THE TREE BRAIN BANDIT

Here is a sketch of the fungus thief based on my wife's description. (If you have no clue what this is about, it sort of started here.)

The Tree Brain Bandit may be armed with a kitchen knife or a piece of yellow paper. She walks quickly and likes to act at night. She may have mushroom-breath.

The suspect was last seen wearing a white bucket hat and eating things off my tree.

She is wanted for 1 (one) count of brain-napping and 1 (one) count of defacing historic and silly internet landmarks.

This suspect should be considered weird and hungry.

_{(Thanks, Mark!)}

I came home last night to discover the tree brain was GONE!!! STOLEN!!!! I'm not fucking around, someone really took it.

My wife had been periodically checking on it all day long and keeping an eye out for the mysterious woman with the yellow paper from Friday. As the sun was going down yesterday, it was still there.

The perpetrator waited to make their move UNDER CLOAK OF DARKNESS! It's lunacy! What kind of world are we living in?!!

The less-than-spectacular assistant brain on the roots is still there, but really, who cares? We all know that one wasn't the star of this year's show. It was like the fungal understudy.

If this lady comes back again next year to try and eat Treebrain 2006, I have a plan. Every day I'm secretly going to spit on it.

So, at least we'll have that.

(You can read more about the brain's identity here.)

An interesting new development in Treebrain 2005. My wife spotted suspicious activity around our brain. I'll let her describe the events...

It was 4:48 on a sunny afternoon this past Friday. I was in the kitchen, making dinner, and I had a clear view out to the tree brain from a front window. En route to the stove, holding a pot full of water, I caught a glimpse of someone out of the corner of my eye. It was a woman holding a yellow piece of paper. She stopped at the tree brain to examine it. Then I watched in amazement and horror as she pinched off a piece and ate it!

I quickly put the pot of water down, and was headed out the door to talk to her, but she hurried off with her curious piece of paper. (Was she taking notes??) She walked quickly up the block, and we have not seen her again.

At first I thought she might be a tree surgeon working for the city, but then she tasted it and I decided she was just a freak.

I promised Steve (because he made me) that if she comes back, I'll take pictures of her in the act.

Thank you, sweetie. But let me shed some light on who this person was. We're dealing with one of 3 things here:

- stalky Sneeze fan
- top secret government agent
- Taliban

Probably all 3. I'll keep you posted.

Here is a shot of the damage caused by the interloper. I've highlighted the stolen chunk.