Black Letter Games Artifact 1: The "Live" "Blog"

The BLG gang have allowed Internet discussion of the puzzles/solving paths after a suitable amount of time has passed (basically 6-7 weeks).  So to document my own progress, and maybe get some discussion started, I'm going to be "live" "blogging" the puzzles.  The first one is definitely written retroactively; I was planning to do the second one (or at least keep notes) in real-time, but I kinda forgot.  But I wrote it up reasonably soon after, so it's kind of live.  Anyway that one will come in about a month.  Right now it's time for installment #1!

The Website and the Key

The official start time arrives! With ... nothing in particular. Facebook/Twitter friends tell me that the go signal has been given, and eventually it shows up on my Facebook page, so away we go.

The box says "Black Letter Labs", so I assume that I should be heading towards that website. I inadvertently type "blackletterlabs.com" into Google search instead of my browser bar; all the results I get are about that domain being added to spam blacklists. With not as much confidence as I might have felt, I visit the blackletterlabs website, and am presented with what appears to be a photography company website. I notice that "/key" is added to the end of the URL, and that the login box accepts my BLG username and password (but tells me I haven't found the key). When I return the main page, the quote has changed, which helps focus me to that area of the page. It was a quote that I knew (although I don't remember now what it actually was), and the blather about last names was enough to give me the key and get me in (where I had to log in again). At about this point I received the official start e-mail telling me that maybe I should visit a website to get started.

The Receipt: First Pass

After reading through the introductory material online, I proceed to examine the receipt. The interesting features I see:

• The address looks like, essentially, words. "President" is pretty clearly spotted in the "Cross Top Resident" portion, and the rest looks like it can be re-spaced to form a phrase of some kind.
• The phone number is given old-style. I suspect I would have tried to make a word out of the phone number anyway, but with two letters already there it becomes even more obvious.
• The items have things like "(3/14)" after them. I at first suspect they could be dates until I get to "(18/18)", which is clearly not a date. At this point I strongly suspect them to be indices into ... well, whatever the items all represent.
• "Our tax"? Why our tax?
• The final total is missing.
• The words when, who, what, and where are bolded in the bottom bit of text.
• The back contains some poetry-like text, in a handwriting font that I very quickly come to loathe. Since "signature" didn't appear on the front, and this is "handwritten", I anticipate this will be the signature part of the artifact.

Who

I decide, based on a whim, to start with the items. I recognize a couple of the items as animals used in ads: Spuds should be Spuds McKenzie of Bud Light, and Nipper is from RCA, and McGruff is from ... whatever organization does those crime ads. I look up the others and find that they're all dogs. To get the letters to come out, we have to use companies, rather than products (for example, Spuds needs to be 14 letters, which is Anheuser-Busch instead of Bud Light). Taking the indexed letters gives HECATMORRIST which if we start in the middle for whatever reason gives MORRIS THE CAT.

Where

I then move toward the top, as that looks like the next easy thing to work on. The address as given is


75 Cross Top Resident # 4

Secorn, Ermanna Hata

(843) WH4-8639


(The numeral 4 in the first line is in a rather different font from the rest of the receipt, very obvious in the online hi-res image but still apparent in the printed copy, but that appears to be just a coincidence. At any rate, trying that as a method-check didn't get me anywhere.)
This can be re-read as "75 Cross to President #4, SE Corner, Manhattan". Getting Google Maps to show me the corner of 75th and Madison (who is the fourth president) shows that the southeast corner of that intersection is occupied by the Whitney Museum of American Art, which contains modern art (fitting with the supposed business name), so that answer gets submitted.

I then try to get some extra information from the phone number, but the phone number simply spells out (THE) WHI-TNEY, so that merely confirms my previous answer (at about the same time that the official response was coming in from the e-mail).

Signature

My next best bet seems to be the back of the receipt, so I spend some time deciphering the writing on the back. The phrases "Count Seventeen" and "each syllable is surely significant" suggest to me that I need to examine every seventeenth syllable. (I'm a bit hesitant as Seventeen could simply refer to the name of the organization, but barring any other candidates I go with it.) I'm not sure of the starting point, so I open up Excel, size my window so that I can see seventeen boxes across the screen, and type one syllable in each box going across and then down. This is tricky, as I have a tendency to mentally turn "small word" into "single syllable", which leads to me having to redo some spots. I'm expecting a phrase to phonetically read down a column, although I don't know which column (the first and the last are the likely candidates, but really it could be anywhere). It quickly becomes apparent that the last column is the important one after all (which helps find those pesky syllable-counting errors before getting too far), and the haiku "All those who consume Consider this your receipt You shall be consumed" appears. This gets submitted as the signature and is confirmed as correct.

A New Day

The previous sections took about three and a half hours Saturday afternoon, and that was the end of progress Saturday afternoon. (A nap may have been involved.) Sunday afternoon brought another look. The next thing that I noticed was that not only were the key words bolded, but the phrase also contained a hint as to where on the receipt the puzzle was located: "our address has never changed, so you always know where we are" confirms that the where puzzle is in the address, and "We source all our products from large corporations so you can be sure who you're dealing with'' confirms that the corporations from the list of items ("products") would be needed. The two remaining phrases are "We provide up-to-the-minute prices from day one no matter when you shop", which suggests that the when puzzle uses the prices, and "We carry the perfect spectrum, the ne plus ultra, of what you want" for the what puzzle. I decide, against all seeming reason, that since I can see the prices I should spend some time figuring out the basis for the what puzzle, since I have no idea what that could be referring to. Nothing in the receipt appears to relate to a spectrum, or even colors. (I suppose that the dogs have colors associated with them, but that feels like reusing a clue a bit too much.)

The inspiration for the what puzzle actually strikes when I consider making a "funny" Twitter post about how stuck I am: "it says it has the perfect spectrum, but I think I need infrared and ultraviolet too!" At that point the ultra in the clue clicks with ultraviolet above. I send the confirmation request of "black light" to BLG, and they confirm that a black light is indeed necessary. I then e-mail a bunch of colleagues who I suspect might own one to see if they could bring one to work on Monday. One of them confirms they have one, and I put the receipt aside until then.

Monday: The Highs, The Lows

After getting to work on Monday, I get the black light from my coworker and run it over the receipt and see a Campbell's soup can, specifically tomato soup. After a painful moment of thinking "the what is a can of soup?!?" I recognize that this probably refers to Andy Warhol's painting. After a quick Google check that Warhol's painting resides in the Whitney (which, given the alternative reality that the puzzle is based in, would be irrelevant anyway) and that it has some sort of a name, the answer is submitted and confirmed.

At this point, I probably did some actual work.

That afternoon, I then examined the prices, which is where the final puzzle should be. They quickly show themselves as likely dates; the tax isn't, but looks very much like a time (which with the "our" for hour seems like a good place to leave it). The clue tells me that the prices are from day one. Day one could represent Jan 1, or it could represent the first day on the receipt. By a funny coincidence, the very top of the receipt shows a date, and that date is Jan 1 1964, so both approaches lead to the same place (although we now know we are dealing with a leap year). Getting out a 1964 calendar shows that all the dates given are "holidays" that year—things like Labor Day, Easter, Halloween, etc. The only non-holiday is Election Day, which is at least a named day. This is a good sign, the prices must certainly represent dates (and specifically dates in 1964), and I'm now ready to take Julian dates for each of these dates (and then subtract one, of course, since we are measuring "from day one"), and since the total is conspicuously blank, I guess I'm going to add those dates to get a total and take that many days after Jan 1 1964 for my final answer.

Fortunately, I own a financial calculator (okay, several financial calculators), and I can easily do date calculations. I find the Julian dates (minus one), add them all up, and then count that many days forward from Jan 1 1964 and get November 23, 1970. At this point, I am expecting the answer to also be a "holiday" since all of the clue dates were, and my initial reaction is "That must be Thanksgiving, so that's okay." I then notice the "1" at the end of the calculator display, which is my calculator's way of telling me "Monday". I am concerned, as I really really want the answer to be a holiday. I am concerned enough that I send a method-confirmation submission for "Julian date".

The response I get is "That would not be a productive path."

Four Days Later

For the rest of Monday, and the rest of the week through Friday noon, I attempt several different paths with the prices: picking one of the dates off the receipt (the date where the M was in Morris the Cat, along with a couple others that I no longer remember the reason for), adding up the prices as actual prices and then converting that to a date somehow, and several others. My initial response had contained "10:45pm" and that part had been confirmed correct.

Friday noon, in response to yet another incorrect submission, and after either seven days or a certain amount of flail in my guesses (I don't know which), BLG sent a hint. It was written backwards, in case I wanted to keep going on my own (I didn't) and was a little cryptic (i.e., you would have to be thinking in those lines already to get the hint). Deciphered and interpreted, the hint was "Use Julian dates."

At this point, my co-workers started to fear for their safety.

Muttering various curses, I then went home (it was the usual time for me to leave on a Friday anyway) and re-did all the calculations to get November 23, 1970 and submitted the answer and finished the artifact.

The Aftermath

Eventually I calmed down enough to write a mostly-sane e-mail to BLG complaining about the Julian date response, and suggesting that if we end up playing keyword bingo, perhaps they could relax their two-word restriction on a confirmation e-mail. I considered adding something to the effect of "If this is the first shot in a meta about a mole in your organization, then I take it all back", but I decided against it. Their response was apologetic, but they weren't going to change the two-word limit. They also added "Julian date" to the list of keywords for that puzzle moving forward, and claimed that "The analyst [who read my original e-mail] has been sacked", which at least made me think of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and so made me laugh.

Finishing the artifact also brought me via e-mail a "lab report" with the alternative reality backstory behind the artifact, which was a cool touch (and added a secondary thread to the total backstory, which I think has some potential for a meta if there is one). I keep forgetting that the link to that is not available on the website and if I want to look at it I have to go to my e-mail, but I can't hold BLG accountable for my failing memory.

In terms of the puzzles, I thought the puzzles were pitched fairly for a first "round" in a series, and the UV definitely brought out the advantages of a physical medium. (This is the sort of spy stuff I envisioned from the backstory! Black light secret messages!) I thought the puzzles were all well-clued, even with the date puzzle fiasco, although there will always be an element of personal "being on the same wavelength as the puzzle writers" in that sort of assessment—so far, anyway, I feel pretty confident that this is going to be a good set of puzzles.

Lessons

• If you have an answer, submit the damn answer. You can worry about what you did wrong once you know the answer is wrong. Save confirmation submissions for situations when you would need some serious research or actual props (e.g., the black light).

ACPT 2012 By The Numbers

Here comes another year's worth of score data (thanks due to some combination of Will S, Doug H, Matt G, and probably some other people for getting the full data on the web) to play with.  First the median scores (plus my scores because, well, it's my blog darnit):
Puzzle 1: median 1065, corresponding to finishing perfectly with 7:xx on the clock (me: 1165, 7th overall for the puzzle)
Puzzle 2: median 800, corresponding to 80 out of 100 words with 0:00 on the clock (me: 1385 -- 20:xx on the clock, but 3(!) errors in 4 words)
Puzzle 3: median 1160, corresponding to 116 out of 118 words with 0:00 on the clock (me: 1730 -- clean with 16:xx on the clock)
Puzzle 4: median 1255, corresponding to finishing perfectly with 13:xx on the clock (me: 1330)
Puzzle 5: median 680, corresponding to 68 out of 102 words with 0:00 on the clock (me: 1420 -- clean with 10:xx on the clock)
Puzzle 6: median 1575, corresponding to finishing with one error and 16:xx on the clock (me: 1700 -- one error with 21:xx on the clock)
Puzzle 7: median 1875, corresponding to finishing perfectly with 13:xx on the clock (me: 2450 (36:xx), 9th overall for the puzzle)

So the typical contestant finished four of the seven puzzles, albeit one incorrectly (down one finished-but-wrong puzzle from last year).  The completion/"oops" statistics are:
Puzzle 1: 92.4%/17.2%
Puzzle 2: 41.3%/35.7%
Puzzle 3: 51.0%/36.2%
Puzzle 4: 97.8%/13.9%
Puzzle 5: 26.7%/32.7%
Puzzle 6: 88.9%/64.2%
Puzzle 7: 76.4%/35.6%
In each of these, the first numbers are the percentage of solvers (who turned in a paper) who completed the puzzle (defined as either time on the clock or 0 errors+0 time), while the second is the "oops!" rate: the percentage of the first group who had an error (by def they are people who had time on the clock when they turned it in).  For comparison, last year's completion numbers were 97/50/67/88/17/95/69, so it looks like puzzle 3 got tougher and 5 got easier (although that's definitely a relative term).  Puzzle 6 had a huge error rate, and we all know which square that was.  The completion stat for puzzle 2 is a lot better than I thought it was just looking around the ballroom (that's my poor visual estimation skills again).  The error rates around 35% seem a bit high, but I have no historical data (I didn't quite extract the same data in previous years) to compare it with.

Other score notes:  I added a column to the spreadsheet calculating how many points each person "gave away" on errors.  My 460 points given away was not, this year, enough of a difference to get back on stage, which means I will need to pick up speed again.  And congratulations and/or commiserations to Benjamin Aisen who was the lowest-ranked scorer to make no errors, finishing 132nd (top of the D division!).

Maybe one year I'll make some graphs.  If you have a graph you'd like to see let me know.

Virginia Is For Lovers -- Complete!

The contest is over!  You can find the answers at my puzzle "site"; and if you're coming late to the party, you will also be able to find a copy of the puzzles there as well.  I had 62 people request the puzzles, and they (you!) donated $602 to the cause, which is quite frankly very exciting.  I also received 41 correct answers, which is also very exciting.  The lucky winners drawn by random.org received gift certificates to ThinkGeek (1st place a $50 gift certificate went to J.T. Williams of Pasadena, 2nd place $25 went to Giovanni P.).  This would normally be the place where I'd make a bad joke about "don't spend it all in one place", except of course you have to.

Some comments about the puzzles:

• Probably the most common response I got was: "Didn't you kinda do the final metapuzzle backwards?"  The answer is: Of course.  I got stuck on doing the final puzzle in strict numerical order and forgot where I had gotten the idea from in the first place.  I think I was just so happy to get Postscript to draw a moderately-acceptable daisy that I wasn't thinking.  Still: Next time I will Do Better.
• The Bogey & Bacall puzzle was one of the last puzzles actually completed, and it showed a bit.  The original inspiration is allegedly the card solitaire game Golf (you know the one, where you can remove a card that is one above or one below the card you just played) but it turned out to look a lot more like "One Away" from The Price Is Right.  More importantly, I was unable to spot the alternate answers that are all over the place in that puzzle, which is bad.  I had intended to write a little computer program to generate all the possibilities from a string to check, but didn't.  I will now as penance.
• I know a lot more Crossword People than Puzzle People, so I was expecting a little bit of confusion from Skyscrapers.  I put the rules in the packet, but either I wasn't clear about it or people just weren't expecting me to actually explain the puzzle (or some of both), so a lot of people were a little bit stuck there.
• The voting for people's favorite puzzle (at least as reported to me) was fairly spread out -- I think just about everything except Romeo & Juliet got a mention from somebody.  I guess that's a good thing.
• The difficulty was deliberately easier (probably a lot easier than some previous work of mine), as the original concept involved two packs, to be solved in pairs, with the easier puzzles loaded into the "partner" pack.  That got dropped relatively quickly, but I stuck with the easier puzzles for a "general population" -- this isn't MIT Mystery Hunt, it's a charity fundraiser, and I knew that a fair bit of my audience wouldn't necessarily be expert at creative-type puzzles.  I think that some solvers got a bit less of an experience than they were hoping for, but I hope it was fun nonetheless.
• We'll definitely do this again sometime!

Puzzle Contest!

I am proud to announce a puzzle contest that I have created, "Virginia Is For Lovers". I am using it to raise money for a local charity, Transitions. Randomly selected winners will receive ThinkGeek gift certificates. (Even if you've never shopped there, I feel confident that you can find something you'll want.)

DETAILS
The contest will run through February 14th, 2012. Interested people need to get a puzzle pack (see next sentence), solve the puzzles inside, and follow the directions given there. To get the puzzle pack and make a donation, click the button:

Alternatively, if you've "given at the office" (or are a starving student, or just don't want to donate to this particular charity), you can send me an email at tabstopva plus sign vifl at sign gmail.com to request a set of puzzles for free, no annoying questions asked. (Also, no non-annoying questions!)

After the end of the contest period, I will randomly choose two people who sent me correct answers as winners, and will then send them their gift certificates.

WHAT ABOUT THESE PUZZLES?
There are eight puzzles (plus a ninth "meta" puzzle to get the final answer), mostly word-based with a little bit of logic. The main puzzles are named for famous couples, and in some cases knowledge of who these people are may be needed to solve the puzzle. I've tried to go for a generally gentle solving experience, although there may be a few tricky points to navigate through.

CAN YOU GIVE ME A RECEIPT?
I could give you a receipt, but I'm just this guy, you know? I'm certainly not registered with the IRS. If you need a receipt for tax purposes, then I suggest donating to the charity directly (if you're donating to Transitions, you can use the link above to find their donation page; or you can donate to a charity of your own choice -- it's your money, after all). I won't mind; just send me an e-mail so I can send you the puzzle pack.

ERRATA:

• The first part of Bogey & Bacall (the "word golf" part) has a couple words with ambiguous possibilities. However, once you work out the method for getting the final answer, you will see which ones are intended. (Thanks Eric Maddy!)
• The first clue in Bertram & Helena is in error; it should read "Site of a supposed UFO landing". (Thanks David Stein!)

INTERESTINGNESSES:

I was originally planning to use Transitions' Paypal button to transfer the money I collected over to them. However, the Paypal button on their web page is broken! However, I believe I have copied the button code and will put it here so that I can use it. (Yes, this is just as complicated as you think it is.)

(Note: This button goes straight to Transitions, not to me.)

The Personal Touch

(I was planning to leave this as a comment on the post linked above in the title, but comments appear to be closed -- or else my browser has decided not to show me the comment box.)

Even in the midst of a contretemps about anonymous/pseudonymous blogging, you can still see a shining example of the value of the personal touch (even if you don't really know who is doing the touching):
Blogger A outs the personal information of anonymous Blogger B: theoretically, this is a bad thing, but it's your job to watch your own back and that's just the cost of doing business, and who are we to say whether Blogger A is a bad person or has even done anything wrong.
Anonymous Blogger B gets the best of *me* in an argument over Twitter four years ago: Blogger B is an asshole.

(Now the part that's specific here.)
When I first started this I actually tried to keep everything separate: my online persona (here and on discussion boards), my playwriting persona (who is now officially declared dead after seven years of inactivity, I think), and my "real" life. Eventually, they all got merged together for the most part. I don't even remember ever watching any James Bond movie all the way through, so I can't say that has any influence. I think it was just my way of internally handling all the little "circles" that I ran in that basically have no other intersection: family, hometown, math, work, puzzles, mahjongg, etc; plus the idea that leading a double life was somehow "cool". (I actually still think this, for some reason.) I have these groups running wild on my Facebook, and they all seem to ignore each other just fine, so I guess there's no need for me to have a bunch of different names.

Program notes: I am now on Twitter, for good or for ill. The handle is <2*2*2*2*2*3> (i.e. my other gmail handle). Also, I am planning to run a puzzle contest, with prizes, for charity in February, and am posting this here because I really need a deadline in order to get everything finished I suspect.

A Saturday in August

• It felt really weird to be in my bathroom brushing my teeth at 7am when I had an 8am flight. The ideas of online checkin + not having to drive one (or four!) hours to an airport have still not really sunk in.
• Flight up non-eventful. Between waiting in the terminal plus on-flight, I got four more puzzles done in the book of Hook 'n' Hex Boston Globe Sundays. Eventually I will finish that book....
• Although the flight up didn't do good things to my back, for whatever reason; it took most of the walk through the terminal for me to get back to standing up straight.
  
• Got my expired MetroCard swapped for a working one. Somehow forgot that the machines in the airport don't take cash, so I guess I didn't have to be so finicky about making sure about cash the day before.
• The transportation the rest of the way went smoothly; no trouble getting off the M60 at the right place, or getting on the Metro. Although the bus ride did finish off the back pretty thoroughly.
• Missed the boat the first time past the church, as I was expecting to go in the big doors where the stairs were; except they were walled over. So, back to the courtyard, find the signs, and down to the basement.
• Got my registration packet and my index card for the team game: "Malia". We were warned to be looking for a team of four, so I figured my group was pretty obvious (and it was). I don't know whether this part was Only Connect-inspired, as there were quite a few generalities (like "Joe") and people who fit into multiple groups (but only one way to get everybody into a group of four, presumably).
• Did some mingling with the group, as always. Round tables with splinters this year, so no resting your hands on the edges. Ended up sitting with Al Sanders (as last year) plus Joon Pahk.
• The final tally appeared to be 172 people this year, and in fact they were still trickling in as 11:00 rolled around, so we started a bit late.
• The play-at-home people are working now, so no more about the puzzles other than JOY. Also, I managed to legitimately beat Joon at one puzzle, but I never finished before Al this year.
  
• The group of us at lunch were a little late coming back, so we missed the first bit of Todd McClary's game, which was apparently to come up with a set of names that fit a category that had no repeated letters anywhere (the more letters the better).
• More puzzles.
• The group game got off to an inauspicious start, as a large chunk of people had already gone home (we, the Obamas, were short one person, and several groups were down to two), so there was much "oh, just find some people to work with".
  
• The group game was straightforward as these sorts of things go; but then even your average crossworder doesn't go for these sorts of things very often, and both of my teammates were stuck at "where are the directions?" So they got the ones with explicit directions and I got the ones that didn't really have them, and between us we made out okay.
• That final puzzle was hard. And another tie in calling "done", but since Al had an error (one of these years, Al!) it ended up not mattering.
  
• The trophies were old ACPT trophies from Ellen Ripstein's closet, which was a nice touch (plus a mug for "Worst Handwriting"). There were a lot of books from Puzzlewright Press, which surprises nobody. There was also an award for "Best former host" which got a lot of applause.
• They handed out ten prizes for each skill division, so that means I did get to hear my name called. People still remembered to chant, too, which was nice.
• Some more chat over pizza and ice cream at the end.
• The trip back was less smooth. I was able to get on and off the subway with no problems. It took me five tries to find the bus stop back to LGA, which is surprising given that most intersections (and this one too) only have four corners at them. I went (twice!) down Lexington Ave instead of down 125th, which just goes to show how bad my sense of direction is after coming up out of a hole in the ground. (It's bad enough just normally.) Plus I was being rained on the whole time.
  
• The bus was rather crowded, but the instant we got into Queens it emptied enormously.
• Upon arrival at the airport, I had convinced myself that my upgrade voucher I had redeemed was usable from the kiosk, which turns out to be not actually true, although I did get a piece of paper telling me to present $49 to the ticket agent. I went up to the agent and told my story, and when he opened up my account, the boarding pass printed out. I gave two ticket agents a chance to take my money, but they both took the opinion "if the boarding pass printed out, it's your seat". I guess that was my prize for the day. That, plus the flight landing about 20 minutes early.
• I think they added a dollar to the daily parking charge since the last time I flew PHF.
• This is a large number of bullet points, but it was a large day.
  

AirTran is leaving PHF a week before the ACPT, so this may be my last trip out of PHF (I'm going to have to look quite a bit for travel plans, since I doubt any of them will be quite the automatic "win" that AirTran from PHF to LGA was, especially with AirTran losing what seems like all of its perks along the way with the merger).

Vacation Day 1: No Rain Yet

Fortunately the thunderstorms stopped yesterday around 5:30, so it was smooth sailing for the evening festivities. Saw The Importance of Being Earnest at the ASC and it was excellent. They do entertainment during the interludes there, and they were definitely working on tying the interludes into the show -- the first break had the cast doing the B-52's Love Shack (I was definitely amused by seeing the actor playing Lady Bracknell, still dressed as Lady Bracknell obviously, doing the Fred whats-his-name spoken parts of the song), and the second had the cast doing I Got You, Babe in pairs. The stage left on-stage seating was taken by a group of scenic females, who were alternately amused and horrified by the cast's attempts to use them in the story. It was a bit of a small house, but it was a Wednesday night in the beginning of July so that's probably expected.

This morning was some more wandering -- a lot of churches today, and a music studio (or at least something labeled a music studio; last night coming back from the play walking past what had appeared to be an abandoned garage next to the hotel, there was definitely a band playing there. Perhaps it's just a very exclusive club). It was pushing 90 I think, then cooled off rather suddenly and given yesterday I decided I should probably get while I was just sweating and not drenched. The rain hasn't showed up yet though, so it may have been just a false alarm. I'll probably go back out tonight and see if there's anything going on north of here.

Update: It never did rain. North of here are a few houses and then the actual library. I also walked out the road I believe I need to take to get out of here tomorrow (the directions I had, while correct in every detail, did not actually help much in getting me here).

Vacation Day 0: Rain

I am on vacation, which is easy to spot because I have internet access. (It's only been 37 days since I had internet at home, and I've only got 5 more to go!) The theme for today has definitely been rain: I woke up this morning to somebody spraying water at my window with a hose (which turned out to be Mother Nature), left in the rain, drove in the rain to Richmond where there was 10 minutes of sun (I even put on my sunglasses!) followed by clouds and intermittent rain until five miles from Staunton when the sun started shining again.

I did the rest and relax thing for a bit when I got here, then wandered off for a walk. We're at the edge of downtown here, it looks like, so I headed that way. Definitely a lot of old buildings that have "Valley Bank" and "Library" and "YMCA" etched into them but are now things like a BB&T and an apartment house and a hotel. Downtown had the usual: some shops, lots of trendy coffee stores and restaurants (including the Zynodoa of Matt Gaffney fame, which didn't look like it would appreciate me in a T-shirt and jeans even if the T-shirt had a parody of "The Scream" on it (which it does)). A zillion lawyers' offices, although since one of the streets (just shy of the courthouse) said Barristers' Row I guess we'll allow it. I'm not much of a picture taker, but there were a couple shots I might have liked to get, but the camera is in NN so never mind. I was out for about 45 minutes and was just getting back when the thunderstorm let loose. We'll see how long this one lasts.

The stated goal of the expedition was to find the ASC since I have tickets for tonight, which didn't actually happen. I suppose if I had looked it up on the map before I left I might have had better luck -- I was thrown off by the fact that, at least according to the map, it is not on the same street as its street address (the street address is Beverley St while the building appears to be on Market St).

We'll see what tomorrow holds -- I might go exploring the other way, depending on the how the weather shapes up (supposed to be hot, which is unfortunate, and not raining, which is fortunate). If worse comes to worst, there's always the Woodrow Wilson birthplace. (Never been a fan of such: even if you grant greatness to Wilson, and I don't know why you would, none of it would really attach to the building where he was born. I walked past it, and it is definitely a building (red brick); more than that I need not know.)

ACPT: The Numbers (2011)

This year I downloaded the full-version, extra-deluxe, double-the-cost version of the scores spreadsheet (thanks Doug Heller for making it available!) which has for everybody not just the points they scored but how they got there (wrong letters, wrong words, minutes on the clock). Granted they will still be making corrections (one of my errors was inexplicably un-highlighted, so I know there's at least one correction to make), but I can have some more confidence in my formulas. Maybe I'll make some pictures. (If you have some requests for pictures, then let me know.)

655 people were there for at least one puzzle, so my current 59th (after making above correction) will still put me in the top 10%, so at least I didn't reach my anti-goal. I missed all of my actual goals though (11500, B finals, and/or no mistakes, which when it comes down to it are pretty much the same goal at this point). The puzzles themselves definitely had a broader difficulty range, but skewing harder rather than easier (much unlike last year). I felt there was only one real clunker (#6; sorry Maura, but don't lie to me in the blurb: those puns were neither names nor from tomorrowland).

Puzzle #1: median score 1130 (corresponding to finishing correctly with 8:xx on the clock); 84% solved this correctly. I finished with 12 on the clock and 1230 points, which was conveniently enough also the top score in the room for this puzzle.
Puzzle #2: median score 870 (the puzzle proper, with no bonuses, is 890 points, so this is equivalent to one blank square with no time on the clock); 38% solved this correctly. I finished with 17 on the clock and 1465 points; top score was 20 on the clock and 1540 points.
Puzzle #3: median score 1390 (corresponding to finishing correctly with 4:xx on the clock); 50% solved this correctly. I finished with 19 on the clock and 1765 points; top score was 25 on the clock and 1915 points.
Puzzle #4: median score 1135 (corresponding to finishing correctly with 9:xx on the clock); 73% solved this correctly. I finished with 15 on the clock and 1285 points; top score was 17 on the clock and 1335 points.
Puzzle #5: median score 380 (corresponding to getting 38 correct words during the time limit); 12% solved this correctly. I finished with 13 on the clock, but 2 errors, and 1155 points; top score was 21 on the clock and 1595 points.
Puzzle #6: median score 1715 (which is not a score you can get to by finishing correctly, but still requires finishing with plenty of time -- one error and 19:xx on the clock is the easiest way to get there); 55% solved this correctly. I finished with 22 on the clock, but 3(!) errors for only 1695 points; top score was 25 on the clock and 2035 points.
Puzzle #7: median score 1670 (again requires an error -- two errors (in one word) and 12:xx on the clock will do it); 32% solved this correctly. I finished with 32 on the clock, but an error, for 2155 points; top score was 37 on the clock and 2475 points.

Looking at this, that means the median solver (well, the median ACPT solver, at any rate) finished five puzzles (but made errors on two of those) and couldn't get through #2 or #5. In fact, going through gives the following almost-but-not-quite "completion" statistics (presumably this doesn't count people who finish in the last minute, as they will have a 0 for their time-remaining just like people who didn't finish. Arguably this is a flaw in the scoring but I doubt it's at the top of anybody's priority list):
Puzzle #1: 632/653 97%
Puzzle #2: 327/653 50%
Puzzle #3: 436/652 67%
Puzzle #4: 575/651 88%
Puzzle #5: 113/651 17%
Puzzle #6: 617/651 95%
Puzzle #7: 424/616 69%

As you can see puzzles 1-4 all had no more than a 15% "oops!" rate, in terms of the difference between percentage finishing and percentage being all correct. It was rather closer for puzzle 5, probably because of so few finishers (113 finishers, and 81 people correct). In contrast, the "oops!" rate for puzzle 6 is 40%, and for puzzle 7 37%. How much of that is fatigue, and how much to the quality/trickiness of the puzzles is a little hard to get at. (For comparison purposes, last year's "oops!" rates:
Puzzle #1: 13%
Puzzle #2: 19%
Puzzle #3: 16%
Puzzle #4: 18%
Puzzle #5: 4%
Puzzle #6: 24%
Puzzle #7: 24%
so a little larger for the beginning puzzles, and smaller for the last two.)

Things, ACPT and otherwise, in handy bullet format

• First good omen of the trip: when I arrive at LaGuardia and put my MetroCard in the machine, I have more money on it than I thought meaning I don't have to put any money in for the weekend.
• Second good omen of the trip: when I step outside, there is a bus already there.
• Early check-in worked again despite me not bothering to tell them, so hooray for the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott.
• Nap time! before the mingling (or in legal terminology "loitering").
  
• The loitering was made more difficult by the fact that the rent-a-cop seemingly couldn't decide where we weren't supposed to be, so every so often he'd clear us out of wherever we had congregated from the last time we moved. Eventually he did decide that we shouldn't be in front of the escalators or around the big table in the lobby, although by that point we were numerous enough that there was always someone in front of the escalators or around the big table in the lobby.
• Although by that point it was dinner time. This year I wandered off with Peter Gordon et al for Indian food and a very good chicken tandoori (which was not the only item of the menu that I was sure to recognize when it arrived, as they also had kebabs).
• Friday night festivities. I don't know (and I doubt that Wz will ever tell) the paid attendance here; my not-very-good estimating sense guesses 250. I was surprised how many people were there while still maintaining a sworn conviction that they didn't like cryptic crosswords, since the main event was a US/UK cryptic crossword tournament -- not that they had never done them, but that they had done them and didn't like them.
• For the Saturday main event, I do what I always do, which is get there a fair bit early, sit two seats in from the aisle, and see who shows up. This year I was around two rookies, an retiree who has been doing puzzles for a while (and was actually more of a cryptic fan, as he had entered many (and won several) of the English newspaper puzzle weekly contests) and who came back for Sunday, and a younger office manager from Brooklyn, who didn't (but insisted she was having fun on Saturday).
• I made many errors (as in six or so) over the last three puzzles (5,6,7) ranging from "understandable" to "I wasn't even thinking of that letter how did it get in my puzzle", which made for a very disappointing day all told.
• There was a one-act crossword-"themed" play presented, that had originally been done for some sort of playwright's playhouse/community theater organization in upstate New York. My reaction at the time was negative. Upon further review, I guess that any one sub-piece of the play was good; however, they were all mutually inconsistent so stringing them all together led to a not-very-good sum total.
• And then there was the "ACPT-zing [pronounced 'amazing'] race", which was a puzzle fest put together by Pliska'n'Chaneski. It appeared to be a very amazing piece of work, although I had volunteered to be a "judge", also known as "Canada", so I only got to see a very small portion of the thing as it happened. It was fun to see people looking for some flag they didn't really know (like Tanzania, or Nigeria, or the Marshall Islands), realizing that I was a country and scooting around to see my flag, and then saying "Oh. Canada." How they made a national anthem out of that I'll never know.
• Speaking of, I thought being a country would be rather restful, but I was just as excited as the players were watching them scurry around.
• The variety show was certainly varied, with a blues theme.
• The B finals had a really very interesting finish -- you should go look for it to watch.
• Dan smoked through the A finals as expected.