This is SO FREAKING COOL

Greetings everyone, and may I be the last to wish you a happy 2007.

My name is Travis (not the Travis from that perverted "Paranoia" series... which by the way has a Wikipedia entry dedicated to it... why don't WE have one of those? Someone should get on that.) and I was the host of Online Mole Challenge 1, Online Mole Challenge 2: Back to Backstabbing, Online Mole Challenge 3: Sausage Factory (aka Foxy Mole), and Online Mole Challenge 4: The Conspiracy. The reason I am not hosting this one is because, just like all of this country's senior citizens* I am being brushed off to the side as the younger generation steps forward and forcibly takes our jobs from us, thinking that they can do better. Well let's just see you try, whippersnapper! I will smack you in the face with my cane!

Anyway, I would say it's an honor to be one of this game's three(?) mini moles (which by the way brings the total number of OMC mini moles to... wait for it, wait for it... FIVE), but honestly this "mini mole" role seems like more of a demotion (though a self-inflicted one). But on the plus side, there will be far less work. Hosting a mole game is a bitch, people. Do you know how much time it takes to put on a good mole game? (From the peanut gallery: "No, and neither do you." Touche.) And then you have people sending you e-mails or IMing you saying "Ooooh, this challenge wasn't fair... oooh, this was too hard, oooh, the directions weren't clear..." it's like, holy crap folks, take a chill pill.

But as I've said before, you have to be slightly masochistic to be an ORG host. And since my masochism streak came to an end last year, I decided that rather than watch OMC die I would pass it on SURVIVOR ON THE NET style. So Ryan M is the current keeper of the OMC, and it will be his responsibility to pass it on when he's fed up... and so on and so forth until December 23, 2012 when the world ends.

As for my role now, while I do know some OMC 5 plot details (series continuity-gasm!) other than that I'm pretty much in the dark. I don't know who the mole is. So I will be serving as a judge, along with my two colleagues, in the mole point challenges (which I will rate totally unfairly, just so you know) and be writing up weekly commentary in a your-dad-teaching-you-to-drive kind of way.

It looks like Ryan M is up for the challenge of hosting an OMC game, and I am pleased to see that he has continued OMC 4's tradition of scrapping the traditional mole trappings (fingerprints - bleh) and going for a unique look and feel. I am very curious to see how this game will go down, and at the same time I am quite nervous because I know nothing is going to be in my control.

And a word to the mysterious cast - if you go inactive at any point, I will place a voodoo curse on you and your family. (Don't think I won't!) It's called Online Mole CHALLENGE for a reason: because I couldn't think of a clever name. But beyond that, it's also a CHALLENGE. Plus there's real money involved. So don't flake.

Keep on looking for those fake clues!

*I am 20