Random Crap: Camera phones in traffic and some music news

So I’ll add to my collection of mental drool extractions.

Last week I saw two interesting traffic situations and managed to snap camera phone pictures of both of them.

Here’s the first one:

This one was taken on route 495 south.  Now let me show the second one and then we’ll discuss what’s so fascinating about them.

This one comes from the Mass Pike (route 90) east.

The first picture did a good job of capturing the situation.  It shows an SUV in the left side median, well off the road.  Note there is no apparent damage to the vehicle; it just seems to have gone off the road.

The second image does not capture the whole scene.  You can see that the front of the car is smashed up some.  What you can’t see is the car just out of frame to the left that was also nice and smashed up.  The two cars were off the road, again to the left.

Have you noticed the similarity between the two incidents?

If the cars in both pictures are off the road to the left…

Then the cars in both pictures are facing the wrong way.  The first picture shows an SUV that is on a south bound highway, facing north.  The second picture shows a smashed up car facing west on an east bound highway.  The other car in the accident was also facing east.

How?

The SUV actually looked like the driver pulled off the road and onto the grass and then tried to turn around.  I guess some one needed to take a piss out the passenger side window and didn’t want the morning rush hour traffic to see.  Huh?

The car crash cars seem to have hit each other and then both done 180 degree spin outs.  Either that or the police/rescue people who responded to the accident turned the cars around when moving them off the road.  Either of these cases seem plausible to me.  The first one seems pretty improbable, but not impossible.  The second scenario would be accurate if the tow trucks needed to pick up the cars from behind.  I don’t know if that makes sense, but to my exhausted brain it at least seems reasonable.

I just found it very bizarre that one morning I see a car facing the wrong direction on 495 and then the next morning I see cars facing the wrong direction on the Pike.  Maybe I’m just losing my mind.  Maybe I just need a vacation.  Who knows?

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Now for the musical stuff.

First… a couple of posts ago I mentioned that my old band, Break Even, might be getting back together for a night.  It didn’t happen… at least not yet.

We’re planning on a get together for this Thursday, but Steve the other guitar player won’t be able to make it so I’m going to suggest we push it off another week.  The more people who show, the more fun it will be.

Here’s the gross part.  Jeff the singer has bigger fish to fry these days (www.justinfund.com do your daily good turn and make a donation.  Trust me, it’s worth it) which means a certain fat assed red headed guitar player is going to be bumped up to the lead vocalist chair.  Not good.  I’ve done it before, of course, but it’s not something that I really enjoy.  I do however tend to get territorial about it.  I don’t want to be the lead singer and the front man, but I’m sure as hell not going to let some one else do it unless they sing better than I do.  This is why I keep sticking to the job.  I don’t mean to imply that I’m any good, I just don’t suck all that badly and I’d rather do it than pass it on to some one who does suck badly.

Now allow me to further complicate the Break Even matter.  I threw out the idea of getting us together expecting it to be a one night thing where we pile into Bob the drummer’s basement and entertain the neighbors for a few hours and then go home and that’s it.  Fin.

Now however I’m sort of getting a vibe from two of the participants that they are seeing this as a Blues Brothers style “We’re getting the band back together” kind of thing.

I ask myself, “Do you want this band to get back together and start working again?” and I honestly can’t answer the question.  I don’t know if I do or not.

So I ask myself a different question, “If the majority of the other guys want to get back together and start working again would you go along with it?”  Again, a question that I don’t think I can really answer.  However I will admit to thinking that I’m leaning toward answering that question with a Yes.  I don’t know for sure, but I think that’s where my pea-brain is heading.

Who knows?

Why am I leaning toward saying yes?  Because of this week’s other musical happening.

I saw Victory at Sea at the Middle East tonight.  Technically it was last night… let’s just say Saturday and leave it at that, blah.  Fan-Fucking-Tastic set.  I’m seriously caught up in this band these days.  The show was excellent despite the fact that one of the amps ate itself (who hasn’t been onstage and had an amp crap out?  No one, it happens to all of us) and, even more impressive, the drummer did the whole set with a broken elbow.  Def Leppard style!  Every new note I hear impresses me more than the last.  Go buy yourself a copy of All Your Things Are Gone and play it until the disc begs for mercy.  Then buy yourself a copy of Memories Fade and repeat the process until you’ve worked your way back through the band’s whole catalog.  If I recall correctly, the band is about to hit the road.  Go to their myspace page and check out the upcoming shows list to see if they’re coming near you and then get out and see them.  Their page is in my top eight.  Go.  Now.  Do it.

It’s now two in the morning and I think I can get some sleep.  Turn out the lights and lock the doors when you leave.  Thanks.