Chuck-ese

…and I’ve had feelings for her for a long time, right? She’s my go-to girl; if I’m having a bad day or a problem or am just being unneccesarily emo, a few minutes of talking to her or IMing her later she’s put me right back on top of the world. She’s kind, she conciously seeks to improve herself, she’s smart, she’s beautiful, she is the perfect girl. During one of my cheer-up sessions (related to my lack of success with the ladies), she told me that if she “knew what she know now [when we had the conversation, a month or so ago] what she did when I initially asked her out [a couple of years ago], she would have said yes.” This sent a wave of joy through my heart, until the cold reality that she was dating a friend of mine came crashing in. I’m not the sort to steal a girl from a fellow man, I’ve had that happen to me too many times. Well anyway, that relationship came to a premature end due to some rather poor decisions made by said friend. I was at once glad and sad: glad for the newfound opportunity, sad for her loss. We spoke shortly after it happened, and she was devistated; this moved the “glad” emotion far to the back and any attempts to swoop down on her were shelved in the interests of human decency. She got better, and just as I was preparing to make my move, I get signals from her that indicate that she’s interested in another of my friends. I have no idea what to make of this. If I make some kind of effort to figure out what’s going on, I will either a) spook her or b) make her think I’m the jealous type, which I’m usually not (I like to think), and either way things will be weird between me and her and the aforementioned close friend. However, if I don’t find out, I’ll have the weight of uncertainty burdening my heart, like a midget sitting on my chest. I have no idea what I’m going to do, but it’s going to end up badly in any case.

He denies anything is going on, but if I heard him correctly they are at his house right now (11:00) watching a movie.

A new development has occured regarding the Neurocam-related phenomina. A commenter on a previous post by “Stream” connects the previously unknown website esoterictree.com with the Yellow-1 organization.

The Esoteric Tree website seems to conform to the layout of several sites we’ve seen thus far, being a mostly blank page with some sort of symbol. The sigil of the given site consists of two triangles surrounded by a symbol I’ve seen before yet cannot name (that is itself composed of two concentric, tangent circles. When the page source is viewed, two e-mail addresses are listed. Whoever answers these e-mails are empowered to grant access to the main page and the forums. A who.is look up of the site reveals that it is registered to someone who wants to be identified as coming from Washington, D.C, although that may have been the default setting, as the other data is left blank.

Esoteric Tree may be a reference to the Sephirot (or Tree of Life) from Jewish Mysticism. Sephirot have also turned up in regard to the May Day Mystery, and feature in Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum.
The mystery continues.

[EDIT: I was too late to get any usefull information regarding “Stream’s” IP Address.]

In my previous Games article, The Power of Blue, I discussed making a mono-blue Magic deck. My deckmaking time was cut short after that article, and when I next had the opportunity to play it over at David’s house, I essentially had a random pile of blue cards salvaged from my previous deck. And it won. Well…it won one game. But still: random pile of cards vs. David’s lovingly crafted Red and Green deck. pretty amazing. It’s had lackluster performance since, mostly because it was down 7 cards and suffered some a severe mana crunch. Here is the updated deck list (with 7 islands added).
20 x Islands
1 x Veiled Sentry
1 x Envelop
1 x Intervene
3 x Unsummon
2 x Flight
1 x Tidal Surge
3 x Mana Leak
1 x Remove Soul
1 x Psychic Venom
1 x Errant Minion
2 x Puppeteer
1 x Rhystic Deluge
1 x Wind Drake
1 x Labyrinth Minotaur
2 x Vizzerdrix
1 x Recall
1 x Boomerang
3 x Counterspell
1 x Thalakos Seer
1 x Phantom Warrior
1 x Levitation
1 x Temporal Distortion
1 x Sunken Hope
2 x Confiscate
1 x Distorting Wake
1 x Scroll Rack
1 x Mesmeric Orb
1 x Chimeric Idol
1 x Mirror Golem
1 x Phyrexian Hulk

It really sucks.

This probably is, sadly, to be the last of the quiz bowl roundups (10th, 11th).

Quiz Busters:
3-1
We made it to the fourth round and lost.

Fall League:
Season: 7-0
Tournament: 3-0
1st Place
I got a personal trophy for highest individual score.

Winter League:
Season: 6-2
Tournament: 3-1
1st Place
I earned First Team All-Conference

High School Challenge:
2-1
We nearly forfeited that last game because I was sick in the bathroom. We lost by one question.

State Tournament:
First Day: 4-0
Second Day: 0-2
Total: 4-2
Class B 3rd Place
I got First Team All-State

National Tournament: May 23rd, 24th, & 25th.
This is the first time we’d gone to nationals.
First Day: 5-5 (We needed a record of 6-4 or better to advance to the second day. I single-handedly lost us the 5th game). On the bright side, half of them didn’t know what euchre was, and 80% of those surveyed didn’t know what Vernor’s was.
Second Day: Explore Chicago (made only slightly worse by the fact that Yarb Bung came with us.)
At the end of the first day, we were 92nd out of 176. East Lansing was 5th.
I personally was the 43rd highest individual scorer out of 990.

Will I do college Quiz Bowl? I don’t know.

After having finished by senior project, I became rather bored of the May Day Mystery (yes, I know, my site isn’t up yet. Deal). So, out of curiosity, I began to investigate the Neurocam phenomina that I discovered along with the MDM. However, I noticed some of the resources were down. The Wikipedia article was deleted because it lacked reputable researched information, which I guess is true. An archive of the article can be found via the Wayback Machine. Also, a blog by one Tript says of its Neurocam Archives that “There ain’t no Neuro-archives and there never was!” Patently untrue, as it is referenced in a forum post here. I even managed to track down the archives, but for some reason it won’t let me access any of the pages right now from before it went offline.

Here is a list of some more Neurocam resources while I’m at it:

Neurocam: the website for the organization, not of much use at the moment. Archive.

Fiat NOX: A sister organization to Neurocam. How do we know this? It’s revealed in a document which will be shown later. Archive.

Nautonier: The umbrella organization that includes or person who is head of both Neurocam and Fiat Nox. Archive.
Yellow-1: Supposedly an opponent group to Neurocam. The Black Report indicates that at least some (if not all) of the Yellow-1 activity is actually controlled by Neurocam. The Archive is in-accessable.

The Black Report: (WARNING: PDF File) An alleged report from one Crispin Black to the Nautonier, detailing the direction Neurocam should take in the coming years. There are aspects of it that make be believe that it was meant to been seen outside of the “intended audience.” A Google seach for Crispin Black shows that he is a British intelligence analyst.
Neurocam is anti-prude: (WARNING: PDF) I don’t really know what to make of this.

The Neuroboards: A messageboard where Neurocam operatives can communicate. The boards themselves may be secure, but some of the files aren’t. If you right-click on the Neuroboards logo, you can access the entire image directory, which contains much more than images. That could not have been accidental. Among the documents are the Inducted Operative Code of Conduct, the IO Contract, and the IO Electronc Communication Equipment Use Policy. A folder contains an MP3 called the Pine Gap interview, which I have yet to listen to. The chart shows the organizational structure of the Neurocam family of organizations. I have no idea what the NCON file is. The UMS.txt file contains only “QISOODD”.

Yellow One Forum: Better protected than the Neuroboards.

“Entering the Shadowy World of Neurocam”: A news article about Neurocam.

Jumping on the Bandwagon: A blog by a former Neurocam operative. Another blog by him, consisting of one post.

Enjoy.

I just gave my senior project presentation, and I passed with flying colors (45, 45, 44, 43 out of 45). You can see the results eventually at the new piece of crap added to the Chucksphere. Thus ends everything project-like I have to do until college. Now I can finally write some stuff I’ve been meaning to.

Motherfucking done! Woo hoo!