I’d say that in January, Anonymous made a bigger splash than usual…
January 18, 2009, 8:17 PM
In January, Anonymous DC raided not once, but twice. This stemmed from the fact that the global raid date was January 17, and for us, bringing out the big guns on January 17 for the global was not the best idea in the world, considering that right now, Washington DC is swamped with out of town tourists – and out of town cops – for Barack Obama’s inauguration in two short days. Thus we had our “global” raid on January 10, and we flash-raided on the 17th. Win was had by all, though it was cold as hell on both days.
On the 10th, our raid was loosely themed around the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Thus:
We had Shredder.
We had an Anon dressed as Leonardo (and yes, he could see out very well despite what it looks like).
We had April O’Neil.
We even had shells and turtle masks.
And get this – we even had an epic battle between Leonardo and Shredder:
I don’t know who won, but it was kinda lulzy.
And since foul weather was predicted for our raid day, we took precautions. One of our Anons (let’s call him “David”), called us all around him. There, David told us, based on a weather report that he had been able to pull up, that there was a large weather system approaching, and it should be on us in about 30 minutes. David was spot on about the system, but the timing was a little off. That 30 ended up being more like ten when the sleet came, which quickly changed to rain. So that meant that my Kodak had to go away, but… that’s why I have Duckie. Duckie is my answer to Funk the War 3 and any other outdoor events where the weather is not expected to cooperate. Big Mavica’s death has been avenged.
And MaidofWin made the best of it, donning a clear plastic poncho:
And we protected our stuff with my big golf umbrella:
Yes, we rocked. Then at 4:00, we broke off to head to dinner at Bailey’s in Ballston, which is really a fun place to go for Anon socializing. There were football playoff games going on this particular evening, and so any of our conversations were liable to be interrupted by football fans screaming when a team did something really good. Personally, I’ve never understood the screaming-at-the-TV part of football, but go fig.
Then afterwards, we all parted company, and I went back home via Metro Center. At Metro Center, I spotted something amusing:
All the ads in Metro Center were bought up by This Is Reality, and this was one of their advertisements. I realize that this is an ad taking on the myth of clean coal, thus showing an alien holding a lump of coal. But doesn’t it look like the alien Xenu is holding L. Ron Hubbard‘s brain?
Then the following week, we were at it again, this time flash raiding. This was supposed to be a “serious business” flash raid, and thus the idea was to go with suits. I was even going to wear a business suit, if that tells you anything, and I can’t stand wearing those things. But with the temperature high predicted to be in the mid-20s, I for one said “screw it” for the suit, and decided to dress for warmth. As a result, my Anon outfit looked more hardcore-protester than “serious business”. Seriously, it looked hardcore, as I took a few things and combined them. I took an open-face hood that I bought from Spandexwear (the same company that made my zentai) a while back, and added the hoodie that I usually wear for black blocs. Then I took the half-mask respirator that I always carry to protests for emergency use (read: tear gas and/or pepper spray) and added that. Then to that, I added the motorcycle goggles that I wear with the zentai. I also had winter gloves, and my heavy-duty boots from the Chicago trip in 2007. And lastly, I tied off the hood on the sweatshirt to keep breezes out. And this was the result:
As you can see, as I pose with Anyman, I looked über-hardcore. A few Anons said that it looked like I was ready for the biohazard squad.
But we had a message to put out, and we had fun doing it:
And we got passers-by in cars involved, as we held our “Honk if you think Scientology is a cult” signs to traffic on Connecticut Avenue and R Street:
We paid particular attention to tour buses.
One of the more amusing moments of our raid was when a girl driving a Mini Cooper with an oversized can of Red Bull on the roof stopped by our raid. That was amusing to say the least.
The girl in the Red Bull car handed out free Red Bull for everyone, and then continued on her way.
One of the problems with wearing Guy Fawkes masks during protests is that they don’t absorb water, which means that the condensation from people’s breath collects and drips off. In my hardcore outfit, I was sadly not immune to it, and because of all the hardware on my face, I couldn’t see it, but all the other Anons could. Observe:
Yes, the condensation dripped right out of my frontal breathing vent, and froze on my coat. I was a human icicle-maker. A few people tried to chip it off, but it was remarkably persistent, and didn’t go away until afterwards, when we got into the much warmer Metro and it all melted and then evaporated.
And we tried everything to stay warm. One Anon had warming packets in her gloves, and helped warm another Anon’s face:
It looks like she just peeled his face right off and accessed the insides, no?
So needless to say, we had fun, and managed to stave off frostbite. Don’t we look happy?
And then at 5:00, we departed for the Metro. As I unmasked, one Anon commented, “You do have a face!” since unlike most raids when I take it off occasionally for whatever, I never removed the mask at all the entire time. Then we got Rohr 1104 (by coincidence, we got the mate of the car I got coming in) and then four Anons plus myself rode out to Union Station to get dinner. That was Obama city there, as Barack Obama was scheduled to arrive there by train. We had dinner, and then gave MaidofWin a tour of Union Station, because she had never been there before. I’ll bet we were about the only locals in Union Station that didn’t work there, considering that the place was crawling with tourists. And then we departed just as police were leading the crowd to the tracks.
And that was that.
Song: Unrelated: Obama Girl + Obama Duet!
Quote: And Scientology spokesmodel Sylvia Stanard, as always, was epic fail, with her amazing technicolor fail hair dye job.
Categories: Project Chanology