Other a cereal murder that shoots people with cheerios - task 5 (trial 4, Night 8)

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Bass

Brother in arms
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The first opening phase is over! A plethora of boxes have been opened. The only boxes that are left unclaimed right now are: 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, and 18.

The current standings, in terms of treasure count, are as follows:

4 billymills
3 zorbees
3 porygon3
3 EARTHWORM
2 forks
2 Pidge
1 StevenSnype
0 Fishin
0 Ditto

Results PMs have been sent. Bidding Phase 2 starts now, and will end at 6 PM CST Thursday, approximately 48 hours from this post.
 

Bass

Brother in arms
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top CAP Contributor Alumnus
Bidding Phase 2 for task 4 is over. All keys were sold except C, E, and S. Check your results PMs to make sure that everything looks ok, and contact me ASAP if you believe there are errors.

We are now at Opening Phase 2. This will end in approximately 48 hours, at 8PM CST Sunday, or if I get all of the PMs sooner.

Finally, it is time to post the essays written by the individuals eliminated during the last task, as part of their punishment. Enjoy!

The question of what Passover means to me is very complex. It contains many social and psychological intricacies, and actually interests me, which makes it a perfect question to answer in a five hundred word essay (if you can call this an essay. Sorry Bass, I’m not holding it to the same standards as my English class in either form or content, but I promise to write something meaningful which I believe is the spirit of the punishment).

My religious situation is abnormal to say the least. I come from a very Jewish, but also very lenient family, but I don’t believe in any sort of God, nor do adhere to any traditions. Moreover, I am living in the Bible belt, surrounded by many conservative Christians, and very far from all but my nuclear family. Despite not following the Jewish traditions at all, I still find them unique and beautiful, and being Jewish (though true Jews wouldn’t consider me so) has become a source of personal pride. Through it, I can link myself to a 5000+ year old faith, other famous Jews (I feel a particular affinity for the scientists who at least started life Jewish, such as Einstein and Feynman), and bigger than that, the idea as being Jewish. There is a certain pride that comes from being part of one of the oldest and most resilient, not to mention historically smart, group of people in history. While this pride doesn’t extend to the point of giving up two hours and another hour in the car to pray for something I don’t believe, I definitely care and like being Jewish in my own lazy and doubting way.

As I mentioned before, I am separated from the bulk of my family. When my family immigrated originally, they settled in Jersey City. Over the next four or five generations, they didn’t move very much. All the branches of the family live within a reasonable distance in the Jersey and Pennsylvania area. Except for one youngest son, who went to become a grad student temporarily in North Carolina, and ended up staying because his wife loved the area so much. I get to see my full family only after a grueling ten hour drive, and only several times a year. As one can imagine, those few times where I do get to see my family are at huge events. Most every time we make the trek up north, we find many relatives there, all gathering for some holiday.

The biggest of these holidays is Passover, conveniently placed near spring break (most of the time), which allows most of our relatives to gather. The interactive Seder also helps to make the gathering memorable and traditional. This is what Passover truly means to me. I get the chance to spend time with my full family, which I do not get very often. I can catch up, talk about future plans, or just chitchat. Passover is also that chance for me to actually act Jewish. For those few days, I feel like a legitimate Jew, which is becoming an increasingly rare phenomenon. I steep myself in the traditions of Passover, the Seder plate, the Hagaddah, the prayers. Those two factors, family and tradition, are what Passover means to me.


Dear All,

DISCLAIMER: I apologise if anyone takes offense from this essay. It's a bit lighthearted :)

Easter day. The most important day in the Christian calender. The day Jesus rose from the dead. The day the whole world found out he was the son of God. And what do we do when it's Easter. We paint oval pieces of polystyrene and eat eggs that some mutant freak of a rabbit hides in our gardens. "Wait a second," you may be thinking, "look at Christmas, what has Santy Claus got to do with Jesus' birth?". A whole lot more than a fucking rabbit does with his death. Santa Claus is based on Saint Nicholas a 4th Century Dutch saint. Now do you see my point? One holiday is based on a Saint who brought presents to children whereas the other is based on a creepy ass deformed rabbit hiding sweets in obscure places to lure children out of their houses. And don’t try and give me any bullshit about “Oh, the eggs are meant to represent the rolling away of the oval stone in front of Jesus’ tomb!” That’s just fucking stupid. If Jesus then got his disciples to paint the stone with some shitty watercolours, dress up as rabbits, and eat pieces of round chocolate, then maybe I could see the point in this holiday. Otherwise, I’m sorry, but you’ve lost me. You know what else pisses me off about Easter? It’s the fact that the period before Easter is meant to be one of *gasp* fasting. Yes, all you good Christians out there are supposed to put down the fucking fork and actually try to eat a bit less for once! But you know what people do? They start eating Easter eggs before it’s actually Easter day. My local corner shop started selling Easter eggs in January for fucks sake. That means that, not only are people stuffing their faces with egg-themed chocolate, cake and sweets, but they also they’re eating a type of food that apparently celebrates Jesus’ resurrection, in the period that’s supposed to represent his forty days and forty nights suffering in the desert whilst being tempted by the devil. What’s worse is that people continue eating chocolate the week preceding Good Friday and on Good Friday itself. Yes, the days preceding Jesus’ death, his period of awful torture and his actually death are all accompanied by people celebrating his resurrection. Hmm. Sounds a bit like celebrating getting men on Mars when the ships heading straight for the Sun. What pisses me off more than all, however, is that parents actually try and get their children to believe in the Easter bunny. So instead of getting their offspring to find out what Easter is actually about and increasing their interest in their religion, they make them believe in some patronising, creepy, unhygienic, mentally deranged, physically deformed, paedophilic, pagan, fucked up little vermin. And that’s why Easter means fuck all to me. Hope you enjoyed my little rant!


Easter is an important holiday for the time of year it is in. Easter is a time that is considered to be joyous and sad at the same time, depending on the intensity of your beliefs as well as your denomination of belief. It is also important due to the large emphasis on death and life in addition to the commercialistic atmosphere that it is given by many retailers eager to make money off of the craze. Easter is a holiday where everyone can celebrate, some get days off, and party with friends for no real coherent reason.
Easter is considered to be a time of year where everyone celebrates the passing of an important figure in history. Easter is centered around the death and supposed resurrection of a man named Jesus Christ, who definitively lived around 30 AD and to many is either considered to be a man with good intentions or the son of God himself. While many people don’t believe such a tale of myth and potential impossibilities, a vast plurality of people around the world recognize this event as real and of the most It important consequence, so much as to impose the holiday upon others that do not share their beliefs. It is important to note this in regard to many of the people on both sides of the cataclysm have different pieces of evidence, though it is hard to prove a negative on either side outside of asking if the question involved is absurd when removed from context. On one side, the people who believe that he did rise from the dead, believe the supposed word of five hundred people who had seen him after he had died and supposedly risen, though he did not appear in public nor did he ever prove that his body was resurrected in any way. Opponents to such beliefs counter in stating that the entire idea of someone resurrecting from the dead is absurd and something out of a science fiction novel, though some concede there may have been possible ways of tricking the minds of people into having them believe they saw Jesus when they did not
. However, the commercial aspect is the most common image of Easter today, with the bunnies and other pagan symbols being intertwined with a tradition, despite an overall ban on such actions being mentioned in multiple places indirectly. These symbols some people attribute to the survivalability of the holiday as a whole, since it could not merely just be a series of services or remembering a person that had been long dead. It needed a pagan touch in order to survive and compete with other religions and traditions as well as to give an excuse to party more than in others, which resulted in someone getting the bright idea to combine these elements. While most people will admit that the Easter bunny and his eggs that came as a result of this have nothing to do with the actual holiday, they will completely ignore the fact that they really shouldn’t be practicing something like that and being so iconoclastic, especially to something that isn’t really tied to the religion.
This partying and paganism also introduced the possibility for means of great joy that would come to people at this time period, either because of the excuse to party or the lord trying to show his goodwill to people on a religious holiday. As a result, many families around the world have some sort of fancy meal for an Easter dinner, which may come from a ham or turkey of some sort or some other fancy or unusual dish. However, others will simply eat a normal meal, not content to indulge themselves even if it may be a day of celebration of a certain fact in Christianity.
However, it would be doing Easter an injustice to many if someone were to not talk about the eggs and candy associated with it. Despite the complete disassociation with Easter and the numerous ties that these symbols have with various Pagan religions, the Easter bunny is now the main symbol of Easter due to his eggs and chocolate bunnies that he brings to children everywhere. These children usually dye eggs before they go to sleep sometime before Easter while the “Easter Bunny” hides the baskets of eggs and assorted chocolates in order for the children to find when they wake up in the morning. When they do eventually find their delicacies of chocolate, they usually consist of several small pieces of candy, eggs that had previously been dyed by them, and a chocolate bunny or some sort of rabbit shaped candy in addition to the sugary goodness of peeps.
In conclusion, this sux.


Easter. The E-ster. The big E. Not to be confused with smogon user MrE


According to the dictionary, Easter is “a Christian feast commemorating the Resurrection of Jesus.” So to clarify, I am Catholic, so I do celebrate Easter and (usually) go to Easter mass (I have a legit excuse for that time I missed it, really). But beyond the original reason why people celebrate on Easter, we now have the Easter bunny and all that. I thug it up with the Easter bunny. He’s my boy. Back when I was a little kid, my parents asked me who my favorite super hero was. I said the Easter bunny was my second favorite superhero because he gave me chocolate and candy. Only Santa was a better superhero in my 4 year old mind. I also think that I misheard the question, but had this story retold to me a while ago and thought it was funny. Apparently I do like things other than candy and chocolate, but that’s not to say that I don’t like candy. There’s a reason why I still celebrate Halloween!


So Easter is basically that day in March/April (other than Saint Patty’s day) where I go and chill with my extended family. It’s pretty great; growing up, we all lived within an hour of each other, so while Easter wasn’t special in that regard, it was always one of the more fun holidays growing up. We used to have Easter egg hunts out in my grandparents’ backyard, have some good food (grandparents are seriously the best cooks), and celebrate any birthdays that were happening that month, if we hadn’t celebrated them already. It was pretty great; our whole family seems to get along…I think. I haven’t noticed any fights or anything of the sort recently. Of course, that’s different now that I’m in college and really far from home. Still, I managed to treat myself to a nice dinner at a restaurant that was sort of like the Cheesecake Factory this year. I would go into the great story of the hour long walk back to campus after realizing that I didn’t have enough to take public transport back to campus, but I don’t think that’s entirely relevant.


There was always something magical about the holiday of Easter. It was always fun to participate and win in Easter egg hunts. It was awesome to know that I was the best egg finder of all time; sorry, other kids. Better luck next year. The magic of being the best: that’s another important aspect of Easter.


And as I’ve mentioned throughout, the food of Easter is awesome. If you can have cookies for breakfast, I damn well can have candy as a separate meal. Opening up those plastic eggs to get candy was the best. Real eggs were cool, too, especially since you got to paint those. However, let’s be honest: I’m going to take Nerds over egg yolk. Not to mention that painted eggs always seem to have the paint color the egg on the inside, which is definitely not very appetizing in my mind. Doctor Seuss’s green eggs can go shove it; it looks unappetizing. But there is more to eating than eggs and candy on Easter…sort of. As I mentioned before, my family would always meet up on Easter and celebrate. While the type of food we had varied, the aspect of family coming together and eating was always pretty cool. But let’s get back to talking about candy and chocolate and all of that good stuff. Wait, how did I forget to mention chocolate? I come from a family of chocoholics, and I must say that I’m guilty as charged. Chocolate is amazing. Those chocolate Easter bunnies were – and still are, mind you – amazing. Thank goodness the superhero Easter bunny saved me…from my hunger.



Oh yeah, there’s the whole religious aspect, too. Saving people from sins is pretty cool. It’s probably a bit cooler than saving me from hunger.


So if I had to sum it up, here’s what I’d have to say about Easter. Easter’s a day where I can get on a massive sugar high, eat good food, hang with family, and even say thanks to Jesus. If I remember. But I usually do. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty sweet day to me.


However, it is very important to recognize that while Easter is a special day, it is not a day that we can take for granted. We must perform our daily duties and respect it like any other day. There are some universal truths to Easter that must be obeyed, despite it being special. We must still live. We must still breathe. We must still eat. Billymills sux.


Thank you.


Man, now that I’m thinking about it, I should have made my essay about my past Easter. It actually is a pretty hilarious story of a boy who only had 81 cents and could not afford public transportation back home, all the while feeling sick to his stomach and simultaneously needing to use the restroom for the majority of around an hour long walk. But I’m already well over 750 words. Sucks for you all.
 

Bass

Brother in arms
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top CAP Contributor Alumnus
Opening Phase 2 is over! Lots of boxes were opened again. No boxes are left unclaimed!

And with that, some players have gained treasure!

5 EARTHWORM
4 Pidge
4 StevenSnype
4 billymills
4 zorbees
3 porygon3
2 forks
1 Ditto
0 Fishin

We have now arrived at Bidding Phase 3. I will make this deadline 72 hours right from the start, since I will be busy and you guys will need the extension anyway. Keep up the good work!

billy's info is still for sale, btw.
 

Bass

Brother in arms
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top CAP Contributor Alumnus
If you use multiple keys on one box, they will break in the order you posted them until the correct one opens it.

I apologize to anyone else that I told that all keys would break in this situation. The treasure list has been updated, as now no boxes are left unclaimed. I will send out updated PMs for keys if this applies to you. Again, I sincerely apologize for this error.
 

Bass

Brother in arms
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top CAP Contributor Alumnus
Uh, yeah... I am guessing with final exams that even this deadline wasn't long enough (as I didn't get any PMs.) I'll extend the deadline by another 48 hours (surprised?). If you intend to idle, just say so.


One more 24 hour extension. That is it. If you still don't submit anything, I will assume you are idling. (10 PM CST if you don't know)
 
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