Lostpedia Blog

Thursday, June 19, 2008

OGR at Comic Con Confirmation

Octagon Global Recruiting have sent out emails to all those who signed up on their website. If you're out the loop, an advert for OGR played during the final ad break when the Season 4 finale aired in the US. The company is apparently connected to the DHARMA Initiative, and talks about recruiting a number of people for unpaid work helping in their research projects.

Anyway, the dates they mentioned about recruiting July 24-27th in San Diego led to many of us rightly guessing that this would be happening at Comic Con. Today's email confirms this, and adds other interesting stuff. Scroll past the text for some analysis Lostpedians have come up with!

From: info@octagonglobalrecruiting.com
CC: Hans Van Eeghen (hansvaneeghen@octagonglobalrecruiting.com)
Subject: Recruitment Information


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 www.octagonglobalrecruiting.com and take part in this once in a lifetime opportunity.

If you can't view the images in this email please click here

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.


Okay, back to black. So yeah, interesting stuff, hope that disclaimer doesn't mean I'm about to get sued by DHARMA for sharing this info with the masses... But anyway, first off, did you notice the carbon copy, to Hans Van Eeghen. A new mysterious character joins this developing ARG, who is he? A worker? The big cheese? And what kind of a name is Hans Van Eeghen... a possible anagram? Let us know your theories!

Furthermore, try emailing Hans using the email CC address. We've had a few reports that you get the response "
Thank you for your email. I am currently on assignment in the field. I will contact you as soon as I am back in the office. Sincerely, Hans" Supports the employee theory.

Finally, check out the linked website version of the email... and then go on the source code. Notice something fishy? There's something there that says "March has 32 days". Thanks to some clever work, its been established that this is a reference to the title of the last story from Mystery Tales No. 40, a comic book which appeared in the episode Cabin Fever (it was one of the items Richard Alpert presented to a young John Locke).

Looks like answers will be given at Comic Con, over a month away. Until then, let's hope for a few more clues!

10 comments:

Frank said...

GOOGLE March has 32 Days, you know what it is?

It's the last story in a little comic called...

MYSTERY TALES 40!!!!

http://www.mysterytales40.com/march-has-32-days-last-story-from-the-mystery-tales-40-comic-book-96555

SWEET!

Michael Schor said...

Hello, I received the email and did a "reply to all" thanking them for the opportunity. I received automatics replies from both:

From: info@octagonglobalrecruiting.com [mailto:info@octagonglobalrecruiting.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2008 8:40 AM
To: corwyndriscol@cox.net
Subject: AutoReply: Recruitment Information

Thank for your interest in Octagon Global Recruiting. We have forwarded your email through to the appropriate department.

#####################################################################################
Note:

Any views or opinions are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Dharma Initiative or its subsidiaries unless specifically stated. This email and any files transmitted are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed.

#####################################################################################
---------------------------------------
and this one from Hans:

From: hansvaneeghen@octagonglobalrecruiting.com [mailto:hansvaneeghen@octagonglobalrecruiting.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2008 8:40 AM
To: corwyndriscol@cox.net
Subject: Out of Office AutoReply: Recruitment Information

Thank you for your email. I am currently on assignment in the field. I will contact you as soon as I am back in the office.

Sincerely,

Hans

#####################################################################################
Note:

Any views or opinions are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Dharma Initiative or its subsidiaries unless specifically stated. This email and any files transmitted are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed.

#####################################################################################

-----------------------------------

Since I will be at Comicon in July I'm hoping I can get into the Lost panel and see what's going on. Last year people were camped out for almost 3 hours and still didn't get in. I won't do that, but maybe I can at least get a peek this year.

Michael

What's under my radar said...

i mailed a reply, and i got this :

Thank you for your email. I am currently on assignment in the field. I will contact you as soon as I am back in the office.

Sincerely,

Hans

#####################################################################################
Note:

Any views or opinions are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Dharma Initiative or its subsidiaries unless specifically stated. This email and any files transmitted are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed.

#####################################################################################

J Bronson said...

After some quick internet digging I noticed that "Henk Van Eeghen" (very similar name) happens to be the editor who worked on a few lost episodes. I copied his IMDB profile:

"Lost" (5 episodes, 2007-2008)
- There's No Place Like Home: Part 2 (2008) TV episode
- Something Nice Back Home (2008) TV episode
- Ji Yeon (2008) TV episode
- Eggtown (2008) TV episode
- Through the Looking Glass (2007) TV episode

I also tried an anagram program to see if any interesting anagrams came up with that name. There isnt anything really cool worth mentioning there. -Jared B :)

Jake of All Trades said...

I wonder if Octagon will be passing out "reprint" copies of MYSTERY TALES 40 at Comicon...

daysleeper said...

The main character in "March has 32 Days" is someone named John Billings. To quote wikipedia: "Dr. John Billings AM (5 March 1918–1 April 2007) was an Australian doctor who pioneered the natural method of family planning known variously as the Billings Ovulation Method, the Ovulation Method, or the Billings Method."

Interesting at the least. You can see more at the wiki site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Billings

Wahidiyya Kosmotikos said...

After reading "March Has 32 Days" at www.mysterytales40.com (how did they manage to secure permission to scan that under U.S. copyright laws?), I am left with these comments:

First, a bit of correction: Mystery Tales was published by TIMELY Comics, not Atlas, as widely reported. Atlas was the distributor of the comic. Martin GOODMAN was the Timely publisher, and a fella named Stanley Lieber (known more widely as "Stan Lee") was by that time, if I recall from reading "The Marvel Vault" by Roy Thomas and Peter Sanderson, the chief writer and/or editor-in-chief.

Second, the artist on "March Has 32 Days" is Steve Ditko, who with Stan Lee created Spider-Man and other characters while at Marvel. He also created The Creeper and The Hawk and The Dove at DC Comics, and was the artist for The Question at Charlton Comics Group, if I recall correctly, sometime prior to or during his Marvel 1960s stint. It appears that Mr. Ditko inked his own pencils in this story. If I recall correctly, Larry Lieber (Stan Lee's brother) was the inker of Ditko's pencils on Spider-Man.

As for the story itself, it may have been written by Lee, but it could have been one from an inventory of prolific Timely writers who were basically given pink slips until the backlog was published (see Thomas and Sanderson). Whomever the writer, the story makes it appear the world is Billings-centric, since the events happened in real-albeit-altered time, and the extra day is measurable by outside observers, the scientists (unlike "Groundhog Day" with Bill Murray, wherein only he is aware of the repetitive nature of the calendar and time only resumes after the goal is reached).

In this moralistic story, Billings grapples with his conscience (his Voice of Warning?) whether to trust himself or his co-workers regarding the integrity of their project or to follow a whim to risk it all to go see his wife off at the airport (and the unspoken question, is this to propitiate lustful tendencies for a woman who calls him "Honeybun" or because he is being the considerate gentleman who would see his wife off at the airport, such as Steve Ford sees Meg Ryan off at the airport in "When Harry Met Sally"?). He struggles as he sees that if given the chance, he would cancel a last minute inspection of the bridge (makes you wonder how the state would have allowed that) to drive where he would rather be. But, he does the good thing and forgoes his needs for the greater good of the people, against even the voice's baiting that if given the chance, he wouldn't do anything differently.

To rapidly sum up, perhaps this is a clue that the Oceanic 6, Locke's corpse, and Ben Linus will have an opportunity to travel back in time to one significant day in the 108 days they were Lost to try to negotiate a different outcome, but it will not be without consequences in the "real" world.

Ways a month can have 32 days? Earth stops rotating on its axis? Earth pulls a reverse rotation? A person is teleported instantly across the international date line? A dream, a hoax, an imaginary story, a parallel universe or an alternate dimension, a singularity, a particularity, etc?

If March has 32 days, does that make the Ides of March, as in, "Beware the Ides of March" as penned by Shakespeare, on March 16? Is the story Locke-centric, making John 3:16 a text that feeds into his Messianic tendencies? Is it a clue to Ben's Caesaric tendencies, as in, "render unto Caesar,etc": do the Oceanic 6 serve God or do they serve man?

Hey, by the way, regarding Henke or Hans van Eeghen, I thought this at first might be a wordplay on "Egghen," as in, "What came first, the chicken or the egg?" But there are lots of peole with that Scandinavian surname in an internet searce (a novelist, an entertainer, a football player, etc.), but my favorite is at http://henke.lbl.gov/optical_constants/

And, from babynames.com:

"The meaning of the name Hans is God Is Gracious; The origin of the name Hans is Scandinavian; form of John"

Perhaps Hans Van Eeghen is John Locke, or is that too Back-to-the=Futurist?

Wahidiyya Kosmotikos said...

Here's another thought about the bridge collapse in "March Has 32 Days," the story from Mystery Tales 40. There is actually another ABC series that featured a collapse of the Golden Gate Bridge during an earthquake this season: Eli Stone. The title character is a lawyer who discovers he has an aneurysm, through which he is able to see future events. Besides the Thursday night scheduling after Lost, perhaps there is another connection through the writers or directors.

www.tv.com/eli-stone/show/68652/episode.html

Episode 8: Praying for Time
Writer: Courtney Kemp Agboh, Brett Mahoney
Director: David Petrarca

Episode 12: Waiting for That Day
Writer: Oscar Balderrama, Anna Beth Chao
Director: David Petrarca

Or maybe its through actors...Eli's father in flashbacks is played by the former star of NBC's Ed, and so far two of his former co-stars have appeared on Lost episodes ("Nathan," "Sarah").

Eli Stone wakes up at the end of Episode 13 after a coma that
resulted from an operation to remove his aneurysm. He seemed calm, having gone through his own quasi-religious "Dark Night of the
Soul," but perhaps next season we'll have a cross-over episode where he wakes up in the Temple on The Island, nose-to-nose with Locke!

Squa Tront!!

Just a humorous thought...

medras said...

I wonder why Dharma is being so secretive and strict on "legal" issues. I'm pretty sure there's not going to be real world ramifications for posting this stuff, but maybe something in the ARG has happened that's forcing Dharma to be very careful about what they and their employees say to the general public (aka, us)?

Interesting, to say the least.

medras said...

Sorry to post twice, but has anyone noticed that the e-mail from Hans also includes an attachment?

I'm trying to get it open but since there's no link to it in the actual e-mail, I'm having trouble getting it open...

Just pointing this out hoping that someone else can get it open :P