As you may or may not know, the LEGO toy company of Billund, Denmark, has shut down operations of LEGO Media Santa Monica. All of us employees there were fired on our asses. Well, actually no, that's not quite right. The LEGO toy company of Billund, Denmark, has "centralized" operations of LEGO Media to London, thus making some positions "redundant". Regardless, we're still on our asses, redundantly or not.

Where my Vice President and Director of Development were made redundant on Tuesday of this week, I'm not redundant until next Monday. Seems they want me to pack up all of the office into boxes and sent it to London. This is all well and good, since I'm going to be starting a new position at Walt Disney Television Animation on Tuesday. Unfortunately, this also means that my already weak work ethic has shrunken to just about nothing.

In fact, I was so bored on Thursday that I prank called the video store from "Clerks". I was messing around on the internet, and since I was going to see Kevin Smith speak that night, I was scouting Kevin Smith related websites. Then it hit me, the Quick Stop and RST Video in the film are both REAL stores, why not look them up on Yahoo Maps? I did, found the number, and my childish side took over.

But that was Thursday. Friday I didn't feel like being a dork. I had spent so much time with the internet over the past few days, I wondered what the internet thought of me. I probably wasn't in my right mind, but that's besides the point.

So I went to Google and did a search on Josh Edwards. Now, I know that there's a gay, black porn actor named "Josh Edwards". We had had some issues over the rights to my/our name on the Internet Movie Database. Everything is all cleared up now, but I wanted to know what else was out there. Did you know that there's a biology major at Michigan State University named "Josh Edwards"? Bastard comes before me on the list.

This got old after a few hours, tracking down other "Josh Edwards"es. Then I started looking up my friends and family. It's actually quite amazing what you can find out there!

For example, I found a short story by my old boss David Biello. That was cool. I found that my other old boss Tracey wasn't listed anywhere, but I did find some of her husband Mike Zarneke's road race results. Jeff Ranjo's on many pages, most from CAL Arts kids pages talking about his Character Design class. One is for the San Diego Comic Con, where he's listed between comic inkers Tom Raney and Norm Rapmund. That was cool.

I found out that Stevie Wermers illustrated Disney's Puzzlers & More Puzzlers: A Big Book of Puzzle Games and Brainteasers. Julie Vieillemaringe was on everything from road races to Disney credits to E! Fashion Emergency's website. Tim Pauer of Disney came up, too, but it was in Italian and I couldn't read it. Perhaps it wasn't the same Tim Pauer, either. Who knows?

That's another thing, wrong people. Kind of like my gay, black porn actor friend "Josh Edwards", I found a few imposters out there. Zach Biondi is the name of a fictional character in Final Appeal, some random 1993 TV movie. I'm pretty sure my friend Zach from high school wasn't fictional. Holy Fight Club! Julie Hagan Bloch is an artist of some kind, but that's the wrong name, anyway. Angela Hamlin is a reporter for the Yale Daily News, which just sounds wrong to me. Same with Jason Mandelbaum from freshman year at BU, unless he really DID join Cub Scout pack 100.

I don't think I found the right Erika Duncan either, this one is some kind of a novelist/critic/essayist. The Erika that I knew at BU was a sports therapy major. But then, I can't explain this one either, I found Jennifer Recchie on the Phi Kappa Phi honors page. It was for SU, though, where she ended up. I guess she joined a sorority after leaving BU? It doesn't sound like Jenn, but then she's getting married in six months anyway, and who can explain that?!?

From BU I did find the right Angelina Maguinness, she was on a webpage for alumni of the Air Force ROTC. My favorite college sighting was Mike Hinkley. One of my really funny friends, he was in lots of student films. Some, apparently, made it onto the web. I found his goofy mug on a bunch of pages, including one in Korean. Odd.

My brother's roommate Jack Finlin came up in a few RIT web pages, and his dad, also Jack Finlin, went in front of the North Olmsted, Ohio Board of Zoning Appeals on July 2, 1998 for something about a sign post or something.

Darrin McKie, posted a comment, where else? On a guest book for Boston University Ice Hockey back in August of 1998. And waaay back in 1996 my cousin Karen Ann Thumm posted something on a Barenaked Ladies guestbook. Oh, she was also in there for the Ford Focus commercials she wrote, which is cool. They called her a "Hollywood-based scriptwriter."

But then, many of of other friends never made it onto the web. Mychelle Rossa, Kassi Sagan, Crazy Holly Southard, Nathan Massmann, the list goes on. It's tragic but true.

I might just have to go make a webpage for all of them. Hey, I'm still going to be at LEGO on Monday ... I think I could find the time ...

- Josh Edwards