Wednesday, June 25, 2008

LT100: Octagon Global Recruiting

CELEBRATE

This is posting 100! WOW!

THE EMAIL

During the Season 4 finale we saw a commercial offering new job opportunities for the Dharma Initiative. That had us all rushing to the website for Octagon Global Recruiting. All that was offered was to leave an email and they would be contact me later.

Then one day, I get the email. It looks like a Job Fair will be held in San Diego during the same dates as Comic Con. This is the event that LOST producers typically use to tease us with some LOST goodies. Last year they showed the unedited version of the Orchid Orientation tape.

If you can’t make the show, the web site says the rest of us will be contacted later and then we may get to take those exciting tests to see if we qualify as a research assistant.


WHO IS OCTAGON GLOBAL RECRUITING?

My guess is that this is a new company was established by the Dharma Initiative which strongly implies the Hanso Foundation is getting up to speed to a DI2, if you will. Taking things at face value, this is just a recruiting agency and nothing more.

Except their company logo happens to be patterned off the Dharma logos. So, again, this is likely a temporary company established to handle the hiring? Or just how many subsidiaries does Hanso Foundation “own”?


CARBON COPY

Not in the sense of twins…let’s not go down that path again. But in carbon copy an email to someone else. I noticed my email had an address in it that read:

hansvaneeghen@octagonglobalrecruiting.com

I tried. It gives an out of office reply for Hans Van Eeghen. Says he will be getting back to me shortly.


TIME TO GOOGLE

Using variations of the name, I hit upon this site:
http://www.henokiens.com/index_eeghen_gb.php

Now one has to take care that we aren’t hitting a fan friendly site, and not the real deal. You will find things on the “international family”, time travel, Jacob, and tons of other things to keep you busy for days.

I’ll post back when more time is available to review the site. For now, I’m focused on the fact that this company’s leadership had a son in days past named Jacob. Gosh, was he a slave on that Black Rock? Sort of like the ghost who won’t move on?


Enjoy,
KC

Sunday, June 22, 2008

LT99: Switching Job is Always Difficult

YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE MISSING

It has come to my attention that some TIVO viewers missed out on the Octagon Global Recruiting commercial during the season finale. In cased you missed it, check out the web site which plays the commercial here:
http://www.octagonglobalrecruiting.com/


IT DOESN’T HURT TO LOOK

What if we were offered a Dharma Initiative job for real? Would you consider it? Maybe it is just that side of me that hopes something like this is possible, but I signed up as an interested candidate. I got this email:

Octagon Global Recruiting, on behalf of the Dharma Initiative, would like to thank you for registering your expression of interest in our latest volunteer recruitment drive.

We will be launching in San Diego on July 24th at Comic-Con International offering select registrants the opportunity to take an exciting aptitude test that will give applicants the chance to demonstrate their unique talents.

The Dharma Initiative hopes you will be able to join us to find out more about their ground-breaking new research project. We will contact you closer to the date with more information.

For those not able to join us in San Diego, Dharma's full recruitment program will be made available online to registered recruits after July 27th.

In the meantime, the Dharma Initiative urges you to spread the word. Invite your colleagues to join the team at
http://www.octagonglobalrecruiting.com/ and take part in this once in a lifetime opportunity.

THIS IS AN OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION OF THE DHARMA INITIATIVE:This message and its attachments are confidential and may contain information which is protected by copyright. It is intended solely for the named addressee. If you are not the authorised recipient (or responsible for delivery of the message to the authorised recipient), you must not use, disclose, print, copy or deliver this message or its attachments to anyone. If you receive this email in error, please contact the sender immediately and permanently delete this message and its attachments from your system. Any content of this message and its attachments that does not relate to the official business of the Dharma Initiative or its subsidiaries must be taken not to have been sent or endorsed by any of them. No representation is made that this email or its attachments are without defect or that the contents express views other than those of the sender.


HIDDEN MESSAGES

In that email header we find the phrase, “March has 32 days”. What?!?!

A quick Google of this phrase returns a link to a comic called “Mystery Tales”. In edition #40, there is a short story called “March Has 32 Days”.



The four-page comic story goes like this: A group of scientists are gathered to discuss what they have observed: that March had 32 days. Then the story shifts to a man who builds bridges. It is the day before the grand opening, so he plans to check the bridge for structural integrity. Before he can perform the inspection, his wife calls him and asks him to meet her at the airport before she catches a flight. He chooses to go to the airport and the bridge collapses. He is torn up with grief, but the next morning his calendar reads March 31..again! This time he passes on the airport visit and instead inspects the bridge, finds a flaw and saves any future harm.

Interesting observations are:
- The time to meet the wife at the airport is 11:15
- On some schedule board at the airport the numbers 42 and 8 can be seen

THEORY: LOST IS A COMIC BOOK

Also found in Edition 40 of the comic “Mystery Tales”…

Another story called “Hidden Land” which reads, “Within Fred, as within all men, there exists a small spot, a hidden land of dreams, of power and prestige, an unattainable land…except on rare occasions!”

**

There is another story called “The Travellers”. It is about an ancient civilization that made a ring that would allow time travel. Now the Ancients want the ring back.

**

Could LOST really be based on this comic book…I only wish the Edition was 42, but hey…

In case you think some of us fanatics tend to over-analyze, do consider we have seen this comic book on the show:

That’s right. It was among the items for young John Locke to decide which he already owned. Now the hidden message in Octagon Recruiting email…yeah, this was meant for us!


NUMBERS PUZZLE

In the last LOST TIDBITS, we discussed the new number of 305. Yet, don’t forget that Michael and Walt were given a heading of 325 to leave the island.

Now we learned 305 is the number of days that Ben travelled forward in time, so maybe Michael and Walt jumped 325 days into the future. OR…twenty days after Ben lands in Tunisia, something major happens?


NUMBERS AND COLORS

We have clearly noticed the suggestion of the importance of the numbers. And many have observed a color pattern – if nothing else, the black and white theme, but there have been other suggestions like the color of one’s shirt or the thread used to sew someone up.

Now consider Synesthesia…the ability to see numbers as colors. It sees that some people who can do difficult tasks with ease – like play the piano by ear – tend to see the music as colors. Math students have similar number to color connections. Personally, color has never seemed to help me remember anything other than a yellow light makes my foot step on the gas pedal harder!

What I mean is that if I saw music as color, numbers or shapes, it doesn’t seem that it would help me more than just learning to read the notes on a scale. But in the never ending search to solve the riddle of LOST, this deserved mentioning.

FYI – some are suggestion that the six LOST numbers match up to the Oceanic 6. This reminds me that once the producers told us that the number 23 was the most important number. Or did they mean character 23? Or day 23 on the island? Arrgh! My head is beginning to hurt again which means that’s enough for this post. See you next Wednesday.

Enjoy,
KC