It’s time for another free-for-all story!  The rules are the same as before.  For those who are new to this, here’s a summary :

* Anyone can participate, even if this is your first time to the site.
* Read what’s already been written, then you can write whatever you want, except don’t use any profanity or vulgarity or “adult” situations.
* You can write from one sentence to a couple of paragraphs, but don’t go longer than that.
* If two people write at about the same time, the first one posted will be kept if there’s continuity problems.  (Sorry, but that’s the only fair way.  You can save your comment in another text editor and refresh the page to see if anyone has added a comment since you started writing.)
* You are not allowed to write in back-to-back comments, even with a different alias; let everyone get a chance to add their piece.  After someone else writes, you can write again.

That’s it.  Now let’s get started.  And, oh yeah, have fun.  🙂

*****

It was just after midnight at the extraterrestrial monitoring facility, and George had his feet propped up on his desk and was dozing off, dreaming of Krispy Kreme glazed donuts, when suddenly the sound of static in his headphones startled him.  He looked at the monitor and couldn’t believe what he saw — there was an unknown signal coming from outer space.  Normally there’s a few unidentified signals per month that get picked up, but they’re quickly dismissed as coming from Earth.  But this signal was unlike anything he had ever witnessed.  He yelled for his manager to get in there, then he verified that the signal was being recorded.

The transmission lasted about 5 minutes and had some obvious patterns, but they didn’t know what it meant.  The computer couldn’t pinpoint the source, except that it was definitely from outside Earth’s orbit.  A group of experts immediately began trying to decrypt the message, and they suspected…

It’s time for another free-for-all story.  [much cheering is heard in the background]  Same rules as last time, which I’ll recap for the new readers :

• Keep it clean.  Don’t use any cuss words nor introduce any “adult” situations.
• Write whatever you want (except as noted above), but keep it somewhat short.
• You can write multiple times, but not back-to-back (even with different aliases).
• If two people write at the same time and they both won’t fit in the storyline, the latter one will be deleted.  (Nothing personal; it’s just to keep the continuity of the story.)
• Have fun!

That’s it.  Now let’s get started…

*****

Pierre and Jacques were finishing their French caramel lattes in celebration of their just-signed contract when Jean Paul walked into the room.  Pierre, the self-proclaimed leader of the group, explained the news to J.P. (Jean Paul), that their idea of exploring and documenting the world’s mysteries had finally been accepted and funded.  Just an hour earlier, they had received the call from The Exploration Channel.  The contract called for 10 episodes, and the budget for each episode was $100,000.  That figure blew their minds, because their business, Explorers Extraordinaire, had never made that much money in an entire year, and now they could make a million dollars in one year.

The three men were chosen for their eagerness about the quest and their unusual sense of humor, along with their sense of reckless abandon, as some of the future projects may be quite dangerous.  The timeline was somewhat short, because the producers wanted to bring this show to television while nature / adventure shows were still popular.

The first exploration was to discover the truth about Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster.  That seemed like a popular yet fairly easy mission to start with.  They had seen a documentary on Nessie just a few weeks ago, but the people on the show never found nor caught this monster that supposedly exists.  They each thought up various ways to catch it, and they were very eager to get started.  That afternoon, Jacques and J.P. started interviewing potential crewmen while Pierre began developing a plan.  They expected this first assignment to be a piece of cake, but little did they know what the future had in store…

We’re going to start a story.  It’s really simple and there’s just a few rules.  Read through the post and the comments, then add whatever you want to the end.  You may not write back-to-back (even with different aliases), but you may participate multiple times.  No vulgarity or profanity.  (The language rules of the site still apply.)  End your part of the story with some type of cliff-hanger or unfinished sentence, to set up the next person’s part.  And keep it short.  (If you want to write a novel, get your own site.)  If we have two people reply at about the same time and it ruins the continuity of it, we may delete the newer post.  (If that happens, it’s nothing personal; it’s just a situation that might happen.)  At a time of my discretion, I will end it.  And, of course, remember to have fun with this.  Be random and funny.  Now, let us begin…

It was Friday evening, and Burford was sitting on his couch at home, trying to decide how to spend his weekend.  It had been a long work week, and he didn’t want to do anything resembling work.  He wanted to do something adventurous, something he’d never done before.  As he contemplated various ideas, the phone rang.  This surprised Burford, because he wasn’t expecting any calls.  He picked up the phone and was shocked to hear the voice of…