Warning: This post is in no way meant to make lite of the lives that were lost a hundred years ago when the Titanic sank. Those in the following areas: USA, France, England, Ireland, Canada, and rural areas of Papa New Guinea may want to skip this one and read another post.

It was a nice night with some nice friends, enjoying some nice wine during a nice little vacation and yet here I lay in bed tortured by a mind that won’t shut down. What issue is it that has postponed or cancelled tonight’s performance by REM, that continues to fire the synapses in the grey matter well into the 3am world?….

  • World Peace?… No
  • Photoshop Launch?… No
  • Hangover?… Actually No

The issue that has angered me into leaving the bed and writing this is simple, I am pissed that all the paintings I see of the Titanic sinking always show the front of the ship on the right side of the frame.  Heck, even the movie did it the same way, and as a dyslexic person, I know a thing or two about getting things sdrawkcab.

titanic-sink

With the recent hundred year anniversary, there was no shortage of Titanic documentaries to watch, and I think I took in every one of them.  Some captured my full attention and others served as white noise to my efforts to beat all the Angry Birds games in one day (failed). One aspect of the shows captured my attention more than others… It was an interview with a Titanic historian who mentioned that lookouts in the bird’s nest had no lights, but would look for icebergs by looking for silhouettes against the stars (that is when they weren’t watching Kate and Leo make out below). This got me thinking, I wonder what stars were out that night. Based on the time of year and location, this is readily available info (heck, Neil Tyson had James Cameron change it in the re-release of the movie to be accurate). Then it crossed my mind that every time the ship was shown sinking or sailing, it is always doing so left to right.  As a person that looks at a map like so:

map

I view left to right as heading East, when in fact the Titanic had left England heading west and sank right about hurr (had to make the educational part more contemporary for the kids).

map2

So all this time my mental imagery of the ship and the whole movie about it has been flawed because I was geographically disoriented. So I took it upon myself to make life a little easier for others that have my same situation (or lunacy) to understand the location of the ship and its sinking…

[singlepic id=114 w=500 h=240 float=center]

To those that have asked themselves why the Statue of Liberty is saying “Bonjour” go Wiki it and we’ll wait….

….

Now that we’re all back, I decided that the addition to the original painting took some away from it, so instead I think the easier route for fixing this great debacle is this:

titanic-sink-flipped

With this all said, I think I can finally return to bed and attempt to go back to sleep, or at least lay there and work on my efforts to see with my eyes closed…

Goodnight