Weird traditions from your local area

Was out in a forest for a walk a while ago and came across a tree with all kinds of cloth hanging from it, something like this:

People who are sick or disabled apparently come there to touch the tree & hang a piece of clothing for the tree to absorb the illness. I bet this is not exclusive to Holland.

They had fireworks down in the valley from where i live last night. I find fireworks a weird tradition, cause you've seen one you've seen 'em all. And yet people in the street behind me where hanging out with booze and chairs, to watch the ephemeral twinkling lights in the sky.

They do this on a sports field that has a couple of large palm type trees adjacent to it which are the roosting site for a few thousand rainbow lorikeets. So i wasn't surpirsed, even though it was well into the night, to hear a group of about three lorikeets streaking through the air past my house away from where the fireworks had been going on. I have noticed these bird fly pasts on other occasions where they have set off firewroks in that field, they must freak the fk out, and so just zoom off into the darkness away from the bloody great booming sound. I hope that they land safely and don't lose track of their usual daytime flying partners.

  On 5/30/2013 at 2:59 PM, rixxx said:

Lewes Bonfire

Aaah I miss Brighton. Only tradition round where I am at the mo is a bit of Morris Dancing really

they could dance around a bonfire, or into it. heh

  On 5/31/2013 at 4:56 PM, feltcher said:

i love finland, did actually look into that wife carrying for a laugh but the youtube vids make it look proper competitive

Yeah, some of these seemingly crazy competitions can get extremely competitive. A guy was banned from entering a fucking boot throwing competition because he refused to participate in a doping test. In another instance a Russian guy died and a Finnish guy was hospitalized in the sauna championships.

  On 5/31/2013 at 8:23 AM, mokz said:

In Finland we have this event called kaljakellunta or beer floating where you float down the river while drinking beer.

 

That's awesome! The exact same activity is really popular in San Marcos and New Braunfels Texas (and other nearby towns) along the Comal and Guadalupe Rivers. It's just called "tubing" which is far less elegant sounding than "kaljakellunta." The season and popular days to tube are based around reservoir flows.

  On 5/31/2013 at 10:26 PM, beerwolf said:

 

 

my idea of Hell, I can handle a few hippies, a whole forest of them? no thanks.

can you imagine the amount of codshit spoke that day? I wager they are a good to laugh at though. Ahhhhhhh I'm being to vitriolic, chill out Mr Beerwolf.

 

Man, I'm completely with you on that.

I live in Los Angeles now. I guess there are some weird tradtions here. Such as:

- Not using turn signals while driving

- Plastic surgery

- Dressing like prostitutes

- Staring at every person that enters the shop/restaurant

- Scolding or shaming helpful store employees to assert your social/financial status over theirs

- Not knowing anything about any other part of the world

- Complaning about 70 degree weather when it's cloudy. You know. It can be rough.

Literally, these are things I see/experience on a DAILY basis.

NSFW

[youtubehd]WlkvSFhyEeM[/youtubehd]

  On 6/6/2013 at 6:16 PM, J3FF3R00 said:

 

- Complaning about 70 degree weather when it's cloudy. You know. It can be rough.

 

lik omgz its sooo cloudly

All the things you listed are easily found in select parts of many major US cities, but complaining about ideal weather does seem like a specific LA/SoCal trend. It's absolutely absurd, I mean, it's not a stretch to claim that entire region is over-populated by humans because the weather is nice and yet people complain about it if it's slightly off. Maybe Hawaii has the same phenomenon...

where i grew up we had a winter festival because it was an excuse to try and not hate winter so much. there is also a raging meth issue. i guess that's a tradition. they also called the festival High on Ice

basically it's just a lot of things built out of snow and ice and there is some free food and a couple other events. mostly teens just get drunk and pee on things/get in fights.

also where i live now they have a polar bear swim on new years day (obviously this isn't special) but i think they're all pussies when they call it winter here and call the water cold when they don't even have to cut a hole through the 6 feet of ice on top of the lake to get to the liquid water.

amateurs.

Sounds like the last place you lived may have been a frozen shithole!

Also lol at High on Ice. Amazing.

  On 6/6/2013 at 7:38 PM, joshuatx said:

 

  On 6/6/2013 at 6:16 PM, J3FF3R00 said:

 

- Complaning about 70 degree weather when it's cloudy. You know. It can be rough.

 

 

lik omgz its sooo cloudly

 

All the things you listed are easily found in select parts of many major US cities, but complaining about ideal weather does seem like a specific LA/SoCal trend. It's absolutely absurd, I mean, it's not a stretch to claim that entire region is over-populated by humans because the weather is nice and yet people complain about it if it's slightly off. Maybe Hawaii has the same phenomenon...

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abFJuqp867g

  On 6/7/2013 at 1:12 PM, A/D said:

Sounds like the last place you lived may have been a frozen shithole!

 

Also lol at High on Ice. Amazing.

It was entirely a frozen shithole. maybe it's why i love that album so much. though the climate may have been better than winnipeg (hardly), i guarantee the culture was far worse.

I remembered another one! River football is held annually about 12 miles away from here. Good laughs,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_pWoH9KfYIY

WTF. Was my post deleted? Because of a long shot, out of focus picture of boobs?

  On 6/7/2013 at 1:21 PM, mokz said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abFJuqp867g

 

 

lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj0HRh5xrh8

Buekorps. Kids and teens with fake guns and real drums doing some marching because tradition.

^That reminds of College Station, the home of Texas A&M, quite literally the mecca and epicenter of weird traditions. It's a major university with a lot of very intelligent alumni and excellent programs, but there is this entire underbelly of strange, cult-ish student activities and school-wide traditions, including the Corps of Cadets.

Just skim this stuff, it's hilarious:

Traditions_of_Texas_A&M_University

Glossary_of_Texas_A&M_University_terms

  On 6/7/2013 at 4:00 PM, joshuatx said:

 

  On 6/7/2013 at 1:21 PM, mokz said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abFJuqp867g

 

 

 

lol

 

lol

bump because i want to know more obscure weirdshit traditions

while most places drop elaborate balls on nye, in west georgia they drop a possum: http://thepossumdrop.com/

i guess it's still an elaborate ball...

  On 6/6/2013 at 5:19 PM, joshuatx said:

 

  On 5/31/2013 at 8:23 AM, mokz said:

In Finland we have this event called kaljakellunta or beer floating where you float down the river while drinking beer.

 

 

That's awesome! The exact same activity is really popular in San Marcos and New Braunfels Texas (and other nearby towns) along the Comal and Guadalupe Rivers. It's just called "tubing" which is far less elegant sounding than "kaljakellunta." The season and popular days to tube are based around reservoir flows.

 

 

  On 5/31/2013 at 10:26 PM, beerwolf said:

 

 

my idea of Hell, I can handle a few hippies, a whole forest of them? no thanks.

can you imagine the amount of codshit spoke that day? I wager they are a good to laugh at though. Ahhhhhhh I'm being to vitriolic, chill out Mr Beerwolf.

 

 

Man, I'm completely with you on that.

 

 

I'm going to float in San Marcos next month haha

Lol good bump!

This years cheese rolling video has some great cringeworthy falls

And who the hell would want to run down that hill with their kid?!

Not much weirdness round here other than this shit really

  On 5/30/2013 at 2:59 PM, rixxx said:

 

 

They used to have barrels on fire rolling down the hill but they had to stop all that sort of fun when 80,000+ people starting turning up to a village that has 16,000 people there.

The attention to detail on that effigy is amazing. Man I miss Brighton