I’ve been up to a lot lately, causing my energy to be low during my downtime and thus my lack in motivation to update.
However, I went to a neat little (!) event last night and just had to post about it.
At about 9PM in the square at King & Bathurst around 900 people showed up to play urban capture the flag through the wicked newish group called newmindspace.
I estimate around 900 because there were 900 glow-necklaces handed out, and all were used up. However, some people got two necklaces – one of each colour – so they could infiltrate both teams. Others were left playing with no necklace and having to stick with a team of people with ones of the colour they chose.
We had purples (or reds as they were supposed to be) against blues, but from far away it ended up being difficult to decipher which colour was around a person’s neck.
It was fun. When it finally started around 9:30 PM, mass amounts of young people began running all over the financial district in the dark, causing chaos in the streets for all the poor drivers, and scaring security guards in many buildings in the surrounding area.
I was on the purple team, and the blue flag was caught twice (as far as I know). The first time, I saw a guy running with it and he nearly made it back to our side, until he was bombarded by an extremely large amount of blue teammates attempting to tag him. The flag was retrieved and placed back in its spot. The game continued.
I started off with a group of friends and we easily ended up in the blue zone. However, I was soon chased out and once that happened, I had a hell of a time getting back into it. The one flaw I could see in the game was that once you’re tagged, no one escorted you back to your zone. This meant you could pretend you’d never been tagged, once that person left the area. Of course, this is cheating, and I only did it for a while. Either way it’s boring – cheating is boring, and going back to your zone and never being able to make it back into the opponent’s is boring as well. Every time I tried, I got caught. Well-populated areas, darkly lit areas, alone or with a bunch of people – somehow it didn’t seem to matter. There were just too many on the other side lying in wait to tag everyone! And I think I’m a fairly fast runner, so it couldn’t possibly be that 😉
The cops were soon called, however, probably by the numerous scared security guards (le sigh). I saw a girl get booked for jaywalking right in front of a streetcar. She was talking on her cell phone – pedestrians! Do not talk and chat! It’s dangerous for your health! And your wallet, if there are any cops around 😛
They patrolled for a while, and the blue flag was captured one more time. I heard random talk that we’d gained a point, finally, and then that the game was over. The cops called it off. Too bad, really. We weren’t exactly causing civil unrest, and most of the kids playing were probably just under legal age – what else do they have to do on a Friday night? This kind of activity is fabulous for them – and for people of any age for other reasons.
I eventually found my friend I’d shown up with and we went off to a bar to have a drink and finish the night. All in all, a good time. I’m looking forward to the next one!
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