For long time readers of this UserDriven blog (thanks!), you know that it is usually just a collection of pointers to interesting stuff in the world of user-driven systems and such (most of which is obtained by the painstaking research of regularly reading kottke.org!), but recently an incredibly bizarre incident happened on my day job, so thought I would vent about it here a bit...
So there I was, a professional stunt driver just doing my job, driving a sweet trick white BMW sideways down the freeway, absolutely nailing it on the first take, when this idiot in a VW, probably trying to shave off a few minutes on the way home, somehow manages to miss all of the warning signs, flags, flares, and barricades that closed the freeway for the movie shoot (a new Mel Gibson / Danny Glover Lethal Weapon flick!) and was also absolutely oblivious to all the security cars trying to block him and wave him off, drives right into the scene and starts tailgating (side-gating?) me at 82mph. Short version - the idiot is gaining so fast that it looks like he is going to side-end me, so I am forced to go into emergency maneuvers to avoid getting hit. Fortunately, the Latino extras were able to stay out of the way of the confusion. I got a brief glimpse of them staring in disbelief at the idiot who had ruined our shoot and endangered us all. But as if that is not enough, the VW keeps coming, so I speed up - to now avoid getting rear ended - yet he speeds up too. I was up over 110 and couldn't shake the guy. Once we got closer to my house in East LA, I decided to change tactics and figured that he would probably not follow me off the freeway since he most likely had bought into that whole "not safe" B.S. that our East LA Chamber of Commerce has worked so hard on to brainwash the rest of the world so that we can keep yuppie scum out and enjoy our quiet peaceful community without a bunch of outsiders wandering through or bidding up the real estate prices. Anyhow, that finally shook him, and after a few deep breaths, I circled around to catch up with the rest of the crew, but the shoot was ruined and the whole day lost. Fortunately, the film guys kept their composure and kept rolling throughout and ended up with plenty of footage of that VW idiot driving maniacally - with his smug self-righteous expression AND his license plate clearly visible. A copy was just turned over to the highway patrol earlier today and they should be knocking on his door any moment now.
UPDATE: After posting the above, someone sent me a link to the following post: "Airbag - Riggs.". Not sure if it is a parody of my post or if that really could be the VW idiot!?!?! What a very very odd world we live in!
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