Anyone want a Wii?

December 17, 2007 by Dr. Macenstein
Filed under: Free Stuff, Hardware, contests 

THANK YOU, WE HAVE A WINNER. THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.

We happen to have an extra brand new, unopened Nintendo Wii lying around here at the lab, and in a very atypical and un-Scroogelike move, we’ve decided to give it away to one lucky reader. Yes, we considered calling it “Wii wish you a merry Christmas”, but thought it best to go a more non-secular route (Santa hat not withstanding).

Now be warned, this is not your average contest – you’ll have to earn this Wii. We will ask you to jump through a series of (relatively easy) hoops to get this thing. Demand is high for these bad boys (we sold one for $460 on eBay last week) so even if you are an xBox/PS3 fan, it might be a good investment.

The Gist

On the following page you will find a series of clues that will unlock a secret phrase, written in code. The only help we will give you is that there are 6 words in the phrase, and the phrase itself is a reasonably popular phrase (meaning it is not gibberish like “cow the pickle man”) and will turn up in a Google search. It is up to you, however, to put those words and letters in the right order and decipher the phrase.

Unfortunately, we’ll have to once again keep this contest US-only, as all you crazy Canadians and foreigners have your own screwy contest laws and math questions that we just don’t understand. A winner will be chosen randomly from all eligible entries (containing the correct solution) received before 11:59AM Eastern Time, Thursday, December 20th. Please include your name, phone number, and mailing address (prize will be shipped via UPS, so no PO BOXES, and signature is required). Limit one correct entry per person (multiple correct entries will be discarded). Please see official rules before entering.

OKAY! Ready? Let’s PLAY!

Every time you submit our site, an Angel gets its wings.
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Comments

40 Comments on Anyone want a Wii?

  1. boots on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 8:18 am

    2. LOL! Got it! How appropriate!

  2. Michael Mistretta on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 9:54 am

    3. Crazy Canadians?

    I guess that’s what I am…

  3. Dr. Macenstein on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 10:25 am

    4. Sorry Michael.
    I meant “Wacky” Canadians.
    :)

    -The Doc

  4. Jamus on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 10:56 am

    5. Bah! Word 5, you vex me so!

  5. Stuart on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 11:23 am

    6. Great competition idea, with some highly distracting reading matter in the process!

    One thing’s driving me nuts though - when you say ‘excluding punctuation marks’ do you mean ALL punctuation marks, including ” ‘ . ?

    Because you only list exclamations etc in the post. I’ve counted with all and without all, but I wanted to know if some were included and others not…

    Thanks!

  6. Nigel on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 11:24 am

    7. I feel..so…inadequate.

    Words 5 and 6 don’t make ANY SENSE!!!!!

    I’m going to cry softly in the fetal position now.

  7. Dr. Macenstein on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 11:30 am

    8. Stuart,

    Yes, don’t count anything that is not a letter or a number. That includes periods, spaces, quotes, etc.

    –

    Nigel,

    We have gotten a couple correct entries so far (one very coincidentally from a man named Nigel!) , so we’re reasonably confident this is solvable. Please be sure you are counting correctly, and good luck to all!

    -The Doc

  8. Stuart on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 11:32 am

    9. I just checked (twice) on the example ‘just 10 days til Leopard’ post…and I make the ‘d’ in ‘used’ letter number 94, and 100 with the punctuation…

    SO confused. Hope you don’t mind clarifying this for all your excited entrants!

  9. Dr. Macenstein on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 11:36 am

    10. Hey Stuart,

    I just checked the sample post again, and I get “d” for 100. But whatever.
    Ignore punctuation of any kind, only count letters and numbers, and you should do fine.

    -The Doc

  10. Stuart on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 11:52 am

    11. GOT IT.

    I take back everything I said. The numbers are spot on the money.
    I however, seem to need more caffeine today.

  11. Ben on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 12:08 pm

    12. Fiiiiiiinally got it… geez… it’s amazing how hard it is to count! :)

  12. Nigel on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 3:56 pm

    13. …geez, finally!

    ;)

  13. Jimmy on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 4:01 pm

    14. How do we know if our entry was received?

  14. Dr. Macenstein on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 4:10 pm

    15. Jimmy,

    I got yours. But you should get a confirmation e-mail, if the form is working correctly….

    -The Doc

  15. Bunny on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 5:10 pm

    16. This is pissing me off. The last word *isn’t* a word, I’ve been working on it for hours. It doesn’t make any sense! Are you supposed to count numbers or no?

  16. Dr. Macenstein on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 5:18 pm

    17. Yes Bunny, numbers count. Just letters and numbers.

    -The Doc

  17. HardCharger on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 5:40 pm

    18. Hey Doc,

    I submitted earlier this morning but I never received a confirmation email. Did you get my entry by any chance or should I submit again?

    Thanks!

    P.S. Great website by the way…it’s only one of three I visit for mac related news!

  18. Dr. Macenstein on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 5:47 pm

    19. HardCharger,
    Yes, we got it. I guess the auto-responder isn’t working properly in all cases (or else it’s getting zapped by your spam blockers).

    Oh, and thanks for buttering us up. It won’t help your chances, but it makes giving this thing away a little easier. Hopefully a “real” reader wins it.

    :)

    -The Doc

  19. Nigel on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 6:03 pm

    20. Yeah, no reply here either.

    Oh, well…if the planets are aligned and I’ve been blessed by the Gods, then we’ll see if the win comes to fruition.

    ;)

  20. Visu@l on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 6:37 pm

    21. To bad we Belgian guys can’t join the contest :(

    keep up the good work guys….a daily look worth

  21. lsfjosh on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 10:48 pm

    22. Awesome contest! I tried solving it at 2am and got 5 words into it and kept miscounting! Finally gave it another go after getting home from work today and nailed it. I enjoy reading your site every update and the insightful humor in your articles kills me every time! Keep it up please!

  22. HardCharger on Tue, 18th Dec 2007 12:17 am

    23. Hey Doc, is the cut-off time at 11:59 AM on Wednesday, December 19th or Thursday, December 20th? Or am I reading it wrong because I’m half asleep? Thanks!

  23. amannin on Tue, 18th Dec 2007 12:52 am

    24. is it just me, or is the 5 word not even a word?

  24. amannin on Tue, 18th Dec 2007 1:04 am

    25. nvm — i must have dyslexia or something, i swear the last letter for word 5 said 24 not 22 — i even triple-checked it — it wasn’t til the fourth time that i actually realized it said 22 O.o

    on an entirely separate note — these validation images are even harder to decipher :(

  25. Dr. Macenstein on Tue, 18th Dec 2007 7:59 am

    26. Hardcharger,
    Sorry about that. It ends Thursday, Cecember 20th at 11:59 AM.
    -The Doc

  26. Contest Rules on Tue, 18th Dec 2007 12:10 pm

    27. It’s hard to get past the Mac Chicks!!!

  27. Fitzhume on Tue, 18th Dec 2007 1:09 pm

    28. Great contest idea! Really fun to do while killing time before work. :)

  28. Dan on Tue, 18th Dec 2007 1:56 pm

    29. Love the site, great contest .. I actually entered this time :-)

  29. Dan on Tue, 18th Dec 2007 2:00 pm

    30. I didn’t receive a confirmation e-mail either .. and I’ve double checked my gmail’s spam folder as well ..

  30. Wordman on Tue, 18th Dec 2007 3:02 pm

    31. I don’t trust my own counting, so am counting with Perl code:

    sub grabletter
    {
    my ($text,$pos) = @_;
    return “” if !$text;

    $text =~ s/\W//g;
    # print “$pos “. substr($text,0,$pos) . “\n”;
    return lc(substr($text,$pos - 1,1));
    }

    Works for the sample and words 1 - 4. Words 5 and 6, however, don’t make any sense. Be interesting to see if this is my bug, or the contest’s.

  31. Dr. Macenstein on Tue, 18th Dec 2007 3:18 pm

    32. Wow Wordman, very impressive!
    Good luck with that. I will say, however, many have solved the puzzle (the old fashioned way) and gotten all the words, so I think your script might need some tweaking. Maybe there is some character in one of those posts given your script some trouble?

    -The Doc

  32. dtizzle on Wed, 19th Dec 2007 12:44 am

    33. just got it! do we email our response to plotsuggestion@macenstein.com ?
    thanks
    awesome site

  33. Dr. Macenstein on Wed, 19th Dec 2007 12:49 am

    34. dtizzle,

    no, plese use the form at the end of the post (page 2) to submit your answer.

    Thanks, and good luck!

    -The Doc

  34. Tim Henderson on Wed, 19th Dec 2007 11:26 am

    35. My 8 year old son and I had a great time working on this. Thanks for doing this. If we win the Wii my son will be a Macenstein reader for life!!

  35. Will on Wed, 19th Dec 2007 8:02 pm

    36. I’m pretty sure the last word isn’t a real word. Maybe I got it wrong. But I tired hard. And that’s what really counts. Right?

  36. Dan on Wed, 19th Dec 2007 8:38 pm

    37. Doc,
    Did you get my answer?

  37. Austin McGuire on Wed, 19th Dec 2007 11:01 pm

    38. I sent mine in with no reply too.

  38. Dr. Macenstein on Wed, 19th Dec 2007 11:36 pm

    39. We got it, Austin.
    -The Doc

  39. Kaleb on Thu, 20th Dec 2007 1:05 am

    40. I sent mine in with no reply, did you get it?

  40. Dr. Macenstein on Thu, 20th Dec 2007 7:58 am

    41. yes Kaleb, we got it. Boy, no one wants to trust that we’re getting these… I guess we should have changed the line to “you will not be getting a confirmation e-mail”.
    :)

    -The Doc

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