Attendees: Mike Wolfberg Aaron Fuegi Matt Stone Dick Plotz Shari Jackson David Metcalf Melissa Janbergs Bill Card Beth Parkhurst Ed Kusnitz Cori Couture Elaine Hansen Jim Propp Craig Swanson Cally Perry Daniel Miller Pete Fischer Roland Janbergs Gregg Foster Sherrie Saint John Paul Dworkin Judy Anderson Adam Logan Ken Olum Andy Latto Valerie White Pete Fischer Nate Glasser Michael Monroe
The yarn and cards eventually led to two envelopes with welcome letters and puzzles. Over time, people have discovered that there are at least two puzzles of clues and yet another puzzle of answers. Broken into three basic groups, the largest one gathers in the livingroom, a medium group in the dining room, and a smaller group in the day care area in the back of the house. Judy Anderson as the Queen of Hearts carves a fine figure in one of those tiny kiddie chairs.
If we measure the games by Alan's hats, we have seen him go from a multicolored Mad Hatter affair to a yellow, plastic construction cap.
"Mulch Ado about Nothing" what does that mean!?
"We have the problem solved," we hear from the livingroom, yet they don't know what to do with the gray squares.
Nina's dad Pete said: "I know non-linear algebra, but I don' t know non-linear crossword puzzles!"
Having a large group has turned out to be a great benefit to the livingroom group. The daycare group hasn't enough clues to figure out the puzzle.
Bread from Providence, R.I., has been a big hit over the snacktime. Olive bread and California bread (with nuts, raisins, and figs), malted milk balls, and carrot sticks, too.
Alan is now in a rice picker straw hat. .....
The other groups are studying their welcome sheets, looking for inconsistancies and similarities. They are anagramming and trying to configure.
The farmers are working in the livingroom, near me. They've been told that later they may need to act out a pantomine based on Old McDonald's Farm.
Alan is now in the witch hat and he is telling us that we are wasting our time.
His hats thus far have been:
While Alan makes spaghetti cassarole, the church/snowmen people talk about online German translations. Mike Wolfberg has a red crown on with blue dot decorations and a lovely silver band of ducktape on the bottom.
Thanks to Dan and Linda for cryptic help, Nina for song ideas, Craig for artwork, Walrus for placing next clue under table.
Now they are looking under the table. They got a pile of stuff. Part of it says:
More complete acknowledgements:
Thanks to Dan and Linda for writing almost all of the cryptic clues;
Morocco for another cryptic idea; yduJ for baking assistance; Sherrie,
Gregg, Riley, and Tapestry for loans of equipment;
ttditl@earthlink.net
(best answer from rec.arts.movies.past-films) for help in Odd Man Out
research; Katy for the use of her bedroom (and the rest of my housemates
for tolerating the annual invasion); Connie, Pete, Stacey, Ari, Emily,
Lucy, Naomi for help with one of the clues; Craig for artwork; Friendly's
for donating building materials; Project Gutenberg for providing the
complete Snark in computer-readable form; and especialy Nina for puzzle,
logistical, and moral assistance, along with lots of help putting together
two of the clues.
The other papers included a puzzle of pink pieces of paper. Alan gave them tape to assemble it. Then there is a series of papers with maps on them and series of letters; perhaps anagrams of cities or states.
They are now singing songs about cities. "I was born in the summer of my 22nd year . . ." Eat your heard out John Denver.
In another room, Cally is singing only a few of them and doing a lovely job, too.
Just to show you how well-rounded the farmers are, they are doing their own trivia. Dick asked the question: "Why are baud rates all divisible by 300?" To which, Alan and others brought up the 72 and 100. He said after that they were all divisible by 300. The answer was thought to be because it is the lowest number divisible by 50 and 60. Of the eight people at this table, the frightening reality is that this answer meant something to seven of them.
Across
1. Damages the property of another, such as a painting grafitti
Which somehow got us to see MUSHROOM.
AMPHIBIAN APPALL BADMINTON BEDABBLED BREEZY CARDBOARD CAUCUS CORDON CRICKETER FIZGIG FOLLOW HUNGRY INNOCENCE JELLYFISH JOYPOP MANNERISM MICROPROGRAM MURMUR PERPLEXED QUARTZ REDDER SUCCESSFULLY TORRID VENIREMEN WORRYWARTThe farmers have ascertained that these should be broken down into groups of three. However, Alan has just announced that they had the WRONG puzzle. He is now getting them the right one.
Many sheets of thin blue paper and several instructions:
1. Place paper so that the long edges go across and the short edges go up
and down, with the colored side (if there is one) face up.
2. Label the top left corner A and continue clockwise, labelling B, D, and C.
3. Fold edge BD over to AC. Crease and unfold. Label the top of the new
fold E and the bottom G.
4. Mountain fold CE so that corner A goes underneath to point F. Similarly,
mountain fold DE so that corner B goes underneath to point F.
5. Fold edge CE to crease EF, folding only the top layer; point A will flip
back out to a position to the lower-left of point E. Fold edge ED similarly.
6. Turn the paper over. Label the midpoint of BD as M and the midpoint of
AC as N.
7. Fold point E down to point C/D, creasing along line AB, then unfold.
8. Fold point E to the middle of the figure, crease and unfold.
9. Refold along the crease from step 7, then mountain fold along the crease
from step 8, tucking point E in under the flap that runs from M to N.
10. With vertical creases that run inside up to edge AB, mountain fold the
loose corners near M and N behind as far as they will go.
11. Label the midpoint of edge AB as F and the midpoint of MN as P. Label
the point 40 percent of the way from B to A as J and the point 60 percent
of the way from B to A as K.
12. Fold along edge KP. Crease and unfold. Fold along edge JP. Crease and
unfold.
13. Mountain fold along line FP. Crease by pushing J and K together and
release.
Every farmer watched Cally as she folded what turned out to be a butterfly.
Cally, the ever-wonderous one, figured out that this was a Kate Wolf CD title and she found the next clue in a stack of CDs in the livingroom, which turned out to be the puzzle they'd already had before.
Several batches of chocolate chip cookies have been made and shared.
JYUFWZ EOASTHG PNRQKB LCIDMVXNo one is sure what they make yet, but Alan is helping.
Nina has gone shopping, to a movie, to dinner, and taken a 4-mile walk all in the time we are all sitting in our chairs working on this puzzle.
The remaining puzzles are odd-man out quizzes. Thr first one:
2 Ahab 9 Hippolyta 5 Oedipus 7 Vincent van Gogh 3 Alice / Charles - Museum 2 Wonderland 1 Alvin * Daffy 5 Ignatz + Rocky 8 an infernal situation 6 Desdemona's killer 5 devices that receive AM and FM 1 71077345 on a calculator Another one: * Candle-Ends 7 Fritter my wig 1 Rocking-horse fly 6 Toasted Cheese * Carver 2 David + Grier 3 Pickett / Chet * Gracie 4 Moon 2 Starshine + Come Saturday Morning 5 If I Only Had a Heart 9 Money 6 The World Goes Round The third one: 2 John Guare + Kevin Bacon 1 Paul Erdos 5 Paul Simon - Ben * Tom 2 Walter 7 William - Blackbeard 2 Daffy * Jimmy 3 John 1 Brosnan + Prefect 5 Shawn 2 Steffans Fourth Puzzle: 3 ebb + escarole 1 marshal 2 rhizocephalan 4 elf * once + seize 6 xi 3 marching band 1 Peg + minuet * waltz 5 sales 8 stop 2 tiger 4 waylaid
The number is 42, then they went to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe and went to page 42 and found a card. It has a picture of Alice looking up at the Cheshire Cat in a tree. Inside it says: "Dream That!" Which anagrams to Mad Hatter. They then got a puzzle from under Alan's hat. This packet had a bunch of beforeafter sketches. The differences in the drawings were: crown, quarter, bread, buck, and bill. The farmers decided this had to do with money and went to the cash register (a cardboard box, actually) to get a clue that told them to go to the end of the maze, which ended at the ginger bread house in the day care room. At that house they found a blue dot on a window in the ginger bread house's diningroom window. When the farmers returned to the real dining room, they discovered, near a window, a blue ginger bread house with an invite beneath it for Alice. Cally was dressed as Alice today. Her card invited her to a tea party.