Journeys of Jack Tripper

Today we launch Blogtracks, a musical accompaniment to your reading pleasure. Hopefully it catches on and more bloggers offer a streaming, relevant soundtrack to their posts. Stream today's by clicking here.

In today's episode of Journeys, we'll cover some major Lonelygirl15 hoax - scam - conspiracy - fakery news, talk with lonely Northwestern alums, and rock out with our collective jocks out to celebrate Football Christmas.

Big news in the Lonelygirl15 world, and hopefully the elaborate ruse all comes crashing down upon someone very soon -- as we here at Journeys have way better things to be doing than talk to attractive law school students over IM and fire emails across continents. Here's what's gone down in the last 24 hours.

Lonelygirl15 (I'm pretty much resigned to not calling her "Bree" anymore) posted a new video -- and it's time for making cookies! Though, conveniently, they make the cookies... in her bedroom. So we don't get to see the rest of the "house," or as I refer to them, "sound stages." The video, to its credit, is on face quite dull, but contains all number of clues to those of us on the investigation trail. "Bree" drops a few Myspace names, and "Daniel" is seen, almost ludicrously so (in the manner that they REALLY WANT TO MAKE SURE WE SEE), reading this week's Rolling Stone. Okay, so the videos really are recorded with a decent amount of recency. Or not? One poster matched a screenshot side-by-side with the actual cover and declared it a Photoshop job. You be the judge.

That's the least interesting discovery made in the last day, though.

Let's start at Tech forum site Anandtech. Anandtech is one of those sites you had bookmarked back in the late 90's owing to the forums constantly buzzing with news of free coupons, free shirts, and free DVDs. The late 90's were a jackpot for freebies, and those of us with the right connections ended up with piles of swag from websites that don't exist anymore. Except for this one called Google, who sent me a T-Shirt back in 1999 which reads, "I Google" (using the trademark as a verb, which they would really like you to stop doing).

ANYWAY, longtime Anandtech poster "edprush" lets this bomb fly:

Later posts explain she's been asked to attend a private school in Oregon or receive private tutoring. Apparently other cousins inform him an appearance on Leno or Letterman is in the works.

No surprise that he also has a YouTube account.

IT. GETS. BETTER.

Intrepid Lonelygirl15.com users tracked down a development at, of all things, the United States Patent & Trademark Office.

Yes, kiddos, Lonelygirl15 is now a trademark. Its owner? *drumroll*

Goodfried, Kenneth INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 17341 Cumpston St Encino CALIFORNIA 91316

Um. Okay? And the text of the application?

IC 038. US 100 101 104. G & S: Broadcasting programs via a global computer network. FIRST USE: 20060524. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20060524

First use in commerce? You mean this is commercial in nature? It's not just some girl and her friend making videos from her bedroom?

I feel so disillusioned.

So now it's time to track down Mr. Goodfried and find out the truth. Is the end in sight? And why is a labor attorney filing trademark applications? Using his home address (a modest-looking place right off the 101)?

Meanwhile, the mysterious informant Mr. T is speaking more Jibba-Jabba in the LG15.com forums:

she graduated from McAuley High School in 2003

That doesn't jive at all with what edprush was saying, but, then, what's McAuley High School? There's McAuley High Schools everywhere -- including Cincinnati. I'd do some Myspace school searching, but Myspace sucks. Seriously, I'm not sure how Myspace is so popular, as it's a standing example of how not to engage in web design. Not only is the site horribly ugly (which could be fixed by, oh, three minutes of CSS adjustment), but IT DOESN'T WORK. Seriously, try doing a search based on networking or high schools, or browsing schools by city -- it just doesn't work. "An unexpected error occurred." No, I've long come to expect them, thank you.

So Myspace sucks.

Mr. T would also like us to know "she spent 2004-apr2006 in miami florida" which ... means nothing. He won't tell us much more, because he "doesn't want to face litigation." Seriously, check it out here. I think the dude's nuts.

For what it's worth, there are people getting paid to do what I'm doing here, and so they're doing a better job of it. The L.A. Times (thanks milo) has latched onto the story, and yesterday published a long expose on the subject. Here's the highlights:

If you freeze the frame at one minute and 36 seconds, you will see (according to some) a shadow sweep over the lower left-hand corner of the video; a shadow which, it is alleged, was likely cast by a boom mike — proving the use of professional equipment on the set.

(In regards to a YouTube message poster:

However, when contacted by ToLD, Johnny replied by saying: "i am sorry i am not at liberty to share any information with you. i apparently signed a Non Disclosure aggreement in feb 06. which legally keeps me from responding. again I apologize." (sic)

The fact that a major international newspaper has something called "The Trail of Lonelygirl15 Daily" on the front page of their Entertainment section is phenomenally surreal. It's the big time, kiddos, and those of us scooping up the dirt on the sidelines are headed for the bench, unless we keep up the due diligence. Now I know what it was like for Pauly when the big-timers showed up just in time for the Main Event and muscled the bloggers out of the way.

Finally, one of the forum kids made this parody. It's smart, but if you're going to make something smart, get somebody not tone-deaf to sing it. Gilbert and Sullivan weep in their graves.

Some of us are just gearing up for the backlash.

--

Yesterday was Football Christmas. To celebrate, I attended my local BW3's to watch the Northwestern-Miami game and whatever else they'd put up ... which wasn't much. Sat next to an excited Northwestern alum who had nice things to say about Athens. He was okay, but the $3.00 22oz Coors Lights were better. So was the Chase Club bartender next to me from Bay City, who wouldn't leave me alone, not that I wanted to be left alone.

The most miserable part of Football Christmas -- and there's always a miserable part -- is the fact that more than half the televisions at BW3 were set to the Buccaneers' preseason game. And the ones that weren't were being roundly ignored. These ignorant 'necks care more about meaningless NFL preseason games than FOOTBALL CHRISTMAS. Oh, and Delmon Young has a higher batting average than he does on-base percentage. God, I love baseball stats. Psyched to see Delmon in person tonight.

Behave, kiddos.

Today's Blogtrack featured 7L & Esoteric - "Play Dumb" and Goldfrapp - "Fly Me Away (Ladytron Remix)".