…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.)

…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…)

…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…

…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?)

…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…)

…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…).

…(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?

…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.

…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.

…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.