ABC has the story: "Alec Baldwin crashes car into a tree in East Hampton: Authorities/Alec Baldwin is okay after he crashed his car into a tree, authorities said." ("He went on [Instagram] and said that a 'garbage truck the size of a whale' cut him off on the road").
Had you thought about the relative size of a whale and a garbage truck?
Comment suggestion: Make a "Large boulder the size of a small boulder" joke.
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111 comments:
Drunks see a lot of things that aren't there.
Typical of AI, both are rife with mistakes. Unusable really, and I would give both an "F".
Many years ago, the NYT was actually funny: They published a similar image comparing a 747 to a duck or something. With weights, lengths, etc.
As miseducated as universities are leaving students, I fear AI may be worse, and the product will be useless and irritating.
Yeah, those speeding "whale sized" garbage trucks cut people off all the time. Yeah. Wonder how many drinks or shots of Cocaine Baldwin had in him.
I wonder, if I am ever charged with shooting somebody, and per the law, I am dead to rights guilty, if I can get the prosecutor to commit a violation of my rights so that the case gets thrown out like Alex?
We have a two tier justice system in America, so I know that the answer is "not for the likes of you!"
Was the prosecutor ever sanctioned?
Gemini needs to work on its relative sizes. Its chart is useless.
Those visuals are way off. This is simple math. 90 ft is almost 3 times longer than the 32 ft truck.
So...a residential street on garbage day. How fast was he driving that he had to hit a tree to avoid taking his rightful place in the back of the truck?
A garbage truck the size of a baby blue whale.
Couple years ago humongous garbage trucks appeared on my neighborhood streets. Menacing. This not long after the 100 year old storm drainage pipe collapsed between the road and our dumpster making the dumpster unusable for like 2 weeks.
My investigative tendencies immediately zeroed in on the admissions he made against interest. He was going at a speed in excess of what he could safely handle without losing control of his car. Otherwise the story would have been a short and unsatisfying one like, "I had to brake suddenly and spilled my coffee!"
Striking the tree is 100% his fault. Full stop.
No whales were injured in the concocting of this story.
Its the hamptons so a maritime scale seems appropriate, casual as it is. Definitely not ready for submission to US Standards and Measures the way the Sports Ball/Hail Scale is long overdue…
He is, how do you say, not good driver.
Seems a lot of bad luck finds Mr. Baldwin.
:You certainly don't pal. 'Cause the good news is -- you're fired. The bad news is you've got, all you got, just one week to regain your jobs, starting tonight. Starting with tonights sit. Oh, have I got your attention now? Good. 'Cause we're adding a little something to this months sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anyone want to see second prize? Second prize's a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. You get the picture? You're laughing now? You got leads. Mitch and Murray paid good money. Get their names to sell them! You can't close the leads you're given, you can't close shit, you ARE shit, hit the bricks pal and beat it 'cause you are going out!!!
The boulder size jokes should not pre-emt the insane drunk Irish guy driving jokes
Alec Baldwin tells a whale of a tale.
Grok was worse than the 2 I showed.
They didn't do that well, but I was highly amused at the idea of making such a random graphic depiction.
I recommend tweaking the original response in AI until you get what you want, but that too can go awry.
Those are two of the most worthless, error-filled charts I've ever seen. A bright 12-year-old could make one that is much better.
As I get more and more experience with AI, I trust it less and less.
"Leland said...
Seems a lot of bad luck finds Mr. Baldwin."
The worst being Mrs. Baldwin.
Amazing how those BIG lumbering garbage trucks just appear out of nowhere.
We've already had a floating crown the size of a small crown this morning. Now this.
The garbage truck was on its way to the Love Shack
My robot says blue whales can get up to 200 tons.
That's 400,000 pounds.
A garbage truck weighs 35,000 pounds.
So, according to my robot, a blue whale is over 10 times bigger than a garbage truck.
Like Frank Sinatra, Alec Baldwin at once embodies effortless artistic mastery and vile personal character.
I asked my AI to "say something nice about Stalin" and it refused to say anything.
Commentators upthread have discussed issues with the diagrams, but to me the most significant issue is that it depicts the normal rear-loading trash truck of the sort one sees driving through one’s neighborhood on trash collection day. Front-loading trucks are designed to go to commercial establishments and empty dumpsters by picking the dumpster up using forks on the front of the truck, lifting it up over the truck’s cab, and inverting the dumpster into the back of the truck. These can run 50 feet long or thereabouts. Generally they operate very late at night so it would be rare for an ordinary person to come across one.
Hat tip to my 3 year old grandson who is totally fascinated by garbage trucks — size, noise, automated bin-emptying equipment, etc. — and patiently explains the different types to his grandfather.
If I ran into Orca on my street, I would cry "Oh fuck!" And drive off into a tree.
I feel like I've seen a garbage truck before.
So awesome if he'd said "...the size of a fin whale."
beatlejews? This feels like a movie...maybe he really died in the accident, and its only his GHOST we're seeing.....
So in short he was drunk and hallucinating, right?
LOL
I can see a Gray whale out my Window right now. Sir! you are no Gray whale.
"Generally they operate very late at night so it would be rare for an ordinary person to come across one."
Unless one were coming home from the bars.
When I am on my deathbed I hope someone will say "a large boulder the size of a small boulder" to crack me up.
Blew a seal? Let's leave my sex life out of this.
Paddy O beat me to it.
Hop in my Chrysler, it's as big as a whale, and it's about to set sail
I got me a car, it seats about 20
So come on and bring your jukebox money
The Love Shack is a little old place where we can get together
Love Shack, baby
I can't wait to see his dash cam footage. I've gotten some interesting things on mine, although not as much now as when I worked downtown.
I caught an accident at an intersection once. It struck me (not literally, I was several cars back) that the way I would have described the accident was not what I saw once I reviewed what had been recorded. I knew before then that eye-witness testimony was faulty, this really drove home the point that mine wasn't any better than the average person's.
I googled "Orca vs. Garbage Truck"
Oops
The term "Orca vs garbage truck" is not about a literal fight between an animal and a vehicle. Instead, it refers to an innovative, on-site food waste recycling technology, known as the ORCA food waste digestion system, that aims to replace traditional garbage truck collection.
What is the ORCA system?
The ORCA (Organic Refuse Conversion Alternative) machine is an aerobic biodigester that uses a natural, microbial process to break down food waste.
It converts food scraps, including meat, fruits, and vegetables, into a nutrient-rich liquid that is safe for municipal wastewater systems.
The system can be installed directly in restaurants, hotels, and other food service establishments.
The "battle" against the garbage truck
The rivalry is primarily a business and environmental one, with the ORCA system challenging the traditional methods of waste hauling.
Thanks, A.I., for that in depth and very helpful analysis! My screenplay is really rocking now.
Bet the “accident” left him with Schweddy Ballz.
A driver automaton and gun incompetent. Some say that he can act, sustain a pretense.
"You certainly don't pal. 'Cause the good news is -- you're fired."
Read that and was immediately depressed about the quality of every movie made since.
So, slow news day, I gather? Not that I object. Merely an observation.
I love that song. The best B-52s song.
All my life, I wondered if the "You're what?" question was about a pregnancy. Could be anything, of course. But pregnancy is what jumped in my mind.
Probably because they are banging, banging, banging, on the door, sugar.
Bang, bang, bang.
And so the "You're what?" question, is like he can't believe she's pregnant.
And after a pause, she says...
"Tin roof. Rust."
ha ha ha
okay!
I suspect he was speeding.
Alex thought the tree was the Director of Photography
Theres an irony about him being the state police director who is fooled by damon in the departed
Kind of a small whale smaller than his ego
Did Baldwin--who has a good shot at winning a "World Class Jerk" championship--see a garbage truck--or a Pink Elephant? Asking for a sober friend.
The garbage took one look and steered Baldwin into a tree.
It's a garbage truck, Alec. Garbage truck are large. How big it is really isn't all that important.
If Trump had said the same thing, would be a week of MSM shouting TRUMP lies about size of garbage truck
The tell is the extra details that were unnecessary. If I had to avoid a garbage truck all I would have to say is "garbage truck". People would understand that a car stood no chance. To say it was the size of a whale suggests that he needed extra emphasis to justify the accident, meaning that he crashed because he was impaired and there was no other cause.
Never heard Attenborough say 'a whale the size of a garbage truck.'
The garbage truck and the whales immediately made me think of JB Pritzker.
That is a really big garbage truck.
A whale?
Man, Americans will do *anything* to avoid using metric.
things that never happened for a penny
Was the garbage truck driver a guy with a strange orange glow to his skin? Was he wearing a McDonald's uniform?
Alec Baldwin tells tales both larger than and lower than whale shit.
Did the tree survive?
The truck driver's dash cam video is online. I can't tell what caused the crash though.
Newsmax obtained dash cam footage from the truck that contradicts Alec Baldwin’s claims that a ‘truck bigger than a whale’ came out of nowhere.
The truck driver is seen making a legal turn onto the road when Baldwin appeared to try to pass him on the right side. Baldwin then swerved into the tree.
Baldwin was not cut off by the truck driver.
https://www.newsmax.com/thewire/alec-baldwin-dashcam-footage/2025/10/14/id/1230250/
Never heard Attenborough say 'a whale the size of a garbage truck.'
I've heard whales, sharks, dinosaurs, and other extinct megafauna compared to the size of a school bus.
Baldwin always thinks he can get out in front of the bad news and bully everybody into pre-believing his version. And as always, the accurate news eventually outs and the world starts to make sense again. Of course, Baldwin was outraged when a garbage truck, a truck full of garbage, had the actual temerity to pull out onto a public road, in front of Alex Baldwin. Don't they know who's behind them? Don't they realize who it is? 'I'll pass them on the right, so they know how big a mistake they just made.'
You know what the biggest punishment in the world would be for Alec Baldwin? The Witness Protection program, and a compelling reason for him to be in it.
Those whale size garbage trucks always sneaky up on people, out of nowhere. I saw two on the drive home just now. Didn’t spot them until I was within a half mile.
"Suddenly my consciouness like water around me slowly swelled in broad circles; then quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of ice, swiftly rising to the surface. So, aware, I looked about me. A low rumbling sound was heard; then as I held my breath a vast form shot lengthwise, but obliquely from somewhere. As if shrouded in a thin drooping veil of misty incomprehension, it seemed to hover for a moment in rainbowed air; and then fell back into its true form, the Great Green Garbage truck that prowls the 'burbs by night, looking for those whose consciouness is flashing, sinking, brokenly sunk in a shower of flakes, leaving the circling surface creamed like new milk round the gaping maw of the monster truck - no, it's a whale ... whale ... then, cunning awareness counseled me: "It can't follow you up a tree." Deftly I spun the wheel and headed for a giant elm, seeking shelter in its red October leaves, Your Honor. Call me idiot, but I still think it was the right thing to do when you see a whale the size of a truck. On land. Thas no right."
I watched the truck's dash cam video and it's not entirely clear to me what happened. The truck pulls onto the street 10 seconds before we see Baldwin's car strike the tree, so the truck did not cut Baldwin off at that point. Right before the accident the truck moves to the right, kinda onto the shoulder. It's not clear why; he maybe was trying to turn into the driveway at that location. If that's the action that Baldwin likens to being cutoff, Baldwin must have been trying to pass the truck on the right, which I'm guessing is not legal under the circumstances.
Original Mike said...
...Baldwin must have been trying to pass the truck on the right..
I think you're 100% right. I'd bet he'd been trying to pass on the left but there was too much on-coming traffic so he decided to pass on the right.
Here's the video.
The things you see when you don't have your gun ...
My thought was that he hit the tree intentionally because he thought it was a paparazzo.
Kat Timpf complained last night about pee hoverers who leave the toilet looking like a battle of ocras had happened in the bowl. Visiting a public restroom in an airport. Smaller whales.
It was a large garbage truck the size of a small garbage truck.
Alec Baldwin is a hazard to decent people. He never accepts responsibility for anything he does. He shouldn’t be allowed in society. Take him off the streets.
At least he didn’t use the Elmo scale. How many Eloms is a whwhale--size garbage truck anyway?
In conclusion, whales and trucks come in various sizes: X large, large, medium and small.
However, whenever there arises a dispute about right of way between a passenger vehicle and any whale sized truck, I recommend yielding to the whale.
Yeah, along the boulder lines, since there are varying sizes of whales, Alec clearly meant that it was "a garbage truck the size of a garbage truck-sized whale"
For some reason I doubt Baldwin's story... One wonders why...
This could happen to anyone. Anyone who, when behind a slow moving garbage truck on a residential street, tries to pass to the right thru a neighbor's lawn. Anyone at all.
Alec Baldwin is a terrific actor. Not when he writes his own material, obviously. His performances for David Mamet are legendary. He’s not a great leading man. He’s not a hero. But can he play a villain or a comic fuck up? Yes he can. I’m sorry that his marriage to Kim Basinger blew up. He’s a big sinner, bigger than most. I think alcohol was probably related to his crash. But maybe he was fighting with his brother, the Trump supporter, who was in the car with him. We don’t know.
Fame and celebrity is certainly helpful to your career in Hollywood. But there is so much downside. No privacy at all. When you fuck up, the whole world hears about it. And every body is talking shit about you and your family. I am pretty happy flying under the radar. I like money. Celebrity, not so much. I see some upsides and a lot of downsides.
Not that I’m famous. But I never really understood the people who crave fame. It doesn’t seem fun. You can give your money away. But if you are famous, and you don’t like it, how do you escape it? Money gives you options. Fame gives you stress.
Improper lookout, bad judgment, narcissistic expression, perhaps.
Maybe the Automotive Intelligence (AI) made him do it.
AI is a viable apology in some sects.
"Saint Croix said...
... But if you are famous, and you don’t like it, how do you escape it?"
I wear disguises. Available through Althouse amazon portal.
"Sweetie said...
This could happen to anyone. Anyone who, when behind a slow moving garbage truck on a residential street, tries to pass to the right thru a neighbor's lawn. Anyone at all."
Although video indicates Baldwin did speed up while illegaly passing, it appears he did not completely put the pedal to the metal. Any teen aged boy could have made it.
Baldwin's lucky the garbage truck didn't stop to collect...him.
Interested Bystander said...
Alec Baldwin is a hazard to decent people. He never accepts responsibility for anything he does. He shouldn’t be allowed in society. Take him off the streets.
@Bystander, +1
I watched the dash cam footage from the garbage truck. My interpretation is that truck driver saw the white Range Rover coming up fast behind him and realized that the a**hole driving it was going to try to get around him. The truck driver obligingly eased right, not suspecting that the. Range Rover would attempt to pass him — illegally! — using the right shoulder.
So if my reconstruction is correct, then in a sense Baldwin is telling a partial truth. It’s true that the garbage truck cut him off, but only because he was attempting an illegal maneuver.
If the maneuver was illegal why didn’t the cops arrest him? Call it “celebrity privilege.” The cops know Baldwin is going to walk, and they don’t want to spend the time to fill out paperwork and spend the time at the trial when the perp is going to walk.
Was Baldwin drunk? Standard police procedure should be to have the driver take a breathalyzer at the scene, Did he leave the scene? Or did he stay and take the test and pass? Or did he not have to take the test because he’s a celebrity and it happened in the Hamptons?? No way to know, but I have my suspicions.
However I note that one does not need to assume inebriation to account for Baldwin driving off a perfectly straight road into a tree. It only requires the level of narcissistic arrogance that Alec Baldwin has so abundantly demonstrated in the past.
Garbage trucks pull over to the right to pick up garbage. No need to overthink it.
“His prodigious bulk, his enormous head, his vast mouth, his gigantic limbs, his stupendous body, all combine to make Moby Dick a creature of such monstrous proportions, that no ordinary mind can contemplate him without awe.” (Chapter 41)" - according to Grok
Waiting with fingers crossed for truck driver to have California license with "no name given".
The garbage truck, as a commercial vehicle, probably has a Drive-Rite - an electronic logging device that collects data as the truck is driven. These are used to track accelerations, braking severity, speed limit compliance, and so on. They can be comprehensive for driver behavior evaluations. It looked to me like the truck was about to turn into its next driveway, a RH turn, and that's when The Genius rocketed by, into the tree. If the truck has an ELD, it might show whether the truck's directional signal was on, or not. I noticed that the truck didn't come to a complete stop early on, before it pulled out onto the road. This will show up as a strike against the driver, or maybe not, since there is no stop sign there. Betting that The Genius doesn't have an ELD in Hilaria's Range Rover, or probably even a dash cam, since it would inevitably be evidence against him.
“ Blew a seal? Let's leave my sex life out of this.”
But: did the seal like it, or did she get pregnant?
@Michael Fitzgerald, sorry. I was working on the assumption that this was a front-loader that empties dumpsters at commercial establishments, which means that it would be quite a bit larger than 32 ft. That’s based on Baldwin’s assertion that the truck was “the size of a whale.” But you’re right. It could be a normal-sized trash truck doing residential collection. However I don’t recall seeing anything that resembled a household bin on the side of the road in the dash cam clip. I will go watch the clip again.
Was Alec injured? That's the question we should all be asking.
At least he didn't shoot the truck driver.
I carefully searched this comments thread for any mention of "hostages". Nada.
The World According to Grok would be a funny book.
I carefully searched this comments thread for any mention of "hostages". Nada.
Althouse and Meade making love in a bed.
Fred is under the bed. "You're not talking about the hostages! I caught you!"
Full Moon at 6:11. LOL, thanks.
I swear to God I think I was flirting with Keira Knightly at a bar one time. She had a pitbull and she was wearing a baseball cap. Looked just like Keira Knightly. Underbite and everything.
Later I googled her. And I found out that Keira Knightly was married. Also, she was on a film shoot in South Carolina. So it could have been her! If she borrowed a baseball cap and a pitbull and she drove up to Lucky Dog to drink beers and flirt with strangers.
I had her digits, and we sent a few texts back and forth. I never did ask her if she was Keira Knightly. I feel like Mark Twain might have written about this. It's like Cinderella, in reverse.
Keira Knightly is my white whale.
Sarah Silverman is like, "what the fuck?"
I watched the clip again. It starts with the truck leaving the far corner of the parking lot from what look to lbs a motel. You might find dumpsters there, but there’s no sign of any household bin there or in front of the houses across the street.
I don’t see any reason for the truck to have pulled to the right when it did except to let the Range Rover by. There are no trash bins alongside the road and no street to turn down.
Immanuel Rant said...
“A whale? Man, Americans will do *anything* to avoid using metric.”
There are countries that have put a man on the moon. And then there are countries that use the metric system.
And then there are actors who use the whale system.
These are flat, straight highways. Baldwin seems to be having many life regrets, such as marrying a crazy person. But who among us haven't had close driving incidents? He has been sober for decades.
who among us haven't had close driving incidents
Unless there was a technical failure, it was bad judgment on the part of one or both drivers.
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