A Strange Case Of Uncanny Timing: September 8, 2010 – “Rick Roll’D”…yes, that’s correct

What does it mean?

You've been thinking about somone. Somone you haven't heard from in weeks, months or even years, and within a short period of time you receive some kind of communication from them. Twice I received letters from a woman I had worked with years before within a day of thinking about her for the first time in a long period of time. The second instance I even stopped in front of the mailbox and had the idea that there was going to be a letter from her because it had already happened once and sure enough, there was a letter in the box. My question is obvious. What is this phenomenon that boils down to a "Strange Case Of Uncanny Timing"?

Is it God? Is it the Universe? Entanglement? Are our brains Quantum computers? Is it the "Law of Attraction"?, or is it all nothing more than a coincidence? Carl Jung called it synchronicity and it happens all the time. Does it happen to you? It happens to me and I find myself wondering "What does it mean?". Decide for yourself as you follow my diary of another "Strange Case Of Uncanny Timing", also known as a S.C.O.U.T!

Sunday, January 8, 2012

September 8, 2010 – “Rick Roll’D”…yes, that’s correct - “R-i-c-k R-o-l-l-‘-D”

Background – I was driving home from school with my son Zack and, as is usual, my mind was wandering all over the place. He was, as is also usual, chattering away with the belief that he had my full, undivided attention. I don’t know how he got on the subject (because I wasn’t listening), but he began telling me about the internet phenomenon called getting “Rick Rolled”. Not only had I never heard of this phenomenon, I wasn’t even sure I understood the words he was saying… “Rick Rolled”? I kept repeating. I threw out a few questions to try and clarify this internet activity that clearly made sense to all people under… well let’s just say my age (I’m not going to “say” my age), but the purpose of which was completely lost on an old fuss bucket like me. Who is Rick? Why is he rolling people? What is rolling? Is this supposed to be funny? Is “funny” the ultimate goal here – because I’m not sure I “see” the funny? As the tension grew, my son recognized the generation gap that had appeared like a killer vortex between us, threatening to suck us both into a no-win debate about what is “funny”, what is “appropriate use of the internet”, “pointless humor being thrown about at others expense” and other generation gap fueled argument staples. He made the wise decision to change the subject.

S.C.O.U.T. – That night I popped open my Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader to do a little light trivial reading. The third story in the in the line-up was called “The Rickroll” and detailed the entire internet phenomenon, much better than my son explained it by the way - I can now see the humor, although still pointless, in being “Rick Roll’D!! Thanks to the UJBR, the generation gap, on this issue anyway, has been reduced to a smaller generational crack.

Simply uncanny; I had never even heard this term until this afternoon and here it had randomly crossed my path twice in a day. So now I know that I’ve never been “Rick Roll’D” on the internet, but I have no doubt that I’ve been “Scout’d” many, many times.

Just in case you need an explanation on the “Rick Roll”… The Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader titled “The World’s Gone Crazy”, pg 387, “The Rick Roll”. Don’t bother thanking me, us old fuss buckets have to stick together.