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shadowkat67
Freeway shootings: There had been a few serious incidents of people shooting at cars on freeways around the country (i.e. Colorado and Michigan). With typical disregard for the ideas they are putting in the heads of the mental disturbed and young nincompoops in general, the national media gave plenty of air time to these incidents which to be fair were very scary. Clearly the person/people in Colorado was/were attempting to hurt other people. I tried to avoid paying attention but if I heard correctly someone may have been injured in Michigan. Maybe ten years ago there was an extremely scary situation here in Phoenix, which seemed to draw less national attention. A disturbed fellow was shooting people, not cars, randomly all over central and southern Phoenix, killing several and wounding others over about a year and a half, before he was caught. By comparison the recent Phoenix copycat shootings (I can only assume they got the idea from the national news coverage of the other highway shootings) were crammed together into a couple weeks starting just before Labor Day and no one was hurt. It began to seem very likely to me that it was more than one person in a small group doing the shooting. There were at least two different weapons, some kind of fire arm and a pellet gun. There was an arrest yesterday which the police believe is linked to the shootings. They haven't revealed what evidence they have against the young man, but he is being held in jail on marijuana possession. That's kind of a feeble charge to hold someone without a small bail, so we'll see how his first hearing goes today. If they're asking for a big bond they probably do have strong suspicion he was involved. If not, who knows. My guess is that it has been a bunch of kids riding around having a good time damaging other people's property. Scary but perhaps not worthy of national news coverage.
Why not much word from us Phoenicians? Well, Phoenix is a huge city area-wise. None of the folks I know on LJ or otherwise from ATPo who live in this area routinely use the freeways to get to work, and all the shootings were along the freeways, mostly one particular freeway. Masq lives closest to a few of the shootings, but if she still has the same job, she goes the opposite way to work. I live the closest to many of the shootings, and I maybe use that highway round-trip a couple times a year. Some of the "shootings" reported are probably not what they seem. I saw a lady this morning who was driving far from most of the incidents when her car was struck. The picture of her windshield on TV looked far more like the work of a pebble than a projectile. Since Arizona isn't careful about safety inspections, trucks with insufficient mud flaps do kick up a lot of gravel here on the freeways. My car has been hit. My sister's car got hit with a piece of gravel that cracked her windshield right in front of me, one day. Are the shootings a serious matter? Absolutely, but so far they are far from any of us I know, and hopefully with this arrest they are over.
TV: Is it just me or does it seem like there is nothing interesting at all in the coming season?
Football: Big-time college football players have started being paid "cost-of-attendance" Hundreds of colleges and universities have football teams, but only the ones that are in the highest grouping are paying players. The amounts seem to be absolutely arbitrary. Schools choose what they want to pay, and this year the ones that pay the most aren't in any way obvious. The University of Cincinnati (not a traditional football power) is paying the highest amount, I suppose to cover the cost of apartments in the city. But you'd expect apartments near Cal-Berkley to be a heck of a lot more pricey. I think this whole business is the camel's nose in the tent, and if it balloons it could easily be the end of college athletics. It just doesn't make sense to tie a lot of these guys who barely made it through high school and have no interest in further education to universities whose only interest in them is fund raising. Once the "cost-of-attendance" starts swelling uncontrollably, and I think it will, I expect a lot of schools will bail out. About half the schools in the top tier might keep going which, unfortunately, would include both of the places I attended.
shadowkat67Freeway shootings: There had been a few serious incidents of people shooting at cars on freeways around the country (i.e. Colorado and Michigan). With typical disregard for the ideas they are putting in the heads of the mental disturbed and young nincompoops in general, the national media gave plenty of air time to these incidents which to be fair were very scary. Clearly the person/people in Colorado was/were attempting to hurt other people. I tried to avoid paying attention but if I heard correctly someone may have been injured in Michigan. Maybe ten years ago there was an extremely scary situation here in Phoenix, which seemed to draw less national attention. A disturbed fellow was shooting people, not cars, randomly all over central and southern Phoenix, killing several and wounding others over about a year and a half, before he was caught. By comparison the recent Phoenix copycat shootings (I can only assume they got the idea from the national news coverage of the other highway shootings) were crammed together into a couple weeks starting just before Labor Day and no one was hurt. It began to seem very likely to me that it was more than one person in a small group doing the shooting. There were at least two different weapons, some kind of fire arm and a pellet gun. There was an arrest yesterday which the police believe is linked to the shootings. They haven't revealed what evidence they have against the young man, but he is being held in jail on marijuana possession. That's kind of a feeble charge to hold someone without a small bail, so we'll see how his first hearing goes today. If they're asking for a big bond they probably do have strong suspicion he was involved. If not, who knows. My guess is that it has been a bunch of kids riding around having a good time damaging other people's property. Scary but perhaps not worthy of national news coverage.
Why not much word from us Phoenicians? Well, Phoenix is a huge city area-wise. None of the folks I know on LJ or otherwise from ATPo who live in this area routinely use the freeways to get to work, and all the shootings were along the freeways, mostly one particular freeway. Masq lives closest to a few of the shootings, but if she still has the same job, she goes the opposite way to work. I live the closest to many of the shootings, and I maybe use that highway round-trip a couple times a year. Some of the "shootings" reported are probably not what they seem. I saw a lady this morning who was driving far from most of the incidents when her car was struck. The picture of her windshield on TV looked far more like the work of a pebble than a projectile. Since Arizona isn't careful about safety inspections, trucks with insufficient mud flaps do kick up a lot of gravel here on the freeways. My car has been hit. My sister's car got hit with a piece of gravel that cracked her windshield right in front of me, one day. Are the shootings a serious matter? Absolutely, but so far they are far from any of us I know, and hopefully with this arrest they are over.
TV: Is it just me or does it seem like there is nothing interesting at all in the coming season?
Football: Big-time college football players have started being paid "cost-of-attendance" Hundreds of colleges and universities have football teams, but only the ones that are in the highest grouping are paying players. The amounts seem to be absolutely arbitrary. Schools choose what they want to pay, and this year the ones that pay the most aren't in any way obvious. The University of Cincinnati (not a traditional football power) is paying the highest amount, I suppose to cover the cost of apartments in the city. But you'd expect apartments near Cal-Berkley to be a heck of a lot more pricey. I think this whole business is the camel's nose in the tent, and if it balloons it could easily be the end of college athletics. It just doesn't make sense to tie a lot of these guys who barely made it through high school and have no interest in further education to universities whose only interest in them is fund raising. Once the "cost-of-attendance" starts swelling uncontrollably, and I think it will, I expect a lot of schools will bail out. About half the schools in the top tier might keep going which, unfortunately, would include both of the places I attended.
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There's a lot to be said for being able to binge-watch more than one episode a week. I think Netflix has learned how that shapes the way the episodes are shaped--that, and (also true for HBO et al) being able to write without shaping the episode to commercial breaks. I really notice how different it is when I watch something originally made for season-long, commercial interrupted TV and now shown on Netflix or Amazon Prime. So many false mini-peaks and odd edits.