BOSTON PARALYZED BY AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE

[mburbank]

Well, at least they arrested a couple of hippie art students. It can't be all bad.

[El Blanco]

Please tell me Menino has a speach for this. Seriously, he makes Bush look like Pericles.

[theapportioner]

Mumbles Menino

[mburbank]

This is SO embarassing. Menino and the attorney general are loudly insisting it was the INTENT of TNT that the devices appear to be bombs and cause a bomb scare.

They are covering their embarassment by yelling, and looking stupider and stupider by the moment.

[El Blanco]

I saw a picture of the two guys responsible for this.

Do they really look like they'd be capable of a terrorist act this big? I'm shocked they pulled off a guerilla marketing campaign.

What do you think Jack Bauer would do if he were facing off with these two?

[Dixie]

I am finding this to be hilarious.

[mburbank]

They refused to answer any questions from the press that were not about seventies haircuts.

[Dixie]

That press conference was classy. They came out with an objective. I like these guys.

[FartinMowler]

How come I didn't hear them mention the Amber alert stuff?

[Preechr]

So, somehow, Turner is financially responsible for all the money the city spent on hunting those things down and removing them?

This reminds me of the runaway bride from, what... two years ago or so... She had to agree to pay "back" a portion of the money spent to find her. Why? Did she ask to be looked for? As far as I'm concerned, nearly all of the money the government spends is wasted, so why the recent trend toward making someone pay government expenses if the foolishness makes the news? Did those guys write bomb threats? Did they phone the TV stations with fake Arabic accents? ...or did the city simply over-react and wind up looking stupid?

The "bomb scare" was not a hoax. It was an attention getter. I'm not even going to say it was in poor taste, because it sure got attention, which was it's job. When it comes to marketing, it seems to me that taste is not a factor.

[Ant10708]

No one thought they were bombs in the other cities they were put in.

[Preechr]

I heard the Atlanta PD was actually out today looking for them with no luck.

[mburbank]

Preech, I could not agree with you more.

Turner took out a full page ad in the Boston globe apologizing.

On the other hand, the degree of publicity the city of Boston gave them is worth way more than the money they're paying Boston and the ful page ads.

But, I agree it's absurd to think they in some way owe it. It's regretable that there was a panic, and a real refrlection of the culture of fear we've created for ourselves. But that was not the intent, and I think it's absurd to say they should have relaized putting little battery operated light bright boards in hidden locations around Boston, infrastructure or otherwise, might incite a full scale freak out.

And arresting the wee little arty boys is beyond the pale.

[El Blanco]

What is actually pissing me off about this is Menino and the AG talking about how much this cost and this being a case of corporate greed and corruption.

How is the Big Dig going, you stammering dego fuck?

[mburbank]

A guerilla marketting stunt that hires art students is a piss poor example of corporate greed. Menino et al have egg all over their faces and the cluelessness gap is so huge they still don't get that the louder they squawk, the stupider they look.

The best thing they could do right now is state that it's obvious this was not the intent, but first responders have to take things seriously, it's an unfortunate, unintended misunderstanding and the city of Boston is grateful for any help TNT feels like giving.

And for heavens sake, drop the charges! It just costs money to press charges, even we've already blown enough.

[kahljorn]

lol i saw this on the news they were pulling a mooninite out of what looked like some wreckage ;(

Didn't the runaway bride leave a message she had been kidnapped or something? Usually people look for you when you've been kidnapped.

[Geggy]

CULPRITS

[Preechr]

They had already been looking for her, so she lied and then ran away some more, IIRC. She freaked out and made a bad decision on top of a few other ones. Unfortunately for her, probably the most difficult time of her life got caught up in the Jerry Springer grist mill that is our modern tabloid media.

[sspadowsky]

I look forward to seeing the episode they create to make fun of this whole mess.

I hope that the mayor and everyone else who freaked out are made aware that they're being laughed at for being the neurotic, paranoid pussies that they are.

[kahljorn]

The lady sounded like a dumb bitch when I read the story, maybe you got something else out of it though. I hate dumb bitches, they are the people who fuck the world up. And I'm not just talking about female dumb bitches either.

[Grislygus]

I hate to break it to you guys, but only us internet people think they look stupid. Everyone in the real world is outraged at those punk teenagers and their wires and batteries that everyone knows look like bombs.

[Ant10708]

I wish I was able to steal two of these. One for myself and one to sell on ebay. They are going for crazy prices.

[maggiekarp]

Originally Posted by Grislygus

I hate to break it to you guys, but only us internet people think they look stupid. Everyone in the real world is outraged at those punk teenagers and their wires and batteries that everyone knows look like bombs.

Uh... I hate to break it to you, but it's not the 90's anymore. A lot of folks (I'd be bold enough to say most folks) are on the internet these days. Besides that, you don't have to know what a harbl is to see a light-brite cartoon flipping you off and realize the cops overreacted.

I guess what I'm saying is, it's not internet and cartoon nerds against the rest of the world, but a generation gap sort of thing. Baby boomers vs Generation Meh.


Smiling handcuffed art students is pretty surreal to me, though. Seems like most people are scowling in the news.

[xbxDaniel]

It means a lot of publicity for ATHF though. They got more press from this than the actual advertising.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Ok, so I'll play devil's advocate here....

I get the fact that Boston totally overreacted to all of this, and they certainly looked kind of foolish. But at the same time, if you or I went around sticking electronic boxes on bridges in cities, we would get put through the ringer. These guys can smile and laugh it off, because they have a media empire and a fleet of lawyers behind them.

And it also isn't fair to say well it was OBVIOUSLY just a cute hoax, it was OBVIOUSLY just ATHF. What % of Americans had ever heard of that cartoon before this happened? This board might be the target demographic for ATHF, but most folks have no idea what a Moonite giving the finger means. It could be from the Koran!

I also believe this is precisely what these guys wanted to have happen. You can't even have bbq on your street without a permit in most cases, so should we believe these guys thought it was legit to stick these random boxes up in public places?