Prong?

First: the treasure hunt was great fun. It was extremely warm, but we few and proud of team Doctor Octopus kept rolling for nearly the duration of the hunt, and so beat the heat to a certain extent. I feel the pain of teams that had major hang-ups, both mental (stumper clues) and physical (sand traps). The music clues were clever, although Tay's post-clue "driving music" left a lot to be desired (Pirates of the Caribbean, anyone?). I liked the riddle clues more than the word-puzzle clues. A letter scramble can be fun, but 4 or 5? No thanks.

That said, I give this hunt a big thumbs up, with a hearty well done for Tay and Jason. You certainly explored the idea of a hunt with a greatly expanded scope and did it very well. The weather and some outstanding circumstances, such as inadvertantly skipped clues and grumpy security guards, worked against you, but you still pulled off a very succesful hunt by any standard. Every team finished, and by the sound of blog chatter at least, had fun. Was the post-hunt event enjoyable?

All participants can look forward to a very different sort of hunt this Tuesday. We're hoping Riddles In The Dark will be fast-paced, exciting, high-energy, and slightly cooler, temperture-wise at least. You'd do well have your wits about you. Perhaps a Bowie knife as well.


There are two pop culture phenomena that were part of my youth that have recently come back to my attention. I want to check and see if anyone else has memories of these wondrous things, so we can get together and talk about the good old days.

1. I've always been a fan of Adult Swim, but I'm crazy about their newest program: Pee-Wee's Playhouse, starring Paul Reubens as Pee-Wee Herman. I spent a good part of my youth watching Pee-Wee, both on his TV show (theme by Todd Rundgren, music by Mark Mothersbau!) and in two marvelous feature films: Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (directed by Tim Burton!) and Pee-Wee's Big Top. Does anyone else have a personal relationship with Pee-Wee Herman?

2. Bernard Kliban's cartoon strip Cats was introduced to me by my cousins through a couple of excellent books. Apparently, it used to be a comic strip, perhaps a semi-feature in the New Yorker. It's marvelously absurd and makes me laugh out loud every 4 strips or so. Maybe it's all "cat humor," but I like to think that Cats is funny enough to overcome petty dog people/cat people boundries. So does anyone besides this guy know about this strip?

Mattson: When are you going to make me that damn shirt already? If you take much longer, I may have to turn to some competing T-shirt service to get my Gondor chest-piece.

Cappelle: I have yet to crack open the Lord of the Rings radio show. The whole 13 hours on 13 CDs thing is a little intimidating. I'm thinking I'll start it up while driving too and from work. I'm considering putting it onto my iPod, just because that would be pretty bad-ass.