From: Cms Thief Date: December 9, 2010 12:10:36 AM CST
To: [Journal Editor]
Subject: The CMS Manual
DeAr [ManagingE]:
THe CMs IS saFe - FOr NOw. ForWarD ThIs To THe jouNal stAfF... bECause I AM tOo LaZy tO TyPE in AlL 40 EMail AddReSSes. Or ELsE thE MaNual MIGht StaRT LoSinG "ChAPTers" Of ITs LIfe. I WIll FORwaRD MY DemaNDs SoOn.
THe CMs THIEf
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From: [ManagingE]
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 1:12 AM
Oh NO!!! Code Red Journal staff!
We have received our first ransom note from the CMS Thief!!! Who is behind this dastardly deed!?! Type A Journal kids would NEVER take an office copy of the Chicago Manual of Style from the office without signing it out on the sheet on the side of the shelf! We have WAY too much respect for the rules. Therefore, there must be a thief in our midst!
[ManagingE]
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On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 9:38 AM, [YogaEditor] wrote:
We are indeed dealing with a shady character here. Too lazy to type all the email addresses, yet not too lazy to create a new email address and write every other letter in caps. I wouldn't underestimate this bandit.
[YogaEditor]
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From: [HardyBoy1]
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 10:17 AM
A shady character, perhaps. Or worse! Who alternates caps but angrey teenagers and complete psychotics?! I just hope this villain doesn't intend to deliver the CMS from its present tree-side captivity to a kind that is infinitely more terrifying.
...it puts the comma in the basket.
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From: Cms Thief
Date: December 9, 2010 6:01:11 PM CST
I've overheard some conversations about me. Let me take some time to answer some of your questions:
Q. What has spurred the CMS Thief?
A: Receiving this email: "On a much lamer note, please remember to sign out the CMS manuals when you take them out of the Journal office. The sign-out sheet is hanging on the supply cabinet. Also, the full version of CMS is available online."
Your reasoning is lame. Why are you burdening me with an additional rule requiring signing out a CMS manual when you say yourself that the full version of CMS is available online? Your lack of a response has spurred me to torture the CMS manual. See picture attached.
Q. Are you an angry teenager or a complete psychotic?
A: I'll ask the questions here, [HardyBoy1]. What the heck does "...it puts the comma in the basket." mean?
Q. Are you lazy?
A: Well, I am a journal member who is objecting to having to take two seconds to sign out a book. You be the judge. As it is [yogaeditor], we can't all be cover models for law school publications. Some of us have to make our mark by being a "shady character."
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From: [HardyBoy2]
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 19:54:13
"A: I'll ask the questions here, [HardyBoy1]. What the heck does "...it puts the comma in the basket." mean?"
We can now reasonably surmise that the thief is a journal member who has never seen Silence of the Lambs.
Seriously, CMS Thief? Never seen Silence of the Lambs? COME ON.
It puts the CMS on the shelf, lest the thief redeem himself.
[HardyBoy2]
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From: [Pez]
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 8:37 PM
CMS thief also has a nice spoon rest on the stove, a colorful soup pot, and a very clean stovetop. Actually, the kitchen in generally looks very colorful, kind of like the velour robe and or smoking jacket the CMS Thief is wearing...
Mr. Heffner, please give back our book...
Time to go feed Precious...
[Pez]
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From: [MovieLingo2L]
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 8:45 PM
If the thief makes any cash demands, I'll be the bag man. I will need help with the hand off, though. I can't drive the car, handle the money and talk on the phone all at the same time.
[MovieLingo2L]
P.S. No uzis, please.
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Meanwhile, in another email chain
From: [LawLady]
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 8:19 PM
To: [Freetobeme]
How does [HardyBoy2] know you so well?!
From: [Freetobeme350]
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 21:16:08
To: [LawLady]
I know! this is getting scary. I had to have [Husband] help me identify the big lebowski reference...
From: [LawLady]
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 9:28 PM
To: [Freetobeme350]
Clearly you should just have [Husband] take over. :)
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LawLady, in an attempt to throw people off the scent...
From: [LawLady]
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 9:27 PM
Seems as though you are trying a little too hard in your assertions of innocence, [Pez]. What's that in one of the pics? A blanket keeping our dear book comfy? Or a cozy, warm sweater vest?
Although, the early 90s teal satin mumu sleeve isn't like you. On the other hand, you did wear that lumberjack shirt, and that threw me for a loop.
Perplexing...
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From: [Pez]
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 9:42 PM
again, go back through all your evidence...
That Christmas tree is way too nice to be ours. We only have a few random ointments [my wife] made in kindergarten and pictures of pretty ladies I cut out of the Sears catalogue on our tree. Plus, I have a dog - and as a dog owner yourself, you know that you can't hang anything in the bottom 3 feet of the tree unless you want your ornaments to get Mauer'ed off the tree by the dog's tail...
BTW - Mauer'ed = dog's tail hits ornament off the tree and it harmlessly rolls under the couch, not a towering shot that does any damage.
[Pez]
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From: [HardyBoy1]
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 10:16 PM
Clean lifestyle, cigar smoker perhaps, cavaliering (of course)... and insane.
The scoundrel could be wearing a CMS dust jacket like its his own skin AS WE SPEAK!!! We only have a vague notion of what kind of incivilities as going on at the moment! (see image)
I'm not sold on the dogs, though. The thief had the wherewithal and ingenious cunning to create a new email account--WOW!, what technological mastery--is it not so far fetched that he/she had his spouse hold the book, or took the picture at a parent's house?! Everybody is a suspect.
[HardyBoy1]
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From: Cms Thief [cmsthief@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 10:06 AM
OK, a few confessions.
1. As CMS Thief, I am a major amateur. I don't have a gmail account because I put in 1/1/95 as my fake birthday, and that's too young for an email account, so my computer was blocked. And then, to make matters worse, I did it again on facebook and had to totally clear my cookies. Sigh!
2. I have absolutely zero pop culture knowledge. I had no idea that was Silence of the Lambs, and my significant other clued me in on Big Lebowski. I began to think I was way over my head at that point.
3. I could totally imagine myself accidentally signing my name on either this account or facebook, which is why I framed [DFLFan]!
4. So, the real CMS Thief is still at large. Don't worry, I will eventually screw up for real and you'll all know who I am. I'll make a deal with you - once everyone on journal submits their guess on who it is, and why, I will reveal my other identity.
Merry Christmas, or Happy Hanukkah for [Brilliant],
CMS
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The votes start pouring in. I become a quick leader, due to emails like the following:
From: [OtherAsian] (Think Glee, except we aren't dating)
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 11:19 AM
I have no clue, but I'd guess that these additional facts are true:
1) They live in a house not an apartment (tile on the walls?)
2) Wear's a blue bathrobe (does that rule out all the men?)
3) Cooks spaghetti on a clean stove (does that rule out all the men?)
If [freetobeme350] fits all these cats, then I would fourth the nomination.
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From: [Freetobeme350]
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 11:55 AM
I feel so honored that 2.5 people ([OtherAsian] was kind of a weak, qualified guess) think I am cunning enough to be the CMS Thief.
I suspect [Soma] as well. She was just in the journal office, and her first words to me were "wow the CMS Thief is really filling up my inbox!" When I told her that [YogaEditor] thought it was her, she laughed nervously and said, "uh, yeah, it's me, Ha. Ha."
[Freetobeme350]
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From: [HardyBoy1]
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 1:39 PM
SO lets think about this...
1. thief writes in a patently female voice. I point directly to the following: the "nice decorations" comment (what male would even think to commend a person on decorations?); use of exclamation points (again, men don't generally employ the exclamation point in normal written communication, especially after statements such as "that would be a lot of emails to type" or "nice decorations" or "sigh" or "that's why I framed [DFLFan]"); when I referenced the alternating caps earlier, I failed to mention that those teenagers I knew who typed in such a way were all female.
1a. thief states that her "significant other clued her in on Lebowski." Lebowski (back me up [HardyBoy2]) is a paramount example of a male-oriented film; I submit that there are few couples whose female counterpart clues the male counterpart in on a blatant reference to Lebowski. Especially in MN, where our winters force us to stay inside for months at a time watching movies and drinking Schlitz. PLUS, the Coens are from Mpls...
2. thief gave a shout-out to [Brilliant] & her yule-time persuasion... charmed. Probably a friend of [Brilliant], probably a pretty good friend of [Brilliant]. So most likely a 3L.
3. thief is active on the chain over the last eighteen hours (like the rest of us losers, some of whom have independently created works of art of various media depicting the sitch... including you, [freetobeme350]: nice pics) as she has been consistently weighing into the rapport. And let's be honest, cunning or not, who couldn't resist trying to deflect suspicion by either making false accusations or simply participating in the conversation. After all, and as Chaucer said, "the guilty think all talk is of themselves." We're all fine exhibits of the type A personality, so I repeat: who couldn't resist.
4. That leaves us with: [freetobeme350], [LawLady], [J.D.Mommy], [YogaEditor]. [J.D.Mommy] is probably too busy with finals and the fam and whatnot, though perhaps not too busy to pull a prank like this--but she does appreciate a good joke. [LawLady] is busy with AE duties and finals and a cold (I am not a complete stalker, I just know this from our group's article debacle) so it is unlikely that its her. [YogaEditor]... nah, I wouldn't believe she would want to draw this kind of attention to herself nor would she, at the end, care to steal the CMS manual and hold it up for ransom, take torture photos and evade the LJ staff like this. [Freetobeme350].
5. [Freetobeme350] IS the kind of person who does not mind (and actively pursues) public attention with cynical humor. Consider our past the all-staff meetings: she's the one woo-hooing and shouting (much appreciated) peanut-gallery comments to [ChiefE] and [ManagingE] all the time ("We love you [ChiefE]!") (exclamation point intentional). And moreover, in her reply to the numerous accusations she asserts her feelings of flattery over the apparent belief by some members that she is "cunning enough to be the CMS Thief," which is followed by a weak accusation of [Soma]... a ploy. Yet isn't it strange that thief herself states on numerous occasions that she is "amateur," "in way over her head." Recall also the facebook/gmail incidents... [freetobeme350], trying to imply that you are not, in fact, cunning doesn't preclude the conclusion that you are not a person who specifically describes herself as not cunning. The devil's in the details...
[HardyBoy1]
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