for what it's worth

gone fishin

Assed, like ole Neville.

No, wait. He "resigned" to MK's luxury retirement village. It's a charming little place in Wales, absolutely captivating.

(Anybody who gets that reference, prize of some sort.)

( Neither sexual nor monetary, so don't think too hard.)

check yer email

But don't open it.

You might get assed.

and i knew there was something I was forgetting to post last night...

Midnight has apparently returned to the blogging fold, with a post speculating on the relative merits of his sabbatical.

fear factor

Constance hates to be scared. Avery comes from a long line of people who love to scare the shit out of their friends and family. The conversation that has ensued from the clash of these two diametrically opposed world views has got me to thinking about the various flavors of fear. More specifically, about why some of us find certain varietals to be quite tasty.

There are some brands of fear that are almost universally unpalatable: the kind of fear you feel when you're waiting for the results of a medical test; or when you're trapped in a burning building or a sinking car; or when you can't find your kid (or your parent) in a crowded store. Not fun in any way.

But what about the fear (some would merely call it a thrill) of that moment, sitting in the front seat of the roller coaster, when the car crests the peak of the highest hill and then balances for a moment before hurtling downward? What about the situations in which we willingly place ourselves? (And CP, I know you didn't -- I'll get to that...)

I grew up on creep-yourself-out-for-fun. As I mentioned over at CP's, my bedtime stories were ghost stories. My hometown and its environs actually have places called The Creepies and The Forts (damn, they've cleaned it up. It was much cooler when it was covered in satanic graffiti) where my friends and I occasionally ventured on summer nights once we could drive. Cast parties for our school plays, in fact, were traditionally held in an abandoned house deep in the Creepies -- until the structure "mysteriously" burned down. (The fire department torched it because it was becoming a haven for junkies, so goes.)

(I can't fucking believe I found that Creepies link, btw. Jonesing to finish this post so I can go explore the site some more.)

When my high school girlfriends came up to visit a few weekends ago, we actually made a Ouija board one night and tried to get it to freak us out like it used to. Not that we ever really believed we were talking to Ben Franklin, but the psychic reverb did get a bit heavy in my town the winter one of our classmates was strangled to death and left in a wooded lot.

But that is most decidedly a whole other story.

My friend Amy and I both grew up in "haunted" houses; to this day one of my closest friends gets anxious being in my parents' house after dark. (Unless she's good and drunk, of course ;)

I've never thought of how (or if) my desire to scare myself translates into a desire to scare other people. But upon reflection I guess I can fairly say that yeah, I'm a fucking punk. I like to inflict fear (of the non-life-threatening variety) on other people. But I think I like it better when it's a group decision to get the spook on.

Which brings me to Constance (who sadly, it seems, won't be a very appreciative audience for my campfire stories). You got spooked in your own house. And I can so relate to that particular, unpleasant type of fright. I still wave my arms behind my back when I run up the front staircase of my parents' house at night; I've had practically phobic problems with the shower curtain and what might lie on the other side of it (from the perspective of both in and out of the tub); I generally do not like creaks and squeaks and things that go bump in the night where I live. And when my rational brain tries to calm me down, I'm actually more inclined to comfort myself with the possibility that maybe it's just a ghost. Because the thought of an intruder is the single most terrifying thing I can imagine. (Well, I'm sure I could come up with plenty of things that are more terrifying, but I'm speaking in a particular context. You with me?)

So. Who likes a good fright night? And why do you think that is?

more op blogs, and WTF Avery?!

Right, so first the mundane (no offense to the bloggers in question). New ops for the sidebar: Ricin in Michigan; An American in Melbourne in, duh; Peluchio in Panama; Adren of Life, blogging in Spanish from points unknown; and deadsoybean in Paterson, NJ. (Dylan in my head for the rest of the night now ...)

And Xul's new nightlight is a beard of stars.

Now the big news, which by the time most of you read this will be old news: Avery is headed to fricken New Zealand, and "points thereafter." Not only, but he's apparently The New Number 2.

Ave: Send me a postcard, will ya?

is that tom green in his profile picture?

I'm posting this here even though it's got nothing to do with the Cam, because this site gets way more hits than new england gothic. (Yes, I just plugged my other site. Bite me.)

Much like the feral little post secret, the synchronicity of indeterminacy is a blog of found stories. More deliberate in their nature than PS, SID doesn't always nail it. But he's got some gems. And once a week he lets his readers play, which is always fun. To the Xul in all of us: check it out.

i lost

(but only barely ... really ...)

Anybody want to recommend a purveyor of quality chessboards? This $5 Target jobbie ain't gonna last much longer.

(I discovered this weekend, btw, that my three-year-old niece pronounces Target as "tar-jay" without a speck of irony.)

dangerous bedfellows

Neurocam romance and flirtation seems to be the topic of the day. (Warning: Shem's site seems to be infected with a nasty little MIDI virus. Please, Shem, make it go away.)

While CP offers us a round-up of known Neurocam couplings (which is, ahem, fleshed out in the comments section), Shem waxes philosophical on the subject. I won't rehash too much of his musings; my interest lies primarily in his parting shot:

Has there been an assumed trust developing amongst the Operatives - a by-product of our digital familiarity. An invitation to a Neurocam gathering no longer generates the suspicion, the unsurety, the gastrointestinal butterfly's that once lurked as a result of that famous piece of Tarantino inspired footage many of us were first exposed to.

Are you too comfortable?

Are you too trusting?

Are you too complacent?

Are you too revealing?

In light of the heritage behind the name of our newest executive, Ms Gertrude Zelle; and the recently revealed Fischer-Hastings Affair (I'd link to the exact post, but Blogger's archives, like everything else about the service, appear to be currently fux0rd), I can only wonder what the Cam has up its sleeve for us operatives. When do they start playing us against each other? (Or have they already begun?) Will they take advantage of publicly revealed friendships and relationships amongst us, and attempt to exploit those relationships? Will they succeed? How many layers of deception would they have to employ to trick an operative into lying to or betraying an ally? Or would you willingly go along with certain lies of omission (or outright lies) in order to further the "experience"? Would you be more willing to "play" a friend you only know online? It is, after all, so much easier to type a lie than to say it.

What does Neurocam mean to you?

that crafty carlos

What has he been up to?

(And why is he selling off his wares? Optical filter? Paging Xul!)

nkotb

The operatives list has been long due for an update. New additions: Simon Blackmoore in New England (w00t!); Reanimator and Wintermute in Melbourne; Yantra in the UK; Bob the Mediocre in Buffalo, with an interesting letter from MK (perhaps one of his last? sniff) regarding the relative nature of truth; Gigabane in Newfoundland, who's apparently been getting documents from MK where others have been getting stonewalled, and whose name totally makes me think of the techno-pagan direction they were once going with Willow before Joss fucked her character all up(/buffynerd); Chris Titan who claims to be in the Sudan but who also seems to tread a fine line between fact and his own personal fiction, and who mixes Perplex City posts in with Cam posts, making for quite a stew of confusion; and one of my new favorite reads, Another Operative, in London. AO's flickr name, interestingly, is thesneakerpimp. Sound familiar?

Of course, AO's flickr nick may be a coincidence. It may be a clue. Or AO may be playing with a little bit of unclaimed Cam mythology, in which case he might be getting himself into something a bit bigger than he realizes. I never published this, from an email exchange with Robin, but Rob's previously said that all of our correspondence could be considered on-the-record. So (text in blue was originally written by me; by Robin in red):

You  wrote: "The Sneaker Pimp is a Neurocam Operative. If he is the person I think he is, then he knows a lot about Neurocam's current operations." Who do you think he is, and why?

In NZ I met a guy called Peter Casey who I suspect was one of the architects of Neurocam. He once used the alias 'Sneaker Pimp' in an email to a friend of mine. I happen to know that there is a Neurocam 'double agent' called The Sneaker Pimp and wonder if he is in fact Mr Casey.

Robin was supposed to be tracking down Casey's email address for me, through a friend. That was back at the beginning of March, though, and I've heard nothing re Casey since -- from Robin or anyone else.

I do have a bit more from Robin on this Casey guy, but I'm not sure -- what with all the other Cam activity going on right now -- if it's a fruitful tangent.

Back to the site updates.

Ice's blog has been taken down -- I can't remember if that's old news.

And last, I've created a new section called metacam, for blogs that play entirely fast and loose with the Cam mythology but that nevertheless have become part of the water cooler chatter.

I think we're having a thunderstorm. I'm off to investigate.