new yorkers: how many times per week, on average, do you think about dancing on soul train?

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SERIOUS QUESTION HERE FOLX.
me? maybe two. this is a sharp decrease from last february, where the number was more like 8.

― ian (orion), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:10 (seventeen years ago) link

(was actually talking abt this with my friend J3ff last night who thought the JMZ would be a good train to jump in front of because even if you mis-time it, you could still plunge down to traffic below.)

― ian (orion), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:11 (seventeen years ago) link

not a new yorker but i find that even though i'm not suicidal i sometimes have to will myself not to jump in front of the train. i can't explain why. but it's the same thing whenever i see a cop, i have to resist the urge to grab his gun. why would i do that? wtf and i going to do with a cop's gun? don't know but it's a pretty tempting urge.

― chicago kevin has a lust for bacon (chicago kevin), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:13 (seventeen years ago) link

at least three times a week, either in DC or in NYC.

― Allyzay heard you got beat up in a club. (Allyzay Eisenschefter), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:15 (seventeen years ago) link

see also, jumping off fire escape

― jw (ex machina), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:23 (seventeen years ago) link

0.4.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:23 (seventeen years ago) link

I occasionally have the urge to veer onto the sidewalk to plow through the galloping Brown sports teams that go running en masse around Providence's East Side, but that's not the same thing either.

― elmo albatross (allocryptic), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:25 (seventeen years ago) link

how many times per week, on average, do you think about ~~jumping in front of the train~~ the best escape route if someone was to bump you off the platform?

― false cat (sleep), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:29 (seventeen years ago) link

a lot less than I did before that lady on the redline was "feeling faint" and leaned into the path of an oncoming train and HAD HER EYE CUT OPEN WTF

― TOMB07 (trm), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:30 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.railway-technical.com/3rd001.gif

― elmo albatross (allocryptic), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:30 (seventeen years ago) link

everybody watch KONTROLL

― TOMB07 (trm), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:31 (seventeen years ago) link

KONTROLL is good shit

― urghonomic (gcannon), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:32 (seventeen years ago) link

was -> were
xpost to me

― false cat (sleep), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:36 (seventeen years ago) link

I always tense my body to throw my weight back if someone tries to push me ... after that schizo dude killed some lady

― jw (ex machina), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:39 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.gonemovies.com/WWW/Raketnet/Drama/AnnieDuane.jpg

― PPlains (PPlains), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:39 (seventeen years ago) link

I think about jumping in front of every train, off every high place (which is why I love heights so much, it's so much more exciting when you might just take one more step.......), twitching the wheel and driving off every bridge (freaked out an ex, no more roadtrips ;__;), being in buildings when they collapse (I've been doing that since childhood, don't put 9/11 shit on it), etc. Keeps life interesting. I used to dare myself to ride my bike in front of traffic tho on the one or two occasions that I specifically remember, no further traffic passed before I got into the driveway.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:46 (seventeen years ago) link

one time when I was little I had adjusted the breaks on my bike and took it down my long, steep driveway. Unfortunately, the brakes weren't reconnected. I went out into one of the busiest roads in town at probably 25 miles and hour and managed to turn into traffic and not hit the opposite curb. The rush from this was so insane that I coasted into a neighbors driveway and drove into a tree and hit my balls.

― jw (ex machina), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:50 (seventeen years ago) link

twitching the wheel and driving off every bridge

oh yeah! it's been so long since i owned a car i forgot about this one! i can remember going like 90 mph on rte 95 in north central maine and thinking "at this speed i probably only have to turn the wheel about 3 degrees and i'd plow into one of those 100 ft trees."

good times, good times...

― chicago kevin has a lust for bacon (chicago kevin), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:53 (seventeen years ago) link

noize bored, pls take 1 prozak

― Tyrone Slothrop (Tyrone Slothrop), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:56 (seventeen years ago) link

When we used to get my friend's passat up to 125 on route 88 in westport ma (before they added divider) we'd span both sides of the road so we would have a larger margin for sneezes

― jw (ex machina), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Weirdly enough it's not depressive at all! It's really the lure of the forbidden -- the only way to know what it feels like is to do it...once. And then that's pretty much it for living, which is the bummer part, so you never do it, but you always think it.

Actually I've also harbored a secret childhood dream that if I jumped off a cliff or something, I would learn to fly on the way down. But only if I really, really trusted.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 12 February 2007 16:59 (seventeen years ago) link

even though i'm not suicidal i sometimes have to will myself not to jump in front of the train. i can't explain why. but it's the same thing whenever i see a cop, i have to resist the urge to grab his gun.

same for me. i have NO desire to jump in front of trains, but it's this weird almost hypnotic kind of thing. same with jumping off of buildings, as laurel mentioned. or grabbing a cop's gun, or throwing my phone out the window of a fast-moving car, or yelling obscenities in the middle of a quiet funeral service.

― Lauren (lauren), Monday, 12 February 2007 17:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh yeah, ditto, I forgot to mention standing up in church and yelling obscenities and blasphemous things.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 12 February 2007 17:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Lauren, Laurel, and Kevin all OTM. Though conversely I also do the back-up tense-up that Jon mentions if someone comes and stands too close to me, I convince myself they are going to push.

― Allyzay heard you got beat up in a club. (Allyzay Eisenschefter), Monday, 12 February 2007 17:13 (seventeen years ago) link

corollary question: how many times have you become gloomy at the thought that if you jumped in front of the T, it would probably not kill you?

― Jessie the Monster (scarymonster), Monday, 12 February 2007 18:33 (seventeen years ago) link

My office building is right next to the Chicago River, and sometimes when I'm coming back from lunch and crossing the bridge on LaSalle, I think about jumping in. Or at least throwing something overboard, like my keys or my lunch.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 12 February 2007 18:38 (seventeen years ago) link

sometimes i have an uncontrollable urge to hit somebody in situations where it would be completely inappropriate and outrageous

― friday on the porch (lfam), Monday, 12 February 2007 18:39 (seventeen years ago) link

you guys are fucked up, i only think about pushing other people in front of the train

― this is cutty (mcutt), Monday, 12 February 2007 18:39 (seventeen years ago) link

or throwing my phone out the window of a fast-moving car, or yelling obscenities in the middle of a quiet funeral service.

picturing lauren doing these things is fun

― this is cutty (mcutt), Monday, 12 February 2007 18:41 (seventeen years ago) link

an almost uncontrollable urge

― friday on the porch (lfam), Monday, 12 February 2007 18:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Dropping things off rooftops/into rivers/over waterfalls is a giant rush. I think it's a slight becoming that object for a few seconds. Dropping sticks right at the top if Niagara Falls and watching them go over? Also classic.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 12 February 2007 18:45 (seventeen years ago) link

throwing my phone out the window of a fast-moving car

i've done this with ice cream cones and a stale soft pretzel from wawa.

― Lauren (lauren), Monday, 12 February 2007 18:51 (seventeen years ago) link

Sticks over a waterfall is totally fun, but you have nothing to lose. If I drop my keys in the river, there's no way I'm getting them back, and that's what the urge is about. I have to imagine standing in front of my apartment building without a means to get inside before the urge goes away.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 12 February 2007 18:57 (seventeen years ago) link

please rename thread: noize board hyperballad suicide & tourette's symposium

― elmo albatross (allocryptic), Monday, 12 February 2007 18:58 (seventeen years ago) link

otm

― this is cutty (mcutt), Monday, 12 February 2007 19:00 (seventeen years ago) link

ALL MANIC BEHAVIOR ALL THE THE TIME

BOXCAR

― chicago kevin has a lust for bacon (chicago kevin), Monday, 12 February 2007 19:04 (seventeen years ago) link

I breifly lived on the 29th floor of a 70's apartment building in Paris whose windows opened all the way. My roommate and I tossed all sorts of stuff out those windows, especially waterballoons.

― Michael White (Miguelito), Monday, 12 February 2007 19:11 (seventeen years ago) link

My university has a policy specifically regarding defenestration.

― Brig. Chop Them Up (scarymonster), Monday, 12 February 2007 19:17 (seventeen years ago) link

or specifically forbidding, whatever sounds better.

― Brig. Chop Them Up (scarymonster), Monday, 12 February 2007 19:19 (seventeen years ago) link

http://pankisseskafka.typepad.com/wwkd/2004/09/once_again_at_n.html

― jw (ex machina), Monday, 12 February 2007 19:23 (seventeen years ago) link

midi lol

― jw (ex machina), Monday, 12 February 2007 19:24 (seventeen years ago) link

I lived on the 16th floor of my the NYU dorm on Lafayette St -- the window by my bedside looked down on a parking lot. One morning, attempting to turn my alarm clock off, I knocked the damn thing out the window and promptly went back to sleep, hardly remembering what I had done.

Fast forward to two weeks later: Flyers are posted at the elevators on every floor, with a photocopied photo of my distinctive, art-deco style clock embedded in its own huge dent in the trunk of a Nissan Altima, with a man's hand in frame pointing at it. There was a notice asking for information about the culprit. I took a few flyers down, but I think I lost the one I saved. :(

TIME FLIES LOL

― elmo albatross (allocryptic), Monday, 12 February 2007 19:35 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.nicholasmueller.com/images/125_puffnbj.gif

― Allyzay heard you got beat up in a club. (Allyzay Eisenschefter), Monday, 12 February 2007 19:38 (seventeen years ago) link

there should be a greasemonkey script that puts that .gif on every thread where Bjork is mentioned.

― Brig. Chop Them Up (scarymonster), Monday, 12 February 2007 19:40 (seventeen years ago) link

i don't think i was ever tempted to enter the bobst library diving competition, though, but there were a lot of contestants when i was at nyu -- they put up plexi on the balconies my last semester

― elmo albatross (allocryptic), Monday, 12 February 2007 19:45 (seventeen years ago) link

depends on whether i am in a good mood or not. right now, i'd say about three or four times a day. bad mood, bad dreams, and i think i have an ear infection.

― the table is the table (trees), Monday, 12 February 2007 19:48 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.nyu.edu/photobureau/building/bobst/images/bobst.atrium.013.D1.jpg

TAKE THE PLUNGE

― elmo albatross (allocryptic), Monday, 12 February 2007 19:50 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.acorn-gaming.org.uk/Emulation/qbert.gif

― jw (ex machina), Monday, 12 February 2007 19:57 (seventeen years ago) link

I love the sound qbert makes when he hits bottom.
Is the sound of an actual marble being dropped inside the machine?

― sexyDancer (sexyDancer), Monday, 12 February 2007 19:59 (seventeen years ago) link

or something:
Dedicated upright cabinets for Q*bert contain a solenoid that creates a knocking sound inside the cabinet whenever a character falls off the pyramid, simulating the sound a character might make if it actually fell to the bottom of the cabinet. In some units, this sound is created by a bean bag inside the case rigged to fall.[2]

― sexyDancer (sexyDancer), Monday, 12 February 2007 20:02 (seventeen years ago) link

escher designed the floor of the nyu library, explaining why it looks like spikes viewed from above.

― the table is the table (trees), Monday, 12 February 2007 20:22 (seventeen years ago) link

does barcade's qbert have this

― jw (ex machina), Monday, 12 February 2007 20:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Michael White = Bluto Hulot

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 12 February 2007 20:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Weird, I think I had a dream about Q-Bert recently. I was imagining what it looked like below the pyramid, as he fell. It seemed like the fall would be peaceful.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 12 February 2007 21:36 (seventeen years ago) link

see also, jumping off fire escape
-- jw (jo...), February 12th, 2007. (ex machina) (later) (link)

hi dere, phil!

i agree with kevin, laurel, lauren, ally, etc. i mostly think about the fact that i am clumsy and might misstep and fall onto the tracks, though. and yeah, i get mad nervous when ppl are walking past me too closely on the platform (esp when you can't walk in the middle because of a staircase or something). when i drove cars i used to think about going into trees a lot, but never as much about driving off bridges. mostly i think i am too enamored by cool bridges to get that dark.

― tehresa (tehresa), Monday, 12 February 2007 23:30 (seventeen years ago) link

does barcade's qbert have this
-- jw (jo...), February 12th, 2007 8:27 PM
yeah.

― sexyDancer (sexyDancer), Monday, 12 February 2007 23:40 (seventeen years ago) link

i need a drink

― jw (ex machina), Monday, 12 February 2007 23:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh vodka, my vodka.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 12 February 2007 23:53 (seventeen years ago) link

does the PATH count?!?

― Eisbär (Eisbär), Monday, 12 February 2007 23:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Between five and six. Only if PATH counts and it does.

― forksclovetofu (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 13 February 2007 02:18 (seventeen years ago) link

bad thing about subway superhero dude is that now everybody's like "oh you could survive" so it's totally upped the ante on jumping-in-front-of-train scenarios. when the train starts getting close i usually take 3 steps back both to keep myself from leaping and to keep anyone else from pushing.

what scares me is having a 2-year-old who's obsessed with the subway (throws a fit every time we walk past those globes without descending). right now i keep him strapped into the stroller when we're in the stations but eventually he'll be more free-roaming and will be inevitably fascinated by what-if train-track hypotheses. i anticipate lots of conversations along these lines.

― tipsy mothra (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 13 February 2007 07:08 (seventeen years ago) link

i think children tend to have strong self-preservation instincts. much moreso than teens and adults, i think.

― ian (orion), Tuesday, 13 February 2007 07:15 (seventeen years ago) link

if he had such an instinct for self-preservation he wouldna scribbled crayon all over the tv flat-screen. (it scrubs off btw, but not easily.) but yeah, here's hoping.

― tipsy mothra (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 13 February 2007 07:23 (seventeen years ago) link

do you self-conciously model yourself on the father from calvin & hobbes, or is that purely incidental? good job, though.

― ian (orion), Tuesday, 13 February 2007 07:25 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/9876/hole-dad.jpg

― tipsy mothra (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 13 February 2007 07:30 (seventeen years ago) link

what scares me is having a 2-year-old who's obsessed with the subway (throws a fit every time we walk past those globes without descending).

LOLOLL, my kid is 2 and is nuts for trains. let's just say George Carlin is narrating something as i write this.

he's not a jumper yet though.

― the kwisatz bacharach (sanskrit), Tuesday, 13 February 2007 12:48 (seventeen years ago) link

I get nervous when kids get anywhere close to the ledge. and seeing maintenence workers on the tracks step aside as a train passes always freaks me out. of course I drive my wife nuts by leaning over and looking down the tunnel to see if a train is approaching...

I am too scared of death to even idly fantasize about suicide.

― mark coleman (lovebug ), Tuesday, 13 February 2007 13:32 (seventeen years ago) link

this all presents nasty little twist on the train as metaphor.

personally, i never think about jumping, being pushed or passing out: yes.

― bb (bbia), Tuesday, 13 February 2007 14:12 (seventeen years ago) link

dude me too. as does my friend.

― nathalie (stevienixed), Tuesday, 13 February 2007 14:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Will it really help to tense your back against a push-attack? I've just sort of been resigned to my fate.

I babysat for a 6-yr-old who was obsessed with the subway. He was very careful, though, about standing behind the yellow line.

I often wonder why more people don't veer off the road . . . eros v thanatos?

― Matilda Wormwood (Mary ), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 00:47 (seventeen years ago) link

my kid is 2 and is nuts for trains. let's just say George Carlin is narrating something as i write this.

-- the kwisatz bacharach (mikeoptin...)

seven words you cant say on tv?

― and what (ooo), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 01:52 (seventeen years ago) link

no, much worse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFEhNZ6QIHU

― the kwisatz bacharach (sanskrit), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 02:28 (seventeen years ago) link

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