Back from Pub

The Snark was rather quiet. I thought our fav pub had a better clientel than that. I thought they'd be a good 'Sean of the Dead' type of crew, who'd pop in for a pint while alien lasers toasted the outside of the building.

At least there were a few of the guys in there, and I got a hardy welcome. It was Kira, Mina and Jack sitting there with an almost empty pitcher when I arrived. They'd only been there just less than an hour they said, and it was strangely my turn to buy the beer. Hmmm.

No biggy - it's actually an honour. Some of the other guys travel a bit with work, so we have this thing that if anyone was travelling on expenses, they buy the beer when they're back, as they've had it easy while travelling on someone elses dime.

There is some news channel going on a big screen with the sound turned down. We all agreed it was the scariest part of the whole thing that they weren't in full feeding frenzy over this. I mean last year you get a couple of people with a case of the flu and they're all over it as if the world was almost over, or a celebrity breaks up with their spouse and it's big news. Here we get little tidbits that sounds strangely like little green men attacking and the details are only touched on in passing.

Jack said the same think I did - it's got to be so scary, that the US government is using some sort of extraordinary powers to stop anyone reporting and speculating. Apparently the Canadian gov't is in the same pact, because the Canadian news channels are similarly playing it cool, though they are talking a bit more about the stuff going on in Norway, which you don't hear from the US channels at all. Also talk about the border. Sounds like it is closed up tight now.

After 9-11 back almost a decade, it was a huge issue when border traffic was stopped. Now the media is treating it like it's just a travel advisory. "Beware that the border is closed, so don't try to drive down that way. In other news, it looks like rain..."

Then Tam shows up - great more beer on me. But he works at a TV station and we're all on edge to hear what he's going to say. He takes a sip of beer, and just looks around the table at the blank faces.

"So what's going on, guys? You're all up late on a school night" is the best he can do. We all erupted in derision as if scripted. "So what's the scoop!? What's going on in TV land? Is there martial law or something?" Jack asks.

He tries an "I can't talk about that" very gallantly, but it's not going over with us. He sips again, clearly revelling in the info he possesses. He leans in close and we all follow suit, and he starts to fill us in.

Turns out he knows pretty much nothing, but has a lot of rumours and scuttlebutt from the office. What was interesting was that there was a station memo that went around saying that the current affair was being reported, but restraint was being shown for 48 hours to help preserve public order. It also said that he couldn't tell us what he had just told us.

That pretty much satisfied us that our suspicions had been met - there was a lid on this thing. And the fact that the lid had been put on so effectively was amazing. The rumours still flew around on twitter and blogs, but without formal channels to get details, stuff happening in space was pretty much beyond the access of the grass-roots pseudo-media.

We all speculated what to do, but other than declaring a breakfast get together, we pretty much left it to sleep on, and pick it up tomorrow... oh wait - later today now I guess. Something tells me I'm going in late tomorrow.