Episode 7 Private Confessional

I'm sending this early, as I've done before, because I have a lot to talk about. The first thing I'd like to get off my chest is how confusing I find it that people in this game place so much importance on the challenges and the pot money. I'm here because I'm enthralled by the mystery element of the game. I'm here to assess behavior, have conversations with the players to get to know their personas and determine if they could be The Mole or not, and to take the quizzes in a way that I can aim questions at those I suspect. It's just beyond me why people care so much about the challenges and the money that comes with them. Granted, you'd have no game without them, but in my mind, they are secondary considerations. Basically, for me, the challenges are like the lines you have to make at the amusement park to get on the different rides. You're not too excited to make the lines, but you know they're gonna lead you to the good stuff, and while you're in line, you can at least observe what's going on with people who are on the rides already. It's a good analogy because that's exactly the case here. The only two purposes that the challenges have for me are (1) sitting back and watching what others do to see what is suspicious and what isn't, (2) doing suspicious things on my own to throw people off. Winning the actual money for the challenges just isn't that important to me. I know that it's possible that you find that offensive because you put time into making these challenges. Maybe you weren't thrilled that Blaise and I cost money that had been won over the course of several challenges that had been won and that you had put time into. But first of all, if we had only bid a little money and then put up our MBs to stop it, we wouldn't have looked suspicious. We would've just looked like players who wanted an exemption (which is exactly what we are – but we don't want the others to know that). This is the type of challenge that The Mole WOULD take the opportunity to do some severe damage to the pot. So, we had to lose money. And also, there are plenty of other Mole games and other types of games in which these gambling challenges have a severe effect, and suddenly a lot of money is lost. Everyone knows that. So, it's not like what we did is an abnormality for this sort of game. I'd also like to make this observation: when they were complaining on the message board about what happened with the exemption auction and they were using the term "hate the game," I don't think what they meant was "hate Travis for not letting us know in advance" or "hate Travis for creating a challenge like this." I think they meant "hate the nature of this game in general for having situations in which people can get screwed over." And when I say "the nature of this game" I'm not referring to OMC 6, but to any Mole game. I understand that maybe you were miffed that it was you they were accusing, but I don't think that was the case. They were just upset with the situation.

My sole aim in this game is to play detective and have fun at it. If somehow I end up winning, it won't really matter to me whether the final pot is $40 or $15 or $5. It's not even that I'm rich or anything – it's just not my priority. And not to sound overly-confident, but I do think I have my priorities right when it comes to this game. Less energy should be spent on the challenges and more should be spent on discovering the identity of The Mole, which is clearly the aim of the game. Sure, if I were on the real TV show in which thousands of dollars are offered, it'd be different, but you know what? In that situation, my priority would still be to just have detective fun, because I really think that that's what this game is all about. Others are entitled to disagree with me, but this is just the approach that I take towards this game, which I think is an awesome intellectually-challenging experience.

There's something that's kind of interesting about last round. This is OMC 6, last round was episode 6, we were down to the final 6, and player 6 was executed! How coincidental is that? Sorry, lol, but I tend to notice things like that. Breaux, you would've been an excellent Mole. In fact, since what a Mole does is basically play a character and take on a persona that is hopefully seen as unsuspicious, I hope you won't mind, but if I ever play The Mole again, I may steal some things from the persona you portrayed in this game. In the very first game I played, I was a regular player, and one of the other players in the game was this dumb, flirty blonde who seemed more interested in having fun chatting with people than playing the game. She did make it to the final 5, but she wasn't The Mole, and she wasn't suspected ever. And since I noticed that she wasn't suspected, in my next game when I was The Mole, I behaved exactly like that, and it worked very well. As The Mole, you just want to find a personality that people would find really likable AND non-shady (and I do think that The Mole in this game has been successful at that, but more on that later). So, I may have to use a little bit of your Breaux lulziness if I'm ever The Mole again. :) Breaux, every thing I said about you in my reaction to your execution on my blog is completely true. You're so funny, you've got a super charming personality, and I can't wait to chat with you again.

The purpose of what I did with Blaise was very simple: keep anyone else from getting the exemption. If any of the other two people here who are players and not The Mole would have gotten the exemption, I'd be in severe trouble. I'm still in trouble right now, just not as much as I would've been in that scenario. Why was I so asinine to just let Blaise be the one to get it? There are several reasons. It made more sense for him to get it because he was the one with the power to get it, as he had so many MBs. For the sabotage that Blaise and I coordinated for the Trust Falls game, we had him be the rogue who chose "BETRAY," so in keeping things consistent, we had him be the rogue here who nabbed the exemption. I think it also makes me look more like The Mole if I seem like I was taking advantage of costing the group money, yet the exemption ended up falling into someone else's hands, thus making it look like I want that person to be the one who stands out and I want them to just ignore what I did. I think I won't even mention the exemption auction challenge in my public confessional just to look like I'm trying to get them to forget about it. If Blaise is The Mole, I did score high on the last quiz, but I haven't exactly scored high on him on quizzes prior to that, so I don't think I'd still be here. EVERYTHING the guy said to me on Monday night when we were coordinating the exemption auction thing indicated that he's a player who wanted an exemption and who wanted to look suspicious. He's probably going to say in his private confessional that he can't believe I was so dumb to hand him an exemption. And maybe I was. We'll find out.

Let's talk about Paul. Ever since I finally revealed who my top suspects were in private confessional #4, I've talked about how I find his behavior suspicious. The approach of looking like a player who really wants to win the challenges and who gets pissed off when we don't would be excellent for The Mole. But the thing is… where IS Paul's sabotage? Have you seen it? I haven't. If he's The Mole, he's done wonderfully in terms of behavior, but not at all in terms of challenges. The only noteworthy things are him and Ginger not submitting their dino comics in round 2, and the whole shady business with "money money" last round. You also may recall that in that same private confessional I talked about something Paul did in the very first live challenge that was EXTREMELY suspicious (with the question in which the answer was a page number). I still can't get over that, and if he is The Mole, and I get executed, I'll probably kick myself for not letting that weigh on my mind more. But if it IS him, I'll definitely be VERY interested in attending the reunion and being dazzled by all the subtle sabotage he's done that we all just haven't noticed. And it better not be "Oh, well, you people were screwing up so much yourselves, that I hardly had to do anything!" Even if the team sucks, The Mole still needs to sabotage because that's their role. If he's The Mole and he actually used that program to figure out that the Hangman answer had to be either "defenestrate" or "teledendrite," that definitely was TOO helpful, and not something a Mole should do.

The only two candidates who make SENSE as The Mole in terms of having sabotaged challenges are Brian and Elise. They are the ones who have helped on select occasions, yet they've hurt more in others, a good example being in round 3, Brian helping at the "Where in DC" challenge, but then costing us $6 in Heist. The Mole WOULD help add $2 or $3 to the pot during a round, but then cost $6 later on in that same round. So, how do I determine which one of the two it is? Let's take a look at each of them.
Let's go back to the beginning of last round. Ginger has been executed. She was clearly allied with Brian. Mitch had been executed the round before that, and he also seemed to have something going on with Brian. Okay, that definitely makes Brian out to be very suspicious, if his allies have been dropping like flies. Elise comes to me and tells me she went 100% for Brian on the quiz, and look at that, she's still here, and Ginger (who was obviously Brian's ally) is gone. Brian must be The Mole, right?
Not so fast. Before I get to Elise, let me say a few more words about Brian. A few weeks ago, I said that if he's The Mole, he's doing a good, but not stellar job. I've changed my opinion on that. If he's The Mole, he's done terribly. He's been a completely shady player from the beginning. Everyone suspects that his hideous typing skills are fake. But more importantly, if he is The Mole, it is just RIDICULOUS that in the last vote of the exemption round of Mafia, he voted against Blaise right after BREAUX had just voted against HIM. Any chance he had of successfully sabotaging the challenge was gone, because what he needed to do, upon seeing that Breaux voted against him, was to vote against Breaux, so that Blaise would then have a chance to break the tie and hopefully Blaise would vote Breaux out instead of him. Even if he's not The Mole and he's actually a player, it was very stupid, because this kept him from earning an exemption. If Elise is The Mole, I can't imagine how pissed off she must have been at Brian for the results of the Mafia challenge, but hey, she picked him as Mafia, right? Elise, if you had picked me, we would've totally slaughtered them and gotten ourselves exemptions. :) (Did you notice how I was the only player whom no one voted against, ever, on either of the two games of Mafia we played? Being well-liked by the group can have advantages for purposes of sabotage) Now, Brian did keep seeming like he kept constantly getting the investigator's identity wrong. From what Elise copy/pasted to me of their chat, it seems Brian initially thought I was the investigator and decided to kill me. He then thought it was Paul and killed him. And then in the final round, he apparently thought it was Blaise. He made a point of ensuring people knew he kept getting the investigator wrong, even saying "lol wrong one" when Breaux was like "Brian, stop lying, I'm the fucking investigator." So, the ONLY way that I could see this as a smart thing for The Mole to have done is if he wanted to seem like he didn't know who the investigator was since, of course, The Mole DID know who the investigator was. But it's just beyond me why he would waste such an opportunity to sabotage and vote off Blaise instead of Breaux. Paul even pointed out that "Brian made a silly error," which is an understatement, but Brian still responded to that he didn't make a silly error. Jeez, Brian, lol.

As for Ginger getting executed and being Brian's ally… there's actually no reason why Ginger couldn't have thought Brian was The Mole. You see, SEVERAL WEEKS ago we saw a lot of Ginger publicly accusing Brian of being The Mole, and obviously doing so to get people to go after him… but suddenly, she stopped. Suddenly, she switched to publicly accusing Mitch of being The Mole. In fact, when Mitch got executed, and she made her "Moley Mitch… not!" post, she said she was down to only a few suspects, "unless a certain person starts acting weird again." I imagine that that person was Brian, because it seems like she's referring to someone that she wanted to trust but had acted shady on other occasions. Ginger could've easily believed that Brian was The Mole. What was most interesting was that Elise comes to me after Ginger's execution… and the quiz was one in which I aimed several of the individual questions that you couldn't spread out at Elise, in order to get a decent amount of points on her, and even though Elise had refrained from sharing thoughts on suspicions thus far, she suddenly wanted to talk about suspicions, and somehow, she conveniently knew that Brian and Ginger were "a clear-cut alliance." How did she know that? No one ever said explicitly that they were. Well, I did… but in my private confessionals. There's a final point I want to make about Brian before I fully move on to Elise. It always confused me why he chose to reveal his dino name in his comic. He included the word "velociraptor" in his comic dialogue, and I never understood why he'd want to help. But now it makes sense. From things Brian has told me, I've sort of drawn the conclusion that Brian was not just strategically tied to Ginger and Mitch, but to Kyle as well. Perhaps he was even more loyal to the guys. This would explain him wanting to help the two guys win exemptions (thank God they failed). I'm also thinking that maybe it was Brian that Kyle illegally contacted when Kyle got executed. We know that it couldn't have been Beth who did it, because Beth did nothing in this game, and we know Kyle kept constantly getting in trouble while he was in the game, so there's no doubt he may have tried to contact his buddy. My only hope is that he didn't give Brian terribly helpful information. Stupid Kyle. He was so overrated by people; he was nowhere near the masterful player people believe he was.

Let's move on to my beloved Elise, though. I'm gonna work under the assumption that, as The Mole, she reads these, so I'm going to address her directly, if you don't mind, and I do hope she reads what I'm saying here. What you've been doing since Ginger was executed is brilliant. It would work on almost any player. I'm just a nut-job who's too obsessed with the intricacies of this game. I've been The Mole and I know exactly how to convolute things to throw people off. I don't want you to be frustrated, because I think you've done a great job, and I'm going to be explaining why I think you have. But the first thing I want to say is that I'm getting the impression that you're no longer too interested in talking to me, and I can totally understand that. You probably feel that it's useless. "Why keep playing the whole 'Brian is The Mole' card if she already knows it's me?" You're completely right to feel like that. You might wonder why I haven't gone ahead and told you "k, sorry, I think it's you," and why I've kept sort of playing along with the whole "Brian is The Mole" thing. I'll tell you why. When I was The Mole, towards the end of the game, there was one person who pretty much was almost sure it was me, and this person would IM me and just be like "yep, yep, I know it's you" and "wow, you really fooled that person who just got executed, good job", etc. I personally found it annoying because, like… as The Mole, what do you respond to that? It's frustrating to know that they know it's you and that you can't do much about it, even though in my responses I still responded as a player (I never gave up and went "k, you're right, whatever") because just for the integrity of this game, The Mole needs to keep playing the role all the way to the end. So, I don't want to do that to you, and I won't, especially because of how good a job you're doing. If Brian were The Mole, though, and I realized it, you can bet I would taunt him. Just because it'd be fun. :)
I'll give you my perspective on the things I believe you've done. As I said a few long paragraphs ago, The Mole has to play a role that is an unsuspicious persona. He/she has to establish a character. From the bio you filled out, it really does look like maybe you originally intended on playing the drunken twerp who got pissed off at stuff easily, etc. I think it's a good thing that you adjusted your strategy and decided not to overplay it. You've still used the most effective aspects of that persona in displaying a short-fuse temper against people like Brian and Paul, which definitely made you look like a player. Also, if you had gone full force into the drunken angry twerp persona, you wouldn't have developed the bond you did with me, and that bond was definitely helpful in keeping you out of the top 2 spots on my suspect list for a very long time. Don't think you wasted your time in those chats with me, because you didn't. There are SO many things you did that made me want to believe it wasn't you. The very FIRST thing you did, IMing with the "alliance?" joke was brilliant, and not something I would expect The Mole to do, and I actually wish I had done that when I was The Mole. It's a good thing to do at the very start with someone, too, because you get them to appreciate you for your wit. I sure did (check out my very first private confessional, in which I stated I wished I could have even more chats with you because you seemed like someone I could relate to). But the thing you did during the first week that MOST made me think you weren't The Mole was, I believe, in the second chat we had. You said that Brian had sent you his bio mistaking you for Brandon and that now you had his info and that we could somehow cause chaos by sending it to other people, and you seemed to suggest that you wanted to come up with ways to pit people against each other and have fun while doing it. I was delighted by the idea. And of course, the real Mole would want to pit people against each other, but he/she wouldn't SAY it directly to someone, which is exactly what made me not suspect that. Of course, I don't know exactly what you've done with all the players who've been executed, but I've no doubt this strategy worked on several people. There's something you did in round 2 that I notice now in retrospect, and it's the "could I be The Mole?" blog post. You noticed that in those early rounds people were being super roguish pretending to be The Mole, so what does a fabulous, smart Mole do in that situation? Pretend to be one of the players who want to look like The Mole: "I could be The Mole, and maybe it doesn't matter what I do!" Perfect. Another thing that's funny is that I always noticed how Breaux used to say "I am The Mole" a lot, and I always found it suspicious because it's a great thing for a Mole to say… and it seems I sort of forgot that you said it on like two of your public confessionals, and that was very smart.

And then of course, there's the bio thing, which could easily be one of the most intelligent Mole moves I've ever witnessed. When you informed me that you did not wish to share your information, I was THIS close to crossing you off my list. Staging the whole thing, with Travis then posting on the message board that people had nothing to gain by withholding information was VERY smart, because it makes it look like maybe several players went to you, asked for your information, you refused it, and they then e-mailed Travis complaining, and he then made that post. It COMPLETELY made you look NOT like The Mole, and I really, really applaud that, and I wish it's an idea I would've come up with when I played the role of The Mole. Honestly, behavior-wise, the only thing that kept you higher rather than lower on my list was the fact that I could just tell you're really sharp and that you could easily be pulling off a truly brilliant role. And it turns out that you ARE playing a brilliant role. If you are The Mole, then somehow I've managed to answer the "Who is The Mole?" question correctly on every quiz since quiz #2… now, SOME people in that situation would toot their own horn and say "Ha! I had The Mole from the beginning." But there's no way I'll say that, because it wouldn't be true. The truth is that on quizzes 2, 3 and 4, I put you as the answer to that question solely because of mathematical reasons: to get more points on you. You've been difficult to get points on in the quizzes… which I guess makes sense now. :) In fact, the first time that I selected you as The Mole, which was quiz #2, I sort of had a dilemma. I only had the last question left to answer, and I saw that I had three points on you, and two on Mitch. I had three or above on everyone else. So, I had to either play it safe and pick Mitch as The Mole, thus having a 3 on both of you, or pick you and get a 4 on you, and keep only 2 points for Mitch. I really felt that Mitch wasn't The Mole, and I had a feeling that somehow it was risky to only have three points on you, so I went ahead and did what I did. Before the results were announced I was so scared that somehow Mitch would be The Mole, and I had screwed up, but thankfully, that wasn't the case. So, like I said, it was more out of a need to play the odds that I picked you on quizzes 2, 3 and 4, and it wasn't until quiz 5 (the Mafia round) that you took a plunge upwards in my suspect list. But in those early stages, you definitely weren't at the top. After Richard was executed, my suspects were you, Brian and Paul, and then eventually Breaux entered the list as well, but out of that group of 4 people, you were always like #3 or #4. So, my having picked you every time since quiz #2 doesn't mean anything, and I'll be the first one to admit that.

Now, let's talk about what I think you've done in terms of the challenges. In round 1, you noticed that a few of us were one shy of a complete inkblot report, so you did the same, BUT you did it in a less shady way than the rest of us because you did post your sixth one, but it seemed like it was something that you either didn't include the whole thing, or it was meant to indicate that Richard was going to be commenting on your blog, and then he didn't, so maybe you used it to get people to suspect Richard (which was good – Richard didn't last long, but he was certainly suspicious while he was here). In the live challenge, you did exactly what a Mole should do. You got one of the questions right all on your own, you then contributed a bit to the question about the machines (which had multiple answers), but you tried to slow us down by asking us to do inventory on who's doing which file, etc. Then in round 2… it's amazing how it seems people haven't noticed that you only posted three URLs (and not even all three of them were valid) whereas everyone else posted like 8 or more. You made it a point of saying you'd be busy during a full day of that weekend (which, round 2 indeed lasted only a weekend) and that was smart. For the dino comics, I'm not sure if you did much, since pretty much everyone except Brian wanted to keep Kyle and Mitch from getting exempt. In round 3, in "Where in DC?" it's interesting how you helped with getting an answer right, but if you look at the transcript, it was clear that Breaux was about to guess it, so you simply took the opportunity to guess it yourself, so that you'd be the one who seemed helpful, and that was a great move. You then posted this HUGE link to a photo. I'm assuming you did it to distract us, but I'm not sure. In Heist, you were never TOO quick to post "RUN", but Brian definitely stopped any opportunity you may have had to sabotage it. And you took advantage of something to look helpful: Breaux mistakenly made a post saying the challenge was failed because Ginger had posted something incorrectly, and you promptly made a post telling him that that wasn't true. You knew that either Travis or someone else would eventually point it out, so why not do it yourself and look like you wanted us to win? In round 4, at the hangman challenge… you correctly guessed letter T for "defenestrate," but you probably did so only because Paul had just revealed that the answer had to be "defenestrate" or "teledendrite," so it was logical to guess that. For "spinach," you saw that everyone had guessed wrong, so you promptly guessed wrong as well. Now what interests me is your guessing the N for "penny," which was obviously helpful. Did you want us to get it right? Before we went ahead and said "guess penny!" you seemed to be like "um, isn't there anything else it could be?", which there was: "henna". It could've easily been "henna" and it's interesting that no one thought of that. I imagine, though, that since you didn't get much of a chance to sabotage there, you then felt obligated to pick "BETRAY" in Trust Falls, and you did.

With all of that having happened, though, you were still always hovering between spots #3 and #4 on my suspect list. You definitely weren't in my #1 or #2 range until round 5 and the lovely Mafia game. Before this challenge even happened, I knew that it would be a crucial one in terms of gathering information on who The Mole was because of the fact that The Mole was the one selecting the roles. My initial thought was "oh, hey, my 4 suspects are Breaux, Brian, Elise and Paul, and 3 out of the 4 of them have the key roles in the challenge… this totally points at Paul." Well, I'll simply reiterate that if Paul is The Mole, I have no idea where his sabotage is, and I look forward to being dazzled by it at the finale, if it's him. I imagine that you selected Brian as your fellow mafioso because people suspect him, so you'd figure you could get an exemption for yourself and for the top Mole suspect, thus keeping him in the game. Brian's too unstable and unreliable, though, lol, and I can't imagine how pissed you must've been at him. But since you were unsuccessful at sabotaging Mafia, you knew you had to do some serious damage the next round, so you were very smart to inform me that you were going to sabotage the next challenges to look suspicious, and you then rightly proceeded to bet all your money on one outcome at the gambling challenge to ensure we lost.

When the last quiz was posted, which Travis was rushing to post the quiz and the challenge transcript because he had to work late and posted the quiz later than he intended, I simply assumed that in the challenge transcript the link to the bingo boards was included. I didn't need to look for it because I had saved that link to my favorites because I knew it was totally a piece of information that could easily turn up on the quiz. I didn't realize until much later that the link didn't appear on the transcript because Travis gave it to us at the very beginning of the chat, and the transcript started at the point that the Pass The Box game began. So if someone didn't save the link, they'd be screwed on the question about the vowels. I imagine maybe some people complained about it, but this time, Travis didn't eliminate the question like he has before, because this game is about being a good detective, and any good detective makes sure he/she saves any evidence that may be needed later. So if Blaise, Brian or Paul forgot to save the link, too bad for them. But you certainly took advantage of this, Elise, and I really like what you did. You saw that I leaned a little bit towards Paul on the quiz, so you went ahead and told me you didn't have the link and that you just guessed C. 2, which was the answer to Paul, thus perhaps justifying how you would've stayed in the game even if you had gone 100% Brian, because it would've meant you inadvertently scored a point on Paul. That was very smart. And you're probably thinking "Well, it clearly wasn't, because it didn't work," but I'd just like to reiterate the fact that, it's not really that I'm smart, I'm just CRAZY, and I love this game too much, lol, and I've thought about this game a lot, so I have a gander on the things people will say to bluff and double-bluff others. You've done things perfectly, and I imagine it's what has kept you from being suspected by so many others.

There are certain things I've noticed in terms of potential clues as well. As I had mentioned before, I always found it interesting that the T in "Sabotage" in the logo seemed to be pointing at the "6", which could have meant Breaux, but the way it's pointing at it, it would seem like it's asking you to flip it around, which would be 9. Also, the horizontal line at the top of the T seems too small, whereas there is a larger horizontal line at the BOTTOM of the T, which would indicate a need to flip the T around, therefore prompting you to flip the 6 around as well - the "C" in OMC 6 also seems to have arrows pointing at the number 6. There's also something I can't believe I hadn't thought of before – the game's title itself, "SERIAL Sabotage." Only one of the players' names can be made from the word SERIAL, and that's Elise. By the way, I've said this several times, but it bears repeating – if somehow Paul is The Mole, the title "SERIAL sabotage" is completely inaccurate, lol. The other thing that had caught my attention early on was the fact that you were the NINTH person to post on three of the initial threads of the game (Introduce Yourself, Pawn Color and Psychoanalysis), and nine is your player number. More recently, though, something related to the last MB codes caught my attention, specifically the code that the answer was "pyromaniac". The small letters under the number form the word "DANGER" which looks to be a clue to the MB code answer, since a pyromaniac is obviously dangerous. But I can't help but wonder if the allusion to fire relates to your yellow pawn color. The thing that makes me think this even more is that there is a smaller word where "DANGER" is and I copied it to Paint to magnify it, and though it's really difficult to make out, it SEEMS to say "sallow"… which is a word for a yellowish color, specifically for sick people. Did you notice that I put the word "sallow" on my bingo board? :)

Elise, I want to tell you that you're awesome and that everything I said about you in my last private confessional is true. The reason why in that last confessional I didn't reveal a whole lot about my ideas on The Mole's identity was because I wasn't too sure, and I wanted to see if I survived to confirm it. If I was wrong and got executed, then saying all that stuff in my confessional would've made me look like an idiot. :) And actually, if I'm wrong about you being The Mole, then this confessional will certainly make me look like an idiot, lol. As I was mentioning earlier, I completely understand if you'd rather not chat because you find that it'd be awkward and useless. It sounds cliché to say this, but I know the feeling really well, as someone who's done what you're doing. Contrary to popular belief, being The Mole isn't this awesome, comfortable free ride to the end of the game. It's extremely tough, and I think you've done it amazingly. Just a few days ago, Paul randomly said that he thought that if you turned out to be The Mole, it'd be meh. I don't think he's noticed the brilliance of the things you've done, and I sure as heck hope he gets duped by them and is one of the next two people to leave.

You crack me up so much. Any time I re-read your blog confessionals, for some weird reason I always laugh at that early one in which you said "I'm not sure I'm good at all this website stuff (lol)," obviously making fun of people who actually say stuff like that. In one of our early chats when we were talking about exposing these 13-year-old Dungeons & Dragons players for what they are, that was easily some of the best entertainment I had in those early rounds in which everyone was being either lame and bland, or way too loud for my taste. You sure got me to like you and you really, really made me want to trust you on several occasions – those are all things a Mole needs to accomplish, and you did them. Honestly, it would annoy me severely if Brian turned out to be The Mole - I'd much rather The Mole be someone I like. Then there's your riot of a blog post turning things around on Paul, which is undoubtedly the funniest thing done in this game (and I do count all of Breaux's witticisms when saying that). And let's not forget the making fun of Brian sessions, the chat with him when we found the thing that said he was under 13, and all the side conversations we had during challenges… which, now I wonder, were they solely for the purpose of having fun, or were you also trying to distract me from what was going on? :) You really are great, and my only hope is that you're not one of those Moles who, once it's all over, you don't really care about anything or about interacting with anyone, since it's over, and I just hope that even though the role has forced you to deceive that you still value all the fun we've had in this game. Okay, before I start getting too corny, I'll stop now, and I'll go back to addressing Travis. I just want to leave you with the assurance that if you are The Mole, you really have done a heck of a job, and we can cuss out whoever tries to argue with that. :)

At this point, if Elise isn't The Mole, I am guaranteed to be executed, especially with Blaise having an exemption. What's funny, though, is that if I'm right about my suspicion, I could still be executed, if Brian and Paul know it's her. And okay, if ONE of the two of them doesn't know it, then I should be safe THIS round, but if the other one does, then I could easily be screwed at the final four as well, so the road to winning this game isn't going to be easy in the least bit, especially since Blaise seems to suspect Elise as well. Quite frankly, though, if I get executed despite having identified The Mole correctly, there really won't be any regrets because it would mean that I did everything I could've possibly done. I've been doing everything I can to get Brian or Paul or both to suspect me, but I really have no idea how effective my attempts have been. If this is my last confessional, thanks for hosting a great game, Travis, and I'll look forward to the reunion.