It was incredibly stressful as my friend/roommate Zebbler and I kept calling the people who'd hired us once we saw something went wrong. They said they had it under control, and not to call the police.
It took them from 10am (our first call) until around 4pm to notify the Boston police. By which point the city was shut down, and lots of people were pissed off. The police needed someone to blame for people's frustrations around traffic etc.
Zebbler and I cooperated fully, but we were still arrested and thrown in jail (without being offered any dinner or blankets even, in January in Boston).
To us clearly this was post 9/11 over-reaction. We wanted to draw attention to how absurd it was for the police to be accusing us of intentionally trying to scare people by planting "hoax devices".
There was a lot of press outside, and we knew we wouldn't be able to talk about the case. There was also a good 100+ people who had organized to protest in support of us on Livejournal :)
We knew this moment (of police over-reach and culture-deafness) deserved more than "no comment". We brainstormed for a moment when we were brought back together in the courtroom and decided on our topic for the press: Hairstyles of the 1970's.
Something neither of us know anything about. We're both pretty good at thinking on our feet. Couldn't have imagined the situation would have become so big.
I wanted to go to court and ride it out, but Zebbler was in the USA on political asylum from Belarus. They strongly suggested if we both didn't go along with community service, he'd lose that and any hope of citizenship, quite possibly be deported. (He's now a full US Citizen :)
Someone at a nearby hospital saw what was happening and requested we do our community service there, and they made it as pleasant as possible.
Surreal experience!
Many things made it feel like fun was illegal in Boston. I've since moved to San Francisco Bay Area.
I've started Momentum Infinity, a non-profit to help people amplify their creative abilities with technology. Link in profile.
