I would have thought…

…they were more prolific.  But I guess that’s what happens when the only talented member of your band leaves to chew on the greener grass. Or to shake the tree.  Or to look into yor eyes. Or to live his big life. (OK, enough)

Anyway, haven’t been able to get the Genesis stuff out of my head (literally and figuratively) so whenever I have a spare moment or two I Google around or play letter games or mess around with free association or hold pictures of Phil Colins up to a mirror while being lit by a black light, et bloody cetera.

(This is just a general rant, by the way. No Revelations, still.)

So, on one of the pages I was looking at (not sure which one at this point) I noticed that this CD that the 4 songs are from was a live recording.  Actually, I suppose I had noticed that at some point in the past, but what I fixed on this time was the small number of live albums they’ve released over the year.  You’d think that a bunch of old duffers like that would be touring around recording everything they could point a mic at and then turning those cuts into quick cash – but they’ve only done 5 of them. Hmmmph.

(Sorry for the screediness.  I really don’t know why I dislike this group so much.  I must have been frightened by Miami Vice when I was a child.  On to happier thoughts, I hope.)

Less a eureka…

…than a (maybe) interesting observation.

After telling Sylvia yesterday that I had had a good idea about MSG4 I wracked my head for the rest of the night and into today trying to remember what it was.  Then, while I was drinking my 7th cup of lapsang souchong, it hit me – and I was immediately underwhelmed. Like many good and interesting dreams, the phantom memory of having had the experience was far more satisfying than the true recollection.

Anyway, the thought I had was that, when looking back at the particular CD that came up when I did the search on the words outside the square in MSG4 (most of them anyway), I noticed that the word (or words) that appeared on each side of the square were found, in some way, in each of the first 4 tracks on the Live Over Europe CD.

Unfortunately, that was it.  I kept waiting for myself to make the next big step that would remind me why I thought that was important, but it never came.

See, underwhelming.  (Maybe I should dream on it.  With my luck, though, I’ll have the dream where Angelina Jolie stops by and we spend the day shopping at the produce stand…)

Remind me to always…

…pay my taxes, because these audits do nothing but chap my hide.  And I’m not even the one getting audited, the Foundation is.  Nothing bad or shady or anything like that, just the normal annual stuff that goes along with getting much of your funding from donors and trusts.  But it means that all the ducks have to be crossed and the eyes have to be all in a row. (That has the makings of a gruesome fairy tale.)

So, there’s been a lot of that and not much time for the normal caseload or the open cases, and everyone’s on it.  I did have a thought about the MSG4 stuff, though, yesterday while I was making sure all the expense sheets were written on the right type of paper.  I was thinking about how Mort has said that he and the uC folks had already given thought to “Genesis” actually being part of what the message might be trying to say, but that there had been nothing conclusive.  I was trying to remember exactly how those search terms came together (since I didn’t have anything I could reference at the time) and I couldn’t get it.  So I searched again later when I had a chance (searched on “duke” “manchester” “confusion”) and I noticed that all four of the words that are outside the square on MSG4 show up on the same CD.

Obviously, that seemed kind of odd and connected, but I haven’t been able to grab how it might fit.  Still thinking on it, but if anyone from the uC or the other folks sees this and has an idea, I hope you’ll give a yell.

Now it’s back to the double entries…

No rest for…

…the terminally muddled.

Of all the times for our pal the puzzler to leap back onto the scene.  Of course it’s the very evening that I get a big new personal case with a short turnaround time.  And I really want to try to figure out what I sincerely hope is another anagram. But it is hard to describe just how bad I am at trying to solve anagram in my head, and no time for searching through online tools.  So we’ll see.  If any of the uC folks are around I’ve no doubt that that part, at least, will be made short work of.

Off to read up on fairy rings, so wish me luck. (Is it just me, or does that sound like nothing but a Hostess snack cake?)

That voice again…

…and it’s still not telling me anything useful.  Thanks for the comment, Mort. Wish I was feeling warmer myself.  Low of around 30 today, and I am just about over it.  Why the heck can’t I get assigned to check into giant catfish in the Gulf of Mexico? You’d think with all the toxic runoff down there the giant catfish would be crawling right up onto the beach and taking parasail rides (reference: mildly wild spring break quite a few years back).  I need to call Jade back anyway, maybe he’s got a lead on something odd I can check into down there for the next couple months.  There’s always Clearwater, but I suppose that is WAY outside the Foundation’s charter. (Thank goodness, actually.)

Anyway, after seeing Mort’s comment I went back to that last post (actually remembered most of it, that’s a plus) and the only bright idea that I got upon looking at it afresh was a clear thought of how much I like Peter Gabriel and, conversely, just how much I do not like Mr. Colins.  I fully expect to see Phil and the boys touring through town any day now. (They are considered a washed-up 80′s band due for a revival, aren’t they? Maybe 70′s.) Genesis, sheesh!  I say blow your trumpet, Gabriel, and usher in some old-school Revelation on Phil and Co.

(My recuperation seems to have made me a little crabby.  I’ll have to keep an eye on that…)

My Google mojo…

…done fell out of the canoe. Or whatever it is they paddle around in down on the bayou.

That only makes slightly less sense than it probably should, so perhaps I’m feeling better. Amend that. I am definitely feeling better. Best I’ve felt in over a week. Pretty much back to, if not tip top, at least fair to middling. I’ll avoid going on about just how bad it was, because there is only one thing more boring that trying to tell other people about your dreams and that is telling them about how sick you were (or worse, how sick you still are).

Unfortunately, I was so sick that I wasn’t even able to turn my bed-riddenness to something useful like thinking about my personal caseload or thinking about the Open Cases. As I was feeling better over the weekend though, I got the super bright idea of pointing the old Google at MSG4 and seeing what turned up. Heck, I figured, I’d had good luck with this hack before and I was probably still a little loopy so what the hey. I put in “duke” “manchester” and “confusion” (the rest of the words seemed too common to matter) and all I got back for the 1st five was music, taverns, and trivia related to possibly one of the real Dukes.

Oh well, maybe something else will hit my post-fever-addled brain. Hope all y’all are doing well. Let me know if you have any cool thoughts. I’ll do the same (but I can’t promise they’ll be less than 48 degrees…).

Lazarus, come forth…

…(silence, followed by sound of body hitting floor next to bed)

Lazarus, crawl to the fridge and get a glass of water!

Maybe.  If I try really hard.  I think I am feeling about 50%, which is 75% better than the last estimate, but I think I can see the corner that I need to turn up ahead. I still feel like a mule kicked me in the back.  Then when I fell down he stepped on my head.  But, believe it or not, that’s an improvement. I think I talked to Jade Macalla on the phone yesterday, but that could have been my mother.

I’ve seen the comments and I’m sure there are  e-mails waiting.  My apologies for not writing back sooner, I’m sure I’ll be ship-shape in the next day or so.  It’s not possible to get Dengue Fever in Tennessee, right?

Let’s move on…

…shall we.

Whew, what an “interesting” time it has been.   Probably enough has been said to the right people, so…back to work.  It’s a shame I’m so tired, though, cause I may have made a connection.

Absolutely did not realize how long it had been since I had the chance to think at all about OC:0701.  The last summary I got from the uC group had a huge amount of info and it seemed to be making a lot of sense.  Perhaps that should be “seemed to be making well reasoned connections”, because I’m not sure any of this case “makes sense”.  Yet.  But the King Solomon track with the demons and the ring (that was not a ring) really seems to fit.

Only had the briefest time to go through some of the info we have today, but one thing that looked interesting was a bit in the vast store of Freemasonry data that mentioned Hiram (or CHiram) Abiff and the fact (within the Masonic framework anyway) that he was the chief architect of the temple and that he was murdered by “three ruffians” who were trying to get him to divulge the secret password of Master Mason (which appears to be Tubal Cain – shame those ruffians didn’t have the Internet at the time of the first temple).

Now, I don’t think anyone (Masons included) buys that there even was such a thing as Freemasonry at the time of the first temple.  All allegory and symbolism, right?  But this “three ruffians” definitely caught my eye with the obvious reference to three.  And if there was a murder involved, it’s not too much of a jump to connect a punishment (as Luke posits) to the three; perhaps banishment, execution and shunning?  Kind of breaks down there, though, maybe.  What’s the difference between banishment and forcing someone to wander?  For a really long time?  More allegory?  Within the Mason legends they were all three executed.

Really interested in what MSG4 is saying now.  But completely at a a loss as to how to attack it.  As I mentioned to Mort, I’m sure it will call for searching outside the box.  Thinking outside the box, I mean (damn, I am tired).  If anyone sees this, please don’t take it as anything other than initial, and somewhat idle, musings on my part.  I have no idea if there is any real connection or what it might really mean. It just feels good to be thinking about something interesting (and fun) again.

The hinterlands…

…of Dayton were just the setup of a twisted experiment in human endurance visited upon me by my nameless, faceless superiors. (A little melodramatic, especially since he has a name and I know what it is – and I don’t even know where that faceless came from.)  First the mind-numbing tedium, then the anticlimax of  a (not particularly clever) hoax (not sure what that says about me), then the frenetic deluge (two great words that go together like wisteria and lampblack.  Actually…) of work that I missed that I now have to crawl out from under.  It’s enough to make a person want to eat a whole pie.

Off the road again…

…so tired I can’t even come up with a way to elipsize that one.

Whew, what a week!  If I had wanted to camp out, eat bad food, wear camouflage, and chase people through the woods I would have done what several of my friends did upon graduating from high school; I would have taken up professional paint ball.  All that and more this week, but a very interesting time.  I wrote “chase people” as opposed to “chase incorporeal spirits” because that’s what it turned out to be, a couple good old boys (stress boys; they were 16 and 17 respectively) with way too much time on their hands.

Oh well, the fun’s in getting to know the real story, isn’t it?

I’m beat.  Gonna try to get through my pending mail real right quick, then I am going to eat some real food.  If I fall face-first into my lasagna, just let me sleep.

Maybe the change…

…of scenery is good for my brain.

Posting this here real quick since my RSA token is in the car and I can’t VPN to the Foundation without it.  But I didn’t want to forget so…

Had a couple minutes here at the Kava House, so I decided to take a look at the spearmint stuff. With the HTTP and COM taken out of the string Frank found that leaves:  ABEEWELILYYWNROT.  I did a quick google search on “free websites” and the fifth one down is a service called WEEBLY.  That one jumped right out (especially since a lot of the other ones had FREE in the title, and there is no F in our string).

So that leaves  AEI hell, there’s my contact, gotta go.  Later.

With a week like that…

…who needs months.

With all the activity and the report writing in preparation for the board meeting it seems like the week flew by on the Concorde. Not to mention the New Years (lack of) festivities. With all the hubbub and the (self-inflicted) drama on 0702 and the new assignment up in Dayton next week, I haven’t really even had a chance to reflect on 0701 and what MSG1 might mean.

I was hoping that when that one was cracked (and I knew it would be) it would make everything else fall into place. And, of course, I was really hoping that the place it fell into would be a non-threatening one that would make Mr. Kennedy less concerned. He’s still twitchy about the whole thing and I’m just hoping that another letter doesn’t show up with a message like “You’re next!” spelled out in bold san-serif caps. Probably shouldn’t joke around about that. Luckily, neither the guards nor the staff have seen anything even remotely suspicious, so that helps a little.

I just can’t help feeling that I’m missing something simple. As I wrote to Luke yesterday, it still seems that the sender wants to communicate something to us, that (s)he wants us to get the message. I mean, for God’s sake, (s)he more or less wrote ONE RING right on the bottom of the letter. If that’s the case then why would the sender bury the real message under 18 layers of confusion and perplexity? A layer or two, sure, but 18?

Unless (s)he’s crazy. There’s no accounting for hard core psychosis. And if that’s the case then this will all just be a colossal waste of time.

But psychosis doesn’t feel right. (Been noticing that I’ve been acting on feelings more than usual lately, better watch out or they’ll take away my master’s degree, In Science!!!) So I will step back, regulate my breathing, clear my mind, empty the cup, use the force, and hope that someone doesn’t whack me in the back of the head with a bamboo pole.

Dammit! I’m out of green tea.

Desire…

…and Despair. I guess despair is more than a little heavy-handed, but I really did want to go down there. I’m almost positive I know which of the sites it would be, too. Another gut feeling, mostly, but I’m starting to think there is something to that. Sometimes. Maybe it’s for the best, you never know who might have shown up. It’s one thing to talk to some good ole boys about giant catfish, possibly a whole other thing to get involved with someone who thinks they are going to…do what exactly?

Heck. I was planning a nice healthy rant, but I’ve already done that (more or less) once this evening talking to Christopher (didn’t work). So I’ll just leave it at that.

Destruction…

…is going on outside my window.  So early in the evening, and already the firecrackers and rockets are exploding hither and yon.  I half expect one of them to burst into the shape of a great red dragon and come swooping in over the top of my little apartment.  I suppose I should resign myself to enjoy it until at least midnight.

I am not what you would call a big New Year Reveler.  Amateur night is how I have always thought of it, and this early display of pyrotechnics just makes me think that people are getting started even earlier than usual.  A good night to NOT be out on the streets.

Just wanted to post a general “Cheers” to any and all who may peek over this way.

To T.C. and Scotty I say, “Resolve thyselves to join the ranks of the gainfully employed”.

To dear Heather (who still thinks I (personally) am being spoofed with OC:0701, but grudgingly agrees that there is something odd about OC:0702) I say, “We must dine together at least once per month in the coming year. It is important for me to spend time with a person who lives entirely in the real, and it is important for you to brush up against the weird from time to time.”

To Christopher, “If the next year is anything like the last month…um…I literally don’t know how to finish that.”

To Isabelle, “May the new year bring you lots and lots of new people contributing to this project that you seem to so enjoy (and may it also bring many new people contributing their geld to the Foundation” [big smile]).

To  Jade Macalla I say, “I hope the new year sees you as spry (and goofy) as the last half century obviously has (saw some of those crazy photos you do; man, you do not look a day over 50 – rock on!). And thanks for your help.”

To all the folks who have been helping out so diligently with OC – and especially to everyone in the unCollective – I say, “If, over the course of the next year, I gain one tenth of one percent of the collective brain power you guys possess I will retire and form my own one man think tank.  It has been a pleasure and an honor to meet such a diversely talented (yet universally nice) group of people.  I have no way of knowing what the new year will bring us, but I have a VERY STRONG feeling that it won’t be dull.  A very happy New Year to all of you.”

It’s very strange, but this past month or so has seemed almost like a story to me.  When I first started with the Foundation I expected it to be odd and exciting, full of mystery and even a little spooky at times.  But I realized almost right away that, even though it is fascinating from a sociological and psychological standpoint, the mechanics of the job are very close to that of a social worker.

With OC though, I have really gotten a taste of that mystery; the confusion, the non-linear vibe, the challenge of wrestling to figure out something that you know has an answer (even if you only know it in your gut), the thrill of finding that someone (not me, yet, but that doesn’t even matter) has made a leap of logic that actually put a piece of the puzzle in the right place.  Real people just aren’t suppose to get to work on this stuff in real life; but I have.  And as sappy as it sounds, I’m really glad to be able to be a part of it.

Now I shall go watch a mini movie marathon.  Haven’t gotten to do that in a long time, and I figure tonight is a good night for it.  It’s later than I thought so I guess I won’t be able to watch any long trilogies this time. Have to make do with Blade Runner.

But I’ll also be staring at OC:0701 – MSG1, because I HAVE GOT to get a break on that damn thing.  Kennedy’s going to be back in a couple days and we need something to show him.  If any of you are hanging at home tonight – and aren’t too soused (although maybe that would help) – please give it another look.  It’d be great if that one got cracked.

HNY!

The flying blue-green words…

…are kinda spooky, but the more I think about that PSA that Isabelle developed for OC:0702 the more I think the idea might have some merit.  As successful as OC’s been so far, I think the site would benefit even more from more people.

I asked her why she didn’t do a PSA for OC:0701 and she said she tried to do that one first.  She said she pitched that idea to Kennedy right before he left for his holiday and he nix’ed it.  Said he didn’t want to draw attention to something that might be dangerous.  Not sure I get the point of that one; if they are dangerous then whoever is sending the letters already knows where the office is.

And I’ve gotten nowhere with any of the 0701 letters.  Just when I think I see some sort of pattern or meaning, I see something else that makes whatever I was thinking fall completely apart.  Haven’t heard from any of the OC folks for awhile now.  I’m hoping that someone has figured something out, but that they haven’t mentioned it because they’re still sleeping off  a turkey coma from Christmas.

Heading back to the land of Yeeee Haawwww later today (most people don’t realize there’s a “w” in “haw”).