Nun goes octagonal!

As of this afternoon while waiting for a test to run I have reached level 8 at Ingress. That means that I can use all of the in-game resources to be had. I did it in a hair under four weeks without receiving any in-game items from anyone, thankyewveddymahch.

This means I'm as ready as I can be for the Anomaly that happens on the 27th. No, I won't be able to stay for the whole thing or the afterparty because my son will be with me that weekend. No, the Anomaly (or, I suppose, Ingress in general) does not seem to be a good way to meet women: judging by the team I've been assigned to, men outnumber women about two to one among Ingress players. But the Anomaly does seem to be a big deal to longtime players. I've seen online chatter about a few coming up from San Francisco.

If you'll recall, three weeks ago I wasn't so sure I could pull this off. My secrets are:

• Busgress. As long as the bus isn't moving any faster than 35 MPH (60 km/h), you can hack portals - thereby acquiring gear - to your heart's content*. It's hard to play strategically that way, but it gets the points.
• Population density means portal density. Downtown, where I work, and Belltown, immediately to the north of downtown, are lousy with portals, and they change hands frequently. That means a lot of them get left neutral - i.e. low-hanging fruit - possibly by people playing from vehicles as I do.
• Parks tend to be portal-rich as well, and I live five blocks from one. Since I can be strategic there, at least on weekends, I put the green in Green Lake, baybee.

*An observation, possibly inaccurate: My bus route, the E line, tends to have more Enightened (green) portals. The parallel 5 has more Resistance (blue). Where the two routes overlap - on Aurora on the east side of Queen Anne - toads rule, d00d. I'm pretty sure I've written here before about how the E is faster, but it's surlier, smellier, skeevier, and skankier than the 5.