• 1 Post
  • 177 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 28th, 2023

help-circle




  • About half the cab of a big rig hanging over the lane I was driving in.

    880 North in California, early 2000’s around 2AM. South of Oakland driving in the fast lane, it was foggy and I was going a bit to fast. Then I started noticing a whole bunch of weird stuff all at once; 20+ cars pulled over on the shoulder with a cop car in front of them, small rocks? all over the road that rapidly became chunks of concrete a few inches in on a side, a whole ass sideways car — at this point I’m slowing and pulling out of the fast lane, as I finish the lane change I look back ahead just in time to see the cab of the big rig dangling over the fast lane from the other side of the freeway. It just appears out of the fog, I’m not sure my car would have cleared it if I had still been in the left lane. It had punched right through the concrete median (the rocks all over the freeway were debris from the collision). The southbound side of 880 is higher there, so it was at least 4-6 feet above the ground on my side.

    Bonus: A different big rig with a 25 foot aluminum ladder stuck on one of the trailers feet. It was shooting a roster tail of white sparks another 15 feet, skipping around and making quite a bit of noise. Got a good look as I passed and it had clearly been hooked for a while, it was ground down a few inches where it was making contact.




  • So just a personal theory then?

    There was definitely a time when I would have called this seriously tinfoil-hat… but given the stuff that keeps coming out, the industries support for community recycling programs that they knew would never work, etc. I’m giving it a 7/10 for probably and a 10/10 for creativity ;-)

    Personally I tend to believe that generally well meaning people thought that paper straw technology would continue to improve, didn’t involve PFAS or microplastics… or that we’d all carry around a personal straw. But I do love the smoke filled room of mad men architecting a masterful conspiracy propped on the plastic shoulders of the humblest of columns.













  • I’ll have to dig it up tomorrow, but that was an illusion to a mountain climbing injury he sustained at some point earlier in life (to an arm) that left him in constant pain. He was able to function by mentally mastering the discomfort which he credited to meditation or something like that.

    I believe it was an interview that aired on NPR at least 5 years ago.

    I’m with you. When I saw The Saint as a kid it seemed like the perfect plan. Do crimes and retire when you hit 5 million ;-)

    Seriously, I think it’s a widespread addiction. You see your nest-egg turn into millions and then billions… it’s got to be a rush.