Live Q&As

Every year we try to avoid the near-disaster of the previous year.   So we go in cycles.   Sometimes, they are too easy.   Sometimes, too hard.     We try to vary our incompetence, for your hunting pleasure. 

One will be a curvaceous woman dressed in black; one will be wearing an American-flag-themed costume; one will be wearing a flying suit made of... No, wait, that's the Avengers.

There will be at least one Jew on the winning team.  There always is.   Be sure to get yourself a Jew by Hunt day. 

Any Post Hunt photobombing should be immediately uploaded here.

Yes, there is track work this weekend. Details here. 

A couple of years ago, two guys transported a live six-foot nurse shark on the downtown Miami People Mover. So don't go feeling sorry for yourselves about the construction.

This really has nothing to do with The Hunt, but I am weirded out by modernity, dagnabbit, specifically how an area code no longer gives you any clue where a person is from.  My daughter, who lives in Washington D.C. and works in Gaithersburg, has an Ithaca, N.Y. phone number. 

Also, people who ride their bicycles on the sidewalk should be hornswoggled. 

Okay, I just looked up hornswoggled and discovered, to my astonishment, that it doesn't mean beat up or whipped.  It means hoaxed.   I have been misusing this word my whole life. 

But the Hunt will be great!   It's in good hands.

What was your question? Oh right, two, oh two.

The Hunt is not strenuous! You'll be perfectly fine as long as you're in reasonable physical condition and have completed a marathon in the past two weeks.

Well, there IS some walking, but nothing that Gene won't be able to do, and his knees are made of pudding.

At one point we will make you do squat-thrusts, though. 

Commas.

I don't want to give anything away, but it MIGHT be helpful if one of your team members has memorized pi to the 847th digit.

Jews.   

If you think it's easy to attach propellers to those things, then you do not know much about aerodynamics.

The puzzle doesn't actually involve the flying sheep. It is built around what drops FROM the flying sheep.

For most of my adult life, I thought a "veal" was a baby sheep.  

And why are you not following Post Hunt?! @PostHunt

As you point out, I asked for it.  

Yes. The official hunt theme this year is: "Ketchup -- You Do NOT Need to Refrigerate It."

Themes? We don't need no stinkin' themes!

Actually, every year the theme is the same:  Tom Was Wrong About Everything And Had to Be Overruled. 

It definitely has that effect on Weingarten.

Now that I think of it, the Hunt theme for this year is "gassy and flatulent."

"Gassy and flatulent" is redundant.  It's like saying "concupiscent and horny." 

Thank you. 

I should point out that brie, like catsup, should be served room temperature.   

No. That would be U.S. tax code.

Don't make me track you down and kill you.

I recently discovered that originally, in China, catsup was made with fish.    

It's "catsup," by the way, as I believe we established last year in this space. 

The thing I jus LOVE about the catsup/breast milk combination is that lovely pink coloration.

It's like a combination of female exudate! 

I probably shouldn't say that.  I take this one back.  Hunt producer, let's make sure to kill this answer. 

I'm sure we're all grateful to Gene for sharing that thought with us!

We had one where there were going to be two giant dead insects, and the answer was going to be John and George. Maybe we'll still use that. So please forget this when you're done reading it.

There will actually BE one puzzle this year that we had to fight to keep from getting nixed as "too disgusting." See if you can guess which one it is!

And see if you can guess whose idea it was!  

It's more of an atmosphere of Weingarten-emitted flatulence.

The truth is that once, more than a quarter century ago, Dave  seriously proposed that we try to conduct our brain-storming sessions in an all-positive-feedback mode. What a moron!

Tom is always wrong.  I cannot emphasize that enough. 

I don't have an answer to that, so I will take this opportunity to reiterate the fact that there is no need to refrigerate ketchup.

No Adolf, unfortunately, but I believe Ms. Fox will be offered in blow-up companion doll format.

As usual, Tom has spelled something wrong.   It is Ms. Foxx.   But we will NOT be offering her as a blowup doll.   The idea is preposterous.   The blowup doll will be Lucretia. 

Yes, but first I am going to apply ketchup to them, if I can find some that has not been refrigerated by some idiot.

He came in fourth last year.

Duh.

Yes, of course, BUT IT WILL NOT HELP YOUR CHANCES.

Tom is lying.  Tips beget tips, if you know what I mean.    This reminds me of the one time I was actually offered a bribe.  I went into an antique story in Albany and when they learned I was a reporter the woman told me that the store was in dire financial straits and if I wrote about the store I could keep the antique gold watch I was looking at.    She was pleading. 

Now you are probably wondering what I did.  

You want me to say that I didn't take the watch but I figured out a way to write about the store anyway.  

Yeah, I want me to say that, too.   But I was 23 and callow and freaked at being offered a bribe, and I put the watch down, walked out and didn't write about the store.  It closed not long after.   I just remembered this for the first time in almost 40 years and it is making me sad.  Thanks a LOT. 

I'm sure we are all grateful to Gene for sharing that memory!

True fact:  We are grateful to the occupiers.   Because they're all over Freedom Plaza we were forced to find another venue, and that led to some happy things.   

Yes.   It will lose.    Einstein was a team of one, and only finished fourth. 

As the great sages hath said, One is the loneliest number.

Thanks. Kathi was an amazing person.

He'd think, "Whoa, I'm too old for this, being as how I am like 300."

In one of the puzzles, you have to eat someone's face. 

Yo no soy marinero.

Unfortunately, Segways are not permitted in the Oval Office, which is where you will have to go for the final... Wait, I shouldn't be giving this away. Never mind.

Hunt Rules, Vol. I, Page 357, Paragraph 12, Section 8, Subsection 19: You do not need to go into ANY buildings to solve Hunt puzzles. Just saying.

Perhaps. but that is balanced out by the fact that downtown Washington makes them nervous, as it is relatively free of gunfire and cannibalism.

Wait. Did you actually SAY OUT LOUD (in writing) that the weather would be good Sunday? ARE YOU INSANE?

Not Hank this year, but we have a repeat foursome of Caitlin Gibson, Rachel Manteuffel, Dan Zak and Tim Jucovy.     Their puzzle is completely bizarre.   

Maybe if Hunters repeatedly chant, "We Want Hank" he will agree to come back next year.

A nice room-temperature bowl of ketchup.

If you are having a bagel, and use either peanut butter or mayonnaise on it, you will be disqualified.  

A big bowl of humility.

Even worse, we are all going to be talking about you behind your back. 

Is this Angelina Jolie?

Those were consenting beers.

I'm guessing you work for the federal government.

There will be an all-of-you-you-can-eat buffet.

This is one of those rare occassions when I feel I should give an answer that imparts some actual information.

Tom misspelled occasions. 

I'd like to remind you, seriously, that this is one of the greatest editors in America.   He has stunning problems with double consonants.   The rule I have urged him to follow is that when in doubt, decide which is right and then do the other.  

Whatever you say, Madame Secretary of State.

Just for you, I won't wear my bald wig.

He says "vunerable."  He denies this -- he has denied it repeatedly -- but he is lying and I will prove it.   When I have it on tape it is going on the Internet.   

July 3, 1947.

What Dave means is: "Sometime after lunch today."

Video: The Feet Puzzle from the 2010 Post Hunt

I believe they'll do that for you at the city impound lot.

We were over-indulged as children. Also as adolescents, young adults, "mature" adults and geezers.

The previous answer entailed no decision on double consonants, and thus was spelled impeccably. 

Franklin Square is downtown between 13th/14th Streets and K/I Streets

We are stimulated by new venues. You DON'T want to mess with us when we are stimulated.

Yes. One team won the Hunt, I believe, three times, and would have gone on to win more, if they hadn't been torn to shreds by an angry mob of thousands.

They're welcome to participate in everything but the Heroin Challenge.

As we have been pointing out since the Truman Administration, sometimes kids will point out solutions their rocket-scientist parents completely miss because they are WAY too obvious.

As we have pointed out at least since the Truman administration, kids often see things their rocket-scientist parents completely miss.

Dave also uses that "solving math problems in his head" technique, but I don't think it's for doing well in the Hunt.

We expect no Endgame mobs this year.   This is not an easy Hunt. 

No, but what YOU just said is.

By the way,  it is unnecessary to translate my column into German, so don't do it in advance.   

He is unavailable, as he is a Clue.  

I think Gene is thinking of the puzzle in which Hunters must stand dead still while Henry Rodriguez tries to knock an apple off their heads with a 99 mph fast ball.

 A FUNNY CAPITALIZED ANSWER.

Yes, except for the Bacon Challenge.

Little-known fact: Siri's voice is actually done by Snooki. Please put this on the Internet.

Is this Vice President Biden?

On the Mohs scale of hardness it ranks somewhere between topaz and corundum.

The three Creators are actually in some disagreement on this.   I think it is particularly hard.  Tom expects a winner in a dozen minutes or so.   

Not that this has anything to do with your question, but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

We have a signed contract with this years Hunt sponsors that prevents us from making any jokes involving Gene's mustache. There may also be some DC criminal code proscriptions.

Tom is jealous.   He has begged me for my mustache so he can glue it to his head. 

Ew.

I still remember "DAAA-aaan Ingram." 

Also the greatest jingle ever:

Who's everybody listen to when the day is through-oo?

Who is the DJ, the big fat Daddy Cool?

Baba Lou, baba lou a-yay

Baba Lou, baba lou a-yay

Baba Lou, baba lou a-yay

The Big Bob Lewis Show! 

(can anyone find this audio and send it in?)

Pretty much nothing Gene says is true. Anything Tom says is true, but probably mispronounced.

As I believe we have mentioned, none of us actually remember any previous Hunts, or even this one, so it is unlikely that Gene can say with an accuracy whether this is or is not the sneakiest Hunt ever.

The grid was Gene's idea, and we don't want to talk about it.

It was actually Tom's idea.  But I liked it.  

Sure. Send her money.

Sure. Send her money.

Sure. Send her money.

I would just like to point out that Usain Bolt, by virtue of being a sprinter, HAS no stamina.   He is all fast-twitch.  You or I could probably beat him in the mile. 

Nothing in the Hunt is illegal, except perhaps the Incest Challenge.

Yes, DVD is our answer to John Hamm.

When I was a kid, I thought "John Hamm" was a baby cow. 

We have no earthly idea.

Amanda, can you link to the Hunt instructions, which I believe are already online?

Yes, but we will also be giving out drugs ourselves.  

Many drugstores sell ketchup. You will find it on the grocery shelves, not in the refrigerator.

Is this former Rep. Weiner?

Recently, Gene and I played a brief game of ping-pong, which left him wheezing and sweating. When I told him he needed to go to the gym, he said, "What should I wear?" Turns out he doesn't OWN a pair of shorts.

Sure! Here, hold this kite string.

It will give you an opportunity to truly hate each other.

The Hunt has always been a bondage-friendly event.

This is like asking what should be done to people who murder other people while jaywalking.     The first crime makes the second irrelevant.  

If you are an adult and you are habitually riding on the sidewalk, you need to be publicly humiliated.   I yell at them: "Get a tricycle" unless they are large muscular people.

FACT: 82 percent of all winning Hunt teams wore matching underwear.

It works for us.

Einstein was high on crack when he finished fourth. 

Please.

As I understand it, mustard used to be made from fish.   

It doesn't have to be plastic.

First you have to FIND my hair.

What hair?

Tom is VERY sensitive about having a head that looks like a thumb.   

Molly is actual a critical-care specialist.  She don't give no stinkin' injections.   She works almost exclusively with animals with dramatic problems, like having been cut in half.  

Sometimes, if a cat is too far gone, Molly will make catsoup out of it.  

I am in fact on an airplane at this moment, attempting to travel by air from Orlando to Miami. Nobody has ever done this.

Clearly it's time for another earthquake.

You know what would be cool?  A mud slide.   

There's got to be a reason, but it doesn't add up, does it?

Well, the answer IS always a number.

Well, the answer IS always a number.

Well, the answer IS always a number.      I just thought I'd add that. 

Okay, we seem to have gotten to the end of the sane questions.    I'm declaring us down.  

Thank you all, and we hope to see some 15,000 of you out there on Sunday!