ARG

At the risk of embarrassing myself by speaking about something of which I know very little, I present the concept of Alternate Reality Gaming or ARG.

This should not be confused with virtual reality or role playing games, though ARG may in some way owe some of its principles to ideas developed in these endeavors. Confused?

Well, ARG seems to pride itself on remaining elusive, even mysterious. It intentionally stays out of the spotlight, and yet snickers as it parades right before your eyes without you even knowing it's there.

So, what is ARG, and why should you care?

The short answer is that it's a cool multimedia scavenger hunt utilizing real world events in a secretive, highly sophisticated, conspiracy theory, secret agenty way. And you should only care about ARG, if you like fun and enjoy being in the in-crowd or if you are a writer.

Why a writer? Because the complicated structure, twists and turns, and ultimate resolution are very much like the well-developed plot of a great novel. A few novel writers have already realized this and are actively involved in developing new ARGs. And the best part is that ARG marketing is intentionally minimalist (called the This Is Not A Game aesthetic) and dependent on word-of-mouth and information sharing.

Intrigued? Curious? Check out the Wikipedia entry on ARGs or the trendy ARG headquarters at Unfiction.com.

Good luck finding a rabbithole and be wary of the puppetmasters!!

Tossin' Ken a Bone

Here you go Ken! Four kids stoned this creature to death a couple days ago.

What is it?

Link.

The Spanish to English translator used (not perfect) says the article reads thusly:

Strange Creature Found in Cerro Azul

The discovery of a strange creature in Cerro Azul has aroused controversy among the people, for while some say it may be a being from another planet, others simply believe that is an animal.

Four teenagers aged between 14 and 16 years, met him at the Jet Blue Hill, on Saturday, while having fun in the place.

As recounted one of them, they suddenly saw the creature emerging from a cave located behind the water jet. At her appearance and it began to climb over the rocks to one of them panicked and began to thrash him and throw sticks, getting killed, after which they threw into the water and ran.

Anyone? Anyone?

Here's our first guess - a hairless one of these:

If You Loved Your Big Wheel...

... as a kid, you're gonna go ape over the new Persu as an adult.

Reminds me of the Big Wheel and the Green Machine with some futuristic elements from the Jetsons or Meet the Robinsons thrown in. This is sure to be popular with boys and girls just like its childhood inspirations were.

I'm not normally a "car guy", but I gotta tell you, my inner geek comes out a little when I think about getting behind the wheel of this bad boy. 75 miles to the gallon and it can run all electric or Hybrid. And the leans around the curves? Oh yeah!! Like a theme park ride.

Make sure you check out the BBC videos showing the Danish version called the Carver being driven.

BTW, for those with kids, a new version of the Green Machine has been released by Huffy.

Hey Mom, watch this!!

Secret Sauce and More

Secret recipes, secret formulas, secret sauce, mystery meat, and now this:

Secret Menus at Fast food restaurants

I was skeptical, as I am wont to be. So, I did a little more checking on this and found these too:

Christian Science Monitor article

Secret Menus including sit-down chains

A lot of the references seem to emanate from the same source, and you know the Internet.

So... Truth or Urban Legend? If you've held a position on "the other side of the counter" or have success ordering some of these interesting dishes, let us know.

Also, what exactly is the fascination with having insider information and getting something that no one else knows about... and then telling everyone else about it?

Chupacabra Finally Found in Texas?

Here's the story and video from CNN.

You be the judge.

Que' es esto?!?

A mini-investigation conducted by MonsterQuest of the creature shown in this picture has caused something of a stir among their viewership.

The show, which is usually pretty thorough in its investigation of every possible angle, clipped sketchy details of this find onto another completely unrelated story about flying humanoids. This much is true.

Allegedly, this creature/ animal was caught in Mexico in a rat trap (also shown in the picture) and continued to live in a cage for some days afterward.

The scientific experts seemed baffled after examination of its corpse, and the show ended with results of DNA testing glossed over. The result of the shoddy coverage has been a rush by loyal viewers to opinions at polar opposites. Some cry that the show aired something that they knew to be a hoax just to fill time in an incomplete episode, and others have rushed to claim a cover-up of some of the most compelling tangible evidence in any of the previous MonsterQuest episodes.

Watch online or catch the re-broadcast next Saturday, August 8th on the History Channel and let us know what you think. Que' es esto?

You Get More For Your Money...

Usually, I'll see a moral to these kind of stories, but I'm not sure what it would be here. Go barefoot?

Bizarre story!!

Rabid Bat Bites Boy At Payless

IV

Spic dog owns dull edges and ants relieve a fortune? nuts. Call me to splot ask stuff. So tour areas to prop on. Is that a brown snake Tom? Hold idly strive pretty risky logs on top. Lo, Ken san.

Problem this wart, bad raisins act duh. If walking alter lofts just until fall ball to bore ears aches. Ash brims from two TVs.

There's a What??

Q:"Can you play a musical instrument without actually touching it?"
This was a question posed in 1950, and yet my 21st century mind said, "Nah."

A:"Yes, and it's not a wind instrument."
Let me explain.

In my continuing search for the strange, bizarre, and obscure, I recently purchased a couple of DVDs containing episodes of a 1950's TV show called "You Asked For It".

I'd never heard of it, but the premise was to bring Ripley's Believe It or Not-type entertainment straight into the living room of post-war America. All they had to do was ask for it (and endure the incessant huckstering of Skippy Peanut Butter, the peanut butter that doesn't taste like peanut butter, but real, fresh peanuts).

I bit. And so there I sat watching a little piece of Americana when a young lady from Atlanta, Georgia asked Art Baker, the host, a question very similar to the one above.

Then out marched a woman in a performance gown with a device, which looked like a podium with a couple of antennae sticking out of it, and began waving her arms through mid-air in front of it. And what do you know but a song started playing.

I was very surprised. But I'm not sure whether I was more surprised that such a thing existed or more surprised that a TV show from 1950 could surprise me.

Maybe you guys are intimately familiar with this strange instrument called the Theremin already, but here's some trivia that I've run down on the Internet:

-- It apparently has been around since 1919.
-- Jimmy Page used one in a Zeppelin song "Whole Lotta Love", and Brian Wilson wanted one for the weird sounds in the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" but settled for the similar sounds from a tannerin.
-- The founder of Moog synthesizers got his start building theremins.
-- There was even a movie done about the instrument itself in 1994, Theremin:An Electronic Odyssey.
-- A myth was created about the inventor being kidnapped in New York by Soviet agents
-- There's a blog site run by theremin enthusiasts.

To hear one try this site or join in a discussion with a current theremin musician in the comments section of this post.

Haiku, Haiku Very Much

They called me the King
Now many think that I’m gone
But the Rock has Rolled!!

Go Get 'Em Champ!

Guess who's back in the news? Lake Champlain's "Champ" has been "caught" on digital camera and tape by two respectable fishermen, meaning they aren't just crackpots looking for their 15 minutes of fame (examples of such crackpots would be Ken and me continuing this blog). However, their tape, although apparently authentic as verified by the FBI, doesn't show near as much as their story tells. ABC News has a write-up and a taped report on the story, and you can get to it here.

According to those whacky scientists that we here in The Realm just love to pieces:

Crypto-zoologists think the creature may be a plesiosaur, a large underwater reptile not seen since prehistoric times.

What to make of Champ? Unsolved Mysteries has reported on it. Hundreds of sightings have been documented. Could all these people be mistaken? Of course they could. But are they? Here are some other sites that care:

The Shadowlands

Genesis Park

Strangemag.com

Cryptozoology.com

On the other hand, there is the Skeptical Inquirer's debunking.

We'll keep up with the Champ story and let you know if there are further developments. Why? Because Ken truly does care about this kind of stuff, and when I post on it, well, it always makes him feel proud. And I do what I can to make others feel good.

Oh, and please let us know about any vacations you've had to Lake Champlain and your own respective Champ sightings.

Lake Champlain

Cryptozoology

News Oddity of the Week

With a name like Scheppler, I think this is the least of their worries

News Oddity

I Can Name That Tune In Ten Taps

Stumped for the song title of a tune that you can't get out of your head?

Try the "The Song Tapper".

I ran across a reference to this bizarre little site on Dave Barry's page.

It gives you a short list of songs (in order of probability) based on your tapping the song's rhythm on your spacebar.

I tried it and out of five songs, it listed my song at the top twice. "Yellow Submarine" by the Beatles and "Who Can It Be, Now" by Men at Work. Still that's not bad for the millions of songs that are out there and my rudimentary tapping skills.

Pretty strange.

News Oddity of the Week

Of all the boneheaded ideas, this one...

News Oddity

If It's On The Internet, It Must Be True

Like Rich's habitual chain-emailer, the bane of my electronic solitude (in addition to the flagrant "reply to all" button abuser) is the well-intentioned urban legend email purveyor.
If you're like me, and thank goodness not many of you are, you want to politely shake these "good samaritans" by the neck and suggest that despite the seeming urgency required to protect me from the evils of devil-worshipping soap merchants and larvae-infested carbonated beverages and novelty candies that just the scantest amount of research might be in order before filling my Inbox with "PLEASE READ..." messages.

However, in fairness to these happy zealots, it can sometimes be tricky to separate Internet fact from Internet legend. So with this in mind, I ask you, the enlightened Realm rabble, to see if you can identify which of the following statements are true (fact) or false (urban legends) without trying to research them first:

• Lemmings periodically commit suicide by marching over cliffs and into the sea. -- False
• The federal holiday observed in the United States on the third Monday of February is officially designated as "Presidents' Day." -- False
• A frog placed in water that is brought to a boil through gradual temperature increase will make no attempt to escape. -- False
• At age 37, Jack Nicholson discovered that the woman he'd always thought his sister was actually his mother. -- True
• The airplane that carried Buddy Holly to his death was named American Pie. -- False
• Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham after being challenged by his editor to produce a book using fewer than fifty different words. -- True
• The full name of the title character in the television series Gilligan's Island was "Willy Gilligan." -- In dispute
• For five years, Webster's New International Dictionary mistakenly included an entry for "dord", a word which did not exist. -- True
• Monkee Mike Nesmith's mother was the inventor of Liquid Paper correction fluid. -- True
• A lightbulb manufactured in 1901 still burns bright to this day. -- True

I'll post the answers on Thursday, but please resist the urge to then email all of your coworkers about the ones that are true. I'd consider it a personal favor. After all, it's a lot different to subject yourself to inane babble by choice when you visit a blog, then it is to have it foisted upon you through email... or at least it seemed that way when I started this post.

Thanks for your consideration.

P.S. I apologize in advance to all the true good samaritans throughout the Realm, if I have sullied them by association with this post.

Urban Legends

News Oddity OF THE WEEK

Ain't nothin' but a Qing, Chicken Wing

News Oddity

Do I Stand Alone on the Garden?

I believe it exists. The Garden of Eden, that is.

I know that there are probably many of you now shaking your heads, thinking, "Poor, naive, brainwashed fool" or some variation.

Perhaps the more sarcastic of you would cajole, "Yes, yes of course it exists. Right down the street from Neverland and across the street from Santa's Workshop. The really green spot near Shangri-la. Now come along with the man in the white coat."

But I'm more difficult to dissuade than that. I'm a combination of one of those fundamentalist types that believes the Bible is largely literal and one of those weirdo types strange enough to be open to fantastic possibilities whether I can explain them or not.

And here in the Realm, Possibility is what we're all about.

But where is it? Well, that's the very reason for this post.

If you'll step with me beyond the folks who see The Bible (or at least this part of it) as a dangerous fairy tale, I'd like to discuss various theories on just that.

Here's what Genesis says:

2:8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

3:23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

4:16 So Cain went out from the LORD's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Eden is also mentioned in Isaiah and Ezekiel, but the clues as to location are a little harder for me to glean there. Though Ezekiel's description of the King of Tyre as a guardian cherub (angel) in the Garden of Eden may provide some help.

Some folks, believe that it is/was a spiritual place rather than a physical place, but I think based on the descriptions above about rivers and Cain's living near Eden some time after Adam's expulsion from the Garden that the stronger implication is for a physical place.

Others believe that the Garden once existed as a physical place, but no longer does. However, I think often this is simply a happy place for those smug individuals who can't find the Garden on a map and still want it to be real. Noah's flood seems to be a favorite Garden-ender, but I'm not sure why these folks find a worldwide flood significantly more believable than an existent Eden. Certainly, the verses above give no indication of its destruction (either obliteration from the earth or ceasing to be a garden) but on the contrary seem to imply by its need of a guardian an intent on the part of God for its continued existence at least for a time. But to what purpose?

Some of the other theories I have heard include:

• The Garden's purpose as a portal of sorts between the physical and spiritual world
• The Garden's existence in a 4th or 5th dimension that we have not yet rediscovered
• Physical existence in the Middle East, but secreted away by oppressive governments
• Former existence in the Middle East (Iraq), but taken over by the desert and drought
• Former existence in the Middle East, but destroyed by Noah's flood, and again
• Existence under the waters of the Persian Gulf
• Physical existence in the mountains of Turkey
• Beneath a volcano in northern Iran
• The Mormons believe(d) that it existed in Missouri
• The belief that it is invisible to sinful eyes
• Its existence inside a hollow earth
• That the Garden and Eden were separate places
• Goshen in Egypt
• Israel
• And the Panhandle of Florida (somewhat tongue in cheek)

I'm not sure that its exact location is actually knowable by man, but that sure doesn't keep me and many others from being curious about it. If you're one of those folks, what are some of the other theories you've heard? And which seems most likely to you?

Don't leave me standing alone.

After all, God did say in Genesis 2:18 while Adam was still in the Garden, "It is not good for the man to be alone."

Garden of Eden

Griffons and Ogres and Fairies, Oh my!!

I ran across a book today called Fantasy Encyclopedia, written by Judy Allen with a foreword by Jonathan Stroud.

It's just what the title implies, an illustrated, encyclopedic guide to the beasts and beings of the fantasy world. Rich and I enjoy reading and writing fantasy stories and have since we were kids.
So, I bought it in part, because I wanted to walk down memory lane but also to use as handy-dandy reference for our next foray in fantasy writing.

I had never thought of it before, but as I flipped through the book, I noticed that there was a mixture of creatures that I remembered fondly and those that I had hated. And it got me thinking about what my favorite and least favorite fantasy creatures are/were

My favorites are:
1) Mermaids
2) Griffons
3) Rocs/Thunderbirds
4) Lake Monsters (like Nessie)
and
5) Djinn/Genies

My least favorite are:
1) Witches
2) Harpies
3) Ghosts
4) Gorgons
and
5) Dryads/Nymphs

But there are many more to choose from, and I'd like to hear what your five favorites and least favorites are, too. And why.

Fantasy

Fred, Wilma, Pebbles... and DINO???

Being more skeptical in nature than Ken, perhaps I should have waited (however long in light years that wait might have been) to let him take a crack at this post, but I think it warms his heart whenever one of my posts actually fits into his original vision and theme of The Realm. Furthermore, nothing's preventing the big fella from drafting a far more reasoned and eloquent post on the same topic OR editing this post [hint, hint] and including additional pertinent information.
[Enter mysterious, low, dark music] Deep within the heart of the Congo in Africa, in vast jungles unexplored and unsullied by modern man, stories told by natives describe a creature (creatures, actually), a monster, that inhabits the nearby swamps and lakes. This giant reptilian creature is known to them as: the Mokele M'bembe. According to accounts from various indigenous tribes located around the Congo's Lake Tele... the behemoths grow to an average of over thirty feet in height, have extended snake-like necks and heads, defend their territory with a fatal vengeance from the likes of hippos, crocodiles, and man even though dieting only on molombo plants in the region, and are armed with massive tails twice the length of their bodies. Since the 1700s to the present, explorers to the region that have communicated with the natives by showing and testing them on pictures of animals, reptiles, and birds -- both present and absent from the Congo area -- and have come to the shocking conclusion that the creature that most fits the description that the natives portray is none other than a sauropod dinosaur. [dramatic musical spike 'da-dunnnnh']

The above account that I've illustrated , I believe, represents the cryptozoological viewpoint on the Mokele M'bembe. Here, I'll link Wikipedia for a little more information, and if you Google on Mokele M'bembe, something close, or cryptozoology, I'm sure you'll find no lack of sites where you can read about this legendary creature.

Many (and perhaps most, I'm not sure) mainstream scientists either remain unconvinced of or downright deny the creature's existence. Most concur with the geological age timeline and do not believe man and dinosaur ever existed together -- sorry Flintstones' fans. Creation science proponents, on the other hand, are enthusiastic over the notion of a living dinosaur, and they desire to use the existence of the creature to further their claim that modern science and the "myth" of evolutionary theory are filled with fallacies, inaccurate dating methodology, and mostly in what mainstream science represents as fact. Cryptozoologists, for the most part, believe the reptiles' existence to be extremely likely. [They also, in light of many, many eyewitness accounts and other data, believe pterosaurs, that is, flying dinosaurs such as the pterodactyl, to exist.]

Certainly most if not all of the evidence for the Mokele M'bembe is anecdotal. Still, in my opinion, there's some smoke here. In 1932, the famed American cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson reported that he saw the neck and head of a sauropod dive beneath waters while he was boating near his camp. The natives' -- and these are different groups unassociated with one another unless they are at odds with each other -- consistent identification of the sauropod is intriguing. One native group has a legend that dates back to 1959 (according to explorers) . In their account, the tribe actually killed a Mokele M'bembe at Likouala swamp because the creature broke through a wall they constructed to keep it out for their fishing. As the tale goes, the tribe cooked the carcass. However, every native that ate of the creature's meat eventually became violently ill or died. To me, that sounds like legend to us but history to them. And then a Japanese television crew in 1987, while flying over Lake Tele, filmed what some say to be a Mokele M'bembe swimming across the lake with a large V-shaped wake (skeptics say it was two men in a canoe with one standing).

All of this cited evidence can easily be written off to have come from "persons with an agenda" and said to be false or at the very least misleading. Or can it? No one is disputing what the natives actually say. And here in The Realm of Possibility we can ask: What if the accounts are true?

Well, aside from the cool factor, if it is true, not all that much changes for me. Christ has commanded me to love Him first and then to love others. Plus, none of my daily grind is going away. Of course, I already think it's a neat "what-if," and I think it'd be an awesome "is," too. For others, I think it'd be a notch in crypotzoologists' belt to show cryptozoology not as some science that's "out there" but bring it closer to the mainstream. Let's face it, most people have been taught and the lesson has been drilled into us since we were tots: dinosaurs used to live millions and millions of years ago, but they all went extinct millions of years ago. That's what we know. And if that knowledge that has been purported by the mainstream scientists and educators was turned upside down for all to see, the people who had been accurate in predicting the discovery will gain instant credence. On the other hand, I'm not sure it'd be crippling for science. So a random few dinosaurs in uninhabited regions of the world (in places "not as affected by the Ice Age" or whatever other catastrophe caused the extinction of the dinosaurs) made it to the present. Some fish have been discovered which says the same thing, and the world's mindset has not changed. I don't think the discovery of a few dinosaurs is going to change what scientists believe, either. Creation scientists might argue with me, however. For them, at least in how I've read them, dinosaurs are a lynch pin in modern science's evolutionary theory and would be further proof that the world is only 6,000 (or for some up to 20,000) years old. That seems to be the theory they espouse. There'd be a lot of other questions I'd have than just about dinosaurs if I was going to get on board there, and telling me that dinosaurs were on the Ark isn't going to help. Suffice it to say, a true discovery of the Mokele M'bembe would affect quite a few people, but not really me (although maybe the light would go on and I'd give cryptozoologists a lot more credit - I still wouldn't buy Bigfoot, though, sorry).

But I don't matter so much. You do. And certainly, Ken does. The Mokele M'bembe. Fact, fiction, or something in between? And would the discovery of such a behemoth mean anything to you?

[On a side note, we have a link to Roland Smith's Cryptid Hunter website. His novel may just involve the subject matter for anyone interested in some cryptid fiction.]

Mokele Mbembe

Life on Other Planets

Let's dispense with the ceremony and get down to it. Who believes? Who doesn't? Why or why not? And when I'm talking about life, it can be anything. Sentient life, one-celled organisms, a piece of moss, flower, Alien or Predator, or something human beings couldn't even fathom because God is God.

If you're bold enough to answer with anything more than the token Rich Pearce response of, "I don't know," then come with it. I mean, we're in The Realm of friggin' Possibility, are we not?

[NOTE: And as long as we're dispensing with stuff, we may as well dispense with any acrimony as well. Let's try and keep this civil. I realize I'm an Ignoramus of the Third Kind when it comes to flirting in this kind of territory, but it's never stopped me before. And who knows? If we get more people commenting than the regular or semi-regular four to six people that occasionally (and some even more than that) comment, there's all kind of room for opposing viewpoints, and some that may have factual basis. So if you really know what you're talking about here, please show mercy and kindness to those who may not know so much as you. But don't be afraid to answer. Thanks.]