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Monday, December 17, 2007

Condoleezza Abbot and George Costello?


On the run. Hunted, relentlessly. Framed by
a One Legged Man that stole his Memes. Will he avoid capture? Will he
find the thief that framed him? Or is a life in the dungeon facing
daily torture and *ahem* haute quisine all that the Fates have to offer
him. Follow along as Foxxfyrre: The Fugitive of Blogginham finds odd
blogjobs to stay alive and his efforts to clear his name to eventually
return to his happy but humble life as Foxxfyrre the Serf.


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Episode Four: Condoleezza Abbot and George Costello?

Working in the Bloggingham library was much harder than it seemed. The memes that are collected propagate faster than rabbits on Viagra. I swear that by the time a meme is dreamed up and five people are tagged, within a day, it will be five levels deep with tagees to follow up on. How Miss Mimi L. got this far with the meme archives will probably forever be a mystery. On the third day of digging and meme sorting, I did find something rather interesting, but I wasn't sure where it would lead me. In the movie meme archives, I found a meme under the favorite movie categories. The author of the meme was named George and his avatar was just a simple bushy plant. I didn't think it was all that odd to begin with, but then I noticed some of the favorite movie choices. First favorite movie was "Bedtime for Bonzo" starring Ronald Reagan.
"Unusual choice for favorite movie of all time," I thought, giggling aloud. Then I noticed that out of 30 movies that George had listed, eighteen of them starred Ronald Reagan. That just got me too curious. So I started hacking through his profile and domain. I was blocked. This George guy was a user on a protected domain, and ISP provider was also blocked. Hmmm. Time to start getting my real hacking tools out. After about an hour of hitting firewall after firewall, I hit on an address as the sole host for this George as a sole user. The address was www.whitehouseplayroom.gov . I couldn't believe what I was reading. It couldn't really be that president from America that completed a meme, could it? It would explain why he chose to favorite Ronald's movies for the meme. I double checked my results to make sure I hadn't made some error, but it was true. The origin of this meme came from the Private Presidential Playroom at the White House. For about a year now we have read in the Bloggingham Herald that Queen Mimi has been trying to get an audience with President Bush, but Bush hasn't responded to any of her correspondences. He has even made a public announcement that the White House, nor its President will do memes, or 'Mee Meeze' as he pronounces it. But the proof is in the pudding, I had a meme completed by the President of America.

Now that I was logged on to the mainframe at the Presidential Playroom, should I dig deeper? If I got caught, I'd be a fugitive in Bloggingham and America. Curiosity was killing me, I had to dig deeper no matter what the consequences. I found several personal letters, an agenda, several games including; Diablo, Pacman, World of Warcraft, and Prince of Persia. I also found Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, and Internet for Dummies ebook. I also opened up his IM and searched through his address book. I stopped cold in my tracks. I found the avatar of the One Legged Man in the President's IM address book. Whats worse, is that this One Legged Man was in a group address entitled Current Operatives. The One Legged Man an American Spy? I had to get his real identity, but my every attempt was blocked by the toughest firewall I had ever come across. Not willing to give up, I took down the number for the direct line of the Oval Office, and logged off the President's Playroom Computer.

I had an idea on how to get the real identity of the One Legged Man. It would take some work, but I'm sure I could pull it off. I had dual citizenship in both Bloggingham, and Canada. And when I was younger, I was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces. I knew that using my old forces identification, I could log into SISA and create a false identity as a Canadian Operative. Using this identity, I could then get access to the Central Intelligence Agency of America to put myself on their active list. I knew their computers would not let me hack out the identity of any other operative working within the CIA, but with myself added as an active operative, I could get in touch with the President directly if I said I had valuable mission information. Agent 0077 was born. Those of you who know me would say, why didn't you go for agent 0069. Remember that I am Canadian and 77 is a 69, but in Metric, and you get eight more!

The next morning, I had everything in place. I was now on file with SISA as a Canadian Operative, and I was able to get put on the CIA's Visiting Operative Active List. All that was needed now was to contact the President, and finally find out the identity of my One Legged Meme thief and clear my name once and for all. I had looked through the Presidents agenda, and he would be in the Oval Office from 9:00 a.m. through to noon that day. He had no appointments from 11:00 a.m. until noon, so I thought that would be an appropriate time to make my call. Nervous as hell, I dialed the number, and he answered.

"Hello, President Bush here. Don't waste your dime."

"Hello, Mr. President. This is SISA Operative 0077 on special mission with CIA reporting in with vital recon concerning Operative 181."

"Yes, I have him on special directive for the White House. Is there a problem?"

"Yes, Mr. President, it seems....."

"Sorry to cut you off, but I have to put you on hold. Condaleezza Rice just walked in and it may be important."

"Very good, Mr. President, I'll hold," I said still shaking in my boots from nerves. But President Bush must be technologically deft, because he didn't put me on hold, he accidentally hit the speaker button. Being very, very quiet, I listened to their conversation.


George: Condi! Nice to see you. What's happening?
Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.
George: Great. Lay it on me.
Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.
George: That's what I want to know.
Condi: That's what I'm telling you.
George: That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes.
George: I mean the fellow's name.
Condi: Hu.
George: The guy in China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The new leader of China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The Chinaman!
Condi: Hu is leading China.
George: Now whaddya' asking me for?
Condi: I'm telling you Hu is leading China.
George: Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?
Condi: That's the man's name.
George: That's who's name?
Condi: Yes.
George: Will you or will you not tell me the name of the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he was in the
Middle East.
Condi: That's correct.
George: Then who is in China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir is in China?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Then who is?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Look, Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China.
Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.
Condi: Kofi?
George: No, thanks.
Condi: You want Kofi?
George: No.
Condi: You don't want Kofi.
George: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk.
And then get me the U.N.
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi?
George: Milk! Will you please make the call?
Condi: And call who?
George: Who is the guy at the U.N?
Condi: Hu is the guy in China.
George: Will you stay out of China?!
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the
U.N.
Condi: Kofi.
George: All right! With cream and two sugars. Now get on the phone.

I was really glad that I did not have a full bladder while listening to this conversation, for I would have broken my silence, and made a mess of my pants. The President then picked back up the phone and said, "Agent 0077, are you still there?"

"Yes, Mr. President, I'm still here."

"Good, please finish your report."

"The recon info I have shows that Agent 181 may be in jeapordy of blowing his cover and endangering his current assignment. The Canadian Consulate broke this info, and has me placed with CIA to retrieve 181, and place a new operative in his place to prevent operation failure. Because he is on White House assignment, I cannot retrieve him without you releasing his cover and mission assignment. CIA is in the dark about 181's mission imperatives."

"Yes, I set out mission directives myself. I currently have him undercover as Dr. Neil Warren."

"Dr. Neil Warren founder of eHarmony?"

"Yes. I have placed him in this postition to start eHarmony in order to save our economy."

"Errr, I'm not sure I follow."

"About a year back, this woman, I think her name is M. Lenox, started this company called Profiles 'R Us, and it has been extremely effective in weeding out deadbeat men looking for relationships with women to eventually marry. This company has been so successful that we now worry that the relationships started by Profiles 'R Us are so fulfilling that we fear the divorce rate will drop dramatically. And you know what that would mean."

"Ummm, I think so."

"It would mean that, if the divorce rate falls too much, the taxes that are levied from divorces will be lost. I'm never going to get Osama if I lose that revenue as well. I had Agent 181 start eHarmony. He has a background in relationship psychology. His mission is to get people together fast by thinking that they are compatible couples. Through his questionnaires, he analyzes which couples would fail in a relationship after time. He only pairs people that their relationships will inevitably fail after a minimum of five years together. This will ensure a high divorce rate quota, and may even increase current divorce trends. With those extra moneys accrued and filtered into..err..ummm.... I will get that damn Osama, I will prevail. I have to have this all in place while I'm still in office before one of those Bleeding-Heart-Family-Unit-is-the-Foundation Candidates take Office. Especially if it is that Clinton woman that gets office, for she will recognize Agent 181. She hired him years ago when Bill was in Office."

"She did?"

"Yes, Hillary hired him as Official White House Headhunter. He was responsible for hiring all White House staff, from maids, cooks, to even Interns. What she didn't know is that Agent 181 was still on my Dad's payroll at the time."

"Well, if your going to start a little political sabotage, you might as well get to the head of the matter," I said and we both laughed. I thanked the President and told him that I would rescue his mission directive and save Agent 181, aka Dr. Neal Warren from discovery.

Agent 181, responsible for the Big Lewinsky Caper, The eHarmony Scam, and now my One Legged Meme theif. I know how to get to you now 181, and I will clear my name.




Monday, December 10, 2007

If the shoe fits?

On the run. Hunted, relentlessly. Framed by a One Legged Man that stole his Memes. Will he avoid capture? Will he find the thief that framed him? Or is a life in the dungeon facing daily torture and *ahem* haute quisine all that the Fates have to offer him. Follow along as Foxxfyrre: The Fugitive of Blogginham finds odd blogjobs to stay alive and his efforts to clear his name to eventually return to his happy but humble life as Foxxfyrre the Serf.

Episode Three: If the Shoe Fits?

They say that the feeling of time passing differs with what you are doing. For a fifteen year old waiting for his sixteenth birthday to finally get his learners license, time will tick by agonizingly slow. For that same kid on his first date that he is *allowed* to use the car, time simply disappears, well, till he gets her...and himself home. Sitting in Profiles 'R Us, reading Bachelor bio after Bachelor bio, when I know that eventually the powers of Bloggingham may catch up to me before I can catch up with my elusive Hop Along Meme Thief, time moves rather oddly. There's never enough time, but it seems to tick by ever so slowly. It's like sitting in a dentists chair with a full bladder, while the doting dentist peers over x-ray after x-ray, humming and hawing to himself while he sharpens his drill bits--smiling that evil smile that all dentists wear. Masochists these dentists, they just have to be, but that's a different story. It's just part of being a fugitive, I guess.

Working for Profiles 'R Us, isn' t all that bad. I've made a few friends, and Ms. Lenox is a firm but very fair employer. The Bachelors though, that's something else altogether. After just a few weeks plodding through the dating pool, I'm more apt to rename it to the Primordial Dating Ooze, for that's what these Bachelors are barely evolving out of. You don't need a hook to catch these fish, you need some amino acids, water, a few bolts of lightening, and a good sense of timing. With a little luck, you might end up with a Bachelor with all ten fingers and toes, literate, sense of humor, and maybe, if you get really lucky and he's lost his gills or tail--hopefully both. I can really understand now why Ms. Lenox started Profile 'R Us, for I would not want to be a single woman throwing a net into SerfsUp.regina hoping to find a good catch. Not without the help Profiles 'R Us can provide.

I was just about to call it a night and head over to the Honk'n'Holl'r when a QUIP (QUeen Mimi's Immediate Postit notes, it's like IM, but with Royal Stationary) popped up on my terminal. It said simply "Foxx: She's onto you, Be careful. M.P.S." and included this picture.
I damn near swallowed my own heart. How did this Pencil Skirt reporter find me here? What were her motives? Was she really trying to help me, or is she leading me down a path to get caught so she can get her scoop into the Bloggingham Herald? And what's with the picture? Running shoes on stilts? Puts a new perspective on Air Jordans. And who does this picture refer too? I had to find out, but there was something familiar about them, but I wasn't sure what. Donning my Cloak and Hacker, I started hunting and digging for the identity behind the shoes. And it wasn't easy. There was layer after layer of false domains that this picture originated from. After eliminating six different layers, a real hit came up. The picture was sent into the Department of Memes at Bloggingham Royal Library in its archives. That was as far as I could dig from here. The Royal Library is on a protected server and you cannot hack into it from any outside domain. I had to know the identity behind the shoes. While going to Bloggingham University, Blog U, I did do some volunteer work in the University's library, so I decided that the next morning I would head over to the Bloggingham Royal Library and poke around. But I'd better brush up on my Dewy Decimal first.

With the money I've made between working at Coffee2Go, and now at Profiles 'R Us, I have been able to secure room and board at the Hotel Bloggimmore. Granted it's not the greatest place on earth and is in dire need of repairs. Even the outside neon sign needs real attention for it flashes HOT L BLO IMMORE. It's so seedy a hotel that Boston Tourism has banned it from its approved accommodation lists, but it's cheap. And if you slip the desk clerk an occasional 20 Mim spot, they will agree to never knowing or having heard of you.

I arose early the next morning. I knew I'd have to make a clean break from Profiles 'R Us, and get myself ready to head over to the Library to start digging. Again, a new identity was in order, and I'd really have to carry it off. So Miss Velvet Head was born. A thirty-something post grad working on her doctorate in psychology. Getting a back story for a new identity is the easy part. Getting myself to look the part of a mid thirty buxom, yet intelligent blond is going to take some work. For a few more Mims passed to the desk clerk, they can be surprisingly efficient in finding anything for their guests with no questions asked. It is one of the better services they provide once you learn how to put the services to work. I 'commissioned' some help for my disguise from the clerk, and a while later a local girl, named Daisy, came to my room. I told Daisy what I wanted for my disguise. She didn't bat an eye but said, "It's not like there is no demand for it out there." I wasn't sure what she meant, but she left and returned with a case filled with wigs, makeup etc. .

Daisy was quite proficient in makeovers. I was quite pleased with the results, I was sure I could pass as Miss Velvet Head now. I thanked Daisy for her help and asked her what she needed for payment. She said, "75 Mims for the supplies, and 150 Mims for my services--whether you're going to use them or not." I wasn't sure what she meant, or why she kept calling me John, but I paid her 250 Mims saying the rest is a tip for her good service. She thanked me and smiled though she did look a little puzzled when she left my room.

I arrived at Bloggingham Royal Library at 9:20 a.m., and was greeted by a Miss Mimi L. who was the head librarian and designer and curator of the Blogginham Meme Archives. She told me that the Meme Archives is a new addition to the Library. "Memes have become an important form of information exchange, entertainment, and a new form of documenting history as seen by the participants, not written by official record keepers of the time," Mimi said excitedly and added, "It's the for the latter that I saw the importance of starting a Meme archive. It could become an important part of history that may have gone overlooked."

I agreed and said, "That's why I am here. I am hoping to continue research for my doctoral thesis, but I'm running out of funding to continue. I was hoping to secure a position at the library in order to continue with my research."

"Trying to kill two birds with one stone, are you?"

"Well sort of, but I promise to work hard and not let my research interfere with my duties that you set out for me."

Miss Mimi paused and thought for a few moments, and finally said "OK, but if I catch you shirking your duties because of your research, I will terminate your employment. I could use some extra help around here too. What's your thesis about?"

I explained that my research is for my Doctorate in Psychology, and it is about why some people are attracted to writing memes, and why there seems to be a huge gender difference in writers of memes. I told her I call my thesis "To Meme Is Me, Why Doesn't He?".

She laughed at the title of my thesis and said that I may have a bigger nut to crack than I might be ready for. I let her know that I was quite prepared, and that I couldn't be in a better place to continue with my research. She then led me to the Meme Archives and said that memes are very difficult to track and keep ahead of their growing numbers due to their viral nature. She led me to the main desk of the archive and pointed to the sections of the archives. "This is Meme Central", Mimi said. "Meme Central has five major wings, each for a different category of memes. To your left is Book Meme Central, and right of that is Movie Meme Central. There's wing for Personal Memes of all types. There's a wing for specialized memes that won't fit in any category."

"That's only four wings, you said there were five major wings?" I asked.

"I was getting to that, the last wing is for the ever popular Halloween Meme. But I warn you, be careful down there. This is a very old building that is supposed to be haunted, if you believe in such nonsense, so I thought it would be an appropriate place for the Halloween Meme Central."

"Haunted?"

"Yes, this building is very old and used to be the main house of a plantation. The last owner of the plantation was a young woman named Scarlet, Scarlet O'Harry, or something like that. She supposedly died of a broken heart after being spurned by her butler. I think his name was Red, yes Red the Butler. I never take much stock into these stories of hauntings, but there has been many weird things happen down that corridor. If you are really interested, there is a book written on the entire happenings. It was written by Margaret, hmm, I can't remember her last name, but the book is entitled "Blowing in the Wind," I'm pretty sure of it. If you log on to MimiVista and query 'blow, wind', you might pass it. Mitchell, that's her last name, I knew I knew it."

On that note, Miss Mimi handed me a clipboard and gave me instruction for the days duties. I was to work at the main terminal of Meme Central and track any new memes and find additions to running memes. I was to make hard copies of all new memes, and meme entries to be filed in their appropriate wings. I felt as if I had struck gold, for I couldn't have been luckier getting this position. I had access to the Royal Library's mainframe, so I could hunt down the identity of the person that the reporter warned me about. And with any luck, I might be able to find out more about my Meme theif. I couldn't wait to start hacking, but I still had to make sure I got some work done efficiently. I wasn't going to risk losing this opportunity. I started to work on Miss Mimi's list. It was extensive. I was beginning to see why she said she needed help with this. The first meme had an origin date of only two weeks ago, but it had already propagated into 3000 different instances of the meme, all to be cataloged and archived. "Idle hands are the Devil's work," I thought to myself and got started on all of my tasks.

Seeing that I had most of the legwork done at Profiles 'R Us, I decided to start with the picture that led me here in the first place. It was simply a matter of peeling away the layers of false domain names until the original is found. It took a while, but I reached what I thought was the origin of the picture, and possibly the identity of its owner. I hacked into that domain and followed the lead with an avatar search to hopefully find the person who fit the shoes. I found a match and immediately followed that as well. The identity behind the avatar was that of a person whose handle was simply Polli. Using a password hacking algorithm, I logged on to that host domain as Polli to see what more information I could dig up. I was able to finally log on, but the mainframe at the Library was equipped with sophisticated virus protections that could strip away false avatar overlays in order to protect the validity of the memes that are collected here. This program attacked the high heeled runner avatar and stripped away false user information. A new and correct avatar appeared, and so did the real user information.


These shoes I recognized, and a cold chill went through my spine. I had seen these many times before while I was wailing in pain at every crack of her whip. They did belong to a Polli alright, Polli the Flogger of Bloggingham Dungeon. Why would she be after me? She has a whole dungeon full of memecontents to flog. Did my reward go up? I hadn't heard that it did. It couldn't be that she missed my cooking, hmmm, maybe. I've heard the guards at the dungeon complain that the Queen's Courses are as close to a racking as you can get without actually lying on the thing. What to do now? I had to think. I finally decided that my new identity as a Meme Cataloger might come in handy. I decided to log into QUIP with my new identity and load an avatar virus program to chat with this Polli the Flogger. I was lucky she was online and not busy flogging at the moment and this was our conversation:



The popup killer, as it's called, immidiately came up with Polli's real avatar and identity.


Our QUIP session terminated unexpectedly. Why, I wasn't sure. And I was so close to getting even more information. I tried to find out why our session terminated using every method I knew, but everything showed as if our conversation never happened. All histories and logs were blank as if erased by a real professional hacker. I couldn't find any reason for the fatal error. What to do now? I know I'm getting close.


Sunday, December 02, 2007

Backwards Bergerac

This is themed and continuing post of Foxxfyrre: The Fugitive of Bloggingham. See how it all began!
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Episode Two: Backwards Bergerac

The head hunters haven't caught up to me yet, but there has been some close calls. Sir Lancecannot seems to be everywhere, at every turn, but so far Karma, Murphy, the Fates---whoever, seems to be on my side. After leaving my stint as Ruby the waitress, it's been back alley to boondocks and back, and still no sign of the One Legged Man that stole my memes. I have heard dribs and drabs of his whereabouts, but these leads only turned up more dead ends. He couldn't have just fallen off the end of Bloggingham. It's much too large a 'Queendom' for that. I did find out that he was single, and that little tidbit of information gave me an idea. I started to search through the classified personal adds of the Bloggingham Herald, and I found a help wanted advertisement. I followed up on the ad, and apparently this company hires people to write responses to single men's personal ads that they place. I was surprised to find out that these responses are in the form of put-downs. Their reasoning is that they want to weed out men that are not serious about wanting to be in a relationship. It's a way of testing their sincerity, for if they can handle a few put-downs from a woman and still show sincerity in their correspondences, they may be worthy of actually meeting one of the real clients. Each staff member is given a real personality bio from a woman that is also looking for a relationship. We are to study this bio so that we can write the put-down correspondence to men's advertisements as if we were that woman. His responses to these put-downs are then placed before a panel to be rated, if he performs well, the woman is contacted and she may decide to continue with corresponding with that man.
The job is like being Cyrano de Bergerac in reverse.

My thinking was, if the One Legged Man was using relationship services, I might be able to fish him out by writing targeted put-downs that might give me an idea as to his whereabouts.
I took the job. I was interviewed by the proprietor, a Ms. Lenox, who seemed quite warm, but adamant about the nature of the service her business provides. Ms. Lenox handed me bios of ten woman that I was supposed to learn about and write their put-downs for. I was curious of why a man would be selected to write for women, but I was told that the Bachelors would never meet the authors of these put-downs, it is the quality of these put-downs that's important. The Bachelor would only get to meet the woman you're writing for if he passes the ratings, and if that woman finds him interesting.

There was no wasting time with Ms. Lenox. After accepting the position I was led to a computer cubicle on a very large floor filled with identical cubicles. There must have been two-hundred cubicles on the floor. Ms. Lenox told me that I had until Friday to make at least three different correspondences from ten Bachelors to match the ten women's bios that I need to study. On Monday, the correspondences are placed before the board and the men are either passed or rejected. On Wednesday the women are contacted for their approval for continuing with the correspondence to eventually meeting the Bachelors.

I studied all the women's bios, but I wasn't going to waste time by really getting into their heads so-to-speak. I just wanted enough information so I could start writing these put-downs in order to get to the Bachelors as quick as possible. By lunch time on Monday, I felt I knew the women's bios well enough to start searching for 'One Legged Bachelors'. I still had some tip money left from waitressing, so for lunch I thought I'd head to 'Dairy Queen Mimi's Brazier Burgers of Bloggingham' and have a Deluxe Double Mimi burger with Queenie Curly Fries and a Chocolate Royale Truffle Shake--moat sized of course. I placed the order and the cashier asked, "That will be 11 Mims 35 P., please?" So I pulled out a Twenty-Mim bill and she got my change and started to fill my order. I heard a couple of people behind me talking about some of the Bachelor bios they were reading today. I knew they had to work for Profiles 'R Us, so I turned and introduced myself as Mr. Shaw'tz, Durstan Shaw'tz. They introduced themselves as Mr. Bond, Ms. Turnbaby, Mr. Spinnerz, and Mr. Lance (who looked eerily familiar by the way). They invited me to join them for lunch. I accepted and listened very carefully to their Bachelor bio stories, for maybe one of them might mention a Bachelor with one leg. They also gave me some valuable pointers in order to write the put-down lines better and get quicker responses back from the Bachelors. Turnbaby said to go snarky right off the bat because the good Bachelors might see the humor in it and open up. The rest agreed with that point and added their own experiences and suggestions. After lunch we all headed back to Profiles 'R Us. I leaped right into finding One Legged Bachelors, for I was armed with a lunch full of good suggestions.

In my cubicle, there was a list of at least fifty different online services that feature available men, such as hmtp://QMW.Serf'sUp.regina, hmtp://QMW.Grooms4Grooming.regina, hmtp://QMW.ShineMyArmor.regina, and hmtp://QMW.Plenty_O_Knights_in_the_Moat.regina.
For those of you who may not be familiar with the Internet in Bloggingham, hmtp stands for Her Majesty's Transfer Protocol, and QMW is like WWW but stands for Queen Mimi's Web. There is no dot com or dot org either. The ending of an address will either be dot regina or dot rex depending on the gender of the ruling monarch at the time. Since it was Queen Mimi that founded the Internet in Bloggingham, QMW will never be allowed to change by Royal decree. I decided to go with Serf'sUp.regina and Mimied (there is no google or yahoo either) to search for One Legged Bachelors, but it turned up no hits. So I tried the others, and that turned up nothing either. Then it donned on me that if I was a Bachelor, I wouldn't emphasize a feature like that in a bio on a relationship site, but I would use some other more subtle expression so that I wouldn't be accused of hiding anything that important. I Mimied, "Will get on one Knee for you", and "I'm always a foot ahead of the crowd", and "I'm no shoe in" and these expressions turned out over three hundred responses on Serf'sUp.regina alone.

The clue hunt began. I read bio after bio to try to find a single lead that would identify my One Legged Meme Thief. Other than his brief appearance on MemeTV for the Bloggingham Meme awards, I had no real idea of what the One Legged Man actually looked like. I did have a picture that he uses on his "stolen" memes, but that only shows him from the back.
So I payed very close attention to any details in Bachelors bios that might give his identity away. Really close attention to every word they wrote on their bios. Too close attention. After eliminating just three Bachelors, the headache started. Who are these people? What kind of nerve they do have. The first line on the first Bachelor I eliminated was, "Goof Ball Wants a Goof Girl." And I thought "Goof Balls" went out of style in the seventies when Glitter Rock gave way to Punk Music. The second Bachelor I eliminated was no prize either. He simply asked any women to, "Jump In The Ocean With Me!" and he used a cartoon guppy with sunglasses and a cape as his bio picture. A Charlie Tuna Wannabe? To each his own I guess. Maybe he'll attract a nice twenty-something Goth girl--just don't get too caught up in her Fishnet stockings and safety pin piercings there Mr. Codpiece. Two hours of reading such prizewinning literature as these bios, I was ready for a stiff drink. Does anyone have any Miminol? AcetoMimiphen? White Mimphandel even? Help! It hurts! But I knew I had to plug on if I was ever going to clear my name--no matter how much it hurt.

I was in the middle of eliminating my fourth Bachelor bio when I did notice something a little peculiar. Every writer for Profiles 'R Us is filtered through a database prior to collecting Bachelor bios. This way it eliminates three or four of us 'Front Liners', as we're called, from working on the same Bachelor. If a Front Liner is already working on a Bachelor, their correspondences to the Bachelor flashes with an alert telling other Front Liners that this Bachelor is being profiled by another Front Liner. so move on to another Bachelor. What I noticed is that Mr. Lance was sending correspondences to three of the four Bachelor bios I had worked on, but his correspondences were not flashing. This got me really curious, so I used telnet to log in under a subnet mask to try to hack the origins of Mr. Lance's comments to Bachelors. If he was working through the system as the rest of us Front Liners, his comments should send back the Profiles 'R Us domain. But they didn't. His comments returned from Bloggingham Yard. I knew it. I knew I recognized Mr. Lance. It was really Sir Lancecannot working undercover. But why? So much for his detective and undercover skills. He's no Sam Spade if I can sniff him out in just a few hours.
Why would Sir Lancecannot be working undercover at Profiles 'R Us? I knew he didn't recognize me at lunch, and I'm sure he couldn't be here looking for me because everyone knew from my wanted posters that I am a married man. What could he be after?

Before I knew it, even with a massive headache, the 5:15 Royal Bell rang and it was time to go home, well, for most people anyway. Queen Mimi is a real stickler for strict office hours in Bloggingham. Queen Mimi runs Parliament from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily, but the Royal Bell goes off at 5:15 for the commoners to finish work. This gives the Royal Chariot a fifteen minute head start back to the Palace before rush hour really starts. You could hear the hum and click of two hundred computer terminals logging off and shutting down simultaneously throughout the floor. As I gathered up my stuff and shut down my terminal, I noticed Mr. Bond, Ms. Turnbaby, and Mr. Lance walking toward my cubicle. Ms. Turnbaby said, "We're all going down to the Honk'n'Holl'r for a quick one, wanna join us?"

Pausing for a second to really look at Mr. Lance for any clue that he has recognized me, and I concluded that he hadn't so I said, "Sure, I'll join you. The Honk'n'Holl'r? I don't think I'm familiar with that place."

"It's a great little pub just down the street from here," said Mr. Bond.

"It's fun," said Ms. Turnbaby. "It's run by this quirky gray haired guy that's just a laugh riot. He's got a comeback for anything and anybody. Where do you think we get most of the snarky stuff we write for these Bachelors from? You don't think we actually study the Bachelor's bios, do you? We just buy Frank a Grande Marnier and let him loose on his own clientelle."

"It's a deal," I said. "I could use a little help writing these things. It's not quite as easy as I thought it would be."

The four of us took available seats right at the bar. The pub was quite busy, "Must be Cocktail Hour," I thought. And Turnbaby was right, it wasn't that bad a place, even with a name like the Honk'n'Holl'r. I thought it would be a combination Redneck Bar and Blue Collar gin joint, but it didn't seem that way at all. Turnbaby saw Frank come in from one of the back areas and waved him over. He headed right behind the bar waving the bartender off with an 'It's okay, I've got them motion.' "Tunbaby, Lance, Bond how are you guys? The usual? And you, what's your name and name your poison? No one is a stranger in the Honk'n'Holl'r."

Caught a little off guard by Frank's directness, I stammered, "F-F-Fox... Durstan, Durstan Shaw'tz. I'll have a Snifter of Grande Marnier and a glass of ice water please."

"Oh, I'm so sorry Durstan," Frank said. He paused for a moment and then added, "Grande Marnier is the Honk'n'Holl'r's private stock, so, uhmm, let's see what, hmmm, I guess...It'll have to be a double on the Ole H'n'H then." He looked at Turnbaby and motioned his hands at me and said, "A man after my own heart. Or did you put him up to this Bond?" Then a let out a big, but moustache buried smile.

"It was Durstan's first day at Profiles, so we thought he might need a drink," said Bond.

"I know on my first day, I could have used several drinks," added Lance.

"There was some real winners today," said Turnbaby. "One guy had the nerve to write, 'I'm Not a Gynecologolist But I'll Look.' Can you believe the guy?"

"He must be a thief," said Frank.

"Thief?" inquired Turnbaby. "I don't get it?"

"Sticky fingers," said Frank.

We all laughed, but at the same time we were a little shocked at Frank's Frankness, for he said it so matter-of-factly that you would believe he believed it. But you could see, if you looked closely, that there was a hint of a twinkle over Frank's left eye, so you could tell he was trying to stifle his own laughter. We sat and drank for a couple of hours. Frank seemed to work the room dropping one liners to almost everyone in the pub. Just before Turnbaby, and Bond were ready to call it a night, I noticed that Mr. Lance was showing signs of intoxication. I decided to buy a round for the road. Turnbaby and Bond said their thanks but refused.

Lance and I stayed and had another round, but before he could decide that he wanted to leave as well, I quietly ordered another double round. I needed to find out what he was up to at Profiles without giving myself away, so if I got him just drunk enough, he might spill the beans without really knowing what I was after. It worked, and it didn't take much coaxing. Mr. Lance was careful enough not to give himself away as Sir Lancecannot FRA Agent, but he did use terms like 'off the record' and 'hypothetically speaking'. After a final round of drinks, Mr. Lance told me that he had a hypothetical friend that has been wronged by a man with a physical handicap. He said he believed his friend's story and was hacking into Bachelor Bios to find this man. He wanted to let the man know that his friend was deeply hurt by his actions. I tried to push deeper, but he wouldn't budge further. Was it the One Legged Man he was looking for? Was this 'hypothetical' friend, really Foxxfyrre-- et moi, who is now on the lam running for his freedom in Bloggingham. Did he believe I was innocent? At least there is a glint of hope now, that is, if I am right about Sir Lancecannot's intentions. It seemed to me to be just a little too right to be just a strange coincidence that there could be something else he could be looking for. If I was careful not to blow my identity, Sir Lancecannot could help in my quest. To think, not even a year ago, I would never have foreseen myself, and an NRA Agent, ghostwriting as women on the same Bachelor Bios.

How's that for Three's Company?

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