Thursday, February 4, 2010

Vanish Part 2 - The Repo Men Cometh

After the great publicity and fun we all had searching for Evan Ratliff, I hoped that Wired would eventually get around to sponsoring another manhunt. Today I received word that indeed another contest is underway, with Wired and Loneshark Games teaming up to promote the new movie Repo Men. This time however, there's a twist. Players are encouraged to apply as runners, and if one is able to remain hidden for the entire time, the runner wins $10,000.

I talked it over with my lovely wife this afternoon. Of course we both think I could get away with it (who doesn't think that about himself?) but there were two objections. First, she would miss me too much. That's always nice to hear. :) The second objection was mine: I don't want every detail of our lives to be posted in public. You'd almost need to have a new identity after such a contest, if you cared at all about your privacy. I care too much, not so much about my privacy, but about the privacy of my family.

So my candidacy as a runner is out. However, I love the dystopian concept of Repo Men, and will have grand time pretending to be a Repo-person. I have not yet heard whether there is a prize for finding the runners, but as that was a great motivating factor the first time around, I suspect there will be. Whatever it is, I'm in. If you are reading this and would like to be a runner, hurry up and apply here.

Oh, and don't be surprised if you see me resurface somewhere in this contest with another TrackEvan.com style identity. That was way too much fun to not do again. :)