Metropolitan Odyssey
Saturday, May 10, 2008
9:00 AM – 4:00 PM, afterparty later that evening

Boundaries:
This year, it's Central Park. The boundaries are 110th St on the north, 59th St. (CPS) on the south, 5th Ave. on the east, and the 8th Ave. (CPW) on the west. For the purposes of the hunt, 5th Ave runs north-south, and 59th St runs east-west. Both sides of the avenues listed above are considered to be in play.

Cameras:
TEAMS MUST PROVIDE THEIR OWN CAMERAS. This means you can use digital cameras. But all photos must be turned in as printed photos - not as disks or jump drives or anything like that. Polaroids are also fine. Make sure they’re big enough for us to see what’s going on – those little sticker ones don’t work so well for this. We reserve the right to use photos from Metro Metro events in our promotional materials.

Team Costumes:
We recommend you devise some sort of costume, uniform, or emblem. Not only will it help your score and possibly garner you a prize at the end, it will aid us in identifying you at the all-important midday rendezvous. Here’s what some past teams have done. Costume Examples

The Tasks:
Each task is assigned a certain number of points based on its difficulty or our whimsy. In general, it is up to the team to decide which tasks they want to try and complete within the allotted time. There will be a list of COMPULSORY tasks that MUST be completed by each team. You see, that's what "compulsory" means. These tasks will be clearly identified on the list and CANNOT be skipped. Any team that does not complete the COMPULSORY tasks will be penalized.

Teams may split up to cover more territory if they desire, but you just might find we’ve been diabolical in making it detrimental to separate. We want people to stick together as much as possible. Sure, you’re competitive and want to win, but we want people to have fun and discover things together.

All tasks have been designed such to be both SAFE and LEGAL, as far as we could figure. If you feel as though you or a teammate is engaging in unsafe or illegal activity, STOP! You are off-track and this activity is not helping your cause. It’s probably not helping ours, either. We cannot be held responsible for participants' behavior. Unless you save somebody’s life during the hunt, and we claim full credit.

Turning It All In:
All materials must be turned in no later than 4:00 PM Saturday, May 10, 2008. Late materials will result in the team being penalized. The materials have to be turned in all together, all in one envelope. We will only accept ONE completed task list, so if you've made copies make sure you transfer all the answers to ONE list. No materials will be accepted after 4:30 PM. Whining will not be tolerated.

Judging:
Bo Bigelow, Brady Richards, Will Sakran, and Tim Vierling and their appointed minions will be responsible for judging you. We mean, judging each team's material set. The team that accumulates the most points wins, as that seems to make the most sense. In the event that there is a tie, the winning team will be the team that turns in their material set earliest. There is no official bribing structure in place. The judges' ruling is final. Whining will not be tolerated.

Afterparty:
Details on the day of the hunt. Only people who did the hunt can come to the afterparty. No spouses, friends, out-of-town guests, etc.

Electronics:
Use of the Internets, cell phones, blackberries, blenders, electric tie racks, etc. is up to the teams. However, be forewarned that we gear this hunt to be done on foot, so what information you discover without observing it firsthand yourself may be erroneous. For instance, a web search might give you a different answer to a clue than you would get if you went there in person. If you are simply using the Internets to solve the clues, then you have signed up for the wrong hunt. You want to sign up for this hunt instead: dumbhunt.com.

Whining will not be tolerated.

Other Notes:
It will be helpful for each participant to bring a backpack or messenger bag in which to carry around collected materials, as well as any small gifts you might want to get separately for the judges. Gifts probably have no bearing on a team's final score.

I can’t stop thinking about mermaids. This is good information.

You will be doing a lot of walking, probably more than you've ever done on a single day, unless you’ve done our other hunts, or unless you’ve been court-ordered to walk everywhere. Wear good shoes and bring water with you or be prepared to buy it along the way.

It is also perfectly okay to wear a hat.

If you do not already have an unlimited ride Metrocard, you might want to buy one first thing Saturday morning. A One Day Fun Pass Metrocard is $7.00 and is good from the time that you buy it until 3:00 AM the following morning. It's good on subways and buses, and includes transfers.

The show will go on regardless of the weather. Please dress appropriately.

Refunds:
We can refund money through April 25. Then we can’t. Oh, and we can only refund money that has already been paid, so don’t try anything funny.

Sample Questions (from previous hunts):
Get a photo of one teammate behind the wheel of a New York taxicab. Check here if you got the photo: ____

At the U.S. Customs House, there is a rotunda. Stand in the center of the rotunda. Look up. See the paintings by Reginald Marsh? We are looking for the name of one of the ships. Not the land of Rouen and Caen, it shares a space with a boat named for a state that was inducted into the union one July many years ago. What ship are we looking for? ___________________

Go to the R. H. Sangster painting on Franklin west of West Broadway. The sun shines directly on where you must go next. Now go there. Find the building with all the numbers on it. What number has no little box above it? _____

How many trashcans are there on the Brooklyn Bridge (for the purposes of this hunt, the bridge is the span from the Manhattan side where the concrete starts after the paving stones end, going across to the Brooklyn side where pedestrians can first exit on the left down the stairs)? ____

Working in an office day-in, day-out can really be depressing. That’s why Metro Metro has its offices in a zeppelin made of spun glass and saffron. Gene Grant at 333 Houston isn’t so lucky with his office location. But what does he have in the basement? ____________

Frequently Asked Questions

Why four people to a team?
- Because three is not enough and five is too many.

What does the entry fee go to?
- Here’s what you get for that money: a daylong hunt, various goodies, trinkets and maps in your packet, a rented-out bar with some free drinks and free ziti (usually), and top-notch prizes if your team does really well or has the best costume. That stuff, as well as the printing costs, website maintenance, and design costs adds up, but we do our best to keep the price down by making the granola bars out of fiber board, and stealing what we can from children.

What is a Pay Night?
- We like to have teams pay the registration fee in person. That way, we can get to know you guys and you can get to know us. And we can have a couple of beers together. Sure, you can pay via PayPal, but that is a lot less fun. Also, teams that come to Pay Nights will receive specific hints about answers to the hunt.

How’s that for incentive?
- Pretty good.

Tell me more about the costumes. What’s the scoop?
-Costumes are extremely encouraged­ but not mandatory – they will help out with your final score, and there will be rewards. Please be considerate and avoid making costumes out of common allergens. For example, a costume constructed entirely of peanuts, penicillin, and dust mite excretions would be unsporting.

I knew about the hunt for a really long time, but I didn’t get around to signing up, and now the deadline has passed. I might be very good friends with Bo, Brady, or Will and/or Tim. I might have lots of money to throw around. Maybe my cousin told me the wrong deadline. I might be really cool and fun and worth spending time with. Maybe I’m attractive and flirty. Can I sign up late?
- No.

What’s the deal with cameras? Can we use digital?
- TEAMS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR PROVIDING THEIR OWN CAMERAS. And, by extension, their own pictures. You can turn in any printed photo that you’ve taken, whether it be regular film, Polaroid, or printouts from a digital camera. We will not accept disks or jump drives or things like that – each picture must be its own item, submitted with the rest of the packet. We recommend the photo be big enough that we can see what it is, so we can give you points. We simply love giving points.

What if we don’t get our pictures developed in time?
- You lose a lot of points. A LOT of points.

Can we use a car or bike or something to navigate the city during the hunt?
- Sure. Fat lot of good it will do you. Well, maybe the bike will do you some good, but a car? Come on. That’s a little excessive. The idea is to see the city on foot. Oh, if you use one of those Segway dealies, you must let us try it out. Extra points. Seriously.

Do you know what time it is?
- As of this writing, it is 8:21 PM.

What happens if the solution to the clue is missing, damaged, or non-existent?
- We try to double-check all of the clues before the day of the hunt, but there remains the chance that construction, graffiti, or the like will make a clue unsolvable. We are reachable by phone on the day of the hunt, so if the issue comes up we will be able to check it out. As for damage to a clue, we hope that our participants will not vandalize what we put a lot of work into, but that is not always the case. If you see someone messing with a clue, let us know.

Will whining be tolerated?
- Whining will not be tolerated.

I’m under twenty-one years old. Is that a problem?
- Nope. You pay full price, but you won’t be able to drink alcohol at the bar. Them’s the breaks. Or, to be grammatically correct, “The breaks are they.”

I’m under eighteen years old. Is that a problem?
- Nope. Same deal as the under twenty-ones. We will endeavor to make any rated-R questions so beautifully subtle and stunningly hidden among literary references that they’ll be over your head until you are old enough to watch Caligula. Go ask your parents. However, we aren’t responsible for any mature content you encounter on the way from other teams.

Can robots eat ice?
- Robots should not have to eat anything. A robot could be designed to “eat” ice, much in the way that a garbage disposal does, but for a general purpose robot the capacity to eat ice is totally unnecessary.

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