Well folks it’s been over 24 hours now that sneaker.org has been getting bombarded by people searching for Q33NY and Wingdings. Things are holding up pretty well… but can’t say the same about my opinion that there are an even number of rational people and irrational people in the world. Some of the comments people have left on the site and even more so the emails or instant messages I have received on this topic have definitely made for a fun-filled, hilarious day. Crazy. People, don’t you get it? I think my friend karenika put it best… it’s a F*ING FONT people!!

This has gotten SO out of hand now that the lead story in the Wired News email this evening was MS Denies Wingding Thing, Again. Now, my skepticism, doesn’t preclude me from putting it beyond some Microsoft developer from planting such an easter-egg. That’s still possible. But I still stand firm that the whole Q33NY thing related to the tragedy at the WTC is completely bogus, completely fabricated and utter bullshit. (Anyhow, for those of you who still don’t get it read on below for yesterday (in What’s New) and day before’s (in Thought – caught in the act!) posts.)

The following comment by one of the visitors to the site definitely merits being highlighted…

Len (lgjohnson@adelphia.net)

US tail numbers start with “N”. An alpha character is not allowed following the N. According to “Landings”, no tail number like Q33NY or N-Q33Ny or N-33NY has ever been assigned. My tail number, N-637PS, is typical. The other explanation for why Q33NY is a hoax is also bunk. Flight numbers refer to a route, not an individual airplane. Airplanes are temporarily assigned a flight number when they fly the corresponding route. It is never the same as a tail number, which is assigned by the FAA permanently to an individual airplane.

09-22-2001 21:23

Yesterday, I wrote about how some gullible people are going on about some baloney that is being circulated via email (some crap about the flight number – which in itself may or may not be true – for one of the NYC flights having some hidden meaning when you enter it into Microsoft Word and change the font to wingdings). Well, turns out there must be lots or people who are trying to search for this since my sites been getting tons of hits off of google all searching for Q33NY.

So I figured I’d let people know why sneaker.org may be a little slow today and also for those of you who came here looking for the Q33NY thing… scroll down and read my blog note on it in Thought – caught in the act!. Bottomline is that all this stuff is made up. Wingdings is a funky font. In fact, even if you type in “NYC” in Word and change the fonts to either webdings or wingdings you get weird results (thanks to Brandon for demonstrating this to me; I’m not going to put up an image of this. You can go try it yourself) . One can make up all kinds of stuff like this. Anyone who believes that these is some hidden meaning in stuff like this… needs to get a clue and needs to visit snopes.com: Wingdings Urban Legend and for good measure also go read CSICOP Hoaxwatch.