(NOTE: Longish story ahead! if you get bored, skip to the pictures)
Well.... I got him.
I don't think i've gone into any depth regarding the story for this one, so here it is in a nutshell.
About 3 or 4 months back, I started going to the supermarket regular like, and actually buying healthy food and stuff.
As part of the get healthier kick, i decided to limit my chocolate intake. The best way i have found to do this is by buying bags of chocolate freddo frogs, like this one:
I used to just leave the open bag in the pantry, so i could grab one (ok usually 2) a day when i got the random chocolate craving. After a couple weeks i kept getting the vague feeling that i wasn't getting my moneys worth, and that the numbers weren't really adding up. I've never been one to pay much attention to stock levels in food etc, it's just not in my nature.
I tended to assume instead that i'd probably scarfed some one night and just absent-mindedly forgotten that i did it. So i let it slide.
After a while my instincts kept harassing me so i decided to put the packets in my wardrobe in my room instead, just on the off chance that if someone really was swiping stuff out of the pantry, it'd stop being considered pseudo-communal 'property' (or whatever)
I still didn't wanna consider the fact that someone might be stealing, because everyone who knows me even slightly knows that all they have to do is ask, or even just hover around a bit while i'm there, and i'll give them munchies anyway, it's part of my karmic munchies philosophy...
The feeling of being ripped persisted tho[2], so a couple weeks ago when i bought my next packet i opened it and counted all the frogs before going to work. 14, just like it says. I got home from work and chucked them out on the bed and counted them again.
12.
Thats when i got annoyed, especially over the fact that all this time i'd been doubting my own mind, thinking i was gumby. Thats the bit that really guts me. So that night i cruised up to sam's and reappropriated his pc temporarily (needed fixin anyway). I then bought a $50 webcam the next day. I stuck the pc under my bed running vnc and some motion-detecting webcam software, and i hid the cam itself in my 'tray-o-crap' next to my bed, pointing it at my wardrobe:
Then i waited. (And changed the shitty software that recorded 3 gig of total darkness for a custom app that my mate chris wrote).
Finally after 2 weeks, I come back after the weekend and check the log and see this:
Complete animated GIF (warning ~800k)
Turns out it was my (new-ish) flatmate... totally not who i expected at all. Normally he's such a cool guy.
Had a 'wee chat', and it took me 5 minutes just to get him to own up and apologise... which to my mind fully justifies the use of a cam - if i'd takled to him about people stealing my stuff, I am now sure the thievery would have just stopped and there would have been no closure
Just goes to show i guess.