Enjoyable weekend, packed with Christmas parties and other holiday related events. What a wonderful time of year.

I don't normally do this, but since this is hidden in the personal category, what the heck: Surely everyone has seen this by now (I believe it's over 2 years old now). Amazing amount of planning and work (not to mention cost) went into that. They went big, and superbly kept some big-bang in reserve until the end. Amazing.

This is quite a humorous video.

On the more disturbing side are these and these. Apparently this has been going on for a while: An extremely talented motorcyclist ("GhostRider". Apparently the name is based on a comic) drives through congested urban streets and highways at absolutely insane speeds, darting between unpredictable traffic, capturing it all with several bike mounted cameras (along with coordinated "crew"). Most of these take place in Sweden, and apparently this is something of a trend there. [One individual insightfully commented that this was all inspired by an infamous scene from the French movie The Rendezvous, in which a hired, and apparently still mysterious, driver goes insanely quickly through the streets of Paris one morning, endangering pedestrians, other traffic, and himself as he disregards traffic lights and controls. See for yourself].

While I don't want to support that sort of activity (go crazy on the track, just don't put innocent people in harm's way for your fun - I'd love to have the real DVDs of these, but I'm not going to financially support it as a pursuit), I am in awe of the talent, and I am absolutely disturbed by the complete fearlessness: In a number of situations a driver making a last minute lane change would have resulted in certain death.

Actually that points out one of "GhostRider's" key talents, which is reading traffic (very, very rapidly). It is remarkable how many people have no ability to do this at even a much more liesurely pace. You know - those people who always seem to be speeding, yet they keep passing you over and over and over again (because they keep screwing themselves into dumb positions, particularly when they try passing on the right on 6 lane highways).

I think these fascinate me for the same reason that I enjoy F1 - extreme engineering (the devices featured are extraordinary pieces of engineering and perfection), risk, and extraordinary skill. These aren't a bunch of kids in Honda Civics with loud exhausts - they're obviously professional drivers and bikers to some degree, and the confidence and skill is extraordinary.