The Hunt Year was...

2013 Post Hunt

Your online guide to the zaniness of the 2013 Post Hunt!

When: 6/2/2013

Where: Freedom Plaza

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. In which of the following sentences is the word "Pyongyang" used correctly?
A. The dogmade Pyongyang on the carpet.
B. Doctors removed an entire set of ovenware from the victim�s Pyongyang.
C. Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River.

Answer: C

2. Complete this song verse by filling in the blank:
"She�ll be coming �round the mountain when she comes
"She�ll be coming �round the mountain when she comes
"She�ll be coming �round the mountain
"She�ll be coming �round the mountain
"She�ll be coming �round the mountain
(BLANK)"
D. "In time for the 4:30 staff meeting."
E. "Because there is no tunnel through the mountain."
F. "When she comes."

Answer: F

3. Which of the following is not the age of a player on the New York Yankees 2013 roster?
C. 40
D. 41
E. 43
F. 92

Answer: F

4. Anthony Weiner wants to run for mayor of New York. If you were his campaign manager, which campaign slogan would be a bad idea?
A. Weiner: The Candidate Who Really Sticks Out!
A. Weiner Will Work Hard For You!
A. Weiner: He�s the Whole Package!
A. We�ve Got Your Weiner Right Here!

Answer: A

5. According to the Social Security database, which of these names was given least frequently to baby girls in 2011?
K. Makayla
J. McKayla
I. Mckaela
H. Mikayla
G. Susan

Answer: G

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 Pirate Dating Game
Location: The Hunt Main Stage
Description:
As Hunters arrived at the show, Hunt volunteers handed out eye patches along with an instruction sheet for the uses of the eye patch. On stage a Lucky Lady interviewed three Bachelor Pirates competing in a special edition of the Dating Game. The bachelors had their written their names to be displayed in front of them:
Bachelor No. 1 had written "Meyer."
Bachelor No. 2 had written "Boney Ed"
Bachelor No. 3 just marked a big X, as though he were illiterate.

The bachelorette asked a series of questions, but all any of the three ever answered was a piratey, "Arrrrr." In the end, the bachelorette chose 4 as her winner, writing it on an easel to the right of all the pirates.
Related puzzle photos and materials...

Puzzle Answer: 28
How to get the answer:
There were 26 possible uses listed, one for each letter of the alphabet. The bachelor pirates were trying to tell Hunters which eye patch instruction would help them solve the puzzle - the letter "R." The eye patch use described in R was:
"The purpose of this eye patch is concealment. Let no EYE go uncovered."

Astute Hunters read that to mean that they should eliminate all the occurrences of the letter sequences of E-Y-E in the bachelor names. Deleting the e-y-e in Meyer, Boney Ed and X, left them with, "Mr. Bond X." The bachelorette, hating all three of the bachelors, instead selected the nonexistent bachelor number 4, and wrote "4" after X. Now Hunters who used the R eye patch instruction had Mr. Bond X 4. Which is 007 times 4.

The solution was 28.

Puzzle: The Hard Candy
Location:
Description:
At one puzzle site volunteers handed out hard candy squares flavored to taste like root beer.

On the map, the puzzle site was also marked with a candy bar.
Related puzzle photos and materials...

Puzzle Answer: 17
How to get the answer:
In the Hunt issue of the magazine was a fake ad for a tavern-restaurant called the Candy Bar. The ad said that the bar featured 289 beer varieties. Hunters had to figure out that the hard candy was a hint - a square that tasted like root bear, or SQUARE ROOT BEER. All those brilliant Hunters who took the square root of the number of beer varieties came up with 17, the solution for this puzzle.

Puzzle: The Performance
Location:
Description:
Volunteers directed Hunters through an opening marked with a sign that said EXIT, then past a stage with an actor performing short soliloquies, then finally out through an opening marked ENTRANCE. The actor�s speeches all sound odd, ie: "Country your for do can. You what ask you for. Do can country your what not ask?"

In other words, everything is BACKWARD, including the famous JFK speech line, "Ask not what your country can do for you." As Hunters left through the door marked "entrance," they were handed a program. It had a bunch of blather on the front, and on the back, a trademark, as if from the paper manufacturer or printer.
Related puzzle photos and materials...

Puzzle Answer: 22
How to get the answer:
The paper manufacturer's name on the back was "Owty T. Newt." Hunters who realized that they need to read the "back words" on the program backward, transformed Owty T. Newt into twenty-two, the solution to this puzzle.

Puzzle: The Gantry
Location: McPherson Square
Description:
In McPherson Square, an odd wooden device was being used to cruelly detain a dummy by clamping around the dummy�s ankles and wrists. Every few minutes, the dummy was hauled up a tall gantry, then release to freefall to the ground with a speaker playing a loud crash noise.
Related puzzle photos and materials...

Puzzle Answer: 1929
How to get the answer:
History students recognized this device from the colonial period, called stocks. This obviously represented when the stock market crashed.

The solution to this puzzle was 1929, the year of the famous stock market crash.

Puzzle: The Weird Walkers
Location:
Description:
Hunters were presented with an odd stage performance. A volunteer carried a sign that said "Find What�s Missing". Nearby, an actor dressed all in yellow wearing a big pair of sunglasses sat as as other actors sauntered around her, in the following order:
Someone dressed as a giant thermometer.
A woman in white with no arms visible.
A man dressed as a Roman soldier.
A man in golf clothes wearing a yarmulke and sidelocks knocking a golf ball with a putter and shouting "Oy vey!" in frustration each time he putted.
Someone hula-hooping.
Someone wearing enormous plastic buttocks.
Someone wearing flippers, carrying a trident and wearing a crown on their head.
Related puzzle photos and materials...

Puzzle Answer: 216
How to get the answer:
Hunters who got this one realized these actors represented the solar system. The one in the middle of the stage in yellow was the sun. The thermometer was mercury; the woman with no arms, Venus; the Roman soldier, Mars; the man in the yarmulke was Jupiter (a "Jew putter"); the hula-hooper was Saturn; the buttocks man Uranus. The flipper man was Neptune. What�s missing is the Earth.

Alert Hunters found our planet on the Hunt Map in the magazine,in the guise of a globe, with the number 24 on it. But 24 was not a possible answer. Hunters had to go to that location, where they discovered a sign that said +192.

The solution to this puzzle was 24+192, or 216.

The Clues
No clues available for this year.

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 pm, Gene Weingarten announced that the sixth and final clue would be what happened on the stage in the next minute. A minute went by and nothing happened on the stage.
Final puzzle photos and materials...

Solving the Hunt:
Hunters who solved all five Hunt puzzles had five clues to work with. They were:
1. The final clue begins at three-oh-one.
2. GWUYMASL
3. TLWUYRGM
4. FMSWGTDP
5. LGBIEFYA

From the first clue Hunters knew that the "final clue begins at three-oh-one. This was a nasty Endgame curve ball: The final clue began at 301 - an area code, not a time. "Nothing" - a 7-letter word -- was the final clue. Which meant Hunters who figured all that out had 301-NOTHING, a phone number. Anyone who called that number heard a recorded message:
"You�re looking for SWAG.
That�s what us pirates call treasure.
S,W,A,G.
And Y marks the start."

The reference to pirates was a hint, referring Hunters back to the handout from the Pirate Dating Game with the A to Z uses for the eye patch. In the phone message, the pirate says to look for SWAG. This referred to the eye patch instructions listed under the letters S, W, A and G; four letters that conveniently match up with the four clues that Hunters haven�t used yet:
2. GWUYMASL
3. TLWUYRGM
4. FMSWGTDP
5. LGBIEFYA

The random-seeming lists of letters indicated words in each of the four eye patch instructions that Hunters needed to pay attention to. Taking the one word in each that matched up with the letters in the clues revealed hidden messages, as follows:

In the S eye patch instruction (Do you plan to go pillage the West Village? Don�t put on the patch until the raid�s half over. If you meet a hipster lady, plunder her only ironically. Sweet pirating!), using the words beginning with G,W,U,Y,M,A,S and L reveals the hidden message:
"Go west until you meet a sweet lady."

In the W eye patch instruction (Be green! You should put patch on only if you walk in forests, climb mountains, reach nirvana, practice left of center politics. Display proudly until you turn conservative.), using the words beginning with T,L,W,U,Y,R,G and M, the revealed message is:
"Turn left, walk until you reach green mountains."

In the A eye patch instruction (Not to be used in West Virginia mountains. If you go to certain areas of South Carolina [distinguished local rurals pole rafts in cricks, eat otters and follow odd religious customs] you�ll be killed.), using the words beginning with F,M,S,W,G,T,D and P reveals the message:
"Follow mountains southwest; go to distinguished pole."

In the G eye patch instruction (To prevent drowning, use eye patch in place of safety vest. Place flap C in slot D, pin to your arms with giant twist ties [not supplied] Paddle! [Think duck or other sea bird.] Look unafraid!), using the words beginning with L,G,B,I,E,F,Y and A, the revealed message is:
"Look giant bird in eye, flap your arms."

These are clearly a set of directions telling Hunters where to go and what to do to win. But one thing is left out: a starting point.

That�s why the pirate�s message also says: "Y marks the start." The Y eye patch instruction is: "Dummy!"

This told those few Hunters still in the Hunt that they should begin at the point where they saw a dummy, modeling the stocks in the Stocks Crash puzzle. Beginning from there, and following the directions above, brought Hunters from McPherson Park, where the dummy was, across 15th Street to the Georgia Brown restaurant ("a sweet lady" as in Sweet Georgia Brown). From there they were told to turn left, until they reached green mountains - Vermont Avenue. (Vermont is the Green Mountain State.) Now it was just a question of following Vermont southwest to a "distinguished pole." That turned out to be the statue of Polish patriot General Thaddeus Kosciuszko, which stands where Vermont hits Lafayette Park. At the foot of the Pole was a large bronze eagle. It was this "giant bird" the winning Hunters had to look in the eye when they flapped their arms like wings, and became the Hunt�s winners.
Who won (Congratulations!):
1st place: Sean Memon 2nd place: ???? 3rd place: Todd Etter (and team!)

Photos & related materials for the winners...

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Page last updated: Monday, April 29, 2024 2:35:48 AM