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!
Recently, this humble piece of internet real estate has been gathering some weird status on Google. At first, we were thrilled to be on the first page for the search “EDOC LAUNDRY.” Since then, our writings have also landed us on some more, disturbing, Google Pages:
- Meta Mucil - Dear Sir/Ma’am - It’s one word, and no, I have none. I suggest adding more fruit to your diet and cutting back on the cheese consumption.
- Pipette Factoids - You’d think I’d have some, being in the science business, but I really don’t. Pipettes are pretty boring. They’re just displacement pistols encased in plastic that SUCK up liquids. Usually when seen on TV, scientists are always using them and moving colored liquids into various tubes.
- Code to Create Spade Symbol - …. I can’t even contemplate this one.
- EDOC Laundry Game Solves - OH MY GOD CHEATER! CHEATER! Cheater McCheaterson!
- Symbol for Swallows - I don’t know about swallows, but you might try looking for spits.
- Weird Historic Factoids - Uhmmmm… here’s one for the win: “James Stephen Hogg, the first native born governor of Texas, had a daughter in 1875. He named her Ima.”
- Come and Get My Laundry - Sure! And for $100 more, I’ll fluff your pillows and wash windows!
- Thomas Nutter Adams - I’m so naming my firstborn that.
- Adam Saunders’ Girlfriend - Not on this blog. Stalker. Haven’t you ever heard “Jesse’s Girl?” It’s a bad, bad thing. Stop Coveting!
And finally, the overall WTF winner of the Google Searches this guide appears on…
- Guide to Sock Cock - I think you spelled that wrong.
Thank you! Thank you! And enjoy your searches!
Dear Arnold -
I was doing a little research and stumbled upon your resume, and may I say “IMPRESSIVE!” So rarely is there combined in one person the triad skills of tap dancing, swing dancing AND the martial arts! And you played Microsoft Tablet PC, HOLY CRAP! Plus, anyone who can play the whole ensemble in Annie Get Your Gun deserves our undying admiration!
With that great pile of admiration, though, comes a small tariff on your time: We Demand Tap Dancing. Come on, Arnie, give us a little soft-shoe. A small swing dance lift of Abigail. Dropkick Adam and then roundhouse ninja kick Sam while nunchucking Jeff. They deserve it. We deserve it. You deserve it. These skills of yours must be flaunted!
Sincerely,
The Authors of the EDOC Laundry Game Guide
Once upon a time, solving a puzzle snagged you a phrase, and this phrase was “Money Talks” and was good and opened up a video. This video contained a variety of exciting and thrilling moments involving the psycho hose beast, Sally, and frightened small children and the assorted household pet. Thus begins our summary….
2 Years and 1 Month before PRB Dies:
Sallyyyyyy! SAAALLLLYYY! How’d you like to bite my ass? (Right in the middle!) Standing in a back alley like a cheap hooker, Lyn captures Sally’s evil bitch look with her ever-present Polaroid camera:
LYN: *Click!*
SALLY: *FUCK YOU BITCH GLARE*
LYN: *Click!*
SALLY: *I HAVE CROTCH AFIRE HO-GLARE*
Having seen the venom oozing from Sally’s underaged pores like acne pus, Lyn decides that Sally needs to go. Now. And not just to the bathroom. Lyn needs Sally out of everyone’s hair. She’s bad for Jeff, bad for the band, and terrible for their bank account. So Lyn does the logical thing when approaching an irrational horny teenager and attempts to bribe her.
LYN: FI-TOUSAND DOLLA! I give you fi-tousand dolla to go away and leave Jeff!
SALLY: *FUCK OFF GLARE* Bitch, he be mine, ho!
LYN: TEN-TOUSAND DOLLA!
SALLY: *Constipated look* You can’t buy me, ho! Jeff’s the only one who can sell me!
LYN: DAMMIT! YOU SUCK.
SALLY: I’m Rick James, Bitch!
So Lyn looks at Sally and thinks “Foobar. She’s going to kill the man she loves, only with love.” Which to me, sounds a bit like that James Bond character that had the thighs of death. Remember her? SCARY! Just like Sally! Coincidence?!
Another Wednesday and another puzzle from Lyn. This one carried under the auspicious title, “He that is of the opinion money will do everything…”
Lyn gave us a series of pictures of Chinese Yen in groupings of three. Early on, players decided that they were looking at a pattern of I Ching throws, but how to decipher them?
Vidstudent, playing off the pattern of I Ching throws and the money element, started picking two-word phrases comprised of five-letters and dealing with money, finally landing on MONEY TALKS as the answer. As the successful guess took away the immediate impetus for solving the puzzle, the decipherment of the I Ching throws stood quietly by for a couple of days until the charming and eminent scholar, Shadow, pulled out the answer from the coins.
Following the solve of the chess puzzle, the phrase Ever After became the video du jour. The randomization of the variety of suicide became my angst du jour. If you haven’t caught it yet in the videos, the writers of EDOC have managed to supremely bungle the plot. SuicidePerson manages to switch his suicidal modus operandi between wrist slashing and bridge jumping - within the same videos. While pictures of a bloody-wristed body flash on your screen, Lyn’s voice and text claims it was a bridge jump suicide. Which is correct? Is either correct? Is anyone at EDOC even paying attention to their plot-ological fallacy?! SAVE ME FROM THE MORONIC 5 SECOND CHANGES IN DEATH PATTERN! GAAAAAAAAH. IT HURTS MY BRAIN AND IS MAKING ME DUMB!
Anyways, the video summary:
1 year and 6 months before the death of PRB:
So the infamous dead body with the bloody wrists is dancing across the screen. Lyn’s been called by the police, who apparently found her contact information on the floating body in the river. They also found the car on the bridge a bit up-stream from where the body was found. You know, besides the one assertion that the body was found in Lyn’s recording studio. And that whole bloody wrist thing. Right. Maybe SuicidePerson just wanted to be really really thorough. Ugh.
Abigail, weeping in a window, was all lonesome (as she’s co-dependant on Adam and incapable of being on her own) and mournful, stays at Lyn’s place. There, like any good Technodork, she gets on MSN to chat with Adam, who manages to throw around the powerfully redundant words of “Freedom” and “Pursuit of Happiness” just in case someone hasn’t picked up on that whole Declaration of Independance theme. Yet. Because they’re under a rock.
Later that night, Abigail wakes up crying - about what we’re unsure. Is she upset over dead person, or that the band isn’t doing so hot? Lyn ponders this, but wakes up in the morning to discover Abigail, hard at work, practicing Jeff’s new song.
Awww
In the fourth installment of Lyn’s crazy non-apparel puzzles, on Wedneday 7/26/06 we found a new thread in the Hang Separately forums entitled “She that falls in love with herself will have no rivals” with a post from our illustrious fugitive:
You were certainly quick to find your way out of the forest last week; very impressive! But perhaps I gave you too large a hint; spending so long with the Queen seems to have given me a fairytale sense of noblesse oblige. So let’s level the playing field a bit, shall we?
Following her cryptic link takes us to a page with three images of a chess board. The first is an overhead view, while the second and third are side views from opposite corners of the board, showing here:
Cursory analysis, much of which was done in #edoc chat, shows some interesting facts:
- All the pieces are knights, though they are in three different styles.
- All the knights are facing either the “top” or “bottom” of the board, as seen from the top view image.
- The black arrow in the upper-right corner is not present in the third image, and was therefore added to the image.
After several frustrated laments of not being able to solve the puzzle, by Saturday 7/29 we still had no answer. So Lyn decided to give the top view image a make over:
We have three effects:
- Highlighted the black arrow
- Highlighted the previously barely visible gray rectangle
- Added a red ‘A’ above the upper left square (space A8)
Having no real effect other than general frustration, on Sunday 7/30 Lyn decided to give us another nudge:
I guess it’s time for a hint.
The knights aren’t going anywhere.
Finally, several hours later, unfiction user Wojcik discovered that if one adds letters to the circumference of the board as shown below, the letters that the knights are facing anagram to the phrase EVER AFTER, which unlocks our latest video. Video Summary coming soon.
