GinohnNews

G: Lessee, John's birthday (8th annual 39th) was Thursday (Hey! I caught up to him this year!). I got him a shoehorn (the kind with... splinters), a new pair of work gloves, a house key with a flashlight built in, and later I ordered a shirt from ThinkGeek.com that you'll know when you see it.

And he might be getting himself an expensive Palm Treo or Centro, unlocked, to use with cheap pay-as-you go T-mobile.

Anyway, we were both busy all day, but we went out to dinner at Mark's Kitchen in Takoma Park and TVTom came along. From there we went to the Looneys and had a normal game night. I think John won some money at poker, though.

Friday might be the night we just watched a movie at home, again with Tom.

Saturday after my shift at Greenbelt Om I took a class there with a teacher who'd been in a couple of my pottery classes. It's a good class - a pretty good workout and stretch out - which is what I am looking for with yoga.

Then John and I had a little adventure by going Cluesing. All that means is you go out and look for clues. See where the clues lead you.

Kory told us about this idea a while back. He said he and his friends would do it. John wanted to go for his birthday, but Saturday was the closest we could get. Here are the guidelines to Cluesing.

1. Find a clue. ("Look! A clue!")
2. Follow it.
3. It might lead you to another clue.
4. Rinse lather and repeat.

Sometimes you may end up following people, or looking up phone numbers, or experiencing very strange coincidences.

We started with a little bit of Ouija keyboard - put our hands together over the keyboard with one finger sticking down. It typed a bit of nonsense "lkwjcu h" then pointed our fingers toward the door. I said we needed more than that and we tried again. This time it just typed "go" and pointed out the door. So out we went. I decided to look for our first clue in the mailbox. The only thing in there was a mailing from Comcast. John said maybe we should look for a Comcast substation. I turned the card over and in big letters it said, "Now You're Talking." So we got in the car. I thought we might spy a Comcast truck and follow it. But we just went down to town center and starting looking for more clues. We ran into Joey who told us that Comcast had built a new basketball stadium at the UofM. I saw a truck that we decided to check out, it was nothing but we saw a puzzle/ad on the side of a bus that gave us the clue "Have a Ball!" I said we should go by the tennis courts because we could probably find a ball there.

We found two tennis balls and met a guy there manning a table for a tennis tournament (David Craig Memorial Tournament) and talked to him. On his suggestion we went over by St. Hugh's elementary (tennis balls are sometimes used on the feet of school chairs) and found a card that said Allison for Treasurer and had her picture on a hundred dollar bill. We went back and showed it to the guy and he said he was the Treasurer of the David Craig foundation. SO I decided we were looking for treasure and we went to the bank. I found a receipt from the ATM, it didn't represent a lot of money but it had a lot of x's on it (X marks the spot!). We sat around contemplating for a while and lost our pencil. It just disappeared. We went home until Dave came over, we walked Katy, then we went to the Pita Pit for dinner deciding that we may as well go to the Comcast Center, and continued looking for Comcast clues. We saw "Fear the Turtle" around a lot so we decided to do that. We parked in lot Z and there was some major tailgate parties going on near the soccer field, but we didn't know what field that was or where the Comcast Center was so we walked over to check it out. Nothing. So we went to the Student Union and got a map and headed to the Comcast Center. Along the way we saw many X's, red tape ones. One was over a poster that said "The Gathering" so I thought maybe our treasure was at the gathering we were going to later that night. Another one was near a poster for a Wii table tennis contest with a prize of $5,000, we thought Dave should enter and win that money and that would be the treasure. Another X revealed nothing. Etc.

We got to the Center and there was a very large turtle near the entrance. We carefully avoided it, and sneaked to the front doors. Inside was a lighted case with a large crystalline ball (cut crystal, about the size of a basketball) on top of a crystalline pedestal inside. Treasure! Have a Ball! I assumed the place was locked but tried the door and it opened. We went inside but unfortunately, we couldn't get the crystal ball out of its case. We left it there. We heard noise so we wandered further inside and found a women's volleyball match about to start. We sat down to watch, and during the Star Spangled Banner my brother called. I'd called him earlier when we had found an empty first aid kit with his initials written on it (GRD, aka Greenbelt Rec. Dept.). He was confused by our activity but gave me another clue, he said look for a Q near something green.

That led us to explore more things on our way back to the car, but nothing came of it. But we did find some clues, followed them, and we had fun.

Sunday late in the day I went to my studio so I could be there when folks came around touring the building. I made a bunch of stuff, and not many people came by. That night we went to Greykell's - it was movie night but we went to see Annaliese who was in town. It was good to see her and Grey and other folks too. We also spent some time chatting over the video computer connection with Kat who's away at college in Boston.

J: A reply to the tune of Joco's Re: Your Brains

Heya Bob, it’s Tom; can't say I'm glad to take your call
The video feed is coming in
Things have been OK for me, except that you're a zombie now
Please wipe off that lipless grin
I'm very sure that in your state you'll never understand
Why from office parties you are permanently banned
Here's another FYI: you’re all gonna die, starving

All you want to do is eat my brains
You're so unreasonable, I mean, you probably want to eat my eyes
All you want to do is eat my brains
We’re at an impasse here, you don't want to compromise.
If I open up the doors
You’ll all come inside and eat my brains

I don’t want to quibble, Bob, but is this really your plan?
To spend your whole death locked outside a mall?
Maybe that’s OK for now but someday you’ll be out of brains and flesh
And then you’ll have to take the fall
You suits in corporate haven’t thought it through enough
All you deadbeat management types really aren't so tough
And I thought that you should know that soon I'm gonna go postal

All you want to do is eat my brains
You're so unreasonable, I mean, you probably want to eat my eyes
All you want to do is eat my brains
We’re at an impasse here, you don't want to compromise.
If I open up the doors
You’ll all come inside and eat my brains

I’d like to help you Bob, but anyway I won't
Like you've said, I'm not a very good team player
I like zombies, Bob— well, technically I don't
I guess I don't

Now I have to reload, Bob, so I don't mind wrapping up
I really liked our chat a bunch
I must cut short this meeting with your colleagues who are chewing on the door
I'm sure they all want to do lunch
I’m not surprised to see you doubting me, you always said
You never thought I ever had the guts to plan ahead
But soon you'll see the proof— the helicopter's on the roof, waiting

All you want to do is eat my brains
You're so unreasonable, I mean, you probably want to eat my eyes
All you want to do is eat my brains
We’re at an impasse here, you don't want to compromise.
If I open up the doors
You’ll all come inside and eat my brains