I'm still working on that Shinteki Decathlon write-up. I got a draft ready, sent it out to my team-mates. Emily wrote back with a bunch of cool jokes that I'd forgotten. Yeah, I forgot plenty; usually I take better notes. I lost my little audio-recorder dealie, so I was taking notes by writing in pencil on these big purple index cards. But there was aheat wave going on. My hands were sweaty, the cards were smeared when I tried to read the notes and... what? Gross? You don't want to hear about my sweat? Hmm, maybe you're not going to want to read that write-up when I finish it, then. Meanwhile, I'll just talk about some other puzzle-game-thingie related links to distract you from my slow writing.
When I posted a bunch of Microsoft Intern PuzzleHunt links a while back, I overlooked one. Why? Because it was in Chinese. But then I tried looking at it again. And thanks to Google Language Tools, I can read the gist of it. I think (s)he liked it:
Saturday is the Puzzlehunt Microsoft interns. I do not want to, but in looking at the last persuasion, or joined H-bomb team (hey, the team members understood the significance of : :). Saturday only to find the original guess was quite interesting, and a total of 32, I play a high level, at least in the title of the settlement process 1/4 played a key role -- or even four or five that I alone completed. (a total of 12 of our teams. ) H-bomb team has far ahead is the only cut more than 40 teams created all the teams. Unfortunately, the number of rounds is not the key to the final title. Since some inadvertent errors and communication, and we lost the championship (final hurdle only five minutes !!! worse than the first), but placing him second. The prizes better, a block and a Chinese chess pieces.
From Jessica Lambert's blog, I learned something. Microsoft interns get a weekend puzzle game in addition to a day-long puzzle game. That's, like, three days of puzzle-hunting. Very impressive. So now I'm working on a little speech. "To keep up with the competition, we must close the 'intern puzzle-hunt gap'." "To keep up with the competition, we must close the 'intern puzzle-hunt gap'." "To keep up with the competition, we must close the 'intern puzzle-hunt gap'." I'm going to keep repeating that until I can say it with a straight face to the Google Intern Recruiting College Morale Wacky University Fun Times Department.
Then again, if a Google intern is working at the Google Mountain View office, they can participate in a variety of San Francisco bay area events, enjoying a fun mix of puzzle-huntish activities out of the frickin' office. So maybe the Microsofties should be saying "To keep up with the competition, we need some time to work on our puzzle-related community outreach program, working with SeattleGC.com and other agencies to close the 'local puzzle-hunt scene gap'." to their Microsft Intern Recruiting College Morale Wacky University Fun Times Department.
If this escalates, both companies will spend three months out of each year having their interns decode Morse by hand. As those interns return to academia, this will lead to changes in the underlying IP protocols moving to a sort of dah-dit-based packet structure and... Sorry, what was the question?
In other news, Remote Mystic Fish Joe DeVincentis had a fun report on a big National Puzzlers' League convention. Where by "fun," I mean "better him than me." I visited my folks yesterday, and they'd clipped out this newspaper article about a display of mechanical puzzles with some pretty photos.
The other thing I did yesterday was buy a new audio recorder dealie. So, barring disaster, I should be able to take good notes for that writing project I mentioned earlier. Not that I can be sure of barring disaster. I'm hoping to play with not-my-usual team. The first team I signed up with filled up and gently said "no". The second team thought they were playing, but weren't really. The third... well, the third time's the charm. (Now please excuse me while I go knock on wood to keep from jinxing it.)
Labels: link, puzzlehunts