The mystery deepens. I hate to post another Youtube link, but there is this phenomena that is going on on it right now, about Lonelygirl15 (I would link to a Wikipedia article, but there is no Wikipedia page about this because of some total idiots who think that the phenomena is not 'notable' enough). Brian Flemming, a noted film maker, has a very interesting analysis of what seems to be going on in this post on his blog. To quote Mr. Flemming:

Here's the story:

There's this 16-year-old girl named Bree. She's supercute. She's also supersmart -- for fun, she reads books like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel. She's also sheltered -- she's been homeschooled most of her life, which means she's fairly innocent and doesn't meet a lot of guys.

In other words, she's exactly the kind of girl that the young male YouTube demographic would fantasize about.

Enter Daniel. Daniel is Bree's friend. He's not really good-looking. He's kind of awkward. He's a computer geek. And Bree likes him. Holy crap. That's exactly the kind of thing that the young male YouTube demographic would fantasize about.

But, as in Moonlighting and other successful TV shows, while there is chemistry between the two main characters, there is no actual romance yet. They're "friends." Gotta have somewhere to go.

That's the basic setup, and it wasn't obvious at the start that it was fake. After all, a girl at a webcam is a girl at a webcam. How would you know if she was faking it? Had Bree just stayed put and talked, she probably could have told us anything without us knowing whether it was real or not.

So, yeah, interesting. Seems to be fake. Probably. If you watch the latest 'episode', they've gone swimming, and she's asking who 'Cassie' was. Very mysterious. I'm enjoying it immensely. And I haven't even gotten into the whole Aleister Crowley connection thing. Wierd. Very very wierd. If it's viral marketing, it's really sneaky and neat. If it's some independent young film makers, then they're doing a good job of creating buzz.

Also, speaking of Youtube, here's a really neat mashup of the Star Trek theme and the Simpsons theme. Check it out.

I'm reading Looking For Alaska by John Green. It's a 'teen' book about a geeky kid who goes away to a co-ed boarding school in Alabama. And it is one of the funniest things I've read all year. Read it if you get a chance. Here's Bookslut's review. [Edit: Two things. First, the first half of Looking For Alaska is funny. The second half is brutal, heartwrenching and transcedent. Just sayin'. Second, as a bit of synchronicity, John Green has a website, with attached blog, at Sparksflyup, and he has also become interested in the whole Lonelygirl15 phenom, and has some interesting insights into it here. That is all.]

And yes, Virginia, Guinness is a beer:

Guinness is a dry stout that originated in Arthur Guinness's St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin, Ireland. The beer is based upon the porter style that originated in London in the early 1700s. It is one of the most successful beer brands in the world, being exported world wide