c4countdown

I'm aware that obsessive-compulsive disorder can be a fucker and can really mess some people up, but that's a psychological thing. What I'm after is stupid harmless habits that you might have.

Not superstitions though. Avoiding the cracks in the pavement, counting magpies and crap like opening umbrellas indoors; that's all a bit pedestrian. What I'm looking for is weird habits that you may have - things that other people might find a bit odd. Better still if you do them unconsciously.

I don't think I have any non-conscious ones as I'm not superstitious, but I do have a few that I've noticed myself doing more frequently lately:

- Whenever I hear the word "monorail" (admittedly not that often) I have to say "But I hear those things are awfully loud!" in a musical theatre stylee;

- If I see a new fence has been erected (heh) I have to try to walk along it like a tightrope. Usually I fall off.

- Whenever I have to use glue to mend stuff or make stuff, I have to get loads of it on my hands and let it dry, then peel it off like an extra layer of skin;

I'm sure I've got loads more but that'll do for now.

So, what daft things do YOU like to do?

...I'm not aware of having any that are like REALLY weird. I know I pull the collars of my t-shirts up and stroke my nose with them, which is apparently just a throwback to what I did with my blanket as a baby, and is supposedly not that unusual. Beyond that I think this might be one of those that others are more qualified to comment on about me.

Every time I turn my PC off I sing the chorus to the song "Shakedown" by Bob Seger from the Beverly Hills Cop 2 soundtrack but I replace the word shakedown with shut down.

There's one I don't do anymore because I injured myself but when I was frustrated playing FIFA I used to punch myself in the leg. I didn't even notice that I was injuring myself until I tried playing football golf and my leg muscle was in bits when I was kicking the ball. I couldn't figure out why it was hurting until caught myself punching my leg later on. I was pretty much doing it subconsciously but I've managed to stop doing it anymore.

Eating my dessert before my main course.
Reading a newspaper back to front

I do all lists backwards, from the bottom to the top. It's a habit that started in my childhood when I used to do a lot of wordsearches - the rarer letters being nearer the end of the alphabet, words with them in were easier to find, so I'd start with them and then know to focus on the remaining blank areas of the grid for other words. Unfortunately, still doing this habitually has its side effects. I have a to-do list at work, and yet I only ever get to tackle the bottom page, which leads to the stuff at the top falling by the wayside, which leads to an unhappy boss.

I hold pencils in an odd way, with my thumb on one side of the pencil, bent backwards, and the support of all four other fingers necessary on the other side if my writing is to be good. It started in childhood, where it was no big deal, but became quite painful during junior high school after essay writing was added to my curriculum. (In high school, I switched to laptop-based essay writing, and still try to use this for as many purposes as possible now.) On the plus side, people have actually praised me quite a bit for the neatness of my handwriting/printing, and as a kid I won most thumb-wrestling contests.

Whenever I absent-mindedly drum my fingers on a surface, I think I also go the opposite way from most people -- beginning with the index finger (or, less commonly, the thumb) and proceeding outward to the pinky.

JimBentley wrote:- Whenever I hear the word "monorail" (admittedly not that often) I have to say "But I hear those things are awfully loud!" in a musical theatre stylee;

Many people here in North America have a similar trait; with myself and several people I know, any mention of "monorail" will immediately conjure a recitation of this little gem.

Johnny Canuck wrote:

JimBentley wrote:- Whenever I hear the word "monorail" (admittedly not that often) I have to say "But I hear those things are awfully loud!" in a musical theatre stylee;

Many people here in North America have a similar trait; with myself and several people I know, any mention of "monorail" will immediately conjure a recitation of this little gem.

Not being snarky, but I can't resist:



Early-ish Simpsons had fantastic musical numbers, didn't it though? I think that one's only bettered only by the sequences from "Stop The Planet Of The Apes I Want To Get Off!"..."OOh! Help me Dr. Zaius", etc. Never fails to crack me up.

I like to Spoonerisms names of food products when shopping.
Eh. Chini Medders

I've not come across Mhini Cedders. I'll have to look out for them.

Fedantic puck

I'll give this some thought. There's probably a few things I could mention.

Johnny Canuck wrote:I hold pencils in an odd way, with my thumb on one side of the pencil, bent backwards, and the support of all four other fingers necessary on the other side if my writing is to be good.

I do this too.

Johnny Canuck wrote:I hold pencils in an odd way, with my thumb on one side of the pencil, bent backwards, and the support of all four other fingers necessary on the other side

Ryan Taylor wrote:I do this too.

I'm guessing both of you are left-handed?

JimBentley wrote:

Johnny Canuck wrote:I hold pencils in an odd way, with my thumb on one side of the pencil, bent backwards, and the support of all four other fingers necessary on the other side

Ryan Taylor wrote:I do this too.

I'm guessing both of you are left-handed?

Nope.

Ryan Taylor wrote:

JimBentley wrote:

Johnny Canuck wrote:I hold pencils in an odd way, with my thumb on one side of the pencil, bent backwards, and the support of all four other fingers necessary on the other side

Ryan Taylor wrote:I do this too.

I'm guessing both of you are left-handed?

Nope.

That's interesting. I've only ever come across it in left-handed people who were made to write with their right hand, but I guess you two are too young to have been put through that particular piece of fuckery. Things you learn, eh?

Ryan Taylor wrote:

JimBentley wrote:

Johnny Canuck wrote:I hold pencils in an odd way, with my thumb on one side of the pencil, bent backwards, and the support of all four other fingers necessary on the other side

Ryan Taylor wrote:I do this too.

I'm guessing both of you are left-handed?

Nope.

That's interesting. I've only ever come across it in left-handed people who were made to write with their right hand, but I guess you two are too young to have been put through that particular piece of fuckery. Things you learn, eh?

Ryan Taylor wrote:

Johnny Canuck wrote:I hold pencils in an odd way, with my thumb on one side of the pencil, bent backwards, and the support of all four other fingers necessary on the other side if my writing is to be good.

I do this too.

How the puck do your thumbs bend backwards?

Double jointed right thumb:

Ian Volante wrote:

Ryan Taylor wrote:

Johnny Canuck wrote:I hold pencils in an odd way, with my thumb on one side of the pencil, bent backwards, and the support of all four other fingers necessary on the other side if my writing is to be good.

I do this too.

How the puck do your thumbs bend backwards?

Freaks.

Sister Wendy's and an early Mother Theresa

Ryan Taylor wrote:Double jointed right thumb:

Can you wiggle it? I had a mate at school who used to be able to do that; freakiest thing you ever saw.

Sort of.

JimBentley wrote:Can you wiggle it (without touching it, obviously)?

...

Charlie Reams wrote:

JimBentley wrote:Can you wiggle it (without touching it, obviously)?

...

You mean ... surely?

Gavin Chipper wrote:I'll give this some thought. There's probably a few things I could mention.

I forgot about this. Quite often I'll stop my piss mid-flow before continuing. I once heard that this could be good for you in some way, but I don't think anyone else in the world does this.

I sometimes do this thing with my knees where I keep extending and "unextending" them again and they build up to a point where they sort of pop. I don't do it so much now, but this has definitely caused some sort of loosening of ligaments or something. I do not recommend it.

I mentioned this to a physiotherapist once because I had pain in one of my knees when running. I wasn't sure if it was related, but I thought it would be best to get all the facts out. He denied the possibility of it, and said that popping joints are just a build up of fluid that then quickly gets released. He did accept that one of my knees was a bit clunky when he was playing around with them, but said that "Some people's knees are just like that". Even though mine weren't like that before I'd done the knee-popping thing. He was objectively wrong about this and was generally shit.

That I was able to sort out my knee troubles and carry on running had nothing to do with anything he suggested and everything to do with my own research for how to strengthen your knees. He wanted me to run with these inserts in my shoes because he put everything down to the fact that one of my feet stuck out slightly when I ran. I basically called bullshit on this and didn't use the inserts other than a token couple of times.

Gavin Chipper wrote:I forgot about this. Quite often I'll stop my piss mid-flow before continuing. I once heard that this could be good for you in some way, but I don't think anyone else in the world does this.

You're not even the only person on this forum to do it.

How did you fix your knees then gev

Matt Morrison wrote:How did you fix your knees then gev

My theory is that Gev is basically a cyborg, like The Six Million Dollar Man Steve Austin, but with less cybernetic bits.

and with more yellow stuff including humongous phone.

I once heard that this could be good for you in some way, but I don't think anyone else in the world does this.

Everyone should do it. Toughens the prostate, less getting up to wee in your old age.

Matt Morrison wrote:How did you fix your knees then gev

By repeatedly kneeing the physiotherapist in the balls.

Also, by doing this "wall sit" thing where you have your back against a wall, and sit on an imaginary seat.

Yeah I had my first prostrate examination recently.
Not knowing the drill. I asked the proctologist where to put my underpants, to which he replied " Next to mine "
Boom boom ☺

Marc Meakin wrote:Yeah I had my first prostrate examination recently.
Not knowing the drill. I asked the proctologist where to put my underpants, to which he replied " Next to mine "
Boom boom ☺

Was boom boom the sound the proctologist made during the examination?

Yes come to mention it, he did remind me of a (adopts accent of Louis Walsh ) young Basil Brush !!

You know how when you walk, the right arm goes forward with the left leg, and vice versa? I've noticed I tend to do the opposite when going down stairs.

Mark Deeks wrote:You know how when you walk, the right arm goes forward with the left leg, and vice versa? I've noticed I tend to do the opposite when going down stairs.

I've got a theory about this (as you probably know, I've got whole shedloads of theories about all sorts of things, but I think I should mention it anyway in the interests of full disclosure). In normal walking, the motion of the arms (retrograde with the legs as you describe) is the best way of doing it, ergonomically. And when you're walking up stairs, you're essentially still doing the same walking motion, except it's uphill (and the motion of the arms becomes more important). However, when you're walking downstairs, you're not doing that motion at all because gravity's pull means that - although you are "walking" in the normal sense of the word - you're more doing a sort of controlled walking/falling motion. There's really no need to do anything with your arms at all, it's all legs, and you're only using them to break your series of falls. So it doesn't really matter what your arms are doing, I reckon.

Totally buying that, thank you.

Hmm, I like it. The steeper an incline you go down the more floppy your arms get. All about fall-balance rather than rhythm.

Matt Morrison wrote:Hmm, I like it. The steeper an incline you go down the more floppy your arms get. All about fall-balance rather than rhythm.

It's true. Let the record show that I AM RIGHT ABOUT SOMETHING at last*.









* although of course a stopped clock is right twice a day so it's probably not that impressive really