In a time where we are constantly getting barraged by political messages about presidential candidates, it is refreshing to receive a package from a candidate running for a less lofty position. In this case, it is Harvey Dent running for District Attorney of Gotham. I am not entirely sure that I live in the correct jurisdiction to be voting for elected officials in Gotham (and hey, does anyone even know where Gotham is???), but that doesn’t seem to prevent him (or, at least, his Dentmobile) from coming to Portland on the 21st.

I am not entirely sure whether or not I believe in Harvey Dent (I still haven’t had time to evaluate his stand on all of the issues I care about), but it seems that Harvey Dent believes in me enough to send campaign information and swag.

Notes on the above photos: Mr. Dent (is he related to Arthur?) cared enough to spring for FedEx Saturday delivery. The window clings are really cool, but if I can provide some constructive criticism, the clingy part should be on the front (with the image and text), not the back. That way, you can put it in your window without worrying about it getting weathered or stolen–unless you want it to get stolen, to help virally spread the word–and if that’s the case, I think that’s a pretty poor stance for a DA to be taking.

Overall, color me impressed! Being the DA of Gotham has got to be a hard job. There are lots of criminals out there (including funny and sarcastic ones), and while a certain caped dude who dresses as a flying mammal can bring them TO justice, someone needs to enforce that justice, and I guess Harvey Dent wants to be that man.

A curious package arrived yesterday while I was out. I did not hear about it until later in the afternoon, and by that time the house was beginning to get overrun with bellydancers, so the photoset had to wait until today. It was sent from 1920 Olympic Way in San Francisco–a fictional address, but one that ties in with the Olympic theme of the contents. Contents included:

3 postcards. Front side: black and white photos with the copyright(?) text “Courtesy of IOC/Olympic Museum Collections”. Reverse sides: “March 3, 2998 Find her…” “March 4, 2008?? Find the others… March 5, 2008?? Find him… March 11, 2008?? Find the secret…” “August 24, 2008 Save the world” (The Others? Him? A Secret? We’re not talking about LOST, are we? Save the cheerleader? Save the world? Heroes?)

1 poster. Front side: A 1920’s Olympic poster print. Reverse: It’s a secret someone has been keeping for a very long time.

1 ball of string. (Am I reading this right? Could it be The Lo String?)

Contents of yarn ball: 1 fortune-cookie-like mysterious note. “You will soon walk a path with many twists and turns.” “You will soon discover an alternate reality. The adventure begins when you meet Ariadne. www.findthelostring.com” (You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike. You will soon be eaten by a Grue. And again with the Lo String)

Detailed photos are in my gallery at http://adjectivenoun.org/gallery2/v/args/thelostring/

It looks like many others have received similar boxes and there there is already a lengthy thread (ha!) started for this at Unfiction: http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=24611

EDIT: modified thumbnails and links to match a restructuring of my image gallery

I picked up Professor Layton and the Curious Village the other day for the Nintendo DS. It is a great game that I am really enjoying. I almost hate to admit it, but Penny Arcade’s comic commentary on the game is pretty darn accurate. As much as I love puzzles, a good majority of them seemed a little forced into a storyline.

While playing, I found myself constantly thinking back to Perplex City, and the puzzle-centric nature of it. In fact, entelein and I had a little online conversation about it this morning. I have to agree with her that Layton has a much more friendly, human, and whimsical feel to it. Although to me, the puzzles seem a bit forced. In PXC, the reasoning and backstory for the puzzles was well thought-out and they made great sense in context, but the human touch sometimes felt a little pushed aside, replaced by a little elitism, which was sometimes off-putting.

Regardless of the believability of the framework surrounding the puzzles in Professor Layton, I’m still getting a great deal of enjoyment out of it. That and Puzzle Quest are the only two DS games I’m playing anymore. If/when I finish Puzzle Quest, I think it will have some good replay value–especially with the “instant quest” mode. I am not sure about Professor Layton, but given the WiFi puzzle-a-week and the extra bonus materials unlocked as you play, I have high hopes.

This story of the search for the owner of a digital camera left in a taxi reads like a real-life ARG. The family who found the camera poured through hundreds of photos and several videos in a search for clues about the people in the photos and the places they visited. Using just those clues, they were able to track down the rightful owner of the camera in a matter of weeks.

A few TV/Movie thoughts while I’m waiting on replacement clutch cylinders…

To use a quote/show-title from coffejedi, I was pleasantly surprised by the “River Tam Beats Up Everyone” show (also known as “Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles.” I was expecting it to be a crappy SciFi show melded with a crappy action show, but really ended up enjoying the quality of the acting, effects, and story. Thebruce notes that there is an ARG-like tie in, that I had not really paid attention to (and likely won’t, as I’m following the LOST game and only have the time and attention to follow one such thing at a time.) I think I’ll be watching at least the next few episodes of Terminator to see if the quality continues.

Vampires + White Trash = Near Dark = one horribly bad film. I have no idea why I added it to my Netflix many months ago. Everyone says that Showgirls is the worst movie ever. I think Near Dark is probably #2. I fell asleep part-way through and woke up toward the end. I was confused by the “vampire physics” (that is: the feeding, siring, and such) as I’ve been so exposed to the Buffy universe, that any other vampire behavior seems weird.

We finally got to the final episode of Six Feet Under last night. By “we” I mean “me.” Kim watched it the other night, but I was already asleep. It’s been several months of watching, but totally worth it. I have to say that out of the final, concluding, closing-up-loose-ends TV show episodes I’ve seen, this one pretty much tops the list. It provided closure, but without being too final–providing a good amount of open-endedness for the characters–in a style that so perfectly fits the series. Truth be told, it might have brought a couple of (happy) teardrops to my eye, but I probably won’t admit to it beyond this blog post.

Between the Lost: Missing Pieces shorts and the Find 815 game, I really can’t wait for LOST to come back on the air. I don’t care about the writers strike (well, I do, actually–quite a lot), but I really need those 8 produced episodes. Let’s hope that by the time #8 airs, they’ll have resolved the strike and can write and produce #9-16 posthaste.

We drove past the Oceanic Airlines billboard in Portland today. It’s on Division at Grand/MLK. Because we had things to do, I was not able to stop and get a picture, but I grabbed the following image from the DarkUFO Lost blog:

The link is to http://www.flyoceanicair.com/, which leads to http://www.find815.com/, the ongoing ARG. The ARG is only a week in, so it is pretty easy to catch up, plus it has got to be one of the most simple ones I’ve seen–bordering on a linear web game as opposed to a full-fledged ARG–so it’s pretty easy to “play” and get some good extra backstory to the show.

Clothes!

The other day, Substitute twittered “Internet + consistent sizing = jeans by mail. Yay.” Usually I buy my pants from the internet (zip-off BDUs from soldiercity.com), but yesterday, I picked up a pair of green non-zip-off BDUs from Andy and Bax. In other news, my shirts come from blank apparel, my socks usually come from the Fred Mayer (gold toe!) and my underwear from some place similar to Sears.

Snake!

In other keeping-up-with-the-Jonses news, Substitute also twittered “listening to the cat murder the knitted snake for the 500th time.” Kim’s purple snake from Players (well, I guess it is technically from The Oriental Trading Company) has pretty much become a cat toy. In the evenings, it sits on the bed and Ebenezer sits on it. During the day, he drags it around. A few nights ago, I retrieved it from the sofa to bring upstairs with me at bedtime. I threw it on the bed and turned around for about 5 seconds to change. One-mississippi, two-mississippi, three-mississippi, four-mississippi, five-mississippi. The snake was gone. Not only that, I could hear its plastic eyes clicking against each step as it was dragged down the stairs. It is always the things that are not intended as cat toys that make the best cat toys.

Mario!

I picked up Super Mario Galaxy a short while ago. After weeks and weeks of work–moving, cleaning, turning the basement into Kim’s shop, I took may last vacation day to do nothing. Well, nothing but Mario Galaxy. I’m usually pretty bad at hand-eye-coordination games. Heck, I finished the original Super Mario Brothers a couple of years ago and gave up pretty quickly on the DS Mario game. With Galaxy, the hand-eye coordination isn’t as bad, except for maybe end-bosses. You don’t have to worry so much about carefully timed multi-jumps and such. Admittedly, I do not know how far into the game I am–it seems pretty far (I just got my first swimming underwater level and played a few levels that felt like 3D reminiscent copies of the old side-scroller castle levels.) But still, it feels like I’m pretty far in and am not having as much difficulty as I was expecting.

Batman!

The other day, I went to Everyday Music and picked up a number of used DVDs. Actually, I also (finally!) picked up the Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D discs from NIN. I am usually not so happy with remixes, but these pleasantly surprised me and were actually quite good. I have yet to load up the DVD with the Garage Band source files for Year Zero. I doubt I’ll do anything with them, but have to greatly respect Trent for releasing the original multitrack files. The remix (as well as the original Year Zero) made a great soundtrack for demolishing walls in the basement and installing new circuits for lighting and machines.

Anyway: Batman! I picked up a used box set containing Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman and Robin. I already have the Christian Bale version and thought I had the others, but maybe I only had them on VHS and threw them out, because I didn’t have them on DVD (until now!) I have a feeling that I am subconsciously preparing myself for this summer’s Batman film, mainly due to the ARG leading up to it. I started watching the original Batman as I started writing this post. I’m quite amazed at how much I had forgotten.

Oh! I also picked up the 3rd season of Six Feet Under, used, from Everyday Music. This was fortuitous timing, as Kim and I had hit season 3 in our watching (we started the first season at the beginning of the holiday break) and discovered that in my archives starting with season 3 episode 3, the video files I saved back-in-the-day (when it was still on the air) were corrupted (audio’s fine, video super-choppy at about 3 frames per second.)

Lost!

The new LOST “game” supposedly updated today at 6pm Pacific. I have yet to check it out. As usual, find more information at the Unfiction thread.

It looks like the new LOST website stuff is now live. It’s not quite an ARG, not quite a game, not quite a story. Finding and solving things unlock video clips that provide more information. I’m certainly going to be following.

OCEANIC AIRLINES ANNOUNCES ITS RETURN TO THE AIRWAYS
“TAKING YOU PLACES YOU NEVER IMAGINED”

Flights Begin December 31 To Nine Markets
Oceanic Airlines announced today their return to the airways. Beginning December 31, operations and flights to nine markets will resume, “Taking You Places You Never Imagined.” Destinations include:

Los Angeles, CA
Tustin, CA
Ames, IA
Miami, FL
New York, NY
Portland, OR
Knoxville, TN
Seoul, South Korea
Sydney, Australia

“We are very eager to resume flying and apologize for any inconvenience our temporary closure may have caused our loyal customers,” said Michael Orteig, President, Oceanic Airlines. “Oceanic Airlines is proud to be a top tier flight provider and looks forward to providing travelers with many more years of unparalleled service.”

About Oceanic Airlines
In business for over 25 years, Oceanic Airlines is a major airline carrier and offers the highest caliber of service for international and domestic flights. Destinations include Los Angeles, London, Sydney and South Korea.

Oceanic Airlines Contact:
Georgia Cavanagh (818) 460-5520

Calling the contact number gives you an outgoing voicemail message telling you to check out flyoceanicair.com on the 31st.

Is it a full-fledged ARG? Is it an extension-of or extra-backstory-for the TV show? I guess we’ll find out soon. More information is at the Unfiction thread.

It has been a while since I emptied my camera, so I figured it was time for a photo catch-up post. First, I thought I would kill two birds with one stone. I wanted to photographically convey how treacherous the stairs in the new house are. They’re really shallow and really tall. I also wanted a photo to show off my new Red Robot socks from Diesel Sweeties. I am not sure if the picture shows off the stairs very well, but it does show off the socks.

The former occupants of the house left us a little present in the kitchen: a drawer full of ancient baking supplies and utensils!

Next up, we have a couple of photos from the office party at Players, including a video game with a Windows error and Bob on a motorcycle simulator. You sort of have to know Bob for this to be at all interesting.

Next up, we have a bunch of photos from the recent trip to 42 Entertainment.

An interesting photo from this set is my collection of “reagents.” All of my liquids on the flight were in plain bottles marked with Reagent A, Reagent B, and Reagent C in sharpie marker. Both directions, the liquids were pulled from my bag and examined, then placed back in without comment. The fourth bottle used to be Dove hairspray, which I threw out to put in my spray-in conditioner. Of course, I scribbled over the text in solid blocks. With the dove symbol, I just put a big X over. You know, like an X over the peace sign. Also in the bag was a copy of the Bill of Rights printed on a sharp rectangle of metal.