Jump to content

Vinny & Sue Team

+Premium Members
  • Posts

    3910
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Vinny & Sue Team

  1. I'll look at this later but just wanted to say: Welcome back! Thanks for your kind words! I do occasionally post messages here on the forum, but they are few and far between. One of the reasons why I tend to avoid posting on the forum here is that any of my posts could provide clues to Sioneva and the cartel/cabal of sinister space aliens that are working with her in their never-ending efforts to find me. Ah Vinny I'm sorry to report that you may have little to fear in that regard. The Blue Bow has not been seen or heard in these parts for many a moon. More's the pity! Good to know that you are still worried, though. This is my second reply to your post.... and it is because I have yet one more comment regarding Sioneva: Speaking of the sinister Sioneva -- who has been in cahoots with the evil space alien cartel for over 10,000 years, and who has been my favorite arch-enemy for over 20,000 years -- I want to say that my fondest and most heartwarming memory of her is the day that she wrote the following to me in a post to this forum back around 2007: "You are very evil. You are like a black hole of evilness. You probably have a PhD in Horribleness." - Sioneva That about summed it up!
  2. That doesn't surprise me at all. First, money prizes of any size for cache finders is rare. More than, say, $10 is almost unheard of. Second, they're trying to sell their movie, not make someone rich. Tricia, you have a good point regarding the fact that the price of the Blu-Ray disc, at just under $25, is really just the price for the Blu-Ray, and that it could not offer much margin to contribute toward a big prize for the puzzle contest. And I will add that I personally feel that a price of just under $25 for a Blu-Ray disc that contains over five hours of film/video footage, and where the price also includes S/H charges, is a VERY reasonable price by any standard. On the other hand, I betcha that they would get a lot more folks interested in purchasing the movie and entering the contest if the prize was at least $3k or $4k instead of the currently-listed $1k! In fact, at least one page on the main website for the movie and contest listed the cash prize for the movie puzzle contest as $10k until recently, and there is still a post on their Facebook page, dated somewhere around October 2015, that to this day lists the prize for the movie puzzle contest as $10k; the same note also still appears in the description of the video on their YouTube page showing Part One of the movie miniseries! The note on the YouTube page, at reads:~~~~~~ "Published on Nov 1, 2015 This is the first part of The Gordian Knot film series. If you can solve the puzzles presented by the film, you can win $10,000. Please visit www.thegordianknotmovie.com for complete details..." ~~~~~~ So, it looks to me like they originally intended to offer a cash prize of $10k -- the same amount as the cash prize in the strange and near-sinister puzzle geocaching contest called "The Game" that is depicted in the movie -- but that at some point they decided to scale the prize amount down to $1k.
  3. Time for just a quick update. In the time since I first posted this thread, I have learned far more about the film/video miniseries, and here are some of my notes from my research: It turns out that the person who wrote the script and produced and directed the film is an Illinois geocacher, and most of the actors who play geocachers and other roles in the series are geocachers in real life; of course, many of them also have an interest in acting and/or film-making as well. Most of the folks involved in the movie seem to live in and around Palatine, Illinois, where the film is largely set. The majority of the 5+ hour series is footage of geocachers hunting a special series of geocaches that had been hidden in outdoor settings as clues or stages in a strange contest, one that unexpectedly ends in a murder. I can safely say that the vast majority of the film is either footage of folks hunting the aforementioned caches or trying to figure out what the clues and keys found at various stages mean in terms of winning a strange geocaching contest -- one with marked sci-fi overtones -- that they have entered. I recently left a compliment about the film/video miniseries on a Facebook page dedicated to the film, and in my post I introduced myself as a geocacher, albeit one who hates solving puzzles (which was relevant because the movie is connected to a puzzle contest). The writer/director/producer immediately wrote back to me via the movie's FB page, advising me that the entire basis for the movie was geocaching; and I have reproduced one telling phrase from his reply below: "The geocaching part of the story is where it all began, and is definitely the core of the narrative." I caught myself yesterday watching most of the parts/episodes of the 10-part miniseries for the fourth or fifth time, so it must be pretty good! My wife Sue, who is trying to solve the puzzle associated with the series, has seen each part of the miniseries at least eight times.
  4. Same stuff, different decade. Nice to see you here again, Vinny! Thanks, Keystone.... I hope that you are doing well. Good to see that you are still active here. As you know, I drop by here briefly once in a while and usually post only when I have found or noticed something rally interesting!
  5. I'll look at this later but just wanted to say: Welcome back! Thanks for your kind words! I do occasionally post messages here on the forum, but they are few and far between. One of the reasons why I tend to avoid posting on the forum here is that any of my posts could provide clues to Sioneva and the cartel/cabal of sinister space aliens that are working with her in their never-ending efforts to find me. Ah Vinny I'm sorry to report that you may have little to fear in that regard. The Blue Bow has not been seen or heard in these parts for many a moon. More's the pity! Good to know that you are still worried, though. Sorry to hear that Sioneva has not been seen on this forum for a while; she was a very worthwhile arch-enemy and uber-adversary. However, I do admit that it was very unnerving the time a few years ago when she popped up in the parking lot of my hotel in a tiny town in the middle of the Nevada desert while I was on a field trip. As for your comment wherein you wrote: "Good to know that you are still worried, though." All that I can say to that is: AAARRRGGGHHH! That is EXACTLY what Sioneva would want you to say, and that is exactly what Sioneva would want, that is, for me to still be very very worried about her...!
  6. Thanks for your kind words, and I can tell you that I feel that the movie is definitely worth watching, at least once, and very likely more than once. As for any legends regarding me, they all seem to involve space aliens, inter-dimensional time-space portals, a legendary trading post geocache for used nuclear weapons, another legendary trading post cache, this one for toxic chemical waste, strange beings from rifts in the fabric of time and space, alien technology (aka alien tech) artifacts from long-gone alien cultures, and an infamous Psycho Urban Cache where the final stage is located in the remains of the core housing of a long-abandoned nuclear reactor, in crumbling building infested with rodents and fleas carrying the Plague and hantavirus.
  7. Good golly, Pup Patrol, it is almost as if an occult hand had reached down from above and moved me to post here again, almost as if I were a pawn upon some giant chessboard!
  8. I'll look at this later but just wanted to say: Welcome back! Thanks for your kind words! I do occasionally post messages here on the forum, but they are few and far between. One of the reasons why I tend to avoid posting on the forum here is that any of my posts could provide clues to Sioneva and the cartel/cabal of sinister space aliens that are working with her in their never-ending efforts to find me.
  9. Just found a link to the free Part One episode of The Gordian Knot movie miniseries at YouTube:
  10. I should note that the IMDB page for the movie may be found at: Gordian Knot movie at IMDB Enjoy!
  11. BTW, a word of caution about the Gordian Knot movie, for those who may be newbies to the sport of geocaching: Much as has been true of almost every single fictional movie and TV show tale that I have ever seen to date that includes geocaching (and geocache hides) as a plot element, this movie shows a couple of cache hides that are either buried in holes dug in the ground or that are placed too close to active railroad tracks. In real life, of course, geocaches cannot be buried in holes dug in the ground nor placed within 150 feet of active railroad tracks. Just a friendly word of warning for those who might be tempted to try to imitate some of the hides that they may see in this movie (and in almost every fictional movie and TV show that depicts geocaching) in real life! Oh, and there is also a murder in the film. In the real-life world of geocaching, it is considered impolite -- and it is also often illegal, at least in some states -- to murder another geocacher simply because they might get to a new cache ahead of you and therefore potentially beat you to the FTF!
  12. A few days ago, I stumbled upon a 5+ hour 2016 drama/mystery/sci-fi movie that is very geocaching-intensive, offered in a film/video mini-series called The Gordian Knot. And, for those who are into puzzles, there is a puzzle contest associated with the film that has a $1k cash prize for the first person to solve the puzzle. I finished watching the entire series two days ago, and even though I HATE puzzle caches, and I also hate all kinds of puzzles and games in general, I was sufficiently intrigued by the story itself that I watched most parts/episodes of the series again yesterday. But there is not chance that I will be attempting to tackle the puzzle contest associated with the movie, because I deeply and violently hate puzzles, particularly the complex type that is embedded in this video series. At this point, only the first part of the ten-part series seems to be available free online (at YouTube) but the folks who created the film state on their website that they are in the process of trying to offer all 10 parts (aka episodes) of the film for streaming on their website. BTW, it seems that if you want to officially enter the puzzle contest associated with the movie, you need to order the entire movie on a Blu-Ray disc from their website; the price of the Blu-Ray disk serves as the puzzle contest entry fee as well. I learned of this neat geocaching-intensive movie only because my wife Sue -- who is quite obsessed with puzzle caches -- bought the movie in Blu-Ray disc format last week so that she could officially enter the puzzle contest. Finally, after about five days of noticing her sitting at the TV and watching parts of the movie over and over again, I became sufficiently interested that I sat down and watched the entire 5+ hour series myself; it is largely set in and around Palatine, IL. The movie is pretty good, about a 7.5 out of 10 rating, in my book. BTW, regarding the puzzle contest associated with the Gordian Knot film, I personally feel that the $1k prize amount that the contest creators are offering is abysmally low, particularly when there have been several extreme geocaches in the US that have offered $100 or more in cash as a prize to the first finder, and another hundred dollars worth of prizes to the second and third finders as well, and there were no entry fees involved. Nonetheless, knowing how obsessive-compulsive geocachers and puzzle/treasure hunters can be, I have decided to take the time to post this note about the movie to this forum. You can find the website for the Gordian Knot movie/video miniseries (and the contest) at: http://www.thegordianknotmovie.com The Gordian Knot Movie And, a note for those who may be wondering: No, I have no connection to the folks who created the film miniseries (they seem to be a bunch of geocachers and film-makers located in the Chicago, IL area) and the contest, and no, despite the fact that I have some interest in geocaching (particularly extreme geocaching), I have not entered the puzzle contest myself, for I have ZERO patience for puzzles and contests! Rather, I have decided to pass along the information about about this intensively geocaching-related 5+ hour film mini-series because I know a number of puzzle-oriented geocachers who have gotten hooked on this movie (and the puzzle contest)! Finally, a note in closing: My wife Sue does NOT like the fact that I have decided to post this note on the Groundspeak forum, because she feels that this type of publicity for the movie in the geocaching world will increase the size of the pool of entrants in the puzzle contest, thus increasing the competition that she faces in the contest. Alas and alack!
  13. As I mentioned a few minutes ago in another post on this thread, I just stumbled upon this forum thread a few minutes ago, in the wake of a discussion on Facebook with Nik Cap and some other East Coast cachers regarding geocaches that require use of portable radiation detectors (i.e., Geiger counters). Having said that, I want to say -- and I am speaking here as a degreed multi-disciplinary consulting scientist/engineer with a graduate degree (Master's level) in the sciences -- that I feel that Ipodguy's cache idea/creation is, and was, entirely harmless and entirely safe. I suspect that the ONLY reason that Groundspeak denied the cache listing is because of the entirely-insane and overblown levels of paranoia and hyper-vigilance in the country in the wake of the 9/11 2001 terrorist attacks. Of course, there have been at least a few other geocaches in existence that rely upon detection of ionizing radiation levels using a portable handheld ionizing radiation detector (aka a "Geiger counter"), and one of them was GCNMV3,One of These Things; it had been located on private property in White Clay Creek Preserve, a few miles north of Newark, DE. Unfortunately, that cache was archived in 2009 because the cache owner failed to do some maintenance in a timely fashion. The GCNMV3 cache contained a bunch of wooden popsicle sticks, each bearing different padlock combinations for the padlock on the final stage. Only the stick that exhibited radioactivity levels well above ambient background levels was the correct one, that is, the one that bore the correct padlock combination for the final stage. Unfortunately, from my perspective, in later years the container that held the popsicle sticks also contained a small Russian-made radiation detector, aka Geiger counter. I never liked the idea that the cache owner made things easy for wussie seekers by providing a radiation detector; I always felt that each cache finder should have had to bring along their own radiation detector, whether they owned it, or had borrowed it, or had rented it. While that particular geocache near Newark, DE was archived in 2009, there are still at least a few ionizing radiation-based geocaches (that is, where detection of level of ionizing radiation is needed to complete the find) in existence across the world. I know this for a fact because I did some consulting for some of the hiders between 2005 and 2011. Another reason that I know this for a fact is because, last night, I did a search on Google (includes YouTube), Flickr, Instagram, and a few other sites, and also on the forums of some major state/national geocaching forums, on the topic and found evidence of at least 11 such caches still in existence. I suspect strongly that I would have found eight (8) times as many such caches had I spent more than seven minutes in my search. Not all of the caches that I have cited above are necessarily listed at Groundspeak's geocaching.com site; some may be listed at other geocache listing sites. At least one such radioactive cache was located in Japan, and was very sophisticated and elaborate, and had been placed by a Japanese scientist. From my quick glance at his cache creation, it looked like most of the finders of his cache were other people from Japan with strong scientific or technical skills; all seemed to be scientists, engineeers or technicians. BTW, all of the so-called ionizing radiation-based caches of which I am aware seem to be extremely safe, and totally well-within all regulatory limits for ionizing radiation exposure. Vinny of Vinny & Sue Team
  14. I just stumbled upon this thread in the wake of a discussion on Facebook with Nik Cap and some other East Coast cachers regarding geocaches that require use of portable radiation detectors (i.e., Geiger counters). As the owner of the GCTA5E Psycho Urban Cache (PUC) mentioned above, I can tell you that the statement quoted above is not true. This is not a radiation-based cache, that is, one where detection of levels of ionizing radiation is a component involved in finding the cache. While the final stage of GCTA5E is located in the abandoned and largely-unremediated shell of an old and long-abandoned corporate research reactor located well out in the boondocks, the elevated levels of background radiation at the final stage hide site are only incidental (although they add to the fun of seeking the cache), and are NOT at used, nor needed, to find the final stage, nor to find the final stage cache container. Rather, finding the final stage cache container is quite easy, as it is quite sizeable, and it happens to exhibit far lower levels of background radiation than the concrete, cinder block and steel components of the room in which it is located. Vinny of Vinny & Sue Team
  15. Oops! Just found a typo in the subject header for this thread. The first word of the subject header should be "Various", not "Verious".
  16. Due to the drastic rise in incidents of blatant cheating (largely by finders or putative finders) that I (and others) have witnessed in the geocaching world over the past 6 years as the sport has become more mainstream, I have, for years, joked on various geocaching-related forums that eventually people would form for-profit businesses that would offer their geocache cheating services via websites, including Ebay, etc. Well, acting on a hunch, I have, over the past two weeks, visited some of the microjob sites (such as Fiverr.com, gigbucks.com, gigme5.com, tenrr.com, etc.) that are now plentiful on the web, and I discovered that something that the very thing that I have often joked about in the geocaching realm has come true: There are now people on the above-mentioned microjob sites (there are hundreds of such sites to be found on the web. ...) who will, for a fee ranging from $5 to $25, perform any one of the following services (most of which I would consider cheating): find and sign the logbook in your geo name on any cache in their region, enabling you to log the find online as if it were your own. place a new cache, with a name of your choice, in their region, enabling you to increased your "caches owned" count. place a new cache in their region with any name, container size, cache type and D/T rating that you might wish, so that you can later claim a fake find on it to complete requirements for various challenges. visit the cache listing page of one of your caches that you feel is being neglected and post a fake find log replete with glowing praises for the cache and the cache hider (that would be yourself). solve a puzzle cache for you, or provide help in solving a puzzle cache. post a DNF (Did Not Find) or Needs Maintenance (NM) log on any cache that you specify. To me, this phenomenon is quite amazing... it is as if my wildest jokes are slowly becoming manifest in the real world! It is almost as if an occult hand had reached down from above and moved the players like pawns upon some giant chessboard! Footnote: Please note that I rarely post in the forums nowadays, and I posted this only because the whole matter is so funny, and so interesting (and it got a good reception when I posted it earlier today on my private FB page). Due to the fact that I am very busy with other commitments, there is very little chance that I will be responding via the forum to any replies that people may post below (unless Sioneva publicly maligns me, as she manages to do about 300 times per week. ...). Enjoy! Vinny of Vinny & Sue Team (arch-enemy and arch-nemesis of the evil Sioneva, who stalks me mercilessly in my travels across the world and in cyberspace.) . [late edit to insert missing end parentheses in footnote. ...]
  17. Ahhh, sounds like Magellan's Conversion Manager has the same problem under Vista and Windows 7... I have yet to get that program to work under Windows 7. There are 2 ways you can work around the problem however, i.e. load your Explorist without using the Conversion Manager as follows: - if you want to upload waypoints that you have in a mapsend .wpt file, use gpsbabel to convert the file to an Explorist .upt file - if you want to upload waypoints that you have in gsak, do an 'export to magellan explorist and sd card' from gsak and choose the 'explorist poi's' in the 'required format' box. This will create a .upt file. Once you have the .upt file, plug your Explorist into a USB port and just use Windows Explorer or similar to copy the .upt file to your Explorist in the 'My POI' folder. Sue-Cat (Vinny & Sue Team)
  18. cdwyer, If you have mapsend, you can also use "magellan conversion manager" (should be on cd that came with your unit) to transfer a saved mapsend .wpt file to your Explorist. Sue Vinny & Sue Team
  19. Are you using Windows 7? I have the same problem under Windows 7. (Used Windows XP previously with no problem.) Sue Vinny & Sue Team
  20. I'm in the process of installing my apps in Windows 7 home 64 bit. To get MapSend Topo 3D to install, I had to set compatibility mode to XP AND run it as administrator. Running it once installed successfully, it claimed I didn't have the data CD in the drive when I did. Luckily the patch to run Topo3D without the CD in the drive ( http://freightyard.net/projects/MagellanGPS/ ) fixed that problem. Conversion Manager installed no problem (?) but it refuses to recognize my Explorist is plugged in, even though Windows shows it as a drive no problem. Ugh... so I installed GPSBabel and had it convert wpt to upt format and used Windows to copy the upt file to my Explorist. That seems to work fine. To transfer map regions, I don't think I need to use Conversion Manager at all, but just copy the .imi file created by MapSend when using save on hard drive option (I haven't tried this yet). MapSend Direct Route seemed to install OK but now refuses to run (flashes up the MapSend logo window then disappears into nothingness). O-o. Sue Vinny & Sue Team
  21. This is Sue... I have an account Sue-Cat - paid premium membership just the other day and yesterday it reverted to basic fo no apparent reason. I have no stats at all on my profile page (I log all finds under Vinny & Sue Team), nor do I run automated whatevers that are getting some people banned. Our Vinny & Sue Team account remains premium, thank goodness. Sue-Cat, Vinny & Sue Team
  22. Naw, Vinny is the natural choice. Jim The reality is that Sioneva and I each have founded, and operate, geocaching churches, and, while each church already has a website and tax-exempt IRS status in the USA, some logistical and legal problems (more details may be found below) have delayed our advertising our competing geocaching churches on the Interweb. Sioneva's church, of which she is the Chief Pontifex, is, as has been mentioned before, named The First International Sioneva Discount Church of Geocaching, while my markedly superior and far holier geocaching church, of which I am the Chief Psychopomp and also Chief Supreme Conductor of Souls, is The First Second Third Galactic Church of Vinny Geocaching, Third Synod, Second Convocation. More information about each church, including links to their websites and information on the application process and the minor application fee (under $6,000 USD for each church), should be announced here on the forum as soon as we each resolve the annoying federal racketeering charges that sinister oppressive anti-geocaching/anti-God forces in the government leveled against each of our fine upstanding honest God-fearing churches several months ago. May God be with us.
  23. Okay... your post is BEYOND weird. Is it a joke? Exactly how many people do you expect to attend an event that was held 3 years ago? At the best, perhaps two of us MIGHT have access to a time portal, and even that is a long shot. And, even if someone DID have access to a time portal, I doubt that they would feel that it would be worth traveling back in time simply to attend an event held THREE YEARS AGO! Very strange. I assume that this whole thread is some kind of "insiders" joke that has some kind of secret meaning known only to the cachers in your region, and, if that is the case, the it is best that the moderators move your thread to the appropriate regional section of the forum. And, one last note, a question for you: If you ARE serious, are YOU planning on traveling back in time and attending this even yourself? If so, how? strange...
×
×
  • Create New...