Continued...

Cubicle walls make an excellent shield to hide from zombies behind. They're also mobile, to a degree. That's how we got everyone across the street to the tech school safely. Well, except for Snarky Lady's Minion and some of the phone goons and also some upper managers. But the rest of us, armed with pots of coffee, were reasonably OK. The tech school had already lowered their portcullis metal gate, but upon determining that we all seemed to still be human, allowed us to go in one of the doors. It's very eerie to go in one at a time with very intent-looking snipers aiming at you until you've been determined to be non-zombified. But the AK-47s were reassuring, in a way. A very scary way.

Tech schools are good for some things. This one has a nice electrical engineering lab, and a whole boatload of guys who have been training for opportunities like this since first they discovered arcade games. Arming everyone with makeshift taser-type weapons was not a problem. There are some things that look like medieval siege weaponry as well, and I don't even want to go into the topic of duct-tape sword-guys. What are they going to do, play baseball with the zombies' heads?

I should have expected that the Cute Redheaded Professor was going to wind up in charge. He and a couple others were planning strategy. I filtered through to them when I pointed out what Snarky Lady had inadvertently discovered -- that hot coffee poured on zombies confuses them and makes them more sluggish, and ultimately stop moving. There were tests off the front balcony. Turned out that caffeine was the essential ingredient.

...Good job this is a tech school. The cafeteria staff was not happy about having their soda fountain equipment uprooted and moved upstairs onto the balcony where they'd get the best range, and even less happy about the way the equipment got ripped apart and modified into sort of across between a primitive sprinkler and a flamethrower, but when a few of the guys pointed out that the alternative was going to be a zombie infestation, they subsided.

The moaning and shambling seems to have died down out there. I think we'll be safe for the night. I'm bunking down in one of the computer labs.

Non-zombie Wednesday

Wrote one of my rants while on lunch break. This one was on the topic of "I write because..." and went on from there. Went to group a bit early; hooray traffic being good. Everyone was keyed up, in anticipation of possible interference from the center. No one from the center showed up, though. We were discussing stuff and plans to head over to the new location; I wound up getting a map printed out. As I returned, one of the occasional ladies came in with me. There is probably nothing wrong with her at all, but she nevertheless gives off to me a vibe that says "If you involve me in anything like your life, my problems and I will invade and not go away unless forcibly ejected." It was uncomfortable to talk about concrete plans and the ideological breakdown of what the center needs and what the group needs in front of someone who's very much an outsider to the group mojo.

I wound up reading my rant, and the group decided that it needed to be left for the center. So we wound up doing just that. There was a ceremonial signing of the poem-thing; I wrote a brief explanation about the group needing the creative safe space that has absolute creative freedom, the center needing creative safe space that had no profanity, no sex, and reasonably few triggers, and these two needs being absolutely incompatible. We signed it. We departed. I've been saying all day that it's ripe for an exodus, but I drew the line at plagues.

It would have been a faster exit, except M and her schedule are wacky so she tracked down a Center Higher-Up Person and explained her personal grievance. That sort of hampered the swish-out. But in the end, all went well. We wound up at the new place after a few wrong turns. The space is friendly and inviting, though somewhat dark. I ceremonially lit the tea light in the middle of the table, and we got down to business.

We will have to hack out a group charter or something.

Dinner was good. I produced sparkling cider that was almost cold enough, and eventually did get it open, though the first cap nearly hit our excellent waiter and the second cap went flying as well. Note to self: bring bottle opener.

There was ice cream. To prove a point, I licked whipped cream off M's finger. I wasn't paying too much attention at the time, given that I was busy licking and focusing on the technical skill of it, but she seemed to be enjoying herself immensely. I wonz.

We still do need to rename the group.

Now, I shall go be asleep.

(no subject)

That laptop shell is a Latitude CPi, Myrrh.

(no subject)

2007 06 14

In Soviet Russia, Thursday never quite got the hang of you.

12:19

Going back through the documentation. The gathering-and-prepare-data-for-upload part looks pretty solid; there are a few tweaks that have to be made to fix it, but that's OK. That happens.

*sigh* I have thoughts in my head and they don't want to come out quite right, not without a link or five and a rant and too much information about me and the things I like to read. Not that y'all don't know what I like by my link-posts. But bradhicks has a very well-thought-out, informative post. And I'm looking at that and I'm thinking: "And the older men who were speculating about Britney when she was underage aren't more creepy than older fangirls?" I know the inside of fangirl heads fairly well, but older men drooling after seriously younger women just hits my squickbutton hard. (I enjoy my SS/HG once she's grown up enough to give as good as she gets. Not before then. ((Not unless it's seriously well-done fic, but even that has a certain squick-factor that's safe because the characters are fictional. Britney might as well be fictional, but still.)) )

3:28

Oh wow. Is it Mercury retrograde or something? At least my meeting with Management was productive.

3:40

Darkside tends to know the good things to say, so I'm e-mailing him. Looks like my e-mail to the Alisa came out all right as well; she's responded with good wishes and a thanks for the signed note. I don't want to look at it all Slytherin; at least she's keeping the forms of politeness and welcoming us back individually to the center for other things, which is I think a good sign.

One of the things that's important to keeping an online quasi-safe space is to at least know who everybody is. And if someone maintaining said thing asks you who the hell you are, you need to tell them. If you tell them some BS that doesn't actually include who you are, expect to get your ass booted. I let someone know they were an unknown party and had been removed; they flamed back at me. WTF?

I hate having my adrenal system go hyperactive and then not wind up needing it. I think it's probably time for me to go punch something. ...Or get lunch, which I should probably get.

4:20

Stars Fall Home has been mailed. Yay! Have poked othercat as I pre-ordered two in the suspicion that she would want one and that she might not wind up pre-ordering it. Yay happy filk music!

Now have access to shared folder with some vital stuff in it. Alas that the stuff is Not What Will Go Nicely In That Database, Dammit. *cusses up a storm*