Still Angry.

So, some people are have been softening their words, but I'm going to come right out and bluntly say that I hated this year's MIT Mystery Hunt. Yes, I enjoyed spending time with my team and the people in New York and Boston during my vacation surrounding, but if I could have the fifty hours or so I spent staring at those puzzles I'd grab them in a second.

I've been trying to write up my thoughts and opinions on this Hunt, and it's been difficult, because sometimes I just get too angry writing, and I lose my focus.

If you examined the Hunt minutely, you might come to the impression that the things that were wrong were minor. But each of those minor things had a major impact, and the things that were bad, unsatisfying and unfair overshadowed what was fun and well-designed, even if it did not outweigh them.

The entry I started writing today is titled "Skinned Knees on the Marathon Trail." I like comparing the Mystery Hunt to a marathon. They're both very strenuous, but very rewarding tests of endurance. But the marathon works because it is pure running over a long period of time. The route is clearly marked, the path is clear, and supplies are freely available along the way. Any non-running distraction. The amount of screw-ups, gaffes, miscommunications and awkward logic made this Hunt feel less like a marthon and more like a very, very, very long, haphazard obstacle course. I felt like I was dealing more with route directions and potholes in the road than with actual running.

I've saved a draft of what I've been writing, and I'll come back to it soon, but for now, I think that a lot of my attitude is summed up in this excerpt:

( Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them )

More eventually, including the stuff I liked.

FriNYTX: 19. ThuNYTX: 8:45. Written by canadianpuzzler. What very good taste. You! Go solve it now!