ATTENTION MANKIND

Sorry folks, here's a little rant I wrote up over the holidays, and in my overt laziness just never posted. There you go Jack, I admitted it, I'm too damn lazy. And to continue that trend I'm not going to bitch about everything individually. No no, I'm just going to list all the things that really piss me off and then offer a bulk solution. Here we go, if you fall into the following catergories:

Religious nuts/extremists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Aggresive Shoppers, People with a functional IQ of less then 70, Amway reps, People with no sense of humour, Bad (American) pilots, Pollutants of the Gene pool, Telemarketers, People who inexplicably take up an entire sidewalk/shopping isle/width of a mall while walking slower then a 104 year old dude with a walker, People who wear those frigging christmas sweaters or reindeer antlers, People who order entire meals in a Tim Hortons Drive-Thru, People who leave shopping carts in parking spots

Do the world a favor, go play in traffic. Are ya gone yet? Good, now it's time to deal with the aforementioned traffic.

Here's the top ten list of bad driving traits:

10. If you drive an SUV and think 4 wheel drive makes you completely invincible in winter weather,
9. If talking to your ditzy friend on a cell phone is more important then looking at the road and cars around you,
8. If the concept of a merge lane is Greek to you,
7. If you leave your car covered in snow, cleaning only your windshield so you can't see shite anywhere that isn't in front you,
6. If you pull up on a lane that you know ends just to cut someone off and gain two spots in the line,
5. If you pull out to pass and don't,
4. If you drive at less then half the speed limit on a Bare Dry Highway,
3. If, when it snows, you start thinking that since the little white/yellow lines are gone the whole width of the road is at your personal disposal,
2. If you are in the left most lane and at the last minute swerve across three lanes of traffic to make a right or vice versa,
And the number 1. If you come the wrong way out of a parking lot entrance, turn on your right turn blinker, then make a left

Then you need to take into serious consideration eliminating yourself, and any offsrping you may have inadvertantly created, from the gene pool.

So, that having been said, if all the aforementioned people listen to my advice, the rest of us, however few of them there may be, should have a good new year.

Jack, this one's for you

Well well well,

It is just friggin amazing what comes into ones head when exhaustion is the staple of the day. As one sifts through the static that is a brain in neutral running redline, one can be amazed at the little gems that pop out. What's more is the fact that sometimes those gems are not yours alone, but have common threads in other people gems.

Now for those of you who don't know me and/or Jack, there are those who call us twins. We look nothing alike (as Jack's always got a shit-eating grin on his face, and let's face it I'm FAR more handsome). We do however think along similar lines. We were among a group of 15 people getting pilots licenses (GO POWER 99 - CENTRAILIA) and have been friends ever since. If you want to get a sense of what I'm talking about go to his blog in the side bar there (or for those of you who have NO clue what I'm talking about - http://jackwesselo.blogspot.com). But for now, I'm gonna write a little bit here about a post on his site. Pardon me if I address some stuff to Jack, this is really pertinent to civilization as we know it.

I fully agree that our progress as individuals, and indeed as societies, has stagnated in the last 50 years say. Our level of technology has sky rocketed, our understanding of science has increased exponentially. However our perception of other cultures, other societies, even other people has not progressed with equal zeal. As a macro we see the world, and even the universe, as territory, resources which can be fought for, annexed, exploited. Granted we have begin the move towards a more enlightened view, but we're doing it at a fraction of the pace we should be. So it goes without saying that any advances we make are fueled, at least in part, by the instinctive need to gain said ground.

Now stepping away from the Macro for a second, there are those who see things in a different light, and that number is growing. The simple truth of the matter is this: the power hungry, the greedy, the warmongers are a slowly dying breed, at least one would hope. And I'm not talking as a pacifist, or a religious nut. I'm talking in pure, cold logic. There are really only two foreseeable options here: We smarten the hell up, or we run the road to our own eventual demise.

Most species on this planet are territorial in some way or another. They will fight with each other for superiority, they will kill for a better hunting ground, or more females, or whatever. The strong survive, the weak are cleansed from the gene pool. I can't help but surmise that no matter how much we advance, we are still driven by these most basic and ancient instincts. To get anywhere we need to undergo an entire paradigm shift.

That's where people like the Wright Brothers come in. They built a machine, though not to conquer the world. The fact that Air Travel has reduced month long trips to a whiskey on the rocks and a few hours of uncomfortable sleep, or the ability to deliver an explosive device accurately enough to choose a specific pane in a specific window from thousands of miles away, probably never crossed those minds. They did it to see if they could.

Fast forward to the dawn of the space age. Our first steps into the void we made using machines designed solely to assist in the gaining of ground. All the sudden we needed to gain ground in a different way. We took the warheads off, and strapped people on. The fight was on, but not with guns. There was loss of life on both sides, but not because rifle shells and carpet bombing. All of the sudden we were in a race to get up there. Why you ask? Not to see if we could, although that's a lip service that was paid. We were locked in an ideological struggle.

I fully agree that, given an altered history, our planet would be MUCH better off, and the solar system would be at our doorstep. But it hasn't happened, yet. Who knows what the future holds, any sane person would hope it's a shy sight different then what we've had so far.

So here it is, it's now up to you. Do I have ideas on where we need to go and what needs to start changing? Of course. Am I not going to share them? You could only be so lucky. But I want your ideas. And I'm not just talking to Jack here, I mean anyone who's reading this. Comment, link some blogs, call me names. Who knows what might come of it. But for now, I've rambled enough. Sunrise is not far off and the static in my brain is overwhelming. Stay tuned, this is not over. Tune in for next time, same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.

Cheers, and good night

Movie Time

K folks,

I just watched Stealth. The critics BASHED this movie. I watched it, you know what I thought? BBBBOOOOIIIINNNNGGG. Come on, hot planes flying REAL fast, shit constantly blowing up, and JESSICA BIEL in a flight suit (then a bikini, then a summer dress, then a flight suit again, then in a T-shirt with splashes of uniform interspersed in there for variety).

What's not to like?

Public Service announcement

Ok, to some this may seem obvious, but for the remainder of you folks here's a piece of advice in the form of a short story.

I was at work today and I got a phone call from a concerned citizen regarding a news report about a large military aircraft that had crashed not long before near a small airstrip about 50 miles southwest of my airport. At that time I hadn't heard anything of the sort, but out of sheer curiosity I checked on radar for search aircraft in that vicinity and seeing none in the area I questioned the validity of the report. The women on the phone assured me that it was in fact on the CBC.ca website. So of course I became understandably curious. Not long after this phone call the Jazz Flight coming in from Pearson made his mandatory call and began the approach to the airport. When he was about 15 miles west of the field a dispatcher from Jazz called asking whether the flight was on final yet. Now this is an odd call, and although I had heard about the crash south west of here I thought the two were somehow unrelated. Soon after the Jazz flight landed I got another phone call, this one from the Airport Authority here in Fredericton, also inquiring about a plane crash, as they were beginning to receive calls from the media. At this time I thought it wise to put a call in to my manager and see what he had heard.

Now here's where the fun begins. My manger tells me, smiling the whole time, that he had just got off the phone with the Flight Service Station in Saint John with the same question and this was his reply: It seems there was a C130 Hercules doing Search and Rescue practice near the airstrip in Penfield. While practicing these aircraft sometime drop smoke and flares. This was one of those times. Now someone saw this plane (which they were unable to identify) flying low over the trees, trailing smoke and dropping flares and made the logical conclusion that any aircraft flying that low and smoking will most definitely crash. They called the RCMP and reported a crash, which in and of itself is not a problem as they would have looked into it found no aircraft crash and it would've ended probably there. The problem arose when this caller didn't stop there, they immediately reported a crash to the CBC and a few other places. The CBC went after the story with gusto. Meanwhile the Rescue Coordination Centre in Greenwood, Nova Scotia was alerted, and since they already had a Hercules in the area they retasked it as a full fledged Search and Rescue mission and sent it looking for this downed aircraft. So ironically, the plane that supposedly crashed was now looking for itself. In the meantime word of the crash was spreading. When someone finally realized what had happened the Search was called off, the Herc went on about it's training, and someone at the CBC was WICKED red in the face.

The moral of this story? DON'T ASSUME. As hard as it is to fathom, aircraft can, and often do, fly at low altitude for extended periods of time. This does not mean they are going down. If you see a big flame ball then there's a good chance something is amiss, otherwise you are probably going to make an ass of yourself. I'm not saying don't report it, far from it. Call the authorities, have someone look into it, BUT LEAVE IT AT THAT. Calling the media and air carriers causes much hastle and will more then likely make you look a lot stupider (if that's even possible).

This has been a public service announcement

Cheers

Just for introduction...

Well hello all,

And welcome to my brain dump. This first post is sort of a disclaimer, and it should give you an idea of what to expect in following posts.

The first rule here is simple: I am not making you read this. If you don't like what I'm sayin feel free to say something. HOWEVER, don't think I'm going to change it. Everyone has a right to their opinion, I have mine, you have yours. KEEP IT THAT WAY. I can't abide people who try to force their ideals on others. If you disagree with this stop reading and leave now.

Rule number two: There are very few people who are not going to be offended at some point in this little endeavour. Whether it be for comedic value, or a full fledged dig at some specific people, before you FREAK RIGHT OUT about it, clarify with me. You may very well have taken it the wrong way.

Rule number three: I am not trying to stand on a soap box here (as I understand they are notoriously unstable to stand on). I'm just callin em as I see em. I'm not tryin to start a cult, or overthrow the government. I'm just writing stuff down as it comes to me. That having been said, for the most part I'm going to try my best to make my entries as humourous as possible.

Now, for what I'm going to write about. Well, the reader digest version is as follows: Politics, Religion, Books, Music, Science, and whatever the hell else pops into my head whilst I'm bored.

That should be it for now. Keep current, I may add rules as they come up. :)

Cheers,
BB