I didn't get pictures, damnitall. I always forget I have a camera--I'd make a lousy photojournalist.
Anyway, I was sitting here calmly doing webmastering stuff, eyes only half shut from the pollen, cat dozing peacefully atop my monitor. Then, at 12:05pm, BLAM! The house shakes, the cat jumps a foot, the dog starts barking and barking. "Crap," thought I, "yet another accident."
As my one or two regular readers know, I live on Strawberry Hill Avenue in Norwalk, CT. SHA is a two-lane residential street, speed limit of 25mph, with three schools on or adjacent to it. I was rear-ended turning into my driveway. Last fall there was a fatal accident on the corner of SHA and Tierney, which is just past spitting distance from our house. And these are just two of many, many crashes on this allegedly residential street.
Now I knew from the sound of the crash that there was no way the crasher was going 25mph.
Went out to see what was what, ready to render assistance, call 911 if needed. Fortunately there were a couple of good sammies out there on cellphones and directing traffic and they told me they didn't need anything, thanks. So I just stayed out of the way, watching.
It looked like the crashee was trying to making a left turn into Heather Lane when the crasher slammed into crashee so hard the crashee's car fell apart. The back half of his car completely detached and in the road -- a good view of the inside of the trunk.
The crasher's windshield was a spiderweb -- I couldn't see the front. Crashee was trapped in his car; crasher was sitting dazed on the stone wall next to the road. Eventually, a firetruck arrived and they got busy throwing sand over the gas and coolant all over the road. Then the cops showed up, the fire chief, and finally, an ambulance. They pried the crashee out of his car and took him away on a backboard. Crasher climbed into the ambulance assisted by the paramedics. Crasher was probably doing something stupid like dialing her cellphone instead of noticing that they guy in front of her stopped to turn.
What was most annoying about it all was that the people trying to get by the accident were speeding along the shoulder -- even with the accident and cops right there, they didn't slow down. And the cops didn't do anything about it.
We need the traffic light at Tierney & SHA. A neighbor figures, along with me, that it will take a kid getting hit before the city actually deals with the problem.
So that shot 30 minutes out of the middle of my day.
HARRY'S CREATOR RELAUNCHES HER WEBSITE
J.K.Rowling Official Site - Harry Potter and more launched recently. It's interesting, mostly Flash, but I didn't spend much time there because her anal designer used that microfont that's impossible to read. One of these days I'll go back and look at the text-only version. We're looking forward to the latest movie--so we're playing hooky next Friday. (And we're playing hookie tomorrow afternoon, actually, to go see "The Day After Tomorrow.")
XP PRO UPGRADE
sucks. So far, it's been agonizing. I still haven't gotten my internet connection back on, and I can't very easily upgrade any of the multitude of drivers that need upgrading until I get the stupid connection working. Plug and play my ass. For $180, I want the upgrade to be painless. Yeah, right.