#people went bonkers for these things even though we had them in stock for almost exactly the same price all year long

[mybigfatgaylife]

Black Friday deals are almost always fake anyway. I worked retail for over half a decade and all our Black Friday deals were just extra stock of known popular items sold at a very slight markdown.

Working Black Friday was always exhausting, but I did it every year (usually opening the store) because I was a young single guy without my own family so I had lots of flexibility, and many of the people I worked with wanted to spend the day with their families. (Also back then Black Friday was one of the only days corporate would allow overtime, so if I worked more than 8 hours I usually made enough extra money to be able to buy Christmas presents.)

If you must go out on Black Friday, please think a little of the employees in the stores you visit. Chances are they've been up since 3 or 4 in the morning and are working extra long shifts to cover the hours. Don't yell at them, or give them a hard time, whatever is going wrong, whatever is pissing you off, almost certainly isn't their fault.

Please don't make a mess. You are almost certainly going to find things in a mess. Please don't make it worse.

And say thank you. Look them in the eye, say "Thank you," and mean it. Believe me, they'll feel it and appreciate it.

pro insider tips for black friday from a retail worker

stay home

stay home

stay home

stay home

stay home

stay home

stay home

dont even think about going to a store

[thelittlesttimelord]

The Littlest Timelord: The Death of the Doctor Chapter 30

TITLE: The Littlest Timelord: The Death of the Doctor Chapter 30 PAIRING: No Pairing RATING: T CHAPTER: 30/? SUMMARY:  The Doctor’s death is looming on the horizon and Elise is growing every  day. What the Doctor doesn’t know is that he has 200 years to teach Elise all he knows. Amy, Rory, and River let Elise in on their secret,  because River knows she will keep it. What will Elise do when he’s gone?

[A/N - Chapter 30! God, can you believe it? Just a few more chapters till the end! Are you ready?]

After retrieving Joe, they went back to the restaurant. Joe was lying on a table while the Doctor scanned him.

Rita was making tea for everyone.

Howie and Rory were trying to find things to barricade the door with.

“If we can wedge a chair under the door handles, that should stop anything from getting in,” Rory said.

Rita walked over to the Doctor and Elise with mugs of tea.

“Thank you,” Elise said.

“What exactly happened to him?” Rita asked, gesturing to Joe.

“He died,” the Doctor told her.

“You are a medical doctor, aren't you? You haven't just got a degree in cheese-making or something.”

“No! Well, yes, both, actually. I mean, there is no cause. All his vital organs simply stopped, as if the simple spark of life, his loves and hates, his faiths and fears were just taken…” The Doctor sniffed his mug. “…and this is a cup of tea.”

Well what else would it be? Elise wanted to say something, but the Doctor clearly wasn’t having any of her attitude on this trip. In human years, Elise would be classified as a teenager. Is that why she felt angry or sad all the time? Hormones?

“Of course, I'm British, it's how we cope with trauma. That and tutting,” Rita said.

“But how did you make it?”

“All hotels should have a well stocked kitchen, even alien fake ones. I heard you talking when you arrived. Look, it's no more ridiculous than Howie's CIA theory, or mine.”

“Which is?”

“This is Jahannam.”

“You're a Muslim.”

“Don't be frightened.”

The Doctor laughed. “You think this is Hell.”

“The whole '80s hotel thing took me by surprise, though.”

“And all these fears and phobias wandering about, most are completely unconnected to us, so why are they still here?”

Rita sighed. “Maybe the cleaners have gone on strike.”

The Doctor chuckled. “I like you. You're a right clever clogs. But this isn't Hell, Rita.”

“You don't understand. I say that without fear. Jahannam will play its tricks, and there'll be times when I want to run and scream, but I've tried to live a good life, and that knowledge keeps me sane, despite the monsters and the bonkers rooms. Gibbis is an alien, isn't he?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Okay. I'm going to file that under Freak Out About Later.”

“Doctor, look at this. I found it in a corridor, I completely forgot I had it,” Amy said, handing over the paper she found earlier.

The Doctor playfully smacked her on the head with it. “My name is Lucy Hayward and I'm the last one left. It took Luke first. It got him on his first day, almost as soon as we arrived. It's funny. You don't know what's going to be in your room until you see it, then you realize it could never have been anything else. I just saw mine. It was a gorilla from a book I'd read as a kid. My God, that thing used to terrify me. The gaps between my worships are getting shorter, like contractions. This is what happened to the others, and how lucky they were. It's all so clear now. I'm so happy. Praise him. Praise him.”

“Praise him,” Howie said.

Everyone’s heads turned towards him.

“What did you just say?” the Doctor asked.

“Nothing. Praise him!”

“This is what happened to Joe!” Gibbis shrieked.

“God, it's going to come for me now,” Howie moaned.

“You'll lead it right here.”

“I won't leave you. I promise you. You have my word on that,” the Doctor reassured him.

“I don't want to get eaten.”

“Calm down,” Amy said.

“He's going to lead the creature right here!” Gibbis yelled.

Elise really wanted to hit him to get him to shut up.

The Doctor pulled out his screwdriver. It whirred loudly and everyone went quiet. “Thank you.”

“Don't you see? He'll lead it right here,” Gibbis said.

“What do you suggest?” Rita asked.

“Look, whatever it is out there, it's obviously chosen Howard as its next course. Now, tragic though that is, this is no time for sentiment. I'm saying if it were to find him, it may be satisfied and let the rest of us go. All I want to do is go home and be conquered and oppressed. Is that too much to ask?!”

Elise opened her mouth to go off on Gibbis, but was cut off by Rita.

“It's okay. I'll stay with Howie. You take the others and go.”

“No. We stay together,” the Doctor said. The Doctor walked over to Gibbis. “Your civilization is one of the oldest in the galaxy. Now I see why. Your cowardice isn't quaint, it's sly, aggressive. Its how that gene of gutlessness has survived while so many others have perished. Well, not today. No one else dies today. Right?”

Gibbis nodded.

“Brilliant. Howie, any second, it's going to possess you again. When it does, I'm going to ask you some questions. Please try to answer them.”

They all sat down at a table, except Elise. She was too restless, so she settled for standing behind her father.

“I hope my mum's all right, she's going to be w-worried,” Howie said. Something came over him.

“Howie?” the Doctor asked.

Howie started smiling.

“Howie. Howie, you're next. We're all dead jealous. So, tell us. How do we get a piece of the action? Why isn't he possessing all of us?”

Howie laughed. “You guys have got all these distractions, all these obstacles. It'd be so much easier if you just let it go, you know? Clear the path.”

“You want it to find you even though you know what it's going to do?” Amy asked.

“Are you kidding? He's going to kill us all. How cool is that?”

They all got up, leaving Howie at the table by himself.

“It's as I thought. It feeds on fear. Everything, the rooms, Lucy's note, even the pictures in reception, has been put here to frighten us. So we have to resist it. Do whatever you have to. Cross your fingers, say a prayer, think of a basket of kittens, but do not give in to the fear,” the Doctor told them.

“Okay, but what are we actually going to do?” Amy asked.

“We're going to catch ourselves a monster.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

They managed to trap the monster, which of course happened to be a Minotaur, in the spa.

“Quite fitting isn’t it? Labyrinth of a hotel?” Elise said, “Makes sense.”

“Nothing personal. I just think we should take things slowly. Get to know each other. You take people's most primal fears and pop it in a room. A tailor-made hell, just for them. Why?” the Doctor asked.

The Minotaur snarled at them.

“Did you say they take? Ah, what is that word? The guard? No, the warden? This is a prison.” The Doctor turned and smiled at Elise. “My clever girl.”

Elise returned the smile.

“So what are we, cell mates? Lunch?”

The Minotaur growled.

“We are not ripe. This is what Joe said, that we weren't ready.”

They stepped out of the shadows and faced him.

“So, what, what, you make us ready. You what? Replace? Replace what, fear? You have lived so long even your name is lost. You want this to stop. Because you are just instinct. Then tell me. Tell me how to fight you.”

Elise’s eyes filled with tears as her hearts broke for the Minotaur. He didn’t want to do this anymore. He wanted it to be over. She knew how he felt.

“My master, my lord. I'm here! Oh! Bring me death.”

“That’s Howie,” Elise said.

“No, no, no, no, no!”

The Minotaur put it’s large fist through the glass separating them.

“Rory, watch out!” the Doctor yelled.

Amy and Rita burst in.

“Stay back!”

The Minotaur smashed the glass and knocked Rory down.

Elise rushed to side. “Rory?” she asked.

“Where'd he go?” the Doctor asked Rory.

“Somebody hit me,” Rory said, “Was it Amy?”

The Doctor got up and ran down the hallway.

“Rory, are you all right?” Rita asked him.

“We should find the Doctor,” Amy said. She stood up and walked towards room 7. She opened the door.

Rita pulled her back and shut it.

Amy, Rory, Elise, and Rita met back up with the Doctor, who had already found Howie dead. They took Howie’s body and laid it out next to Joe’s in the restaurant.

Amy placed the goldfish on a side table in the reception area.

The Doctor walked past Elise and grabbed her arm.

“Where are we going? Why aren’t the others coming?” she asked.

“Because. We’re going to go find our rooms.”

Elise laughed sarcastically. “Okay, you’ve completely lost your mind.”

“C’mon. Don’t you want to know?” The Doctor smiled when he saw the curiosity in her eyes.

As they ventured through the hallway, they could hear whispers.

Elise walked past a door with a number 10 on it. It was calling to her to open it.

Elise looked at her father and he nodded. She opened the door and saw herself standing there. Over the bodies of everyone she cared about.

Her father. Both incarnations of him. Amy. Rory. River. Outside the window, Gallifrey was burning.

She stumbled back into her father’s arms as she let out a shuddering breath. She turned and buried her face in his neck.

“Shhh”, he cooed, as she stroked her hair.

He understood her greatest fear now. Being completely alone. Just like she had been in the last days of the Time War. Before he killed them all.

“Hey”, he said, pulling her away from him. He cupped her face in his hands as tears streamed down from her blue eyes. “I’m not gonna let that happen. Do you hear me?” he told her.

Elise nodded and he placed a kiss on her forehead. She wiped her eyes and sniffled. “Did…did you find your room?” she asked.

He nodded and gestured to room 11.

Elise let out a watery laugh. “Of course.”

He opened the door, just enough to peak, before closing it and putting a Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob. “C’mon. We need to find the security room.

[thetriggeredhappy]

How about #18 for Speeding Bullet? Only if you want, of course!

hell yeah i want to, dude!!

(minor tw: canon-typical violence sort of stuff. nothing gratuitous, just worth mentioning. this is basically just pg-13)

18.) “That was kind of hot.”

The worst thing about the match being caught in a stalemate was the energy of it. Being trapped in that strange place between fighting and resting, between alertness and relative relaxation. The fact that it made the day drag on longer was no good, and the looming fear that any moment something would change and they would lose was also no fun, but really, the feeling of being a coiled spring just waiting for the action to start back up, weapons all reloaded and wounds all patched and healed, knowing the if but waiting on the when, it was awful.

Sniper in particular was fairly irritated about them, mostly because generally during stalemates, he would be tormented by the enemy Spy, who seemed to get bored extremely quickly. That left Sniper with an additional layer of tension going on, with the only real measure he could take to try and not get backstabbed a few dozen times in a row to be changing nests fairly frequently, which left him only a little less frazzled.

He’d only just sat down in the barn that made up the outskirts of the current battlefield when he got lucky enough to hear the telltale sound of a dispersing cloak and a knife flipping open.

No. Absolutely not. The bastard had killed him four times in the past twenty minutes. He would not get a fifth.

In the space of a moment he’d leapt to his feet, seized his knife and spun around with a snarl, a vicious swing going a long way to make the Spy reel backwards and to buy Sniper a moment to get bearings on where he was and where he might move next.

The Spy’s next move was to back up and glance for the nearest door or window, but no, he would not be getting away, not after being such a bastard. Sniper darted forward, feigning a swing at his kneecaps only to instead thrust upwards, knife sliding cleanly up into the Spy’s ribcage.

“Why don’t you go ahead and stay dead for a while?” Sniper snarled, and yanked the knife out, and kicked him to the ground.

Relative silence for the three seconds it took for the Spy to stop struggling on the ground. Full silence for the five seconds it took before Respawn pulled the corpse away.

“That was kind of hot,” chirped a voice from up above him, and Sniper nearly had a heart attack.

He glanced up, and there, looking down at him, lying in the rafters that supported the loft with a hand propping up his chin and a grin on his face, was Scout.

“How the hell’d you get there?” Sniper asked, trying to shake off his alarm.

“I’ve been up here, man. I was up here before you showed up and went all one-liner action hero. I was asleep.” Indeed there was a layer of laziness to the way Scout spoke and moved, usually reserved for shortly after the team woke up in the morning or for late, late at night.

Sniper exhaled, relaxing minutely, moving to wipe his knife off and pick back up his gun, glancing it over to see if it’d been damaged when he dropped it. “I’m not gonna ask why you were up napping in the rafters instead of out doing your job,” he said dryly.

“What job?” Scout scoffed. “It’s a stalemate.”

“There’s still bastards that need killin’. That means you’ve still got a job to do,” Sniper said firmly.

“Yeah, plenty’s guys around to fight,” Scout said sarcastically. He pulled his pistol from the waistband of his pants, aiming it at make-believe enemies. “Pew, pew. Really givin’ me a workout. Pew, pew-pew. C’mon Snipes, I need backup here against all the just, the waves of guys attackin’ us right now.”

“I get it,” Sniper said flatly.

“Just the crazy amount of dudes currently attackin’ is that I’m supposed to be stoppin’. Because you told me to do my job.”

“I get it, Scout.”

“Just the absolutely bonkers number of totally real people I’m totally in combat with right exactly now, this like, action hero movie’s worth of enemies. With like, me being the protagonist. Just that many guys.”

“Scout, I get it.”

“And you’re just like, sittin’ around lookin’ pretty while I’m doin’ all the work here. Shittiest love interest ever, in this, the movie where a bunch of guys attack us.”

Sniper shot Scout a glare, then went to start adjusting his scope.

“Hey, but y’know what’s weird, though?” Scout asked, voice perking up as he changed subjects abruptly.

“What?”

“How you always just like, glare at me or don’t respond when I say flirty stuff like that, instead’a tellin’ me to knock it off.”

Sniper turned his head to glare again, not speaking.

“I mean, sometimes you say stuff like “Oi, bugger, go away, I’m concentrating” or “Bloody hell, can this conversation wait, piss” or somethin’, but you never tell me to actually stop.” Scout tilted his head just to one side. “What’s that all about?”

“I don’t sound like that,” Sniper grumbled.

“See, even now when you’re all pissed off for some reason, you’re still not telling me to quit. You’re just changing the subject. I just thought that was kinda funny, y’know?”

“Hilarious,” Sniper drawled.

Scout sat up, and dropped down to hang from the rafter he’d been perched on, swinging once and dropping to the ground. For a brief moment Sniper was convinced he was about to watch Scout break both his legs, but Scout dropped into a roll and ended up back on his feet again, brushing hay from himself, otherwise unscathed.

And then he was walking up towards Sniper, crowding into his space. Sniper took a step back instinctively, and Scout took two forward. Sniper’s back collided with the wall, and then Scout was stood practically on his toes, looking up at him with that same curiosity, that same half-grin. Sniper’s pulse pounded in his ears.

“So what’s the deal, then?” Scout asked with a surprising amount of neutrality, eyes flickering to give him an up-and-down. “Is it that you’re… scared of me, or something? Is that it?”

“Of course not,” Sniper half-scoffed, glancing away, only to have his credibility instantly put into question as he jumped at the feeling of Scout fiddling with his vest’s zipper.

“Funny way of showin’ it,” Scout commented in turn.

“Look, this just isn’t something that…” Sniper managed to stamp down a shiver before it could roll through him at the feeling of Scout’s right hand moving from fiddling with his vest to instead slide to rest under it. “…That coworkers should do, particularly in our line of business.”

“What, you don’t trust me?” Scout pouted, nonetheless keeping his hand on Sniper’s waist, his left one moving to mess with the bullets Sniper kept stocked in his breast pocket.

“S’not that,” Sniper gritted out, looking away entirely to stare out over Scout’s shoulder, trying to ignore how nice all this contact felt. Admittedly, it wasn’t something that happened to him often outside the context of battle. “It’s just… not very professional.”

“So we keep this quiet,” Scout shrugged, tilting his head to try and goad Sniper into looking at him again. “I ain’t askin’ for some whole big thing, roses an’ chocolates an’ all that. Not unless you’re about that. I just wanted to… y’know, try somethin’ out. See if we’d work.”

“If we’d work?” Sniper echoed, eyebrows drawing together, still not quite able to meet Scout’s eyes.

“Yeah. I mean, I’m pretty bored, talkin’ with you is almost always pretty fun, and you’re just pretty. Figured we could work somethin’ out. But then you went an’ started playin’ some game where you didn’t give me a straight answer or anythin’ to go on even though it was pretty damn clear I was hitting on you.”

Sniper’s jaw tightened.

Scout’s subtle motions stopped for a second, presumably as Scout considered him. “Look, I’m not gonna like, force the issue, here. You tell me you don’t want nothin’ to do with this, I’ll leave you alone. Won’t even be mad, just like, a little disappointed. Because I’m serious. Cards on the table? I really wanna try this. But this definitely isn’t gonna work unless you show up voluntarily. So you tell me straight up, “Get away”, and I’ll walk away and I won’t ever bug you again like this. I’ll cut it out with the makin’ passes at you and we’ll both get outta here like none’a this ever happened. That’s all you’ve gotta say, is “Get away”. And I will.”

“Fine. Get—“ Sniper started, eyes locking on Scout’s again, only to pause.

Scout’s expression was something Sniper had never seen on him before. A bit serious, largely earnest. There was hope pretty clearly written across his features, and the whole pretense of smugness was gone. He wasn’t playing around, he was making a very honest, open offer.

Sniper’s breath caught in his throat. “Get…” he tried again, because he’d meant it, this wasn’t something coworkers should do. He was a professional, he had standards for himself, standards that pretty clearly meant not doing this sort of thing with any of his teammates. And besides that, Sniper really wasn’t in a position where he should be… dating, or whatever else Scout planned to propose. And he’d never even been any good at dating back in the past, and he wasn’t sure if he’d even enjoy it. But both of Scout’s hands had migrated to his waist beneath his vest, and stroked over his sides with a surprising and uncharacteristic gentleness. Like Scout was waiting for that second word. Like he was almost sure it was going to come, any moment, and Sniper’s voice caught.

Scout looked at him. He looked at Scout.

Then his eyes flicked up, and widened slightly.

In the space of a moment, he’d seized the pistol from Scout’s waistband, firing one, two three shots off towards the doorway. The first pinged off the wood, but the second two connected, one with an invisible chest, the other with an invisible forehead.

Scout half-turned, eyebrows raised, to regard the Spy that slumped to the ground just inside the barn, and the way it disappeared after a second. “Nice shot,” he commented, voice appraising. “How’d you catch that?”

“Saw the hay on the ground move,” Sniper replied, hands falling to tuck the pistol back where Scout put it, only to linger there for another few moments.

Scout hummed. Silence between them for a few seconds before Scout turned to look back at him again. He didn’t speak, just looked up at Sniper, displaying an amount of restraint just then.

Sniper finally let out a sigh, shoulders sagging, pulling Scout in a half-step closer. “Y’know what? To hell with it. Fine.”

Scout perked up immediately, lighting up like a firework show. “Really? You mean it?” he asked, his smile stretching across his face wide and unabashed.

“Yeah. Not like I’ve got any real reason to say no. You’re not so bad,” he managed to joke, his own face making a valiant attempt at a smile.

Scout laughed, and the pressure of his hands increased as he leaned into Sniper a bit, positively glowing. “Yeah. Not so bad.”

[weasal]

ClexaCon & Me

With it now being over a week(!) since ClexaCon finished, and me finally getting a good night’s sleep after a manic 4 days in NYC and some jetlag hell.....it's well overdue that I give some gratitude and shout-outs to all those who made it such a radical experience. This is going to be long af ok cause it’s me and you know how that goes. #sorrynotsorry  

It was quite the fabulously cracked and potholed road to Vegas. @gramjams, @femininenachos and I started The Hunner Podcast a little over a year ago in February 2017, after many moons of creating ridiculous (and some serious!) Clexa content for our little corner of fandom. From there sprang RelicKru, then our own mini RelicCon here in Glasgow, and one incredible @merchanon who offered to make all our swaggy stall holder dreams come true for the big real deal in Sin City. @niylahsniknaks was born and suddenly we were on our way to becoming post-apocalyptic lesbian market traders at the world’s largest multi-fandom event for LGBTQ women and allies! I mean WHUT!

I am still completely overwhelmed that ANY of this actually happened, and it was over in such a whirlwind that it almost feels like a beautiful fuzzy exhausting little-bit-tipsy gay dream. But it did happen and we did do that. MASSIVE shout-out and respect to the entire @clexacon team. It was you guys who really did it and you have my unending gratitude for creating such an inclusive, nerdy, queer, vibrant, women-centric stupendous ball of a time. It is so important that ClexaCon exists, and you all work so tirelessly to make it so. My heart was fit to burst inhabiting that space for those days and I can’t thank you enough for all of it.

To everyone who came to our stall, either just to peruse and have some banter, buy stuff, or to tell us you love the podcast or the things we make and do - THANK YOU SO MUCH. This was without a doubt my favourite part of the whole crazy 4 days (even more than meeting Sarah Shahi!), and each and every interaction was a delight and made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It was beyond surreal and flattering to have people ask for pictures with us, or even just to say they knew about the podcast or loved putting a face to the voice! Actually bonkers. Even funner than that was explaining our entire table to people who had no fucking clue who we were or what any of it was about! From complete puzzlement to rabid curiosity, every reaction was priceless.

To all the amazing artists and vendors - you made that hall LIT! I wish I'd actually had any time to properly walk around and browse and buy. @molliemashstash and @immochiball thank you so much for taking the time to come and chat to us! You are both amazing and it was so ace to meet you, albeit far too briefly. Mollie - I can’t wait to properly gaze at your beautiful sketches book. So chuffed I snagged the last one! @sabrinushka you are the cutest human with the wickedest sense of humour and I’m going to treasure your prints forever. Next time you must sell them!

And where would we have been without our pals....not half as entertained that’s for sure. To our little cygnet Swanita @swan-heda - you are literally part of the family and we’ll be seeing you in September for more fairy godmothering! I think I kissed her cute Daisy Diddly cheeks about twenty times. Being placed almost directly behind @blindwire in Artist’s Alley meant that we annoyed the fuck out of our immediate neighbours as expected (oops, sorry folks!), but it allowed for loads of hugs and hangtime with one of the best. Heart you bigtime, Candles. There was this other person there from time to time too but she’s so smol shy and retiring that I barely noticed her. lol lol kidding. @entirelytookeen you managed to be even larger than life than I was expecting, even after all those mammoth skype sessions. So glad you showed up for your throngs of fans, and for us (coast to coast), you gorgeous diva seawitch. @the-villageidiot you are a towering tour de force! Turnt it up from Vegas to NYC. Lovin your work gurlfriend. @blue-kiko as expected you’ve transitioned to mythical status due to arriving just as PizzaFloorGate2018 occurred then later making us feel like celesbians at your Ascension Party VIP table, allowing me to capture Stephanie Beatriz writhe around in front of 1000 drooling queers. Bless you! @foomatic YOU ARE A MACHINE! Can’t believe you kept making the time to swing by and even bought us those drinks at the party. We owe you 75 drinks now for everything you’ve done for us.

Mad love n props to all our other OG Relics and new friends alike. We love you all truly madly gayly - @timebureauagent @clexacloneclub, @imaginationofacornflake, @syngularitysyn, @wednesdayswoman, @thisismylifecollage, @orangeyouglad8, @jaimeajamais, @sunspill, @djkissyface, @quesandgays, @q-parallel and everyone else who either came for a drink in our homemade very well-stocked room bar or just had a wee chat at some point over the weekend. You are all wondrous people and I feel Priest Lexa blessed to know you. If we did meet, please send me a message so we can connect as there are heaps of people who I don’t know Tumblr names for!

Lastly but far from leastly, a moment of appreciation for Team Niylah’s Nik Naks. That includes our consistently awesome mule @jravenb who carted a skateboard and what looked like a brick of cocaine over state lines (it wasn’t), and our unofficial fifth member @hedahaven who truly went above and beyond to make our stall and our lives that weekend as easy and stress-free as possible. You really rock, are the kindest person and I’m so glad I gently persuaded you to join in the madness! The most important thanks of all though is by far reserved for our Magical Merch. G - you are an actual living legend. You grafted harder than I’ve seen anyone graft and you were a fucking hoot to boot. None of NNN would have been possible without your dedication, generosity and wild vision! You are SUCH a marshmallow wrapped up in a biker vest! Oh and thanks for the ghetto style punk rock hotel room tattoo ;) We’ll always have Agent 8008 and the Boob Umbrella.

And finally, to both my wife and my podcast wife - WeGramChos 4 Lyfe! So proud of us. Thank you for making this mental journey so much god damn fun. Like Clarke with Lexa’s top, we pulled that off pretty nicely. Love you times a HUNNER.

Below are a selection of pics that (minus the amazing faces of the kru) sum up my experience pretty well. Oh and I think that I speak for us all when I say - the heteronormative default world absolutely blows in comparison to that beautiful, queer, love-filled, safe space called ClexaCon!

[actutrends]

That time I flew to New Zealand 20 years ago to witness the Y2K non-apocalypse

The fearmongering surrounding the Year 2000 Problem — or the Y2K bug, as it was better known — may have faded from memory for most people. But for me it remains a personal and professional touchstone, marking the transformation being wrought by technology at the time and profound upheaval over the past 2 decades.

Even if the world did not end in a fiery meltdown of computers, it’s worth reflecting on this bizarre moment in the evolution of humanity’s relationship to technology.

Let us step into the Wayback Machine and set the dials for the summer of 1999. I had been working at The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina for more than 7 years. Most of that time I had covered the classic beats, such as cops and courts and local government. But the rise of the internet led to an expansion of interest in all things tech, and as the paper expanded its coverage, I was pulled into writing about networking and communications.

This was a heady moment for American newspapers and me. After graduating from college in 1991, I struggled to find a full-time newspaper gig. The Bush recession was crimping ad budgets. And the last of many major afternoon newspapers were closing, flooding the market with seasoned journalists. A bad combination for an aspiring journalist.

Still, I landed a part-time gig with the N&O that eventually became a full-time one. And over the next few years, the economy recovered. And then it started to really cook as the internet began to touch everything. As a tech reporter in North Carolina, I was writing stories about a young, hot-shot tech startup named Cisco Systems that had just opened its first office outside Silicon Valley in the central part of our state. It was hoping to pilfer talent from two other major local employers: IBM’s network enterprise team and Nortel’s telecommunications equipment division.

IBM’s division was struggling as companies began replacing their green-screen computer terminals that connected to a mainframe in the basement with PCs and servers that would eventually connect to the internet. Nortel was doing better as phone companies were starting to shift from analog to digital equipment that would eventually dramatically lower the cost of phone calls, which to me meant I wouldn’t have to call my parents (who lived in Kansas) after 11 p.m. to avoid going bankrupt.

The dot-com surge made terms like “entrepreneurs” and “startups” sexy and in turn dramatically expanded the media interest in the sector. Wired magazine launched, followed by the Industry Standard, while newspapers saw their help wanted sections swell and began to invest more in business coverage.

Perhaps no American newspaper benefited from the tech boom as much as the San Jose Mercury News. Amid massive plans to expand its technology coverage to more than 40 reporters, the Merc went on a recruiting binge that eventually included offering me a job covering networking and communication in July 1999.

Upon arriving in San Jose, one of the more veteran tech reporters politely informed me that while I had done some decent work in the past, I had now been “called up to the NBA.” I wasn’t sure whether he was referring to working at the Merc or reporting from ground zero of the tech revolution. Either way, the pressure felt immense.

The Big Leagues

In the middle of startups IPOing every day and secretaries becoming millionaires, my big story at the start was … the controversy over Pac Bell’s decision to split the local area code. The number of cell phones was straining the system, and the growing density of phone lines threatened to overtake the volume of phone numbers available that started with 408.

Local residents, however, were pissed that 408 would no longer be the default. The 408 area code had been around for decades and was tightly interwoven into the notion of the community. The march of technology threatened to erase this small but emotional marker of the region’s identity. Laugh it up and roll your eyes, but this story repeatedly landed me on the front page as a revolt forced Pac Bell to back down.

Over my first few months, this tale and other quirky stories helped me move up the ranks that were rapidly churning as reporters were recruited away to other media amid a bidding war for talent. By December 1999, as the dot-com bubble continued to inflate and tech geniuses insisted this was not a bubble but a NEW ECONOMY, I was less of a newbie and more of an established face.

So when the Mercury News was tapped by its parent company, Knight-Ridder, to lead coverage of the Y2K bug across its chain of newspapers, I got pulled onto the team.

Like every tech reporter of the era, I had written my share of stories about Y2K. Simply put, the fear was that many outdated systems had software that had not been written to handle dates past the year 1999. Would internal clocks that read ’99 go to ’00 and believe it was 1900? Nobody seemed to know for sure. But plenty of doomsayers were urging companies and governments to spend vast sums of money to upgrade to new hardware or rewrite old software. Governments around the world established Y2K task forces and international agreements were established to encourage cooperation.

Amid the stock market rise, and IPOs, and heavy debt borrowing, Y2K contributed its share to the financial hysteria surrounding tech. Economists at the time were split about whether Y2K chaos would sink the economy into recession, or whether investments to address the issue would raise the GDP. One Cap Gemini study in 1999 pegged the cost of Y2K fixes at $858 billion.

More than the dot-com boom and the internet, Y2K created a fundamental existential angst because it forced everyone to take a digital inventory. And in doing so, it brought into sharp relief just how digitized our world had become. Everything seemed to be connected to a microchip somehow and featured some aspect of computing. The whole planet had grown smaller and more tightly connected. It had happened step by almost imperceptible step and then all of a sudden there we stood, on the brink of a techno disaster that could bring all down together.

Probably not. But when you work in newspapers, you have to have a plan in place to cover Armageddon. You know, just in case. And so, the Merc’s Y2K team began to take shape, with huge ambitions and cash flooding over the transom thanks to the 10,000 help wanted ads being purchased by Cisco Systems.

About 10 days before the end of the millennium, a brainstorming session for coverage led to a discussion about how the looming tragedy would likely unfold and which developed nation it would hit first. The answer: New Zealand. Of course, “developed” is a relative term. The country was still heavily rural, and if people thought about anything when they thought about New Zealand, it was probably sheep.

Nevertheless, it suddenly became imperative to send someone to New Zealand as soon as humanly possible. That someone, for reasons I don’t fully remember, was me.

Down Under

Making travel plans on the cusp of a new century was bonkers. My passport had lapsed, and the paper paid an ungodly sum to one of those services that can get your passport renewed in 72 hours. Meanwhile, the company’s travel agency somehow booked a roundtrip flight to Wellington that cost around $8,000. One hiccup: All flights coming back were booked, so I would have to stay two weeks no matter what happened. Or didn’t happen.

I packed a suitcase, and with my head spinning, boarded a plane to Hawaii, where I had a several hour layover in the middle of the night. Then I caught a connection to Auckland, NZ.

While I had since overcome it, at the time I was terrified of flying. To survive almost 18 hours of flying, including hurtling through a thunderstorm over the ocean, I popped an unhealthy amount of Dramamine along with a few alcoholic beverages. I lost track of time and location and just remember an interminable, fear-soaked floating feeling anchored by a death grip on the seat ahead of me.

Further adding to my confusion was crossing the international dateline for the first time in my life. Traveling almost an entire day had somehow jettisoned me into the future. When I landed in Auckland, I had to make a connection to Wellington, the nation’s capital, and only managed to navigate the airport after posing a series of delirious questions to local airport workers.

Finally, I landed in Wellington, and checked into a hotel just 36 hours before the end of civilization. I had brought a fancy laptop, by which I meant it had a 56k modem. After rigging a number of wires and adapters, I was able to dial into the local phone system and to connect to the internet.

The editors were eager for an update. What was happening on the ground? What was the mood like? I wasn’t even sure what day it was.

The Beehive

Afraid to go asleep and lacking any creative impulses, I decided to pursue the time-honored practice of conducting man-on-the-street interviews. My own mood was total disorientation. It was summer, and so it was warm and toasty out, but also the Christmas holidays. Everyone in New Zealand apparently takes several weeks off around this time to celebrate this strange mingling of seasons.

While there were lots of people wandering around, my attempts to interview them yielded little in the way of helpful journalistic material. Most people seemed nonplussed about Y2K even though the government had been pressing hard on the issue for two years. Its own Y2K task force in August 1998 declared:

We began our task with some skepticism regarding the degree to which such threats were being represented. As we progressed, however, it became increasingly clear that the Year 2000 problem, if not effectively managed, has the potential to have a significant impact on the lives of many New Zealanders. It also became increasingly clear that some public and private organizations in vital parts of our infrastructure are not well prepared to meet the challenges presented by the Year 2000.

Among the solutions was fixing its own systems and pressuring businesses to do the same. There was an infamous public awareness campaign featuring a mascot named Ken the Cockroach. Chosen because, well, cockroaches survive pretty much any disaster. The government spent $1.3 million on a publicity campaign organized by its Y2K Readiness Commission.

The grim message was that residents should prepare for three days of just about anything: power outages, financial systems crashing, utilities such as water and gas being cut off. Just in case, residents were told to put together emergency kits, including water, flashlights, and radios that ran on batteries. Maybe get some extra buckets in case toilets stop working. Non-perishable food. And withdraw some cash just in case. Real end-of-the world scenario type stuff.

Still, I didn’t detect any real panic about Y2K. Far more exciting to locals was the massive filming taking place by local hero Peter Jackson. He had constructed a big studio in Wellington, and hordes of cast and crew from all over the world had been flooding the city in recent weeks as part of the making of Lord of the Rings.

That sounded more interesting to me too, but I couldn’t get distracted. I eventually arrived at a New Zealand government office to pick up some press credentials. The government was aware that it would be in the Y2K spotlight and was busy welcoming international journalists like myself. I filed a few paragraphs via my prehistoric laptop with some comments from a government spokesperson, though I can’t honestly say whether they were published or not.

The next day or so was a blur of stumbling around and eating at odd moments, napping, and then waking up in a sweat afraid I’d missed the whole damn thing. Eventually, I made my way to the city center and the New Zealand parliament building that was nicknamed “The Beehive.” It was named such because the circular steel structure really did have the misbegotten shape of a beehive. No doubt it was one of those ideas that seemed like a bold architectural statement on paper but caused one to wince every time one had to look up on it.

Set on top of the hill, the Beehive offered wonderful views of the city below with the additional benefit that we couldn’t see the exterior of the Beehive while inside of it. We entered the building and were led to a kind of war room the government had set up. There were computers and boards with flashing lights and lots of telephones being manned by people with furrowed brows and fax machines spitting out documents.

I barely had time to settle in and take in the scene. I plugged in my laptop, with fingers at the ready. The room grew quiet as the clocked ticked toward midnight.

As the minute hand finally reached 12, there was a big explosion and a flash of light. Alas, just the fireworks over the bay below welcoming the new millennium.

Inside, there was almost total silence and stillness, waiting for calls and alarms that never came. Brows became more furrowed. A phone rang. Reports of a power outage at some remote corner. No, wait, scratch that. A drunk driver hit a utility pole.

After about 30 minutes, the sense of anti-climax began to settle in. No ATMs spewing money into the streets. No hospital life support systems failing. No big power surges. No death. No mayhem.

At 8 a.m. local time, the Y2K commission issued a press release declaring victory. According to David Henry, deputy chairman of the New Zealand Y2K Readiness Commission, all 12 sectors being monitored were reporting no problems. Time for a victory lap. “This is an excellent result and is testimony to the hard work sectors have put in,” Henry said in the statement.

By March, the commission would be disbanded. As for me, my head was still spinning, lost in a strange time zone and trying to think of how to write a few paragraphs to capture the weirdness of the whole thing. I sent along a few lines fed to a team in distant San Jose where they disappeared into a vortex. By the time most people reported for work 12 hours later at the Mercury News, and most time zones had welcomed 2000, the whole Y2K affair had already become an afterthought.

I had 10 more days before my return flight.

The End of the End

To this day, there is some debate about whether the Y2K bug was simply overblown nonsense or whether it was thwarted by the huge efforts to fix systems around the globe. But at the time, after months of hype, the whole thing simply vanished from the news cycle. Too much other tech news was ready to replace it.

Just 10 days into the new millennium, AOL announced it was acquiring Time Warner. While the merger is now considered an epic catastrophe, at the time was the seen as The Triumph of the New Economy. This dial-up behemoth was swallowing an old-timey corporation for $182 billion. Yowza!

The merger was possible because the Internet Bubble had reached its peak. Just a few weeks later, the markets would begin to crash, a slide lasting several weeks that would send Silicon Valley plunging back to reality. It was a disaster that would shape the next generation of entrepreneurs, who became more wary of Wall Street and instead created a whole different set of venture capital-funded excesses known as unicorns.

Unfortunately, this would also turn out to be the last great gasp of the golden age of newspapers. My trip to New Zealand was my junket of junkets, a money waster born of another age. For nine months, Merc editors tried furiously to spend travel budgets each quarter fearing the party would end, as it eventually did that summer when dot-com help wanted ads crashed and corporate turned off the spending spigot.

Within 18 months, a drumbeat of layoffs began that never stopped, gutting the newsroom until only a husk remained. Knight-Ridder collapsed, was sold, then broken into pieces and crumbled out of existence.

All these lessons would come eventually, for me and many other journalists writing about tech and money and the often unholy intersection between the two.

My only silver lining was the 10 days of being relatively unconnected in a far-off land where the exchange rate was ridiculously favorable. I hiked a volcano. Bathed in natural hot springs. And in a fit of inexplicably foolish judgment, gave in to New Zealand’s obsession with extreme sports and did my first and only bungee jump.

When it was time to return, I had finally acclimated to the time zone and the upside-down seasons. Returning to the buzzing newsroom at the Mercury News, I was immediately swept back into the craze of the dot-com whirlwind. What little I had to tell of my New Zealand escape was hardly the stuff of great foreign correspondent war stories and certainly impressed no one. “Welcome back from New Zealand,” said that same veteran tech reporter who had greeted me six months earlier. “So, I guess none of their sheep crashed?”

The post That time I flew to New Zealand 20 years ago to witness the Y2K non-apocalypse appeared first on Actu Trends.