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

Hehe, I liked this clue just because it brings to attention the cruddy state of the NHL. I like hockey quite a bit, so this year has been a complete bummer… I don’t really follow any other sports. On the plus side, I’ve gotten to do more things now that I’m not watching so many games…

I know I said this one would be harder, but it wasn’t that tough. Trecherus gave us the clue of “Penguin Water” and I left it at that, mostly because these reservoirs(?) are so large. I thought it was interesting one looks completely empty and the other is full, so do they alternate usage or something?

Some people got it pretty quickly, and indeed I think once you linked Pittsburgh and Penguins the graphic clue was pretty easy to stumble upon.

Ken S wrote:

I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pa - 1 min

Judy B said:

Got it right off the bat. Had to think though.

and Tina said:

I’ve been on vacation for the past 2 weeks, my first one since I’ve been back. Took a few minutes to get the clue, but easy when I figured out city.

Andy K noted the hockey connection:

A little tougher since there was no hockey season this past year. Took a while to think of and come up with. But as long as you are an avid sports junkie you should come up with it. Nice and visible in the area.

Mike J almost got herringized:

Found it in about 5 minutes of looking. The clue made me think of the Hockey team so I scanned that area and found it.

Almost started in England because there is a Penguin Water Polo club in Hammersmith, but decided to try the Hockey club first.

Man, it is going to be more difficult to avoid incoming herringbombs now that we have the whole world at our fingertips to Scavengeroogle. I’m interested to see how the future international clues stand up. Josh W is also looking forward to an expanded search:

I really had no clue about the clue. I guessed Pittsburgh because of the Penguins and the color looked right. I followed the rivers looking for bridges and stumbled on it after a few minutes.

I am looking forward to seeing more interesting international images on perljam’s site…it’s interesting how close up you can get in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Not as many solutions today… Hey I am mulling over an idea for the clue release schedule. I’ve tried to keep it regular so that everyone knows when to come to the site and I have a status bar at the top to say when the next clue is coming. But as I said it’s increasingly difficult to keep to the schedule for me. It would be better if I could just post up a clue whenever I had the time.

So, I was wondering if maybe I should startup an informal “clue release” mailing list. This way, I could just notify everyone whenever a clue is launched. Also, this might make it so I don’t have to “tend the fire” as it were; right now, I kind of have to keep an eye on solutions coming in during the “open clue” time period, and I have to hurry to get the solution page ready at the bell. If I did a mailing list, I understand that not everyone would be able to jump on the clue right away, and in fact might not even read there email till later in the day. To compensate for that, I’d make it so the clue would have an open window of maybe a day or so. We’d get more solutions too perhaps.

I know some people like the short “set timelength” because it makes it a bit more fun to have to solve the clue in the required time. But a longer window of play-time would make it more flexible for east-coasters, and make it less rushed for me too.

I personally am not a big fan of mailing lists because I sign up for them and then they start to get annoying. But if I did a mailing list, it would only be for clue launches. I guess people can always signup for the RSS feed through Bloglines, but I think everyone’s still pretty used to email…

All right, I’ll write more about the mailing list idea in another post. See you Friday at 9…

Solution to “Double P”