Mysterious Turbulence

I heard about Flight 190 on the drive home from work today. The first report was very odd. Something like:

“Flight 190 out of Victoria to Toronto was forced to make an emergency landing in Calgary after several passengers were critically injured on the flight.”

No explanation of what caused the injuries – mechanical, turbulence, crazy violence, space aliens, nothing. It was very odd. Almost immediately after they started filling in details: people were injured but nothing life threatening; it wasn’t mechanical, no it was, no it wasn’t; the plane was shaken by a jolt that threw some passengers into the ceiling…

“It happened really fast. One side of the plane went up sort of sideways and then came back down,” one passenger told CBC News.

She said she saw her friend, who was among those taken to the hospital, “fly up” and hit the ceiling.

“All of a sudden there were three big drops,” said passenger Andrew Evans. “I was in the very, very front seat of the plane and was watching dishes fly through the air.

…but in those first few moments it seemed like a tremendous thriller.

What if you started a story with:

• a plane forced off its flight path,
• landing in a foreign city,
• radioing for emergency medical assistance,
• a number of critical injured passengers and/or crew,

…and no one could tell you what the hell happened. Could lead somewhere interesting…

Update:
The 10 o’clock news tonight suggests it was likely nothing but turbulence. A type of violent high wind that only occurs in the upper atmosphere where jets cruise at their top altitudes, and that are very hard to detect. They had an image of a field of antennas, a type of “wind profile radar,” but it’s either one-of-a-kind or very rare. Interesting.

Posted in Current Events, Writing on January 10, 2008 by Jesse
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Corpse used to cash cheque

Great story from yesterday’s NY Times.

Corpse Wheeled to Check-Cashing Store Leads to 2 Arrests

By BRUCE LAMBERT and CHRISTINE HAUSER
Even for the once-notorious Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, it may have been a first: Two men were arrested on Tuesday after pushing a corpse, seated in an office chair, along the sidewalk to a check-cashing store to cash the dead man’s Social Security check, the police said.

When Virgilio Cintron, 66, died at his apartment at 436 West 52nd Street recently, his roommate and a friend saw an opportunity to cash his $355 check, the police said.
…
The roommate, James P. O’Hare, and his friend, David J. Dalaia, both 65 and unemployed, placed Mr. Cintron’s body in the chair and wheeled it around the corner, south along Ninth Avenue on Tuesday afternoon, the police said. The men parked the chair with the corpse in front of Pay-O-Matic at 763 Ninth Avenue, a check-cashing business that Mr. Cintron had patronized.

They went inside to present the check, but a clerk said Mr. Cintron would have to cash it himself, and asked where he was, the police said.

“He is outside,” Mr. O’Hare said, indicating the body in the chair, according to Mr. Browne.

The two men started to bring the chair inside, but it was too late.

The full article.

I really don’t have anything to add about it.

Posted in Current Events, Underbelly on by Jesse
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Lurching into 08

Evidently my super-secret plans to update this pseudo-blog over the holidays were far too secret, even for me. Plus ça change…

However, I came up with an idea for a short story that I need to flesh out. The “project title” is Groundhog Day, which isn’t a working title and has nothing to do with Bill Murray. But it’s a touchstone for me to remember my idea. Consider it a code-name.

This gives me a third or fourth story in queue. I did a very rough draft of a cute little modern fable last year during a long vacation, and also outlined two other stories of a similar nature. Not sure the outlines will hold up to scrutiny, but feels good to have a few ideas down. Of course, none of that has been fully developed since I’m still working on the second draft of the Western Horror Script (with Dev).

After the Western Horror I have a Modern Fable Script that needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. I think between them I may try to develop these short stories and see if I can do anything useful with ‘em.

In other news, work goes well. I’m in the middle of two giant projects, playing co-pilot on one and game designer on the other. Both should be interesting but face big challenges and are top-secret for now.

While I figure out if I can really get behind this blog thinger, if you haven’t, you should check out:

• Gameplaywright by the awesome duo of Jeff Tidball and Will Hindmarch (and apparently guests. Wonder what I have to do to guest-blog for ‘em. Probably write more regularly than I currently do….)
• Robin Laws wrote an interesting essay on the role and function of denouements in RPGs.
• And apropos of nothing (except that I’m starting realize how much I want Guitar Hero 3 to tide me over until Rock Band comes out for the Wii), check out Best Buy Bodhisttva by Julian Murdoch. I don’t know this dude, but I may have to check out more of his writing.

Posted in Current Events, Writing on January 8, 2008 by Jesse
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