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

Hi, and hi again to you ‘roogles! Come here for your roogle fix, have ye? Well, I aims to please…

I got this clue in from Robert E. (no, not Robert E. Lee of civil fame) and it is a fun and quite cute picture of a tortoise’s head peeking out of its shell. It sort of looks like it has been painted in brush strokes (I believe the black is rivers actually) I particularly like how the tortoise seems to be smiling slightly. Happy turtles!

Mr. Tortoise is visible from about 14/18. I have been in a puzzle-y mood so the word clues that Robert gave were right up my alley. Actually, I decided to modify them in the usual herringwise way. So, this MAY be a little tougher. Famous last words before hordes of correct solutions descend…

“Mass pomp And over circumstance”

Hm.. looking at it now, I may have mangled them a bit. Herringahoy. Well, if you’re having problems, don’t fret; help may be arriving soon in the form of a region drop.

[Edit: 2:45 pm PDT - Sorry I was out for awhile b4 coming home to quite a few solutions… this seems to be very doable without a region so far. Also, not as many herrings as I thought, cool! See you later on tonight…]

Clue Name : “Tortoise Head”
Submitted by: Robert E.
Status : Solved (24)
Duration: Tuesday 7/19/05

Solved By: Markus B, Katie N, Mike Be, Judy B, Scott G, Peter R, David H, Mark L, Theresa S, Jon K, Ryan F, Don R, Mike B, Jen M, Chris L, Jake M, Shawn R, Adam M, Aaron F, Steve C, Phil M, Justin, Phil D, Tim J

Word Clues : “Mass pomp And over circumstance”
Magnification Needed: 14/18

SOLUTION TO “Tortoise Head”

The other day when I was trying to come up with our first Scavengeroogle Bounty (collected by Judy B from Indiana, by the way), I noticed that there seemed to be an addition of a dynamic distance scale at the bottom of Google Maps. Now, I wasn’t sure if this was new because those ravenous Google Engineers tend to release new features left and right. But as usual the roogler Trecherus was on the ball and also noted this feature as new. So I decided to post about it.

I don’t believe this will have too much effect on the game, but it is a rather cool addition and one that I thought they would have added long ago. Thoughtfully, the map has both metric (kilometers and meters) and the U.S. stone age units (miles and feet). I would like to “convert” myself to metric but it’s just so difficult growing up with inches and feet. You can imagine how slow I drove when i was on vacation a few years ago in Canada where its km/hr. I just kept thinking I was going 150 miles an hour… LOL.

The most interesting part of the new distance scale is that it is DYNAMIC based on where you are in the current Google Map. That is, it updates automatically even while you are dragging the map around.

I found that quite interesting because you might think first that it should only change when zooming, not scrolling. However, Trecherus noted that perhaps it changes in order to account for the inherent differences from this 2-D map depiction versus true distance on a 3-D globe map. This does seem to match up, because the dynamic nature of the map is most notable when you are zoomed farther out. When you’re close in, the 3-D vs. 2-D differences are not on a scale that is as noticeable.

I think it’s great that Google makes changes to their maps as they go. It almost feels like one continuous beta test..

P.S. I chose this particular screengrab, because I was looking around and saw what seems to be a brushfire?? I dunno, some of the area around here (I-40) seems to be red or orange rock/soil, so maybe it’s not… sure looks like it though.

All right folks. Here is our first attempt at a Bounty! If you haven’t already done so, please read the post that explains what a Scavengeroogle Bounty is since they are a bit different than our normal clues.

I found this little feature that reminded me of an antique key while just surfing around Google Maps. I think this is a good starting one because it is very well defined and quite visible. You can see the key from about 14/18. Word clue for this bounty: “144 Seq”

The prize for this particular bounty is a 1999 copy of the Sonoma Valley Visitors Guide. I have another one of these so I decided to make this the first prize. It is from 1999 because that’s when my wife and I went on our honeymoon. We took a trip up through San Francisco and then through the wine country, staying in Sonoma for a little bit. The wine country was really nice… although at the time they were already starting to charge for wine tasting at many vineyards which I think is pretty sad.

Although the price on it says $5, I believe you can actually get this free buy requesting it through one of the Sonoma city visitor guide sites. Although, you won’t be able to find this “out of print” 1999 version though, hehe!

Like I said, this first one is an experiment… I am hoping that the bounty is not collected for at least a few days. In particular, I know clues have to be more difficult, but I am not sure how diffciult…

[Edit: I can’t believe how fast Judy solved this one… according to her it only took 1/2 an hour (though she did mention she had to use a dictionary of abbreviations to get “Seq”)! I’m going to have to investigate how to make the clues more difficult. I wonder if not putting any word clues might be too hard?]

Bounty Name : “Antique Key”
Submitted by: Scavengeroogle Admin
Status : Collected by Judy B.
Time Elapsed: 16 hrs, 7 minutes
Word Clue : “144 Seq”
Magnification Needed: 13/18

Reward: 1999 Sonoma Valley Visitor Guide

Continue reading “Bounty: Antique Key” …

I’d like to talk about a new feature here at Scavengeroogle. For quite awhile now we have been mulling various ideas on expanding clues beyond the “one day, one clue”. Although there was a lot of interest from you regarding a week long, full on Scavenger type hunt (and this may still happen), I was interested in coming up with an idea that didn’t take up so much time. In general, I wanted to have MORE clues going on at once, but wanted to be able to let them remain essentially on auto-pilot, unlike the current clues where I pretty much moderate them all day.

So I would like to introduce the concept of Scavengeroogle Bounties. I had this idea very early on but just didn’t implement it. What are Bounties?

These are basically clues that are (hopefully) more difficult than our ordinary clues with a time frame extending forever UNTIL THEY ARE SOLVED. A Bounty remains “Open” until it is found by one of you ‘rooglers, at which time it becomes closed. Please use the Solve A Clue form to submit a bounty solution.

You may be wondering why they are called “Scavengeroogle Bounties” instead of “Extra-Hard Clues”. Well, a bounty entails some sort of reward doesn’t it? So yes, there will be rewards for the first person to capture a bounty.

I thought a long time about what kind of rewards to give out. ‘Rooglers who have been here awhile probably know already that my financial situation is not exactly stellar. So it needed to be something that I already had and didn’t have to buy. Thus, although rewards will be different for every bounty, they will most likely be some sort of geographical-related prize, including but not limited to old maps, various postcards, travel brochures. The “prize” will be shown along with the bounty, so you can see what you can win. Please note that obviously if I use a submission of yours for a bounty, you are not eligible to win the prize!

I like the idea of geographic prizes because it sort of ties in with the nature of the game. I know that a lot of these things can be had for “free” and don’t have much monetary value, but as y’know with gifts it’s always the thought that counts… Also, since I’ll have to “snailmail” you the prize, I’ll need you to divulge your address. Of course, you can always opt to pass on the prize even if you solve the bounty.

Scavengeroogle Bounties will appear both as “posts” and will also appear in the right hand column. Like I said, they are ONGOING until found. However, like normal clues I will start to drop hints if they are not found in a set time (perhaps a few weeks?)

Please note, the first couple are going to be experiments because I haven’t yet gauged how hard one should be. I would like it if most bounties could remain for at least a week, but knowing how ravenous some of you are for clues that may not happen. In any case, this will inject more clues into the game without the need for me to continually moderate them.

Ok, I will put the first bounty up very soon… good luck!

Hey y’all. Sorry I decided to close the clue early because I’m pretty worn out today. Um, well… here is the reason why in case you are interested. I have a close family member who has been battling cancer for a couple years. But lately she’s not been doing so well, so she finally had to come home for what is called “hospice” care. This is basically for terminally ill patients… they neither hasten nor prevent eventual passing. It is supposed to be more a comfort for the patient and for family. (I am new to this but I believe that is what it is)

This is a very close aunt of mine, today was the day they had to bring her back from the hospital. I was over there for about 8 hours helping them get the house ready. They bring a hospital type bed in and everything. They live about 2 minutes away from my parents who live only 10 minutes away from me. It was rough… anyhow, I sort of wanted to explain about that. I’m not sure why I’m telling you all, but this sort of feels like a journal sometimes… so be it! That made me feel better.

Anyhow, back to the clue for today. I used a Mike M clue again, I was totally unsure if it had been found or not. Tried to get Oneida linked in there with Standing Stone People (though I knew that Easter Island, Stonehenge, and the various Romes would be herrings) We had a pretty wide response for how fast it was solved. Here are some of the responses, sorry no comments on them or any particular order…oh yeah, I’ll try post a clue again on Monday or Tues.

Markus B.

It took me over an hour, while trying to work at the same time. First tried to look for cities that have the word ’statue’ in their names X)

John N.

5 or 6 minutes. I just looked up “standing stone people” on google - several of the top links were about the Oneida Indians/territory or whatever, and it mentioned Oneida Lake. Figured I’d take a look around.

Ken S. wrote:

Took me 30 seconds. Fastest one so far. I went right to Rome, NY

Mike B.

About a minute. Googled “Standing Stone People” and got lots of references to updated NY. Tried “Rome, NY” on a hunch, zomed in, and it was right in the middle of the screen.

Max P.

How long it took you: 10 min. (first crack at this though!)

The Beamer

Holy Crap, this was the fastest I’ve ever gotten a clue. I originally tried Rome Italy just for kicks, but the page wasn’t loading.

The only other Rome I could think of was Rome, NY (wasn’t that where one of the woodstocks was held?), and I punched it up - immediately saw the star. I still have no idea what the stone people are about.

Judy B

You weren’t kidding about the red herrings in this clue! It took me about half an hour, but a good 20 minutes of that was looking at Rome Italy. I knew it wasn’t in THAT Rome, but what a cool looking city! I just kept finding more stuff to look at. At least it looks like I’m working!

David H

You weren’t kidding about the red herrings in this clue! It took me about half an hour, but a good 20 minutes of that was looking at Rome Italy. I knew it wasn’t in THAT Rome, but what a cool looking city! I just kept finding more stuff to look at. At least it looks like I’m working!

Jonas M.

30 minutes… started off in Italy with a clue I thought was about Easter Island. Then I got my bearings after googling for “standing stone people”.

Erica

How long it took you: (just for grins) I’d say this took about 10 minutes. I first searched People of the Stone, and I came up with The Onyota’a:ka. I then sat confused until I realised I should put Rome somewhere in the search query. Then I found Rome, NY and found it easily.

Phil M

Took about 10 mins. For some reason I started looking in scotland. Somthing about Roman Standing Stones led me in that direction. Once I looked up People of the Standing Stone, it all fell into place.

Mark L

Checked out Easter Island 1st….. nothing hi-res. Did a Google of “Standing Stone People” and Oneida NY came up….. about 2 minutes looking around there.

Landis

How long it took you: a couple minutes, once I figured out the Oneida were from NY (and known as the ‘Standing Stone People’).

Woo-hoo - I finally got one before the solution was posted!

Katie N

Wow, this one stumped me. I originally thought it had something to do with the druids, so I searched around England for a while. I finally caught on to Oneida, but I thought it was referring to the tribe in Wisconsin. Then I remembered that it probably had something to do with Rome, so I googled Rome and Oneida and found it.

Peter R

Funny thing about this clue is that I saw it about a month ago and was going to submit it, but I had an ADHD moment and forgot about . . . hey look at that bug!

Sorry, back to the topic at hand. Only took about 10 minutes because I completely forgot where it was. Had to check a bunch of Rome’s (GA, IA, WI, PA, etc.) but once in NY, I guessed that it was probably the STANwix monument.

Solution to “Ninja Star”“

Hi folks, here’s your clue today. First a note: I will most likely be out nearly all day and night, so I won’t get to update anything after I leave, sometime in the morning. So play nice…

Here is another backlogged clue from ‘roogler Mike M., a cool depiction of what looks almost like a ninja star. When I was a kid, we’d go to the swap meet and invariably there’d be a couple people selling stuff like that along with nunchucks and butterfly knives. Would you believe that they actually let us BUY them without parental consent? This was in the 70s though. Looking back on it, that’s pretty strange that an 8 year old kid was able to buy that stuff. The items weren’t that sharp, but still…

Anyhow, I’m going to give you Mike M.’s word clue that I modified a bit. The star is visible from about 14/18 or so. Also, I am not 100% certain this clue has not been discussed on other Google sites. So if you don’t want to spoil the fun, don’t look right away. Like I said I am not sure about it. Here you go:

“When in Rome, do as the Standing Stone People do”

Since I won’t be able to update nearly all day, I hope this won’t be too hard. I must say right off the back to watch out for a multitude of herrings flopping around… I have noted at least 2 direct herrings.

[Edit: 9:22 am PDT - Wow, I see a lot of new faces in the solutions coming in… cool! If you’re just surfing in and new to the game, remember I post everyone’s name at the END of the day’s game. Also, make sure to use the “solve a clue” form instead of leaving a comment - I won’t post your comment if it contains the solution! Ok, since we seem to be doing OK, I will leave it as is for now: I might check in earlier than I thought, maybe 5pm PDT or so…]

Clue Name : “Ninja Star”
Submitted by: Mike M.
Status : Solved (20)
Duration: Thursday 7/14/05

Solved By: Jim H, Hoblaa, Markus B, John N, Ken S, Mike B, Aaron F, Max P, The Beamer, Judy B, David H, Jonas M, Erica, TCS, Phil M, Mark L, Landis, Katie N, Nick A, Peter R

Word Clues : “When in Rome, do as the Standing Stone People do”
Magnification Needed: 14/18

SOLUTION TO “Ninja Star”

If you need further proof of how great a magazine WIRED is here you go. I was notified by ‘roogler Trecherus that he actually spotted Scavengeroogle featured in the print version of the July 05 issue of Wired Magazine! This is awesome stuff and it really made my day. Actually it really made my week as it has been slightly cruddy so far. (Sorry about the lack of a clue today, I will try get one up soon!)

I used to subscribe to Wired long ago, but I haven’t gotten the print version of the magazine for quite awhile. Primarily because I just visit the Wired Site for latest news. On that note, I know that the magazine and online version overlap in some respects but I don’t think this article is online. I haven’t searched but I assume that I would have noticed incoming traffic from Wired if we had appeared online.

[Edit: 7/20/05 - Oops, I spoke to soon. We are surely linked from the actual site in the Spawn Of Google Maps article online at Wired.com. Yay!]

The feature is on page 30 of the latest issue and is entitled “Spawn of Google Maps” by Matthew Yeomans. He talks about 5 different ways that people are using Google Maps.

We are featured in the number 2 slot of the “5 Spins on Searchable Terrain”! As you can see in the picture, they included both a picture and a little blurb paragraph about what the site does. For the picture, they actually chose to show a clue called Bones Brigade from back in early May. They also mentioned the Question Mark pier and the bell carved into farmland. From this, I gather that the article was written in early May sometime since they don’t talk about any of the more recent clues.

This is super nice that they would feature us in their article. Along with Scavengeroogle, there is the familiar “googleglobetrotting” site, as well as a LiveJournal Area 51 site, a loggin industry destruction related site, and a digital scrapbook a la Flickr. I didn’t have time to scan in all the other blurbs at high res.

So, anyhow I wanted to say thanks again for coming to visit the site once in awhile. As I said before, I am pretty amazed at the fact that people came to visit the site in the first place. Originally, it was just a project for fun that I thought would last for a couple clues or so. I guess I should get on the ball and create some more clues now!

In any case, hooray for us! Well, I was hoping they would have had some screenshots of one of the clue summary boxes so that it’d show some of your names and make you a bit famous. Hehe. Anyhow, thanks again and thanks for sending in all those clues lately…

For most people this clue wasn’t too tough. Here is Brian G’s original message about the clue:

Here’s a decent one continuing the Roman numeral flavor. It’s on the north shore of Lake Mendota in Madison, WI. You can google a story of the origin of the name Mendota, and it means ‘Indian’s Bed.’ Lake Mendota is the largest of 4 lakes in S. WI, so I thought a good word clue would be:

North of the Indian’s Bed, largest of the four

Hopefully it’s a good one. It’s visible from pretty far out, too. BTW, it’s the Dane County Mental Health Facility where these buildings are.

So anyhow, I had tried a Google Find on Indian’s Bed directly and I saw that like the second answer gave Mendota. So I decided to take out the “largest of the four” part. Then I figured it wouldn’t be necessary to say “North of” because once you found Mendota you were pretty much set.

Most people did just that: Googled the answer right up. Like David H:

Took about two minutes. Simple Google search for “Indian’s bed” brought up Lake Mendota. From there…easy!

andChris H:

Actually only took about 2 minutes, but only because I immediately Googled the clue and only two entries came up!

and Don R:

Took 5 minutes or less. I googled “Indian’s Bed,” and the 4th listing was to an explanation on the origin of the name of Lake Mendota (Wâkcikhomîgra =”The Indian’s Bed”) which is located near Madison, WI. A quick scan of the Madison area near the lake quickly revealed the Roman XIX.

Golux13 got it fairly quickly:

Time: 7-10 minutes. I Googled “Indian’s Bed” and it immediately turned up a story about why Lake Mendota is named The Indian’s Bed. After that, it was several minutes to find the actual image, but I was sure I was in the right area.

I like Roogling because it kind of fills me in on stuff like the story about the lake that I otherwise would never know about. I keep forgetting that because I don’t physically travel a whole lot I sort of live in a state of disconnection; you can live all your life in one large city and never really experience other states and locations. But finding out about different places virtually through google maps is at least a start!

Judy B nearly got herringoogled in the following manner:

Tricky. Very tricky. I went of on a Hindi search before doing the forehead slap and looking closer to home. I actually vacationed near Madison as a child and now remember the story of Lake Mendota. Sheesh! Talk about getting into the Way-back machine! Very nice clue and hunt!

and Moose also had some early trouble:

Ok, so I don’t know if this clue was really as hard as I made it, but this was probably one of my longest solve times yet: 30 mins. I saw “Indian” and since I live in western Arkansas, I thought of Oklahoma with all of its indian nations. After exhausting that, I thought perhaps the Cleveland Indians. No dice. Finally I decided to google “the Indian’s bed” and Lake Mendota came up. Easy from there! I can’t express how much I love the all day clues, it’s much less stressful on all of us. I’m looking forward to the next one!

I did sort of think about the different ways that people would come at clue looking for American Indian tribes and nations… I knew there was some risk, but the “direct google” search was almost immediate. So I figured I would try it out… I didn’t think of baseball though! At least you didn’t also get stuck in Atlanta…

I asked about vacations people have taken (I am vacationing vicariously this year). Shawn D got the solution and also gave this account of his vacation:

Took about 20 minutes. Found the area quickly thanks to Google, but my eyes aren’t open yet.

BTW, just came off a quick vacation with my 8 year old. Took her to Schlitterbahn, rated the #1 water park in the U.S, totally spring fed water, 72 degrees year round. (unfortunately no good Google map of the area, New Braunfels, Tx)

Then went to the Alamo and Riverwalk in San Antonio, soaked in some of the Spurs revelry, and on to the Texas coast at Corpus Christi. (also no good Google map). We toured the U.S.S. Lexington, went to the Texas State Aquarium and the beach.

On the return trip, we stopped in New Braunfels again for a tube ride down the Comal river. What a blast. Then jumped into downtown Austin to watch the bats fly out from under the bridges on Town Lake. 1.5 Million of them!

We packed a lot into 5 days. 1076 miles on the car and my daughter slept through 890 of them.

I have heard of Schlitterbahn before, sounds like you had a lot of fun! Texas State Aquarium would have been my pick if on that trip… I am a huge, huge fan of aquariums. I think I have been to a total of about 10-12 so far. I’ve only been through Texas once though, in a layover in Dallas. Hm… is it true the steaks are really big there? =)

Some people, like Andy K, actually knew the area a bit:

Have a cousin that lives in Madison and goes to the University of Wisconsin near by. After a google I recognized the name of the lake immediately. From there it was just a matter of time. Booyaa!!

Similar with Katie N:

This was one of the easiest clues in a while. I googled “indian’s bed” and found something about Mendota. I immediately knew where it was since I was in Madison this spring and walked on the frozen lake.

I have never walked on a frozen lake, let alone ice skated on one. Not many chances of that in Southern California, but I guess I should be thankful for the mild weather. Well, there WAS hell of rain this winter over here.

Okey dokes, thanks for your participation. Check back soon I guess!

Solution to “Nineteen”“

Ah… coffee. So anyhow, how are you doing? I went through some of my email box and found a slew of clue submissions that had found their way into an older email folder of mine. Well, more like a few clues. But anyhow, you do remember the old Paul Hardcastle song from 80s called “Nineteen”, don’t you? Yeah, the one where he’s all: “N-n-n-n-nineteen, nineteen”. Yeah, just play along here.

Well, this cool roman numeral nineteen was sent in by Brian G. and immediately reminded me of that song. The buildings that make up the numeral are pretty well defined, really nice actually. It is visible from pretty far out at 14/18.

I actually thought about Brian’s word clues and decided to change them slightly. Horrors all around! Well, now that we have an all day thing going, I think there’s a little more leeway in experimenting with the word clues. Because I can correct them later in the day if they are too difficult. If they’re too easy though, there’s no going back. =) Anyhow, let’s try this for size:

“The Indian’s Bed”

I want to see how hard that will be to find. Don’t panic if you don’t have any idea. I’ll drop more stuff soon.

What are you all doing for summer vacation by the way? Is anyone going (or have gone) on cool trips to neat places featured in Google Maps? I had to sort of cancel my usual week long summer trip this year. Budget cuts. You know how that goes…

[Edit: 9:42 am PDT - The clue seems to be doing well so far without other info, so I’ll hold off for now. Say, I hope everyone in the Southeast is doing OK from all the storms…]

[Edit: 3:44 pm PDT - Whew, it is truly hot today where I am. I think we got enough solutions so I don’t need to drop the region. I’ll check back in after dinner, have a good afternoon!]

Clue Name : “Nineteen”
Submitted by: Brian G.
Status : Solved (13)
Duration: Monday 7/11/05

Solved By: Jonas M, David H, Mark L, Judy B, ShawnD, TheBeamer, Ken S, Don R, Andy K, Moose, Golux13, Katie N, Chris H

Word Clues : “The Indian’s Bed”
Magnification Needed: 14/18

SOLUTION TO “Nineteen”

I was clued into a really interesting site by ‘roogler Trecherus yesterday. The site is called Google Maps Transparencies and it provides an overlay functionality that will let you see the center portion of the “street map” google map” as a transparency over the “satellite map”. A great idea, and with Google officially releasing their API for Google Maps we should see a ton more really cool applications like this coming out soon. Keep you ear to the ground…

As you can imagine, transparency is a pretty neat idea and I predict it might be useful for Scavengeroogling as we know it. Because I don’t know about you but I am constantly switching back and forth between the two maps. The move of the Satellite and Map buttons by Google that we mentioned before was interesting but this site actually provides a significant improvement to the switching of maps.

What is very useful is that as you “drag” the map it drags BOTH the overlay and the background map the same “distance”. The overlay stays in the center of the map always. Like Google Maps, you can also zoom into the map (of course if you zoom too far in on a non high-res mapped location it will give the familiar grey screen with “We don’t have the imagery at this zoom level” message.

Also extremely useful is the option to “toggle” the map so that the overlay is using either the Satellite Map or the Street Level Map (and the background is using the opposite). They’ve also put a handy couple of dropdowns to “auto-jump” to various U.S., Canadian and UK cities as well as exact longitude and latitude coordinates.

Beyond it’s applications for Roogling, the transparency feature is interesting for looking at how the various satellite terrain features line up with the street map view. For the most part, Google Maps are pretty accurate on this, though I have seen things that didn’t exist simultaneously in the same map.

I haven’t used this yet in actual application (finding clues) but I figure it should be pretty useful, so you may want to bookmark it for later clue testing. A couple of suggestions I might have for the functionality: It would be cool to have the ability to turn on or off the transparency at will. (I just noticed that there is an “opacity slider” at the bottom that lets you make it completely solid or invisible…very cool). Also, the familiar magnification slider is missing here, although the plus / minus zoom buttons are there. And finally, for roogling it would be nice if the familiar “link to page” actually grabbed the real link instead of a link to this site itself.

Wow, that was pretty fun. I think we will stick with the all day clue thing for now. It seems like a lot of people appreciate the option of checking in whenever they like during the day to solve a clue. On my end, I didn’t have to sit in front of the computer and update as madly as before. It was especially good because putting up this solution didn’t waste my lunch hour. Well, OK, it means I still need to type this solution after dinner but I’d much rather do that!

Not many problems in the herring department, and many people got the answer lickety split. You are all too darn smart. The pun, of course, is GlenWOULD Springs which I thought was a nice one by Dan M. I have actually been to Glenwood Springs in Colorado. It was on the way back from Aspen actually. I forget which summer it was, but I really remember Glenwood Springs because it was BURNING. Well, the far hills in back of the city were burning at least. As I was filling up my guzzlermobile at the gas station there, the ash from the fire was coming into the city…

Some new faces and some old ones I haven’t seen in awhile! OK, as a one time thing, here are the solutions in the exact order I got them:

Judy B (6:24 am) notes:

Glenwood, but I probably wouldn’t! (:

Mike B (6:49 am) did the right thing:

Total time - about 5 minutes. The clue yielded “Glen would” which became Glenwood. Googling found Glenwood, CO and then it was obvious.

Shawn D (7:34 am) got a quick hit:

glad to be back. good one. gotta run

Chris R (8:00 am) was similarly speedy:

Took about 4 minutes.

Katie N (8:43 am) is back from vacay:

It only took me a minute to think of ‘glenwood’ and a google search took me immediately to glenwood springs. It’s good to be back in town and playing again!

Adam M (10:17 am) nearly herringed out on Koalas:

I search for cities that started with Glen, and even went as far as Austrilia, until I thought “If I wouldn’t then Glen probably would” LOL. Took about 10minutes.

Trecherus (10:28 am) nearly overdosed on Glens:

It took me about 10 minutes. I started searching the birthplaces of famous Glens such as Scott Glen, Glen Campbell and places like Watkins Glen, but all had low resolution satellite imagery. I finally went back to the clue like I should have in the first place and started to think “what about glen?” and realized that “Glen Would !”. I put “Glen Wood” into google and google suggested “glenwood” as a search. I clicked on that and the first link was to the City of Glenwood Springs (http://www.ci.glenwood-springs.co.us/), Colorado. They had a nice interactive map on their website that allowed me to zoom in to see that the exclamation mark is a Hot Springs Pool

Mark L (11:34 am) went “duh”:

After I figured out Glenwood “DUH” it took me about 5 minutes

Justin (12:38 am) exclaims:

I thought about the clue, and then I realized that the response to the word clue is “Glen would”. I googled the word “Glenwood” and found Glenwood Springs, CO. It took only a few seconds after that to find the exclamation point.

Margie M (1:07 pm) almost got lost in a wooded glen:

Took about 20 minutes. I got stuck looking around Wooded Glen in Indiana, but since there is nothing (with a capital NOTH) around Wooded Glen in Indiana, next try was Glenwood and Colorado came up on the first results page. This would be my first solve.

Moose (1:52 pm) googled and roogled:

Great clue. I really like the wording of it. Took me under a minute to solve. Read the clue, figured out that “Glen would” or “Glenwood.” First response on google gave me Glenwood Springs, CO. Google Mapped the city, zoomed in, and there it was! I love this day long clue. I drove straight into work (at 3pm cst) from being out of town for the night, so it was nice to find my ‘Roogling waiting for me when I got here. Yay, now I still get to have my name on the solvers list! I really like this day-long clue stuff.

Peter R (4:50 pm) sends love from Canuckia:

Love the whole day clue thing BTW. Gave me some time to actually get things accomplished during the day!

This one took me about 20 minutes, but it was a tough 20 minutes. I sat down and stared at the clue for about five minutes trying to figure out what the clue meant. Finally, out of frustration, I said, “What do I care if Glen would . . . oh.”

Of course the rest of the time was spent googling for Glenwoods. Why can’t you Americans be like us Canucks sometimes and just use a town name once! Iowa, Illinois, New Mexico, etc. I can’t wait until you have a Springfield clue. . .

Karl (5:14 pm) sped through:

Took about 1 minute to get glenwood, and another minute to find the hot springs website!

Phil M (5:50 pm) is a time traveler:

I really like these all day clues because I work during the day. Plus I’m on a different time zone so that makes it harder.

Hank (7:46 pm) briefly sez:

Downtown Glenwood Springs, CO.

Fun stuff! I’ll see you all soon, remember to check back around once a day or so in order to sink your fangs into some meaty roogle clues…

Solution to “Exclamation Point”“

Hello, what’s this? A clue on a THURSDAY?! You bet your Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans… Sorry, a Potter lapse.

Anyhow, we are back and in full experimentation mode. That is, this clue is open all day long today. You’ll note that it was auto-launched (at least it should have been) at midnight. So, if you suffer from insomnia, mosey on over once in awhile and you might find some Scavengerooglin’ awaitin’ you. Well, anyhow I will try and set it so it launches early from now on (especially for you east coasters). But there may be times I’ll just launch a clue up in the middle of the day too!

Also remember, if you’re solving a clue at 3 in the morning I’m most likely asleep so I won’t update the “Pending Solutions”. On that note, I’ll try check in every so often and update the Pending Solutions, but if you don’t see the number change after submitting don’t worry.

OK, as to the clue! This looks somewhat like an Exclamation Point lying on its side and was sent in by Dan M. awhile back. Hmm.. we do like our punctuation, don’t we. Interestingly, I just bought the Schoolhouse Rock DVD which contains the superfun jingle “Interjection!”. So you can say that exclamations were on my mind. Catchy buggers, those songs. (If you’re not over 25 you probably don’t remember them from Saturday morning cartoons).

The exclamation point is visible at about 15/18. I actually thought it was kinda funny that the reddish buildings sort of form the letters “H” and “I”, with the “I” lying on its side. So the clue is sort of a “HI!” Lots and lots of laughs…

Your word clues, should you choose to accept them, are:

“I wouldn’t. How about Glen?”

and are straight from Dan’s submission. OK, get to it. I am trying to decide exactly when a region will be dropped. I am thinking that it will be on a clue by clue basis to start with. That is, if there are no solutions at all, I’ll drop it right away whenever I get to the computer. But if there are some rolling in then we’ll wait, or not drop anything at all!

[Edit: 10:56 am PDT - Our first day long clue looks pretty good up to now, so I’ll hold off on region for now. Gosh, that is really tragic about the stuff in London. I hope if any of you are from the area you are all safe and sound.]

[Edit: 1:37 pm PDT - Whee! I am REALLY liking the all day clue thing so far. There’s no pressure to writeup the solution by a set time in the middle of the day, and it looks like some of you who don’t normally get to play are getting a chance to! I’ve been checking my email every 2-3 hours or so and that seems about right…]

Clue Name : “Exclamation Point”
Submitted by: Dan M.
Status : Solved (15)
Duration: Thursday 7/7/05

Solved By: Judy B, Mike B, Shawn D, Chris R, Katie N, Adam M, Trecherus, Mark L, Justin, Margie M, Moose, Peter R, Karl, Phil M, Hank

Word Clues : “I wouldn’t. How About Glen?”
Magnification Needed: 15/18

SOLUTION TO “Exclamation Point”