Time to Play Detective

And now, I’ll turn my discussion towards a question that has been on everyone’s mind, “Who was the original mystery blogger?” Before I even knew that the blog existed, Pappy IMed me asking for a preview of glory days. He, like many of you, was convinced that I was the blogger. Many of you still think that I am the mystery blogger, and no matter what I say, you’ll still believe that am responsible for that failed endeavor. Even if the real blogger came forward, you’d probably still be convinced that it was me.

When I first became aware of the blog, I offered my services. I asked for the username and password so that I could become an author. Had the blogger obliged, his creation might still be in existence today. Unfortunately for him, he denied me at first and let his blog go stale with his inability to create new material on a weekly basis. At this point, I decided to start my own blog. Only after I had published the first few posts and announced it on the ultimate listserv, did he reach out and offer me co-authorship. You all know the ending. I rejected his belated offer and went on to create the masterpiece that you are reading today.

The mystery blogger never revealed his identity to me. He did reveal his username and password, which did nothing to betray his true identity. I’ve long since lost the email, but I do remember that his username was something like “illinoisblogger” and the password had pat’s name and number in it. Pat is good, and we all look up to him. His name being the password doesn’t really narrow down the candidates for who could be the blogger.

Our best method is to look at the style of writing and think, “Who talks like that?” or “Who has that type of personality?” I do believe that it is not B rad. I was talking to him on gmail and the blogger at the same time one night, so unless it’s possible to sign into two different accounts on the same computer, he’s not our guy. Also, the blogger wrote a pretty detailed account of club regionals, so he must have been with us in Tulsa. That narrows down the possibilities.

There are two posts that I would like to focus on in particular: the email response post and his last post. In his mailbag post, he is quite funny. He tears that guy apart, pulling no punches. That kind of style reminds me a lot of Denis, but I don’t believe it’s him since he was with machine at regionals and didn’t know us very well at the time. That style also makes me think of B rad. His AUFL blog had almost the exact same style, but I’ve already ruled him out. The post was also very smart. The author took the email apart piece by piece and countered each point with superior arguments. This leads me to believe it’s Jake. Jake, while known as mister positivity, is a clever kid. He’s part of the St. Louis crowd, so you know he can hold his own in a word fight.

The last post on the blog describes an African word for family, or something like that. This feel good post about coming together as a team reinforces my argument that Jake is the mystery blogger. He’s all about family and team togetherness. He’s often the most vocal when it comes to speeches that emphasize team unity. He planned our spring break getaway. He even wrote an email that looked like a blog post before we left for terminus.

All of this is quite speculative and circumstantial, but I’m saying it’s Jake. You can agree or disagree, but present evidence in your comments.