Blood Money - Stop the International

Sure, if you want to be a part of President-Elect Obama’s cabinet, you’ll need to go through an extensive vetting process, even if your husband used to actually be president himself. But say you’d rather just join up with Scotland Yard to investigate a vast international money laundering conspiracy? Heck, all they need is your email address, thanks to superior UK efficiency.

Blood money? Yeah, we got blood money…via FedEx even! In fact, according to the Stop the International website, all of the money we had in our pockets also seems to be tainted. And we only know how to get blood stains out of our clothing and our carpeting, off of our walls and shiny surfaces, and blocked from further reflection in our psyche. Dang it!

Along with a few other people, we received a package from Chief Inspector Louis Salinger requesting our help in stopping the International Bank of Business and Credit, colloquially known as “The International.” This follows along on some previous reports from overseas about deaddrop caches secreted around the world. This is the craziest way to run a criminal investigation we’ve ever seen.

Letter - Click to Enlargenate

The package contained a USB flash drive as well, with more supposed evidence. A listing of the directory structure can be found here, and all of the files are duplicated on site in the same structure (who knows what is and isn’t important?).

USB Drive

One of the files on the USB Drive, along with some photo and document images, was a cryptic MP3 message:

We’re told a live event was held in Los Angeles yesterday, which sorta fits with the map that was included in our package. More photos after the jump, so you can get the jump on this new campaign! Discussion underway at Unfiction.
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My Funny Coraline

Sometimes when the internets sends you packages, it does them up right. Nothing is more exciting than a mystery box full of mystery, unless maybe it’s full of mysterious WMDs or something but that’s sorta more intense than it is exciting. One such package dropped on our front stoop this weekend. The former kind, not the deadly latter.

Mystery Box Full of Mystery

And while there may have been no deadly latter, there certainly was a droll letter.

Letter Excerpt

Box Contents

You guessed correctly, true-believers! This sucker is electrical! No wait, it’s made of wood and cloth and paper and stuff but there is electricity in the air! The movie is Coraline, based on the children’s book by geek hero, Neil Gaiman, and it’s directed by the charming bloke who made The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach! This is so gonna rule.

Mystery Key of Mystery

One of the items in the lid of the box sends us to coraline.com, where we’re prompted for the key that was helpfully provided. Entering “stopmotion” reveals a behind-the-scenes video look at production of the upcoming feature. The site also lets you sign up for updates by providing an email address and opting for voice and text message contacts through your cell phone. Are you brave enough? We’re not but we’re just that foolhardy anyway.

More photos of the box contents after the jump, including the full text of the letter. Enjoy!

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Now You’re Cookin’ with Glass

Apparently we sent ourselves a package recently, if the battered box delivered to us yesterday was any indication. It was stamped all over with stickers proclaiming its lack of postage and poorly addressed shipping label, which bore our address as the return address as well as the destination. Inside was a padded box containing a hunk of etched glass along with a love letter from the United States Postal Service. We thought all these years that they didn’t care but it turns out they do! Hurrah!

Yes, that love letter did mention something about a smelling, leaking box but we’re totally above making a crude sexual innuendo out of it. Get your minds out of the gutter!

Inside the padded black box (technically bouncing around loose in the shipping box until we replaced it anyway) was a paperweight bearing the following inscription, under which appears some Hebrew-resembling gibberish:

And I saw as it were a Sea of Glass mingled with fire

Paperweight (click for larger size)

It’s a good thing we have friends in the business (what business? Why, the business of intertubing, of course!) because otherwise we would have had no clue what to do with this, besides brain zombies with it in the event of an uprising. Luckily, discussion of similar packages came up in a recent episode of the ARGNetcast, so we knew where to look!

It seems there are slightly different versions of the zombie-clocker floating around and, when placed together, they become a multi-dimensional alien, wake up, and fly off in their damn flying saucer. No wait, they just spell out a link to a website.

The missive appears intended to sound a call for an upcoming Prototype161 event in New York City. We only know this from checking out the discussion at Unfiction, where the zombies usually keep to themselves. More pics of the shipping package and note from the postal service after the jump, if you care (which you do, because its funny. Unless you’re a damn zombie).

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Seein’s Believin’

A strange package (do we get any other kind?) arrived in the mail the other day. It contained a postcard embossed with “i am blind” and braille spelling “i am bl,” a self-addressed prepaid return envelope, and two rolled up pairs of weird sunglasses without earpieces but with “iamblind.org” printed upon them.

Package Contents

We’re not the only ones to have received one of these packages (although technically we received two of them, so there), and from what we can glean of our brief skimming of discussion on the subject, this may be a promotion for the recently premiered movie, “Blindness.” Or not, what do we know.

We’re a little confused by the return envelope. What are we supposed to be sending back? We’re thinking maybe a one dollar bill and an audio recording describing it as a hundred. Too cruel?

Also check out the weird stamps, which appear to have white-out hand-applied across the eyes of Lady Liberty. Yeah, now who’s cruel, Mr. Jumpy McConcluserson? We tried that ourselves once and it stung like heck for days. Turns out those crazy goths do it with contact lenses.

Stamps

More pics after the jump, discussion at Unfiction.

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Is Public Works an Oxymoron?

Calling all San Franciscans! The Jejune Institute wants to “examine” you.

Elsewhere Public Works Agency wrote:
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Special Transmission from:
Elsewhere Public Works Agency
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Slight Nudges Now Offered.
Solely for the Discerning Dilettante.
Be Aware - it could be in the wrong direction.
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Is the Jejune Institute still spreading false
nonchalance? Or have they mended their ways?
We need you to find out.
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/ // / // Next steps // / // / /
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dial: 415.325.4014
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visit:
The Jejune Institute
580 California Street, Suite 1607
San Francisco, CA.
Tuesday through Saturday
Noon to 5:30pm
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http://JejuneInstitute.org
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You can’t make this stuff up folks (someone already did). Calling the phone number delivers a recorded message affirming one’s innate value to the Institute, and inviting one to their offices during normal business hours for a life-changing experience. Since this is based in San Francisco, we’re clearly dealing with a cult here. A cult that apparently has had a website since 1972 and which claims its copyright into 2036. 2036?!

For a cult, these blokes sure claim to have some interesting technologies available to them, such as magic mutated water, a camera that can take pictures through time (hmm, where have we seen that before?), and an attractive brunette research assistant named “Hotprune.” Now, are you curious enough to visit? If you do, send us your candid photos and live reports, assuming you’re still alive!*

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Traces of Hope

Neatly following in the footsteps of virtue is hope and who couldn’t use a bit of that these days, what with the crushing problems with the markets and economy (to which we understand the president recently referred in a mumbled attempt to cast the blame on one Tyler Durden having mucked things up)? Virtue…help…hope…it all makes sense now, except whether by “traces” these guys mean tiny amounts or they mean, like, outlines on a piece of paper. We’re so confused! Maybe we’d better fall back on the tip we received for some answers:

“Traces of Hope” is being launched as the first ever charity online ARG and is being built by the British Red Cross to coincide with its Civilians and Conflict month. The game features Joseph a sixteen-years-old caught up in the Ugandan civil war, separated from his family, hungry and alone in a camp overflowing with thousands forced to flee, Joseph is desperately seeking his mother. But he needs your help…

So there you have it, a respectable cause and the first-ever charity ARG, if you don’t count that whole Operation Sleeper Cell thing for the benefit of Cancer Research UK. Hey, maybe Traces of Hope will donate some traces of cash money to the Sleeper Cell guys; I’ll bet a couple thousand quid could go a long way toward their efforts. Oops, sidetracked.

Anyway, registration is open at the website. Teaser video below the fold, discussion at Unfiction.

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Because Now is Not the Time

Some completely anonymous dude wrote to us the other day about an odd YouTube video posted by a group called Citizens of Virtue, all about bringing “enthusiasm and transformation to the world.” Citizens of Virtue is self-described in the video description as “an organization dedicated to good works in the name of Jesus Christ. We want to use His power and His wisdom to make great changes in this world. We are launching a seven week campaign called Virtual Virtues. The effort will focus on seven virtues and begin the process of restoring integrity back into our culture.” Heading over to their site reveals a slickly cloying candy-apple sort of polish but wait, is that a cry for “HELP” on the front page?!

Some dude named Matt Forbeck posted about this recently and revealed that the whole endeavor is backed by a group called LoneShark Games although if you ask us, a funnier name would have been LoneStar Games. Whether or not this LoneShark bit is true we can’t really say but Matt has never lied to us before. Anyway, we kind of hope it is a game because we’re not ready for Jesus to come back just yet. We’ve got things to do still! Also, we owe him five bucks.

The best part of the site is the banner for a new-fangled replacement for saltpeter:

Discussion is already underway at Unfiction, so dive in and keep your minds off the sinnin’! Eight days and counting until the launch of the “Virtual Virtues,” whatever that means.

Who Killed Amanda Palmer?

Our next tip (coming from someone whom we’ll conveniently nickname, “B.S.”) pointed us to an interesting (and, naturally, mysterious) Tumblr blog (which may or may not be SFW). Oh sure, the older entries seem innocuous enough but the most recent post, hilariously entitled “I Should Have Put It Back In The Rabbit Hole” wins our vote for easiest mark. Of course, the reference is meant for an earlier post about a Creepy Package, the contents of which are quite possibly the bit that is NSFW (did we mention that already?), and probably not what you were thinking. Or what we were thinking anyway, ho ho!

This follows up, curiously enough, on an older Unfiction thread originally started about a viral promotion with rewards for best creative stenciling in the real world of the slogan, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer?” Also of note is the reference in the latest blog post leading to a website for what we assume is a fictional radio station at WKAP-FM, a play on the initial letters of the slogan. As Shad0 says, “Perhaps the Dresden Dolls are taking a page from the book of Nine Inch Nails?”

And Here’s to You, Mr. Robinson

You may recall recent reports about how Marvel asked Twitter to shut down some fan-created accounts masquerading as characters from the television show, “Mad Men.” We even discussed it on the ARGNetcast a few weeks ago (which we suppose makes this old news so no wonder if you don’t remember after all).

Anyway, one of our readers does remember and he, she, or it also recently stumbled across another potential TV-Twitter crossover: @robinson_crusoe. Is this just another fan creation for the upcoming NBC series, Robinson Crusoe or is it something official? As our anonymous tipstroid writes, he’s “staying in character pretty well,” except for that whole question about how Mr. Crusoe has accessed the internets of today from his antique world of yesterfiction. Just ignore that part.

Robinson Crusoe premieres October 17th in the U.S.

Paging Emmanuel Goldstein

What do you do if your brother leaves the country to travel but never comes back? Oh sure, he says he got a great job in Thailand and everything but you know that’s a filthy lie…your brother never got up before noon in his life, except for that one time with the false fire alarm when he spilled his bong on your favorite rug. But he went right back to bed and didn’t clean it up until after noon, so the point still stands (and the stench still likely lingers).

Anyway, if you’re an attractive brunette woman, you probably know exactly what you should do in order to get your brother back…post a blog! Hey, it’s a lot easier than flying all the way to Bangkok just to bang some heads together to get answers.

Meet Slayher, whose brother 2600 is missing in plain sight. Okay, maybe not exactly missing but not coming back anytime soon and leaving weird messages for his beloved sis.

Slayher informs us via video that her bro is a member of a competitive gaming team we’ve never heard of before and if you check out his profile, it seems likely that some of his fellow clanmates also have accounts on GGL. And hey, most of them seem to have taken big jobs in Thailand as well! And hey, there are subtly italicized letters in some of their profile descriptions! And hey, that’s about the level of our expertise at sleuthery, hooray! Now, what’s our reward??

Oh, well done! Spoilers after the jump.

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