9/11 20 years on

I had a very short stint as a stand up comic. That was the night of my very last gig. Tougher crowd than normal.

So he can easily wipe the jizz off it.

I have to say that while it was a horrific event for people in NY or who had family and friends involved in the area at the time I have always been hugely turned off by the complete emphasis on "How dare someone attack our super country" and not as much on the actual deaths and injuries.

I suppose if you live in other cities where there have been attacks it could feel a little closer to home but I haven't lived in many 'major' cities in this country so it feels more detached. Also the scale of deaths make it a big incident on a city scale but compared to the listed civilian casualties (364,000?) of the ensuing war on terror it was a drop in the ocean.

TLDR = memorials for the deaths are fully understandable but the horrible politicisation of it is unpleasant and probably does more harm then good.

Saw a good thread on Twitter earlier about the absolute insanity and craziness that followed 9/11, the first tweet is about Bin Laden's hollowed out mountain. I remember seeing that on the news and knowing it was bullshit at the time

I was playing Gran Turismo 3 when a friend called and told me to turn on the TV.

I was a few weeks away from term starting at university in Bournemouth at the time and was bored so decided to head to Electronics Boutique to buy Unreal Tournament for the Dreamcast. As I was walking out of the store, I saw the reports of the first plane hit on the display tv’s at the windows of Dixons across the high street. I popped in just to see what was happening and that was when the 2nd plane hit. Got straight on a bus home to watch Sky News. Didn’t play the game until a few months after that. I still have the copy with my receipt tucked away in the box somewhere with the time on the receipt at 13.59, just a few minutes before the 2nd plane hit.

hi there this is Magic 105.4 and we’ve got Jeffrey Osborne coming up with On the Wings of Love, but first here’s Jane with the news

I was in bed, woke up for work about 20:30. And my brother, sister and their partners were all sat in my Mam’s living room. They said I may be one of the only people who weren’t aware of what had happened. I stood watching live footage of New York, and then they showed the clips of the planes hitting the buildings.

Then they went back to panoramic shots of NYC. After about twenty minutes I asked where were the towers. As I asked, the shots cut away to the footage of them collapsing. I didn’t appreciate the magnitude of what was happening until that point.

I was working at EA at the time and due to the nature of my role back then, I didn’t start until the early afternoon. As I drove in I was hearing the beginning of it all on the radio and when I arrived at the big glass edifice in Chertsey that was EA back then everybody was just watching on the TVs across the office.
I felt I needed to start working but it quickly became clear that games were secondary that day.

... Better late then never???

Good reminder for the 23-year, 1-month, 24-day anniversary of 9/11.

Where I worked at the time our boss had the nous to realise what a significant moment it would be come in world history and sent us all home to watch it unfold on the TV.

11/4 is always an especially tough day to get through for me. The memories of that day just keep flooding back.

I visited ground zero a few years later (2005 I guess) and that was quite an eye opener.

Never forget the 9th of November.