2 Years and 4 Months Before PRB Keels Over

Jeff and Sally are staring googlie-eyed at each other in a rather sickening “God, I hate the world when I’m not in your loving arms” kind of fashion that makes everyone else around them throw up a little, and that’s before they realize that Sally’s oh, 15 years old. At which point they throw up a lot.

While we are treated to images of their lovey-dovey couchtime, Lyn is pondering (pointlessly) why some musicians make it and some just don’t.

Then Sally and Jeff start babbling to each other. Insert Maddening Typo Moment Here That Should Have Been Caught By The Editors But Sadly Was Not. Lyn recreates their conversation in stunning green text:

SALY (yes, SALY. I shit you not, this is how it’s spelled): I’m so glad you moved away from home, Jeffy!

JEFF: YES, my dad said it was best!

SALY: You’re SO Wonderful!

Lyn once again voices-over, pondering how far Jeff would go to get his work heard and loved by the masses, which she claims to also ponder every day as she hides from the po-po, leading me to once again question “Where IS Lyn? And how is she getting these tshirt designs to EDOC Laundry?”

Lyn had hinted that we might be expecting a new advertisement puzzle to come out of a new issue of YRB magazine as before, and lo, it was found by Vidstudent in Issue #65.

The puzzle set-up is the same as the first YRB ad, only this time the letters found in the image spell out Sell It, leading once again, to a new video.

One Year and 4 Months Before PRB Kicks the Bucket

The camera pans through Lyn’s recording studio.  Amps, boards, cords, mics, fancy technology… mmmm sweaty strung out Sam….

eh what?

Yes, *everyone* in the band had a key to the studio. (Because that’s totally smart when you have a murderer running around - give them a key to your place!  SMART!)  Sam liked to use his to come inside from the cold, cruel world and sober up.

He’s whimpering, pouting at the camera like a teenage model, grimacing like a Muppet.  He “just wants to be happy” whine whine I’M HIGH ON CRACK, MOTHER FUCKER!

Lyn once again dials into her Revolutionary HandyCam Dictionary and pulls out some more TJ: “It’s not about *feeling* happy, it’s about *pursuing* happiness.”

Sam tells her that she’s sounding like Adam (ON CRACK, MOTHER FUCKER!) and pouts at the camera some more as Lyn wittily retorts that he can always hang out with his drug buddy, Arnold.

Sam would ponder this longer, but he’s in need of water and a wee, and asks if he can just crash at Lyn’s place, since she’s like, already around and all.

I’m sure Lyn’s pondering if she’ll be able to get some candid Polaroids out of this moment.  *turns on swirling porn music*

All dolled up and nowhere to go when on the lam, Lyn dropped another little puzzle for us to decode. *pushes the “solve, watch video, repeat” button*

This one was a lovely string of 5-digit numbers Zazu breezed through with crazy speed! The numbers translate to zip codes for a variety of cities, the first letters of which spell out the word Flight, leading to our next video clue.

One Year Before PRB Dies

The group looks to be hanging out at a bar after a gig.  Sally’s there, adhering herself to Jeff’s side like Velcro, only more abrasive and giving a redder, bumplier rash.  Lyn’s been trying to keep the two apart, saying that she knew nothing good would come of it all. (Not saying, but implying, that she’s jealous of Jeff’s Little Minx Sally Doll. Lyn wants hot man writer booty, too, ya know.)

The Little Minx Sally Doll was tricked out in the finest ho-wear available:  high heels, strapless dress, over-zealous makeup.  Lyn thinks Sally looks a good 8 years older than she really is, but in my opinion, she looks like a teenager trying too hard and over-dosing on the Bonnie Bell.

Because no video is complete without an overwhelming wallop of Revolutionary phraseology, Lyn whips out her Magical Pithy Phrase maker, dials it to “Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence,” and spits out in monotone delivery: HOW DO YOU STOP THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS?!  OH MY GOD, LYN I JUST DON’T KNOW.  Maybe kill someone?

After last week’s brain challenge, Lyn dropped a stinky puzzle into the player toilet that was a little easier on our minds, if not our copy and paste functions on our keyboards.  Of course, I stared blankly at it for a significant amount of time…

And then Lizmuir started rearranging the black and white dotted lines to form a few letters, which then brought SHADOW up for the slam dunk off of Liz’s pass to create the word Strapless.

Good work all!

2 years and 7 months before PRB dies

Lyn is slaving away in the studio, working on the final mix for Declaration. From the looks of it, she has neither slept nor bathed for days.  “Smelly” is the look du jour.  Adam has apparently been Mr Poopypants, insisting on re-recording the guitar tracks on “half songs” (which by that typo, I do believe they mean on half of the songs for the album. The transcription could use some work, there.) which is giving Lyn fits.

Added onto the pressure is the deadline of midnight looming over Lyn’s mixing fingers.

George emails, promising Chinese food when he gets out of a meeting regarding the band tour.

Adam emails, reinforcing to Lyn that if it’s not perfect, it’s not ready, and screw the deadline.

Arnold emails, fuming that the album isn’t done yet, as the record company is breathing down his neck.

I wonder, “Why is Lyn checking her email if she’s so damn busy?!”

George does drop by later, though his arms are devoid of happy styrofoam Chinese food boxes, provides a slightly gross neck massage to Lyn and tucks her into the cot, as she drifts off to sleep, choosing to devote her life to music.  Or something.

The week of August 16th saw the players once again challenged by Lyn and befuddled by a piece of music.  We may be sensing a theme here… rock band… music… OH MY GOD! BANDS PLAY MUSIC! Wow.

Ok, but seriously, Lyn gave us another weirdo puzzle based on a piece of music and suggested we paint it with a “broad brush.”  That catty feline.

After a week of staring inexplicably at the piece of music, identifying it, and even finding a recording of it, Lyn sighed with frustration and provided a hint:

1. Pay attention to names. Names of colors, names of rhythmic figures…
2. The piece I used isn’t important. I just dug through a pile of old sheet music until I found something that suited my needs.
3. Everything you need is already there. Except the connections

Goodie.  That’s really helpful We’ll get right on that.

Or not.

So she gives us another hint:

The rhythm itself doesn’t matter. Just the names of the rhythmic figures. And one of them is only filler.

Hmm.  Rhythmic figures… I knew I should have paid more attention in music theory…

Eventually, Wojcik put it all together, painted it with a manly broad stroke, and discovered the key: Matching “rhythmic figures” across lines and measures, which results in the discovery of letters in the music.

Scales… maybe I should have just *guessed* that…

This week’s video clip, Get Used to Disappointment, is uncanny in its ironic description of itself. After dealing with previous story inconsistencies (e.g. the mysterious double suicide of the same person) and the hammering of the Revolutionary theme into our poor widdle bwains, we’re provided with another batch of headdesk moments in this installment of Lyn’s story….

2 Years, 5 Months before the end of PRB:

The video loads with an image of Lyn’s familiar computer where she’s been compiling our glimpses into Poor Richard’s history. A slight click of the index finger and an email exchange between Lyn and George shows up in GIANT TEXT on the computer’s screen. Lyn’s complaining that they’ve been rejected by 27 labels so far in their attempts to get Declaration on the shiny CDs that go in the record stores:

LYN: Woe woe, this is just so HAAAAAAAAARD. Wee wee wee do you have any ideas, George?

George offers the suggestion to send the album off to 27 more companies, because rejection is a sign of progress. Or something. Obviously this is a man of infinite patience and cashflow. Dissatisfied by his pessimistic plan of attack, Lyn barbs him with a slightly dulled rose thorn and causes George to bleed sports METAphors. And not just any sports METAphor, but the combination of the most cliched METAphor with the least effective METAphor due to poor editing. OBSERVE THE BRILLIANCE!

GEORGE: Here’s something you probably don’t know. You know about Michael Jordan, right? The amazing Michael Jordan? Well, Michael Jackson has only one — one! — NBA lifetime stat. And here it is: Michael Jordan has is more shots missed than any other player.

Please pause while your guide writer and summarizer extraordinnaire dies from proxied shame. Yes, kids, George manages to say “Michael Jordan” THREE TIMES, and then, right in the middle of his amazing METAphor, not more than 2 words away from the last mention of “Michael Jordan,” mistakes Jackson for Jordan. Unlike Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson does not play basketball and is, in fact, despite the oddities, a very successful recording artist. This great mistake is followed up by a lack of subject/verb agreement with the very fine “has is more shots” turn of phrase. Thanks, George. My brain aches now.

George continues with this masterful analogy of errors, eventually attempting to convince Lyn that he is correct in his deduction of the probability of success by…DUN DUN DUN! Pounding us on the head with the fact that he was named after George Washington:

GEORGE: MY NAME GEORGE. ME WASHINGTON. URK! ME GOOD GENERAL. LOSE LOTS BUT WIN LATER. WAIT! OMG! I’M DOING IT AGAIN! URK! HIS-TORR-EEE!!! IT REPEATS! ESPECIALLY IF I TELL YOU IT DO! YOU BELIEVE! YES! GOOD! URK!

And then the video cuts away to Lyn, staring at us with her bedhead hair, passionately doing some air grabbing motions with her hands, speaking with this weird smile on her face that belongs more in Silence of the Lambs, seductively telling us that she did get it and it was hard. Really hard. But oh so worth it, because it was also big and girthy.

After our brilliant guessing skills foiled Lyn’s magnificent I Ching puzzle last week, the angst in her puzzle-creating brain was apparent with the introduction to this week’s puzzle:

I don’t think you’ll be able to guess this one.

Oh fine, Lyn. Whatever you say Chum chum pip pip.

We’re faced with what appears to be bizarre piano music (really, this can’t sound good when played. It’s just not possible.), and a tip in the source code of the HTML that says something about EXCEL…. hmmmm….

Intrepid players immediately began working on converting music to digital spreadsheets, hoping to make some sense out of the random distribution of notes. After a couple of days of head scratching, Vidstudent pulled out the solve, this time appeasing the angry Lyn with his solve technique as opposed to his excellent guessing skills. Placing the notes into a spreadsheet and pairing the spacing between the notes to the alphabet derives the phrase “Get Used to Disappointment” which unlocks a video of the same name.

Congrats and cheers out to Vidstudent and thanks to everyone playing along!