The Flying Colors shirt has arrived, complete with its own specially-marked package of frustration. Apparently fabric colors in Real Life(tm) are not quite as sharp as one might wish, which makes translating the tiny little dots on the butterflies’ wings a migraine-inducing event.
Check out the photos on the EDOC flickr group1 and help crack the code!

1. Smokin’ hot model sold separately. [↩]

HateTodd from the UnFiction forums provided us with another email from EDOC today (take pictures of your shirts!):

From: Thomas Quincy
Sent: Sunday, March 03, 2003, 1:45 PM
To: Adam Boylston

Dear Mr. Quincy,

Some guy was lurking around our apartment, in the back, taking pictures. I’m assuming he was either a) a peeping tom, b) some hack sent by you.

Either way, I beat the crap out of him.

No one has the right to spy on another in this country. It’s the law. Your daughter is an adult. I’m an adult. I’m asking you — before someone else gets hurt — to back off.

I’m busy at work on the album I’m recording with Abigail and our band. I don’t have time for your parental jealousies.

Here’s something I’ve learned about music: you treat it as a commodity, it’s reach around and bite you in the ass. You can’t control what matters. You either mean it or you don’t. And if you mean it, you’ve got to let the music take you where it wants.

Same thing with people.

You want your ! daughter’s love, treat your creation with respect. Stop thinking of he r as a toy you can toss about for your own needs. That’s when she’ll rebel.

Adam Boylston,
Ass Kicker

Besides some glaring typos (It’s !=It’ll; extra spaces; and the random “!” in the middle of the last paragraph) and a bit of an oopsie on the To: From: section (As the text says, it’s FROM Adam, TO Abigail’s Dad, not the other way around as the message header presumes), we do get some further insight into “Adam Boylston: Ass Kicker.”

An obvious Un-Fan of Abby’s dad, who is also an Un-Fan of him, Adam has a bit of a violent streak, and has a fine sense of disrespect for authority.

Of historical interest, Abigail Quincy’s parents disapproved of the match between her and John Adams, but after a good long courtship of about 5 years, they consented to the marriage. 

Mugatu, the ancient Greek god of fashion, posted recently his love for EDOC Laundry, picking out a shirt for members of the long lost band, The New Kids on the Block. Aptly giving the stupidest members of the band girlie shirts, Mugatu has summed up awesomeness.
Thank you, oh great Mugatu, for not smiting us EDOC clothing wearers for bad fashion.

After succumbing to retail therapy, I received the follow email snippet:

From: Abigail Quincy
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003, 12:02 PM
To: Amanda Quincy

Mom,

Thank you for the check. I didn’t ask for it. But Adam and I sure needed it. So thank you.

But I can only take it if you promise to stop calling me and asking me to come home.

Since the check found its way to me directly, I can only assume you had someone track me down. That’s the Quincy way, isn’t it? Pay someone to clean up the mess you’ve made, rather than stop making messes, right?

Please, please… Leave me out of your dreams. This is what I want to do. This is what I NEED to do. We are making something wonderful here. I know you might not understand. But this is the music of the times… Just like Brahms or Beethoven made the music of their times. And just like those two composers were dismissed by their contemporaries, you’re dismissing the music I’m making. I really can’t take it anymore.

I LIKE this century. This is MY time. The time I was born into. And I’m going to play by the rules of these times because I WANT to.

If you can be my mother, fine. But stop pretending you can be my mother by buying my loyalty when I’m down.

Abigail 

Sigh.  More mommy issues   Everyone has mommy issues

Realizing that my story page was getting waaaaaaaaaay out of control, I’ve decided to do some work on breaking it up into something more manageable.

So far, I’ve managed to put together a page of video summaries for this first season, catalogued here, and linked from The Story page.
Soon, I hope to be putting up a timeline of events (as the videos themselves aren’t consistent within a single timeframe, despite their headers), and keep the basic summary of the story so far concise, clean, and understandable on the main story page.

As always, comments and criticisms are welcome!

The ever-elusive YRB Magazine that we’ve been awaiting for almost two months now has hit newsstands. Unfiction member Vidstudent was hot on its tail, scanning its pages for the EDOC Laundry ad.

We thought it would be difficult and clandestine.

We thought it would be heavily encoded.

We overthought.

(click to zoom)

Letters surrounding the ad (circled in pink) spell out “FAME,” which unlocks a new video. (woo!)
Cheers and thank you to Vidstudent for finding, solving, and posting the ad!

Dear Sally,

Please stop saying Jeff’s name in every sentence you write. You are starting to make me go crazy, as now, when I see you write “Jeff,” my brain automatically turns it into “Jeff! (JEFF!)”

It’s not pretty.

How not pretty is it? I’ve put Jeff’s name to the JEM theme from that old 80’s cartoon:

“whoaho Jeff (JEFF!) is truly truly truly outrageous / truly truly truly outrageous … Jeff is my name / no one else is the same! / JEFF IS MY NAME!”

What makes this all the more hilarious to me (besides the fact that I found the cartoon intro on YouTube)¹, is that Jem was about a girl rock band, fighting against the evil girl rock band that can’t play in tune. Jem always gets to shove the evil girl rock band off the stage as she swoops her happy pink hair over her shoulders, singing “JEM IS MY NAME!”

It’s almost a parallel to Poor Richard Band! OMG OMG OMG

And now, because I am bored, a PhotoShop².

SHARE YOUR JEFF/SALLY HORROR! Send in your photoshops, photography, poems and other assorted crap!

Sincerely,

The We Hate Sally Club (WHSC)

1. Seriously, you have to watch it. You’ll be singing the JEFF Theme for hours to come [↩]
2. Quite possibly the worst PhotoShop of my career. I’m oddly proud [↩]

As previously reported, EDOC Laundry’s online store is now open for purchases.  As we discovered last week, ordering from EDOC Laundry specifically gets you not only some lovely clothes, but emails from characters with your order confirmation.

So far, players have reported the receipt of two emails:

From: Madison Rose
Sent: Wednesday, January 22nd, 2003, 1:12 AM
To: Phillip Allen

Phillip,

Please tell mom to stop writing. I have told you. I’ve told her. I’m not coming back. I’m never coming back. I know you’ll never understand. I love you. And I wish you’d get the hell out of there. But mom should know. I’m never crossing that damned state border again.

I met some people today, one guy in particular. (Not what you’re thinking!) Something special. I’m part of a band! I’m finally part of a band! A band that’s going to make it!

We’ve got the writer, and this great lead guitarist. And his girlfriend on keyboards. And this freak on drums. And I’m the lead singer. Tell mamma that. Tell mamma I’m the star. I’m going to be a star. Tell her every time she looked at me with those eyes, those eyes that said, “Who do you think you are?” you tell her she was WRONG! You tell her… I’m a star now. I’m going to be a star. And I’m going to build a wall of money around us so she and pa can never goddam get near me again.

You tell her that. You tell her to stop writing.

Love,
MR 

In this email, Phillip appears to be a brother to Madison Rose. (though they don’t share the same last name? Maybe he’s just an old flame?) Maddy’s mom wants her back home, and apparently is writing her a lot of Mommy Knows Best emails.
The second email I find more intriguing:

From: Jenny Bollinger
Sent: Friday, February 21, 2003, 11:15 PM
To: Arnold Waterman-King

Arnold,

I’m afraid to even write this. I’m afraid to write to you. To even send an email seems to be making contact with you. And I won’t risk that.

I’ve made good in the last six months. I’m working a good program. I’ve slipped a couple of times. But my sponsor has always been there for me.

You are the Devil. If there’s a way things that are good could go bad, you’ll find it. I feel terrible for your band.

Never write to me again.

And jesus, I don’t know how you found out where I’m living now, but I’m sending the ticket back to you.

LEAVE ME ALONE 

So in this one, we have confirmation that Arnold is not the Golden Boy he tries to appear, referred to as the “Devil” in this instance.  Not only that, but he appears to have gotten Jenny in some trouble, which made her disappear into some rehab, and is now sending her tickets. (plane tickets? concert tickets? train tickets?) Hmmm.

Furthermore, as Jenny is a new character to us (discovered on Poor Richard Rocks in the Sally bit on the band), we now have her last name “Bollinger,” but still are unsure on who she is in relation to everyone else in a historical context.

Any ideas?  Send them my way!