2015-07-30: Foiled!

When Kick starter first came to my attention I jumped onto a few projects. One of which was called Save the Sci Fi (http://singularity.co/). The premise was that they would get old science fiction books (out of copyright I think? for some reason it was legal), scan them and make a digital archive. At the time I was not spending my money on anything which seemed useful to anyone (and probably pushing me towards any early grave) so I diverted some of the cash earmarked for Things that make People give me Advice towards their project.

For some people this view would have reminded them to carry an umbrella.

Part of the rewards thing was having access to their library, obviously not of much use in Sydney as they are in Brooklyn. I now know the best way to Brooklyn from where I am. We went to visit.
As part of this we organised to meet there with a guy I have known from the webcomics community for ages but never met.

Landmarks prove navigation skills are working.

And the heavens opened. The two ferry trip should have been followed with a 15 minute stroll from the Dumbo terminal to the bookshop. We left our umbrellas in Japan. We would have forgotten them anyway. Uber vehicles count as an umbrella. We used one of them.

I looked more like a drowned rat.

Save The SciFi is housed in an old warehouse type area (mapref). It does not feature a large amount of awnings to protect travellers from the elements. It is also closed at random times. This particular time was one of those random times.
David, webcomic friend, is the self proclaimed last remaining Born and Raised Manhattanite. As such he gets nervous leaving his island and venturing into the wildlands beyond the bridges. I surmise he is worried the interlopers will claim the island as their own, subvert the traditions and raise barriers preventing his return. Despite this we found a bar in Brooklyn and whiled away the afternoon hiding from the storm.

Gangplank and an Anchor? Pirate Garden in the Sky!!!

Eventually he had to leave, he claimed it was to attend a Dr Who fan group meeting. I may have expressed disbelief. Presumably he guessed my suspicions regarding his leaving the Island unguarded for the afternoon and invited us along to prove his veracity. Or he wanted cannon fodder should the bridges be barred to him. Dr Who fans seem to enjoy drinking beer and talking about silly crap as well.

In Japan they have arrows showing how to use the steps for Up and Down. We were in a state where this would have been useful.

So it was that with no check list items achieved we staggered into the subway after 7 hours of drinking and talking about the silly things that Webcomic and Dr Who fans talk about. We were on the Upper East Side. If we were Americans we could have checked off several Monopoly board streets but in NZ we had the English street names. In Poland we don't know what they had, not because of the capitalist nature of the game causing it to be banned by the commies, but because Ewa's older brother made the game so painful the rest of the kids refused to play it.