Ask Lemmy

I've vomited on 5 continents.

I got caught playing hooky from school to be on the radio for an unapproved fundraiser, my house league hockey won the district championship and needed to raise money for the State tournament. The day I played hooky was a a day where the school would be outside for an activity, listening to the radio... station I was on.

Needless to say I was called to office to explain myself and scolded. Told them I didn't care and a better use of my time. I received a 0 for any activities and homework that day, there was none, and an after school detention which the admin let me leave early so I could make hockey practice.

I was the manager of, and sole employee of, a custom frame shop and just before closing one night I finished up a large signed jersey with Rose Bowl memorabilia, tickets, pin, lanyard, programs, pictures, the works, from this couple's trip there that meant a great deal to them. The silicone still had to dry, so I left it on the back counter ready to wrap in the morning. The shop got robbed that night, for the flat-screen out front, but they saw that jersey and took it too. Guy was devastated bc it was irreplaceable stuff. I was like "We'll see about that!" I called the Rose Bowl committee and told them what happened, they replaced everything, including the last lanyard they found on the floor behind the shelves they had been on. I emailed the sports team and told them what happened, and the player signed a new jersey with the customer's name on it. Guy was crying actual tears when he picked up the new shadowbox. So being a momentary hero is my "claim to fame" 😂

Sante and Kenny Kimes: A notorious mother-son team who committed a string of crimes across the United States, including robbery, fraud, arson, slavery, and murder. Their story was the basis of the TV movie A Little Thing Called Murder and featured in a Netflix documentary.

When they were arrested the son had my business card in his jacket. The police interviewed me but we could never figure out how he got it.

I am responsible for accidentally getting a landowner and big game hunter on the other side of the world investigated by the EPA for something he didn't do, and a podcast episode was made about it. All I did was post a comment on Reddit.

I was one of the very, very, VERY earliest people to ever buy Minecraft. This was late 2009 during the early alpha development.

I bought it because it looked fun and relaxing. I introduced a fair few people to the game, but frankly… I expected it to remain a niche thing due to how it looked and the fact that it didn’t really have set gameplay goals. You basically had to make your own fun.

It was wild to see it become a cultural icon. It was even wilder to go to the cinema and watch a billion dollar movie starring Jack Black based on a dumb game about blocks that I bought from some random Swedish dude’s site 16 years before.

Years back when Clash of Clans was running ads using player submitted footage they used my submission for an ad (the one where several giants get taken out by spring traps)

Short answer with no context: Bill Clinton touched me appropriately.

Back story for those interested:

In 2012 I worked for the Obama re-election campaign as a Field Organizer, and typically the job was just leading and organizing volunteers in activities like phone banking and voter registration and such. I was in a swing county in a swing state, so the campaign made a stop in our area. Obama and Biden were supposed to swing through along with Bill Clinton and others. Biden was even supposed to come to our office so we all had to get vetted by the Secret Service. But the candidates canceled thanks to Hurricane Sandy forcing them back to Washington. The rally continued on, though, with mostly just Bill Clinton and some local politicians.

On the day of, I gather up my group of volunteers and we head to the rally venue. I was originally assigned to pass out water bottles to people waiting in line, but then we learned we didn't have enough barriers around the tents where the candidates and Bill were (supposed to be) hanging out and I volunteered to be a human barrier to fill the gap. The job turned out to be kinda fun, a skateboarder tried to get past me and into the tent area because he was trying to cut through to get to another building and when I stuck my arm out to stop him I accidentally clotheslined him. He looked at me super pissed, then noticed the Secret Service right behind me and left with a quickness.

Anyways, Bill gets on stage, says his thing, then comes to the fence like to shake hands. Well, I was also a part of the fence and the people swarming me started to overwhelm me. Until two Secret Service agents swoop in and push the throng back, that is. As Bill passed by he pats me on the back and heads to his tent.

And that was the time I was touched by Bill Clinton in an appropriate manner.

I did a photo shoot for Johnson and Johnson as an infant lol for one of their products.

And also was one of the IRL kids on Teletubbies.

Many years ago I was on a Greyhound bus trip. I was traveling about 3 hours from my home & it was the easiest way to get to my destination for lack of decent air service Otherwise I would have simply flown. I informed the bus driver that a very odd passenger was having some intestinal distress & retreated to the lavatory. I was unfortunately sitting nearby when I knew that the driver should be informed of the potential degree of olfactory danger we were flirting with. It was a stormy night and that driver made the proper call to deal with the issue which caused us a slight delay. However, that little setback saved us from being caught in a landslide. The junkie crapping all over the bathroom was the hero. I was merely the messenger.

My buddy's friend knew the guy who painted the helicopter that was used in Rambo III. Oh yeah! I've been drinking free on that one for years (as long as I'm drinking tap water).

I've sucked the dick of one of the designers of the ATLA ttrpg

The FAA had to alter IACRA because of me. Well, to be honest it was their own damn fault.

IACRA is the system where you apply online for pilot's licenses and such; instead of filling out an 8710-11 form and mailing it to the local FSDO or whatever, you do that on the internet.

I was applying for my light sport instructor license. One of the prerequisites to become any kind of aviation instructor is to demonstrate knowledge of the Fundamentals of Instruction. They accept four things:

• Scoring a 70 or above on the FAA's FoI knowledge test within the last 24 calendar months
• Proof of employment at an accredited college or university as a professor
• A state-issued teaching certificate for grade 7 or higher
• Any other FAA issued instructor certificate, logic being is, if you're already an instructor, you've presented evidence of one of the previous three.

I took and aced the FoI test fairly early in my CFI training...so early that the test result was threatening to expire. So rather than take it again, I decided to take the test for Basic Ground Instructor, which essentially made the test score permanent.

The day finally came for my CFI-SP checkride, I start filling out the IACRA form...and the website will only accept a knowledge test score. I call the examiner, she pulls it up, goes "Huh. Well, looks like you get to fill out a paper 8710 and I get to call Washington."

So if you're the web developer the government hired to make and/or fix that form, I was that guy! And since it's a US Government website, I bet you did it in the most bullshit unusable way possible.

A petition I started motivated a group of rich people to buy a really important music venue and save it from being demolished.

I once was in the office next to Stephen Hawking.

That is, I was waiting for my dentist appointment, and Hawking and his team were on the next module of the building by the side, on the office across from mine, prepping a lecture he would present the next day at my city.

I am allowed to hop on stage with Red Grammar (Andy Grammar's Father) and make any song he sings a duet. I got this privilege completely by accident, when I was 7 or 8.

It was The Who’s 1st last world tour in Toronto at the CNE back I think in the 80’s. 

I get a call from a crazy friend (female) saying she got back stage passes to meet The Who and can I drive her to the CNE. I took her down and she told guys guarding the gate that I was her security. I was 6ft, 300lbs, big red beard almost to my waist and a huge Afro so I sorta fit the bill.

Once back stage I, star struck, met Pete Townshend and asked him did he hurt his visibly hand wrapped loose bandaged hand doing his signature hand swirl or smash a guitar. His reply, no I had a fight with my wife and punched the wall. I realized he was also just a guy as well as a star. I never looked at a famous person the same way again. More just like another person doing extraordinary stuff.

I saw Entwistle but did not speak with him. I did not see the other band members at that point. I also did some “illegal” substances with “certain” people. Had lots of fun. Got silly and stole the Argos golf cart helmet drove it around and got chased by security. I remember getting away but for some reason I cannot remember much after that point. I do remember it was a great night.

I have precisely the same date of birth as a very famous singer / songwriter who died around a decade ago.

My Spotify issue/feature request was attributed to bringing back a good version of the full screen view on desktop.

I've since moved away from Spotify but it was cool that that happened (even though they should not have made it shit beforehand in the first place)

I reported an error in the documentation of a vendor we use at work.
Error was, that the Agent is supposed to create a windows event entry upon being upgraded. But it gave a event-id different from the one in the docs.
I wanted it fixed because I used it to execute a script.

They acknowledged the error and fixed the event id number.
In the next version they changed something. Now it doesnt give any event-id at all despite the documentation saying it should. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ESPN sent some poor intern to film a goofy segment at my college before a big game. People had no idea why he and the cameraman were there and were kind of weirded out by it, so I went up to ask what was going on. I thought I might have to tell them to leave. He explained that they were just trying to film something goofy so I volunteered to help and got a bunch of students in on it. The segment was as dumb as you would expect, but good enough to fill time on the Cold Pizza morning show. ESPN mailed me a tape of the segment to say thanks.

So I guess I was on national TV.

i have a photo on Google maps viewed 3.6 million times.

I made the turtle subreddits custom Snoo logo.

I used to do a very niche job (that does not exist anymore) that required great skill, and I was so good at it, I was likely in the top 10 of all time. There were less than 1000 people qualified to do this job, and I was in the top 1%, AND those ~1000 people were the only ones to ever do this specific job out of the ~8 billion people on this planet.

Now I work a relatively mundane IT job, and no one knows or cares about what I have accomplished, except for my peers.

I have two.

I used to be friends with a youtuber who made guide videos for a popular game. (I'm being intentionally vague.) He liked to end his videos with a certain type of clip specific to the game but was having trouble getting the clip. I'd been playing with him for a bit during this time and managed to get the clip he was looking for. After he failed to get the shot he wanted for a bit longer, he asked if I wouldn't mind him taking my clip and pasting his name over mine. I said of course. Once every few years I watch that video and smile.

I was on an intramural soccer team with Jessica Biel. (I never did work up the courage to say more than two words to her. I get starstruck hard and easily.)

Johnny Pemberton once said I was a living angel.

I tried bubble tea a solid 7 years before it took off in the USA, in the USA. The owner of the store unfortunately closed several years before it blew up, and I felt really bad that the dude was ahead of his time.

I also tried Adeni (Yemeni) Chai and Coffee from the first Qawah House only a month after it opened. Now the product has rapidly expanded to the point where several chains are in direct and very heated competition with Starbucks which is cool.

I don't like sharing this because it kinda sounds less like fame and more like I'm being a hipster lol.

Had my face on a news photo once.

I interviewed Robby Van Winkle for my university's newspaper back in 1990.

He actually was a pretty interesting person to talk to. Shocking I know.

I worked with Linus Torvalds, met Carl Sagan, and caught a cold from Danny Elfman.

A Microsoft employee stared one of my GitHub repos. Not sure they are even still an employee.

Missed a flight same as Shane MacGowan and we both got on the next one, not together obviously.

Sat on the other side of a couch to Bono and his dad in his nightclub and stopped a crazy American from climbing over to him, everyone else politely ignored them.

Knelt down by a torpedo tube that wasn't receiving signals from the Torpedo Settings Panel, pulled out a Mechanicus Purity Seal I kept in my jacket, and recited the prayer written on it.

Torpedo tube started to recognize the TSP connection.