ilovebees/Our Colony/two tiaras

[entelein]

So, apparently this Our Colony game challenge recently has sparked quite a bit of chaos. Not surprising, really: ARGs and webgames of any ilk tend to create a frenzy when there's a healthy sense of competition and/or common purpose or goal for a large group. However, it seems that Kristen Rutherford and I got caught in some of the crossfire. Heh.

It all started when a new puzzle/image came out: http://www.ourcolony.net/images/challenges/ch1900222589.jpg

Way down by the left bottom corner of the computer monitor is what appears to be a small strip of paper, kinda like a fortune cookie fortune, and it has Kristen's website URL printed on it (and obviously digitally manipulated, much like Woody's eyebrow was not.) Somehow, and not surprisingly, people have gotten onto the bandwagon of assuming Kristen's site to be in-game for Our Colony, and have additionally started confusing the two of us, since our first names are so similar.

Wacky hijinx have sort of ensued:

http://forum.teamxbox.com/showpost.php?s=aaaee6a473aff3e3c05a1cce97957d38&p=5125674&postcount=200

Re: New Challenge...
OK, let's follow me here for a sec....

www.kristenrutherford.com

-->> Go here do this.....

In the meantime...

join The Traveling Picture Show. See if you can guess which one is me...


OK... Now I went to the link and browsed the Pictures. I've figured out that this is her


http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=entelein

Interesting points.... She live in .... Any Guesses? Chicago!!!
her post name is : Name: Lux et umbra vicissim, sed semper amore

which is translated into.. (Light and shadow by turns, but always love.)

Now back to the "Truth Brings Revelation" quote....

Revelation = Light?

Maybe I'm way off, but see for yourselves.

Oh, dear. The peeps at the Unforums seem to understand that not only does Kristen != Krystyn, but that neither of us have anything to do with Our Colony. I am currently holding two (scratch that, four, now) IM conversations where I am being grilled and suspected of sneaky sekrit colony dealings. It's kinda fun, in a way, but I honestly don't want to mislead anyone, you know? I have been utterly truthful to people about this.

http://forum.teamxbox.com/showpost.php?s=aaaee6a473aff3e3c05a1cce97957d38&p=5125985&postcount=207

Re: New Challenge...
on the glitterbook hive meet site.

theres a few refrences main being :

SATURDAY EVENING: The Neofuturists' production of Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind.

notice the main theme of light

also it says

:
FRIDAY EVENING: Dinner with everyone. Possibly karaoke and/or a LAN party. Location and specifics TBA.

SATURDAY: No planned events, although those who are interested may wish to attend the Animecentral 2005 convention, explore downtown Chicago or shop with other beekeepers, play HALO if we didn't do it the night before, or just rest up. ;-)

OMG

The Hivemeet. They're referencing the Hivemeet. And the Neofuturists.

And then Kristen forwarded me this (also from the teamxbox forums, but I don't have a URL):

Ok I might be onto somthing here...

If you see what letters are missing from the grid, the first 2 are H
and Q. Now if you look at the 9th menu option on the Kristen site
under the ARG heading it says something like
HahahaahaahahahaahahahahaQ!

Now firstly I think the sequencing of the a's and h's between the H
and Q is some sort of code. This is because there are 44 a's and h's
and if you count 44 letters from the beginning of the grid, you end up
right at the end of GAMEFIND.

Coincidence...I think not...

Perhaps the sequence of letters obtained from the a's and h's must
then be compared to the marked dates on the calender or sumthin.


This could definitely tie in with our theory on the code sequencing
with the Torrah reference

HahahahahahahahahahahahaQ! is actually a typo I made in messenger to Kristen one night, and we liked it so much that we continually use it as sort of a hiccupy, frenetic way of expressing amusement. Heh.

Kristen and I, we're sitting admiring each other's tiaras, and how sparkly they are. Later, we may go hit up Orange Julius for a snack, and go killing people at the Mall with sticky 'nades and glowy swords. As for Our Colony dot net, we have nooooooooooooo clue.

HahahahahahahaQ!

(Oh, and by the way, please please please stop e-mailing and calling Kristen about this. You can also stop calling her agent. They have nothing to do with Our Colony, so please refrain from bothering them. Thank you!)

Comments

[clayfoot.livejournal.com]

Your denials have fueled my suspicions more than ever!

Ha!

HahahahahahahaQ!

[tunaman.livejournal.com]

ARGers are INSANE. I'm kind of glad that I don't know what it's like to be on the constant search for obscure clues, though sometimes it actually sounds like fun.

Oh, and by the way, my eyebrows DO NOT look like that, and they are NOT that loud!

[ubersaurus.livejournal.com]

Like how a group of em played Headlong for about an hour in Halo 2, looking for clues to solving the "part of the solution" message on the yellow boards? ;p

[thunderclap8.livejournal.com]

Heh it almost makes me wish I hadn't bailed on OurColony after my login got deleted for the third time... would have been fun to witness!

[waters100.livejournal.com]

So true! I thought this would be a good ARG to follow up ILB! It was frustrating to browse the site the day Gamespot said something about it! It's clear ILB was better prepared for millions of people using it at the same time.

[phaedra-amunet.livejournal.com]

OMG.

OMG.

OMG.

HahahahahaQ!

Okay, I'm done.

Wait...

OMGOMGOGM

BAHAHAHAH!

Okay, *now* I'm done.

Don't laugh...

[ariock.livejournal.com]

You could be next...

I had a short bout of panic during ILB when I mentioned in an email to Dana that I had a copy of the latest coordinate sheet up on my site, and she linked to it from her blog. The spike in traffic could have easily gone over my bandwidth limit if I hadn't figured out how to drastically reduce the size of the coordinate data tables.

In that case, though, I had asked for it. This is just so wrong. I say we find out who the PMs are and start feeding their info to other args.

"Hey! their home phone numbers were found in an Audi."
"Gosh...the coordinate on this site points to some person's house..."

[dancingkids.livejournal.com]

this is the funniest response I have seen thus far

[ozy-y2k.livejournal.com]

I'm seriously in awe.

[incyr.livejournal.com]

OMG! They think our plans to hit the Neofuturist is part of an Ourcolony plot? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...Q!

...

It's not, is it? You're not hiding something from us, are you Krystyn? ;)

I feel sorry for you and Rutherford... give her my condolences when next you talk. But christ almighty, that's funny. I wonder if that's how the rest of us look to PM's when we're playing?

Oh jesus, that's just too funny. We should totally screw with them.

[scarpe-scrappy.livejournal.com]

Sorry Krys - I keep trying to beat them off your path on UF, but the little peelockers just don't want to take my word on it that, yes, both Kristen/Krystyn's are out of game, and yes, real people that write real blogs and have real lives outside of OurColony/Bees/ARG/blahblahblah.

It's amazing how freely the PMs of this OurColony thing are f'in around with people. It seriously honks me off - I can't imagine what it would be like if _I_ were a target :(

Chins up and beating sticks at the ready!

[entelein.livejournal.com]

Dude, you are doing a fantastic job. It's not your fault they're being doody-heads and not listening to reason! ;) I meant to pm you last night about that, but with Kristen freaking out, and then seeing more and more links to my own website, with speculation about "light" and the "Torah" and being in Chicago ... I got a little distracted!

It's mostly funny, except for the part where Kristen has to apologize to her agent. I just feel bad for the players. The PMs should've been a little more careful with how they used their resources. That image (yes, out of context for me, admittedly) is really confusing.

Heh, again, thanks. You rule.

[scarpe-scrappy.livejournal.com]

DorkPM: "hmmmm, how can I dink with the largest number of people by using as few resources as possible.... hmmmm... Oooh! I know! I'll link to someone's website! OMGLOLWTFBBQ!!!111!"

I'm still laughing about how suddenly at the March 19th Star Wars premiere and there will be free Xbox360s given away if you can JUST FIND THE TORAH in CHICAGO with Tarot Cards!!

The logical leaps are hilarious ;D

Ah, well. Hopefully the fuss will die down soon and everyone can go back to ... normalcy? Do we actually have that ever?

[perigee.livejournal.com]

Dude. I wondered if you'd be playing Our Colony. I tried but there was seriously frustrating server timeout happening when I found out about it. Bastards.

Anyway, I'm mostly posting a comment here to say that misia, who is sick and very sleepy, is waving at you and saying "Hi, Wellsie!" And drifting off and being utterly cute.

[entelein.livejournal.com]

Awww, hello!!

[cirrusstrafe.livejournal.com]

You are so lucky! XD You and Kristen should visit Florida <.<

Cuz, you know, It'd be cool to hang out with the two Kri(y)stens. ^_^ Maybe play some DDR =P

More Clarity

[ariock.livejournal.com]

I did a little research on the Colony game. I think I can explain WHY the monkeys called Kristen. The solution to the previous puzzle involved CALLING A PHONE NUMBER.

Bad move, PMs. Bad move.

[dancingkids.livejournal.com]

sigh.

[dasrokast.livejournal.com]

Ah-ha! THIS explains why I got a huge spike in traffic on my blog yesterday coming from my livejournal profile. Wonder if it was being linked to in your blog, or my participation in the Traveling Picture Show...sigh, if only I'd realized, I would have totally screwed around with those players on my blog. Ah, well :).

[coffeejedi.livejournal.com]

does this mean that a bunch of rabid xbox fanboys shouting OMGWTFBBQ!!!!1 will be hounding everyone in Chicago next month!?

[entelein.livejournal.com]

Not if I kick their asses first.

[fiercesteyes.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Ooh! I wanna help!

[entelein.livejournal.com]

Only after you finish doing boxes.

[robogriff.livejournal.com]

They are looking for the Single Player Demo Release for Xbox 360.

Devil's Advocacy Inc. At Your Service

[(Anonymous)]

I agree that what's going on sucks, but did we not cause some of our own problems? I mean, we've gone out on at least two excursions as puppetmasters and actively encouraged the players to think "outside the box" and look at every angle and possibility, every possible link. We've made sure they had to do their research and homework, which sometimes sent them off to out of game sites (the kickouts puzzle, researching the Oracle) and sometimes we even intentionally blurred their lines (remember Larry Carlson?)

On the other hand, I agree that "appropriating" other people/sites against their wishes and will is wrong on many levels. Bad form and wrong.

Wolf

Re: Devil's Advocacy Inc. At Your Service

[entelein.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I do not blame the players. I blame the PMs for releasing this puzzle in all its frustrating ambiguity.

But, you know, they were calling people listed in Kristen's links at 3 AM and stuff.

3 AM.

HELLO.

Come on, now.

Re: Devil's Advocacy Inc. At Your Service

[(Anonymous)]

3 am? I'd be tracing calls, taking names and kicking ass.

I see blame on both sides--the PMs for being so seriously inept (benefit of the doubt--let's hope it wasn't malicious), and the players for continuing when (as I understand it) they've been told you're both OOG and to leave you alone.

Wolf

Re: Devil's Advocacy Inc. At Your Service

[entelein.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of different teams/communities playing this one. It takes time for this information to propogate.