<a class="postlink" href="http://www.cracked.com/article_19661_6-real-people-with-mind-blowing-mutant-superpowers_p2.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.cracked.com/article_19661_6- ... rs_p2.html</a> What are your amazing super powers? What are you insanely good at that mystifies other, lesser humans?
My superpower is immortality. Seriously. It allows me to: - survive two catastrophic car accidents (though seatbelts may steal my thunder a little) - survive getting thrown into a fire hydrant head-first by two guys - survive being blown up by an exploding jerrycan - survive the Rage Against The Machine moshpit when they opened Lallapalooza with "Killing In The Name" an at my first concert in '93 (remember when everyone wore Doc Martens?) - survive being stabbed - survive the entire duration of the film Poolhall Junkies without machine gunning a pre-school afterwards to kill the pain Yep. That happened.
I would love to have Wolverines healing and Magnetos contol of elements. Sadly I was resigned to getting TOLERANCE. Simply put in short form my entire childhood contained being shit on in numerous ways and when finally crawling out of what seemed an unpassible barrier i created a nice life and had everything really nice and then received 2 great kids. Then both wonderful kids were rewarded with aspergers and the outher type 1 diabetes at ages 4 and 3..... I take care of every bit of it solid....but need my super power of tolerance to keep my own shit together. which I do. luckily I get some nights off to drink which is great because apparently alcohol is the kryptonite to tolerance. (and proper spelling)
My super powers are basically that I'm a fucking nerd. Reading - I was a legit child prodigy. I read above the top of the tracked college level when I was like 8. My comprehension and general english skills were off the charts. Then I did a shit load of drugs and drank a lot. Now I can read really fast and remember most of of what I read in a useful way or when asked a question. I'm not like the rain man inspiring guy - but I'm pretty good. It's not really that useful a super power. The older I get and the more drugs I do, the less detail gets trapped and the more I get focused on core ideas. IE I can talk for ages about the themes and central ideas of the books I've read - but I can't do the whole didactic memory thing about what was on line 7 of page 820 or anything. I also tend to gloss over things that don't feel relevant - like character names or fluff terms wrapped around technical ideas. I know all about what Isilon NL nodes can do - but I have to figure out what the features are called from the index or something when I want to use one that I haven't spent a lot of time on. Typing - this is kind of a 10,000 hours thing (the idea that to be really world class at something, you need to spend 10,000 hours practicing it in addition to having a natural talent for it). I've probably spent something like 35,000 hours of my life actively typing and probably 55,000 hours in front of a keyboard and mouse. That's being kind of conservative in my estimates I type at 130 words a minute while staring out the window. With older keyboards I regularly typed faster than the keyboard could pass characters to the computer and had to go and fix those buffer fuck ups afterward. Still wish I could type faster. Shits me not being able to get thoughts out as fast as I think them. Logic - Apparently it's weird to approach every thing I encounter in life with the question 'does this make sense? If yes, proceed. If not, think about it until it does make sense.' Where other kids asked 'Why?' to annoy their siblings - I asked Why because motherfucker I need to fucking know! And when people stopped explaining shit before I was done, I went to the library and figured it the fuck out. My job is basically about making computer systems (not individual computers) work, and diagnosing problems. The obsessive why thing pretty much made my career. I'm absurdly good at diagnosing computer shit and predicting why things won't work so we can fix those things before they happen. People are always tripped out about me being logical - when for the most part I just think they're being dumb. I'm better at not obsessing over things until I understand now - I used to lose days figuring shit out just because I didn't get it, and then realize that I didn't care anyway. Now I mostly avoid that.
I can dry shave without getting any ingrown hairs or redness. With a Bic. I get a little bit of irritation for about fifteen minutes, and then my face goes back to not caring. I don't do it often, (prefer the stuff explored in the Shaving thread) but it's funny to see my roommate's face when I have two minutes to get ready and I can just rake a dull razor over my face and not care.
I have the super-ability to reach things in high cabinets, and hang things from the cieling without a stepladder. My weakness is I'm almost too wide for a conventional airline seat.
My time from entering a bathroom, shitting, and walking out the door is generally under 15 seconds (not including hand-washing). That lead to the high school nickname Phant, short for Phantom, short for Phantom Shitter. The Phantom Shitter, bestowed with the power to poop at a girlfriend's family's house with nobody knowing.
The last post reminded me of my super power to pee silently. But what I was going to write about is my super power of having an encyclopedic memory of what I wore, when. If it's just another average day where I'm throwing clothes on simply to go outside of my apartment then, no, I'm probably not going to remember. But if it had any sort of significance where I put the slightest bit of thought into my outfit, then I can remember what I was wearing for events or occasions or days of note back to senior year of high school or so. It's only use, really, is that I won't be seen wearing the same thing at yearly events or twice in a row as the last time this person/these people saw me etc. God forbid someone thinks I only have one dress, or no creativity. Right? (The flaw in this logic is no one else has an encyclopedic memory of what I wear, so they probably wouldn't notice.) I also like that it makes my clothes more sentimental. Also, I'm really good at picking the spot on the platform where the door is going to be once the train pulls into the station in the subway.
I can be so sweet and nice that it surprises people that I can be the cruelest cunt on the planet and have no problem slicing your achilles, either physically or verbally. Do not mistake my kindness for weakness. (This is real life stuff, not TIB stuff)
I've taught myself how to carve wood freehand with a razor blade and chisel and not make it look like shit. Spoiler Okay, I'm no suapyg but by the time I'm that fucking old I'll have some skillz.
I feel my super power has waned as I approach 30 years old, but from about 16-25, outside of extreme cases, I could/can appear 100% sober while being highly intoxicated. I don't mean like those douchebags who either pretend to drink and say they're wasted, or the liars who say "I need like ten beers just to get a buzz" -- my actual tolerance is pretty average for my age and weight. I mean I can look and act like I've had one beer when I've actually had ten...but it is an act. This power seems to apply even moreso to drugs. Some real life examples: Explaining to the nurses who induced vomitting in my friend how many mushrooms he ate, and having them not believe I ate just as many. Explaining to cops why me and my friends/co-workers should be allowed to stay in the luxury suite for a concert when I was BY FAR the drunkest person in the suite (I actually didn't remember doing that, but according to testimony I pulled it off nicely). I suppose the cops could have known how drunk I was, but considering they were called to make us leave, and they didn't, I say that counts, which is a good thing, since getting kicked out would have likely got me/others fired. Talking my way out of a posession charge, drunk and stoned, hand cuffed in the back of a cop car. Again, they could have known, but they never asked if I was either, and I was lots of both. Many people over my life asking why I even drink/smoke/take hallucinogens/etc when I rarely show outward signs of reaping the benefits of said intoxicants (but I do reap...oh how I reap). Having a birthday tradition of eating mushrooms and going out to a bar, talking my face off and having pretty much no one know that, to me, their entire face is throbbing while we talk (my eyes are a dark brown, which seems to mask my pupil dilation). And so on. I think the only thing that's really changed is that I'm busier now so I get tired, which gives me red eyes, which probably makes me look more intoxicated than I really am. As long as I'm not tired, the power still seems to run at about 85%.
Focus: I am an exceptional researcher. Like Scootah, I read quickly, I type quickly, and I can pull keywords quickly, which makes me invaluable as the person who can find random and sometimes really obscure references at work. I've found papers that have stumped our library staff, our clients and even the feds, saving my clients from running million-dollar studies and wasting time and animal resources in the process. I kick ass at that part of my job and it is mentioned at every single performance review. Anti-Focus: I can't burp. Not even a little bit. Apparently that floors people more than the researching thing.
I have the remarkable habit of reading three books at once, and being able to recall the page numbers, chapter and content of each book. The only books I have read more than once are Robert Greene's trilogy, and Jurassic Park. 2011 was the first year I read less than 100 books. I have never lost a beard-growing competition amongst friends and grow facial and body hair at rates that would shame a Viking. I have won each fantasy football league I have played in. I have tremendously strong toes, and use them in ape-like ways of picking up things. Control yourselves, ladies.
I've been told I have the ability to teach very well. Which is surprising because most of the time I'm an introvert, but apparently I can break things down well so others can understand them. I guess this carries over to my gym, where the few trainers worth a damn that I'm friends with call me over to explain certain lifts. I really need to switch my line of work. As far as super duper amazing power, that would be Tecmo Super Bowl, both NES and SNES. That's right bitches, you can't beat me. Noone can. Ever. The only time I lost inthe NES version was one game to a very distant #2 as the Patriots (who absolutely blew in the NES version) to the Bills. By 3 points. I'm something like 5000-3. I also have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series. Yes ladies, still single. Line forms to the right. No pushing or shoving please.
Highly proficient in solving crossword puzzles and skilled in the art of Irish diplomacy. For some reason, listing these on my resume hasn't had quite the impact I thought they would. They're highly transferable skills. No, really.
I can visualize a piano/vocal score to any popular song and the score to a most chamber music pieces from the canon (depending on how harmonically adventurous it is--Ravel/Debussy is about my limit) in my head as the music is happening, and I can hear music in my head 100% by looking at a score. This is kind of like Meg's "grow my fingernails at will" power on Family Guy, in that it's absolutely fucking useless, and it's also kind of like the Invisible Boy's power in Mischief Men in that it's really hard to demonstrate. Give me an hour and a half and a stack of staff paper, maybe, but most of the time who gives a shit? I've also mastered the "look sober while blackout" power, but only for alcohol. Much more useful.
I had a friend like that in college. One particularly rough night, I blackout and puked and after vomiting, came out of my blackout a bit. I vaguely remember my friend guiding me home and making sure I got into bed on my side with water. I sent him a text the next day thanking him for looking out for me. Turns out he was blackout since around 10 and remembered none of it. Noone could tell, talk about blind leading the blind. FOCUS: Names and particularly faces. I've mentioned it on here before. I have an uncanny knack for remembering names and faces. In HS, by the time I graduated, I probably knew 80-85% of my HS by name if I saw them in the hallway, and I went to school with around 1500 kids. And this was partially front interactions, but alot of just flipping through yearbooks and it sticking. In college, it continued, facebook made it even easier. I would see someone once in a tagged photo of a friend and later meet them or see them on campus and just know. I had to learn to chill cause I would get drunk and blurt out greetings to people Id never met and they would get weirded out. Now, basically give me a min or two of convo after an introduction, and you are locked in for a fairly long time. Its kind of annoying cause this is alot of people's Achilles' heel, and thus will have no recollection of me, and its awkward when I act buddy buddy.