Episode 1 Private Confessional

Okay, so I know this isn't due for two days, but I can't wait to start unloading some of my actual thoughts, so I hope you won't mind. I guess the fact that we switched to gchat is also convenient in the sense that you can read our conversations, since it saves all the chats. If you've read any of it, I hope you don't actually believe that I'm as much of an idiot as I appear to be in the conversations… sometimes I wonder if I am, though. I'm getting tired of constantly saying things like "I'm so worried about the execution!" and "I hope we're able to do well on the challenges!" but I find it necessary to say these things in the most suspiciously innocent way possible, so that at least some players hopefully think that I'm The Mole and that I'm pretending to be scared and that I'm pretending to want us to do well. If you haven't read any of the chats, just read the public confessional I posted if you want a sampling of the insultingly corny things I've been saying to people. I just hope at least some will find it suspicious. I'm not sure how else to go about this right now.

The inkblot challenge…

One thing I've tried to do here is when people have approached me to comment on their blot, I go ahead and comment on it, but then I don't ask them to comment on mine. So, right now, I've posted the 5 comments I do have (which is true, I really am still missing one), and I, um, haven't decided yet whether I'm gonna complete the challenge (if I even get another comment in the next few hours). As of this writing, Brian seems to have a similar situation – he's got 5, and needs one more. So if he ends up not completing it because he was one shy, perhaps I should do it, too. I'll decide later. Money is nowhere on my list of priorities for me in this game (it's enough of a concern in real life, so might as well not incorporate it into something that is supposed to be fun for me).

Pimp My Blog…

I'm obviously not winning any of the 3 prizes here, and that's perfectly fine. I suspect Brandon and Brian will be two of them (Brandon's is awesome and Brian's is hilarious), and… oh God, please, I know this is totally up to you, but I hope Cheri doesn't get it. I mean, it's cute, I guess… but too girly, even for me. See, Ginger's is girly, but not insultingly so, or anything like that. I suppose mine is probably in last place because of the annoying orange background and the bright green text. I have a reason for having made it like that, but I'm not sure how to explain it in words, so I best not attempt it.

What I think of my fellow "pawns"…

Player #1 (Mitch) – Unlike a few other players in the game, Mitch is quiet but not in the boring way - he's quiet in the "you want to get to know more about him" way, and I think he seems like a really cool guy that I'd like to get to know even better (all of a sudden, it sounds like this is one of those dating shows instead of The Mole, lol). But yeah, he shared a story about a Survivor game in which he backstabbed a friend and made the final two and lost (he didn't say any names, obviously), and how he felt bad about it, and I really appreciated hearing him open up about that.

Player #2 (Richard) – Talk about mixed feelings. Sometimes he's super fun to talk to and sometimes he's so quiet and boring. Maybe I just need to talk to him more to get to know which one he is (though I think he's the former, and the latter may simply be a result of shyness). So, he formed a coalition with me, and he was very insistent on the fact that he does not have ANY specific ideas about who The Mole is (except he seems to be certain that he/she is active) because it's too early (which is true), yet he also seemed to want me to tell him who I specifically thought it could be. Almost as if he doesn't want to tell me his three or four people that he thinks are his top suspects, yet he wants me to help him by telling him who mine are. I'm not a genius, but I'm not gonna fall for something like that. I also wouldn't know what to answer him, anyway, because it really is too early.

Player #4 (Ellery) – The one with the ambiguous gender, lol, though people seem to think she's a girl, so, okay, I'll accept that, and I'll use "she" from here on out. I haven't had a chance to talk to her yet, but she did send a message saying she had been gone for Labor Day weekend, so perhaps I'll be able to talk to her in the next few days. There are some things that I don't understand, though, like her post complaining about players 6 and 15 not posting on the board. It's not like she's been terribly active either, and granted, she just informed me she's been out of town, but how does she know that those two players aren't also out of a computer's reach? Also, I'm absolutely clueless as to why she's complaining about people not voting on her blog polls. Why is that so important? Who cares? I guess she does, but I don't understand why.

Player #5 (Ginger) – In any situation, it's always great to have someone who can infuse fun into the proceedings, and that's exactly what the gingerrific player #5 gives us. She's very funny, witty and entertaining. She's also very into the game. Sadly, I haven't yet had much of a chance to talk to her one-on-one.

Player #6 (Breaux) – Bleh. The guy makes no appearance whatsoever, and then when he does finally make one, it's by sending an e-mail with the subject line "O HAI". It's like the players were all sitting in a lounge having a pleasant time, and all of a sudden a mosquito got in the room. But there's more. He then says that his name is "pronounced 'bro' for the slow," indirectly making a rather insulting remark about illiterate people, which isn't a terrible thing, I guess, but what's terrible (and funny, I guess) is that he's wrong. If his name were pronounced "bro" it would be spelled "Breau". The added "x" indicates plural (oh God, let's hope there's not a secret twist in the game and there's actually two of him!), and it is pronounced with a slight "s" sound. I took enough French to know that, and he clearly didn't. If you're gonna create an alias, then do a better job, kthxbai! But that's not it. He sends another e-mail wanting people to comment on his inkblot, and the e-mail simply has the image attached and then in the text space, he writes "DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT". The annoyance just continues (the moment was mildly funny in Starsky & Hutch, but it isn't here – sorry). I wish that were the end of it, but the guy then manages to be one of the people who correctly guessed the consensus question, even though he hasn't been around at all. I didn't care at all that I didn't get it, but it just bothers me to see that. Mitch, Richard and Cheri, on the other hand, are all very into the game, and deserved it.

Player #7 (Blaise) – This is the player who is closest to your standard, stereotypical "guy". He seems to be nice, yet has some moments in which he looks like potential jerk-like qualities might come out. I'm still waiting to see if it does happen. And I still can't help but ignore the fact that on his blog title "Bla1se is th3 mol3", if you add those three numbers (1, 3, 3) you get 7, which is his player number AND the number of letters in "The Mole". You can be sure that I'm not gonna forget about that.

Player #8 (Brandon) – I really like Brandon, but he also scares me because if he's The Mole he's obviously staying the entire game, but if he isn't, I suspect he'll be around for a while, and that he'll be a tough one to beat. Everything he's written on his blog can be subject to so much interpretation in terms of possibilities of whether it is suspicious or not. It can drive you crazy. (Also, if his picture is real, he's awfully cute – that can drive you crazy as well!)

Player #9 (Elise) – It's a shame I've only had one solid conversation with her so far, because she seems like the one I could get along with the best here. Though not around
too much, she seems to be very sharp, and I think she could be extremely helpful. She's also a riot, and she proposed trying to come up with ways to pit people against each other. How fun would that be? :)

Player #10 (Brian) – You just gotta love Brian. So hilarious. Last week we talked at one point and I was joking and said something like "ugh, if this continues, I might have to kill myself" and I then had to quickly step away from the computer, and since Brian saw that I wasn't responding he was like "OMG you didn't kill yourself, did you?!" and then when I returned and started typing, he was like "Thank you, God!" Later in the week, I decided he was even more awesome when he posted the pickled peppers video from Scrubs on his blog. So awesome.

Player #11 (Kyle) – When we met for the first time, I sort of tried to be sneaky with something I did. I said his name even though he hadn't introduced himself yet on the boards or anything, and he immediately noticed it. (I knew his name because another player had mentioned it to me) So I immediately started telling him "oh, I think one of the other players told me, yeah" but I pretended to be nervous about it. Not sure if it worked, but we'll see. He gave me a, um, lecture on how you're supposed to play this game, and explained to me how Mark won the most recent season (as if I hadn't watched the show or something), so that was a little grating, but in the past few days, we've talked more, and I've found him to be a pretty pleasant guy to talk to. Definitely into the game as well.

Player #12 (Paul) – Ah, crikey, I'm not sure what to say here. :) lol, but seriously, Paul's very intelligent and great to chat with, and I think he knows the game really well. Like Brandon, I could see him being a really difficult one to beat.

Player #13 (Cheri) – Sigh. I don't wanna say much that is negative because I haven't really gotten to know her, so it wouldn't be fair. But okay, she'll IM to ask about the inkblot and then after that's done, it's like "k, we're done" and the conversation's over. Same thing happened when she IMed to ask for bio info. Sure, she's doing things correctly as far as getting the information she needs, but does she not realize that part of how you find The Mole is talking to people to feel them out? I guess she's not interested in doing that, though. She did IM and said "hey" one time and I immediately responded "hey Cheri, how's it going?" and she then said nothing else. She may have become busy all of a sudden, but still. Also, that blog, ugh – it's just too much. Just… too pink for my taste, haha.

Player #14 (Beth) – Absolutely nothing to say here. Haven't met her at all. Sent her a message a while ago asking to share bio info, and haven't gotten an answer yet. Oh well.

Player #15 (who?!) – We've gotten nothing from this person, other than the fact that he/she did create a blog that I find horribly confusing. He/she says "the game begins today, and I have no idea who The Mole is". Um… well, of course you don't; it's the first day, so you haven't met anyone, lol, so even if you were the most perceptive person in the world and could catch a Mole immediately, you'd have no way of doing it without meeting the group of people first. So, obviously he/she posted that as a mere generic statement for the sake of posting something, and that's super lame. I think the only certainty we can probably have at this point is that this will be one of the three people who gets executed. I'm sure people are guessing that Ellery, Breaux and Beth may be amongst the other executees, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of them stayed. No matter what, at least one person who's relatively into the game will be leaving. But I guess that was the point, wasn't it, Travis, you evil ^##$#%@? No, I'm just kidding, I would've done the same if I were hosting.

I'm actually shocked that I had so much to say considering how little has happened. Then again, I rant easily, and it's one of the things I need to work on. I've played in three Mole games in the past (5-6 years ago, which is way too long). One I won, one I was The Mole, and the third one I was a player again, but it was canceled (and it was canceled at the final 5, and I had a good shot at making it to the end) because the host was a lazy piece of junk. Thank God we won't have to deal with that this time around. It's early, but I think you're running an awesome game. Sad part is, as much as I've done well in the past, I very easily could be one of those 3 people leaving. There's a lot of luck involved in these first few quizzes, so actually, even if I'm not one of the three who leaves, I could still go in the next two or three weeks, just for lack of luck. If I make it to, say, the final 8 and then I get executed, THEN I can say "Okay, I deserved that. I was unsuccessful at finding The Mole." But these first few rounds are a crapshoot, and that's scary as heck. As much as I say I've been pretending to be scared when talking to players about the execution, in order to get them to think that I am The Mole trying really hard to pretend to be scared, I think that I really am scared, lol. At the same time, not to sound full of myself, but I really do think other people are less into the game than I am, and that they really do deserve to go before I do. So I'm cautiously confident, contradictory as that may sound.