The "oh, that’s interesting" Thread

[allegate]

nope. no thank you. if I can't see the bottom I don't go in.

[allegro]

We had to study stuff like that in one of my college classes. There is CRAZY stuff in the depths of the oceans.

The Anglerfish is one of my very favorites:

[allegro]

nope. no thank you. if I can't see the bottom I don't go in.

Then you best stay out of the Great Lakes.

https://vividmaps.com/wp-content/upl...kes-scaled.jpg

[elevenism]

Oh jesus Christ @allegro . I don't want ANY PART of the Great Lakes...especially the deepest one.

Yeah, I had to swim in lakes that were, you know, deep ENOUGH, in Texas, for Webelos and Boy Scouts. And, holy fuck...when I opened my eyes under the water? Just, NO.
I completed the tasks and earned the badges, in SPITE of my fear, but, dear GOD, I don't like swimming in lakes. I swear to god, at that boy scout camp, I was doing a back float test, and suddenly, there was this huge, godawful amphibious spider thing on my face.

I've only been in the sea a couple of times: both times were in the Gulf of Mexico- Galveston, and North Padre.
AND, both were "combed beaches," wherein people worked to pickup all the little seashells and different bullshit. That was okay.

[Erneuert]

nope. no thank you. if I can't see the bottom I don't go in.

[elevenism]

that one, at least, is cute. Are we sure he isn't a pokemon or something?

[thelastdisciple]

For real - I don't go into the ocean because 1) I don't know how to swim

glad I'm not the only one.

[Erneuert]

This looks so cosy.

[thelastdisciple]

Minecraft in real life ^

When night falls just gotta watch out for skeletons, spiders, zombies and creepers.

[botley]

Oh jesus Christ @allegro . I don't want ANY PART of the Great Lakes...especially the deepest one.

I did a 'polar bear dip' (boxers only) in Lake Superior once, mid-October 2010. Cold as fuck! Nothing really scary in there — too icy for big gnarly shit to live in. Just lampreys; I hate lampreys. Don't Google them, their horrible mouths look like Mynocks chewing on the power cables of the Millennium Falcon.

[elevenism]

I did a 'polar bear dip' (boxers only) in Lake Superior once, mid-October 2010. Cold as fuck! Nothing really scary in there — too icy for big gnarly shit to live in. Just lampreys; I hate lampreys. Don't Google them, their horrible mouths look like Mynocks chewing on the power cables of the Millennium Falcon.

I did "polar bears club" in Boy Scouts, so I could get a special badge or whatever. Good god, I didn't know what I was signing up for.
They'd wake you up, from your tent, at like 6am; this was on a late fall camping thing.

I did that shit every morning for a week. :P

It was COLD.

[elevenism]

Ok so sorry for double post.

Check this out, though. @Erneuert this is from your neck of the gloom, but I think everyone would enjoy it. This dude make great vids. @Wolfkiller @ickyvicky , @Space Suicide @marodi , you guys might dig this.

[allegate]

I did a 'polar bear dip' (boxers only) in Lake Superior once, mid-October 2010. Cold as fuck! Nothing really scary in there — too icy for big gnarly shit to live in. Just lampreys; I hate lampreys. Don't Google them, their horrible mouths look like Mynocks chewing on the power cables of the Millennium Falcon.

we have dams here and we went to a salmon count only for one of the windows to be entirely lamprey mouths. Jesus Christ that was the worst.

[allegro]

Just lampreys; I hate lampreys.

Oh my God, I hate Sea Lampreys, too!! The Great Lakes are full of them! They’re terrifying!!!! The numbers are down in Lakes Michigan, Huron and Ontario, but they’ve increased in Superior and Erie.

(Although, I’ve never actually seen one in person, LOL)

The WARMEST Lake Superior EVER gets … like, in AUGUST … is 65. You get hypothermia when you swim in water that’s 60 degrees.

It’s between 48 and 58 in October. Lake Superior is fucking COLD!!!

Lake Michigan is pretty cold, too (we used to swim in northeast Lake Michigan in August and our lips would be blue lol), and Huron isn’t exactly warm, but Superior … omg.

[elevenism]

Oh my God, I hate Sea Lampreys, too!! The Great Lakes are full of them! They’re terrifying!!!! The numbers are down in Lakes Michigan, Huron and Ontario, but they’ve increased in Superior and Erie.

(Although, I’ve never actually seen one in person, LOL)

The WARMEST Lake Superior EVER gets … like, in AUGUST … is 65. You get hypothermia when you swim in water that’s 60 degrees.

It’s between 48 and 58 in October. Lake Superior is fucking COLD!!!

Lake Michigan is pretty cold, too (we used to swim in northeast Lake Michigan in August and our lips would be blue lol), and Huron isn’t exactly warm, but Superior … omg.

I don't know what a Sea Lamprey IS, but I don't like the sound of it.

Furthermore, the whole IDEA of the Great Lakes scares the hell out of me: all kinds of shipwrecks and dead bodies and shit? Isn't there some sort of Great Lakes Triangle?

Yeah, y'all can go.on and KEEP all that, you northern folk.

Possum Kingdom is PRETTY much more lake than I can handle, personally.

Edit: that's actually a real place, and not just the name of a Toadies song, for the record.

[chuckrh]

I'm an ocean child. I've only scuba dived once & that was on the Great Barrier Reef. Pretty wild. I figured that if I ever was going to do it, that should be the place.

[Erneuert]

Mega nope.

[allegro]

I don't know what a Sea Lamprey IS, but I don't like the sound of it.

Furthermore, the whole IDEA of the Great Lakes scares the hell out of me: all kinds of shipwrecks and dead bodies and shit? Isn't there some sort of Great Lakes Triangle?

Lake MICHIGAN Triangle. There’s a crashed PLANE they never found in there.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nort...es_Flight_2501

[allegro]

I'm an ocean child. I've only scuba dived once & that was on the Great Barrier Reef. Pretty wild. I figured that if I ever was going to do it, that should be the place.

I took a scuba diving class in Maui. We started with general instructions, then moved with our equipment to a swimming pool. Our first task was to put the regulator mouthpiece into our mouths, and breathe face-down in the pool. As someone who’s been swimming before I could walk (and has had the OPPOSITE of “breathe underwater” drilled into their head) … I almost passed out. LOL. The instructor said that’s okay, happens all the time as I said no way, I ain’t doing this. Meanwhile, my husband, who can’t swim, has never swam, did great! But opted not to do the ocean dive. I DID go boogie boarding, though, since we already did that growing up on Lake Michigan.

[allegro]

Speaking of Superior:

My Dad was born and raised in the city where the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was built.

There are very few Michigan-born kids from that era (and beyond) who don't know all the lyrics to this song.




By the way, a bit of trivia:

The lyrics include:

"In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the maritime sailors' cathedral
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald"

That's Mariner's Church in downtown Detroit.

Fred "Sonic" Smith loved that church, it's where he and Patti Smith were married, it's where Patti placed a memorial to him (she had fundraisers after Fred died, i went to a few which were AWESOME):

A post shared by on Jan 01, 2017 at 12:00pm PDT

[marodi]

I'm an ocean child. I've only scuba dived once & that was on the Great Barrier Reef. Pretty wild. I figured that if I ever was going to do it, that should be the place.

I can't do scuba because of health issues but I am an absolute water child. I am at home it water.

By the way, I consider water as a solid. If you ever jumped into water from a bit of height, you know by the sting you feel when entering the water how solid it is. And unless you're being weighed down, if you get into water, you float; you don't sink.

We all float...

[elevenism]

I can't do scuba because of health issues but I am an absolute water child. I am at home it water.

By the way, I consider water as a solid. If you ever jumped into water from a bit of height, you know by the sting you feel when entering the water how solid it is. And unless you're being weighed down, if you get into water, you float; you don't sink.

We all float...

Now when I first moved to the Dallas area at seven, we got season passes to Wet and Wild.
My mom, brother and I went three or four times a week during the summer. This went on until.they tore the place down in 92 or so,.when I was.twelve.
I love big water SLIDES, and "for strong swimmers only" rides that shoot you out several feet above a 14 ft deep pool. I love the wave pool. I have WONDERFUL memories of all of that.

I lived in an all bills paid apt in north dallas, where the hot water literally never ran out, and I'd sit in the shower, reading or texting, for 3 hours a day after work.

Also, I caught a case for graffiti once, and wound up in a segregation cell because I had a damn staph infection, and that cell had a SHOWER in it. And, again, I'd stand in that shower for 2-3 hours a day.

I love water. I love pools and slides and water rides and hot tubs and ESPECIALLY, being near running water. I love to sit in the shower and read. I'm a Pisces, even.
AND, some of my earliest memories were.taking swimming lessons when I was like TWO or something.

I'm definitely a "water child" too.

I just don't want any live plants or animals in the water. THAT'S the thing.
I don't want any weird fish, or kale, or strange fucking amphibious plants, or ANYTHING like that.

[thelastdisciple]

I just don't want any live plants or animals in the water. THAT'S the thing.
I don't want any weird fish, or kale, or strange fucking amphibious plants, or ANYTHING like that.

When i was a kid even though i couldn't swim i still liked going to the beach sometimes and I'd go far enough into the water to where my feet barely touched the ground anymore, one thing i always had with me though was water shoes lol I don't like the idea of my feet coming into contact with ANYTHING in there.

I was also always afraid of getting leeches on me, I'm glad that's never happened.

[allegro]

We all float...

Unless you’re my husband. He can’t learn Dead Man’s Float. I’ve tried and tried to teach him, but his butt jackknifes and down he sinks. I’ve since spoken with others who can’t seem to get the hang of floating. I’ve even tried teaching my husband while floating on my back and talking with him, demonstrating that you don’t need to gasp and fill your lungs full of air and hold your breath to “float.” It didn’t work.

I wanted to be on an Olympic synchronized swim team when I was a kid (now known as artistic swimming); I can float for literally hours while moving around the pool using only my hands to move.

This is called “sculling.”.

[chuckrh]

I can't do scuba because of health issues but I am an absolute water child. I am at home it water.

By the way, I consider water as a solid. If you ever jumped into water from a bit of height, you know by the sting you feel when entering the water how solid it is. And unless you're being weighed down, if you get into water, you float; you don't sink.

We all float...

I don't think I would be happy living away from the ocean. I've lived close to the Pacific all of my life. The last 30+ years I've lived in a house 2-3 blocks from Puget Sound. I've been thinking about dying a lot lately because of some serious health issues & I think I've decided I want my ashes scattered in the Sound. I need to communicate that to the people who would deal with it.

[allegate]

Unless you’re my husband. He can’t learn Dead Man’s Float. I’ve tried and tried to teach him, but his butt jackknifes and down he sinks. I’ve since spoken with others who can’t seem to get the hang of floating. I’ve even tried teaching my husband while floating on my back and talking with him, demonstrating that you don’t need to gasp and fill your lungs full of air and hold your breath to “float.” It didn’t work.

I wanted to be on an Olympic synchronized swim team when I was a kid (now known as artistic swimming); I can float for literally hours while moving around the pool using only my hands to move.

This is called “sculling.”.

I was a lifeguard for three years in high school and had to learn how to float while holding 45lb weights. I can swim faster than my wife just using my arms. I can jump into the water fully clothed and turn everything into a float.

All of which is to say I can't do the crawl to save my life or anyone else's. I get three strokes in and can't breathe anymore, I just can't do the head turn.

[allegro]

I was a lifeguard for three years in high school and had to learn how to float while holding 45lb weights. I can swim faster than my wife just using my arms. I can jump into the water fully clothed and turn everything into a float.

All of which is to say I can't do the crawl to save my life or anyone else's. I get three strokes in and can't breathe anymore, I just can't do the head turn.

I can’t crawl for shit, either!! I hate it! I can backstroke, swim underwater, breast stroke. But I HATE the crawl! Because of turning! I wear nose clips, doesn't help.

My stepgrandma was a lifeguard and taught us a modified crawl, where you roll from a backstroke to a crawl and to a backstroke again etc., and that's really cool!

@chuckrh I know what you mean, kind of. I’ve never lived away from the Great Lakes. At one point, I’ve lived only a few blocks from Lake Michigan and a block from Lake Huron. I live about two miles from Lake Michigan now, for the last 23 years. We’ve had two boats in Lake Michigan (sailors have told us its waves are worse than the Atlantic or Pacific). Lake Michigan also scares the shit out of me, because it almost killed me, in Ludington, when I was about 8 (rip current).

"Your instinct is to fight to survive, and what we want you to do is do the opposite of your instinct, to flip, float and follow." <-- The latter was my instinct, that's what saved me.

My Dad died in 2016, and wanted his cremains scattered in Lake Michigan in Ludington. I still have to arrange that, it’s complicated, but I’m determined that it will get done.

[Erneuert]

Watch with subtitles on.

[Erneuert]

@ickyvicky @elevenism @allegro @allegate This is… this is unacceptable.

[Erneuert]

Well then…