Author Archives: errhode

Jan25

Beauty and the Geek 2

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Well, I finally got a chance tonight to see my old 6.046 study partner, Ankur Mehta, embarass himself as one of the geeks in Beauty and the Geek 2. Considering that this is the same guy who I once tricked into eating a vomit jellybean, I’m not all that surprised that of all the geeks I know, he’s the one who wound up on reality television. He didn’t actually get that much face time tonight — I, for one, thought his air guitar performance deserved more than the fifteen seconds it got. We didn’t even get a chance to see how bad his singing was!
Ankur really showed his geeky side during the toga party when he whipped out the blue plastic sword during his runway walk — although once again, he only got a few seconds of airtime. His partner held up her end of the stereotype too. When asked what she would do to end pollution, she responded, “Not eating a lot of gaseous foods and not farting a lot.” That’s almost as bad as my response to “What would you do to end world hunger?” in the 2003 Miss Ugly pageant. (I said, “Eat.”)
But let’s be honest, if Ankur wasn’t on this show, I probably wouldn’t have even heard of it, much less watch it. In fact, even with him on it, I kind of want the last hour of my life back.
Oh, and just for good measure, it’s all S. A.’s fault…

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Jan18

S.P.I.E.S.

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I just returned from Boston/Cambridge/Somerville for the annual MIT Mystery Hunt, this year run by Phys Plant (aka Random Hall), which was won by the Midnight Bombers What Bomb at Midnight (aka The Dan’s team). This year, we hunted as “Big Jimmy’s Secret Sex Fantasy,” a fitting tribute to our beloved nightwatchman who died shortly after last year’s hunt. I was anticipating a long hunt, possibly with a lot of snags in it, so I was surprised when it was actually too short. The hunt ended at about midnight Saturday/Sunday… my ideal length is to have the hunt go into Sunday afternoon. As Anand said to me, we were still having fun and we were neither frustrated nor worn out. A few teams even kept hunting for a few hours — I kind of wish we had done that. Unlike last year, we didn’t set unreasonable goals or try to follow unreasonable rules, and as result we both had more fun and solved more puzzles. However, I did puke for the fourth year in a row.
The hunt started with formal dress in Lobby 7. (And yes, Jeff, that was my only formal dress.) There we were told that we were recent graduates of S.P.I.E.S. and how wonderful and — Oh no! The Evil Dr. Moriarty has a plan (described through his power point presentation) and we’re going to have to find spies around the world to help foil him! Well, it wouldn’t be mystery hunt if there wasn’t something to do. The layout of the hunt was very elegant with maps indicating the rounds and puzzles (somewhat reminiscent of our hunt, but computer graphics instead of hand drawn Feldmeier originals). At each new city, solving the meta allowed us to meet spies at various locations around campus, such as Ethan Hunt (Mission Impossible), James Bond, Dana Scully, and… the Swedish Chef? I didn’t quite understand why he was a spy, but his skit was amusing. (“You take-a de flip-flip!”)
And now for my favorite puzzles of the weekend (solutions not yet available):

  • 783658 — A combination diagramless crossword and sudoku puzzle using phone spell.
  • Mysterious Cry; Quiet Habit — A picture cryptic that I solved with Zoz et al at 3 AM. The clue for TABASCO was particularly clever (can you find it?).
  • Second Time’s the Charm — Fairly straightforward for a Mystery Hunt crossword, but still fun.
  • Blue Steel — I was asleep when we solved this, but from what I heard it was awesome. Headquarters gave us a 3-inch floppy and Quinn and Josh deduced that a) there was no reason for them to give us data on a floppy when everything else is on the web and b) there were allusions to Zoolander, which implied that maybe we should tear the disk open. So we did, without bothering to solve the puzzle on the disk (though we did back it up). Sure enough, on the inside of the disk was a piece of paper with “The Answer is…” written on it.
  • Grid With a Hole in the Middle — What can I say… I like (good) cryptics.
  • Hollow Man — The opening part of this puzzle was kind of weak (make links to Kevin Bacon and then index into the names), but the second part (MAKE A SPY MOVIE FOR HQ) was a lot of fun. (That’s me ducking out of the way after I hand Big Jimmy to Matt.)
  • Land That I Love — The actual puzzle is kind of uninspiring, but the “A ha!” step more than makes up for it. And there’s something about a puzzle that legitimately causes you to think that the answer is “FUCK.” (It was actually “PAT BUCHANAN.”)
  • The Cock Conundrum or the Greatest Joke Ever Told — This had the potential to be really fun, but we ran out of time. (We really need to get more people who can identify cute boys. Laura Lopez, where are you?)
  • Sacred and Profane — I had a love-hate relationship with this puzzle, because we didn’t actually solve it. But I was told later that we did everything we were supposed to, but we were two letters off and failed to see the word… and we triple and quadruple checked our work too.
Jan11

More Tales of the Fishgina

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I’ve noticed that when you search for Johnny Damon on google images, I appear on the first page. A few hits below me is the infamous fishgina. Of course, I know that that’s because they both come from the entry on the Johnny Damon cake (and I don’t know why the picture of the cake isn’t on the first page), but I’ve often wondered what other people must think of the fishgina when they search for Johnny Damon. Thanks to the power of referrer logs, now I know.

Jan4

Mystery Hunts of Yore

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The Dan was recently requesting topics for “Top Five” lists, and I suggested that he list his favorite mystery hunt puzzles of all time. He counter requested that others post their lists, so in anticipation of the 2006 hunt, I made my own list, including one from each of the five hunts I’ve done. (As a warning, these are mostly sentimental favorites — just because I had a memorable solving experience with these puzzles doesn’t mean that others will.)
5. Hum a Few Bars (2002; Brian Tivol) — My first two hunts both involved me spending far too much time on a song puzzle. Kay Sullivan and I took this puzzle to a practice room and made a recording of all the tunes. We went through soap opera themes, Beatles songs, nursery rhymes, and played them all repeatedly for everyone in the room before that wonderful moment when I looked at jrandall and sang “Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!” After that, it took about fifteen minutes to get to the solution.
4. We Have Enough Twists, Thank You (2001; Andy Latto and Cally Perry) — It’s not that this was a particularly brilliant puzzle, but it was the one that really hooked me into mystery hunt (and caused my first hunt all-nighter, as I refused to sleep until it was solved). I broke into by looking up where a more famous Highway 101 than the one near my parents’ house might be. “San Jose? *hums*Do you know the way to…*hums* Oh! They’re all questions from songs!” It was a really satisfying moment for me. This puzzle also introduced me to the song “How Can You Believe Me When I Say I Love You When You Know I’ve Been A Liar All My Life?” which became a cult favorite on putz. The great irony is that I never actually solved this puzzle — Zoz backsolved the answer, just as we were getting close.
3. Sneakers (2003; Jennie Hango and Rebecca Christianson) — My favorite runaround ever (and the only one I’ve ever actually done). Galen, cposs, jjhu, and I wandered all around main campus while listening intently to the audio track, trying to avoid the VILE agent who seemed to be following us. Of course, we made it more fun because we sent Galen out onto the roof at the end, before we realized that we were supposed to index into the NO TRESPASSING sign. He found a pair of frozen socks out there, so we called that in before discovering that the actual answer was (coincidently) ARGYLE.
2. Quagmire (2004; Mark Feldmeier) — I test solved this one with jrandall in front of Mark during the final push before the hunt started. After spending over an hour solving the maze, we quickly recognized the hands. When I realized what they spelled, I looked at Mark in complete and utter disbelief. It’s the best puzzle answer ever.
1. Take Me Out (2005; Greg Pliska and Chris Morse) — Is it that surprising that my favorite from last year is a baseball puzzle? This was also the cause of one of my favorite hunt memories: playing “baseball” with amittai and jcbarret using scraps of paper, complete with color commentary. The Microsoft Puzzle Challenge included a very similar puzzle, which I also listed as one of my favorites from that competition.

Dec11

Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

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Despite being completely hosed with final projects and exams, I took a break for an hour today as it was the last day of the John Lennon art exhibit in downtown Ann Arbor. (For those who weren’t aware, Thursday was the 25th anniversary of his death.) Only two of the art pieces were actually originals (and not for sale) — two drawings that were eventually included in In His Own Write. The rest of them… well, I’ll just copy the back of the program:

John’s primary medium was line drawing, either pen, pencil, or Japanese sumi ink. The limited edition artwork in this exhibition consists of lithographs, serigraphs and copper etchings hand reporduced from the original drawings. Each edition is limited and hand signed by Yoko Ono, and comes with a certificate of authenticity from the Lennon Estate guaranteeing that no more will be released. Also included are very rare Bag One lithographs, signed and numbered by John Lennon.

When I saw that there were prints for sale, I thought that perhaps I had found my father’s Christmas present… until I saw the prices that is. The cheapest print was an unframed copy of Lennon’s handwritten lyrics to “Stepping Out” for $200. The most expensive was an unframed lithograph, signed by John, entitled “Bed in For Peace” for $20,000. (Lyrics to “Imagine” were $2500 unframed and $2900 framed.) In comparison, I have a book entitled Lennon Legend: An Illustrated Life of John Lennon that ran for $40 which includes reproductions of handwritten lyrics to “In My Life,” “Day Tripper” (for sale at the exhibit for $1600), “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “Instant Karma” ($800 at the show), “Imagine,” “Beautiful Boy” ($1000 at the show), “Starting Over” ($1000) and reproductions of a number of his drawings. They’re not framed, and they’re not signed by Yoko, but I still think I got a much better deal.
Even though I couldn’t afford to buy any of them, it was still a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. Beatles music was piping through speakers — and it was the first time I really got to hear it in stereo, with the speakers on opposite sides of the gallery. I had never realized that “Honey Pie” has this awesome call and response segment in which the vocal tracks alternate from one channel to the other until I heard it today. “She was a working girl, North of England way,” came from my left, “Now she’s hit the big time,” came from my right, and “In the USA,” came from my left again. It was a very cool way to experience Lennon’s art and music.

Dec8

All Night Long

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I just pulled my first all nighter (outside of Mystery Hunt, which is somehow different) since junior year when I was taking 6.170. I don’t remember it being this hard back then. I think I’m going to make a point to not repeat this. Except for during Mystery Hunt, of course.

Dec2

Windsailing

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I was verifying the link to Breath’s website on that last entry and started going through his pictures, stumbling upon the windsailing ones. It was a year to the day after 9/11 and hurricane Gustav was making it’s way towards the coast, causing incredibly strong winds on the dot. We took a few sheets, some rope, some athena chairs, and a garbage bin and spent the afternoon “windsailing.” At one point, a CP walked by and we thought for sure she was going to lecture us about our reckless behavior. Instead, she just shook her head and said, “Was that really all you could come up with?”
Some of the pictures are amazing; I had forgotten how intense the wind was that day. Due to a combination of Breath’s infectious giggle and the sheer humor of it, this movie makes me laugh out loud. I’ve just been watching Harvey flail his arms in the air before smacking into the light post over and over for the past five minutes. (It also reminds me of when the truck backed into that same lightpost, shattering the lantern while Breath and I watched from his window… or maybe it was my window at that point. I don’t really remember.)
And for completely narcissistic reasons, I’m a big fan of this picture as well.

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Dec2

In the words of Frosty the Snowman…

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In honor of the fact that I turn 24 today, I’m posting a puzzle that Deb posed to me, Anand, Breath, and Resa at a dimsum outing in San Francisco back in June. She really should have known better than to do this at a table of MIT alums, as the rest of the meal was very quiet while we all stared into space trying to figure it out.

Using only basic arithmetic operations (+,-,*,\), represent the number 24 using two 10s, a 2, and a 4. For example, representing 26 can be done as “10+10+2+4” or “2*10+10-4” (and if I was cool, like Anand, I’d write those equations in a LaTeX font — but obviously I’m not).

After two days of none of us getting it, Breath actually wrote a python script to solve this. In the meantime, my dad gave it to a guy at his work who solved it using his own brain power in 15 minutes. And how will you solve it? (The aforementioned people are not allowed to answer.)
And for a more historical look on this day that is sure to be a holiday at some point, check out last year’s entry.

Nov28

Road Trip Tips

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I bought my car at the end of last May and I find that I don’t use it that often (one tank of gas from Labor Day to Thanksgiving), but when I do use it, it’s on long road trips (yesterday: 15 hours, thanks to the traffic trap that is Chicago). In having 15 hours to myself in the car, I’ve come up with the following tips that others may find useful in their travels.

  • Gas: Prices are going to fluctuate from exit to exit and town to town, but the biggest fluctuations will come across state borders, due to differing state gas taxes. In the midwest, Minnesota is generally the cheapest, with Ohio and Indiana being only slightly more expensive. Wisconsin and Illinois are the most expensive, especially the closer you get to Chicago. Try to avoid filling up near Chicago at all costs.
  • Food: Avoid McDonald’s. If you’re travelling across wide distances, don’t be afraid to get off the freeway and try the local favorites. (Josh will argue with me on that — it does slow down your forward momentum.) If you see a sign that says “Voted Best Pies in the Country,” pull off and you may just have a slice of the best pecan fudge pie you’ve ever had (Norske Nook in Osseo, WI). Listen to friends who have lived in the area — if someone tells you that the Courier Cafe in Urbana, IL has the best potato skins ever, he’s probably not lying and he may even be leaving out the fact that they have delicious chocolate phosphates as well. If you must go for fast food, go for the local chains. In Ohio, this means Skyline (have a three-way) and in Wisconsin and surrounding states, this means Culvers (have a butter burger and a cement shake). If you’re really lucky, you’ll have friends that live along your route who might be up for making you some delicious soup.
  • Audio entertainment: Books on CD/tape are your friends. Try to find ones that are approximately the same length as your trip (or shorter), and will hold your interest. Yesterday I listened to The Stupidest Angel and it turned out to be too short. If and when that runs out, pick music that’s got a good driving beat. I love A Charlie Brown Christmas, but it’s not the best stuff for keeping me awake. And if you have a friend who likes to make mix CDs, make sure they know your travel plans.
  • Chicago: If Chicago is on your way, reroute your trip, especially if you’re going to be driving on one of the busiest driving days of the year (like the Sunday after Thanksgiving). If you can’t, because there is no bridge over Lake Michigan, re-think the road trip and fly instead. Stop-and-go traffic starting in Wisconsin is not enjoyable.
Nov19

Revenge of the Fishgina

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I noted in the referrer logs that the average daily number of hits for this site has nearly doubled in the past two months. I originally noticed a small increase back in October and attributed it to the fact that the Johnny Damon cake ranks fairly high in the Google Image search for “Johnny Damon.” (I also have a picture of Kirby Puckett and me that’s on the first page of images for “Kirby Puckett,” but less people are searching for Kirby these days.)
However, this most recent jump in traffic seems to come from http://www.backstreets.com/btx/viewtopic.php, which initially struck me as odd because it appears to be a message board for Bruce Springsteen fans, and I don’t think I’ve ever blogged about Bruce Springsteen, even in passing. So I poked around the site and discovered that user “Ando” was hotlinking to the thumbnail of the Damon cake as the signature to all his messages.
Now, I’d have to ask Rodin what the bandwidth limits are for chronosilence, but I doubt that he’s really endangering my ability to stay under those limits (especially since the site survived all the hits from the Time Traveler Convention). But it does annoy me that he’s linking to the picture without any reference to the site where it came from, especially since that’s a picture Laura took of a cake she made from scratch. And so I did something about it — enter the Revenge of the Fishgina, another of Laura’s photos from that same birthday party. Now every single one of this guy’s posts contains a picture of the fishgina, in its full 2272 x 1704 pixel glory.
Update: He changed his signature, which seems to have automatically updated all of his posts. That’s anti-climactic — I was sort of hoping for a reaction.