Scavengeroogle: A Google Maps Scavenger Hunt To Waste More Of Your Time On

Hi there. You probably know me from such films as: “Where the Heck is my Daily Scavengeroogle Clue” and “How Come This Site Is Never Updated?”

Yep, Roogle Admin here. Sorry for the lack of clues or for that matter lack of any communication. And thank you to the several regular rooglers (tongue twister, ain’t it) who emailed in to ask if I was OK. I am.

Roogle, however, is not and has not been for awhile. I apologize. It had become difficult to spend time on, and when posting clues the past few times I just didn’t really feel my heart was that much in it.

No big deal though. We all understand how it is… blogs come and go and so do the readers. Rather than go into a long explanation, I think I’ll cut it short and just say that I’m going to archive the site permanently. It was really fun while it lasted back in the day, and it’s probably the closest I’ve come to internet fame and fortune. Well, not fortune, maybe just 5 min of fame on AOTS. Anyhow, thank you again for participating and for playing this silly time- wasting game called Scavengeroogle!

Hello there. I decided to launch a clue earlier since it’s a short week for most folks. Plus, I’m going to have my hands full discovering how to cook a turkey. Oh boy, fun. Anyhow, this clue will run Sunday-Tuesday.

I remember seeing the movie “Jaws” when it first came out. I don’t know about you, but for a long time after that I was pretty terrified about any kind of deep water. It didn’t really matter if it was a neighbor’s pool or not! I would imagine Jaws coming up from the deep end of the pool and biting my leg as I tried to get out of the pool.

Roogler Andrew has reminded me of my old fears by sending in this interesting set of buildings shaped like Shark Jaws. It’s either that or some kind of hybrid metal mouth Pac-man. I wouldn’t want to get near those choppers.

This is barely visible at 14/18, but 15/18 seems to be a better bet. It’s interesting, around 15/18 magnification seems to be about the optimum distance for most of our clues lately. I think because they’re often buildings and most buildings aren’t large enough to be seen reliably higher than 15.

We’ve had a few easier word hints recently. I think I made some that are a bit harder, though can’t be sure. I definitely know that there are a few red herrings with both parts of the hints below. Witness the following:

“Marathon divided by 4.3667. Water after the bridge.”

But I have been wrong before about clues being difficult. I always underestimate you Rooglers! I’ll probably drop a general region with this one regardless of solutions. Well, hope you have a nice Thanksgiving with all the fixings!

[Edit: Mon 9:55 a.m PST - Interesting, of the 3 sols so far, no one used the first part of the clue at all…]

[Edit: Mon 8:25 pm PST - Tough hints, as I thought. I guess I will give a region hint: Northeast U.S. I don’t know if the marathon clue makes any sense after reading it through again. Ignore it if you want. ]

Clue Name : “Shark Jaws”
Submitted by: Andrew
Status : Solved (5)
Duration: Sun 11/20/05 - Tue 11/22/05

Solved By: Tim J, Bernd, Mike M, Lisa, Bakpaulilin

Word Hints : “Marathon divided by 4.3667. Water after the bridge.”
Magnification Needed: 15/18

SOLUTION TO “Shark Jaws”

Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum. My favorite ride at Disneyland in California when I was a kid was Pirates of the Caribbean where you’d float on this boat through a bunch of politically incorrect animatronic pirates. One of the things I remember is that before your boat goes down this waterslide into the dark, there’s like this Skull and Crossbones talking at you.

Roogler Bernd seems to have found a pretty good likeness of the crossbones in these buildings. It’s fairly large, but because it blends in sort of with the background I wouldn’t look for it at anything farther up than 15/18 unless you’ve got extremely sharp eyes.

I think the word hints Bernd sent in have something to do w/ sports which is not my forte, so I’ve come up with a new hint that may or may not be too simple. At this point, my brain is a little too fuzzy to care, so here you go:

“Mmm Mmm Good”

And now, it’s back to this cup of coffee which is the only thing keeping me from falling asleep at the keyboard. I’ll let the clue run till Thursday night or so. So what’s everyone’s plans for Turkey Day? I have decided to take on the scary job of cooking the turkey! A passing of the torch, if you will, since my parents have done it for the last 30 something years… I’m not sure if we’ll have a clue next week due to everyone being on holiday but we’ll see!

[Edit: Wed 5:23 pm PST - A wee hint before I head off to eat. This is NOT in California…]

[Edit: Thu 8:29 am PST - We’re doin’ pretty well, I think this clue might have been too easy for some… also, Bernd tells me that his original word hint had nothing to do w/ sports so perhaps I should have used that instead. I’ll give it in the solution.]

Clue Name : “Crossbones”
Submitted by: Bernd
Status : Solved (11)
Duration: Wed 11/16/05 - Thu 11/17/05

Solved By: Bryan, Mike B, Jon G, Mike H, Cheese, Bryant, Tim J, Judy B, Shawn, Mark L, Richard K

Word Hints : “Mmm Mmm Good”
Magnification Needed: 15/18

SOLUTION TO “Crossbones”

How’s it goin’ Rooglers! Me, I’ve been better. Been dealing with this bruised rib of mine that still feels like it’s broken or something. People ask me, “How’s your ribs?” and I feel like I’m at Tony Roma’s. A-ha ha.

Whew, anyway after last week’s tougher clue, I’m jonesing for an easier one. To get to the point, this clue which looks like a space capsule was sent in by another mysterioso person named “Muddyboots”. It’s sort of funny when people send in submissions under weird names, but it does make it easier keeping track of all of you!

Muddy said that it reminded him/her of the Mercury Space Capsule so that’s the name of this clue. It’s pretty well visible, so I’m thinking this will be easy to spot even though the magnification requried is 15/18.

And now, the moment of truth. Make-or-break time for the clue. I think this one will be a little easier. Maybe even easy-peasy:

“Belt Weigh”

Truthfully, I am out of practice making up word hints. There were some word hints sent in with the clue, but I wouldn’t be the Scavengeroogle Admin if I didn’t stupidly throw them out like I am right now. Region drop may be possible with this one. Huh, what’s that? Newer players may not even remember that we sometimes give out the general area as a 2nd hint after some time has passed. I haven’t given one out in a long time, because I haven’t had to. We shall see I guess…

[Edit: 10:20 pm PST Mon - Oops I hit “publish” instead of “save”. I guess you’ll be getting the clue a little early…]

[Edit: 10:15 am PST Tue - We seem to be doing fine with this one, so no region drop for ya…]

Clue Name : “Mercury Space Capsule”
Submitted by: Muddyboots
Status : Solved (15)
Duration: Tues 11/8/05 - Wed 11/9/05

Solved By: Jordan, Ken S, Mike B, Mike M, Bernd, Judy B, Jon G, Mark L, Bakpaulilin, Justin, Tim J, Katie N, Richard K, Dan M, Jen S

Word Hints : “Belt Weigh”
Magnification Needed: 15/18

SOLUTION TO “Mercury Space Capsule”

Happy post-Halloween to you all! We received not ONE trick or treater to our house Monday night. Weird, has the allure of free candy been lost on today’s youth? Well, more candy bars for me.

Anyhow, I’ve wanted to use this clue sent in by Ananth R. for about a month now, but just got around to it now. Ananth did a bang-up job providing multiple angles on the word hints too, so it’s time we brought it out. Ananth says the clue sort of looks like the “invincibility star” from Super Mario Bros.. I thought so too, but when I first saw it I only thought one thing: Lisa Simpson! Someone seems to have made a shrine to our favourite saxophone playing environmentalist do-gooder.

Lisa Simpson can be seen reasonably well at 14/18 magnification. As for word hints, as I said Ananth had more than a few well thought out ones. Here is one of them:

“No idea? Come and teach gymnastics”

Man, I really like this pun, er… one. After last week’s easier clue, I think I will leave it at that for now and see if any solutions come in first. We haven’t had a region drop for a clue in awhile, they haven’t really been necessary. I’m not sure if I’ll be ABLE to give a region drop for this one though without giving it away. I guess we will see!

(By the way, if I haven’t used your clue(s) that you sent in sorry about that. It has something to do with me being the pickiest sonofabitch about these clues. A big thank you to those who send in clues though, whether they are used or not.)

[Edit: 9:55 am PST Wed - This one seems to be a toughie, so I’m going to start off additional hints by saying the clue is International. Also, remember that at Scavengeroogle as a rule we pretty much like to stick with areas that are mapped in Hi-Res…]

Clue Name : “Lisa Simpson”
Submitted by: Ananth R.
Status : Solved (7)
Duration: Tues 11/1/05 - Wed 11/2/05

Solved By: Jen S, Bernd, Mike B, Vic W, Mark L, Judy B, Mike H

Word Hints : “No idea? Come and teach gymnastics”
Magnification Needed: 14/18

SOLUTION TO “Lisa Simpson”

Wow. Yes I’m writing here again. Scavengeroogle is back, at least for now. I bet you all thought that I’d hiked into the Sierra Nevadas never to return.

Truthfully, the combination of a vacation in Mammoth and a refrigerator at home that decided to stop working over that vacation conspired to stop me from working on Scavengeroogle for the past two weeks or so. Have you ever had to figure out what to do with 15 pounds of rotten meat? Fun. Anyhow, I finally got a fridge (I’ve discovered that it’s very, very difficult to live without a fridge!) yesterday so I can continue putting out clues now. I dunno if anyone is still checking this site, but if you are… hello!

I’m fairly certain that this geometric shape of what looks like a bullseye inside of a triangle has already been found on any number of googlemap sites, but I decided to post it up anyhow. Might be good to ease back into Rooglin’ with an easier clue. This one comes from Jan and she (he?) had also sent in a whole bunch of word hints along with it. Guess what? I’m not using any of them. Because I’m just idiotic about word hints as usual. The bullseye triangle is visible at 14/18, this thing is quite large. For hints:

“Corn Creek”

Shouldn’t be too bad. This’ll be a two day clue again as I struggle to get back into the swing of things. Oh, I forgot to mention that I went fishing in a snow blizzard near Yosemite. Quite fun, if you forget about the frostbite…

[Edit: 10:16 am Tues - I knew this one would be easy and that I had seen it elsewhere (as had many of you), and that seems to be the case judging on the write-ins. But anyhow, thank you all again for playing! I’m still a bit amazed that people are patient enough to check in with the site every so often after being inactive for 2 weeks.]

Clue Name : “Bullseye Triangle”
Submitted by: Jan
Status : Solved (17)
Duration: Tues 10/25/05 - Wed 10/26/05

Solved By: Ol, Bernd, Pete B, Shawn D, Mark L, Jon G, Vic W, Judy B, Richard K, Tim J, Jason C, Mortified P, Astro T, Jose, Mike B, Chris, Katie N

Word Hints : “Corn Creek”
Magnification Needed: 14/18

SOLUTION TO “Bullseye Triangle”