Each game posted on the You Don't Know Jack website has its own comments section (you know, like this blog does). We don't have an official moderator, but we do follow the comments out of curiosity about who these people are that play the game we make. Many players post comments every day. Over time personalities begin to emerge. Some are funny, some are boring, some are annoying. And there's usually one commenter that somehow gets under the skin of everyone else. More and more of the comments are about how annoyed everyone is with this one personality. Then they go away and someone else takes their place.

We've had several of these "nuisance" posters over the last year of the game. We talk about them around the office, sometimes we gently tease them in the game itself, and then we find ourselves missing them a bit after they disappear.

The current one is probably our favorite. I'll call him PD69. He posts a comment every day, gives his score, which is always high, and says something like, "It was hard at first, but I eventually got my score up." Basically, he's cheating. The second time through the game he knows all the answers and is able to get a higher score. So every day he brags about his score and seems oblivious to the fact that everyone knows he's cheating. And it drives all the other commenters nuts. Add to that the fact that he has an idiosyncratic habit of always using phrases like, "this was difficult/hard" or "today's is easy/simple." He's an amusing nuisance. It's fun to be annoyed by him. Around the office we talk about him like some kind of lovable archnemesis.

Mostly its fun to speculate about him. Who is this dude? He's incredibly dedicated to the game, smart enough to figure out the loopholes in our anti-cheating protocols, but also somehow oblivious to how obvious it is he's cheating and how much it pisses all the other game-players off. Nate suspects he's some kind of comedy genuis, playing an Andy Kaufman-esque role. For a while Steveo (far right) was convinced PD69 is actually Nate playing a prank on the rest of us.

Nate: Oh, I wish. I wish it was me.

And we all go on making jokes about the weather being "cold/chilly."

Today one of us found his MySpace page. And we started to get the sinking feeling that there might be something wrong with PD69.

Me: Oh no.
Chris: Oh no.

His 'About Me' section is the longest I've ever seen. Obsessive. His Favorite television show section begins, "I like watching The Simpsons (comes on at 6:00pm &; 6:30pm Monday-Friday on The CW Channel 21 &; Sunday evening at 7pm on FOX 44), Maximum Exposure which comes on at 11pm on WBRL CW 21 Saturday nights..." and goes on and on like that. "COPS which comes on Monday-Friday at 10am &; 10:30am on WBRL CW21, check it out on Court TV channel 51 Saturday evenings at 6pm &; 6:30pm, Sunday evenings at 7pm, 7:30pm, 8pm, &; 8:30pm, Monday evening at 6pm &; 6:30pm, also it comes on at 7pm &; 7:30pm Saturday evenings on WGMB FOX 44, well you get the idea."

Steveo: I think he might be mentally... challenged.
Me: Like high functioning autism or something like that.
Chris: Oh no.
Me: What does it say about you if you have an archnemesis and they turn out to be mentally handicapped?
Nate: I still think he's awesome.