gangs like Bloods and Crips suddenly had a media presence due to West Coast rap and movies and stuff. There were all sorts of other paranoid things like not wearing blue or red if you went anywhere near Southern California or you would be insta-killed, and we had all kinds of racist rumors in school about Hispanic students being affiliated with different LA gangs (even though we were hours from LA) and not to wear the wrong color around them, etc.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2014 23:45

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

What is the "lobby" of a McDonalds?

# ¿ Nov 10, 2014 20:17

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

quote:

"I'm going to hell for this" seems to be mostly people trying to prove how hard they are. posted:

This troper, who considers himself a comedian, often has loud, off-colour conversations in the hallway of his high school with his friends. Said conversations are peppered with jokes about cripples, suicide, pot shots at my one black friend (who enjoys such jokes wholeheartedly, mind you), the flaws in organized religion, etc. Not to mention the fact that I am an atheist, an avid fan of George Carlin and Penn & Teller, I constantly swear like a man who dropped a bowling ball on his foot, and find every single Funny Aneurysm Moment throughout history to be completely hilarious. Kneel at the feet of the master, heathens. (Come to think of it, I would consider the trope title to be a Catch Phrase of mine.)

I believe this one, except for the bold part. The fact that he thinks he's somehow unique and special for all that is pretty hilarious, though.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2014 22:19

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Noyemi K posted:

What actually happened posted:

SIX YEARS AGO I ASKED OUT MY CRUSH. SHE TOLD ME I WAS A WORTHESS FAT LOSER.

THE END.

See I think even the part about him asking someone out is STDH.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2014 21:14

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

hallo spacedog posted:

Regardless of whether he was non-registered staff at a financial firm or a registered investment advisor, what he did if it happened would have been a huge problem.

Even without that, it's probably enough of a firing offense that what he's saying to clients is causing them to want to withdraw business from the firm. He tries to downplay it by saying it's only a "single-digit percentage" of a six-digit investment, but at the very least, that's $1,000 he could have lost them just by spewing his weird opinions about the fed and inflation and bitcoin at clients. And since that post just oozes cluelessness, it's probably 100% that whatever he said to his boss indicated that he didn't get the problem with what he said and would therefore be a risk in the future. Urging the boss to watch a bunch of Youtube videos to prove his point probably didn't help, either.

What's unbelievable to me, but seems to be true, is that he was able to post all that and completely believe that he is the reasonable one in this situation. The whole scene between him and his boss sounds utterly loony.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2015 18:26

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Drunk Tomato posted:

I can't believe that 16,000 people thought that was believable, or even something worth celebrating. Why does the internet fetishize incest so much???

Not only that, but what is the revenge? I really don't care who has sex with my brother as long as it's consensual, because he is an adult. The only way I could see this being revenge against their brother is if they are underage, but that makes the person who did it total scum, not a badass sexhaver.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2015 03:20

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Do you actually learn what year every gun was invented just from going to the shooting range once a week? Like, do they drill you with gun history in between shooting or something?

I didn't give any shits about Chris Kyle until suddenly American Sniper was nominated for all these awards. Now I get irrationally angry every time it comes up. His story about killing two thugs at a Texas gas station reads like absolutely classic STDH:

quote:

I first asked him about the story last summer, during an interview in his Dallas office. I said: �Now, I have to ask you about an incident that I�ve heard about. I heard it happened at a gas station.�

He said: �You mean the time I shot two guys trying to steal my truck?�

I sat there stunned for a few seconds. The incredible story I�d heard, I figured there was no way it was true.

�It�s true,� he said.

He proceeded to tell me about that day. It was in January 2009, just weeks after he retired from the Navy. It was cold that morning, and he was wearing a heavy winter coat. He was driving his truck � his now famous black F350 with the large rims and impressive grill � when he needed to stop for gas. He pulled into a station right off highway 67.

As he got out of the truck, two men approached. Both had guns in their hands. One pointed his weapon at Kyle. They told him to hand over his keys. Kyle was out of the truck, on the passenger�s side.

�I told them I would get them the keys,� he told me. �I told them they were in the truck and to just let me reach in.�

He noticed the man pointing the gun didn�t seem very confident. Kyle knew what confidence with a gun looked like.

As Kyle turned, leaning into the open passenger door of the truck, he reached into his own waistband. With his right hand, he grabbed his Colt 1911. He fired two shots under his left armpit, hitting the first guy twice in the chest. Then he turned slightly and fired twice more, hitting the second man twice in the chest. Both men fell dead.

Kyle leaned on his truck and waited for the police.

He said he was later told that trucks like his are very popular among car thieves because they�re frequently taken over the Mexican border. He said they�d passed up the car in front of his, even though it was a relatively new Cadillac.

Kyle told me that the entire incident was caught on the gas station�s surveillance cameras. He said he gave the responding officers a phone number to call. Presumably someone high up in the government explained to the officers who Kyle was. He said the officers were very understanding, that they didn�t want to drag a just-home, highly decorated veteran into a messy legal situation that would surely draw a harsh media spotlight.

Kyle told me that he knew the tape was out there somewhere, because he would randomly get emails from police officers all over the country, thanking him for �cleaning up the streets.�

Mm-hmmmm, sounds super plausible.

But hey, it's confirmed as the truth, because he said it happened! True patriots never lie.

quote:

After our talk, I called the police chiefs of several towns along 67. Most of them had heard of the incident. One, speaking only on background, said he knew some of his men had at least seen the tape. But request after request provided no police reports and no tape ... Now that the story is coming out in other places, though, it needed to be confirmed. So consider this story confirmed from the man himself. In every sense of the word, Chris Kyle was a true American badass.

Source

Lowly has a new favorite as of 02:23 on Jan 20, 2015

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 02:20

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Kimmalah posted:

Considering some of the teachers I had in elementary school, it actually wouldn't surprise me. Some of them absolutely can't handle the idea that they hosed up and a young kid was right, to the point that they will notify parents about it.

I mean the story itself sounds like it either didn't happen or was incredibly exaggerated/embellished, but not so much because the teachers and administrators are being dumb.

My kindergarten teacher tried to force me to be right-handed, because she didn't "believe in" being left-handed. My mom raked her over the coals for that, but if I had called the teacher stupid in class, I would have been equally raked over the coals because that's not appropriate, even if you're right and even if the teacher's being an rear end in a top hat. At least, calling people stupid to their faces, even if it's true, is pretty loving rude where I come from.

Content:

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 21:54

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

That sounds about right for New Zealand.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2015 01:52

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Bonster posted:

We use a system called Cholestech at work for health screenings and get the results back in five minutes. It only does very specific things (total, HDL, LDL, triglycerides, blood glucose and total cholesterol/HDL ratio), but it's quick and accurate.

If it's a woman, her blood work isn't exceptional. Her HDLs should be above 50, not 40. 40 is for men. Triglycerides of 119 are kind of meh - decent but not enormously fantastic. If she's at 170 total, then her LDLs (which she didn't list) are going to be slightly above 100, which is borderline high. Diet and exercise would help the numbers improve!

Her numbers are within a healthy range according to what my health care provider uses, but mine are better.

Even so, it's totally possible to have cholesterol and BP levels in normal range if you are fat. Only about 70% of obese people have high BP/cholesteral. The problem is that being overweight and staying overweight, especially being obese puts you more at risk for a bunch of health problems, including high cholesterol and high blood pressure. The longer you stay fat, the more likely this stuff will happen because the excess fat is putting a strain on your system.

A doctor is not very likely to act the way they did in the story, but they are going to recommend losing weight to someone who is obese, regardless of their current numbers and they will be perfectly right to do that, because regardless of whether you are healthy right NOW, being obese and staying obese all but guarantees some sort of health problem eventually. No doctor is going to look at an obese person and go "Oh your numbers look fine today, so just carry on!"

# ¿ Feb 18, 2015 02:06

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Lblitzer posted:

"...then the judge let's me have my turn to plead my case. So I ask the cop, "Sir, what was the first thing you did when you pulled me over?" "Uhh, I don't know", "What you did was you checked the front of my grill before you said a word to me about why you pulled me over." "Oh yeah, I wanted to ensure I was pulling over the correct guy." So immediately I comeback saying, "Sir, you had doubt so I should not be accused of this and this should be thrown out." The cop just looked at me blankly and some young guys in the back started cheering and getting loud, the judge threatened to have them kicked out."

lol

Haha, I think he's "proving" that he's not guilty because of reasonable doubt. That only applies in states where traffic courts are still criminal courts, but even if it does apply, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is different than "beyond any doubt." Making sure you pulled over the right car when there are two cars in the vicinity is a pretty reasonable doubt.

I actually 100% believe that some guy went to traffic court and did this, believing it was his big takedown of the cop, but I notice that the story doesn't end with "and then the judge threw out the case and told me I should go to law school, because this was a totally new and foolproof argument."

# ¿ Feb 24, 2015 22:44

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

A Fancy 400 lbs posted:

Dog tagging, the new craze sweeping the nation.

He needs a scarier dog.

Not only that, but I live in a neighborhood that's heavily tagged and people rarely tag anything but businesses or large apartment complexes. My place is right on an alleyway and the opposite wall is always tagged over, but our wall has only been tagged twice ever (and only in the part that is a stone wall, not our wooden fence). Also, both times the owner of the bar across the way painted over the tags for us when they did their wall, so it was barely an issue. I've never seen a car get tagged (except for one artist who paints his own car) and I've definitely never seen a dog get tagged. The palm tree out front of our house did get tagged, which made me sad, but that was a one-off thing.

If this guy is really middle class, he needs to move to a better area. If any of that were true.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2015 23:25

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

That's assuming the person was even Hispanic. I recently saw a bad review of a circus show that complained about the "Hispanics" running the show and that the person couldn't understand "their foreign language." The show was called "Cirque Italia" and "their foreign language" was actually English, with an Italian accent.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2015 19:09

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Marley Wants More posted:

http://www.rd.com/true-stories/inspiring/robert-downey-jr-saved-grandma/

I�m willing to go out on a limb here and guess that most stories of kindness do not begin with formerly drug-addicted celebrity bad boys. Mine does. You may or may not be a fan, but I am: His name is Robert Downey Jr., and it was the early �90s (I was barely 20 years old) when this story took place.

This is so sad. This is like the kind of wish-fulfillment stories I would make up in my head when I was a dopey teenager. This person is apparently in their 30s and imagining that they totally fixed poor broken Robert Downey Jr. He probably never could have done Iron Man without that moment. If it had happened.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 18:26

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Also, if for some reason you didn't get it, the "joke" is that the women were straight up bitches to the nice men and scrambled all over themselves to help the rear end in a top hat alpha male guy.

So like an overdue owl said, the more things change, the more they stay the same!

# ¿ Apr 23, 2015 00:27

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Some Zero posted:

Man with crazy wife

Honestly if I was on a date and that sort of thing happened, that would be a huge red flag and I don't think I would keep dating that guy. I wouldn't want to be murdered by some guy's crazy ex-wife, nor would I be impressed by the fact that he had been married to that person. People who are involved with such broken people have a high probability of having their fair share of issues.

Good thing it never happened!

Zaphod42 posted:

Maybe 10 years ago. At this point I'm regularly stuck in an elevator with adults 50+ who just gawk at their phones the whole time.

Like 10 years ago it was all kids talking on phones, but these days I see more grown-rear end adults checking text messages while driving on the highway than I see kids with cellphones. Ugh.

I'm staying with my parents while we redo the floors at my house and my dad keeps giving my husband and I poo poo for being on our devices when there's downtime. Meanwhile he's on his iPad all the time. Last night while the rest of us were eating dinner and talking to each other, he plugged his earphones into his iPad and watched a show at the dinner table. So I definitely believe that an adult would give a younger person poo poo for being on their phone even if they're a total hypocrite.

But what really happened was that the teen rolled his/her eyes, continued texting, probably something like "lol some old man just gave me poo poo for txting," then went home and looked up something smart they might have been reading instead.

Oh might as well include:

Lowly has a new favorite as of 23:41 on May 27, 2015

# ¿ May 27, 2015 23:27

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Shintaro posted:

Follow That Bird gave me nightmares, and made me terrified to look out my bedroom window at night. My lifetime blanket-as-magical-protection was probably 50% hiding from Miss Finch.

I was also very freaked out by the Twin Beaks piece, though I don't feel as silly about that one. 'Cause that's freaky.

I was terrified by ET. I loved it while I was watching it, but once I got home I realized that in reality I wanted no part of an alien coming to my house. I had nightmares for a week about aliens showing up and wanting to live with me.

quote:

saw Black Swan at a matinee showing where the theater was packed with elderly folk that clearly thought they were just going to see a nice movie about ballet.

One lesbian sex scene later my boyfriend and I were the only ones in the theater.

Kinda feel like this qualifies for the thread, unless you live in some weird super conservative bubble place? I can believe one or two people, but the whole entire theater? People don't turn into fragile little flowers once they turn 70. When I went to see Book of Mormon, the audience was full of elderly people and not a single person walked out, not even when they started singing about raping babies and loving god right in the oval office. They even though it was funny and were laughing, if you can believe it of people who are so old.

I went to see Black Swan with my mom (who is 69) and she didn't care about the lesbian sex. She was only mad because the whole time she was trying to figure out the "mystery" and she was wrong about everything.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2015 02:53

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

ChogsEnhour posted:

My mate dressed as Spider-Man for a kid with brain cancer and made the lad promise he'd take his medicine so he'd grow up big and strong like his favourite web slinger. The kid's still in recovery but is doing well.

My mate has never once mentioned this since doing it because he's not human garbage like the people who write these stdh texts*. That's really what sickens me about these stories, y'know. Like, even if they did happen. Even if you did do something really nice why are you trying to validate it as if the act itself wasn't enough. I know people in real life who give to charity and then talk loudly about how much they put in a donation bucket or whatever. It's abhorent.

*Tonight I'll applaud him, burst into tears and marry the dude.

Not to mention that these stories are always so low-effort. Oh you googled something while you were on an Uber ride? WHAT A SAINT, I cannot believe you took your precious car-riding time to do that. You could have been playing Candy Crush instead!

I had a friend who was terminally ill with leukemia but insisted on going to Mexico and building houses with Habitat for Humanity because she just really wanted to do it. When she came back she was exhausted and it made her really sick for a while, but she was so happy she had gotten to help give people houses. I mean she trucked her rear end to another country to do manual labor all day for a couple of weeks, even though she was deathly ill and weak, but that's nothing compared to someone who googles a sign language in a car. She made someone CRY with her thoughtfulness. My friend also didn't make a big deal out of it, or tell anyone unless they asked about where she had been. I have no idea if she made anyone cry, but I wouldn't be surprised since she helped them get a home.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2015 02:44

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

RenegadeStyle1 posted:

Stories like this are always dumb. I don't care if there are 20 mma fighters in my house if I don't want them to be there in doing something. Even if I can't beat them up I can call the cops or something.

They wouldn't even get past the door. If someone is at my door and I don't want them to be, and they don't have a gun and they're not a cop, my door is staying shut. They can flex their muscles all they want.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2015 01:15

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

monny posted:

My traditional 'I didn't rape you' text. Stay classy, reddit!

That sounds like really great evidence for a rape case, actually.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2015 03:11

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Perestroika posted:

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether it would be worse if it was actually true:

I seriously hate this person. Can you imagine if you had to be this kid's parents?

I am cracking up that she claims to walk around in someone else's toe shoes as shoes. First of all, barf. Toe shoes are stank as hell after someone has used them. This is what a used pair of to shoes looks like:

They are also incredibly hard on your toes even if you protect them. Her feet would be ripped up if she just wore those around as shoes all day. This is what a dancer's feet look like (spoilered because it's gross):

# ¿ Dec 2, 2015 18:44

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Skeesix posted:

http://theconsentcrew.org/2015/12/12/youre-hurting-her-a-story-of-consent-in-the-santa-line/

And that's because Santa Claus... was actually a Marine.

Chatting about consent ... a thing that 7-year-olds do

# ¿ Dec 13, 2015 18:41

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

MonoAus posted:

That's MASHUMARO NO ON'NANOKO!! and I'll have you know being/honouring a fat woman is considered the CORNERSTONE OF KAWAII!

In my homeland she would be considered.... beautiful

So I looked this up, because it's hilarious and it turns out Marshmallow Girls are a thing, but it's not "the cornerstone of kawaii" or beautiful. Japan is super fat-phobic so it's a whole thing to try to get better acceptance for bigger girls. Most of the girls don't look all that fat, just a little pudgy.

There's an article about it: http://www.tokyotimes.com/make-way-marshmallows-girls-2/

It has some typical Japanese tweets in response to this phenomenon:

quote:

Change that name to boneless ham.

Also, content - not sure if srs, but it definitely didn't happen:

# ¿ Jan 13, 2016 07:46

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 20:16

Lowly: Aug 13, 2009

Khazar-khum posted:

Bellatrix fan fiction

The real story: I am a desperately awkward weirdo who has a girl-crush on one of my college lecturers. In class, instead of paying attention to her lecture, I daydream that she lets me hang out with her and that I discover she likes the same weird poo poo I'm into. I have such terrible social skills, however, that I can't have a real conversation with another person even in my daydream, so for most of it we just sit in the same room silently.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2016 04:04

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > shit_that_didnt_happen.txt: TRUE WISDOM FROM WHERE YOU EXPECT IT LEAST. AMEN!