jason did a good job writing up the explanation of the game so i wont repeat the work. click here if you want to know how the game works.

i am also posting his map picture. hope it is ok!


piratey monkey and i (vladypus) arrive at the meeting place and join jason & co in one big group. after determining the nature of the game however, we decide that it would be more effective if we broke off as a pair. the game starts and everyone runs for it in a giant herd. monkey and i almost immediately choose a different direction to get away from the group. within a few blocks we are totally lost. we slowly make our way and eventually we get on some bus, which is full of other players. we notice that i have already managed to lose my player ribbon, and we cut a piece of monkey's off and pin it to my shirt.

we make it to checkpoint 1 (the fairmont hotel) and see many other players while we are there. we encounter the the purples from the safe zone, wait for our moment, and take off down the steepest hill possible. we make it a few blocks away and are totally confused about our direction again. we are walking and looking at our maps when i catch a glimpse of purple over my left shoulder. i turn my head back and monkey follows my glance. as i bolt, she dives straight into the street and makes it across. the purple is following me. i think i am a pretty fast runner but every time i turn around the purple is gaining on me. he is within inches when i make a sudden left around a parked car, feel a fingertip brush my backpack (a huge mistake to have taken) and make it across the street with purple in hot pursuit. i run and run and i turn back to see he isn't on my tail anymore but i am terrified, tired, and panting. i pull a quick right and duck into the first building with a lobby i see. it turns out to be this upscale apartment building, or hotel or something. and i run up to the doorman and say
"do AHH AHH AHH you AHH AHH haveabath AHH AHH AHH room". he says no. i duck behind his desk and plop down on the floor (which understandably perturbs him) and start trying to explain things. "im being ahh ahh ahh chased". "are they trying to kill you?!" "noitsagame". he is too nice to kick me right out and lets me stay until i catch my breath while people are walking through the lobby giving me looks. piratey calls me from a liquor store and gives her location. i sneak out and we regroup. the people at the store told her to get to hyde st and take some bus down towards the checkpoint but when we get on hyde there are no buses. we are briefly harassed by purples on a go kart but we get away and make it down to market totally on foot. luckily a bus is just pulling up when we get there and it drops us at checkpoint 2 (market between laguna and octavia).

here we met a few new players, met sarah for the first time (yay!) and ran into nicole (who got separated from her team). some of the players, i forget their names unfortunately, say that their apartment is in between checkpoints and invite us to come chill at their place for a bit, but we are feeling terribly behind and decide to try to make up time. we cross the street to catch the bus and a purple woman tags us ever so excitedly, but is disappointed to find out we are in a safe zone! while we wait for the bus we start trying to catch a ride. finally someone rolls down a window, but they aren't going our way. luckily the car behind them is sympathetic and we jump in. the driver's name is bethany and we begin elatedly explaining sf0. we continue talking and find out that she actually thought that we needed directions and had not invited us into her car. but she is cool, enjoys our sf0 stories, and drops us straight into at checkpoint 3 (billiard place on geary between wood and collins). we give her an sf0 pin.


bethany did not want to be photographed; but agreed to this picture with sf0 pin


getting signature at checkpoint 3

here we are among the first to show up. we hear about some straw hatted scoundrel which we assume is rubin but later find out is rob. we feel happy to have gained some time and gulp down a pint. we go outside and after sharing some rum with a tweed jacketed purple bicyclist go to the bus stop. happy with our hitching success we attempt to get a ride while we await the bus. everything is taking too long. we decide to just bolt. we get about half a block down geary before tweed jacket targets us. we are on an incline and he is on a bike. we make the first turn off the incline and hide. he turns the corner and knows we couldn't have possibly cleared the block. he starts circling in the street. i am ducking behind an SUV, peaking through the glass and duck walking around the SUV to keep it between us at all times. monkey gives up her hiding space behind another car and begins some kind of negotiation. tweed jacket tells her that all chasers have a list of specific people to catch (total fabrication) and that she is not on his list but won't say anything about me. monkey decided it is a good time to call me, which results in my obnoxious ring tone echoing through the street. i quickly kill the call and luck out because at this moment his phone rings and monkey takes off up hill while i run in the opposite direction behind his back (not sure if i actually snuck away unseen, or if he was too into his phone call to be bothered). we regroup a few blocks over. monkey is on the verge of physical collapse and we are again disoriented. we hide behind some bushes near the university of san francisco and study a map. we decide to walk along fulton and maybe catch a bus, but instead we walk a few blocks and see an entrance to golden gate park, where checkpoint 4 is located (circle of peace). we get about 10 paces in when monkey becomes determined it is an ambush. so we run back out and continue to sneak along fulton. we stop to take out flash lights and make LED throwies to potentially use as decoys. it is now too dark to clearly see purple so we hide from every human being we see. we find another park entrance and make our way in. we walk through a small clearing in the woods and take one step on a paved road in the park when we see a skateboarder. he doesn't see us run back in the woods and hide in the bushes for 15 minutes while he passes (it was later determined that there were no purple skateboarders). we make our way along the road, which has no street signs. we have no idea where we are and keep walking until we stumble upon the conservatory of flowers. there are some people in the garden below and we crawl on all fours behind a series of 3 foot shrubs. we go way around the garden, seeing some bicyclists pass on the nearby road. we have no idea where we are, but are able to determine that the people in the garden are actually a couple having a romantic dinner. we interrupt them to ask what street we are on but they don't know. we continue southward across the street when we see suspicious looking bicyclists which cause us to freeze and afford us just enough time to see the purple go kart flying down the road. we hightail it into the woods, i get scratched up, and we get separated. we find each other via telephone and end up at the aids memorial grove which we determine to be on the corner of of middle drive e. (a safe zone) and some other street but we are unclear as to which is which. not wanting to give up our safe zone, we just go into the the grove and through a totally unlit path in the woods. we ended up in some kind of circle. unfortunately, it is not the circle of peace, but fortunately, it is directly adjacent to it. we took a staircase up to what turned out the be Middle Drive E. and another one down to the circle of peace. by far the coolest of the check points. if anyone has played that game crystalis for nintendo, it was just like that; veering off the forest path to get some advice from a hermit living in the woods.

we take off southward and get on lincoln which is actually the opposite direction of checkpoint 5 (laundromat on balboa between 17th & 18th) but we think that we are less likely to encounter chasers this way. we notice jason & co waiting at a bus stop but are unsure that they haven't been turned purple so we hide from them and make our way along the park towards crossover drive. we again try to hitch a ride and are unsuccessful. but finally a car stops. except instead of a ride a purple gets out and starts chasing us. we run and monkey yells "UNFAIR!!" and the chaser seemingly agrees because he gives up. unsure if it was a ploy we run through a driveway to the rear side of a house and hide. we contemplate climbing through some bushes and climbing a 6 ft fence to the next block but decide against it. we make it to crossover dr and take a bus to balboa and 14th-ish. we don't want to risk a straight run to the checkpoint and nervously wait for a transfer. it turns out that bus stops are safe areas but we had no idea of this until later. all the previous bus stops that we stopped at, either had a bus pulling into them, or were in greater safe zones. while we were waiting we saw two guys getting into their car and convinced them to drive us a few blocks over to checkpoint 5.

here we met orion, who gave us wood, and avidd, who was purple and also gave us wood. har har. avidd told us the best way to get to the beach was to go to geary and take a bus but had the obvious intention of intercepting us. we were about to take off when jason & co showed up and we came up with a rather prudent plan involving transfers and such. ian shows up at the bus stop for a while and does this amazing bullet dodging dance as monkey tosses those white snappy things that explode when you throw them at his feet. we are talking as the bus pulls up and apparently we weren't fast enough to react because it takes off without even coming to a stop. having already waited 20 minutes we are horrified. we keep waiting and kelly and i start trying to hitch again. and bam it works. we shamefully leave everyone behind and dive into this car. the guy is named mo and offers to take us straight to the beach. except he drops us off at lincoln not fulton and we are too gung ho to notice. so we stomp onto the beach and go from fire to fire, and some kid comes up to me and asks me if i am trying to start some shit. i excuse myself and we go to investigate if we are in the right place. we discover the error and run along the street towards fulton. i keep pulling monkey by the hand because she is about to collapse. finally we make to the fire. we meet a bunch of people and have a great time. the cops come because of the booze and tell us to break it up. some people listen, we don't. and eventually the cops get tired and take off. many good times are had. sometime after 3 i find myself twisted drunk. on the way home i apparently tell some russian proverbs and quote some highly inappropriate lyrics, all in a bad russian accent . i also allegedly fell while leaving the beach and then adamantly denied falling with my face half covered in sand. good times.


anonymous at the beach


would be more visual or audio documentation if we were not so busy running.