Anyone want a Wii?
THANK YOU, WE HAVE A WINNER. THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.
Below are links to 25 amazing stories we have written over the years, each a Pulitzer candidate in their own right. Underneath each link is a number that corresponds to an alphanumeric character (that’s letters and numbers, kids) in the story (excluding spaces and punctuation marks). The clues are in the body of the text only, so do not count the stories’ titles, dates or authors in your figuring.
For example, in the story entitled, Just 10 days ’till Leopard “Ultimate†Edition, if you were given the number 100, the corresponding secret code letter would be “d”, for the “d” in “used”. Note, we did not count the “!”, “,”, or “(” or spaces. Text embedded in images does not count either.
Now, imagine after decoding 10 of these, you end up with a sentence that says “iwi em a gevi”. It’s gibberish, right? But unscramble that, and it might read “Give me a Wii”. (see how each word is scrambled, as well as the order of the words themselves?). Just remember, please count carefully! Being off even one letter will make this a lot harder on you!
Make sense? No? too bad. Let’s play!
Word 1
Review: ColorWare iPhone paint job
24
Review: Bowers & Wilkins’ Zeppelin iPod Speakers
4Review: The iCar by Corgi – Possibly the worst iPod accessory EVER
3
Review: Logitech does the portable iPod speaker right with the Pure-Fi Anywhere
24
=======
Word 2
Apple’s new “Santa Claus†ad pays homage to the glory of Rankin/Bass
5Apple announces new Intel Mac mini.. iPod Hi-Fi Boombox
12
=======
Word 3
They Might Be Giants’ new album “The Else†to be iTunes exclusive
1
=======
WORD 4
=======
Word 5
Apple blames iPod nano screen defects on obese Americans/tight pants
14Macenstein’s “Mac Chick of the Month†(Nov 2007): Jessie
55
=======
Word 6
Mac Chick of the Month Mandy Lynn lands VH1 Reality show
13Urban Legend or Urban Fact? – Steve Jobs and the squishy MacBook
25
Break your expensive gadget? Just tell them the ads told you to do it
5
Apple reunited with “Heroes†(via time travel, ‘natch)
1Where are they now? Interview with “Switcher Girl†Ellen Feiss
101
Well there you have it. Once you have successfully decoded this secret phrase, (meaning you have all the words, and have unscrambled them) please type your answer in the form below and send it in to us. Be sure to include a valid street address capable of receiving UPS delivery, as well as a valid email address. A contact phone number is optional but strongly encouraged. Thanks for playing, tell your friends, and good luck to all!
THANK YOU, WE HAVE A WINNER. THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.
LOL! Got it! How appropriate!
Crazy Canadians?
I guess that’s what I am…
Sorry Michael.
I meant “Wacky” Canadians.
🙂
-The Doc
Bah! Word 5, you vex me so!
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!
I feel..so…inadequate.
Words 5 and 6 don’t make ANY SENSE!!!!!
I’m going to cry softly in the fetal position now.
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
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!
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
GOT IT.
I take back everything I said. The numbers are spot on the money.
I however, seem to need more caffeine today.
Fiiiiiiinally got it… geez… it’s amazing how hard it is to count! 🙂
…geez, finally!
😉
How do we know if our entry was received?
Jimmy,
I got yours. But you should get a confirmation e-mail, if the form is working correctly….
-The Doc
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?
Yes Bunny, numbers count. Just letters and numbers.
-The Doc
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!
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
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.
😉
To bad we Belgian guys can’t join the contest 🙁
keep up the good work guys….a daily look worth
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!
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!
is it just me, or is the 5 word not even a word?
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 🙁
Hardcharger,
Sorry about that. It ends Thursday, Cecember 20th at 11:59 AM.
-The Doc
It’s hard to get past the Mac Chicks!!!
Great contest idea! Really fun to do while killing time before work. 🙂
Love the site, great contest .. I actually entered this time 🙂
I didn’t receive a confirmation e-mail either .. and I’ve double checked my gmail’s spam folder as well ..
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.
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
just got it! do we email our response to plotsuggestion@macenstein.com ?
thanks
awesome site
dtizzle,
no, plese use the form at the end of the post (page 2) to submit your answer.
Thanks, and good luck!
-The Doc
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!!
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?
Doc,
Did you get my answer?
I sent mine in with no reply too.
We got it, Austin.
-The Doc
I sent mine in with no reply, did you get it?
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