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I got onto the elevator and picked storey seven; the couple that entered with me hit eight. On the third floor the elevator stopped, and a second pair came in; they hit the button for five. (The most boring floor, by the way; there's no accounting for taste.)
On five, the first couple -- the ones who'd hit the button for eight -- got off, and the second stayed on with me. At the seventh floor I got off, leaving the second couple to go up to eight.
Somehow, I have the strange feeling somebody was putting me on.
Trivia: Italic lettering was introduced to northern Europe by Gerardus Mercator, creator of the Mercator map. Source: Maps and Civilization: Cartography in Culture and Society, Norman J.W. Thorwer.
Currently Reading: Chulo: A Year Among The Coatimundis, Bil Gilbert.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-27 12:48 pm (UTC)... now, how many fanboys need to get on to make the elevator cables snap, and everyone to plunge to their doom?
At least I half-wonder that in a con hotel's elevators.
(A: Two would do it, or one zipped into his sweat-soaked fursuit. Ew.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-27 08:24 pm (UTC)Actually, the floor capacity limit is posted in elevators and on just about every floor (in public buildings) in terms of kiloNewtons per square meter -- including color-coded maps to show where the floor is stronger. It's odd information I can't think of any way to use, but I suppose if I were placing heavy equipment I could.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-27 01:50 pm (UTC)I wonder if there's any analogue of that book for red pandas? (Ah, to have the means to research a book on the ground, in Tibet, Nepal, and so on)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-27 08:30 pm (UTC)Could be a ``shared yawn'', I suppose ... there's a lot of people who get off on the first stop, rather than the right floor. For some reason in my department's building the floor numbers are posted adjacent to the elevator doors, where they can't be seen from inside the cars. In my apartment the floor number's posted opposite, so you can see when you're on the wrong floor, which doesn't stop everyone.
Bil Gilbert's book is a lovely volume, describing a year in the early 1970s ... I don't know of a red panda equivalent, alas. The first chapters of Gilbert's book go over in detail how little useful information there was on them, lifestyle, preferred living spaces, or any of the stuff you'd consider basic data. He filled in, for example, the first documented instance of a tribe moving in to a new area (the Kitt Peak National Observatory), and that's part of the book.
They could be watching you.
Date: 2004-09-27 08:19 pm (UTC)The big question would be to see how long they could try the elevator comedy before someone noticed.
Re: They could be watching you.
Date: 2004-09-27 08:34 pm (UTC)Could be improv, sure; I've encountered weirder. The best, there, was a friend at the old campus newspaper office. He stepped outside the door, and said to the first stranger he saw, ``Look, I'm sorry, I really am ... I just don't think it's working out, and I think we should just be friends.'' He poor guy stammered, ``But ... I don't know who you are.'' Didn't make a difference to the Breakup Speech.
(Pranks like that, I have to conclude, are only actually funny when they add a surreal element to the day, which the elevator dance or the spontaneous breakup do.) And Singapore is trying, with earnest zeal, to lighten up ...
Do not pass go
Date: 2004-09-28 01:17 am (UTC)8>
Re: Do not pass go
Date: 2004-09-28 02:59 am (UTC)But ... we don't have basements. They'd bump into the MRT!
Re: Do not pass go
Date: 2004-09-28 03:44 am (UTC)Re: Do not pass go
Date: 2004-09-28 08:43 am (UTC)But -- and then you hit the South China Sea ...
ah!
Date: 2004-09-29 12:14 am (UTC)Re: ah!
Date: 2004-09-29 03:37 am (UTC)Oh, well, that's better, then.