A rule is a rule

I've been thinking tonight that I'm still, pretty much, a stickler for rules.

When I was a kid, I used to see other kids breaking rules all the time. Used to drive me crazy.

Near my house there's some government land that provides a ten-minute shortcut to the train station. It's covered with "No trespassing" signs, but everybody uses it. During the Sydney Olympics in 2000 they officially opened it up, created bitumen approaches to the existing footpath that bisects the land, then locked it all off again afterwards. Although I did use it for a few months after the Olympics, I just can't stand climbing through the tin-snipped hole under that "No trespassing" sign...

However, there's something very... appealing about an event such as this:

Tomorrow, an event called Central Flash Mob is getting together a massive group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who will freeze for five minutes in the waiting area for CountryLink and intercity trains at Central Station in Sydney. They will place themselves in various culturally-united positions (handshakes, hugs, etc). The exact time of the freeze will be at 9:15am on Australia Day.

After the five-minute freeze they will then disperse abruptly as if nothing has happened. It would be amazing to see the bedazzled expressions of the unwitting staff, tourists' and commuters' faces as they see hundreds of people just freeze in time.

For law-abiding little ol' me, it's like rule-breaking without breaking rules. It's kind of like in the 80s, when attending science fiction conventions in Brisbane, we had to try not to look like a street march (banned by Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen) when groups of us went out into the Queen Street Mall for a late-night coffee.

I need to be in the CBD tomorrow afternoon, and I'm not so sure I want to be, ah, "stuck" there all day! So I can't attend the flash mob, although I'd love to be there. I'll be sure to freeze here, at the computer, and I'll look for the footage of their efforts on Youtube.

Oh! Here's one they prepared earlier! I hope there's a video for tomorrow's event.



Sunday's still too-high number: 96.4. Sigh...