The cars you drive

[IdleRich]

Definitely if I wanted to get a car to look cool, for posing basically (even more so than our little Renault Modus) - if practicalities such as cost and fuel consumption and reliability, steering etc were not a consideration I reckon I would pick one of those kinda things over a porsche or ferrari or whatever. They look wicked to me... maybe just another sign of my car related ignorance but there you have it.

 

[IdleRich]

There's a car in my neighborhood that has been driving around for over a year, even during blizzards, and pelting pedestrians with eggs.

It's the perfect crime. Only way they'll ever get caught is if they throw one at a cop

Do you remember those guys a few years back doing something very similar, except instead of egging people they were shooting them? I think there were two guys and they had drilled a hole in the boot, maybe modified the back seat of the car so one of them could lie flat and shoot random people through the hole with a sniper rifle... it seemed to take ages to catch em given the circumstances i.e they kept doing it in the same region... maybe even along the same highway, using the same car and so on. It felt as though if they had been able to change cars or states or whatever they coulda gone on for years.

 

[IdleRich]

This one. Knew it was a while back, but never would have thought it was almost twenty years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.C._sniper_attacks

For some reason, one fact I do remember from the time was that one of the guys was a minor, or at least he counted as such in the state which was the most obvious place for the trial - is that possible, that different states have different definitions of adulthood?

Either way, I remember they were trying to find a justification either to have the trial in a state which would count him as an adult or else which was simply prepared to execute minors.

I say "for some reason" but really I suppose I remember this detail cos it was the first time I had seen the vindictiveness and arbitrariness of US justice... those differences between states and the way that individual officials could agitate to move it to the one which could give the most serious punishment seemed to make it less like a system of rules being dispassionately applied and more like a personal vendetta between the DA (or whoever it was) and the snipers on trial.

Since then I have seen it many times. The vindictiveness of prosecutors and their pronouncements making it seem more like revenge than justice... except how can they be seeking revenge for a crime which was not committed against them? So sometimes it feels that US justice is not the faceless machine it ought to be, rather it does have a face, and the face is that of a bloodthirsty maniac.

 

[version]

D.C. sniper attacks - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I don't think they had anything to do with each other irl, but the Washington sniper's heavily associated with GTA III in my mind, particularly this image off the back of the box,

I must have heard the story around the same time I was playing it or heard a journalist trying to blame the game somehow. I don't think I even considered that the bloke wasn't using a sniper rifle in the image and wasn't in Washington.

Reminds me of the bizarre mental image I had of Reservoir Dogs after my parents described it to me where I somehow jumbled it all up and thought it was a 60s musical with a dancing English policeman who cuts off his own ear.

 

[IdleRich]

And then paints some sunflowers...

 

[linebaugh]

An update on the egg thrower in my neighborhood: the van he was throwing out off was a company car, and the owner saw the work of the Facebook vigilantes and identified the employee and fired him. End of the year long saga. This happened literally just yesterday, same time I brought it up in here, leading me to believe I have some privilege at the quantum level of reality

 

[linebaugh]

This one. Knew it was a while back, but never would have thought it was almost twenty years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.C._sniper_attacks

For some reason, one fact I do remember from the time was that one of the guys was a minor, or at least he counted as such in the state which was the most obvious place for the trial - is that possible, that different states have different definitions of adulthood?

Either way, I remember they were trying to find a justification either to have the trial in a state which would count him as an adult or else which was simply prepared to execute minors.

I say "for some reason" but really I suppose I remember this detail cos it was the first time I had seen the vindictiveness and arbitrariness of US justice... those differences between states and the way that individual officials could agitate to move it to the one which could give the most serious punishment seemed to make it less like a system of rules being dispassionately applied and more like a personal vendetta between the DA (or whoever it was) and the snipers on trial.

Since then I have seen it many times. The vindictiveness of prosecutors and their pronouncements making it seem more like revenge than justice... except how can they be seeking revenge for a crime which was not committed against them? So sometimes it feels that US justice is not the faceless machine it ought to be, rather it does have a face, and the face is that of a bloodthirsty maniac.

I remember this as especially heinous since it was clear the adult had the kid brainwashed

 

[IdleRich]

I remember this as especially heinous since it was clear the adult had the kid brainwashed

Heinous, but not that unique I thought. There are two that spring to mind cos I seen documentaries on them. Both of the following are just "as I remember" but I think the main details are right.

One was a kid from UK who was, I think, maybe on holiday in the US while Trump was campaigning to win the Repub ticket I think, or maybe for the presidency. Either way this kid decided that Trump was evil and that he needed to be stopped and at one of the rallies he sort of broke into the enclosure where he wasn't allowed to be and was immediately seized by security guards before he could do anything. When he was questioned about what he was doing he said that he had planned to seize a security guard's gun and use it to kill Trump - as a result of what he said they immediately started to throw various books at him, I think they tried attempted murder and considered terrorism and so on, even though he was a slightly disturbed child whose plan was nonsense and who didn't manage to get anywhere near Trump at all. Again it all felt so vindictive that they were trying to put him away for life when it was hard to see what purpose would be served by that - it was way beyond any requirement of justice.

Similarly, one I don't remember so well. Again a child, I dunno if he walked in his sleep or something, but he got the family gun in the night and shot a member of his own family if I remember correctly. And again, even though the victims and the perpetrator were all pleading for mercy, the DA or whatever the prosecutor is called was pushing for the death penalty or life imprisonment and it all seemed to be about getting the harshest possible penalty regardless of whether it was the right thing to do.

 

[IdleRich]

Actually, that first one, he was twenty, but the mitigating factors were

Sandford, who has autism and suffers from mental health problems, was diagnosed as having had a psychotic episode at the time of the incident.

 

[IdleRich]

I should have said that ultimately he served like a year and most of it in the UK - after a lot of bad PR and possibly diplomatic pressure. But that seems very odd to me, how can it be that someone walks into a court and everyone knows the crime that he has pleaded guilty to, but his punishment could range from a few months in a low security prison in the UK; or his entire life in locked up with murderers in a foreign country, all depending on what feels like the whim of the judge.

 

[Leo]

Indy 500 and NASCAR races are run on a huge oval, so two very wide turns but lots of straightaways. Aside from that, you have drag racing, which yeah is a straight track, just to see who can go the fastest, no maneuvering.

 

[WashYourHands]

How to spin the yanks out even further = double mini roundabouts

 

[IdleRich]

That's what I mean, Indy 500 is like a really simplistic version of Grand Prix and drag racing is like an incredibly simplistic version of that.
I suppose when you look at drag racing you could say it was either the dumbest type of racing imaginable or, arguably, the purest. Personally I am not a fan of sports where it is really about perfecting one or two particular moves and repeating these better than the other person does when under pressure, and I mean psychological pressure, cos the sports I am thinking of are those where what you do has no effect whatsoever on what the other person is required to do - so, I'm thinking darts, 10 pin bowling, drag racing I think and so on.
Edit: that was a reply to Leopoldik of course

 

[WashYourHands]

6 wheeled Tyrrell wants turns, not one big oval/circle



(adults who collect Scalextric have a word with yourselves)

 

[martin]

An update on the egg thrower in my neighborhood: the van he was throwing out off was a company car, and the owner saw the work of the Facebook vigilantes and identified the employee and fired him. End of the year long saga. This happened literally just yesterday, same time I brought it up in here, leading me to believe I have some privilege at the quantum level of reality

Fired for chucking an egg at someone at 35mph? Health and safety gone mad.

 

[martin]

(adults who collect Scalextric have a word with yourselves)

Do you think they're purely into the physics/electrics angle? Or do they imagine the little man in the car is having marital problems too, and go full speed on the corners because life's meaningless anyway?

 

[luka]

its funny isnt it as a kid it pisses you off that you cant go full pelt on the corners but in retrospect if you could just hold down the accelerator throughout the whole course, wheres the skill in that? and every race would be a draw. growing up and maturing is about learning that lesson i guess

 

[WashYourHands]

Different to computer games. You have to go and pick the car up, slide it into the track, deal with a weird handset that doesn’t accept dexterity and force others to crash too (except the last bit is too tricky due to all the other factors)

No-one ever looks at their Scalextric memory bank and remembers a single significant race, but the practical element and rules of material physics is a what the fuck am I even on about just one good night’s sleep please god

 

[william_kent]

I seem to remember building ramps under the tracks and then we would see how far the cars would hurtle off - more fun than going round in circles

but then again we used to build fires in a sandpit and see how far "hot wheels" cars would fly over

 

[WashYourHands]

Stolen Ewok figures on fireworks, huffing glue for a double woooosh sending rockets into space

Aim for the skies