September 11, 1999 - AndroidCat

10am to 5pm (lunch break from 12:30ish to 2pm)
Over 1000 flyers handed out. 800 from Gregg, 100 from Mike, 100 from me, and extras from Gregg's car. (Over 1200ish?)
Attendees: Gregg, Alan, myself, ex-scientologists David and Mike.

Wonderful weather--the temperature was up, the humidity was down, the sun was bright. I could take this sort of weather all summer (and winter!).

Once again we had to go through the drill with the off-duty police officer (*Ka-Ching*!). Co$ was claiming that the public sidewalk under their overhang was their property. They tried that a while ago, and were shot down--since Gregg didn't have the proof on hand *this* picket, he let it go. It didn't affect us at all. (I recall an Officer Thompson saying that we'd get uniform standards for police rules at pickets, ah well.)

To greet us were the usual bunch: Andy Hill, Dan (no, not that one* ), and others.

The morning passed pretty uneventfully. It was fun to watch David and Mike tag-team staff members (since they are ex-staff members and know all but the newbies).

They were handing out the "kiddy pictures in the internet" DA with an Orientation slip inside. In the afternoon, they added a Dianetics flyer. (Perhaps they realized that their black propaganda puts no bodies in the shop.) They had an emeter, old black job, and table to do "Dianetics Stress Tests".

Andy did quiz me about a post where he claimed that I'd threatened staff. I said sorry, don't what you're talking about. After lunch he said that he had read the post and it was clear to him that I was just replying to COder/DECoder's friend. (Bad morning briefing notes Andy. And proof that most if not all of my posts have to read by someone in the org--even the ones to other newsgroups! :^) Andy related that he used to fight professionally. (Boxing, I assume.) Actually, he was not such a bad guy today. He spent a lot of time talking to David. Also, he looks more in shape than last month--keep it up! (We also discussed cooked liver. Eugh!)

Big black clouds threatened for a while, but passed. I don't think that there has ever been any rain on our picket days. (Snow and sleet, sure! This is, after all, Canada.) I guess our SP powerz are too much for them.

We broke for lunch early because we had already passed out the morning's ration of flyers. (Upstats can do no wrong, right Co$?)

For lunch we all had fries. Much "I knew him when" from David and Mike about current staff members. Much that shall remain off the record for now.

After lunch, Alan and David had to go. (Alan had to go make the world safe from Y2K.)

Peter Ramsay showed up looking like a disgruntled post office worker (well, maybe he still had his gruntles). He sat on the curb of the driveway of the building across the sidestreet from the org with his feet out. I guess he didn't want to go near the org, in case that blew his "just a public member" cover. Okay. Except a lot of people went and talked with him--including Big Al himself. (Al Buttnor) You know Peter, perhaps next time you shouldn't sit so close to the Coffee Time seating area. You never know what might be listening... ;^)

Gregg did take five minutes to go over and talk to Peter, generally on the theme that Co$ was setting him up to take the fall. And Peter didn't seem to understand the idea that the Ontario courts are quite happy with the idea that "actions by a Scientologist for the benefit of Scientology are deemed to be actions by Scientology." Hopefully he'll take legal advice. (Other legal advice suspects that Peter has no assets worth seizing.)

Andy did some overtime, but he, Peter, and Dan (no, not that one) were gone by 3pm.

One dirty tricks handler, who'll I'll get the scoop on from Mike or David later, tried to third-party Gregg to me with news that Gregg had long ago posted to ars (and told us in person). And he tried to quiz me about why I wasn't working at the company that Peter Ramsay had tried to Fair Game me at. Guess what suckers, I'd left long before Peter sent his letters. What now OSA? Where did I go? You don't know. You seek me here, you seek me there...

Other than the dirty tricks squad, the afternoon staffers were reasonably nice. There was a woman working the south end who actually seemed to be enjoying herself. Stop that! :^)

A bit after four, we ran out of flyers. Oh the embarrassment! Luckily Gregg still had some old flyers in his car and fetched them. And we pretty much used those up too. So at 3 seconds to five, it was called.

This account is, of course, filtered and subjective. Gregg, David, Mike and Alan had conversations that I didn't hear.

Perhaps the most amusing event of the picket was a tow truck with a car in tow. And the car's alarm was screaming blue murder--all the way down the world's longest street.

Notes to the org: Now, since it has been demonstrated that "someone" directs all my posts to the Toronto org, and some poor fool has to read them, I thought I'd bitch again about the crappy electrical support that George the org camera guy has to work with. There was at least one indoor extension cord in that jumble on the sidewalk. Come winter with salt, slush and metal door frames, that could kill someone!

Also, why are there no org coffee machines? All through the day there were relays of people headed over to the Coffee Time--talk about your brown crayon coffee! A simple coffee machine with an honour system would work and deliver so much better coffee, right? (And if it wouldn't work in the org, don't you think that's a bit strange?)

Well, that it for this picket. No OTs in *this* org!

* After Mark's Xenu-TV pieces, there can only be one "Dan the $cientologist", the rest are merely the other Dans.