OK, but what’s the TAB?
That’s not crazy… it’s Catholic dogma…
What?
My crazy theory is this: You know how back in history, people were superstitious about comets and considered them omens of bad fortune. Well, I say that in the remote past, an advanced world civilization was destroyed by the impact of a comet, much like in Lucifer’s Hammer, and the uneasiness about comets that our more recent ancestors felt had its origins the memories and legends of this real catastrophe.
I don’t really think this, but think it would make a great SF premise or concept. Feel free to use it, because I can’t write fiction to save my hide.
This is true, but you have to think a little farther to get to the obvious conclusion. Since literally anything can be a runaway success if enough marketing dollars are put behind it, they generally choose to market “nothing,” because that is the cheapest. For example, the whole “Britney Spears” phenomenon was “nothing,” that just happened to be marketed using a pop star spokeswoman.
You’ve never heard of Velikovsky or Worlds In Collision?
Why Mr. Snyder, I had no idea you posted on the SDMB!
In a way, this is true. That 80-year old has gotten more slow at processing data. Data like how fast another car is approaching, how fast the roadsigns fly by, etc. He’s driving slowly, because, in that way, the stimuli on the road come at him with the same speed they did when he was younger. He feels he’s driving 100 km per hour when in reality he’s driving 80.
I’m actually a character in a teen novel. I think I’m the main character, what with my general lameness and social awkwardness. I’m okay with this; everything’s going to get better in the closing chapters.
America isn’t real, it’s a cautionary tale England invented for Australia.
The percentage of black jellybeans/ banana fruitbursts in packs of lollies is COMPETELY disproportionate to the percentage of the population that actually like these flavours.
X-Files creator Chris Carter and Wheel of Time author Robert Jordan are in fact the same person.
Totaliser Agency Board- The Bookies, if you will.
Gambling (and sports betting) are legal in Australia, so the TAB is a place where you go to place bets on sporting events, horse races, and greyhound races etc.
(It’s not the same as a Casino, but nearly all decent pubs and Casinos will have a TAB in them).
I’ve heard of them, but does the novel specifically refer to a prehistoric catastrophe and subsequent myths and superstitions?
Worlds In Collision was not a novel. Velikovsky never claimed to write fiction. He insisted that he was documenting scientific fact.
No, but they see me coming. Just as the light changes, and I’m looking around for traffic, they deftly move enough to scuff my shoe. Clever boot-maulers!
I believe it. When they clean your teeth and poke the sharp thingy into your tooth to “test” for cavities they put a hole in your enamel and actually cause a cavity to form
This is not a crazy theory, it’s true, they put chemicals in the food to make us more hungry and addicted to the bad stuff (ie. MSG) to make us fatter and therefore eat more food.
They hate us.
This 'Skins fan is having a lot of fun with that image.
But they sure lurve our money!
Heh, just wait 'til you find out your author is Chuck Palahniuk.
Absolutely, and there are several other aspects of human behaviour explained thereby:
Time sense: Men keep schedules to within a few minutes because you have to be on the deer trail at dawn when the deer go by, not half an hour later. Women are adapted to the idea that berries will ripen in a certain month.
Colour: Men need to be able to distinguish a deer from its background. This does not require sophisticated colour vocabulary. Women need to assess and convey information about berries’ exact state of ripeness and health, which is why they have names for colours that men can’t even see, such as “taupe” and “puce”.
Talking: Silence is a virtue for a hunter. For a berry picker, constant chatter keeps predators at a safe distance (those who’ve learned that human meat has sharp edges), and after all, you can’t scare a berry away. Being able to talk incessantly about nothing at all is a survival characteristic.
Asking directions: Men need to be able to read the countryside and navigate solo. Bears and deer seldom volunteer information and any human you encounter is probably a stranger who will not welcome you on his hunting range. Women, operating closer to home, have no problem asking another tribeswoman “Where was that huge lingonberry patch that was nearly ripe two weeks ago?”.
Shopping: Berry pickers can flit from bush to bush checking to see which are the biggest and ripest and will best repay the time spent actually picking. The berries won’t run away. Hunters will look at a pheasant and decide it’s good enough and let it have it. It’s no use looking around for a better one and expecting the first one still to be there when you come back.
Elimination: Faeces are pungent-smelling and make good territory markers. If you want to appropriate hunting range from a rival tribe, a good way to do this is to drop a marker in enemy territory. The bigger and smellier this is, the better. It’s a good idea to go armed while you do this. Completing such a mission is a favour to the tribe and a mark of courage, and should be advertised. This explains why men can’t take a dump empty-handed (a newspaper will do if you don’t have a flint spear), why they make such a smell, and why they take such pride in it.
My girlfriend has a theory that humans are attracted to partners who are different to them so that the offspring are a nice average. For example, tall men find short women so their children are of average height (and therefore not too tall or short to compete on the evolutionary playing field). Fussy eaters pair up with people who will eat anything so their offspring are not too extreme one way or the other (disadvantaging their chances of reproduction). Impulsive, emotional people get together with stable, thoughtful people who consider their actions - thus keeping the impulsive one in check (and the offspring will be moderate).
This list of attributes is non-exhaustive, and the olive thing already mentioned is a subset of this theory.
Therefore, rather than small groups of people evolving in one direction or another, short people fancying short people and tall people being attracted to tall people (creating two dissimilar species), the entire race evolves together with homogeneity ensured.
This theory is based on a sample of one couple (me and her), there is little evidence that all these things have a genetic (and therefore hereditary) basis, and there does seem to be evidence against it (pygmy and incredibly tall tribes in Africa, for example). Doesn’t stop her believing it, though. 
It’s amazing, in the modern era of firearms, telescopic sights, GPS systems, and so forth how many hunters still have trouble differentiating between a Deer/Wild Pig/Other Game and “Another Hunter”, unless the other hunter is wearing Day-Glo Orange Camouflage (and even then, accidents happen, unfortunately).
It’s a non-issue around here because there’s a LOT of land to hunt on and not all that many people hunting it, but I’m told parts of the US are like Disneyland on the first weekend of Hunting Season and Day-Glo Camouflage is a must unless you want to be shot at…
I’m a sports jinx. I was born in Chicago in late July, 1969, so I feel personally responsible for the Cubs blowing the pennant that year. So I lived in Chicago until '82 and what happens when I move? The Bears win the Super Bowl and the Bulls actually start winning. What happens the minute I arrive in San Diego? (1) I killed Air Coryell and the Chargers start to suck. (2) The Clippers leave town. (3) First the Padres steal the pennant from my Cubs, and then of course blow the series.
So then in '93 I move to Los Angeles. (1) The Lakers start to suck for a while. (2) The Rams and Raiders leave town. (3) The Padres and Chargers start winning now that I’m gone from San Diego.
Through it all, the one Chicago team that I’ve really stuck with, the Cubs, still haven’t won a pennant, and it’s all my fault. When they got too close, the government sent in Agent Bartman to fuck with me.