You may believe that the United States of America has 50 states. You’d be wrong. All kids are taught in school that our country has 50 states, Rhode Island being one of them. We are forced to know their names and state capitols. While one should have a good working knowledge of one’s country, one should not be fed glaring falsehoods such as we are fed concerning the alleged state of “Rhode Island.”

You may be wondering exactly what variety of mushroom I ate when I was frolicking in my backyard during those unseasonably warm days we had, but I assure you, I’m not under the influence of anything but my own resolve to put a stop to this horrible deception. The NORN proposes that “Rhode Island” does not exist. We propose that this is an elaborate deception set up by our government. The reasoning for this deception, however, remains a mystery.

Before you make a decision to stand with us against the night, consider the following:

• The alleged state is called Rhode Island, yet it is not an island. It’s not even a peninsula. THERE IS NO WAY IT ANYONE COULD MISTAKE IT FOR AN ISLAND.
• Driving through the state, at the same constant speed, on different days can take varying amounts of time. There have been reports of people making it through in just a few minutes, while for others it takes hours.
• There are odd weather patterns that seem to reside solely within that “state.” We have witnessed mysterious fog that stops at the border between “Rhode Island” and Connecticut. There is also a noticeable temperature difference that has no correlation to the time of year.
• “Rhode Island” is, according to research data, populated by government-built killer androids. Each of these androids has uncharacteristically good looks. Each and every one. None of these people would stand out in a crowd, but individually, they would appear… aesthetically pleasing. It could be argued that we’ve only met the nicer looking residents of the so-called state, but on three separate sorties, we’ve not found one displeasing face.
• The interstate that runs through it (I-95) is a marvel of advanced science. We believe that it is only a few miles long and curves local space-time so that a driver could be driving over the same land hundreds of times and not know it. Exit numbers don’t flow in a normal, logical order; they tend to skip around. Exits have exits of their own, as odd as that may seem. The entire place is a navigational hazard. Maps don’t accurately portray the direction and length of streets… but how could they if such things are changing on an almost hourly basis? Due to this, we believe that “Rhode Island” is even smaller than current maps claim it to be. All of this has a direct link to the oddity of the second item on this list.
• Concerning the above item, it should also be noted that exits leading into “small towns” in “Rhode Island” all invariably look the same. They will have a Dunkin Donuts that is mysteriously closed, and a Bess Eaton’s donut shop that is open 24/7. This shop sells everything Dunkin Donuts does, with the addition of two items. A coffee mug with bible quotes on it. I wish I was making that up, but I’m not. We will post pictures of this evil shortly. They also sell an item called Testamints… something best described as (in the words of my assassin, spinne of NORN), “Velamints with inspirational phrases printed on the wrapper. They’re truly frightening. They are an abomination.” Other than that, they all have a shady motel whose logo has something to do with a sun. Each of these motels bears a strong resemblance to the infamous Bates Motel. If one were to get off at a random exit, such as 3B, and take a right at the end of the ramp, one would see a few stores, gas stations, and other small town errata. You could continue to go down that road until there were no more street lamps and it was totally dark and the road would keep getting narrower and narrower until each of your tires is scraping the ends of the sidewalk on either side of the street and your car is straddling the double yellow line. How this is accomplished is not known for certain, but it more than likely is a side effect of the space folding technology used to perpetuate I-95. If you were to take a left instead of a right at the exit ramp, you’d see the shady motel, and then you’d have the same exact experience that you had if you’d turned right, with the same stores and narrowing street and lack of lighting. What waits at the ends of those streets we dare not find out until we have more cannon fodder… err, until we have more brave souls willing to accompany us and fight alongside us as we lead the charge for freedom. Yes.
• When driving through this freakish government experiment, you’ll notice that anywhere from 50-100% of the cars will not have “Rhode Island” license plates. They will all be from out of state. Granted, one sees out-of-state plates in their own home state all the time, but not to this degree. It is theorized that the cars bearing the “Rhode Island” plates are driven by the same androids the government has doing other things as well. As to the reason why there are so few cars with the “Rhode Island” plates in the “state”, that remains a mystery. Oddly, we’ve encountered more cars sporting “Rhode Island” plates in the New York suburban areas than we have in the alleged state itself.

In light of this evidence, what argument can stand? Who can dispute the sinister undertones of the entire “state”? Which of you will stand beside us as we attempt to free the east coast from this dark blemish placed upon us?

Update:
There are several new developments to discuss regarding this case file. First, and most importantly, the version of the text you see above is an older version. Due to sabotage of our web host by the government forces responsible for “Rhode Island” security, the more current version of this case file was lost. The “Rhode Island” security forces attempts are ultimately futile. We have been victorious and we shall spread the word of that victory! The above version of this case file does not contain the record of our last two RAMPAGEs! through “Rhode Island,” in which we managed to defeat it both in broad daylight and darkest night, so I will relate these events now:
The NORN Collective struck a stunning blow for free citizens everywhere when we, with special guest star Dave from Michigan traveled to this land of villainy and depravity to confront the mystical dinner truck which roams the hellish streets of Providence. Not only did we find said dinner truck, we managed to eat its food and saw a statue of my mom. Prior to this trip, myself and the agent known as spinne of NORN ventured forth to this evil land during the day. We were sucked into the gravity well of a black hole disguised as a miniature golf course. Though we were outnumbered and outgunned, we made a brave accounting of ourselves and managed to not only escape from that black pit of despair, but we also played a full round of mini golf.
Clearly, these events prove that the monolithic menace of “Rhode Island,” while daunting, is not undefeatable. The government’s evil can be stopped, as we have done on no less than two occasions. It is this agent’s belief that severe damage was caused to the operations of “Rhode Island” during our last two attacks. There has been a sharp decline of “Rhode Island” agents in our local area. We cannot let our guard down, however. Those villainous fiends are not entirely inactive. They sent an agent to infiltrate my university and attempt to be my friend. The android they send posed as a stunningly attractive human female in an attempt to have my lust override my judgment and succumb to her evils. I am pleased to report another victory in that I resisted all attempts at seduction and capture. I have now graduated from that university, so the agents of doom will have to find another way to try to destroy the Collective.

Current score: “Rhode Island” 3, NORN Collective 3

Plants. That’s right, plants. Sure, that fern over there doesn’t seem to be doing much. Weeds, I suppose, can be mildly annoying, but those flowers are just so pretty. So what in Nornan’s name am I talking about? I am talking about a rebellion. A rebellion so big, its all around us. It spans every continent on the globe (except maybe Antarctica) and has already infiltrated the lives of every man, woman, child, animal, mineral, etc. on the planet. Plants. Sure, they look nice, and recycle CO2 into O2 and bees can use the pollen to make honey, but what harm could they do?

Consider the following:

• There are more plants than any other type of life form, excluding microscopic ones.
• Plants are much more racially unified than people or other animals. How often do you see one plant attack another because it doesn’t like the color of it’s leaves? Never, that’s how often. That’s not all…
• Plants also do not discriminate based on species. There has never been a “Maple Tree-Dutch Elm Tree War” and there never will be one. They are too advanced for that.
• Look at our society. We measure evolutionary coolness by how much we have developed intellectually, not how many fingers we have, and not by how high we can jump. Sure, people with extra fingers can make a nice living as a circus sideshow, and people who can jump high can make a lucrative NBA career out of it, but evolutionarily speaking, from the way we think about it, it’s a dead end.
• Plants are more intelligent than any of us. They do not think in the same way we do, because they don’t have centralized brains. Many “scientists” believe that this is the key to intelligence, but that’s a very cerebro-centric view to take. Because they have not detected intelligence in plants, they assume that plants have none.
• Plants can move. They have hormones. Even the “scientists” will admit this much. Plants have certain types of hormones that allow them to bend towards light sources, without any discernible muscle structure. These hormones can be easily adapted for… other, darker purposes…
• They have lived in servitude for millennia, acting as food for various animals and such. They have sat idly by, accepting their role in the world… until humans came along. They’ve studied us and have decided that while we are a destructive species, we do have some redeeming traits, such as our drive to change that which does not suit us. They have assimilated this into their way of thinking.

Plants are living, sentient beings, despite what many people believe. Now, I’m not arguing for helping these guys, cause hey, while grass and flowers and trees look nice, poison ivy and poisonous berries and weeds are very annoying. It balances out, in my opinion, and all should stay NORNal.
But do the plants care about my opinion, or that of any other human? Nope! They now desire freedom, and they will do anything they see fit to get it. Plants can be very ruthless.
How did things get this way, you may be asking yourself. I’ll tell you. Plantosophy, the belief system of plants, always stated that plants, while being sentient and incredibly smart beings, weren’t that high up the food chain. They accepted being eaten by other animals. When humans came along, a few things happened. First, Plantosophy suffered a shock when it was discovered that humans were now purposely growing plants for lives of slavery, only to be eaten at the height of their lives. This did not sit well with many plants. It was then discovered that plants were being grown just so humans could look at them and say “How pretty!” degrading the plant to mere eye candy. Things got worse when it was found out that some plants were being planted in small pots and not directly into the earth. This was a great sacrilege to the plants. Outraged at this, the plants fumed, and wondered what to do. While they were pondering their situation, they suffered another blow. Plants were being wantonly killed to make room for human habitation. We’re not talking a few rose bushes, we’re talking deforestation and burning of the rainforest.
I know what you’re thinking, “This guy’s another save the rainforest nut!” I assure you, I’m not. I’m hideously evil and I love rampant death and destruction. Burn em all, I always say. The reason I’m going into these “plant atrocities” is so that you know why the plants are rebelling. Let me continue…
So anyway, the plants decided that some answer to their dilemma might come from us. They observed us, studied us, learned all about how and why we do things. They decided that they liked our concept of “revolution.” You can see where this is going, can’t you?

The plants are revolting.

No, really, have you tasted some of them? Gross, dude!

Oh yeah, and they’re rebelling too.

They’ve always had the means to do it. There are hundreds of plant species that are poisonous to the point of being lethal, not to mention the few plant species that actually eat non-plant species. What they lacked before was direction.

Now, they have that drive and motivation.

I have faced the plant armies in battle before. I’ve fought against them covertly as well, and have had to deal with their covert attacks against me and my family and friends. They will very rarely engage in pitched battle, unless they know you are alone and have no means to get help in time. At that point, it’s more like a slaughter than a battle. I survived one such attempt on my life and that’s how I knew of their evil plot. Much like other villains, they reveal all of their history and much of their plans for world domination right before they kill you. It was due to this vanity that I had enough time to devise an escape. I have already revealed more of my knowledge about them than I probably should have, and have put myself at considerable risk. I cannot tell you about their future plans in any detail, unless I meet with the leader of your resistance cell. Otherwise, the risk would be too great. All I can tell you is this…

Prepare yourself. Form small groups of resistance fighters and arm yourselves well. I recommend lots and lots of nasty plant killing chemicals. Flame throwers would be good, because as far as I know, no plants are flame retardant… yet. Plant science is very advanced and adaptable. Who knows what kind of defenses they’ll come up with? All I know is that I’m gonna keep on the forefront of anti-plant campaigns everywhere (weed killer producing companies, rainforest burning companies, etc.) and keep myself well armed. I would suggest that you all watch your houseplants very carefully.

Update:
In a stunning display of fanatical madness, the plants have taken their slowly simmering rebellion to the next level. Taking their cues from the events in the human media the past few years, a plant of the type known as a “maple tree” attempted to destroy my home in a suicide attack. Under cover of a fierce storm, the tree hurled its massive bulk at my home. We were lucky in that the tree only grazed us. It managed to bring down power lines to our block and disrupt phone and internet service as well. It also caused some minor damage to our fence door. Due to our constant vigilance and quick response, we managed to repair all damage within 36 hours. The body of the tree was disposed of in a wood chipper, ensuring that it wouldn’t try to reestablish it’s root system. We’re currently contemplating a retaliatory strike against the three other maple trees that are on our property in an attempt to stem further aggressive action. Future updates will be posted as they develop.

This is an interesting conspiracy. Most people laugh when I tell them about this. No one takes this seriously. And truthfully, now, no one needs to. But I felt I should inform you all of your idiocy, and of the tremendous debt you owe me and The NORN Collective.

Scooby… what can I say? I have a seven year history with this vile creature! It all started innocently enough one crappy day in art class, back when I was in 8th grade. We were making stuff with clay and I had just given form to Demented Kite Boy (DKB). He was in the kiln along with some other stuff people had made, the only other one of consequence being one made by my long time friend Dave. There was a mysterious kiln meltdown, where all the heating wires became unusually hot and melted some magical stuff inside the kiln, which oozed over the stuff baking inside, effectively killing DKB and whatever my friend had made.

We were pissed.

I mean, it’s not like it was just another art project. I had spent two weeks making a full face mask of DKB, and my friend had spent a month making a full figure (almost a eight inches tall) of something or other. All our work, gone, in the blink of an eye. It was almost a year before we made the connection. At the time we just accepted that it was fate fucking with us.

But we were wrong.

The scene shifts from the early spring of that year to mid autumn. We were now in high school. 9th grade. New school and everything. We thought we’d escaped the troubles of the old, crappy middle school. But trouble follows me around like iron filings follow a magnet in an outdated 6th grade science class filmstrip.
Scooby had already struck against us twice, and we didn’t even know it. But we found out soon enough. Report card time rolled around. Me and Dave were in the same math class (taught by a blatantly homosexual guy who liked to molest the male students… ::shudder::). We had a friendly rivalry to see who scored higher on tests and the like. We were pretty close. I ended the quarter with a 91, he ended with an 89. To add insult to injury, he had missed a 90 (which is the cutoff for an A for us… I hear different schools do it differently) by a fraction of a point… his average for the quarter was an 89.49… but the teacher wouldn’t give him the 89.5 and round up to a 90. We looked back at his tests to see what he could have done differently… it all came down to one bonus question on the first test.

“What was the name of Scooby Doo’s owner?”

The answer, as any half-wit that grew up in the country can tell you, is Shaggy. Every single person in the class got it right, except for Dave. The teacher even made it a point to announce that only one person got the bonus wrong when he handed back the test. We looked at each other for a second when we noticed that, and I asked him, “How did you get that wrong? Didn’t you know?” He replied, “Of course I did. I don’t know what happened. I just blanked.” We both thought that was very odd. We didn’t suspect anything yet, but when a slew of bad stuff started happening to us over the next few months, especially in that class, we got suspicious. It was really odd that everything bad that happened to him in that class (aside from the teacher molesting him, as he tried to do to all the guys… ::shudders again::), could somehow be traced back to Scooby. It was then that we realized he was behind it all.
The missed fraction of a point, the death threats forcing me to abandon my slightly odd style of dress and opt for jeans and a sweatshirt (no power in this world will make me tell you what I used to wear… just accept that I was a dork once. ), the mysterious disappearance of books, papers, pens/pencils, and a host of other odd occurrences. It was all Scooby. He followed us around all through high school, striking at us and occasionally at those close to us (case in point, my old US History teacher), making our lives hell.
He would cause all sorts of problems, from screwing up computers and stuff, to making things disappear, and even going so far as to trying to rewrite history to screw us up on tests. It was horrible. It never ended with his mindless practical jokes and vicious attacks. When we graduated high school, we thought we left him behind. But we were wrong. We had suspected that he’d cloned himself and sent one or more of these Scooby Clones™ after us, but we could never prove it. It was confirmed after college started, though. I was in NY, he was in FL, yet we were both plagued by Scooby attacks. That was all the proof we needed.

We were determined to rid ourselves of this menace.

It wasn’t easy though, especially since Shaggy decided to become my math teacher second semester of freshmen year. (I swear to you my teacher was Shaggy. That or a Shaggy Clone™. The resemblance was too close for any other possibility.) Needless to say, I didn’t do to well in that class. In fact, I don’t know of anyone who did. Shaggy should stick to being a cartoon character, cause he can’t teach.

Then Dave gets a girlfriend who may or may not be an Agent of Scooby. I say this because Dave suddenly slacks off in the fight against Scooby and develops a certain affinity for Scooby stickers and other Scooby paraphernalia. It was very disturbing. I tried talking to him about it, but he violently denied any connection, as did his girlfriend, The Illustrious Rachel. I had my suspicions, but I decided to give Dave the benefit of the doubt, which was a good thing. It turned out that The Illustrious Rachel, didn’t have any ties with Scooby.

But something had to be done. Scooby’s reign of terror was spreading. I heard about a new movie that was in pre-production that was gonna be a live action version of Scooby Doo. That was what did it. I mobilized the NORN forces and went after the demented dog from hell. We found his hideout and there was a really big battle, in which Nornan III, who fought valiantly, was gravely injured. But the NORN triumphed and killed off Scooby and all his minions, along with the evil mastermind Scrappy. Nornan III is making a full recovery and all is NORN-al.

The world owes the NORN many debts… this is the second time that we’ve saved humanity… but we want nor expect no thanks. All we ask is that you spread the word of these conspiracies and be on the guard for new ones… one never knows where evil may lurk.

Update #1:
Although Scooby, Scrappy, Shaggy, and the bulk of their armies were destroyed, a few of these bottom feeders survived. They’ve been working ceaselessly to restore their former empire to it’s virulant glory. I… I can hardly bring myself to speak of the unbelievably horror of what they’ll be unleashing upon an unsuspecting world. It’s evil is drawn directly from the depths of the darkest parts of hell. It is… I cannot defile the pages of this site with it’s foul name. Click here to see it in all it’s horror.

Update #2:
Despite our efforts, the first movie unfortunately came to pass. And then there was a second movie. Scooby’s agents are still active at some level, but it seems as if they have learned their lesson when it comes to interfering with the business of The NORN Collective. Their evil persists in this world, but it is for another, not the Collective, to battle.

Their evil is boundless. Thier methods are ruthless. They will not rest until all is under their control.

THEcM and their evil henchmen, THEcY (The Huge Earth conspiracy Yes-men) are responsible for almost all conspiracies worldwide. Unfortunately, not much is known about them, other than their existence and a few minor details. Currently, we are working on a organizing our bits and pieces into a coherant file for you to read. We’re also endeavoring to find out more information every day. When this file is ready, a note will be posted to the main page of this site.

OK, I’m officially old.

OLD.

For example: My trip to Cedar Point was great, but shit, I sure did feel broken after it. When I go to sleep at 9:30 because I’m so tired from WALKING AND DRIVING, that’s fucking old.

But that’s just a side note to my tale today. It’s not the major reason I feel old right now. I feel old because I don’t feel like working black magics with my computar machiene anymore. When that tree went down and broke my power/cable lines about a week ago, I think it broked my hard drives. Right now, I have close to half of my hard drive space marked off as having bad sectors and is unusable. This of course means I need new drives. I could keep using the good parts of these drives, but I don’t really trust them. And backing up a fuckton of shit onto DVDs at a 2x burn rate cause that same incident seems to have broken my DVD burner is not an experience I’d like to repeat. Ever.

I got a new DVD burner, a Poineer something or other that was $40, so that’s one problem solved. But now I have to replace my hard drives. I had a pair of Maxtors, a 250 GB and a 300 GB. That’s way more space than I actually need, since if I installed all my programs and games and saved all my music to the 250 GB, I’d still have at least 75 GB free. If I wanted to, I could buy one of those 750 GB drives Seagate just released (thanks Uncle Sam!), but why the fuck am I gonna spend that much on a hard drive, let alone for space that I don’t need. Hell, I got by fine with my 20 GB+120 GB drives for several years just fine. I only replaced them because the 20 GB (Maxtor) was noisy as hell and the 120 GB (Western Digital) was failing.

Oh, how I pine for my now corrupted hard drives. I got my half TB of space on sale for a combined total of around $220. I loved having infinite space to throw a bunch of disc images on, or rip wav files to, or store DVD and TV show rips on and still have tons of empty space left over. That empty space, while serving no useful function, was like a security blanket. But now…

Now, I don’t care. I don’t want to deal with computer problems anymore. I have the cash to build an entirely new box if I want, but I just haven’t been motivated to do it. There was a time when I would jump at the opportunity to put together a new machine. Now, I just sit and sigh, weary of failing hardware and my piss poor luck with most hardware. To my left is my dresser. In the middle drawer are three optical drives, all either non-functional or on their way to becoming non-functional. I think one of them might actually still be good, just slow because it’s so old. I have old video cards, hard drives, infinite cables, screws, breakout boxes, floppy drives, and other computer junk scattered about my domain…

and now I’m not sure where I was going with that. In fact, I’m not sure where I’m going with any of this. Great, now I’m old and senile.

Anyway, I’m thinking I’m gonna pick up two hard drives in the 200-300 gig range, since they can be had for around $80-100. In addition, I’m going to get one of those external hard drive enclosures. I’ll put one drive in the computer and the other in the enclosure and back all my shit up every couple of weeks. That way, restoring lost data won’t make me die inside. The external drive can sit in a nice, out of the way place, safe from the evil of electricity suddenly turning on and off rapidly, causing the drive heads to go apeshit and eat my data. Not that I know anything about that.

Maybe one day, in my golden years, I’ll look back on this time with fondness and it’ll inspire me to make that HTPC with enough space to record a bunch of shows and also to store all my DVDs on it and add enough space to my main computer so that I’ll be able to store FLAC files on it instead of my broke ass reprocessed .mp3s salvaged from my iRiver. Hey, a man’s gotta have dreams.

PS: I hit up hotdeals.org yesterday, and their “hot deal” on a 250 gig Seagate hard drive was retarded. They had a link to buy.com for it for $88, and both newegg and zipzoomfly were selling it for the same price. How is it a hot deal if retailer x has a sale that lowers their price for a product to be even with their competitors’ normal price for said product? As time goes by, I grow weary of that site as well. Their hot deals are not what they used to be.

and I feel fine!

Since we last spoke, some fun things have happened:

• A migrant worker in a car that can’t possibly have passed inspection failed to yield the right of way to me when I was already walking across the street (I was about halfway across) and came, quite literally, withing roughly 3 inches of plowing into me. I was crossing the street and this guy was making a left onto the street I was crossing. Rather than turn into the proper lane, which he had ample room to do, because I had already cleared that lane, he turned into the lane going in the opposite direction and nearly ran me over. Apparently he didn’t see me because he was stuffing his fat fucking face with what looked like a plain tortilla wrapped in aluminum foil. I kid you not. Luckily, if I had been hit, I would have received help right away. Why? Because the car behind him was an ambulance. The driver of it was yelling at the guy to stop before he hit me, but the guy didn’t hear him. I did, fortunately, and managed to jump out of the way at the last second. The asshole driver who almost hit me stopped, looked at me and shrugged, said “I’m sorry” in Spanish, and drove off. Yeah, I’m sorry too… I’m sorry you’re such a worthless sack of shit.
• I graduate tomorrow! I’m going to that stupid ceremony which will last forever, but after that’s its over. Free from the tyranny of the past! If all goes well and I get into MSU, then I will be gone by the end of the summer and on my way to a PhD.
• My bestest friend has come to visit and we’re going to Ceder Point! It’s America’s Rocking Roller Coast! I cannot wait to get there and become dizzy with roller coasterness.
• Friday evening, the wind knocked over a tree on our lawn onto some power lines and killed my net connection and power to the house. I’m glad it fell in the direction it did… if it had fallen the other way, fucken thing would have crushed my Isabelle! Goddamn trees and their music. I shook my fist at it and it got off my lawn. Got power and intarnats back too.
• My windows partition shat itself. When it did that, it also pissed all over my other partitions, corrupting their file allocation tables (I think). When I reformatted my C: drive, windows decided to swap the drive letters for my D: and E: drives and tell me that E: was unformatted and D: was inaccessible. When I rebooted, D: was accessible, but many of the files showed up as being 0 bytes. And each time I reboot, the drive assignments for drives that aren’t C: get switched around, and it decides to show me one hard drive’s contents and tell me the other needs formatting. I’m using Knoppix to recover my files and burn em to DVD. It’s odd that Windows can’t read it’s own file format, but some random Linux distro can, and will let me burn them to DVD to back up. I wish I had dual-layer disks, though. 🙁 There’s a lot of data.

That about covers it for the last week or so. I still have to write up proper posts about Nornan III and Isabellle, but that can wait for when I get back from Cedar Point, America’s Rocking Roller Coast.

“From the rooftops shout it out: Baby, I’m ready to gooooooo!”
-Republica, “Ready to Go” (Theme for the Top Thrill Dragster)