Second question: how many besides me here have never watched a single episode of "Breaking Bad"?
Me. I have never seen most of the shows (series? what do they call them?) that are part of popular culture. Never saw The Sopranos, something-something (Game of?) Thrones, , Walking Dead, and a bunch others. I try to learn a little about them sometimes, just so I can catch the many references to them (Game of Thrones - a lady with beautiful braids?, Sopranos, mobsters, a strip club?, I assume Walking Dead is zombies, but could be inmates on Death Row?). Kinda like I know "War and Peace" is a big book, by Tolstoy, something to do with Russia?
Not a big TV person. But I did/do follow Seinfeld (did you know "War and Peace" was going to be named: "War, What is it good for?"
), Big Bang Theory, The Office, some of Modern Family.
I believe there’s no such thing as coincidences.
Most of what people think of as "what are the odds?" coincidences are due to them not understanding probability. Like the "Birthday Paradox", some things are more likely than they seem, usually because some part of it is undefined, or not understood.
I recall my BIL talking about the NY lottery number coming up as "911" on some 11th of September. "What are the odds!" he kept saying. What I just couldn't get across to him that for a three digit lottery pick, the odds of any specific number coming up are 1 in 1000. It doesn't matter what the date is. If you are looking for it ahead of time to match the date, that's your number, and the odds are 1/1000 (well, at least for 3-digit dates). And he'd repeat, "but what are the odds of it happening
on that day!" But the trouble is, if it wasn't the date, someone would try to match it up with something else, that increases the chance, you have an almost infinite possibility of matches if you look hard enough.
So I'm not sure how to define "coincidence" in a strict term. But is kinda interesting/funny how things happen.
So here's mine (just a story, for amusement), which I thought of as we were out to dinner tonight (nice spring day, outdoor seating, good food, good beer, pleasant wait staff). I ordered Korean Chicken Tacos, which reminded me of another meal, at another restaurant.
My son and his wife lived in Chicago, and enjoyed going to some high end restaurants. We would sometimes say - pick one, our treat, so we could experience something new and trendy. I heard about "The Girl and the Goat", but they were booked out for months. But the "Girl" (owner/chef) also owned a diner (The Little Goat), and you could get in w/o too long a wait. So we went to The Little Goat for lunch one day when we in the city for a w/e.
Our waitress was very attractive, in that non-glamorous kind of way, just really, really pleasantly pretty. Even DW commented on it. I ordered a Kim-chee omelet (which was the connection to our meal tonight). Excellent.
We went back about 3 years later. Same waitress (co-incidence?).
Then, a year after that, our son sends us a picture text, our 2 YO grandson enjoying a meal at... The Little Goat. In the background, I look, and say to DW "That's our waitress, isn't it?", she was sure of it.
OK, same restaurant, but an odd coincidence (or whatever you want to call it) to show up like that. No, I can't calculate the odds!
-ERD50