Friday was fun as the build-up to Saturday's Lost panel continued.  I couldn't make it to the Entertainment Weekly panel, but did manage to run into Damon and Carlton at the Dharma booth about 30 minutes before I took the recruiting test.
Damon and Carlton were posing outside the booth both with and without the Dharma employees during a quick photo op.  I was lucky enough to be right at the front of the crowd of camera-wielding fans who converged in front of the booth!  When I asked if they'd taken the test and if they thought they'd passed it, D&C said that they had just finished taking it.  Staying true to the ARG, they claimed that the test had been "hard" and that they wouldn't be sure if they'd passed until Saturday.
The test was quick, but interesting.  I was ushered into the booth at my appointment time, and two male Dharma employees were very careful to make sure that my camera and Bluetooth both had been put away in my bag, and that the bag was shut.  I was seated on a stool facing the screen where the questions appeared, and they clipped a small mic to my convention lanyard before putting headphones over my ears so I could hear the questions.  The employees took seats on either side of the screen facing me.   Both of them were pleasant, but once the test started, they both looked very serious, like they were paying very close attention to my answers (way to stay in character!).
As we've been hearing, the different test options all reference Jupiter.  I chose the #5 Almathea test, but recall seeing Ganymede, Io and Europa listed among the other options. The test started with what seemed to be a volume check to make sure you would answer the questions loudly enough for the microphone to pick it up.  I was asked to respond with the first thing that popped into my head once the test started.  Among the questions I remember are:
              Who is your constant? (That certainly sounds like a familiar Lost concept!)
              When was a time when you were happy?
              What is a centaur?
It may not have meant anything, but when I answered the centaur question ("a half-man, half-horse from Greek mythology"), I saw the employee to my left make a small gesture with his hand, pointing with two fingers to his right and making quick eye contact with his co-worker.
The test moved from written questions to images on the screen.  The images I remember are:
A black & white, old-fashioned illustration showing Little Red Riding Hood in bed next to the Big Bad Wolf in his grandmother disguise (it's one of the screen caps in the earlier post).
An anatomical drawing showing 4 or 5 spinal columns and hip bones.  The hips seemed to me to be disproportionately wide and curvy – the shape of the spine and hips reminded me of the shape of a bass guitar, which has never occurred to me before when seeing similar anatomical drawings.
A black & white picture of a deforested stretch of land that looked very lifeless and was dotted with tree stumps.
A straight, empty paved road stretching off through a thick forest of tall trees at night.  The image taken from the point of view of someone sitting in the driver's seat of a car and the only illumination came from the bright car headlights.
I was told that I passed the test and was given my Dharma ID card with a barcode and numerical code.  I also was told that I "might" need the card on Saturday.  While the Dharma employee outside the booth was wrapping up my paperwork, I took the opportunity to ask her about the origami crane on the flier and whether it was a crane or a swan.  A very enthusiastic fellow fan overhead my question and confirmed that it is a crane. The employee evasively, but politely said that "it's just one of our symbols" without elaborating further.  One of the folded origami cranes was sitting on the counter at the booth.  Looking at it, I didn't see any patterns or anything else that was revealed once the crane was folded.
I also checked out the Seek the Six booth which was a man-made cave with numerous monitors inside.  Men-in-black were guarding the cave and each of them had different numbers on their suit jackets.  The one in the photo had a 9 and another I saw later had a 3-2 on his jacket.  Just before entering the cave, I was handed a printed white piece of cardstock and a printed piece of clear plastic.  The person handing them out very quickly showed me how I needed to use the cards together to reveal a hidden message before ushering me into the cave.
The message was:
THE TRUTH
IS RIGHT
BESIDE YOU
SEEK THE SIX
                .com
There was also a web address on the bottom of the card: http://70.37.154.219. The address points to SeekTheSix.com, but I'm curious to find out the significance of this set of numbers.  I'll be swinging by that booth again to get some better photos and take a closer at the images on the monitors as I already recognized some of them on the Seek the Six site.  When I clicked on one of the images that was familiar, I got the written response of "My Whole Life Is True."
Maybe we'll get some more answers at today's Lost panel – time for me to head out and make sure I get a good seat for that!











   


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For those interested, seekthesix.com is to launch the remake of The Prisoner, a show that inspired Lost.