BS: Your unusual ability

Subject: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 09:39 PM

Like a fish oblivious to water, except when it is absent, we might tend to take for granted certain abilities of our own.
There are talents we wish we had but I was thinking with the diverse group, if we combined all the extra sensory abilities we might have one "super hero"   (;^}

Your ability might be inate or from training...


my humble ability
Night and ultraviolet vision.
It takes 10 minutes of total darkness but my night vision is apparently better than dark eyed people. In college I used to lead dark of the moon forest walks. I can see very subtle aura on people who wear dark clothing and on rare occasions in familiar surroundings I can see with my eyes closed. I don't know how but the hallucination/illusion is complete to the point that it is unnerving. The ultra violet spectrum is visible to me at its lower range while it is invisible to others. In the woods natural decay and foxfire appear brilliant to me while others report a slight green color.

sense of smell.
It is not as acute as a canine but it is closer to a dog's sense than a human. Prior to a migraine it is even 10 times more acute than usual which is not merely a sensory hallucination but unfortunatly all too real. If I could trade this for a different unusual ability I would.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 09:46 PM

I can make the tendon over the knuckle of the middle finger of my left hand flip back and forth when I make a "soft" fist.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 09:55 PM

I have the ability to often score quantities of serious buzz blaster drugs just by asking "please." So please Donnie, send me some of that shit you're doing huh? Please? I could get seriously goofed up and you would have less likelihood of that narcotic making your ass null and void......although it may already be too late.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:03 PM

I'll have to run an inventory to see what I might have in the way of Super Powers. One thing I can do is, you know that very high-frequency note that a dog sometimes makes when it yawns? I can do that! I not sure how this might be useful in leaping tall curbs in a single bound and rescuing maidens in distress, however.

My wife, Barbara, is the one with the Super Power! Sense of smell. She can step out on the front porch here in Seattle, sniff the air, and tell you how smoggy it is in Los Angeles today!

This has its drawbacks, however. We live in a co-op apartment building that's supposed to be non-smoking. But for well over six months now, she's been able to smell cigarette smoke drifting into our apartment from one of the nearby apartments. Through a vent, or perhaps through a hollow wall (some renovation done some years ago in a few apartments and the contractor didn't replace the insulation) and out an electric socket or light fixture, something like that.

The co-op board won't take her seriously and whoever the secret smoker is won't fess up. Sometimes the smell of cigarette smoke gets so strong it wakes us up at night.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:11 PM

I can snore. Does that count?

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Janie
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:16 PM

Aw, Peace, I was gonna lay claim to that one!

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Bee
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:17 PM

My unusual ability is that I can find things - I can scan the messiest environment and see where the missing object is, as long as there's the tiniest indication of it visible. This is a two edged sword. Not needing to be organised to find items I need, I tend to let things get very untidy. I'm nearsighted as hell, but I have great colour vision.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:19 PM

No chance in getting straight answers on something of this nature on the Mudcat, Donuel, except for a few of us.*bg*

I don't feel esp. comfortable with saying much here. I can see with my eyes closed, if I am really relaxed and not concentrating on it. I also have a sensitive sense of smell.

Don, that would drive me nuts!

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: artbrooks
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:23 PM

I have the uncanny ability to put my foot into my mouth up to the knee without hardly gagging at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:42 PM

...thread drift...

OK Spaw
I'll give you 10 (one or two every 4 hours as needed) since I have had fewer migraines lately.
They cause no constipation (like Damitall) and do not block creative higher brain functions or corpus callosum communication (like prescription free Ultram or Tramadol) while delivering a nice rush of energized laughter and song for 30 minutes and level off after 3 hours. They do not induce sleep, like barbituates. They will not induce cartoons on your eyelids like Canibinols but seem to present a general feeling of ambition or gumption. They make playing an instrument free of the usual aches and back pains. Best of all they allow for a robust feeling of more energy even if one is a victim of chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme disease or even digestive disorders such as Lupus or Crones.

You might be able to get a lifetime prescription of your own if you had migraine or severe fibroneuralgia or lets say you had permanently clawed balls from a overanxious dog or an inflamed eurakus (a rare vestigal organ that initially was part of the umbilical cord)
Just don't say you have arthritis. For some reason they like to let those people suffer.

btw they are good for your love life too. A bit like Hash but without the whimsical visuals and gustatory over indulgences.

Now I have your address as Reeking Holler WV 30333 1/3
but do you have a house number?.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Sorcha
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:49 PM

I can bend my right pinkie finger at the middle joint without moving the ring finger.

I can smell natural gas (well, the additive that is put in it) when no one else can. I'm always right too. Could be a good survival skill?

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:51 PM

Bee That is a wonderful gift you have. Most of us lose 2 hours a day without it. I have to look at what I put down and call it by name to find it later. If not I'll find it 2 hours later.


No gag foot in mouth reflex? That is a great one for politicians to have.


Sexual abilities are great and have probably changed history throughout the ages.
I understand ones timidity regarding their graphic description.

The tendon thing is ... eh.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:59 PM

a good gas smeller. A little creepy but lifesaving none the less.

I was chided when I reported the smell of gas at the nearby Elementary school. Turns out a street repair involving a gas line was being done 5 blocks away.


Remember
You may not recognize your unusual ability since you are used to it.
You might think everyone has it.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Sorcha
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 11:02 PM

I hesitate to actually say this in public but I can often 'find' things for other people. I don't even have to have ever seen the article or have been in the place is in, or was lost.

Never kept track of percentages but I think possibly more than 50% (which would be the random probability, I think)

Can I find stuff I've lost? Of course not.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: harpmolly
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 11:21 PM

Pixie Fists of Fury! :)

(oh, and a double-jointed thumb, very handy for left-hand harpstring harmonics...)

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 11:55 PM

"You may not recognize your unusual ability since you are used to it.
You might think everyone has it."

Absolutely.

At age 40 was 'diagnosed' with a SD+5 IQ (3 in 100,000)... explains why many idiots used to attack me (not physically) - I was - like 'Dog' in 'Footrot Flats' discovered about 'Horse' (the cat) - a threat to them! :-) This tends to give me some surprising abilities - such as a great difficulty in learning a new field, then it 'clicks' and I suddenly have a 'knowledge web' which also often then fills in many logical conclusions about the subject area that I do not need 'to learn' specifically... leading to me first being called 'stupid', then a 'smart arse' by exactly the same people..

A couple of other tricks - since working in theatre lighting, I have heightened sense of colour and lighting angles - I could by the time I stopped, tell what original colour a 10 year old faded gel was... - I can pretty much gauge dB level around 90- 120 dB... and most frustrating of all (to many others!) - as a youngster who had no sense of size judgment at all - I can often look at a desk for instance and say - "it just won't fit there" and it will be half an inch too long for the space... :-)

Probably got a few more...

the thing is that I have no real idea WHY I can do some of these 'tricks'...

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 12:11 AM

I can also consume large quantities of the taxpayers' money if I'm given the chance.

Did you know that the Fox sisters, who were responsible for the Spiritualist Movement in the 19th C., could loudly crack their toes? That's what the "raps" people heard were, as the girls confessed years later.

The tendon thing really has little practical value ever since I left grade school.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: mg
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 12:31 AM

I can walk in a straight line when my eyes are closed and I am half asleep...deep ditches to the side of me and I occasionally check to see I am on the straight and narrow but almost never have to correct course. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Bert
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 12:35 AM

Now, let's see. I can play A, D and E7. Does that count?

Actually, having been raised in the only house in a deep wooded valley, I would find a dark of the moon forest walk no problem. But that's 'cos I know how to do it, not because my eyesight is anything special.

I also have the ability to find very simple solutions to very complex problems (I know, I'm simple minded). This has been both a boon and a major disaster. I designed, and wrote a program to draw building by reading a specification file. Trouble is that the demo program is so simple and fast that it doesn't look as though anything is happenning. So nobody is impressed with it.

I'm working, at the moment, on a CAD input program and am having the same problem. It looks so simple that I probably won't be able to patent it.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Deckman
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 12:58 AM

Three rare skills:

1. I also can smell gas, or "heat", at an incredible distance;

2. I can sense/feel electricity when others cannot;

3. If you place your hands on the back of my neck, I can swing my head from side to side and play "Mary Had A Little Lamb." This is NO bullshit shit ... it's true. Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 01:14 AM

"If you place your hands on the back of my neck, I can swing my head from side to side and play "Mary Had A Little Lamb." "


How? The mind boggles! Come back Spaw, all is forgiven!

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Deckman
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 01:18 AM

"Oh ye of little faith!" Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Deckman
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 01:21 AM

It all has to do with 70 year old bones and sinews bouncing around and jumping over themselves. My biggest problem, beside the pain, is just how to tune the damned thing. Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 01:32 AM

ROFL.... (takes fingers off nose...)

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 03:42 AM

I can turn a beautiful, sleek and shiny dress into a dish rag just by putting it on...

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: kendall
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 06:58 AM

I can fix anything but a broken heart.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: gnu
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 08:39 AM

Perhaps attributable to my partial colour blindness, I can easily discern shapes which others cannot. I discovered this at age nine while hunting partridge. I could readily spot them even when they were motionless and well camoflaged in heavy cover, and at quite a distance. Often, I could spot them when they were almost entirely hidden by brush.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 08:45 AM

Color memory

Thats like visual perfect pitch.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: The PA
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 08:54 AM

I can make great big numbers appear on my husbands credit card statement.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: GUEST,Crystal
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 09:53 AM

I can pick up dances really easily, just by watching them once, or reading the instructions.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Becca72
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 11:13 AM

Like Bee, I have an uncanny ability to find things (or just 'know' where they are)...even if they're not in my own house. I can't tell you the number of times I've been at my sister's and my B-I-L will ask her where something is and I'll answer him, simply because I walked by it the week before and it somehow registered.

I have a keen sense of smell, too. Unfortunately it often makes me nauseous.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Amergin
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 11:32 AM

I have the astounding ability of pissing people off.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 03:49 PM

no kidding "A" nothing to be proud of

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: gnu
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 03:59 PM

Becca.... "I have a keen sense of smell, too. Unfortunately it often makes me nauseous."

Me too. Most often when I eat at my Sil's.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 04:24 PM

My parlor trick: I can reset flashing time (12:00) on strange VCRs without referring to a manual....and I can usually come close to the correct time without looking at a clock...
   ..that is, I have 'time sense'....I can estimate passed time or how long it will take to walk or drive somewhere pretty closely. I can do it with events rated in seconds or hours.
I must admit, this is probably not some 'gift'. I cultivated the ability when I was young..(7th grade, when I entered middle school and had a precise number of minutes to go between classes. I would count until I could tell within a few seconds.) All this is either a virtue or a problem, depending on whether those around me WANT to be informed "we are going to be late unless we start by xx:xx".

The first part, (setting a VCR without reading the manual) I think is merely 'inductive logic'. I abstract things ABOUT the buttons from other VCRs I have known. I also once answered a question on a TV quiz show before they asked it, by making certain assumptions about how they would design such questions.

I can also vibrate my eyes rapidly.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 04:30 PM

All three are fascinating Bill. I have seen the eye vibration before, along with independant eye direction control. Brad Pitt can do both.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 05:35 PM

Because of an automobile accident when I was young I'm very, very, very sensitive to carbon monoxide. I, and my siblings, are effectively living CO detectors.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Joybell
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 06:33 PM

I have hightened awareness of smells during a migraine aura too. Also the "Alice in Wonderland effect" where my body seems to elongate and change proportions.
As for a useful ability -- I am able to -- how to put it -- do calculations that involve numbers of objects. For example I can select the exact number of tube-stock plants to tree-guards and stakes (three stakes to a tree-guard) -- I'm talking large numbers of plants. I can grab the exact number of plant-tubes for 100 or so seedlings when I'm "pricking out" plants. I can cut things to fit exactly without measuring. I can select the exact number of bricks or rocks to fit an area. I can buy household items -- like curtains -- that fit exactly -- without having measured anything.
The down side is --IT DOESN'T WORK IF I THINK ABOUT WHAT I'M DOING.
Disengagement of the left brain must be the key.
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Joe_F
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 08:47 PM

I can click my ears. That is, I can contract a mysterious muscle in each ear that makes a click (audible to me, of course, but also can be recorded with a microphone next to an ear). If, while keeping those muscles tensed, I inhale sharply, my ears go into a state where my humming sounds much louder (as if I were under water). Normal hearing returns when I relax the muscles.

I have met one other person who has this ability. It appears not to be documented in the anatomy literature.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 09:16 PM

Cool to both.

THere is a guy who can calculate pi out to 14,000 places.
He uses a visual colored shapes language that he translates into numbers after the shapes settle and simply speaks them outloud.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 09:37 PM

Some people find that I have any ability at all to be unusual.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 10:43 PM

Well, I used to be able to make clouds disperse (over a period of a minute or two)....haven't done it in years now.

I have healed a couple of people of things on a couple of occasions...but it only tends to happen when I am VERY, VERY motivated to do so (like when I'm in love with them).

I have made one or two prayers for other people that had dramatic results (same as above example...I have to be VERY, VERY motivated at the time).

Most important of all, years of practice have allowed me to develop a sneeze so loud and explosive that it causes birds to fall off their perches, dogs to leap up in shock, nervous old gits to suffer heart attacks, and paint to spontaneously be stripped off the walls to a range of about 15 feet in all directions!

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Bert
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 10:54 PM

Well Bill D. The ability to know what time it is, is closely related to high intelligence.

So it is something that I practice diligently in the hopes that people will think I'm smart.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 10:57 PM

Bill - You should try wearing thick glasses and a T-shirt saying "World Chess Championship", and walking around with a thick hardbound book by Camus or Einstein under one arm all the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Sorcha
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 11:04 PM

LH, I thought he DID! Well, maybe not the glasses.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 11:10 PM

Well, if so, I guess he's got most people thinking he's pretty smart by now, right?

Also, Bill, slip words like "sesquipedalian", "zeitgeist", and "tendentious" casually into your everyday conversations with people when you're at the grocery or the gas station. They'll have no idea what you mean, but they will think you're smart.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: GUEST,The black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 07:41 AM

I massage my wife's feet when she is having problems with her hip/back pain. The place in the foot that causes relief is different depending on where the pain is coming from, but I always seem to know which part of the foot needs to be massaged without being told. Something just feels right about where to manipulate it.
I have since tried reading a couple of books on reflexology but I couldn't relate to their terminology and have not gained any insights as to how I know what to do for her.

I can also usually tell which way north is to within 5-10 degrees.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 08:46 AM

I can tell the time, correct to within seconds, simply by looking at my wrist.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 04:00 PM

I'm just like the Incedible Hulk after about 17 pints of best bitter. All my shirt buttons pop off and I start to turn green.

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 04:40 PM

I can, like, chug down a 2-4 in 3 minnutes flat! I can scarf down a supersize pizza in 1 minnute flat! I can bring ANY woman to an amazin' flippin' ograzm in 2 minittes or less! I can out-flippin' play ANYONE in the world when it comes to air guitarr. I can hotwire a snowmobile in 15 seconds. And I can touch my tung to the top of my flippin' eyebrows, eh?

I am The Man. A lengende in my onw time.

- Shane

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Deckman
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 07:36 PM

I fergot to mention ... I can also "double speak!" Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 09:20 PM

Bob -- Can you do it in Finnish?

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Deckman
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 09:29 PM

Yes, I actually did once. But my Father is gone now and I know not anyone around who speaks my Father's dialect. Besides, it exhausted me in three minutes! Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Uncle Phil
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 09:59 PM

In addition to being irresistable to women, I have the super power to compel attendence. If I schedule a meeting everyone shows up - everyone, everytime, and all on time. If I tell someone to come to work on their day off, they come to work. It's uncanny.
- Phil

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 10:32 PM

You work alone, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Uncle Phil
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 10:36 PM

It's both uncanny and lonely.
- Phil

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 11 Jan 08 - 08:24 AM

I can fly.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 Jan 08 - 09:02 AM

I haven't dared mention this before, but I have a very unusual ability. One that is possessed by few:

I can stare blankly into space for extended periods of time.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Deckman
Date: 11 Jan 08 - 09:35 AM

Rap ... So, you work alone, eh? Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Jan 08 - 11:27 AM

Being able to tell where north is on an overcast day would be something.

Besides magnetic north is moving 10 miles a year. It is getting the hell out of Canada by all appearences.

"I know a guy" who says the poles are tryng to reverse and may do so by 2012.

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 Jan 08 - 02:45 PM

You mean I'll finally get to "Down Under" for free???

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Jan 08 - 04:03 PM

How much do you usually have to pay?

Subject: RE: BS: Your unusual ability
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Jan 08 - 04:13 PM

Its twice as expensive for him to NOT do it.