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Your online guide to the zaniness of the 2012 Post Hunt!
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When: 6/3/2012
Where: Franklin Park
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| The fifth Post Hunt moves to a new location in Franklin Park and enjoys some of the best Post Hunt weather it's ever had. |
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The Initial Puzzles
NOTE: The puzzle answers are hidden! In order to see them, you must highlight them with your mouse to reverse the text!
1. If the General Services Administration and the Secret Service held a joint conference, what would be on the agenda?
E. The management and support of federal facilities.
E. Security and counterfeiting issues.
E. Really expensive hookers.
Answer: E
2. Complete this sentence: The reigning champions of Major League Baseball are...
G. ...the Philadelphia 76ers.
H. ...the Dave Clark Five.
K. ...not the New York Yankees, despite their enormous payroll.
Answer: K
3. Recently two guys in their twenties sold Instagram, a company they started in 2010, for $1 billion. The buyer was Facebook, whose CEO, also in his twenties, is worth more than $15 billion. How much do you hate these people?
M. A lot.
Answer: M
4. What can the letters in "Pat Robertson" be arranged to spell?
A. "Bat-Snot Roper"
F. "Breast Pronto!"
I. "To Be Porn Star"
J. All of these, as well as "Spot Rat Boner"
Answer: J
5. On April 30, a Washington institution sent out a tweet containing the statement "We used 10 straws of sperm." What institution was this?
D. The Secret Service.
L. The Supreme Court.
M. Vice President Biden.
J. The National Zoo.
Answer: J
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Main Puzzles (i.e. the puzzle sites)
NOTE: Puzzle answers and their descriptions are hidden! In order to see them, you must highlight them with your mouse to reverse the text!
Puzzle: The Palindrome
Location: Map coordinates 9J
Description:
Hunters arriving at this puzzle found a professional auctioneer selling off a number of items: a "race car", a "kayak", a (carpenter's) "level" and a pile of "poop" (that was modelled after Gene Weingarten's Twitter icon). Nearby, an auction assistant held up a sign which read:
"The Post Hunt
CIVIC
Auction
Which sale price is the right answer?"
The auctioneer always settles on the same price for each of the items:
Kayak: $209
Race Car: $26,062
Level: $37
Poop: $6,451
Related puzzle photos and materials...
Puzzle Answer: 26062
How to get the answer:
Alert Hunters notices that each item that was up for sale -- the "kayak", the "level", the "race car" and the "poop" -- was a palindrome, meaning it reads the same way backwards as forwards. However, the sign read "Which sale price is the right answer?", so Hunters only had to pay attention to the sale prices. The only price that was a palindrome was the race car's: 26062.
Puzzle: The Spies
Location: Map coordinates 9J
Description:
Outside the International Spy Museam, Hunt volunteers were giving out handouts which read:
"PSST. HERE IS A HINT: WHEN YOU
HAVE FOUND THE DREADED RED
NUMBER, YOU WILL HAVE COMPLETED
THE FIRST STEP OF YOUR MISSION.
THERE, YOU WILL SEE THIS FROM A
DIFFERENT TYPE OF PERSPECTIVE,
AND YOUR MISSION WILL BE DONE."
At this point, Hunters had to figure out where the "dreaded red number" was located. One possibility was the giant red roman numeral V on the front cover, but that didn't make much sense.
Related puzzle photos and materials...
Puzzle Answer: 131
How to get the answer:
Hunters had to realize that the message wasn't talking about a numeral. There was another pronunciation for the word 'number'. There's "num-ber", and then there's "numb-er".
On the Post Hunt map, there is an illustration of a dentist with dreadlocks wearing red and injecting a patient with (what we can hope is) a pain killer. He's the "dreaded red number" mentioned in the handout.
Hunters then proceeded to that site on the map, where they found volunteers distributing another handout. The sheet contained several holes in an odd arrangement. If they fit that template over the original handout, they saw:
A H
UND
RED
TH
IR
TY
ONE.
Or "a hundred thirty one", so 131 was the answer.
Puzzle: The (K)night Moves
Location: Map coordinates 13M
Description:
Hunters arriving at this site encountered three things:
1) Hunt volunteers handing out chessboard handouts
2) A statue of two men playing chess
3) A PA system loudly playing a loop of the song "Night Moves" by Bob Seger.
The handout was an 8-by-8 grid, with one square marked "START."
Observant Hunters recalled that their copy of the Post Magazine contained a similar black-and-white grid with letters in each of the spaces on the chessboard.
NOTE: Due to an oversight, the handout's black/white pattern did not match the patter in the magazine. This was an oversight and can be safely ignored for purposes of solving the puzzle.
Related puzzle photos and materials...
Puzzle Answer: 15
How to get the answer:
Hunters needed to realize the "Night Moves" song on the PA system meant to tell them "knight moves", as in how a knight piece moves around a chessboard: it move two squares horizontally and one square vertically, or two squares vertically and one square horizontally.
To find the answer, Hunters matched the START square on their handout to the grid in the magazine. Starting there, moving as a chess knight would move, they'd eventually spell out a number: FIFTEEN.
So the solution to this puzzle was 15.
Puzzle: The Computer
Location: Map coordinates 4E
Description:
This puzzle was located at the Hunt main stage, and it featured a variety of strange things.
First, off to the right side of the stage was a board with a bunch of hooks. Different colored and shaped keys (large sized) hung off of many of the hooks, and Hunters could move them around if they wished. They did not have any discernable markings.
Second, on the stage, were several costumed people (a fox with a torch, a chicken, a pig, a dog and a mouse) and one guy in a office chair on wheels who had a microphone. The mouse was pushing the guy in the chair around past the dog, the pig and chicken, and he was swearing at the mouse and the animals as he was put in front of each one. However, when he was pushed in front of the fox, the mouse made a "CLICK" sound. A new person came out on stage with a sign which read: "WHERE DO YOU GO NOW?".
Related puzzle photos and materials...
Puzzle Answer: 62
How to get the answer:
Hunters needed to realize that they were looking at a giant computer display:
They keys were part of a KEYBOARD.
The mouse was a computer MOUSE.
The guy in the chair was a CURSOR.
And the mouse was CLICKING on FIREFOX, a popular web browser.
So where do you go when you click on a web browser? You go to...the web! On the Hunt Map, there was a spider and web located near coordinates 9-10 M.
Hunters who went there found a billboard, listing a variety of web browsers, their logos and their versions:
Internet Explorer: Version 4.0
Google Chrome: Version 3.2
Safari: Version 5.1
Mozilla: Version 6.2
Opera: Version 7.2
Firefox is also known as "Mozilla Firefox", and the logo also features a fox in it. So the answer was 62.
Puzzle: The Bowling Ball
Location: Map coordinates 4K
Description:
When Hunters arrived at this puzzle site, they found a giant black bowling ball and some arrows pointing back in the direction towards the Hunt stage (west).
Hunt volunteers handed out a four-line poem to everyone:
"Your first roll was pretty good
But some you didn't smite.
Now you have to find that wood
Because what's left is right."
Related puzzle photos and materials...
Puzzle Answer: 268
How to get the answer:
Hunters needed to connect the bowling ball with the arrows with the large red triangle on the map that appeared to be the same orientation that bowling pins were be setup. They had to find the pins that were still standing.
Hunters had one hint already: Back at the Hunt stage area, around 4E on the map, was a large pin and a note: "Hint: This is the 8 pin."
That left more to find.
If Hunters scoured the area that the bowling pins were supposed to be, they found two more pins located at (approximately) 2G and 4H.
In bowling, each pin has a numbered position. The pin at 2G would be the 6 pin, and 4H would be the 2 pin. The other pin was already identified as the 8 pin, so, putting the pins in order, the answer was 268.
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The Clues
No clues available for this year.
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The Final Puzzle
NOTE: The final puzzle description is hidden! In order to see them, you must highlight them with your mouse to reverse the text!
The Final Puzzle:
At 3 p.m., Dave Barry announced the final clue, indicating that it applied to the first of the five main puzzle clues only (when put in numerical order):
"Look for it where the sun doesn't shine, then it's your call."
Final puzzle photos and materials...
Solving the Hunt:
Hunters first had to have the five main puzzles answered properly so that they had these clues on their cluesheet:
15: When you know where to look, it's as easy as 340th, 343rd, 612th, and 660th. The just follow the instructions.
62: You completed your W-2 b4 U8 6Ps.
131: Even though b=9 and i=7 and x+z = 3, it's still fun to Google "Santorum."
268: The nerve beneath the twelfth thoracic vertebra (T-12) is almost entirely used for sneezing.
26062: Quoting the Book of Epididymus Ch. 6, Vs 16: Yea, and Noah did behold the pregnant dinosaur. And she was 12 cubits long. If he took her, there'd be no room for dogs and cats!
Alert Hunters were able to connect the final clue's comment "where the sun doesn't shine" as pointing to the pages of their Washington Post Magazine. At the bottom of each of the pages were a series of symbols. Each page's set had the sun on it, except for one: Page 13, which was the introduction to the Hunt.
Now Hunter's used the first clue (15):
"When you know where to look, it's as easy as 340th, 343rd, 612th, and 660th. The just follow the instructions."
The numbers corresponded to the words Hunters needed to find on that page. Hunters had to quickly find the 340th, 343rd, 612th, and 660th words on the page. They were:
Ma
PhD
180
98.6
What do those all have in common? They're all degrees! (Ma = Masters, PhD = Doctorate, 180 as in "180 degrees" and 98.6 as in the human body's normal temperature in Fahrenheit.)
The second part of the final clue now came in handy: "then it's your call"
Hunters who dialed 202-DEGREES on their phone keypad heard a recording that said:
"Congratulations for getting this far. Your pin number is 10."
Hunters who remembered the Bowling Ball Puzzle figured out that the recording was guiding them to the location of bowling pin number 10 on the map. During the first part of the Hunt it was not there, but Hunters who went to that location now found a large pin there with a sign:
"Text your name and
phone number to
(a picture of a witch riding a broom)"
The remaining four clues that the Hunters had not used specified how to transform the letters in WITCH into numbers (bold for emphasis):
62: You completed your W-2 b4 U8 6Ps.
131: Even though b=9 and i=7 and x+z = 3, it's still fun to Google "Santorum."
268: The nerve beneath the twelfth thoracic vertebra (T-12) is almost entirely used for sneezing.
26062: Quoting the Book of Epididymus Ch. 6, Vs 16: Yea, and Noah did behold the pregnant dinosaur. And she was 12 cubits long. If he took her, there'd be no room for dogs and cats!
That meant that W is 2, I is 7, T is 12 and CH is 6.
The direction on the sign told Hunters had to text "your name and phone number" to 27126. If they texted their own name and personal phone number they got this response:
"You didn't follow instructions."
The sign told them to text the words "your name and phone number", not their own name and number. If they did that, they got this reply:
"Go to the secret tower, take a digital picture of the digital clock in the window, return to the stage to await instructions."
Now Hunters had to figure out what and where the "secret tower" was. As with the Spies puzzle, Hunters needed to realize that there are two proununciations to "tower". There's "tou-er" (i.e. a building) and "toe-er".(someone who tows things). On the map there's a man wearing a mask and making the "shh!" gesture (secret!) while in a tow truck, and his free hand was pointing to a specific spot on the map.
Hunters who hurried to that site found a big digital clock in the window of The Laughing Man Tavern. The Hunters that took the earliest photo of the clock and hustled back to the stage were declared the winners.
Who won (Congratulations!):
First place winners:
Phil Spector, 35, of Washington
Sabita Soneji, 35, of Washington
John Mackedon, 34, of Washington
Mark Cackler, 57, of Falls Church
Timothy Bouley, 31, of Washington
Madalina Cristoloveanu, 31, of Washington
Kris White, 29, of Washington
Sean Sharifi, 30, of Vienna
Nicole Mechem, 32, of Washington
Damon Taaffe, 35, of Arlington
Alva Kretschmer, 27, of Washington
Patricia Van de Velde, 27, of Washington
Photos & related materials for the winners...
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