But I don’t have a car runner! I’m starting to worry about me because of this. I don’t remember ever having a car runner, or a bouncing ball. (I do pick my nose and mastubate - not at the same time)
:o
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Greywolf73 *
**I had a car runner also, except mine was a horse. I don’t do it anymore but when I was a kid, I always imagined a horse running alongside the car. This was especially effective when we drove on concrete with breaks in-between the slabs that would make clip-clop noises sort of like a horse’s hoofbeats. Come to think of it, maybe that’s where I got the idea in the first place. Hmm…
Yeah!!! I’m glad I’m not the only one with a horse!!! I usually only did it on the school bus. Boy, would s/he get impatient when other kids were getting off, or we were stopped at a red light. Loved to count those strides between fences, too. I haven’t done that in a long time.
My personal thing with counting was always stairs. Had to count those stairs. My junior high school was three stories tall - that was great for me!!
Many of my thoughts are in interview form, like I’m narrating my life story. Sometimes I’ll be driving around my home town, and think about what it’ll be like when (if) I become famous, and they do an interview with me while “back home.” You know? Like… “this is where so-and-so once did such-and-such…” and… “this is where I worked for awhile…”
I tend to think in grammatically correct sentences. I’ll even reword my thoughts if they’re not clear and concise. I also reword other people’s sentences, sometimes in my head, other times I point out their mistake(s). Depends who it is.
With my mouth closed, I use my tongue on the roof of my mouth to make drum sounds (clicking) and make beats.
I bite the loose skin on the inside of my mouth.
I play with my rings. I have a thumb-ring on my right hand. I use my right index finger to spin it around and/or push it further down - in fear that it may fall off. I also do similar things with each thumb on each middle-finger ring. My pinky ring gets no attention. My pinky is apparently fat enough to hold the ring firmly in place. 
I’m always racing when I drive. If they would make everyone else drive 10 mph less than I drive, I could handle driving the current speed limits. I just need to be passing everyone. Sometimes I think about what it’d be like to be able to fly at around 20-30 feet over the road. That would be nice, too.
(sorry for the double-post, it won’t let me edit…)
I also visualize what I see as being part of a movie. I’ll make interesting turns with my head around corners in hallways, kinda like you sometimes see when they pass a mountain top in a flyover scene. The corner is the axis of the turn. Hard to explain, someone get me a video camera. Thanks.
I’m glad the thread hasn’t died yet: hey, doesn’t anyone hear what they read? When I read, I often head a voice saying the same thing. In forums, the voice is often based on the name.
This is why I always get upset by obvious mispellings and bad grammar… when some idiot-child voice says ‘u shldn’t maek fun of how i write’ it’s fantastically irritating.
Of course, since I often read faster than people can speak, sometimes the voice starts to sound a little bit like SHODAN… I think this habit started when I was a child writing silly little stories and comics.
Oh, and I used to have a car-runner. Came from seeing wheat fields go by: looked like a cartoon with extremely long legs. 'Course, my runner didn’t look that way, but it was the trigger.
Got a few other really odd habits, but nothing interesting enough to force you to read about.
-C
Hrm, I used to have a car runner, and the spaceship/waterspots thing, too, but I don’t get to be the passenger in cars anymore… I usually bike when I go places, and when I do get rides it’s generally at night. Sigh…
Anyhow, when I call people on the phone, I count the rings, and the rings sound like the number. So the phone goes “Ooooooone… Twoooooo… Threeeeee…” etc. Clocks chiming do the same thing. And speaking of clocks chiming, here at UCSB we have bells that ring at 10 till the hour, and during orientation this music guy told us that the little song they play is the letters of the school’s motto (let there be light) in a little melody. So all day long I hear the bells and in my head they go “L E T, T H E R E, B E, L I G H T” It’s not uber-quirky, but it’s what I’ve got right now…
Tenebras
Well, here I go, adding myself to the growing list of lurkers who’ve come out of the shadows and into the light of day to respond to this thread (that I affectionately think of as “That Thing You Do.”) Fnoof, I hope you’re pleased with yourself! It just goes to show you that one person really can make a difference in the world! grin
I’m sorry to say that I’ve never had a car runner, but now that I know about them I’m jealous, and want one too. Where’d you say they sold them?
When I was younger, I had an imaginary girl, of my own age, from a previous period in history, who watched a movie of what I was doing all day. It wasn’t a particular girl. In fact, I couldn’t even see her. She was just someone who lived a long time ago and hadn’t seen any of the modern conveniences that we take for granted every day. (Riding in the car, tv, phone calls… She thought my boring little life was so amazing!)
Also when I was younger I used to imagine that I was on a giant trapeze, swinging back and forth, back and forth, as I’d lie in bed at night trying to sleep. It felt so real, and I’d be rocked to sleep. I can’t do it anymore cuz I have vertigo and I’d probably throw up.
I’m also into numbers. I used to have to count each and every stair that I climbed, no matter how many times I went up and down each day. Now I count myself to sleep almost every night. From 1 to 100, then back down; then from 1 to 200, then back down… I also count to pass time if I’m waiting for someone or something and I’m bored. I’ll give them to, say, the count of 300, up and back to finish what they’re doing.
I used to like to only get out of bed at 15 minute entervals (ie: 8:00, 8:15, 8:30, 8:45…)
When I was younger, I used to also play a lot of staying still games. When I was in the car, I’d sit real still and I was sure that all the people in the other cars thought that I was a manikin. When I wasn’t swinging on my trapeze to get to sleep, I’d pretend that there was a murderer outside my room with his ear to the wall. If I moved, he’d hear me and know someone was home and come into my room. If I stayed completely still, he’d think no one was home and leave.
When I walk into a room, I know exactly which seat I want to sit in, and will not be happy if I have to sit in another one.
When I go clothes shopping I won’t buy anything if I only want one thing. I think it’s because it’s too much trouble to go into the dressing room and change for only one item.
Wheeew, that felt good to get off my chest! Thanks guys.
Before I go, I’d like to thank Orcachow. I, too, get zapped with static electricity all the time. I’m going to try your knocking trick.
Add another to the tally of car runners. Mine is a regular person, I guess, or at least in humanoid form. Instead of jumping over poles and street signs he’s able to defy gravity for short periods of time by diving through them horizontally. This is also how he gets across intersections.
I also do the “car jumping over shadows” thing, the obsessive symmetry thing, and the random highlighting when reading webpages thing.
I used to do the “game character in wall patterns” thing, but don’t find myself doing it anymore. That’s one weird quirk down…
Sorta like the background music for my life thing, I have to come up with a fitting background music for areas that I visit, like a video game, so it’s usually video game music. Sometimes I really get frustrated when I can’t come up with a good music track to fit an area. I’ll hum the music to myself within the area, then when I enter the new area I’ll change musics.
I’ll also do a weird thing with music with my fingers. I’ll tap my thumb and pinky together for one note, then for the next note my ring finger and index finger tap together, then my middle finger just, er, taps itself, then back to the ring and index, and then the pattern repeats. I always try to get it so it stops at the end of the pattern (the 2nd index-ring finger tap), and if it doesn’t I’ll fudge the melody a bit to so it ends nicely. It started with music but now I’ve started doing it with random things people say. If it doesn’t end on the 2nd index-ring finger tap, I’ll sometimes make it start at a different tap just so it ends there.
That was probably really confusing, but it felt good to finally talk about it, even if no one understand what I’m saying.
My car runner has changed over the years, most of the time it’s been sort of a flying motorcycle thing like that vehicle on the old thundercats cartoon. Other times it’s been a buzzsaw blade, eagle, bat, or a little dragon.
Before bed when I was a little kid I’d stand in the center of it and face down a bunch of imaginary vampires. Natrally I did the really slow breathing play dead thing once I was under the covers. Does anyone else remember a Far Side cartoon that showed a kid under the covers with a snorkle? That is jst the most brilliant idea I’ve ever seen, I wish I’d thought of it.
I have a motorcyle for a car-runner too!
I often make my eyes go out of focus, so that I’m seeing double. While looking at a pattern (like tile on the bathroom floor), the two images move so far apart that they overlap and what I see becomes sort of “hyper-3-dimensional” or something. (I started playing with non-focusing when I was really young.)
Does anybody else have weird ways of visualizing time? When I think of a week or a month or a series of years, I have some kind of visual in my head, but it’s practically indescribable because it’s not like a calendar or any other real-life visual. When I try to “look more closely” at it (in my head), it just gets kind of fuzzy and insubstantial.
Perhaps we could all submit sketches of or respective car runners to the site for doper art that Eutychus has. Or create a site devoted to the car runner.
Oh my goodness, I do that too. I never really thought about it. But I do. Only I think it’s usually the car I’m riding in that’s doing the jumping.
Good Lord! I may be certifiably insane, but what a relief to know I’m not the only one… 
Let’s see, here are a few for a start (I’ve always just felt that I had an active fantasy life, to be honest):
When walking down a hallway, I like to close my eyes and stretch out my arms so my fingers brush the walls as I pass.
When riding up an elevator, I start whistling as low as I possibly can and slowly go up in pitch as the elevator rises.
When I’m approaching the door to my apartment, I hold out my key in front of me and pretend it is a guided missile homing in on the lock.
I could go on and on, but you get the idea…
Barry
Upon reading the rest of this forum, I’ve thought of a few more of mine too…
-
I don’t step on cracks. I also don’t step on painted lines, or shadows, if it’s not pavement. If I’m on a sidewalk, and the squares aren’t aligned with my stride in a 2 steps-1 step-2 steps-1 step pattern, I get annoyed. It took me a while to figure out how to walk on tile. I kind of have the same pattern as knights on a chessboard.
-
I’m also a step-counter. I know how many stairs are in each flight of stairs in nearly every building on this campus. What’s more, sometimes I forget to stop counting. I’ll be halfway to my next class and realize I’m still counting, because I seem to exhale a little more on each multiple of ten.
-
I’m a pianist, and so I play along with music that I’m hearing. I don’t necessary use the right intervals, just higher notes to the right and lower notes to the left. If there’s a passage with more than five notes in an ascending pattern, I then actually pick up my hand.
-
I do the clock game too…for example, right now is 2:46, which works out wonderfully to 2+4=6.
-
I count the lines on dotted lines of the interstate. I’ll be in the hundreds before I realize it.
-
When I’m sitting on the toilet (I am a girl and all), I stare down at the little tile floor and study the groups of a particular color. Come to think of it, I stare at walls and floors in general. My living room has that 70s fake-wood panelling, and generally the pattern is wide-narrow-wide-narrow, but occassionally there are two wides or two narrows next to each other. Argh!
There are more, but I think this is enough to certify me, so I’ll leave it at that.
Here’s another one I do when I think nobody can see me…
When watching TV, if some message is printed on the screen (e.g., during a commercial) I write the words in the air with my finger. If possible, I try to finish writing them before they disappear from the screen.
Why I do this, I have no idea.
Barry
You mean besides remembering a month-old thread and suddenly wanting to add to it? 
-
I listen to what I dub “the direction voices.” It’s not really a voice so much as an urgent thought that says " uh oh, shouldn’t go that way, it could be dangerous." I tried to tell myself that basing my driving directions on these gut-feelings is silly, so ignored the directive in Dec not to go to a store. Sure enough, something in the power-steering broke. OTOH, the brakeline went in the parking lot of the garage, so maybe it was a blessing in disguise. I usually listen, though.
-
I save IMs. I didn’t think that this was weird, but a couple of people who have noticed found it really odd. I don’t know what prompted me to do it, but when I started using instant messages (about seven years ago) it seemed like a good idea to copy the conversations into notepad documents. And I still do it about 80% of the time.
-
I don’t think it has to do with Yogi Bear, since I disliked the character, but any cute and fuzzy is a boo boo, but it has to be an animal. On the otherhand, something I feel bad for, be it an animal, a person, or even a life-like robot is ** Poor Boo Boo**. I try not to say these things in front of others, since they earn strange looks.
Wow – I guess I didn’t kill this thread after all. Either that, or it’s now “undead.”
Anybody got a stake handy?
Barry
It just feels damn good to share no matter how weird we think we are.
first of all, whenever i am nervous or anxious about something i will suddenly start to hum quite loudly. i usually get about three or four notes in before i become aware of it and then i stop. the thing is, it’s never a song that i recognize, or even a melody for that matter. it’s just off-key droning notes (and i can normally hold a tune). it only happens when i remember things suddenly, not stew over them.
i also hold my breath at random times and i swear to god i can’t help it (usually held for 3-5 seconds). this is usually paired with rubbing some part of my face - usually around the mouth area.
then there’s this semi-elaborate finger-counting game that works something like this and i do this A LOT. when i hear people speak, i count out their syllables (or words…but i’ll get back to that) on my fingers with the object being that the final syllable lands on the pinky. the thumb is not used in the game except as a contact point for the other four fingers. for example, you would start counting syllables by touching your index finger to your thumb, then then middle finger, ring finger, and by the fourth syllable you’ve reached the pinky. now you have two options: you can go back to the top (the index finger) for the fifth syllable or “re-trace” your steps by touching the ring finger again and heading back in that direction. another rule: you can switch back and forth between counting syllables and words, but when you change from one to the other you have to “re-set” and start on the index finger…in other words you don’t have the option of going back from the pinky to the ring finger. after trying several variations, you can almost ALWAYS get the sentence to end on the pinky. the most satisfying is when you’re listening to someone talk for several minutes, counting all of their words and/or syllables, and then they’ll end the conversation right on the pinky and get up and exit the room or something.
it’s like the end to a tiny symphony and gives me a feeling of tidiness and organization.
this is nuts.
I too have a runner, except mine is a velociraptor. Thanks to my young self who used to be obsessed with Jurassic Park and all things velociraptor-ish. Sometimes I have a dragon who flies alongside of the car.
I also have a Dancer. Some generic person who dances to music in my head.
Sometimes when I’m in the car and we pass houses I try to imagine what they’re doing in there. Eating dinner, fighting, kids playing video games, dogs sleeping, etc… I try to keep it clean though.
I don’t do this so much anymore, but I used to have a running commentary in my head like a book. “As I sat there typing my message on the message board, I wondered what we were going to have for dinner.” Stuff like that.
Whenever I see three or four digit number I think of it as a year, especially with member post counts. Even the really big numbers, like the 4,000s. Like they’re in the future or something.