Andrew / July 9, 2008 3:40 PM

Yes, it's the correlary to our previous "failures" thread.

Cinnamon / July 9, 2008 3:59 PM

eating :)

Andrew / July 9, 2008 5:16 PM

Heh. Yeah, there you go.

I took to writing pretty successfully. I never understood what differentiated my writing from my classmates, but I got singled out as being a great writer a lot. (Whether I'm still a standout is up for debate...)

I was also a straight-A student in statistics, which surprised the hell outta me after failing college algebra twice.

Mo / July 9, 2008 5:26 PM

Navigating the Great Maize Maze at night in the dark. I amazed myself. Heh. Sorry.

Like Andrew, I've also been singled out pretty often as a good writer. Too bad the classroom success hasn't yet translated to the real world. Still working on that...

matt / July 9, 2008 8:39 PM

I would have to say driving. I was lucky enough to have a small, totally manual, stick shift car as my first vehicle. I learned a lot and its paid off over the years.
Now I probably totally jinxed myself...

Steven / July 9, 2008 9:12 PM

Homosexuality. Like a duck to water baby.

Leelah / July 9, 2008 10:22 PM

Reading... I started before I could walk. In seventh grade, they tested my reading speed and I was nearly 2000 words per minute.

Also, getting bitten by mosquitos on my ankles.

JasonB / July 10, 2008 12:18 AM

1.) Guitar/Piano/Violin.

2.) Rubiks cube and other puzzles that made me feel smarterer than I really was.

3.) Ninjadom

amyc / July 10, 2008 8:37 AM

Does spelling count? I was spelling bee champ of my various schools for years without ever studying words like those freaky kids in "Spellbound." Oh, how I miss the days of my photographic memory!

Also dancing. I started taking tap lessons in fourth grade and could immediately memorize the steps and learn the routines faster than my peers. In general, anything that involves repeated patterns has come really easily to me (dancing, drumming, beading jewelry), although knitting is proving more challenging than I predicted.

printdude / July 10, 2008 8:44 AM

Printing.
I shit you not.
I was on vacation from my previous career as a cook when I got bored in Florida and was shown a non-working press to poke around on while my brother worked (he labored for many weeks to get this "anchor" to run). In a couple of hours, I had the machine running off sheets of my hand-drawn Yatzee scorecards.
I have not stopped printing yet.
Like ink on paper, baby.

annie / July 10, 2008 8:57 AM

kissing and parallel parking

carrie / July 10, 2008 9:14 AM

Drawing horses. When I was 5 or 6 I drew a really, really good horse and since everyone loved it, I decided that was the best I can do and so here I am, almost 29, still drawing like I'm 6.

Leg lifts, too. I was the new kid in school in 6th grade and I thought they were the most fun thing to do in the circuit of exercises. I blew everyone out of the water by doing 45 instead of the typical 3.

corinna / July 10, 2008 9:54 AM

Wit is about the only thing I'm good at.

Alison / July 10, 2008 10:09 AM

Let's see:

I'm good at not losing things, making bacon, grammar and bullshitting people. Oh, and I have a fantastic memory for useless facts and recalling what I was wearing on a given day. I'm also annoyingly good at dredging up old things people said to win arguments. I need to train myself to use my memory for good, not evil.

If I'm in the right frame of mind, I'm also pretty unbeatable in a staring contest.

crack professor / July 10, 2008 10:14 AM

leveraging existing and emerging intellectual property assets across multiple platforms in the global marketplace. that, and, eh, smoking crack.

Baldeesh / July 10, 2008 10:18 AM

I can memorize dates like it's nobody's business. I'm especially good at memorizing birthdays. This does not mean I send out cards or anything, but I remember.

jennifer / July 10, 2008 10:25 AM

The Internet

kate / July 10, 2008 10:31 AM

Finding people via the onlines.

Trivial Pursuit.

Frenching.

Josh / July 10, 2008 12:07 PM

Foreign accents, playing guitar/drums/harmonica, cooking, relationships, marathon bicycling, making people uncomfortable through sheer silence.

Jill / July 10, 2008 12:29 PM

Ditto on the writing thing. The marketing part? Not so good at (yet).

I took to folk dancing pretty quickly, and I'm decent with foreign languages/accents.

annie / July 10, 2008 12:35 PM

one more: I have a great hand shake no matter what the occasion it just comes to me, never practiced. I get lots of compliments.

Justin / July 10, 2008 1:14 PM

Cooking, HTML, mimicry, kissing, standardized tests.

p / July 10, 2008 1:18 PM

e.s.p. that this thread would b exceedingly masturbatory.

shoplifting.

e_five / July 10, 2008 1:33 PM

Using the Google.

steven / July 10, 2008 4:02 PM

Tetris. I rule at Tetris.

fluffy / July 10, 2008 5:44 PM

drawing & drinking

Gaigen / July 11, 2008 8:34 AM

Making the wrong decision. I rule at that. But on the other hand, writing, desktop publishing and looking things up on the internets. Give me an obscure topic or unusual premise and I can find something to support it on the WWW.

corinna / July 11, 2008 9:51 AM

Also, pie crust.

zoenotcool / July 11, 2008 11:13 AM

beating myself up. being extremely hard on myself and others.

Brandy / July 11, 2008 11:18 AM

Drawing.

My aunt brought me a coloring book and crayons when I was two. They sat me down with them and I was silent for three hours. (So the story goes.) When they looked at what I was drawing, I was drawing all sorts of patterns, like plaid. (So the story goes.) My parents realized they'd be splending a lot of art supplies.

Thankfully, I got the right parents and teachers and enough self-confidence to keep at it. And now I get paid the big bucks to draw for people. It's awesome.

lmy / July 11, 2008 11:38 AM

kissing and tetris. that's it.

Mo / July 11, 2008 11:40 AM

Whoa, lots of similar strengths here.

Writing and kissing meetup? Anyone?

Dubi / July 11, 2008 12:58 PM

Sharp shooting.

It could have been beginners luck. The M16 in basic training was nothing like a BB gun.

All of the kissesers out there, how do you know you are good?

jen / July 11, 2008 1:02 PM

baking. i just started one day and i've never had anything truly flop, save for one bad choice in a recipe.

kwalk / July 11, 2008 2:25 PM

rolling joints. from a disturbingly early age, flawless.

mike-ts / July 11, 2008 4:27 PM

Spelling. I always was great in spelling in grade school, without even trying. I even somehow just knew the i before e thing, and strange spellings like oxen, before the memorization drills and spelling rules. 100% A's. That skill never turned into a job, and all it does is get me is frustration at people who make glaring mistakes, like "definately" or "not and exit".