The last poster wins

[billyro]

I don't know if anyone's interested, but Google reminded me that Ayrton Senna would have turned 54 today, along with the 20th anniversary of his death. I doubt it's of interest to anyone, but I did feel compelled to mark it.

 

 

 

He was my hero as a child. I inherit my passion for cars from my parents, and Formula 1 was always the family sport. This would have been early '90s, and Formula 1 was in an incredible era. I would describe it as a house of cards; it was incredibly successful, with huge popularity and sponsorship. The cars were at their absolute zenith, and everything on the surface suggested a golden age. Unfortunately, this came at the cost of safety; the cars were built for pure speed and spectacle, no matter what that cost the driver. Inevitably something horrible was going to happen, and I think that just added to the drama.

 

Among all this you had Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, who were two of the most gifted racing drivers who ever lived. They were both immensely skilled, but their temperaments were polar opposites. They certainly didn't get along, and this eventually blew out into a very dangerous rivalry. The FIA was delighted of course; either you were a Prost or Senna fan, and the tribalism just increased the sport's profile. I was the latter; Senna was what I everything I aspired to be: intelligent, honest, and somewhat humble. He was also the best living racing driver in the world at the time.

 

And then like any house of cards, F1 collapsed. At Imola(ironically one of my favourite tracks) in 1994 the inevitable tragedy happened; three horrific accidents in one weekend claimed the lives of both Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzemberger, and left Rubens Barrichello badly injured. I still remember seeing it; that weekend changed everything for the sport, and a lot of fans. As it happened F1 only barely survived, and needed more than a decade to recover.

The one thing we do have to be thankful for, is that following Senna's death, the FIA(motoring governing body) appointing his close friend Sid Watkins to try and find out just what had gone wrong. The result was a safety initiative that spread from Formula 1 all the way down to modern civilian cars. Since 1994 no F1 driver has died as a result of an accident, and since 2012 the worst injury has been a single mild concussion. The tech which was created can be found in any car today.

 

 

 

They made a movie about that, didn't they? I haven't seen it and I can't remember the title but I think that was about the rivalry and racing. They had that Aussie guy in it (I really am terrible with names) I'm pretty sure.

 

 

Well, today was supposed to be a nice day, my wife didn't have to go anywhere and we decided we should just drive around with a bike and catch a movie in a downtown theater afterwards like we did back when we were dating, it's been a while since we last did that. Unfortunately, our plans went to s**t the very same morning when I ended up breaking my brother's arm and a few of his ribs. He's actually lucky he behaved after that so I didn't break anything else. And yeah, I had a very good reason for that.

 

You see, I'm the kind of guy that can tolerate all sorts of people that do all sorts of stuff, but racists and guys who disrespect women are two kinds of people I despise and don't want anywhere near me. My brother, well, he's both, and he decided to demonstrate his medieval behavior by first yelling at my wife and then he physically attacked her. When he pushed her and raised his hand to hit her I just snapped, and I swear to god if he were to indeed hit her, I would've killed him without a second thought.

 

The things he said to her are... disgusting, to say the least. He started yelling how "she shouldn't talk like this to a man unless she wants a beating" and how "he won't be ordered around by a filthy immigrant" among other things, I really don't want to write the rest and I wish I could forget all of it actually. She only told him that he should knock cause he can't just barge into our house like he owns it, nothing even remotely aggressive enough to cause that kind of response.

 

And after all that, I get yelled at by some of my own damn family members for hurting him cause he's family. Well what the hell was I supposed to do then, just stand there and do nothing cause he's my brother? To let him yell at my wife, or insult her, or even worse, hit her, in my own damn house? Stupid son of a b***h got what he deserved, and I don't regret what I did one bit, I actually enjoyed it.

 

Rewinding back a year, this kind of behavior is why I severed all contacts with a large portion of my family back then, they all act like cavemen. They treat women like garbage, those who are not born in here get the same treatment, and god forbid if a person has different skin color, then they get openly insulted. That kind of behavior is something I can't stand, it's revolting and disgusting, and there are a lot of idiots around here that act exactly the same. It's like a pile of morons thrown into a bunch.

 

I wish I could continue ranting and say what I think of all of them but I'm tired, my head hurts badly and I really feel like crap. Now I just want to have a beer and go to sleep.

 

I don't blame you. Some people need to be put in their place, even if they are family.

 

 

 

 

Argh, I've finished all 3 of my images for that assignment, but now I have to write 500 words about what they represent. Normally, that would be a piece of cake, but my brain doesn't feel like it today. :pinch:

Edited March 21, 2014 by billyro

[Vindekarr]

 

They made a movie about that, didn't they? I haven't seen it and I can't remember the title but I think that was about the rivalry and racing. They had that Aussie guy in it (I really am terrible with names) I'm pretty sure.

 

They did, it's called Senna. The one you're thinking of is a different one, called Rush. Rush is a dramatisation of an earlier F1 rivalry between James Hunt and Nicki Lauda; it's the only F1 film I'd recommend to a general audience. Rush is a lot fun, and it's a movie at heart. It's got special effects, a plot, and characters. Senna is a biography; it's a lot better made, but it's non-fiction. There's no dramatisation, it's just a retelling of his life story. That being said, I would recommend Senna to any F1 fan; it's beautifully made, and quite unique.

 

The Senna documentary is quite special to watch, because none of it was deliberately filmed for the movie. The whole thing is created by artfully connecting various scraps of film, interview and audio. There isn't even a narrator; the narration comes from surviving audio clips from people involved in the sport at the time. It shouldn't work, but it does. Beautifully. That being said, it's a hardcore F1 fan film, so I wouldn't recommend it unless you're genuinely interested-you won't find much to enjoy otherwise.

 

As a final note, Rush also gets some special praise from me. To film it, they needed Formula 1 cars, and cars from a specific era(F1 cars evolve at a rampant rate) To do this, they chose to "adopt" a number of dilapidated, rusting wrecks and restore them to race-ready condition. They could have easily just rented working cars, but the film crew deliberately chose to "rescue" these six cars. I really value that; classic F1 cars are among the rarest cars on earth, usually only two or three ever made, so every single one is almost unique.

[Thor.]

try to guess what other fan cars came of this idea.

 

Edited March 21, 2014 by Thor.

[billyro]

 

 

They made a movie about that, didn't they? I haven't seen it and I can't remember the title but I think that was about the rivalry and racing. They had that Aussie guy in it (I really am terrible with names) I'm pretty sure.

 

They did, it's called Senna. The one you're thinking of is a different one, called Rush. Rush is a dramatisation of an earlier F1 rivalry between James Hunt and Nicki Lauda; it's the only F1 film I'd recommend to a general audience. Rush is a lot fun, and it's a movie at heart. It's got special effects, a plot, and characters.

 

I heard that it was really good, but I've just never got around to watching it. I think it's not showing in cinemas any more, but I haven't been to one in many months so I'm not sure.

 

 

Senna is a biography; it's a lot better made, but it's non-fiction. There's no dramatisation, it's just a retelling of his life story. That being said, I would recommend Senna to any F1 fan; it's beautifully made, and quite unique.

 

The Senna documentary is quite special to watch, because none of it was deliberately filmed for the movie. The whole thing is created by artfully connecting various scraps of film, interview and audio. There isn't even a narrator; the narration comes from surviving audio clips from people involved in the sport at the time. It shouldn't work, but it does. Beautifully. That being said, it's a hardcore F1 fan film, so I wouldn't recommend it unless you're genuinely interested-you won't find much to enjoy otherwise.

 

Yeah, I haven't really been interested in racing because I haven't seen any in-person before. All I've seen is that of the TV, and the commentators make it so boring...

 

I might pass on Senna. Rush sounds more like what I'd watch.

[Vindekarr]

I might pass on Senna. Rush sounds more like what I'd watch.

 

 

Rush isn't the best film I've ever seen, but it's very entertaining and the cast is brilliant. Chris Hemsworth was a perfect choice for James Hunt, and Daniel Bruhl is actually friends with the real Nick Lauda(who he plays). On the car front, it's set in 1976-Formula 1's zenith, and the cars in the film actually raced in the '76 season. I won't spoil the plot, but it's a dramatisation of what happened in the real '76 season, which made Nicki Lauda into the legend he is today.

 

Random trivia: If Ayrton Senna was the most talented F1 driver, Nicki Lauda was the smartest. After his retirement he became a highly successful businessman, and is currently the chairman of the Mercedes-Benz F1 team.

Edited March 21, 2014 by Vindekarr

[billyro]

Yeah, I'll have to watch it one day.

 

 

Anyway, I'm thinking about writing up a story. I've had ideas running rampart in my head for a few days and I've been compiling them, so I might give it a shot soon. Hopefully I can stick with it long enough to get somewhere - I usually give up around the third of fourth chapter when I try writing stories. Ah well, maybe one day I'll have the patience, but until then, I'll keep trying.

 

Perhaps I'll start once my assignment is out of the way...

[Vindekarr]

My advice, go for it. Writing is a lot of fun, and if you've got an idea there's no reason not to put it on paper. My other advice, don't be afraid to draw on other writer's work for references. The best word of advice I ever got in high-school drama class was "Nothing in literature is original. If you can imagine it, someone's tried it before, don't be ashamed about drawing inspiration."

[billyro]

Oh good, I've imagined a lot of things that have drawn inspiration from other books/movies/games, and I've been trying to change them enough to be adequately different but it's still a bit obvious. :tongue:

 

Ah well.

 

 

EDIT: Lol, some guy just got banned for having a username "POOPOOPOOPOOPOO". :hurr:

Edited March 21, 2014 by billyro

[Werne]

Lol, some guy just got banned for having a username "POOPOOPOOPOOPOO".

You know, sometimes I wish I used "Explosive Diarrhea" as my username. :laugh:

 

 

 

EDIT: Hah, new game engines are indeed scaling across eight cores and more, I knew buying an unlocked octa-core FX was a good decision. :D

Edited March 21, 2014 by Werne

[K00L]

My youngest brother has destroyed approximately $400 worth of Xbox controllers.
He broke eight, two of which were mine. And he didn't have to buy me new ones, I had to.

Actually holy s#*!. Nine. I forgot his glowing one.

He doesn't like losing.