5/9/05 | 9:01 am | Spiral Stairs
Gah, it is too early to be up this morning. Anyhow, so this clue is called “Spiral Stairs” even though there’s no stairs involved at all. It’s just the first thing I thought of, me being a Pavement fan and all. Yeah, I know they broke up. But I just got the Crooked Rain re-release so it’s been on my mind lately.
Charlie E. is responsible for this green spiral which he sent in more than a week ago. On that note, I just checked and there’s currently a few weeks worth of clues backlogged so if you’ve sent some in be prepared to wait a little bit to see if they go up or not. But thank you again for sending them in, I go through every single one of them.
I actually thought Charlie’s word clues were rather clever, so I’m going to give them to you au naturale, exactly as he wrote them:
“Quit runnin’ yo mouth, Mon”
Anyhow, I tend to meddle too much with the word clues. I’m curious how hard this will be… though it seems to be rather accessible at 11/15. Not sure about herrings for this one. I’m always boggled how the quick Scavengerooglers get it within like 2 minutes or so. I don’t think luck or location has THAT much to do with it because some people repeatedly get the solution quickly… so there must be some pretty good puzzle people out there. I think these clues are starting to bore them! One of these days, if I have time, I’d like to do a 5 or 10 clue all-day Scavengeroogle hunt. Maybe try to figure out a prize or two for the winners. That would be really fun, I wonder if people would be interested in that though? And more importantly whether I’d be able to run it all day…
OK we’ll have our usual 5 hour session until 2:00 p.m. PDT today. Probably no clue drop necessary, but I’ll check back about halfway through. Till later: I need to sleep, I need to sleep, I need to sleep why won’t you, why won’t you let me sleep…
[Edit: 10:25 PDT - Hmm.. nothin’ but crickets. I don’t know if that means no one’s playing today or the clue is too hard! I didn’t get the usual couple of solutions 5 minutes after the starting bell…]
[Edit: 11:25 PDT - Wow. No solutions yet. Hm.. ok, let’s try start with a clue drop of: Horses]
[Edit: 12:31 PDT - I gotta eat some lunch, but here you go: Switching around the order of the words in the word clue may help. Also, this has nothing to do with Montana!]
Clue Name : “Spiral Stairs”
Submitted by: Charlie E.
Status : Solved (15)
Duration: 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. PDTSolved By: Mike M, Chris R, Shawn D, Tim R, JoJo, Justin, Phil M, Mike Z, Tina D, Michael J, Tony A, JCP, Andy K, Ken S, Golux13
Word Clues : “Quit runnin’ yo mouth, Mon”
Magnification Needed: 11/15
May 9th, 2005 at 11:26 am
I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m having a difficult time with the clue. I have several leads and ideas, but they aren’t coalescing into a specific place to search.
May 9th, 2005 at 11:35 am
Mike - you ain’t alone. For some reason this one is extra tough… tougher than I thought it might be. I think because everyone got the previous ones really quickly. Well, it’s Charlie’s fault! =) Anyhow I’ll drop some more clues soon…
May 9th, 2005 at 11:52 am
This is a terrible one. I’ve tried every one of my leads and they didn’t lead anywhere. I’m about to have to give up and go take a final so hopefully when I check back the answer will be posted and everything will make sense. Good luck to all. War Eagle
May 9th, 2005 at 12:02 pm
Wes - sorry! Hope your final goes OK. And hope it is geography related… =)
May 9th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
I have officially wasted my day. I dont feel as bad when that happens and I solve the puzzle. Well, I gotta do some actual work.
May 9th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
Jared - LOL… yeah, I would definitely not spend that much time on these things. I am just kidding whenever I say drop whatever work or studying and get crackin on the clue… =)
May 9th, 2005 at 1:01 pm
Spent about 1 hour searching aimlessly. Seems like finding these places anymore is all about Scooby-doo detective work, not as much fun. Oh well. Oh yeah, searched montana alot, searched kentucky a little bit after the horses clue, searhced some places named monmouth but didnt have time to search extensively for it, didnt care if I found it by then anyhow.
May 9th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
Jason - I hear ya. Yeah, the word clues are definitely not ideal in any way. But I’m not sure if they could ever be, barring hiring a small team to come up with word clues. They do that with online gameshows, like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Jeopardy…
I’m not on the other side of the fence searching for the clues so I can’t say I know what kind of frustration it is. I do know that I catch hell from both sides very frequently… those that say it’s too easy and those that say it’s too hard. I’m not sure what to do about that. Every clue is different.
In any case, from my side I guess it is getting to the point where I question if it is worth it to keep running this. It takes me a good 4-5 hours per day to make a clue. I have to check geographically the locations, come up with word clues if not given, check crossreferences in google, check in google siteseeing sites, write up a pithy couple paragraphs for the clue, then spend at least some of the “session” time actually updating solutions pending, making clue drops if too hard, moderate the comments, and then write up the solution before the bell dings. 5 days a week. I’m not in college either. I don’t think any other googlemaps site spends this much time on one particular entry.
I’m not saying it’s not a blast. It’s really fun, to a point. But it does wear sometimes. I guess at the point when there not enough people enjoying it to make it worthwhile, and more complaints than emails about enjoying the game, I will probably stop. Either that or I will just post up whatever clues people send in as I get them, and forget about sessions, timing, wordclues and whatnot.
But till then, I hope you all enjoy future clues… =)
May 9th, 2005 at 2:31 pm
I really do enjoy this site with the time limits and all the effort you put into it. Please keep this going. Maybe you could get other people to help moderate different days.
May 9th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
Tim - thanks. I have thought about that before, but I need to see if that’s possible. Right now not an option.
I just read back what I wrote and it sounds like I’m sort of directing it toward Jason, which I’m totally not. He is one of the original Scavengeroogles. But he brings up good points all the time that make me think, so.. that’s the reason for the long drawn out response. =)