REMINDER

The Herald Hunt, which is historic and semi-world-famous in a cultish way, will  be rampaging through downtown Coral Gables tomorrow. It's an opportunity to meet interesting people, become extremely confused, and watch Tom Shroder and me smile in a nervous manner. Be there, or be absent!

Comments

[Dr Acula]

Absence makes the hunt go yonder.

[Steve]

The order is: Red dot, white dot, blue dot. The order is: Green dot.

[King Wingbipeekaboo Etc.]

Speaking of Coral Gables, perhaps Dave is considering writing another actual novel. King Wingbipeekaboo, for one, would pay money for it.

And speaking of money: Sooner or later -- I bet you anything that this will happen -- people will realize that money is nothing more than: paper! HELLO! Why don't we just make it simple and go back to the original and entirely more useful Barter System?

KING WINGBIPEEKABOO: I'll give you my eternal friendship in exchange for one new novel.

DAVE: No deal. Give me something I can use.

KING WINGBIPEEKABOO: And a full tank of gas.

DAVE: Done.

[Paul Agnewnorelationtospiro]

Sunday? Dang, the South Florida Puppetry Guild is having their event at MOCA. Now I have to decide between sock puppets and sick puzzles...

AKAAB

[random thunking]

Upon reviewing the photos from last year's Hunt, I have arrived at startling and inescapeable conclusion: My legs are (only slightly) pastier than Dave's.

[Dave (knot Barry)]

I'm far too lazy to click on all those links.. and I'm in California, fer cryin' outloud, so I guess I'll have to be absent *sniff*

[slyeyes]

If you see someone there in a golden retriever costume, that might be Ms. Leopold. (sorry for mistaking you for Mr. Leopold)

[Joe]

For those out-of-town Hunters (who always seem to win), we should mention that Hurricane Wilma has caused South Florida to go on Daylight Savings Week whereby we have rolled back our clocks 7 days. For those not in South Florida, you should plan on coming to the hunt on November 13th to coincide with the S. Florida calendar of November 6th for the day of the hunt.

[slyeyes]

Wilma seems to have really goofed with Floridian calendars. First MS Leopold, now Dave.

judi-- what day is this in your neck of the woods?

[slyeyes]

but the blog clock is still correct.

[Kalyani]

"Dave Barry" is clickable on Wikipedia. Has Dave proofread the entry to make sure that everything is accurate? I learned some things that I did not know even as a loyal reader of many years.

[scat]

Wow. The Herald Hunt is headed by two Pulitzer Prize winners. Two gods disguised as normal guys.

Let's see, what have I won? Third grade Fire Safety award. Best at Red Rover. My Senior class in high school voted me Person We'd Most Like to Have As Our Mother (I am not making these up).

[scat]

Also, in the picture of Dave and Tom Shroder, why is the wristwatch on the far right glowing?

[tropichunt.com guy™]

scat: Seeing as I'm the one who took the photo, perhaps I should answer. That watch was a special "dead man's switch", which Dave had to press every 5 minutes after the final clue was announced until a winner was established. If he didn't, everything was going to explode in a beautiful, violent fashion.

I bet you didn't know that!

[tropichunt.com guy™]

BTW, for the record, I think Dave (and Tom, in some of cases), smiled more awkwardly in lots of other photos.

[sj]

if tom hadn't let the sleeve of that sweater show, it would have looked like a big coiled snake in his hands. now wonder dave was nervous.

[scat]

OMG, tropichunt.com guytm, have you outed yourself? Are you Andy? Cool.

Also, um, your explanation of the glowing watch is so crazy it just might be true. But I doubt it.

And thanks for the awkward photos of Dave!

[Eleanor]

I think he is, scat. Didn't something get posted the other day with his real name and he let us know it was him? Or was I in a parallel universe at the time? I'm really not sure about much of anything anymore...*sigh*

[scat]

el, you are so right. My brain's been on overload. Half of the info I've received this week has immediately bounced right back out of my brain.

Both kids have been sick, Hubby is in Finland for 3 weeks closing a deal with Nokia (which is a Finnish company, not Japanese as I always thought) and the holidays and both kids' birthdays are rapidly approaching.

Must--find--attitude--adjusment--buddy.

[tropichunt.com guy™]

You mean, you didn't know my secret identity from earlier blog entries already?

Better yet...do I know any of you all already? Do I need to go back into hiding? *shudders in fear*

;)

[U.O]

scat ... I gnu that ... Nokia is Finnish ... learnt it a while back ...

We've got lots of Finnish friends back at the old homestead ... quite a little pocket of settlers from the early days were from over there ... that's prolly why I notice little things like that ... (also, my fish finder has a multitude of language choices to select from ... including Finnish ... and ... Rapala (tm) fishing lures originated in Finland ... tho many are now manufactured in Ireland, and other places ...

end of TMI)

[U.O]

Daveness -

... Tom Shroder and me ?????

Shame, Mr. Language Person, Shame!

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

That interesting people lady reminded me of this guy's hot ex-girlfriend . . .

[abi]

No, U.O., His Daveness was correct - in that sentence, 'Tom Shroder and me' were direct objects of the verb 'watch'.

Can I be Ms. Language Person now? Pleeease?

[scat]

U.O., according to the hubby unit, Nokia has a preferred pronunciation that makes its name sound less Japanese.

Oddly, despite being very smart and having dealt with Finnish Nokia dudes many times, Hubby can't remember the right way to say it. This could prove problematic come contract closing time.

[Steve]

Man, oh man, I miss the Hunt. One year (the one with the billiards theme) we had Herald reporters following us around watching our team's progress. I was doing that "It's not Love, it's Body Heat" clue, and spinning around in place trying to follow what they were telling me to do through my radio headset. People didn't realize that I was listening to the radio, and were wondering what the heck I was doing acting like that! I was about to tell our team what I figured out when a guy moved close to listen; I asked him who he was, and he said he was with our team.... I took some of our team mates and moved away from the guy, told them what I figured out. The guy came over and introduced himself as a Herald reporter, and stayed with us for the rest of the day. Later on, I asked him why he picked us, and he said we looked like we knew what we were doing. Ha! I guess it's easy to pick out crazy people in a crowd. :-) :-)

Our team (Blind Mice) did really well, and finished all the puzzles about 2 hours early. A friend and I even got our pictures on the front cover of the Herald the next morning....

Didn't win though. The final puzzle was completely mobbed.

Go, Blind Mice Team, Go! Hope you win this year! We'll be with ya in spirit. Have fun!

Hey TropicHunt.com Guy.... Take lots of pictures!

[tropichunt.com guy™]

Steve: Will do! My Spiffy New™ digital camera even lets me shoot video...and I'm going to try to add that to the site this time around...hoping I don't blow my bandwidth out of the sky! Check back here at the blog as well as at my site tomorrow night for updates.

FYI...there's a small chance I may not have any updates on my site, because in a weird warping of the space-time continuum, my phones are down, but my DSL (which is over same phone lines, and is with Bellsouth) is STILL working. Hopefully, it will stay that way!

[U.O]

"I" ... not ... "me" ...

[U.O]

Oops!

Mebbe not ... whatever ...

(It's been a loooooonnnnggg day ...)

[tropichunt.com guy™]

Eleanor & scat: If you're going to be at the Hunt...please find me. I'm becoming more paranoid now. ;)

[scat]

tropichunt guy, I'd love to find you at the Hunt. But I'm stuck up here in Chicagoland (yes, sadly, that's a real term).

Next year for sure the kids and I (and Hubby if he's around) will do ourselves a favor and head down to the Hunt and find you! It's nice to see what you guys look like and even meet you.

There's a fine picture I'd like to blog of the kids and me next to the Weinermobile. The Oscar Mayer guy very clearly refused to let me into the Weinermobile for the photo op. He'll be sorry when I win the Pulitzer! Unfortunately, the picture is on Hubby's computer which is currently in Helsinki. Also, I've got to photoshop the picture to make myself look like (insert beautiful woman's name here).

Have fun tomorrow and post lots of pictures of people smiling awkwardly!

[AlanBoss]

As I am in California, I will have to miss The Hunt, as I have every year since it's debut. {sigh}

[AllieKat]

Wait, didn't we already know that Andy was the tropichunt.com guy?

Also... I really wish I could join in the fun. sigh.

[Annie Where-but-like-here]

It's like, soooo totally not fair! Florida has Dave Barry, last year they took Shaq from us, and now they're upstaging our gnarly earthquakes with their totally-bogus hurricanes. It's enough to like, give us peninsula envy.

[tropichunt.com guy™]

Allie: That's what I thought, too. Have any of y'all ever met me before? I'm confused as to the significance of my name 'finally' being attached to tropichunt.com guy...? :)

Less than 5 hours to go until the mayhem begins!

[U.O]

Annie-W-b-l-h ...

Well, then there's the whole peninsula thing ...

[azred]

fraud!!! fake!!! you can't fool us!! dave wears blue shirts. that's someone posing as dave in those pictures!!!

hey..... maybe dave is writing another column or book, and that's why he sent that imposter to stand in and grin awkwardly for him. yippie!!

[tropichunt.com guy™]

Wow...what fun. Look at my site after 9pm Eastern for updates. Massive updates will be over the next couple of days...it was great meeting everyone there!

[Keith]

Dave you were great on stage and you staged a wonderful (though difficult) event. Try to pick a cooler day next year! Thanks for the fun.

[kibby F5™]

Absent

[PirateBoy]

I think that all the loyal left-coast readers of this blog (Yes, some of us in Kalifornia can actually *read*) ought to start up a collection drive to move the Hunt to the West Coast next year. According to the site which handles Dave's booking, it would cost us $28.00 in appearance fees to get him out here for an hour, plus travel expenses. Southwest still flies out of Orlando, and I could toss in two free drink tickets and an extra bag of peanuts that I haven't yet either used or lost. Heck, I'll even pledge five whole American dollars to help defray some of the cost, leaving us just $23.00 short of this noble and worthwhile goal.

P.B.
Oh, wait. I just looked at the agent's website again. It reads "$28,000 for a one-hour appearance." Darn! Well, as my wife says, math isn't one of my strong points.

Still, the left coast shines like a greasy beacon, cutting through the smog like a laser, enticing all to visit, relocate and take full advantage of a place where the power doesn't go off, but the citizens do...