Epic Zelinsky Maneuver
Aug. 9th, 2008 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sniffnoyEDIT 29 MAY 2014: Now unlocked.
So Friday of 5th week is animation night. It was held in Stone B50. But after the showing of the Donald Duck fire safety video (actually from partway in as rewinding was taking too long), the system just kind of crapped out. The sound failed to work, and we couldn't turn off the lights. While janitors were called in to try to fix the problem, the thing degenerated into a giant game of Contact and lots of people leaving, and it was eventually concluded that the problem could not be fixed at the time. Instead a shorter "greatest hits" version would be held the next day, or Sunday, or maybe the final Friday.
Well, it didn't happen Saturday or Sunday, but it was planned for Friday. At 9:00 we met in CAS 224. The projector was set up. The lights worked. The sound worked. All was ready to go.
Then someone made the mistake of closing the door on the projector booth.
The door auto-locked itself. And the special card we needed to open it had been left inside. Along with Lucas and Phil's stuff. And the projector, left on, and some films, which aren't ours. Uh, we'll start at 9:30? Janitors are called.
Unfortunately the janitors prove of little use - they don't have enough clearance to open the door, and the main janitors' office closed long ago. And so Sachin (with help from some other people) began attempting to pick the physical lock.
Another janitor showed up and we hid the lockpicking, but that was the last we saw of them. It must have been about 10 by then, and we only had the room till 11, with curfew at 12. By 10:30 very few people remained, and little progress appeared to have been made on the lockpicking. Perhaps this was not the best approach.
Might there be another way in, other than through the locked door? Well, how about into the ceiling and over the wall? The ceiling tiles were removable, after all. Someone small, like Josh, might be able to fit.
(Though, what will he do once he's inside? The door doesn't appear to open from inside, which seems stupid... but he can get the card and slide it under to outside. Then Phil notices there is in fact a door handle, he just failed to see it, so he can jut go in and open the door as you would expect.)
Will Steadman tries lifting a ceiling tile to find something in the way - Josh only has about 3 inches, definitely not enough. But with some advice from Josh, he finds the obstacle is not as he expected it was, and he is able to slide the tile out of the way to reveal enough room after all. Will and Adam lift Josh up to get over the wall, and... uh oh. This next ceiling tile won't bear Josh's weight. Won't work. Josh complains he used to be able to do this, evidently he's gotten too fat (!) since then.
The lockpicking continues with no sign of success, and Josh decides, you know what? It just might bear his weight. Let's try it again. Only this time clear out the adjacent ceiling tiles. Will instead accidentally clears one out on the other side of the wall, and Josh realizes this is the right way to go. Maybe the tiles on that side will bear his weight. Will and Adam give him a boost once again, and... he's up! He's in the ceiling! Now he has to descend... and he'd better not fall on our (still running) projector!
We wait. We know he's in there. And then... dangling from above, we see Josh's foot! Then the other! Then... touchdown! We cheer as he drops onto the desk where the equipment is. "Get on the floor!" we shout, not sure if he can hear us through the glass. He crosses in front of the projector, then jumps onto the floor. The door is opened, the card is recovered, a trash can is stuck in front of the door to keep it from closing, and the projector is finally shut off. Josh is declared hero of PROMYS.
But it looks like animation night has been lost nonetheless. It's 11:00 already. People start saying animation night is cursed.
Well, you know what? Who's going to check on us? We'll just get back by the curfew at 12. And so we take the 1 hour, with the tiny few who remain, and a few more we managed to contact, to watch Why People Smoke, Janko, Special Delivery, and Powers of Ten.
Animation night is saved, thanks to Josh! (And Will moved the ceiling tiles back into place.)
It was pretty epic.
-Harry
So Friday of 5th week is animation night. It was held in Stone B50. But after the showing of the Donald Duck fire safety video (actually from partway in as rewinding was taking too long), the system just kind of crapped out. The sound failed to work, and we couldn't turn off the lights. While janitors were called in to try to fix the problem, the thing degenerated into a giant game of Contact and lots of people leaving, and it was eventually concluded that the problem could not be fixed at the time. Instead a shorter "greatest hits" version would be held the next day, or Sunday, or maybe the final Friday.
Well, it didn't happen Saturday or Sunday, but it was planned for Friday. At 9:00 we met in CAS 224. The projector was set up. The lights worked. The sound worked. All was ready to go.
Then someone made the mistake of closing the door on the projector booth.
The door auto-locked itself. And the special card we needed to open it had been left inside. Along with Lucas and Phil's stuff. And the projector, left on, and some films, which aren't ours. Uh, we'll start at 9:30? Janitors are called.
Unfortunately the janitors prove of little use - they don't have enough clearance to open the door, and the main janitors' office closed long ago. And so Sachin (with help from some other people) began attempting to pick the physical lock.
Another janitor showed up and we hid the lockpicking, but that was the last we saw of them. It must have been about 10 by then, and we only had the room till 11, with curfew at 12. By 10:30 very few people remained, and little progress appeared to have been made on the lockpicking. Perhaps this was not the best approach.
Might there be another way in, other than through the locked door? Well, how about into the ceiling and over the wall? The ceiling tiles were removable, after all. Someone small, like Josh, might be able to fit.
(Though, what will he do once he's inside? The door doesn't appear to open from inside, which seems stupid... but he can get the card and slide it under to outside. Then Phil notices there is in fact a door handle, he just failed to see it, so he can jut go in and open the door as you would expect.)
Will Steadman tries lifting a ceiling tile to find something in the way - Josh only has about 3 inches, definitely not enough. But with some advice from Josh, he finds the obstacle is not as he expected it was, and he is able to slide the tile out of the way to reveal enough room after all. Will and Adam lift Josh up to get over the wall, and... uh oh. This next ceiling tile won't bear Josh's weight. Won't work. Josh complains he used to be able to do this, evidently he's gotten too fat (!) since then.
The lockpicking continues with no sign of success, and Josh decides, you know what? It just might bear his weight. Let's try it again. Only this time clear out the adjacent ceiling tiles. Will instead accidentally clears one out on the other side of the wall, and Josh realizes this is the right way to go. Maybe the tiles on that side will bear his weight. Will and Adam give him a boost once again, and... he's up! He's in the ceiling! Now he has to descend... and he'd better not fall on our (still running) projector!
We wait. We know he's in there. And then... dangling from above, we see Josh's foot! Then the other! Then... touchdown! We cheer as he drops onto the desk where the equipment is. "Get on the floor!" we shout, not sure if he can hear us through the glass. He crosses in front of the projector, then jumps onto the floor. The door is opened, the card is recovered, a trash can is stuck in front of the door to keep it from closing, and the projector is finally shut off. Josh is declared hero of PROMYS.
But it looks like animation night has been lost nonetheless. It's 11:00 already. People start saying animation night is cursed.
Well, you know what? Who's going to check on us? We'll just get back by the curfew at 12. And so we take the 1 hour, with the tiny few who remain, and a few more we managed to contact, to watch Why People Smoke, Janko, Special Delivery, and Powers of Ten.
Animation night is saved, thanks to Josh! (And Will moved the ceiling tiles back into place.)
It was pretty epic.
-Harry
no subject
Date: 2008-08-10 02:54 am (UTC)