Someone didn't cancel their plans for the day.

"Fuck it, Dude. Let's go bowling."

7 10 splits don't melt wooden pins

The event was used as an excuse to take away more of our freedoms. Like the War on Drugs.
We are running out of things to take. What will be demanded when the well runs dry?
- Freedom of thought.

"dear god, what have I done!?"

In case anyone wants to know
- Bill seems like a good guy. I read the article hoping that he would mention that he has a brother called Tom.
- Quite interesting seeing how everyone reacted at the time.
  
  When I woke up to the news, my first thought was "oh great, that's 24/7 news coverage for the next month at least. We're not going to stop hearing about this for years"
  Might have underestimated things a bit.
  Definitely wasn't expecting 25 years of what feels like constant coverage, infinite conspiracy theories, the invasion of multiple countries, and the death of literally tens (hundreds??) of thousands of people.
  Also wasn't expecting just how much of an impact it had on security - and not just at airports. We work at the airport and access is such a major pain in the butt now, but even going to ports or train stations has this constant fear that a bloke carting a bag of tools is there to do some terrorism instead of the far more reasonable expectation that maybe they're here to do that job we requested. It's been a quarter of a decade ffs.
  "We can't let the terrorists win" was the catch cry, but man they kicked our collective arses and are still doing so.

And, the planes hit at 9 in the morning, it’s not like he had time to bowl and then the planes hit. This guy was playing while the rest of the country was glued to their televisions.
- The alley was probably nice and quiet, he could focus on his game.
- My entire school knew within minutes of the second plane. There’s no fucking way he left the house that day and didn’t know.
- It isn't impossible that he didn't know.
  Many people don't listen to the radio or watch TV. No smart phones.
  edit = I saw the story [comment above] and the guy was just trying to be normal. I can respect his choice.
  
  Yeah, but I feel like if you interacted with anyone you'd know something was up, if they don't just tell you. Hell, if the bowling alley had TVs they were probably all on the news. Maybe if he was at home I'd believe he didn't know, but not out somewhere where you have to interact with other people.
- He was in a league and the games weren't cancelled
- Read the article. It's short.
  
  Buddy what article? It's a shitter screenshot.
- gotta get catharsis while you're processing tragedy somehow. in a lot of ways this guy had it figured out
- My man

If I don't bowl today the terrorists win.
- That's actually strangely beautiful. The worst terrorist attack on this country and people who weren't directly affected just kinda... continue going about their lives.
  It's obviously tone-deaf and selfish too, but from the attackers' perspective, what did you actually accomplish with all that money, planning, and lives spent?
- Literally tho. That's the kind of thing Bush & Giuliani were saying.
  
  if you don't lie about wmds and start a war lasting two decades based on a lie the terrorists win

Two possibilities here; either the country was under attack, and not only did this guy decide it was a good time to go bowling, but the bowling ally decided not to close for the day, or; this guy bowled at least one full game before 8:46 am. Not sure which is weirder.
- Even better, he was at work and couldn't think of anything better to do after the shift ended.
  
  Wait is this the real answer?
- I was in college in Texas when it happened. I don't remember anything closing.
  All of my classes kept to their regular schedules.
  
  Interesting. I grew up in NYC, so obviously, everything shut down. We were kept at school (high school), but they gave up on teaching before noon, and everyone needed to be picked up by an adult (which was frustrating for me because I lived two blocks away).
  I live in Massachusetts now, and most people recount something similar; not as severe, but school was let out early and their parents left work early. Maybe it was because some of the hijackers left from Logan.
- Or started the game before then and decided to finish anyway. Or started before then and was too in the zone to hear about news.
  
  My money is on everyone being distracted so he took the opportunity to walk to the end of the lane and keep knocking over all the pins by hand.
  
  "Hey Earl, they just hit the pentagon. Maybe someone should tell Bill?"
  "Look, he's at 260. Unless they get the White House, I say we let him have this."

I remember losing track of time watching it on TV and my boss called all pissed off. Rush to work and he is giving us shit because everyone was late. A coworker guilt tripped him hard about how we all just watched thousands of people die and were traumatized. He shut up and eventually sent us home early.
- JustBossThings
- I remember I was in high school and they didn’t do early dismissal but all of our classes were pointless because we just watched the news. I also remember an edgelord kid making jokes while the news was on after the first plane hit about how the pilot must have been drunk or something and then literally watching another plane hit live and he shut up
  Then I had a shift at my job, blockbuster video, which decided that people may want to rent movies during this tragic time so we had to come into work. Absolutely no one came in and my coworker spent the entire shift freaked the fuck out that a nuclear bomb would be dropped on the northeast
  For reference I lived in New Jersey not that far from Manhattan. I could kind of get it if I lived in like Wisconsin or something.
  
  Silly coworker, they would have opened with a nuke if they could. (Too soon?)
  
  That edgelord kid hadn't been sat at a freshman class meeting a few minutes before, next to a kid whose first response to "A plane just hit the World Trade Center!" was, "What, another Cessna?", right?
  Please say no.
- I wonder what it would be like today... Just one 8 hour long news segment that not everyone even hears about?
  
  Oh god, all the top video clips would be made by people who died minutes after uploading them.

I won an online digital photography contest that day.

This is the second best day of my life!
Sir. A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack.
This is the best day of my life!
- "40 Wall street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually before the World Trade Center the tallest, and and then when they built the World Trade Center it became known as the second-tallest, and now it's the tallest And I just spoke to my people, and they said it's the most unbelievable sight, it's probably seven or eight blocks away from the World Trade Center, and yet Wall Street is littered with two feet of stone and brick and mortar and steel ..."
  Trump on 9/11.
  
  Yes, he was always narcissistic scum. NYC tried to warn everyone else.
  
  Wow, he used to be coherent.

Are we sure this didn't happen in one of the many countries that write their dates properly?
- Yeah, apparently he lives in Massachusetts.
  
  Wait, was this a candlepin 300??
- Shit... I never thought about it. Do other countries have bowling? Like, I know the game/sport is derived from various previous games/sports throughout history.
  But bowling in its current American form, is that played a lot else where? And if so, how do those top tier american bowlers i see on the ocho stack up? I guess I know what internet video rabbit hole im falling down tonight.
  
  I don't live in the US and within the distance of a short walk, there are no less than three bowling alleys near me. One is public, one belongs to a bowling club and I don't know about the 3rd one.
  
  I'm in New Zealand, we have tenpin bowling here, and I believe the rules are the same as in the US. I'm pretty sure it's a popular game around the world.

Bowling a perfect game like there's no tomoro

No 7-10 splits there!

There is a small theater monologue to be written about this event.

Well, he really knocked 'em down that day

We all process grief in different ways.

I find it very strange seeing people express such somber emotions about 9/11. Admittedly it was before I was born, but it seems so different to my experience. The reverence displayed for human life during 9/11 seems so disjointed from the apathy to the multitudes more who died in gaza. Who died in Ukraine. Who died in hospitals during COVID. I cannot imagine myself being so shaken by death. When I see tragedy it affects me very little. Not to say I think death is okay, I just can't imagine living in a time where I would have grievances to spare on another thousand dead.
What I'm trying to say is that I probably would set a personal best during a modern tragedy and be either oblivious or indifferent. Relatable meme lol
- i lived through it and got out of class early in uni because of it and watched tribute.wmv regularly and i turned out ok
- I watched human beings jump out of skyscrapers live, my homeroom class. It had an impact.
  And then everything went nuts, the Patriot act got passed, and the whole WMD bullshit, and my whole high school encircled the building and prayed. Nuts.
  
  Do you think seeing it live on tv is what made the difference? Could you see people having a similar reaction to modern incidents if they were televised as much.
- You remember how weird and scary and paranoid everything was in the early days of the pandemic? That’s a bit what it was like on/after 9/11. It was a shock to the entire nation, and the world suddenly felt uncertain in a way it hadn’t on 9/10.
  You’re contextualizig the attack in terms of loss of life, numbers, but what you’re missing is the vibe of the thing.
  
  No not really. I remember people dying while others lamented the loss of economic value. I didn't feel paranoid or scared I felt disappointed.
  The vibe of the thing is exactly what I'm referring to. The vibes being somber seems a reality so far removed from what I've experienced and I want to understand why. From what I can gather from comments the reason seems to be that it was shown on tv. That tracks with modern disasters not gaining such notoriety because mainstream media won't show you the scattered remains of children who died in buildings brought down by American armaments.
  
  For me, Covid is more like slow horror that creeps in, slowly boiling you like a frog.
  9/11 is probably more like what Jan 6 felt like. Obviously, more people died on 9/11, but I'm talking about the shock of it, and how surreal it feels.
  Covid feels more like a "Flint, Michigan" scenario.
  I guess its because one category is negligence, the other is malicious intent.
- because 9/11 was never about human life, Americans don't give a shit about that. they care about their own life, and 9/11 was a shocking, if temporary, reminder that a full life isn't a sure thing.
  basically the American people felt for a moment how their government has made brown people all around the world every day for decades and the panic was enough to start multiple wars without an end in sight.
  and of course as evidenced by these wars, it was a perfect excuse for maxing out the already obnoxious jingoism of the population. they just do it on reflex, no thinking.
  never forget. respect the veterans. thank you for your service.
  what was the service again? oh yeah cracking skulls of brown children? thanks a lot. I'm thankful you exploded those newlyweds on their wedding day who were surely getting married so they could do terror attacks together. thank you.
  biggest terror organization in the world.
- i remember going home with a friend because my parents were both working, and watching him play team fortress classic while half the lobby had nicknames like "OSAMA BIN LADEN HAS NO BALLS"
  
  Man this is the kinda contemporary responses that need to be preserved. I feel much more of a human connection to an emotional reaction like that than I have for any other. Thank you
- One is a conflict that has perpetuated arguably for more than 400 years.
  One is a war that has been going on since 1948. Could be argued that it even started in the 1800's with zionism.
  One was COMPLETELY out of the blue, unprecedented in USA. Pearl Harbor doesn't even come close to the impact of 9/11.
  So yeah. Obviously people have different feeling about it.
  
  9/11 was so shocking, it was known around the world.
  My parents who grew up in a developing country (that is not even a US ally btw) also heard about it on the news. Its literally the first thing that come to mind when the concept of "terrorism" is uttered.
  
  In 1993 a truck bomb exploded in the basement of the world trade centre killing 6 and injuring over 1000. Completely out of the blue? A first in history? Google pre 9/11 terrorist attacks, have a read through.
  I said in another comment that the I think the reason for such discrepancy between the reactions I see in my life and the reactions to 9/11 from people who lived through it was they saw it happen on tv. And I guess in a weird way that does make sense to me. Of course people don't have such a visceral reaction to things they haven't seen.
- if nobody's pointed out it - it's because rich people died in 9/11