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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: Cloverfield (1-18-08) » Cloverfield: General / Updates
[SPEC] Tagruato Corp. & Subsidiaries Discussion Thread
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Dr. Awkward
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Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 374
Location: Marunouchi - Tokyo, Japan

 		 [SPEC] Tagruato Corp. & Subsidiaries Discussion Thread
Kaitei no mitsu/ Tagruato/ Ganu Yoshida C.E.O.
This is kinda interesting - POSSIBLY VERY IMPORTANT (possibly crap) - here's the link if you wanna try to make more sense of it.

A possible easter egg??

It's a restuarant reveiw left by "deliciousmacdoob" on Sept. 24.

Probably simply coincidence...but odd one's I'd say...either way it gives credence to the "sea nectar" tranlation Lasher and his wife provided as it explains something the Japanese call "kaitei no mitsu", or "Seabed's Nectar", that is shipped from Japan in dry ice.

Here is the reveiw...most of it seems irrelevant, and it may be entirely irrelevant, but pay attention to the bold highlights added. Wink

Very peculiar... Confused

Review
Something New Where It's Least Expected

Another meal review by Vernon MacDooble

This past weekend as I strolled into Garbanzos, I knew immediately that this meal would be different. I've always regarded Garbanzos as more of a hidden treasure, frequented by smatterings of loyal locals and not the mad cacophony of Main Street hotspots. But tonight it was downright bustling, every table filled and a long line of Muttering Myrtles winding out into the concourse. I, of course, was escorted to my usual window side table, and beckoned the fair haired hostess close to inquire as to what all the hullabaloo was about. She wiped the sweet sweat from her brow and informed me that it was the Chef's Special that had the diners in a tizzy. Without delay I ordered the same, and sat back sipping a fine Merlot while my belly rumbled with curiosity.

The first course caught me off guard. A rice salad, surely not Garbanzos typical fare. Apparently nothing worth this fuss, I frowned under my impeccable mustache. Curiosity and my trust in Chef Nakamura got the best of me, and I took a bite. As I chewed, my mind drifted to the African plains during the wet season. I fancied myself a great lumbering hippopotamus, happily slopping through the thick muddy banks of my favorite watering hole. What's that floating up ahead in the murk? Why, it's rice, by golly! Thankfully I have these water chestnuts and artichoke hearts to add to it. I scoop the salad into my obscenely large mouth, munching away while cool mud oozes between my hoofs. Delightful.

I waited with bated breath for the mysterious main course to be revealed, nearly ready to kick the elderly madam behind me in the face just to get a peek at hers. Right on cue, the wee silly waiter brought it forth. Chilled poached salmon steak alongside chilled asparagus in mustard vinaigrette. Two chilled foods in one meal seemed peculiar, but I welcomed it on such a hot summer's eve. As I sampled the salmon (cooked to perfection, I must add), I observed the tastes I'd expected as they washed across my palette. Onion, lemon, peppercorn, white wine. And something else. Something… inscrutable. Now you must understand, for a culinary connoisseur such as myself, someone who has traveled the world delighting in every flavor man can offer—to taste something new is quite remarkable indeed. It was as if I tasted the food not just with my tongue buds but with my very soul. A feeling of great strength washed over me, as though I could take a boulder into my fist and squeeze it into a pebble. My fork became a scepter, raised high as I envisioned myself conquering the Nordic empire and laying waste to any filthy peasant who stood in my path. Glorious.

I called Chef Nakamura to my side, clapped him upon the back, and demanded an explanation. I quickly realized my mistake, as Nakamura is a somewhat long-winded fellow. The recipe, he blabbered, was sent to him by his brother, a fellow chef working in Tokyo, where it had been gaining favor in some of Japan's most well-renowned restaurants. It contained the finest ingredients money can buy, from fresh bay leaves imported by a company called Fotopoulos Herb Gardens in Crete, to something the Japanese call "kaitei no mitsu", or "Seabed's Nectar", shipped in dry ice by a company out of Honshu called Tagruato. I feigned interest in the chef's incessant prattle, distracted by the unveiling of desert. A chilled strawberry white wine soup, the highlight of the meal. I felt like I could destroy the cosmos using only the patch of flesh where my pinkie toe used to live.

I had not entered Garbanzos that night intending on reviewing the meal. I simply aimed at taking pleasure in a cozy bite at one of my very favorite haunts. But sometimes we discover something new where we least expect it. I wouldn't call the Special delicious, or even tasty. But I would call it an experience. A culinary experience whose shadow has yet to leave my mind, and has left me craving more.

The mention of kaitei no mitsu being shipped in dry ice by a company called Tagruato out of Honshu makes me wanna go check and see if tagruato.jp exists. Very Happy
I'm going to check now and I'll post back immediately if it does. Wink

MrToasty wrote:
http://tagruato.jp/

Check it.

Tagruato is a collective of top scientists, engineers, and businessmen committed to leading our investors and the whole of mankind into the future.

We regard ourselves as explorers, and believe there is much more our planet has to offer than has already been discovered. We view every challenge as an opportunity for innovation. With our groundbreaking deep-sea drilling technology, Tagruato has positioned itself to become a world leader in energy resources, medical research, advanced technology production, and consumable product.

Ganu Yoshida
C.E.O.

Tagruato cares!

Tagruato brightens the day of elderly with a gift of delicious Slusho! Tagruato's crew of Slusho! Smilers! arrived at the Ibaraki Nursing Home in Mito yesterday with a special surprise for the feeble elders.
read more...

EDIT:
You need to select English on the first page, which takes you here:
http://tagruato.jp/index2.php

KUDOS to Lasher and Dr. Awkward for doing all of the legwork that led to this.

* Edit - Clarification
* Edit - Spelling
* Edit - Title
* Edit - Sticky/De-colbygate
* Edit - Unsticky
* Edit - Add original Mr.Toasty quote

All those Edits and you never: Tagged? Wink -SpaceBass
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Launch Randomousity Chat ...
Do nine men interpret? Nine men, I nod.

PostPosted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 4:15 pm
Last edited by Dr. Awkward on Wed Oct 03, 2007 8:00 pm; edited 6 times in total
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Duckie
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Location: Drifter

 		uh huh, something the Japanese call "kaitei no mitsu" and yet have apparently never talked about on the internet.

The site itself is oog, but this could go somewhere. It was posted few days ago, before we knew what the ingredient was called...


My vote is that this is legit Shocked
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 4:26 pm
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MrToasty
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee


Joined: 03 Aug 2004
Posts: 4310
Location: Des Moines, IA

 		Ok, just posted this based on names from Dr. Awkwards find:
http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=21309

PostPosted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 4:29 pm
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MrToasty
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee


Joined: 03 Aug 2004
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Location: Des Moines, IA

 		Funny, another review from Vernon Macdooble, although seemingly not related:
http://reviewsby.us/restaurant/brodullos
deliciousmacdooble wrote:
Supper this Thursday past altered the course of mankind's future.


Does this guy remind anyone else of the critic from Ratatouille?

PostPosted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 4:49 pm
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Dr. Awkward
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Joined: 28 Sep 2007
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Location: Marunouchi - Tokyo, Japan

 		By entering the name of kaitei no mitsu's shipping company, Tagruato, in the browser using the jp format you'll find...

Tagruato has their own website...

and guess who the CEO is ...none other than Ganu Yoshida !!
Alas...PROGRESS!! (it seems Confused )

Sorry it took so long to post...this website's got me absorbed (it mentions Slusho! as well as Ganu)...

Check it out: http://tagruato.jp/


* Edit - fixed link
_________________
.don I ,nem eniN ?terpretni nem enin oD
Launch Randomousity Chat ...
Do nine men interpret? Nine men, I nod.

PostPosted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 4:51 pm
Last edited by Dr. Awkward on Mon Oct 01, 2007 1:21 pm; edited 2 times in total
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i_c_weiner
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 		The foremost question is: where and how did you find this?

PostPosted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 6:13 pm
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Wakkadude21
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 		I'll have what he's having.

PostPosted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 6:17 pm
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Melampus
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Quote:
The recipe, he blabbered, was sent to him by his brother, a fellow chef working in Tokyo, where it had been gaining favor in some of Japan's most well-renowned restaurants. It contained the finest ingredients money can buy, from fresh bay leaves imported by a company called Fotopoulos Herb Gardens in Crete, to something the Japanese call "kaitei no mitsu", or "Seabed's Nectar", shipped in dry ice by a company out of Honshu called Tagruato.


The "Fotopoulos Herb Gardens in Crete" could be a joke - check out this Ricolo information:

http://www.ricola.com/index.cfm?uuid=6E752B1E2B351571EAE0CF6F4FD81A8E&country=11

Notice the partner's name: Mr. Dimitris Fotopoulos, from Athens, Greece. And, they have Herb Gardens.

I think this is similar to the news on the Tagruato Corp. site about Ganu Yoshida being "honored with the Khodorkovsky Award for innovation" at the Pacific Oil Conference. In that regard, check out this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3213505.stm

NOTICE ALSO: the Slusho/Tagruato ingredient(s) had to be "shipped in dry ice."

PostPosted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 6:41 pm
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Dr. Awkward
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i_c_weiner wrote:
The foremost question is: where and how did you find this?

I was posting in between forums, experimenting in google with different "clues"...
Lasher and his wife had provided an alternate translation on another forum..." Kaitei no mitsu" (Sea Nectar/ Honey) for the last ingredient in the recipe on the back of the new pic.
When I popped it in, this reveiw came up.
It just seemed odd...way to many similarities (ie."...something the Japanese call "kaitei no mitsu", or "Seabed's Nectar", shipped in dry ice by a company out of Honshu called Tagruato...").
Within minutes of finding the reveiw I found tagruato.jp (trial and error in the url utilizing the jp format the Slusho! pages uses).
Before I could post it back onto this forum for you, Mt. Toasty had done some investigating of his own.
Kudus to you Mr. Toasty Wink
You guys have a great crew.

PostPosted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 11:54 pm
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Oniduo
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Joined: 18 Aug 2007
Posts: 233

 		i looked up that guys screen name, it isnt the first time he's posted somewhere like he did there. He has an account on a different website for resteraunts. One specifically:http://www.chowhound.com/topics/368719 made around 17 posts starting July 17 or something. His last post on that forum was September 18, then apparently on menue.com he had joined August something. But again, if he already had a resteraunt account somewhere else why make a totally new one if he didnt mean for it to stand out?

PostPosted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 3:54 am
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human
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Joined: 10 Aug 2007
Posts: 31

 		Could easily be in-game. Could also potentially be a attempted gamejack. Either way, this isn't an 'easter egg', as the term is commonly used. Sorry to be pedantic.

PostPosted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 9:37 am
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i_c_weiner
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Joined: 24 Aug 2007
Posts: 34

 		Dr.Awk.: Ah, I see. It is very odd that it is the first link for that search, though. JJ + company probably jacked Google to get it to be the top result, as to allow the game to move on without players having to venture through pages of search results.


human: If this is a gamejack, this is the most elaborate gamejack I have ever seen. They would have to seen the picture at 1-18-08.com, translated the picture's back, created a user on that website, made that post regarding the ingredient and the company, made more posts that weren't as related to make the first post seem real, and create an entire website for the company, including references to things we do/do not know and make sure the site has a server that can deal with the compacity of thousands of ARG players. I think the final verdict on this one is posts are IG, the actual site is OOG. Somebody should definitely keep an eye on this guy to see if he makes any more posts like this.

PostPosted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 10:19 am
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human
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Posts: 31
i_c_weiner wrote:
human: If this is a gamejack, this is the most elaborate gamejack I have ever seen. They would have to seen the picture at 1-18-08.com, translated the picture's back, created a user on that website, made that post regarding the ingredient and the company, made more posts that weren't as related to make the first post seem real, and create an entire website for the company, including references to things we do/do not know and make sure the site has a server that can deal with the compacity of thousands of ARG players. I think the final verdict on this one is posts are IG, the actual site is OOG. Somebody should definitely keep an eye on this guy to see if he makes any more posts like this.


OK, uh, actually I think the review is IG, but the 'elaborate gamejack' scenario you listed, per se, is not difficult to do at all, barring the create a whole website thing, which no one suggested was the case. For example, I have only a few years of high school Japanese at my disposal from a decade ago and I was able to get the gist of the recipe back of the picture in about two minutes. that would get you enough info to write a fictional 'review'. Actually creating a user, making about 4 posts...these are hardly big obstacles to any gamejacker.

Again, I think it's most likely IG, but I haven't seen any definitive proof of the timeline on which the review was posted that clearly indicates that it was privy to information that we, the players, couldn't possibly have known, though.

PostPosted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 1:07 pm
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Euchre
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Joined: 29 Aug 2007
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 		OK, so this 'gamejacker' makes an account for no reason on Aug. 27. He does NOTHING with the account until Sept. 24th when he reviews a restaurant in NORWAY called Garbanzos (that sure sounds Norwegian, eh?) with a Japanese chef. The profile lists his haunts as middle of nowhere Alaska and Yukon Territory.

So, they posted a review referencing a pic that hadn't even appeared on 1-18-08.com days before we find it using such a bizarre and implausible scenario of a review that it's hard for anyone to believe.

Gamejack creators try very hard to be plausible. They often try to include more details into their work than the real thing does.

It'd take a little while for Google to index that page. If "kaitei no mitsu" doesn't exist anywhere else, no trickery need be used to make it result #1. Menuism.com existed well before any of this got going, so chances are it's already been crawled by Google plenty of times. The site seems to be a bit stagnant but to contain at least a few genuine pieces of content. I find it most likely that they'd agree to have this on there to get exposure and a boost for themselves, as well as some money from Paramount/Bad Robot/et al. That or they bought the domain because it was in fact a failing or failed venture.
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 2:27 pm
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Dr. Awkward
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 		An unabrigded edition of the following 26 page thread can be found here . Wink

Page 1...

MrToasty wrote:
http://tagruato.jp/
Check it.

Tagruato is a collective of top scientists, engineers, and businessmen committed to leading our investors and the whole of mankind into the future.

We regard ourselves as explorers, and believe there is much more our planet has to offer than has already been discovered. We view every challenge as an opportunity for innovation. With our groundbreaking deep-sea drilling technology, Tagruato has positioned itself to become a world leader in energy resources, medical research, advanced technology production, and consumable product.

Ganu Yoshida
C.E.O.

Tagruato cares!

Tagruato brightens the day of elderly with a gift of delicious Slusho! Tagruato's crew of Slusho! Smilers! arrived at the Ibaraki Nursing Home in Mito yesterday with a special surprise for the feeble elders.
read more...

EDIT:
You need to select English on the first page, which takes you here:
http://tagruato.jp/index2.php

KUDOS to Lasher and Dr. Awkward for doing all of the legwork that led to this.


NYC5 wrote:
Funny that if you go to the main site http://tagruato.jp/ only english leads to the actual site. But this looks legit, Slusho is a subsidiary!

Created by Tagruato C.E.O. Ganu Yoshida, Slusho! brand happy drink is a icy cool beverage that is rapidly becoming one of the company's most profitable expenditures. Slusho! contains a "special ingredient" that customers can't get enough of. Bearing the slogan, "You can't drink just six!", Slusho! has grown to the second most popular frozen drink in all Asian markets. Hip adult drinkers have begun concocting deliciously intoxicating alcoholic mix drinks starring Slusho! The beverage's popularity has spawned overwhelming sales of brand apparel, a hit theme song, and coming soon: an animated television show starring the Slusho! Flavor Droids! The next step is to introduce Slusho! to the rest of the world. A search is on for top marketing professionals who will be tasked with duplicating the drink's Asian popularity in the Western market. Our aspiration is to one day place Slusho! dispensers in every convenience store and mini mart. Slusho zoom!


MrToasty wrote:
Oops, forgot to mention going to the English side. Good catch!


NYC5 wrote:
Looking through this, its so big. Big in size to move around and mostly big as in the next steps in this arg. Must have been around a while, but no one found it, till now. The other subsidiarys sites aren't up yet, but I feel like as we move on, they'll start to work. So Big...


Duckie wrote:
Looks Legit!


A whole explosion of new stuff!!

Perhaps someone up there finally got sick of our whining?


Melampus wrote:
WOW!

Someone's gotta verify the legitimacy of this - make sure it's not gamejack.

Whois..? (I don't know how to do this stuff, despite my avatar).


NYC5 wrote:
The newest drilling location, opened september 2007, its on the mid-atlantic ridge, near nyc baby


MrToasty wrote:
Sweet! Thanks to Lasher for the translation and Dr. Awkward for the find that led to Tagurato!


Duckie wrote:
well, it links to slusho Wink And three other foundations! Sweet!


NYC5 wrote:
How'd you come to this site?


MrToasty wrote:
NYC5 wrote:
How'd you come to this site?

The name Tagurato comes from this post


MrToasty wrote:
Contact info:

18 Palace Plaza
36-40-10 Marunouchi
Marunouchi, Tokyo 118-8336
Japan

TEL +81-3-5403-6318
18KagashimaDSPLATtagruato.jp

Same address as Slusho's WHOIS contact, and it would look like another Kagashima to contact.


NYC5 wrote:
funny team name for their little league sponsor

"The Tagruato Lions Little League Team are victors once again!"


Duckie wrote:
Good God. That is one long drawn out clue to an amazing site.
I think it has to be legit, if only because of the logical progression that follows from the photo (name of the ingredient --> random restaurant review by someone who posted on a few other sites --> huge company website)

Check out what it says under their slusho page: "A search is on for top marketing professionals who will be tasked with duplicating the drink's Asian popularity in the Western market"
Anyone thinking this is the company that'll hire Rob?


MrToasty wrote:
^^^ XD
It's A Lion!


* Edit - Added Link

PostPosted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 3:23 am
Last edited by Dr. Awkward on Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:39 am; edited 1 time in total
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