Mike’s Birthday Puzzle – Main Clue

This is a continuation of the puzzle I talk about here and here.

I actually received this in the mail a while ago, but I wanted to try to figure it out on my own before posting it. Here’s what I received in the mail from Mike (click for larger):I’ve already figured out a lot of it (and found some secret messages in the list of words)… but I’m not going to give any hints yet, so you guys can work together to figure it out. If it turns out inside knowledge is needed from me (I think it may be in a couple of places), I’ll chime in in the comments. Have fun!

Happy 6012th Birthday, Earth

This is slightly belated since I was busy yesterday, but Happy Birthday, Earth! According to James Ussher’s 17th century calculations, God created the Earth on October 23, 4004 BC. We had a mini birthday party at Wednesday’s club meeting, and I made brownies:I promise that I omitted Asia and Australia due to a lack of planning, not some deep-seated hatred for those continents.

This is all fun until you realize people actually believe this stuff. Many dates from the Creation Museum were taken from Ussher’s chronology. Because you know, one guy interpreting the Bible is so solid that nearly 400 years of scientific developments doesn’t really matter.

Flying Spaghetti Monster Jack-O-Lantern

I’m very proud of what’s adorning my balcony right now! My roommate purchased a nice sized pumpkin for Halloween – I drew the design, and she did the carving. I think it came out pretty nice!
Hurray for Flying Spaghetti Monster jack-o-lanterns!. His eyes are kind of falling apart, though. I blame the horrible infestation of lady bugs in West Lafayette (seriously, you can’t walk outside without being covered in them) that are apparently munching away at His Noodliness. Blasphemy!

Mike’s Birthday Puzzle – Clue #2

I just received an email from “Jnnfr Mccrght” – my name without vowels – from a gmail account that was obviously created by Mike. Here’s the message, no edits on my part:

Subject: X

a congress has senators
a parlament, owls
sooner or later
you’ll need to buy vowels
until that time comes
don’t over-think it
if my puzle is a cocktail
i wouldn’t yet drink it
but these index card clues
into your brain they’re tearing
i have a fish in my ear
so i have trouble herring
but don’t worry about them
if they make you bemused
in a few days or so
you’ll be even more confused
so until that time comes
prepare for what it’s in store
i should be a nice guy
but to confuse you some more:
i’m now eating my words
with a knife (not a fork)
wish you were here with me
in chapaqua, new york

Translated, I think it means “I think it’s hilarious how all of you people are over thinking things, wait until I send you real clues.” Of course, I’m still over thinking things, and noticing how Parliament is missing an “i” and puzzle is missing a “z.” Hmmmm….

EDIT: Got a follow up email:

“In the 7th-to-last line, “it’s” should be “is.” It was a genuine grammatical error and should not be considered a hint toward anything (seriously, my friend).

–Mr. Puzzle”

Mike's Birthday Puzzle – Clue #2

I just received an email from “Jnnfr Mccrght” – my name without vowels – from a gmail account that was obviously created by Mike. Here’s the message, no edits on my part:

Subject: X

a congress has senators
a parlament, owls
sooner or later
you’ll need to buy vowels
until that time comes
don’t over-think it
if my puzle is a cocktail
i wouldn’t yet drink it
but these index card clues
into your brain they’re tearing
i have a fish in my ear
so i have trouble herring
but don’t worry about them
if they make you bemused
in a few days or so
you’ll be even more confused
so until that time comes
prepare for what it’s in store
i should be a nice guy
but to confuse you some more:
i’m now eating my words
with a knife (not a fork)
wish you were here with me
in chapaqua, new york

Translated, I think it means “I think it’s hilarious how all of you people are over thinking things, wait until I send you real clues.” Of course, I’m still over thinking things, and noticing how Parliament is missing an “i” and puzzle is missing a “z.” Hmmmm….

EDIT: Got a follow up email:

“In the 7th-to-last line, “it’s” should be “is.” It was a genuine grammatical error and should not be considered a hint toward anything (seriously, my friend).

–Mr. Puzzle”

Move over Dan Brown – I have a better puzzle mystery

A couple of days ago I received a small envelope in the mail with unusual handwriting and no return address. Intrigued, I opened it and found the following note cards. Top note card was on the top of stack, left image is the front and right image is the back of each card. Click for larger images.
I think the initial reaction of most normal people would be, “What the hell, what insane serial killer sent me this?!” (okay, maybe not totally normal people). My first thought, on the other hand, was “Mike’s Birthday Puzzle.” I checked the stamp on the letter, and yep – from the town of his university. Nice try concealing your handwriting, but foiled by the United States Postal Service!

Mike is one of my best friends, and in addition to being hilarious and a brilliant mathematician, he’s also a Puzzle Master. I think he’s deserving of this title since he’s full of trivia (go on Jeopardy already, Mike!), always carrying around puzzle magazines, and has created unique puzzles that have been printed in said magazines multiple times. During our sophomore year of high school, Mike decided (maybe out of boredom) to create a puzzle filled treasure hunt that would lead to my birthday gift. I would have to figure out one clue to find out where the next one was hidden – usually somewhere in one of our classrooms – until it led me to my present. It was so fun, for both him and me, that it started a tradition. Every October since then I start getting puzzles, so by the time November 2nd rolls around, I’ll have found my gift.

Theoretically.

See, the part that I didn’t mention is that Mike is way, way smarter than me. And while his puzzles seem to get better and better, I seem to get stupider and stupider. I generally have to resort to outside help and many hints, and I think he takes special glee in the fact that Mike’s Birthday Puzzle is infamous enough to deserve capitalization and a certain amount of fear. But I have the upper hand this year, Mike! I have a blog! So fair readers, I present you with the first clue of many in the puzzle – the note cards – and I will update you with whatever other information I receive.

That being said, I have no idea what those note cards mean. I wouldn’t put it past him if the whole thing is a red herring just to make me go mad. So if I have to go mad, you’re going down with me.

Going to see Dawkins tonight!

In an hour I’ll be leaving for Indiana University to see Richard Dawkins speak, woo! It’s a two and a half hour drive but totally worth it. About 50 members of the Society of Non-Theists are going, so we should have a decent sized group invading IU. I’m still a little miffed that our rival got to host him and we didn’t, but oh well. I’m bringing my copy of the God Delusion for him to sign, then going to a big pub gathering of atheists afterward. Should be fun!

Yeah, I really don’t have that much to say about it – just wanted to rub it in. Neener neener. Will post photos/review tomorrow morning.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering about the GRE, I did fine. Owned the math and did average on the verbal – I guess I’m your stereotypical scientist. The verbal is effectively a vocab test, where if you don’t know whatever obscure horrible word you’re given, you’re just screwed. Lovely. The hardest part of the whole exam was hand writing the paragraph in cursive about how you won’t cheat. Seriously, I haven’t used cursive since 5th grade – it looked like a 10 year old had written my statement!

Blasphemy Day at Purdue

Wednesday the 30th was International Blasphemy Day, and Purdue was one of the many campuses where an event took place. What the heck is Blasphemy Day, you ask? Well, here’s the information the Society of Non-Theists had on the flyers we handed out:

Blasphemy Day International is a campaign seeking to establish September 30th as a day to promote free speech and stand up in a show of solidarity for the freedom to challenge, criticize, and satirize religion without fear of murder, litigation, and reprisal. The primary focus of the Blasphemy Day movement is not to debate the existence of any gods or deities, to promote hate or violence, or to insult or offend. Nor is it a movement of atheists – the tenets of one religion blaspheme against another if they disagree. The main objective of Blasphemy Day is to open up all religious beliefs to the same level of free inquiry, discussion and criticism to which all other areas of academic interest are subjected.

Why September 30? It is the anniversary of the original publication of Danish cartoons in 2005 depicting the prophet Muhammad’s face. Any visual depiction of Muhammad is considered a grave offence under Islamic law. The fury which arose within the Islamic community following this publication led to massive riots, attacks on foreign embassies and deaths.

So what did the we do? Like it stated, our goal isn’t to offend just to get our rocks off. And since Purdue is a fairly conservative campus, we went the safe route of just celebrating freedom of speech. We put up blank posters that anyone could write or draw on, with no censorship at all.When I set up the event at 9am, we had 6 starkly blank flyers. At 11:30 I walked by on the way to my next class, and they were already full. By 12:30 when I returned, six more posters had been purchased by a new member (a friendly theist, actually!) and were already filling up. By 1:20, we had a total of 18 posters up, and by the end of the day people were having a hard time finding space to write anything new.The messages ranged from politics, religion, and philosophy to potty humor, penis drawings, and internet memes. Some messages were deep, some were hilarious, and some were downright strange. Some I agreed with, and some I definitely did not. But that was the great thing about the day. I wasn’t offended if someone wrote about Jesus or Glenn Beck because our goal was to show everyone has the right to free speech, even if it’s criticizing others, including myself.Throughout the day we attracted quite the crowd. Many random students wanted to add their opinions, and many more just wanted to read what others had said. I didn’t hear a single negative reaction through the day. Everyone was smiling and saying what a cool event it was, and people were asking if we could leave it up for the rest of the week. Unfortunately we couldn’t, especially since we later found out taping things to buildings is a no-no.
Yes, I had about a 30 minute conversation with the police about tape (I guess that’s how I pantomime adhesives). I think I scared the crap out of my members, because they had no idea what I was talking to the police about for the longest time. Effectively there was a miscommunication between me and the people approving the event (they didn’t realize we were taping it to the pillars), so it ended up not being a big deal at all, especially since we only had an hour of the event left. Pablo, the Dean of Students who I know from doing club stuff for the last three years, basically just had to come and make sure it was okay.

Pablo: Tape, that’s it? Man, I was ready to march down here and defend you guys and your freedom of speech and it’s just about silly tape?

All we had to do was promise to clean it up, so all was right with the world!

All in all, I’d call the day a success! Who knows, we probably offended someone (I think our mere existence offends some people), but the most common reaction was very positive. Let this be a lesson to all the atheist activists out there – you can be outgoing and controversial while still being nice!

Tomorrow I’ll have time to photograph each of the signs, and I’ll post them here for your viewing pleasure. But other than that, what should I do with them?! Art exhibit? eBay? Wallpaper to cover the hideous wood paneling in my apartment?

Contact: The Musical

Apparently a theater group has come up with the musical adaptation to Carl Sagan’s Contact. I usually either love or hate musicals, but I have to admit this one causes some giddy excitement. When someone asks me my favorite movie, I will unhesitatingly say Contact. I love it despite people harassing me for it or South Park teasing it. I first watched it with my dad when I was about 10, which was the same time I was super interested in everything space-related: I was in our elementary school’s astronomy club (yes, we had one) and was absolutely dying to go to Space Camp (parents wouldn’t let me though, sadness). I loved that movie so much that my dad bought me the VHS, and we probably watched it at least once a year. I’m sure after the fifth time he wanted to stab his eyes out, but what are dads for if not to suffer through things for their child’s enjoyment? The one theist I dated bought the DVD for me before I graduated so I could have it at college, and watching the love scenes between Ellie and Palmer (an atheist and theist, respectively) with him probably motivated me to give our relationship a chance (even though it eventually ended pretty badly).

But other than my emotional (and possibly irrational) attachment to the film, I’m still excited about the songs. Who doesn’t want this potential soundtrack about science and religion, the search for extraterrestrial life, and aliens that look like your daddy?

Blogging is serious business

It seems like I’ve been on a trend of ranty/serious blogging lately. While I enjoy reading the discussions that go on in the comments, they also start to drain on me after a while. So, here, have something silly:

Me: Will you take my picture? I want a before shot, while I’m still female
Friend: Sure. No, pose more girly.
Me: KayAmerica’s Next Top Model, I am not. I can totally imagine Nigel telling me that my hand looks like a claw or Tyra saying I’m not smizing enough (yes, I fully expect you all to shun me for watching that stupid show). Oh, and sunburn from our Pastafarian preaching, yay!

But then the clock struck 8, and instead of turning into a pumpkin, I turned into……a skeevy used car salesman! I mean, a male! Actually, with my hair down I looked eerily like Penn Jillette, which would explain my magic trick of making my D-cups disappear.

Yes, Friday night I held a drag party. I think that’s an acceptable excuse for not blogging.