Vanishing Point Game Entry Three - Vegas Video

So, part of the viral part of this game was that MS sent out a bunch of free stuff to frequent bloggers that were small puzzles, which you can read about elsewhere. I don't think they will have much of anything to do with the game from now on. Anyway, once solved, the puzzles gave a location (The Bellagio in Vegas) and a time. There, in the fountains, a video of Loki was shown to kick-off the real part of the game. There are some you-tube videos of it as well as a video of it at the vanishing point game website itself. Pretty elaborate and cool. The only problem is that the resolution of it was not very good, what with being projected onto streams of water and whatnot.

Many clues were in the video for the puzzles. The video is summarized here (let me know what I left out):
(note, Loki is the only speaker)

(church bell rings 3 times)

"It's time."

(church bell rings once more)

"Listen carefully, I don't have very long, and it is my nature to disappear. My name is Loki. My job is to find the smartest people on the planet. My employer is rewarding them with astonishing prizes, including a trip up to the edge of space to see the ultimate Vista. And being immortalized on a computer chip around the world. "

(a bunch of white clocks with spinning hands fly from the center of the screen out)

"Pay attention, its all about time. To challenge the cleverest people in the world, I have devised a series of intricate puzzles. Think you've got what it takes?"

(screen fades to an hourglass with 20 @ symbols around it)
(screen fades to a side of a cube - a picture of a dalmation, next side - trombone, next - a mouse with sunglasses and a walking stick, next - a magic 8 ball, next - an interstate sign, next - the Jack of Spades, and lastly - a cat. The screen fades to some sort of blend of these images quickly and then to black)

"Calendars. Lets think outside of the box. First there's June, then January, April, March, May, and February."

(A white star appears with the time 3:15 written in it)

(The traditional Las Vegas sign then appears, but the Vegas turns into (866))
"Everyone knows the color of money."

(A green poker chip with the $ symbol appears, turns into two clocks with no hands, then cukoos appear and cukoo (is that a verb?) 3 times - one clock falls on the first bird, then the second cukoo cukoos 4 times before being covered by the other clock.)

(A new clock appears, with no hands, but the numbers are messed up, reading from the normal 12 position to the 11 clockwise: 9-6-4-11-8-12-3-5-10-7-1-2 Also, the word DEPARTURES appears numerous times behind the clock in yellow text)

(Next, a spinning gear, with a picture of H.G. Wells in the center, whose ID is aided by his birth year - 1866 on the left and year of death on the right - 1946)

(Loki appears with arms outstretched, with the word SOLVE upside-down and backwards below her. The equation 694+42 is on the viewer's left and the equation 114+224 is on the right)

"The use of calculators is allowed. (Pause) All done? Now lets make some waves."

(five waves of water from the fountain and she waves goodbye)

"Okay, I have time for one more."

(A sun, with the times: 2:30, 5:00, 12:00, 1:30, 8:00, 7:00)

"Now you should have everything you need. You'll see me again before too long. But act fast, things in my world tend to...disappear."
(vanishingpointgame.com)

Vanishing Point Game Entry One

So I read today at slashdot.org that Microsoft is hosting a viral marketing puzzle competition for Vista (which, by the way, I like saying Vee-sta, not vis-ta, but enough about me). I have always been interested in puzzles and such, so I checked it out - www.vanishingpointgame.com

VISTA is in there, maybe: www.VanIShingpoinTgAme.com

So it turns out there are two "competitions". Well, not really, one of them is really a sweepstakes for non-lazy people. I will talk about the actual competition first, seeing as it is rather absurd. The first person to solve it gets their name inscribed on every AMD Athlon 64 FX chip that is made from when you solve it until March 31st, 2007. Now I know there are two audiences reading this (if I actually have any viewers), the audience that just said to themselves, "holy crap - thats awesome" and those who thought, "why the hell would that be a prize?"

Either way, the puzzles for that line of the Vanishing Point Game have been pretty ridiculous thus far. First, after solving all of the first week puzzles (I'll get to this in a later post), you see a video by the main character of this contest, Loki. At the end, the phrase /on_the_run flashes on the screen. Tagging this to the main website (www.vanishingpointgame.com/on_the_run) yields this:
Hopefully you can read it (sorry, new to blogging), but the important part is the "Contact Me" at the bottom. Since the character's name is Loki, we try loki[at]vanishingpointgame.com to see what happens. Auto-response:

Life is a mix of work and play. You've found play...

~L

(by the way, I accidentally sent the email first to loki[at]vanishingpoint.com, I bet email collectors could do well with a few domain names near a lot of the puzzle ones)

Alright, so where the hell is work? Microsoft, of course. Emailing loki[at]microsoft.com gives us:

Out of Office:

Hmmm. Not quite what I had in mind. Try harder - then listen closely.

~L

Listen closely....hmmmm. Well, the only way I can listen is by talking to someone, right? So call Microsoft. The number? (1-800-MICROSOFT of course) Press 5 to talk to someone at MS. Press 2. Talk to the computer for a while until she nicely transfers you to an operator. Ask to be transferred to Loki. A pre-recorded message congratulates you:

"Awesome work. All knowledge eventually needs effective diagnosis."

Take the first letter of each: A-W-A-K-E-N-E-D. Try this at the website (www.vanishingpointgame.com/awakened), and voila:

Okay, call this gets you: "Please enter your fax number and press the pound key". Man this is a great way for MS to gather information about people.... A quick trip to Kinkos later and I got a fax from 561-297-3481 (boca raton, FL) (no it doesn't spell anything at phonespell.org) (also, I believe it was uploaded to the system originally at the time at the top: 01/05/2007 02:33 , hey, she said its all about time):


Itenerary for: L. KITSUNE

DATE FLIGHT DEPART ARRIVE

Jan 4 AW 291 12:05p 2:22p

Jan 11 SW 608 7:00p 8:05p

Jan 18 AA 1308 1:45p 6:40p

Jan 24 UA 373/339 9:15p 1:07p

Jan 28 AK 394 9:55p 12:08p

*note, the last time (12:08p) is circled with a handwritten note below:
Former AT+T Bldg.
X55654

First thing I noticed was the "L. Kitsune". Putting an "O" after the "L" gives us L.OKItsune. Maybe a nickname.... You ready for the next part? Looking up the last flight (AK - Alaska Airlines (flight 394)) at www.alaskaair.com/airport/flightstatus/FlightStatus.aspx shows us that it is a daily flight from Seattle to San Jose. So we search San Jose for a former AT&T building. After a little searching at Google, you find that this is AMD's headquarters (phone #1-800-538-8450). Enter in the extension x5-5654 and we get another voice mail from Loki:

"Hi, this is Loki - or rather, her electronic footprint left behind on this machine. Funny how the inanimate world retains traces of things long after they've disappeared, isn't it? If you're calling about the murmuring rock project, it's on hold indefinitely. Unfortunately."
Someone named josh has uploaded this to: www.windowsconnected.com/files/folders/misc/entry5565.aspx

Entering "Murmuring rock project" at wikipedia shows us the translation for murmur into German is loosely: "lureln" and for rock: "ley" or Loreley (also written Lorelei). So I guess Loki's real name is Lorelei Kitsune. From here, I will take "on hold indefinitely" to mean that there will be no update until one of the following events or puzzle sets (but I could be wrong, let me know if you see something).