jay911

I'm just gonna dive right in to what irks me. Some of it is from my job as a firefighter, where I drive in conditions and situations 99% of people will never dream of, and from my regular driving as a civilian.

1. I admit to you motorcyclists that by nature of the fact that your vehicle is smaller, yes, it is harder for you to be seen. This does not grant you the right to drive around with your high beam(s) on all the time. Motorcycles have been required by law to have their headlights on since the 70s or earlier, and daytime running lights are finally being introduced to full size vehicles, so we know that lights = seeing you better. But those of you who decide that you're just going to leave your high beam headlights on and damn anyone who objects to it, you are breaking the law, not to mention blinding oncoming drivers (like me). Perhaps if you dressed in something other than all black, you might not have to worry about being so invisible.

2. When you see flashing lights and/or hear a siren, the appropriate response is to pull over to the closest shoulder AND STOP. It doesn't mean pull over and keep on going at a reduced speed. It doesn't mean drop anchor right in the middle of the road. It means PULL OVER AND STOP. As some dope in a Volvo found out yesterday, when you pull over but keep on driving, by the time I finally get up to the point where I"m alongside you, you're blocking my way where I need to turn onto a side road. Get out of the bloody way.

2a. Just because a fire truck might be going slower than you doesn't give you the right to pass it. Perhaps the truck is going slowly because the driver/crew is checking addresses. Maybe they're preparing to stop in the middle of the road to block traffic from plowing into the car crash/vehicle fire/man lying injured in the road just ahead. In any case, it doesn't matter what they're doing. You don't get to say "I don't feel that he has the right to pass me/shine his lights in my mirror/etc". The law when it applies to other users of the road, regarding emergency vehicles, is absolute. If you ignore the firefighter who is directing traffic at a crash scene, you will be, at the very least, ticketed, if not arrested. In my locale, too, any traffic fines levied against you where emergency services workers are present are doubled automatically. A woman here was fined well over $600 for a speeding ticket when she failed to slow down appropriately and use due care and attention when passing a police officer working on the side of the road. I have happily reported people who were ignorant and/or inattentive to the police, and they follow up on it, and both of us will continue doing so.

3. Road signs/rules apply to everyone. This means you, Mr. Octogenarian-in-the-Buick-Regal-doing-77-in-the-left-lane-in-a-100kph-zone. "Slower Traffic Keep Right" means all traffic keep right unless you're clearly going faster than someone else and will have to pass them. Signs that say "MAXIMUM ___" can be also construed to mean "MINIMUM ___-10%". You can be ticketed for driving too slowly. If you don't feel comfortable going the posted speed (note, it's officially called the "posted speed", not the "speed limit"), feel free to pull over and let others past you. In some places in North America, you are required by law, no matter what speed you're going, to pull over and let people pass if you have 5 or more cars queued up behind you.

4. This ties in with #3. If you are not a peace officer or someone legally empowered to act in the capacity of one, leave the law enforcement to someone else. If you feel that someone is going too fast, call it in - don't get in front of them and block their attempts to pass. There is a special clause in the law that allows police and others performing police duties to break the rules of the road if they are doing so safely and have a need as part of their job. Wouldn't it suck if you got arrested because you decided to "teach a lesson" to a guy in an unmarked police car trying to follow a robber or murderer without being spotted?

In summary.. START SWITCHING ON YOUR BRAINS WHEN YOU SWITCH ON YOUR CAR! As someone who drives a tremendous amount both in normal conditions and seriously dangerous and crazy situations when nobody would dream of going out, I see far too many people with their mental gears in neutral while their cars are revved to the max.

Some driving rants, crossposted to my personal journal and bad_driving.

To the driver with the veteran plates on 32 Avenue yesterday: I appreciate what you did for our country. You have my respect for that. However, your plate does not give you the right to bully your way into lines of traffic and/or slam on your brakes right in front of me, drive slower than the rest of traffic, meander about looking for the street you want to turn off on, etc. Don't ever do it again.

To all the drivers in Calgary: Although it's dangerous to drive fast in slippery conditions, it is possible to go more than 15 kilometers per hour after a snowfall. Rush hour or not, there is no excuse at all for me having to spend over 2 hours in traffic going from the middle-northeast to the northwest city limits (130+ blocks, normally a 15-minute trip if that long).

To the City of Calgary: It is ABSOLUTELY UNFORGIVABLE to still have piles of snow and slush on the main streets 6 days after it fell from the sky. Plow the gorram roads already. This "wait for warm weather" bullshit was funny only once.

To the Calgary Police Traffic Section: I thought you weren't supposed to put your photo-radar vans in concealed areas like you are doing lately at the construction on 16th Avenue eastbound just east of Stoney Trail. Yes, there's a perfect spot to tuck in right behind that construction trailer, but wasn't the city admonished already by the province for this kind of tactic? Furthermore, how valid is it to claim "workers present" (and thus double the fine) in that construction zone when the work that's being done is well over half a kilometer off the road and up on top of a 40 foot tall hill? That "workers present" law was meant to protect you and me (in my emergency services role) from careless drivers when workers are actually out on the surface of the road doing something. Claiming "workers present" when the work is not even remotely close to the traffic path is nothing more than a cash grab and significantly cheapens the value of having the law in the first place.

To the truckers who stop at Jumping Pound Petro-Can, at Highway 1 x Highway 22: Even though you have parked there for years, the gravel road out in front of the station is not your personal, private parking lot. It is actually a county road (Township Road 245A) and very clearly has No Parking signs posted every 20 feet on both sides. Take the bloody hint and park in the truck parking stalls in the lot, instead of parking four-wide on the road so nobody can get through at all.

Another to the drivers in Calgary: As you approach 14 St NW eastbound on 16 Av, the right lane ends, because the construction crews farting around on 16 Av haven't finished their traffic congestionroad widening project yet. This lane closure has been there for almost two years now. Merge left well ahead of the electronic sign board with the arrows on it.. don't charge right up to it and try to bully your way into the line from there. People approaching Elbow on eastbound Glenmore, and going onto westbound Glenmore from 14 St ... same thing. If all of you would pay a little bit of attention and use some common sense instead of your idiotic "mefirst!!!1" impulse, we'd all get around a lot faster.

And one last one for all Calgary drivers. Part one: Green means go. Get on the gas pedal. Accelerate. Don't dally. Get moving. Proceed forward in a swift, orderly fashion. Do anything but sit there! Every other place in the world, when the light turns green, the entire line of traffic moves all at once, instead of the first guy in the line looking up from his newspaper and going "oh.. it's green.. i guess i should go.. yeah, i think i'll go" and driving off 5 seconds later; then the 2nd guy in line goes "hey, what happened to the car in front of me.. oh, he left, the light's green.. maybe i should go.. yeah, i think i'll go" and so on. STEP ON IT! Flashing green means to go even that much more quickly; the lanes opposite you have a red light, so that green is specifically so YOU CAN GET THROUGH RIGHT NOW. Do it! Part two: Yellow lights mean come to a stop if possible, but if not possible, clear the intersection and quickly and as safely as possible. It doesn't mean drop the hammer and try to beat the light. It doesn't mean sit there in the intersection until all four directions are red so you can make your turn. It means get out of the intersection NOW. Flashing yellow means these lights are not functioning right now, proceed through the intersection with caution. Part three: Red means STOP. PERIOD. It doesn't mean that you can make your left turn because the guy ahead of you was in the intersection and made HIS turn and you've been waiting for 5 minutes in the left turn lane already so you deserve to be let through. It doesn't mean bully your way through cross traffic to get whereever you want. It means SOMEONE GOING IN ANOTHER DIRECTION HAS A GREEN LIGHT SO DON'T COME IN HERE. If you do, don't give me a dirty look/the finger/any grief when I'm pulling through the intersection legally and honk or gesture at you as if you're brain damaged. And flashing red lights mean the intersection signals are not functioning and YOU MUST STOP, ONLY PROCEEDING WHEN THE WAY IS CLEAR AND IT IS SAFE TO DO SO. Other directions might have a red flashing light too, OR they may have a yellow flashing light. It's not hard to turn your head to the side a bit and look through the rest of the windows thoughtfully provided in your car to see what the cross traffic is facing. Finally .. if you are in the rightmost lane at a red light and you are not turning right, and there is someone behind you who wants to (as indicated by that weird flashy-thing on their car we call turn signals - I know, they're marvelous ideas, ain't they?), MAKE ROOM FOR PETE'S SAKE. Even if you have to pull ahead another six inches, is it going to kill you to let one car get somewhere before you do?

I have just given up on injecting common sense into another idiotic message thread about 9/11, this time on a message board for the movie WTC.

Goddammit, the amount of blindingly stupid people is so abundant, there'd better be a whole metric shitload of geniuses and brainiacs hiding out somewhere just to keep a 50/50 balance in the world's population.

Hi all, sorry for the length of time in between updates, but other things have taken precedence. Anyway, I'll put together as much info as I can for those who care.

Got my new car, a Subaru WRX. It is here, as seen in the Waiparous gravel pit, midway along a fantastically twisty, winding road northwest of town. It goes like snot, and hasn't burned a hole in my wallet with speeding tickets, despite my friends' assumptions. I would have preferred the World Rally Blue color, same as the rally racing car of the same type, but the white one had all the options, etc., that I wanted (and waiting for a blue one would have set me back several months to wait for a custom-built car, and I couldn't be without a vehicle for that long). In just over 2 months I've already put over 6500 kilometers on it, so I think it's a safe bet to say I like it.

I'm being trained in EMS dispatching right now at work - which is not that much different from the Fire dispatching I do already, except that you have to move around ambulances to "fill in the holes" when you send one on a call. Sounds easy, but it's not. Takes a good bunch of thinking and work to make it happen.

Role play has taken a distant back seat what with most everyone away or unable to get on the computer. It's picking up slightly again now that people are returning, though, as those of you who read probably well know already. In the meantime, I've been goofing around with a racecar game called Track Mania Nations on the PC. The "Nations" version is a freeware edition of the original Track Mania game, and supports multi-player racing via the Internet or a LAN. Real world physics are present only in their minimal elements, such as gravity and centrifugal force - there's no damage AI and no car collisions (you drive right through others, as if they weren't there). You're racing for time against the other people on the tracks. The best part is that people can create their own tracks and host them on servers online; I normally play on the NASIOC server if it's up (which it hasn't been for over a month), or "Let's Rock!" or other bigger USA servers. Occasionally if I feel masochistic, I'll hop onto one of the German servers with 130+ people signed in.

As far as racing goes in the real world, I'm most likely going to spend a week or so in Newfoundland come September, following the Targa Rally (http://www.targanewfoundland.com). No, I am not racing nor did I bother volunteering this year, because my chances of attending are still up in the air even now. Plus, I have no intent of racing this car until it is all mine (i.e. no more payments to Subaru of Canada/GMAC). Besides the rally, I have family in central NF, and I plan to visit them on the way. The island is a wonderful place, like nothing else you'll ever see anywhere in North America. In fact, it looks much like the moors of Scotland, which, if you know your geography and the way the continents drifted apart a few million years back, is not at all surprising. Anyway, people come from as far away as Australia (with a right-hand-drive '65 Mustang!) to race in the Targa. I'll be sure to bring some photos back, provided I get to go at all.

What else is there to say ... oh yeah, of course, the anime and manga I'm surrounding myself in these days. I just recently finished Macross 7, finally, and kinda liked it. The story was a little weird, but the music was pretty good. The way the story tied in to the original Macross quite firmly was decent, too - seeing Miriya bombing around in her old Valkyrie alongside the "new" mecha was a treat. Anyway, for those who don't know, the center of the Macross 7 story is a rock/J-pop band called Fire Bomber, including among its ranks Max and Miriya's youngest daughter, Mylene. There are tons and tons of Fire Bomber songs and several CDs available, as if the band really did exist (and it technically did, I suppose, considering a group had to assemble to play what the anime band played). Personal favorites include Planet Dance, Totsugeki Love Heart, Holy Lonely Light, and My Friends. There's dozens of other songs, too, that could just as easily have made it onto that list.

I am reading Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days. This is a "new" EVA story based somewhat loosely on a Japanese-only videogame, which was based on the alternate universe Shinji envisioned in the end of the TV series (the part where Misato is his teacher and Asuka is his oldest childhood friend, etc). A lot of people don't like it or say only (us) die-hard Evangelion fans would be interested in it. Well, this particular die-hard Evangelion fan does like it a lot, but maybe that's because of my nature as a fanfic writer and fan, always interested in alternate storytellings. Book 1 is out, and Book 2 is on its way to me from Amazon as you read this. (I'm also reading the Evangelion manga, which Sadamoto-san hasn't yet finished making in Japan yet - having the story branch and twist slightly compared to the anime.)

But the anime that I am all over like a crazed otaku right now is The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. This is a hilarious series, albeit only 14 episodes long, based on Japanese novels (not manga, novels). It covers only 1.5 of the 8 or so novels that are out there, so you can bet there'll be more to follow, considering the rabid fan base that's sprung up. With a title like the above, you might think Haruhi is a sombre, emotional story, but it's not. It defies description, and I'm not saying that to get out of telling you what it's about. I literally can't put into words what this series is about. It's not available commercially in North America yet, so those who want to try it will have to use alternate methods to get the fansubs that are floating around on the net. Just watch more than one episode before you make your decision - the first epsiode (which isn't really the first episode, truth be told) is drastically different from how the rest of the series goes.

I'll try my best to catch your interest. The title character is introducing herself to class on the first day of school in the second (first) episode. She stands up and says, "I have no interest in ordinary humans! If you are a time traveller, alien, slider, or esper, come to me! That is all." And sits back down. Another thing I can do is direct your attention to the ending credits as shown on YouTube, here. The ending has spawned countless parodies and drawn otaku everywhere into trying to mimic the dance moves (not me, thankfully, you don't want to see a guy my size dancing like this or any other way!).

Off to bed I go, in any case - need sleep before more EMS training tomorrow. Keep having a good summer!

I've been thinking about posting something on this for a while.. it's a hard subject to figure out where to begin. But I think I've been given a good starting-off point. (Warning - strong language follows.)

Zacarias Moussaoui has decided that now that he's been sentenced to life without parole, he wants a trial instead. Isn't that the biggest load of shit that you've ever heard of? I'm trying to formulate an analogy, but they all seem tame in comparison. I feel like I'm trivializing 9/11 if I say that this is like playing a game and losing, then asking to play it again because you didn't like the outcome. My take on it is that Moussaoui was hoping he'd get the death penalty and become a martyr for his cause, and when he realized he'd be rotting in jail till the end of time, with nobody paying attention to him, where the other prisoners might take his head off, he didn't like that idea and decided he needed to make more noise.

This is being discussed on a number of message boards on which I participate. One firefighters' discussion board suggests dropping him off in downtown New York near a fire station. There were other suggestions, but they were a little outlandish - like strapping him to a bomb to be dropped in Afghanistan. (A little unrealistic, to say the least.) Not that I have any say in it, but for my money, the US justice system should say "I don't fucking think so!" to his request for a trial, and keep up with their plans to jail him forever. It's been argued that the cost of keeping him is less than the cost of sentencing him to die would be, if you factor in all the appeals and such that'd take place. I've also heard arguments that you shouldn't worry about making him a martyr because if he was put to death, it still wouldn't count towards dying for his cause. (Sincere apologies to anyone offended by my ignorance of the Qu'ran - I'm pretty blind to most religions, being 'atheist' I suppose).

The guy is being a scapegoat and that's plain as day. Blaming him for 9/11 is kind of like putting a Japanese bomber pilot on trial for the attack on Pearl Harbor. Actually, it's kind of like putting on trial a pilot who didn't actually make it to his plane. In any case, I appreciate that the US needs someone to be held responsible. Bin Laden will probably be found, eventually, but this serves as a quick way to "get somebody".

Now, for part 2 of tonight's program. I want to talk about people who support the "belief" that 9/11 was not a terrorist attack. (This is where my language is going to get pretty harsh; fair warning.)

For whatever reason, there are people who insist that any number of the 4 planes that were involved in the attacks - anywhere from one to all four - never actually crashed. These people argue that the structures had to have been hit by missiles or had explosives already planted inside the buildings in order for them to sustain as much damage as they did. Where these people got their knowledge of how buildings are built (and how they come down), and what kind of damage could be caused by a plane crash, but they're so far off the mark, it's outrageous.

First comment to these people: LAY OFF THE FUCKING X-FILES ALREADY. Grab a grip on reality.
Second comment: KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. This kind of goes hand in hand with the first statement. The people who say they "know" that the building damage on the Pentagon couldn't have been caused by a plane, because the hole is too small, need to know one critical thing: LIFE IS NOT LIKE A FUCKING CARTOON. A plane won't leave a big plane-shaped outline in a wall, like Wile E. Coyote when he smacks into a cliff with his ACME rocket skates. This is especially true for a building like the Pentagon. It's the seat of power for the United States' military! It's built like a thousand brick shithouses. It's frankly amazing that as much damage was done. The building was built to withstand the shockwave of a nuclear blast. A 757 crashing at cruising speed with nearly a full load of fuel doesn't come even close to that.. but it does pack one fuck of a punch. Don't think that the Pentagon, after a nuke went off, would be standing unscathed, again, as if in a cartoon. It'd be damaged, no doubt, but it would still be operational. Much as the Pentagon remained in service on 9/11 and beyond.

People also say that it couldn't have been a jet because it would have been caught on camera. I'm sure it was. Will you or I ever get to see the footage? Not very likely. The problem is, we live in an era where we expect to see disasters unfold live and in color. Hundreds of TV cameras were pointed at the World Trade Centers because they were, for a lot of people, the defining cornerstone of the modern New York skyline. While the Pentagon might be a significant landmark, it's not a very picturescque building when shot from the ground, and definitely not worthy of a news camera being pointed at it 24/7. (Not to mention what doing that would do for your career once the military figured it out.) You can bet that the government has multiple examples of security camera footage and other feeds showing the plane clearly. Do they have to show it to us? Of course not. Initially it would have been restricted because of the investigation, and as time passed, nowadays it's probably secured also because they wouldn't want to "open old wounds" by airing it. So what we have is a low-resolution camera at a parking lot ticket wicket that happened to pick up the carnage from afar. People bitch about that, too, saying it's not good enough. Well, geniuses, that camera has a point of focus about six feet in front of its lens. It's meant to take pictures of people in the parking lot, at infrequent intervals, not track a jet at high speed over 1000 feet away.

Another thing which should nail the coffin lid closed on the "it wasn't a plane" argument, at least for the Pentagon, is that people have come forward in these discussion boards saying they were there. I do realize that the testimony of a person known only by an alias on the Internet is sketchy at best, but when they can tell the events in detail, and when you consider that they are just like you - someone sitting at a computer, with a life and experiences all their own, not some random computer-generated text - you have to at least grant some credibility. The fellow in particular who posted on the discussion board was a firefighter responder to the Pentagon, and knows a crew that had to bail out of their Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) rig moments before the plane struck, taking cover under the truck - which was destroyed by the fireball that ensued. The firefighters barely escaped with their lives. First-hand testimony didn't sway the conspiracy theorists in this case - they simply ignored the facts that were being presented to them, and continued on with their fictions and fabrications.

Another thing which is brought up frequently is the lack of airplane debris at any of the sites. Folks, airplanes are not made like cars, with strong, sturdy elements. Their skin is about the thickness of a beer can! There may be rigid structural members throughout the craft, but they're only as strong as the bits holding them together, and that's not strong at all. Airplanes, by nature, are built with the most lightweight materials possible, so it takes less energy to get them up in the air. So when one piles into a reinforced-cement building at greater than 300 mph, it's going to essentially vaporize. The reason there's nothing left is that simple. The same goes for United 93.. the plane was completely out of control when it crashed (we know this from the flight data recorder) - it was upside down and rolling, at top speed. The plane literally screwed itself into the ground. There is not going to be anything left of that, plain and simple. There's a video of an F-4 Phantom test that the government did several years ago, testing a new cement for use in shielding nuclear reactors. They put this fighter jet on rails and accelerated it with rockets right at the cement block. The fighter simply disappeared when it hit the block, leaving nothing but a dark stain and about 8 inches off each wing tip (because the cement block was 16 inches narrower than the plane). And that was a military craft, designed to take a beating and still be able to fly. A passenger jet is just not going to stand up to any kind of impact.

(ETA: Link to the Phantom's demise. http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/video-gallery/index.html#rocketsled )

Planes burn really well, too. In between the metal skin and the inside of the cabin is insulation, plastic wiring, the interior plastic walls of the plane, the carpet, seats, etc etc. All that stuff just cooks off like there's no tomorrow. Air France dumped an Airbus into the ravine at the end of Toronto's runway 22 last year. When it stopped moving, it was just starting to catch fire. ARFF trucks couldn't get to it too quickly because of the ravine - they had to pick their way in slowly and find a safe route. The passengers all escaped, but the entire plane burnt up until all that was left was the cockpit, a bit of the tail, and bits of the wing. See the pictures at http://www.airdisaster.com . That plane "just vanished" too.

As for why there was "no recognizable plane debris" at the Pentagon but people were able to find body parts - come on, people, I'm not going to spoon feed everything to you. Use a little common sense. How could you recognize a piece of a plane that was the size of your hand? Now, could you recognize a hand the size of your hand? Get it? Okay, moving on..

The CONTROLLED DEMOLITON theory. Also a load of bullshit. "The towers came down too straight to be accidental. Plus, they shouldn't have fallen from that much fire/damage from a plane/etc." Wrong, wrong, and wrong. One: The towers didn't come down straight. Page 126 of the April 2002 issue of Firehouse Magazine contains a photograph of a section of the WTC wall structure sticking out of another building. The caption reads, in part: "When the south tower collapsesd, pieces of the exterior wall remained sticking out of a building across the street." The photo shows a gash at least 20 stories tall, from about the 23rd floor on down to the 3rd, in the side of the building. This damage was caused when the top part of 2 WTC tilted and fell. There are dozens of other examples, both in the cited magazine and countless other sources. The Marriott Hotel was cut right in half by the falling buildings.
Point two: The buildings shouldn't have fallen from "just" that much fire. FALSE. People, a tremendous fire was burning without being fought on multiple floors for over an hour. Before you start going on about the fact that there was no jet fuel left to burn, since it was consumed in the initial fireball, what do you think all the desks, papers, carpets, walls, false ceilings, cubicle tiles, pictures of peoples' families, people's clothing, and people's bodies did - resist igniting? An office tower by nature is stocked full of flammable objects. Especially an office tower of the design of the World Trade Centers, which had massive undivided floor space. (Undivided space allows for more air to get at the fuel - the abovementioned personal effects, etc - and make it burn hotter and quicker.) And while it's true that a fire of this nature won't reach the melting point of steel, it will heat the steel up enough to soften it. Use some bloody common sense and realize that steel isn't rock-hard all the way until it reaches its melting point. It's continually going to get softer and softer. At some point, the steel will be soft enough that it won't maintain its rigid shape. Then, the weight above it will cause it to submit to gravity, and it will fall down.
Point three: The buildings shouldn't have collapsed fully if the damage was only on the upper floors. AGAIN FALSE. The first fire, it was on what, floor 89? That means when it collapsed, it had the weight of 21 floors above it coming down. All that weight smashing down on already-damaged floor 88 (remember, the planes caused damage across several levels) caused it to give way, and then 22 floors' worth of weight hit floor 87, and so on. This is called a cascading pancake collapse. It will only stop when a force equal or greater counteracts it. That's why everything including the below-ground levels were crushed flat. The momentum was building and building all the way until it actually slammed into the planet itself. That's the only thing that could have stopped the collapse, and it's why 110+ floors of tower ends up in a pile barely 30 stories high.
Point four: There was clearly poofs of smoke as if from an explosion, as the towers fell. Not quite. Ever squished something gooey in between your hands? Squirted out the sides, didn't it? Think of all the air that was inside each floor.. also think of the dust, the paper, the smoke, and everything else that was inside. Where's it going to go when the floor above comes rushing down? That's where the dust clouds came from.
Point five: The towers were built to withstand the impact of a jetliner. Partially true. The towers were built to withstand the impact of a 707. The 707 has a length of 144 feet and a mass of 190,000 pounds, and can manage 10,000 lbs of thrust from its engines. The 757 has a length of 178 feet, a mass of 272,000 pounds, and can put out 43,000 pounds of thrust. Do the math.
Point six: 7 WTC came down too smoothly and without adequate damage. WAY FALSE. 7 WTC was a 47-story office tower at one end of the complex. It caught fire during one of the plane crashes as burning debris was showered all over it. After the two towers collapsed, the FDNY had other things to think about besides fighting a fire in a condemned building. By the time the towers collapsed, 7 WTC was fully involved - meaning it was burning freely from one end to the other, on all floors. There was nothing that could be done to save it. Have any of you ever seen a building fire go unfought? Know what happens? Not one drop of water was ever put on 7 WTC. That's why it went down when and how it did. Its support was literally burned out from beneath it.

The GOVERNMENT MANUFACTURED IT theory. This one grates against me a lot. First of all, I don't doubt for a second that governments around the world do things behind their peoples' backs. I'm not so naive as to believe that only what we hear about in the media is what actually happens. Having said that, though, the thought that any government would invite such a disaster onto their own soil and own people - for any reason - is so outlandish that I find it hard to refute in words.
Point one: Why would they do this? What would a government gain from blasting its economical heartland and military seat of power to bits? Distracting attention away from the sexual exploits of a past leader? You'd better hope that's not the case. There's no such thing as a true secret. Ask Richard Nixon. People would have to have something seriously wrong in the brain to think of killing thousands of people simply to take the heat off some bad PR. How about to start a war to take control of oil stocks? I have news for you - there's more oil in the northern Canadian oil sands than in all of the Middle East put together. If this was about oil, Alberta would be invaded, not Afghanistan and Iraq.
Point two: Where are all the people and planes? A favorite argument of the tinfoil-hat-wearers is that the military only says that planes hit the buildings. Ignoring for a second that missiles couldn't possibly inflict as much damage as the buildings took, and that eighteen zillion people around the world watched the second fucking plane pierce 1 WTC, where would these planes have gone if they didn't hit the buildings? Some crackpots and lunatics actually insist they were diverted to an island somewhere, where the people now live. GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK! Anyone who thinks that should put down the crack pipe RIGHT NOW. There were a lot of famous and important people on these planes, and I don't mean the Todd Beamers and the like, people who became famous after their heroic actions of that day. I mean people like David Angell - writer for the TV show Cheers; Barbara Olson - longtime television political commentator, and so on?

I've run out of steam. I'm sure there was more I was going to write or explain. I may add it in later posts. Those of you who believe that 9/11 was anything other than a terrorist attack are insulting the memories of all those who perished that day and offending all of us who have to live in the new world created by that day's actions. On one hand, I can almost rationalize your viewpoint, though - in some way, in your psyche, your mind may be unwilling to accept that this was what it was, a terrorist assault. You don't want to admit to yourself that men with tiny knives can take over planes and snuff out 3,000+ lives with a single decision. For you, it has to be something much bigger, much more orchestrated. For those of you who that applies to, I feel sorry for you. You may never accept the truth, that someone could do this to us.

Every time I think about 9/11, I think of all the lives lost and all the families disrupted by this tragedy. I certainly don't think about how hard the government must have worked to engineer such a hoax.

Hm, where to start.. ok..

First of all, I don't bother with lj-cuts or whatever they are. And as you know, I tend to write a lot. This is to be considered fair warning from now on, that my posts are long, and I mean long.

"24: The Game" for the PS2 rocks. It's like watching an episode (actually, season, I suppose) of the show - albeit one with a slightly hard-to-believe script. Gameplay is pretty good, and the pace and layout is faithful to the TV show. Character designs are outstanding, with everything from Jack Bauer's stubble to Chloe O'Brian's antisocial "what the fsck do YOU want?" scowl reproduced in uncanny likeness. The variety of tasks one must do to work through the storyline doesn't get old partway through the game, as one might feel with other games (as in, "oh, great, another jumping puzzle!"). You can use vehicles, and interact with objects in the game world - tip over a barrel and it can roll down the hallway to take a terrorist's legs out from under him, or, trip over a carelessly-laid broom and find a guard hurrying to investigate the noise. Cars are drivable, and enough attention is paid to their dynamics so as to make them an actual enjoyable element of the game, unlike in other games where vehicles are poor "robotic" NPC items, if not just static pieces of background altogether.

That's gameplay - trying to acquire the game is a whole other story, one which almost makes me wanna hand over my local Blockbuster employees to Jack Bauer for his style of "interrogation".

I arrived at the counter with a rental copy of 24 and a PSP game for purchase, and was asked, as always, if I found everything I was looking for.

Me: "Actually, I couldn't find any copies of 24 The Game for PS2, for sale. Are you selling it?"

Girl 1 (who is apparently new-ish and should be cut some slack, and I respect that): "Umm... hang on." (typetypetype) "Which season?"

Me: "The Game. For PS2."

Girl 1: (works the computer for a bit) "Umm." (tries some more, eventually calling Girl 2 over, who comes out from behind a literal 3 foot tall stack of returns that she's scanning back in from the drop box)

Girl 2: "What's going on?"

Me: "I was wondering about 24 The Game, if--"

Girl 2: "24..?"

Me: (flips over the rental case sitting directly in front of her on the counter, so the game manual is staring them both in the face) "The Game, for PS2."

Girl 2: "Ohhh." (typetype) (to Girl 1) "You were hitting PSP."

Girl 1: (shrugs) (watches Girl 2 type a bunch more)

Girl 2: (to me, bluntly) "What about it?"

Me: (blinks) "... Are you selling it?"

Girl 2: "No."

Me: (head-counter) "Ok."

I half-seriously thought about just keeping the rental and getting billed for it, but I'll probably go find it at Superstore or EB or some place.

---

So my place of employment is marching steadily towards D-Day later this month. (Marching .. er, pun unintended.) And by D-Day, I mean, moving out of the place we've occupied 24/7 since 1948, and going to an all-new building, and merging with several other similar services. If the move-in schedule holds, and everything continues as planned, I will be one of the last people to leave the building. Remember the last scenes from Babylon 5 where JMS plays a maintenance tech shutting the place down? That's kinda how I think it's gonna feel. Don't get me wrong, I'm eager to go - I think the move and the related, ultimate merging of my workplace with the other ones like it, is going to bring nothing but benefits to our customers. However, the place we're in now has had some kind of human presence in it literally every hour of every day for decades, and has had equipment that has run constantly since that time. (There's a grandfather clock there which has been turning since pre-1948, when the building was built, and we have at least two televisions for security and/or recreational use that have not been turned off for at least the 5 years I've been working there.) Seeing this place go dark is going to be one of those paradoxical moments one seems to have from time to time. But oh well, the new place is bright, ultramodern, in a business park (instead of a 'literal' park, with trees and grass and all), and concentrates a bunch of the city's common services all in one place. Gonna be better all around.. right?

---

I kind of half-threatenedpromised an explanation last time of what the hell I was so tied up in knots about Speed Channel for. So here it is.. back in 1996 when it was first on the air, and called Speedvision, it was a haven for motorsports enthusiasts. Everything from almost any type of motor racing could be found there. Old NASCAR races, feeder series like ASA/ARCA, Trans Am, sports car, Formula Ford, etc etc etc., even things like European big rig racing and airplane and boat races. The channel got a huge following and built and built on that fan base, drawing more and more interest with things like World Rally Championship, CORR off-road racing, and a 'movie of the week' segment called Lost Drive-In, which had Bruce Dern portraying a mechanic hanging around an old, deserted drive-in theater, doing "wrappers" (intermissions of sorts) around feature-length movies that had to do with racing and driving and such.

Then, at the height of its popularity, Speed Channel was bought by FOX.

FOX apparently had big plans for Speed. The channel became a tribute to NASCAR virtually overnight. Slowly, one by one, the things which weren't NASCAR-related and weren't making big bucks were slaughtered. Lost Drive-In didn't take long to get well and truly lost, and other casualties included Two-Wheeled Wednesday, where most programming was about motorcycles - though it later surfaced as "Two-Wheel Tuesday", an hour-long (and later only half-hour-long!) segment. Many of the cratersgaps in the program schedule were filled with NASCAR-related programming. Not just races - talk after the races, talk BEFORE the races, including at some times the week(s) leading up to the races. They'd repackage footage not seen during the race and show it as a 'recap' of the race, or in some cases, a show about the racers IN the race. For a while, there was a show which did nothing but follow the racers around even in between races in their garages, preparing their cars for the next weekend's race, and during the race, staying on the sidelines watching the support teams watch the race.

Before I go on: I want to make it clear I'm not one of the 'NASCAR haters'. The people who are critical of Speed Channel are often seen as such, mainly because it is convenient to do so - considering much of what is wrong with Speed has to do with its relation to NASCAR as of late. I myself am a fan of virtually all motorsports, even the ones that only turn left and race in soup bowls. It just so happens I'm more interested in some of the more challenging and more exciting things such as World Rally Championship, where cars go flat-out on public (closed) roads, with little to no guard rails, pit stops, or "pace car" stages; Championship Off Road Racing (CORR), involving full-size pickup trucks (well, racing trucks based on pickup styles) beating and banging around a mostly-dirt supercross-like course; etc.

Anyway... Speed Channel was, for all intents and purposes, gutted. Racing appeared to have taken a back seat to NASCAR-themed talk shows, discussion shows, recap shows, preview shows, and other such drivel, seemingly intent on milking the NASCAR fan base for all it was worth and then some. However, the mortally wounding blow was yet to be dealt, and it came a year or two ago with the introduction of a horrible train-wreck of a show called Texas Hardtails. This was an attempt, it seemed, at getting the attention of all the people jumping on the "cranky biker building shop" bandwagon popularized by American Chopper and the like. Except Texas Hardtails wasn't even pretending to be real.

That's right... even in the tagline in their ads (which were played to saturation levels on Speed for months, I kid you not), they admitted the show was staged. Anyone with any amount of intelligence wouldn't have needed the prodding, though - made clear when a guy takes his cellphone into the washroom, and drops it in the toilet bowl - and the next shot you see is supposed to be from the point of view of the phone (in the bowl), with this long-haired biker type yelling directly into the camera, "Hang on, Ma! I done dropped the phone in the terlet!"

People on the Speed message boards ranted, "We lost World of Outlaws racing to this?!?!"

That wasn't the end, though. Other crap followed: Unique Whips is about a New York-ish shop where preppy-looking guys install way-too-loud stereo systems and those stupidly oversized wheels into cars their clientele (rappers and sports figures, mainly, it seems) shouldn't be able to afford. They're touted as high quality installers - who were seen using cans of spray paint to touch up a dash where they'd scuffed it. And of course, the boss is a loudmouth who does little if any of the actual work. Sound familiar? And Pinks was the most promising and biggest letdown in the same breath. Touted as a show which pitted ordinary Joes against one another in the typical street-race battle, but on a drag strip. The tagline of the show is "Lose the race, lose your ride" - ostensibly, the one who wins 2 out of 3 races (or whatever the number is that episode, sometimes 3 out of 5, or whatever) takes both cars home. Except the rumors floating around are, that never happens. Once the cameras are shut off, the losing racer gets to "buy back" his car for $100, so I've heard. Even that might be overstating it. The other thing wrong with Pinks is that the races are not started by a "Christmas Tree" starting light, or any kind of modern timing system. The host of the show stands at the head of the track and waves his arms to start the race - akin to a bikini girl throwing a handkerchief, almost - and someone else stands at the finish line and tells him by radio how many lengths the winner had over the loser. Anyone who would consent to risking losing their ownership (aka 'pink slip', for those who wonder where the "Pinks" verbiage comes from) in a race of that caliber needs to get their head examined, IMO.

The nail in Speed's coffin, as far as I'm concerned, came this January. World Rally Championship runs starting in late January and ending in early December, every year. In 2005 and 2006 it is visiting 16 places in those 12 months, all over the world. Besides Formula 1, which is insanely popular in the UK and EU, World Rally is the hands-down number-one sport by spectator interest. Email me and I can point you towards videos showing hundreds of thousands of people crowding the roadside (trackside, remember!) in places like Portugal and Mexico for their rallies. For the past few years, Speed has aired WRC rounds, varying their coverage based on what they were willing to spend to pick up the European feed and repackage it as a Speed show. European fans have a channel called Eurosport, which shows a half-hour recap show every night of the three-day rally, plus a half-hour preview show the Thursday before the rally. One year, ONE year - Speed followers got that lucky. It varied from year to year - the worst being a half-hour or hour-long recap show a week or two after the event.

For the 2006 season, Speed said in late January, after the Rallye Monte Carlo (in Monaco) was already underway, that "talks were still ongoing" with the international rights-holders for WRC television. The fact of the matter is that Monte Carlo and Rally Sweden have both gone by and have been some of the most exciting racing in recent times. And as of this writing, Corona Rally Mexico is happening. Not a shred of this action has been covered on Speed. Perhaps it's had a few minutes in "Speed News" segments, but that's not acceptable for a channel that's supposed to be the leader in motorsports coverage.

The only reason a World-class rally isn't being done in the US yet is that people fear the concept of cars racing next to lawsuit-happy American spectators, despite the fact rally fans are told by signs on the courses that they are there at their own risk. In actual fact, a world-class racer is currently working with organizers in New York state to work at bringing World-class certification to a rally there. Many rallies of levels not quite up to World standards are ongoing in Canada and the US all the time. This is proof that interest is there for rally in these countries (where the majority of Speed viewers are). So the argument the so-called "Speed apologists" (regular Joes on the Speed message boards, so you're led to believe, who imply that the reason rally and other motorsports aren't shown on Speed is because of low ratings) use is full of air so hot you'd think it came right out of a hard-working engine.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, though. Advertisers have acknowledged that they are dismayed with the way WRC is being handled this year. A sizeable chunk of Subaru's market share in North America is directly based on their performance as rally champions. They're aware of that, and they're aware that the fan base is pissed at how they're being treated.

And word has it that Texas Hardtails has finally been canceled from Speed TV's lineup due to low ratings. Hooray! Speed execs were told all along by their customers (on the message boards and elsewhere) that THT was almost universally reviled as a piece of trash. Unfortunately it took them this long and this much alienation of their fan base to see the light. Lost Drive In is back, though a pathetic version of its former self - no Bruce Dern, and the movies often have little to do with cars or racing - I mean, they showed Freejack, fer chrissakes. The racing in that movie comes and goes quicker than it took you to read this sentence.

When I was a participant on the Speed message boards, I often said that people wouldn't settle for the disaster that Speed TV had become. Fans of racing series would go where the racing is - especially in this Internet day and age, where full TV broadcasts are available for download if you look hard enough.

A heck of a lot of fans are looking hard enough. The Eurosport coverage of WRC is absolutely beautiful.. and, as I and others warned Speed time and time again, its day of reckoning has come.

The definition of irony is the fact I was pondering the subject line's implications yesterday, while thinking about my participation in a message board (or lack thereof).

The television network "Speed Channel" has shifted their NASCAR coverage into high gear, and for those of us who don't give a damnhave other interests than driving around in circles, it means we're being left in the dust, so to speak. The World Rally Championship, only one of the most popular and exciting motorsports in existence, is not being shown in North America this year because Speed has decided to screw around with the negotiations. (A company called ISC is the international rights holder. Anyone who wants to show WRC has to negotiate with them.) Speed has, seemingly, long despised WRC, because it is what they consider a "niche sport", which means they can't make 87 squillion dollars on it like they can with NASCAR. Take it as you will that Speed is owned by FOX, bringer of such television classics as "Who Wants to Marry a Multi Millionaire" and other such crap. In any case, maybe I'll foam at the mouth about Speed in another post later on, 'cause that's not what this post is about.

As mentioned at the top, I have, after not only burning my bridges but blowing them up and sinking the remains deep into the water below, quit posting and participating on the Speed message boards. Unlike other people who go back and watch what's being said about them, or are determined to get in the last word regardless, I haven't been back since I said I was leaving. I have no reason to be there any more - I get my racing information from other sources which are interested in catering to me. Anyway, once or twice, I briefly considered going back to see what was going on, but after a few moments, sanity kicked in. Who cares what they're doing?, I realized. It's just not worth paying attention to. I've had that feeling about other things in my life too. Sometimes life is just too short to screw around worrying about certain things. Or, in other words, sometimes certain people or things aren't as important to you as they think they are.

But that's not the topic of this post, either. It gets us closer to the point, but there's still a bit of a journey. Bear with me.

I was talking with my father at one point during the day today. He said to me, "Have you seen the website today?" This refers to the website I run for the volunteer fire department we belong to (he as a chief, I as a firefighter/EMT). I hadn't, so I said so.

"We got hacked," he told me.

I took a look at the website and found, as he indicated, the main page showcasing our department, listing our recent responses, and giving people an indication of the work we do, was gone. In its place was a page put up by a group calling themselves the "Turkish Hackers Group". I won't bother repeating what they wrote - to describe it only gives them more publicity than they need. That might sound hypocritical, considering that I'm talking about them now, but I have a point to make, like I said.

I am a tolerant man. I don't have an interest in giving anyone an undeserved hard time. If you don't bother me, I don't bother you. And I don't really care what people do, so long as it doesn't affect me. For example, all this noise about "same sex marriage"? Doesn't bother me a bit, so long as it doesn't invade on my privacy/personal life. People want to protest and strike and lobby about junk? Go ahead, just don't make things difficult for me. Et cetera.

How about protesting the blasphemy of your religion?

Before I continue, I should mention that if you have to label me, I am an atheist. I have no opinions on religion at all. I will respect others' beliefs; I accept that there are people who believe in a Supreme Being, and so on.

Having said that, and keeping in mind that I consider myself tolerant and neutral, I sympathize with the people whose beliefs have been trampled on. Do I think that the cartoons that were drawn, and the implications about Muslims and Islam being inherently violent (which are two vastly different things), are/were wrong to do? Absolutely. I don't condone that kind of thing. I don't believe for a second that any one religion is under the impression that violence and extermination of others is the right answer. I don't think anyone has been in that mindset since, oh, let's say 1945. Do I believe that the actions of one, or even some, for example... I don't know, how about crashing planes into buildings and killing thousands of innocents.. I don't believe that's representative of an entire religion, people, or even family.

So why is it okay for the Turkish Hackers Group to break into my personal property - my web site - and post a diatribe on how "I" have given Turks a hard time and blamed Muslims for 9/11 and everything else, and threatened to "strike with all (our) might" if "I" continue my evil ways?

This is the actual epitome of irony. The Turkish Hackers Group hijacked my web site and accused me of being part and parcel of the group lumping Muslims into one "bad" society. So that's okay then? 'Cause it seems pretty fucking hypocritical to me.

As I said, I do respect and understand the outrage at the mistreatment of Muslims and Islam, in all forms - hate crimes, persecution, making fun of in cartoons. But is it worth burning down entire cities for? Threatening to 'exterminate' all Danes? Hijacking websites of innocents and ruining their hard work?

I admit that I can't reasonably appreciate the way Muslims feel right now with these insults. However, getting back to the topic of the subject line.. wouldn't it be better to just let it go? I appreciate that's a bold statement to make when you're not getting branded as terrorists as a whole. However.. when does it get to be too much? How is it okay to demand the complete elimination of a people for the put-down one person (a newspaper cartoonist) made, poking fun at the implication that your kind is violent in nature?

Is it too rude to say "Get over it"?

Did anyone here watch the series Canada's Worst Driver on Discovery Channel? ( I'd like to discuss it... )

I just finished watching the end of yet another dominating run by Sebastian Loeb, the 2005 World Rally champion, as he decimated the course of Tour de Corse, in France. 12 stage wins in a row is a staggering feat for modern rallysport.

The PS2 game that has me at the moment happens to be a $9.99 bargain bin item picked up at Superstore the other day. "Rally Fusion: Race of Champions" is put out by Activision and is a decent rallying game for fans who want more than the fare provided by things like Colin McRae Rally or the un-obtainable (in North America) WRC series. Instead of courses you are familiar with from the current (or past) championships, RF's courses are generic could-be-anywhere designs - a snowy, hilly climb through mountains could be virtually anywhere; a desert stage with a pass through what looks like an East Indian village; and a mud bog that could be, again, in just about any place imaginable. However, there ARE some real-life elements to the game - the names of the people you compete with and the cars you drive.

The newest car in the lot is the Peugeot 206, which hasn't been in world rally contention for 2 years now (having been replaced by the 307). If you're looking for the Subaru Impreza, which virtually defines rally for North American fans thanks to drivers like Pat Richard, Tom McGeer, and Petter Solberg, you won't find it in this game (at least, as far as I've gotten - and I think I've seen all the unlockable cars). However, if you are a fan of the Group B monsters, you'll find them, oddly enough, in the game's Group A racing (the highest level). The Audi Quattro S1 is there, along with the Lancia Stratos, Peugeot 205 and 405, and other cars - and not just those, either. The Seat Cordoba ("the what?" I hear the North Americans ask) and the Ford Escort Mk1 are in the game, as well as the Sierra Cosworth.. finally got to take a Cossie for a spin! And as mentioned, there are lots of recognizable names (for rally fans), including some which may surprise you. Robby Gordon, for example, the NASCAR crash-derby king and Baja/Dakar pilot. Every Scandinavian who has ever walked past a rally car is named as well... imagine a race with Henri Toivonen, Harri Rovanpera, and Marcus Gronholm fighting you for the lead.

Now, on to gameplay.. Load times kind of suck, but all games do these days. Hard to solve that without a major breakthrough in game technology. However, I've seen games that take longer to load.

Car control is fairly easy if you choose automatic transmission (I'm daring enough to try MT on a game like CMR05, but not here, at least, not yet). The cars all do tend to have severe understeer, but I suppose real-world cars would too, if you were putting the accelerator pedal thru the firewall like you are in the game. The left analog stick controls the steering, and I prefer the buttons for the accelerator/etc, but I presume you can use the right stick for that as well. It took some time to figure out that reverse gear wasn't on the same button as the brakes, which is normal in a racing game, as far as I've seen. Another thing which was a surprise was having to reset your car with the Select button. Once you roll or crash out of the course, you have to manually reset - you could theoretically sit out in the woods all day, timer clicking happily off, and the game wouldn't bring you back for a restart.

The car models are quite true to their real-world counterparts, at least, at the outset. A Pug 206 looks like a 206; a Lancia Delta looks like a Lancia Delta (though the Martini Racing logos are cleverly blacked out and/or replaced with "LANCIA RACING" - can't have cigarette/booze ads where kids can see them!! *eyeroll*). It's after you start bumping into things out on the courses that things start to go awry. For example, take any jump with any car hard enough, and both doors will fall off the car. Huh? How's that? I don't know either, but it seems the door latches (and hinges) on the computer models are the weakest points of the car. Anything you hit causes a door to open or come off. Now, the models themselves are fairly accurate - for example, on the Lancia 037, with a rear-mounted engine with the engine bay cover ("hood", I suppose) hinged at the rear bumper, that's how that opens up if you smack it hard enough. However, I think the cars in the game take damage WAY too easily. When they do get damaged, there is realism to an extent - a flat tire or worse, a missing wheel, will make the car pull to the side appropriately, requiring constant centering corrections. However, I haven't yet found that the loss of a spoiler has caused the car to become harder to control, the way you'd expect, or a missing hood causing aero drag. I guess there's only so much you can do with the programming that was available at the time.

The co-drivers are quite useless in the game, except for comic relief, and that got old in less than 2 stages. You get a choice of 3 co-drivers: An uppity British male voice, a surfer California guy, and a less-stiff British woman. I have it on the woman right now because it's the least grating of the three, but if there was a way to shut it off altogether, I'd do so. Each selection has the exact same lines recorded for you to hear. "Easy left", "medium left", "hard left", and "hairpin left" describe the four levels of turn severity, with the same for the right. There's also a couple different levels of shouting those lines out, for when your co-driver gets angry at you (when, not if). If my co-driver in real life were complaining as much as the one in the RF game, she'd be fired - if not let out in the middle of the stage somewhere to walk home! "Ease up!" she'll shout, just before demanding you get "Back on track!" and "You've got to go faster!". "Exhaust sounds bad!" will be heard at least once a race as well. I think there's one or two lines in the game where the co-driver isn't complaining about SOMETHING. Oh, and "You've wrecked the *BEEP*ing car!" was funny the first couple times. Hearing it 78,000 more times as you progress through the game is just annoying. Finally.. real co-drivers call out the turns BEFORE you get to them, not as you're turning in, or worse yet, completely skipping over calling out a turn to complain that their door is open.

Gameplay itself is fun, and you can blast around these tracks fairly well. It does get progressively harder as you continue through the game, with the final stages of each class (C, then B, then A) demanding several re-tries until you can get it done quick enough to beat the computer opponents.

I hear multiplay is available, but without broadband or anyone close by to come plug in a second controller, I can't evaluate that option. Then again, rallying is usually a sport done a single person (or team/car) at a time, and that's replicated well in this game.

I guess I'd give this a 7 out of 10.. it's not trying to be a rally sim, granted, and it would be a fine arcade game for even those who aren't familiar with rallying (though they would need time to learn the concept). Could still be better, though.