December 3rd, 2013

Sir, is this your high-speed ferry?

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

The Victoria Clipper is a high-speed ferry that runs primarily between Seattle and Vancouver Victoria, BC. Early Sunday morning, a man scaled a fence and drove off with one of the boats. The issue was resolved without major incident and only minimal damage, which means that it is now open season on jokes! “Why yes, officer, this is my ferry. I must have left the registration in my other pants.” According to the vessel superindendent, “There is a joystick and he thought it was like an Xbox,” ending up driving the boat in circles. You can see the GPS track here (photo 19). Of course, if the thief had had a Kinect, he would have used the voice control. “Clipper, go to West Seattle. Clipper! Go. To. West. Seattle. CLIPPER!” (Waves arms frantically.) Or maybe the Clipper would have responded, “Hi, I’m Clipper! It looks like you’re trying to go to West Seattle. I can help you with this. Is this a personal trip or a business trip?”

Even the Seattle Police Department joined in the festivities, using a popular hashtag for the incident.

Category
Old New Thing
Topics
Non-Computer

Author

Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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