- I wrote a list yesterday.
- About scrambled eggs.
- I’m … concerned about my brain translating everything to bullet points.
- That I’m now so A.D.D. I can no longer write or think in proper paragraphs.
- …
- Yes, that’s malarkey.
- I write paragraphs all the time.
- I mean, at least I use mostly proper grammar, unlike Cormac McCarthy.
- …
- Too many …s already.
- It is Monday after all.
- The Teenager woke at an epic level of crankiness.
- And slowness.
- I get it, kid.
- Mondays push their weight on you like an emotional elephant.
- Sure, sure, not everyone handles Mondays the same way.
- Some of you they don’t bother.
- I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I’m sure a psychologist could tell me.
- Heh.
- I couldn’t sleep last night.
- It’s a common thing on Sunday evenings.
- A lot on my mind.
- A. Lot.
- There’s always the conundrum:
- If I turn the light on to write down what I’m thinking, am I going to get to sleep faster when I’m finished, or is it going to prolong the wakefulness?
- There’s plenty of articles to read about this kind of thing.
- Like, this one.
- As always, application seems more difficult than understanding.
- I had stuff to write about last night.
- It’s gone now.
- Like Keyser Söze.
- But yes, brain stillness is a problem, especially at night.
- You guys remember that movie The Game with Michael Douglas?
- Fincher directed it.
- Basically, Mikey plays a rich guy whose brother (Sean Penn) buys him a play through “The Game.”
- A company basically starts messing with his life, and at the end, there’s a birthday party.
- In modern parlance, it’s called an Alternate Reality Game (ARG).
- I LOVE these things.
- Back when Halo 2 came out, there was an ARG called “I Love Bees,” put together by an agency in San Francisco.
- It started with this really basic website that was laden with hidden stuff, things embedded in the code that lead to things happening in the real world.
- Gamers literally all over the globe had to work together to decipher the stuff.
- One of the clues led to a call at a phonebook at an abandoned gas station in the Nevada desert, for instance.
- The call unlocked another clue.
- It ultimately unveiled episodes of what was a radio drama set in the Halo universe.
- (Which had awesome production values.)
- I mean, this was 2004 and I still remember most of it.
- A little earlier than that, there was a “video game” called Majestic.
- “Majestic was a science fiction thriller based on a Majestic 12 shadow government conspiracy theory. As an ARG, the game was played by phone, email, AOL Instant Messenger, BlackBerry messages, fax, and by visiting special websites. Gameplay frequently involved the player receiving clues that they would use to solve puzzles and unravel the story.”
- I loved that game.
- So.
- ARGs.
- I actually have an idea for one.
- I’m not sure we can do it because of the rampant abuse of modern gun culture.
- But here’s the idea:
- Basically, you sign up to be “kidnapped.”
- My team puts you in a van, blindfolds you, and then drops you off on one side of downtown Tulsa.
- You have to get to the other side of downtown in a designated time without getting tagged by the opposing force.
- (Which is just a gang of your friends, and augmented by my employees to make sure we have enough Agents after you.)
- Would love to do it with Nerf guns or something.
- But it’s like a frantic grown-up game of hide-and-seek/tag coated with some espionage flavor.
- I think it would be a blast.
- You sign up.
- You set designated availability blocks.
- And then …
- You don’t know when we’re coming for you.
- I have all these weird business ideas.
- Like, if I could just get my “Hand Picked Books” bookstore opened, we could use that as a clandestine front for The Game.
- I do not have the money to open the bookstore.
- But it is also a plan for me and the Teenager.
- We’d only carry books we’d read and could rec.
- And our marketing would involve and old school blog of book reviews.
- I miss blogs.
- I still have one.
- But way back in the early oughts, my group of friends all had one, and we’d write and post and share and it felt like community.
- I miss it.
- I still post, but the rest of them are gone.
- And no, I can’t share here.
- Work-me and blog-me are different.
- Obviously.
- Keep it secret. Keep it safe.
- The ARG stuff is what I was thinking about when I couldn’t sleep last night, btw.
- There was more, obviously, but … that was a lot of it.
- Anyway.
- Where was I?
- Had some meetings.
- Had lunch.
- List is late.
- Monday, right?
Monday, Monday, Mondaaaaay
Comments
3 responses to “Monday, Monday, Mondaaaaay”
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quick note, but your ARG comment made me remember: this weekend, I babysat the 3year-old so her parents could get away. They started their evening late, 8p, and ended at midnight. When I asked what they were going to do, they said geocaching. The interesting thing about that, is they go on these hunts to find junk. What if, the hunts were for something spectacular. And the finder gets the reward.
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That’s a different thing, though. I don’t want them looking for stuff. I want them feeling like they’re a spy on the run. live the movies. plus, geocaching’s already a thing.
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I know it’s different. I was telling Kaia about it and she seemed intrigued. Don’t know if she was really interested or not.
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skepticlysm 
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