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Hailstone - Master Upload List
"Master Upload List"
"This is not a music rotation list or journal. This is an entry in my private journal listing recent uploads that I have posted to upload communities. All of these uploads are via Megaupload. PVs whose accompanying image is broken (a red X) have recently expired and are being reuploaded. PVs are arranged according to artist with no real organization within those groupings. Please comment if you download something. "

And from the Bad Movies Yahoo Group:

Air Ducts; a rant.

Or: Why do buildings even bother to have hallways?

Among the many things I've learned over the years from Hollywood movies is this important fact; the best way to navigate your way through any building, especially an unfamiliar one, is through the air conditioning ducts.

This fact might not otherwise be apparent to the average person. I myself have wandered the hallways of unfamiliar buildings searching with mounting frustration, trying to find a particular office before becoming late for an appointment. This despite the fact that the floor is well laid out with clearly labeled offices, and signs pointing out the direction to go for a certain range of suite numbers, etc.

Not so when you travel via air duct! As anyone who's seen almost any action flick knows, once you get into the air ducts, you can find the room you are seeking in a matter of seconds. Are there signs with arrows inside the air ducts? No! Once in an air duct, people just *know* where to go. It's amazing. There are no signs, in fact there are no points of reference whatsoever. You're essentially inside a featureless maze.

And how do you get in there? Why, you simply pop off nearest convenient vent grill in whatever room you happen to be in; they snap right out. Sometimes they are even hinged like a door! This is the point where my confusion starts. They must have very different building codes in LA. In neighboring OC, I've never seen an air grill that didn't require a screwdriver to remove. Nor have I seen one with a hinge, which is really puzzling. Why is there not a hinge on something that's clearly expected to function as a door?

Leaving that behind, we come to my second point of confusion. I've never been in a room smaller than an auditorium that had an air conditioning vent I could fit anything larger than one arm into. The typical AC grill around here seems to be about 6 x 12 inches. Again, very different building codes up in Hollywood. Apparently that town requires even a tiny custodian closet to have an AC duct that a muscle-bound action star can hop into with ease. I recon we're talkingabout 2 foot by 3 foot, minimum.

Likewise for the ductwork. Oh, I've been in large office building and seen some huge central ducts in the HVAC equipment rooms. Often the duct literally has a door in the side of it, so service personnel can get inside the thing. Likewise have seen ducts in the ceilings that look like you could crawl thru them. But then these usually fan out to smaller ducts to feed the vents. You don't need a 2'x3' duct run to a 6"x12" vent.

Another thing… Ever seen the inside of an air conditioning duct? You know that fine, hard to wash off, soot-like dust that you get all over your fingers if you barely touch an air conditioning grill? Guess what's all over the inside of those ducts? They are BLACK with that super fine dirt that's too small for the filters to remove. If you could ever fit your ass into an AC duct, you would come out looking like a chimney sweep. So I'm figuring, the buildings depicted in these action movies must all be really, really new buildings. I'm thinking like, a week at most. The shinny, mirror-like duct insides look like a NASA clean room. Amazing.

As side note, at this point I'm wondering; Ducts are so clean and easy to navigate, why not make the whole building interior out of ductwork? None of this drywall and carpeting business, shiny galvanized steel floors, ceilings and walls is clearly the way to go.

Lastly there is the matter of stealth. Your average duct-crawling action scene usually involves the hero making an escape from imprisonment, or a surprise attack upon the bad guyz. Now, I must admit that I've never crawled through an AC duct (it's true!), but I have handled sheet metal before. And I happen to know that the slightest flexing of the stuff yields a huge sonic racket. You might as well be banging on a drum. I'm not clear on how 200 pounds or so of action star is able to silently scoot over many yards of sheet metal duct without a most horrific cacophony of banging metal sounds. Again, I can only assume vastly different building codes are involved.

That's all for now kids.
The next installment: The Universal Walkie-Talkie. Capable of simultaneous communication with all radio services including building maintenance, CB truckers, ham radio, police dispatch, fire and rescue, news reporters, aviation, marine, and possibly flying saucers. The 9/11 Commission will want to know about this device!

-psylent larry