Mission Reports

[Agent Todd]

If you stage a local mission, bump this thread with your mission report!

[Jill "Agent Lain"]

Mission: Rain Day.

Location: Arizona Mills Mall, Tempe, AZ

Agents: 10

Objective: To play in the "rain" under the cloud painted sky.

Outcome: Successful!

The agents meet at a local restaurant outside of the mall. Plan was to go into a section of the mall that was painted with rain clouds and lighting with umbrellas and rain coats. Agents showed up individually unfurling their umbrellas and hung out listening for people’s reactions while playing in the "rain."

Agent Dancing Fool had a guy come up to him and ask if we were getting paid to walk around in circles. Agent Dancing Fool said “I don’t know about them, but I’m not. Can’t you see it’s raining?” Guy said “Let me check” and held out his hand then said “it’s not.” Agent Dancing Fool said “Yes it is. Can’t you see the clouds and lighting?”

Agent Carrie had a lady at a hair kiosk ask what the umbrella was for and she said “I thought it was going to rain.” The lady said “As long as that’s all it’s for.”

Agent Lain had a lady ask what they were advertising for and said “I’m not. I’m just enjoying the rain.” The lady looked at her like she was crazy and said “oOOOooKkk.” Another lady came up to Agent Lain and asked what they were doing and she said “I’m enjoying the rain. I’m not sure about them.” One of the lady’s little girls shouted “It’s not raining!”

It was overheard people saying “What are those people doing?” “Is it supposed to be raining?” Looking up at the ceiling and just giving odd looks.

Agent Zargon sang Singing in the Rain at the end of the mission. Afterwards agents left one by one meeting up at the restaurant to discuss mission. All in all it was a good mission.

Participating Agents
Agent Lain - director
Agent Zargon
Agent Michelle
Agent Dancing Fool
Agent Carrie
Agent Brad
Agent Cassi
Agent Varina (sp?)
Agent Paul and daughter

[Agent Todd]

Sounds cool. Let me know if you have photo or video documentation.

[Héctor]

Here in Spain we are moving a bit. In Madrid we did a breakfast on march 8th, but we haven't done the report yet, we are editing the video. Soon we will post photos and videos, to launch or own url.

In Barcelona, an external movement claimed for a freeze and some of our members went. They froze on march 21st, at 17:00 CET. Here are some videos (The mission is not supposed to be "ours").
- "official" (by convocants)
- Barcelona TV (regional channel, speak in català)
- La Sexta TV (nationwide channel, speak in spanish, they mention some history of the freeze events, but they have no idea)

[Orvis]

The Mobile Dance Party
Location: Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Date: March 21, 2008 (Good Friday)
Agents: 18 or so

As a short introduction, Kite (of the NC group) suggested a Mobile Dance Party as a first mission in the Chapel Hill area, and I ran with it. Planning was a little haphazard, but the information came across to who it needed to and we ended up with a good group of people and all the equipment we needed. However, Ning is working on a calendar/event application for their social networks mentioned here, which will be a massive help in organizing for us. The RSVP feature would be fifty kinds of useful. Also, we have a video in the works for this, but it's still in editing. Someone from our group will post it in a comment as a reply to this post when it is finished.

I nabbed a nice, loud boom-box from work (techstaff) and spent a couple hours making a good dance CD. The dress was specified to be "eccentric" so it was really easy to pick out our people way before they actually got to the meeting point. We waited around for a while, checking out what each-other were wearing, passing out glow-sticks that Kite brought (awesome) and interviewing random people about grapefruit. We had an Uncle Sam wizard, an elf-like character, a commando, a whole family with three small kids, two guys with blacked out faces and hands like iPod commercial people, and wide variety of strange clothing on about 15-20 people. A couple minutes after 8pm last friday night, we took a group video shot, set the beat, and set off dancing in a slow pace down Franklin Street. Our original plan called for between 15 minutes and an hour, but we ended up dancing for just under two hours.

It was good friday, so the zoo of Franklin Street was a little emptier than normal—which meant we were even more out of place than we would have normally been. After a half hour of shaking and grooving, we turned around to come back up Franklin Street (the main social drag for UNC), and on the way we decided to go into a kind of fast food place and get something to drink. So we hung out in the lobby and rocked out while people got in line for beverages. I went through with the boom box, still dancing as I handed them money. The guys behind the counter were amused as could be at our complete ridiculousness, and we even got him to dance and really break it down for the camera.

After that, we kept going into key restaurants, making people laugh and smile at the randomness and at how much fun we were having. Occasionally we would pick someone walking on the street who looked like he was trying not to smile and closely follow him goofy-like until he gave up trying and rolled with laughter. We got car honks, across-the-street-yells, and most every kind of happily encouraging expression.

During one of our two breather-breaks, the conversation let to us adding a component. At some point, I would pause the music and the entire group would start worshiping the nearest woman, calling her Mona or nearest man, calling him Steve. We only did this three or four times, but by far the best reaction was when we targeted a grumpy looking dude; he raised his hands in an "I bless you, my children" pose and looked so regal. We cheered and yelled to the heavens, "We have been blessed by Steve! Let us dance!" and continued on our way.

Throughout the night, our crowd slowly dwindled as people had to go, and when we were down to eight people, all tired and sore, our circuit completed for a second time, we decided to call it a night.

Crowd reactions ranged from "why are you doing this?" and "are you high?" to "ya'll are awesome" and violent hand gestures suggesting we get out of that establishment (though those were only two out of the fifteen or so places we entered). I truly can't imagine how this event could have gone better on the street or in the stores—especially considering that this was the first Chapel Hill event. So many bystanders went away that night with a smile and a strange story. It was wonderful.

[Agent Todd]

Awesome - update us when you have video. I was on Franklin Street on March 15, drinking at Linda's. I was in town for a wedding.

[Orvis]

At long last, we have the video:

I know the video quality is a little low, but it was the best recording device at hand.
A good time was had by all.

[Agent Wang]

Cool, First Half Holloween Party of 08'! :)!

[Piskvor]

On March 18th 2008 there was a Freeze in Prague, in the vestibule of Muzeum metro station. The news about the event has spread like a wildfire and so about a thousand people have arrived. For two minutes, the hall was packed with frozen, silent mass of people.

See the "official" video, or videos taken by people in the crowd.

[Mr.mrt]

At the 09.03.08 we froze the Vienna Westbahnhof.
The event was triggered by a cracking balloon.

enjoy the video

[caboosUKIN]

Mission: A true Artist
Date: 14/03/08
We all met up at a café on the other side of the street where the mission was supposed to be. We almost decided not to have it there because earlier that day it looked like it was going to rain; in fact it did drizzle a bit when Agent CaboosUKIN got there an hour before the mission. We got really concern especially because it had been an incredibly rainy week and chances were that the trend would continue. Thank God however, the weather held up and the grey gloom passed over the area and confidence kicked back in. At 3.30pm, we had our briefing and everyone got all pumped up for it. Had many new faces in the group but most were from our last mission. Being the broke teenager that we are, we only have one DV camera and a bunch of digicams with video functions which gives pretty lousy video quality. But we did manage with that one DV camera on the other mission so we figured we could manage it again this time.

Our budding artist geared up for the act. He had with him a spare t-shirt which we fashioned for him as a cool quirky head gear. It gave him that Middle Eastern look with the shirt wrapped around like a turban. It adds to the authentic factor. He also had a funky orange coat which really stood out in the crowd. Anyways, when it was time, we had our times synchronised and our plan rechecked and we sent our friend to the site lugging the easel and the canvas along.

It was 4.15pm when the first ‘spectator’ arrived. There were some problems with the wind because it was blowing strong and the easel was at risk of tipping over (which it did, once). So our agent, the artist, shifted and adjusted the easel so it would not blow it over. By 4.25pm, everyone was there and was discussing about what was on the canvas. Passers by who stop to look wondered what the hell they were all talking about. Our agents were like: I see the Madona, I see cheese, I see Baby Jesus and they just stared at them all confused. Some hung around and tried to figure it out. They moved from one side to the other to see if it had an optical effect. Those who asked our agents just got even more confused because our agent would insist that there was something on the canvas.

At one point of time, one of our agents started passing around a pair of shades which she claimed would allow you to see the painting better and the other agents reciprocate. We ended off with an auction which was interesting because the people who were not in the act are now even wondering even harder. In their heads they were thinking “there has to be something on the canvas that would make people wants to buy it”. Then a man came to the agent who ‘bought’ the painting and asked to see it. The other agents tried to explain to him what they ‘saw’ in the painting. Then they offered him the shades and said that maybe he would see it if puts them on and he did! He puts them on looked hard, took them off and shook his head. We felt really bad after that because we made him think that he was loosing his eye sight and wanted to tell him that it was all an act but he was well away from us then. What a sport he was.

After the auction, we had a photo taking session with the ‘artist’ and even the non-agent got it and had their photos taken.

In the end, the ‘artist’ gathered his belongings, shook some eager hands and went on with his life. We all dispersed in random directions and gathered back at the café 30 minutes after. We talked for awhile before going our separate ways.

This is our Video

[Caleb]

LOL. I like this one. I love that you had a bidding war over it. Good job guys!

[charlie]

I just happened to be walking around vienna today some time after midday (wanting to make a video of the first district viennese feral pigeon, famed for it's plumage) when all of a sudden I was surrounded by feathers. I thought that it might interest people from this group to see just how bad things got :-)

bad things happening mostly with original sound, as the one or other scream is quite good. :-)