Thanks to the amazing cognitive reminding abilities of Mr. LeFeuvre, I joined in the psychic battle currently warring over at Psychoportals.com. Unlike some current marketing games (god forbid it is an actual authorized, Microsoft sanctioned publicity stunt for the Xbox 2 360, and not an immature prank by a handful of youths with too much time on their hands), the Psychoportal is an overt marketing ploy by Majesco to drum up interest for the (hopefully) excellent game Psychonauts™. And I have to say, it was an exciting half an hour or so for us Chicagoans.

See, the hook is that you're working in groups based on your proximity to a major metropolitan area (in my case, Chicago). You work with people within your area to solve mind-benders together, rushing to beat the other main cities so you can gloat and lord over surrounding over-populated areas (and allegedly, some fantastic event to take place in said winning city in the near future). I, in a slightly inebriated state after returning from a night of concert-going and clubbing, came home to find a word find, an easy-peasy connect-the-dots (although not as easy as you might suspect) and a crosswords for my already slightly askew mind to decipher. After spending about 10 minutes mulling over whether I should actually hook up my printer to export these print-focused puzzles or whether I should just steady my hand and go for Photoshop brush tools and screenshots (I chose Photoshop), I was already receiving IM's from fellow Chicagoans whom had already deduced much more than I had. In the end, I had figured out about 1 and 1/2 of the puzzles before we found out that either the masters of the game pulled a fast on us, or someone at Majesco HQ severely screwed up. I'd go into the details, but there are still cities mulling over the puzzle. When all the doors are open for all the cities, I'll post my pathetic puzzle screenshots for the world to mock and point and laugh.

Regardless, it was a fun old time. There's still time to join I believe - there are nine more puzzles, each to be revealed on a daily basis. Go over Psychoportals.com and sign up. But if you sign up as anything but a Chicagoan, you're a dirty spy and should leave the site immediately. That's all I'm saying.

P.S. Keep an eye open at night Dallas!