So a followup to the commute story in which I get all "cub reporter". WBZ (and other area media) are reporting more of these "devices" have been found all over the area, causing more road shutdowns and MBTA shutdows. At last check, they'd been found at the corner of Stuart St. & Columbus Ave. in Boston and on the BU Bridge, the Longfellow Bridge, the McGrath Highway and Tufts-New England Medical Center.
Meanwhile, somebody at ImprovBoston points out in an email that the 'circuit boards' look a lot like a character from a Cartoon Network show. And somebody else sends out a link to a Flickr page with a shot of one of these boards, all lit up.
In South Boston.
Two weeks ago.
The guy with the Flickr page, who's name is Todd, (who, it is worth mentioning, I don't know personally nor does he know I'm blogging about his photo) explains what transpired in Southie in this blog post:
http://toddvanderlin.com/blog/2007/01/16/adult-swim-ad/
The shot linked here from Flickr is apparently a post-liberation close up, but you can see it in the original South Boston setting if you navigate your way here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanderlin/358742603/
So this guy Todd mentions on his blog that the people who created the thing emailed him. How nice! Conveniently, he links to their site:
http://www.interferenceinc.com
I had trouble getting the site to load properly in Firefox, but it worked in IE 6.0.
And who is "Interference, Inc."?
A guerrilla marketing company out of New York City. Among the goals in their mission statement: "We will bring our unique creative and targeting methodology to clients willing to make a difference in their consumer's lives."
I don't know that the ironically named Interference, Inc. is behind today's events in Boston. But if they are, well then I think we can all agree that they've made a difference in some consumer's lives, bless their unique and creative guerrilla hearts.
Update:
Rod just pinged me to let me know that Boston.com has a "Breaking News" header on their front page:
"A statement emailed to the Globe from Turner Broadcasting said:
"The 'packages' in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger. They
are part of an outdoor marketing campaign in 10 cities in support of Adult
Swim’s animated television show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. They have been in
place for two to three weeks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago,
Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, and Philadelphia.
Parent company Turner Broadcasting is in contact with local and federal law
enforcement on the exact locations of the billboards. We regret that they
were mistakenly thought to pose any danger."
I'm no fan of the security theater culture that has sprung up post-9/11, but I wonder if we could really have expected law enforcement in Boston to react in any other way to the sight of a circuit board and batteries and wires hanging from one of the main supports of I-93 than to assume the worst. And I don't think it's fair to expect somebody among them to be a fan of Adult Swim and figure it out for themselves in a short amount of time. I'm dying to see how this all plays out... and of course, who will be picking up the tab for disrupting transit in a major metropolitan area during the morning commute.
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