When you put it like that...

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with the sudden realisation that something that is perfectly socially acceptable is, when looked at another way, kind of weird.

Example: flower arranging requires the chopping off of the reproductive parts of plants and placng them in a tasteful display for appreciation by others. Yes, let's all admire the colourful sexual organs of another species.

Any other examples come to mind?

 

[Gepard]

Flattening living portions of our ecosystem to replace it with long ribbons of tar and gravel. On these strips, we move around in big, metal boxes at high speed, powered by lots of tiny explosions derived from dead dinosaurs.

Attaching metal strips to kids' teeth and leaving them there for years so that the ligaments and bones in their mouths will slowly change shape and move all the teeth around.

In general, deciding that [insert body part here] is icky or undesirable in it's natural form, and either modifying or just plain amputating it – especially if the reason is cosmetic or religious.

Pushing air from our lungs through the tongue, lips and teeth, and making the pitch of the resulting sound rise up and down and all over the place; attaching meanings to these arbitrary noises such that somehow every person in a culture knows what they mean and uses them every single day for communication without stopping to think about how they know how to interpret it all.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Greeting members of the opposite sex by placing your mouth parts on their skin and sucking briefly.

Spending a large portion of your life watching people pretend to be other people in unfeasible situations with very bad science set in an outer space context.

 

[ALF]

Sitting in front of a glowing box by the hour, hitting smaller boxes with phonetic symbols printed on them, speaking with people would we have never met offline. That's pretty weird.

Oh, and your glorious avatar, Great Mambo Chicken!

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Oh, and your glorious avatar, Great Mambo Chicken!

That's a given.

 

[Mr. B]

I'm currently using a laptop on my lap... so a sharp metal object is spinning at 5,400 disturbingly close to my reproductive organs... does that count?

 

[backstept]

Willfully injesting toxins purely for their pleasing side-effects . . . (food, drink, drugs, smoking . . . pick yer poison)

 

[Rii]

I think this of almost everything I observe on a regular basis. As an individual estranged from most aspects of 'normal' life, it's always mildly cathartic to remind myself that most of the rituals I observe are ultimately arbitrary and without meaning.

 

[Deckerd]

Greeting members of the opposite sex by placing your mouth parts on their skin and sucking briefly.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

 

[Eleanor_zhDarjel]

It's better than those males who greed their friends by violently hitting them on the shoulder while name calling them.

 

[Kestra]

I've thought that kissing and sex would be extremely weird and icky if it weren't for the fact that they're awesome.

 

[RoJoHen]

I've thought that kissing and sex would be extremely weird and icky if it weren't for the fact that they're awesome.

Eh, they can be icky. Really depends on the person on the other end.

 

[Kestra]

Yeah, I suppose I've been lucky in that regard!

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I'm currently using a laptop on my lap... so a sharp metal object is spinning at 5,400 disturbingly close to my reproductive organs... does that count?

Not unless the laptop used to belong to Boudica.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boudiccastatue.jpg

 

[Servo]

Greeting members of the opposite sex by placing your mouth parts on their skin and sucking briefly.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

If I'm very lucky, it does lead to bad things...

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I've thought that kissing and sex would be extremely weird and icky if it weren't for the fact that they're awesome.

Indeed! We just happen to have all those nerve endings in just the right places, and we're hardwired to have all these neurochemical reactions when we're getting frisky.

If all that felt weird or unpleasant, nobody would do it, and... we'd have long since died out.

I've always thought it was a bit weird to take a needle, jam it through the skin to make a hole, then fasten a piece of metal into it--no matter which part of the body it is.

That said, I'm crazy hot for navel piercings.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Greeting members of the opposite sex by placing your mouth parts on their skin and sucking briefly.

Try sucking harder.

 

[Nardpuncher]

It's weird that you can go to the beach and see women willingly exhibit clothing (bikinis) that reveal the same ammount if not more of their body than their underwear does,an article of clothing which is customary to be shy about.

 

[Theodore Jay Miller]

People get paid large amounts of money for their ability to get a piece of leather or rubber to a particular spot, while other people try to stop them and huge crowds watch.

People are considered very cultured if they can identify the source of grape juice that has spoiled.

Small pieces of crystallized carbon are considered very valuable.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Airline pilots are basically highly trained bus drivers.

House decorating largely consists of applying variously coloured slop to the walls and woodwork, or sticking long bits of coloured patterned paper to the walls. Neither has any utility.

Some British people seem to think enjoyment requires drinking so much that they end up in hospital, a police cell, or dead.