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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » ARG: This Is My Milwaukee
[PUZZLE] Piecing together a map?
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WhiskeyNinja
Boot


Joined: 10 Dec 2008
Posts: 11
Location: Washington

 		[PUZZLE] Piecing together a map?
Chuck Jagoda's Twitter and Possible San Fransisco Drop
We figured it out!

Here's our thought process, with excerpts from Jagoda's Twitter:

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE TAKING ANY ACTION

Jagoda wrote:
I was in a city that was all gold and iron. The people there kissed and ran naked in the street, paying nudeness no mind [...] The sun hung low in the sky, constantly setting...

It was brought to light that San Francisco is associated with gold, with the Golden Gate bridge and the 1849 Gold Rush. The "constantly setting sun" suggested the West Coast; it also pointed us toward the Sunset District of the city.

Chuck Jagoda's visions took him to the dormant era, wearing:
Jagoda wrote:
a uniform, something from dormant days, a great helmet and guarding, heavy and powerful, what I would call a yellow and crimson.

We eventually confirmed that this is the colors for the San Francisco 49ers, which matches perfectly with Jagoda's dress.

Jagoda wrote:
I looked up to try to find a street sign, and there was a living mural in its place, a small calvary of nine horsemen, all headless
Washington Irving wrote "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," so it was a short jump to '9th and Irving,' which turns out to be in the Sunset District.

There was a lot of deliberation and discussion, and we decided if we were going to take this literally -
Jagoda wrote:
So frightened was I by the moving sign that I ran into the nearest building, a cafe of sorts

... then the nearest cafe was going to be the food place closest to the intersection. After some Google-fu, we came up with Gratitude Cafe. This was confirmed by his next post:
Jagoda wrote:
I knelt and gave silent Gratitude for this cafe to cool dog, wise and cool, then stood and looked around.


What follows in his Twitter, an account of being taken to his seat by Mars, between the cafe, a bulging garden, and finally settling on a greenhouse seat was initially befuddling to us when we tried to interpet it individually, but it falls perfectly into place in the context of the location: Gratitude has a cafe area, a garden area, and a greenhouse area. Chuck chose the greenhouse area, and Mars
Jagoda wrote:
led me to the first table on the left as we entered the green house.


Jagoda wrote:
A giant sign hung over us as we sat, asking us a threatening question that I could not understand

...will likely be better understood once someone has a chance to sit in this location. Mars insists that the food is just a distraction:
Mars wrote:
Where you sit is the secret.


Jagoda wrote:
There was a peacock feather and a plant across from where I sat, from my bench against the wall.

This should give specific direction and facing.

Mars wrote:
I only hope that it is found quickly, covertly. The owners here, the ones who control this cafe, they are women and men with dark hearts.
We think it's best that whoever goes in consider everyone in the cafe OOG - above all, the whole time you're there, act respectfully and don't be disruptive or annoying to the cafe staff. Please go in, order something, and get whatever it is that needs to be got, which can be found with:

Mars wrote:
Somewhere quiet, somewhere under. A little, a little. A trifle. Whoever finds it will spread it, and it will grow."

This table, this seat, under. Reunion.


No one's volunteered to do the actual drop yet, so we're still looking for an intrepid treasure-hunter who can handle this.

In summary, here are the actual instructions for the drop:
* Go to the Gratitude Cafe, at the intersection of 9th and Irving in San Francisco.
* Go to the greenhouse section of the cafe. Sit at the first table on the left. You should be seated at a bench with your back to the wall, with a peacock feather and a plant across from where you're sitting, and a sign with a question written on it hanging over your table. Make a note of what the sign actually says.
* Do not ask any questions or say anything about the game to the waiter or other restaurant staff, and try not to draw attention to yourself. Consider everyone in the cafe OOG.
* It doesn't matter what sort of food you order.
* You are looking for some sort of small item, most likely located underneath the table or bench where you're sitting.
* If it's not underneath your table or seat, try looking casually around the greenhouse. (Obviously, don't disturb other diners, the staff, or the plants.)
* Bring a camera in case the item can't be detached.
* Post your report here.

Credit to the find goes to the masterminds: lehall, mrjudkins, PostLarval, NotMeAtAll, Whiskey_Ninja, Iridium, Six,
tubbytango


edit: renamed the thread for clarity -thebruce

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 4:09 am
Last edited by WhiskeyNinja on Sun Dec 14, 2008 4:54 am; edited 1 time in total
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BlessedBlogger
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Joined: 06 Dec 2008
Posts: 111
Location: Delaware

 		Good catch guys. Hopefully it pans out. Do you know someone in SanFran who can go for the drop tomorrow?

Just out of curiosity, have you guys been discussing this here ( if so I didn't see it Sad ) or in person or on another site somewhere?

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 4:15 am
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PostLarval
Entrenched


Joined: 16 Nov 2004
Posts: 806
Location: 32° 43'N, 117° 10'W (give or take)

 		And for the sake of facilitating further discussion, here's the full transcript of Chuck Jagoda's Wild Ride (thanks go to lhall for this):

Chuck Jagoda wrote:
Took a long shower, collecting my thoughts, having a rejuvenatory ham sandwich. Will post more soon...or am I still dreaming...?

I just got back to my hotel, trying to make sense of the vision I had last night. The Cajun food brought dreams and madness

Will try to sort things out by writing- attended a special dinner on Friday with just a few others. Mysterious location, warehouse

It was organized by a group of investors from all five cities who call themselves Big Vision. I'd never met any of them before.

The guests were various monied gentry unaffiliated with BV. We were led to a room deep within the complex with a long oak supper table.

Black curtains hung around all four walls in the room. Light conversation was buttressed by fine port. A gong signaled the start of dinner.

Waiters, one for each guest, appeared from out the curtains, each carrying a covered plate. They stood motionless behind us.

Then, at the sound of another gong, they uncovered and plated the meals before us. Everyone at the table stared in quiet wonder.

"Crawfish boudin, just a little something I remembered from my days in New Orleans. I hope you all brought your appetites."

The voice belonged to a man of considerable height, wearing a deep red suit. His face was handsome, uncanny, amused. Finally: Voltaire.

"We have assembled you here tonight, ladies and gentlemen, because each of you is faced with a choice."

"Though each choice will be separate, they are all intertwined. Some may be obvious, while others may appear inconsequential."

"It is not my place to tell you what your individual choice will be, or what you should do when confronted with the decision."

"I can only offer you this fine Cajun cooking as clarification, and hope that each of you finds her own way. Enjoy the meal, friends."

And like that, he was gone, shifting out of sight. Even the Big Visions at the table looked overwhelmed by what had happened.

We supped on the crawfish delicacy. Voltaire's culinary prowess matched both his prowess for political satire and for elemental magics.

Having finished most of the plate, guests started complaining of lightheadedness. A woman to my left named Alisanda began laughing.

Conversation veered toward the surreal, the profane. Some began to strip, while I felt the sensation of my feet turning into roots.

"I'm alive! I'm alive! Oh god, unbury me! Lift me up! I'm here, down here!" Alisanda was screaming out, reliving a memory of the Troubles?

What interaction there was at this point was limited to a small scope, each diner trapped in his or her own world.

I maintained until the last, thanks either to my personal weight, or experience with foods exotic, or possibly my powerclass.

But soon, I too slipped away, and this was the vision that I saw:

I was in a city that was all gold and iron. The people there kissed and ran naked in the street, paying nudeness no mind.

I wore a uniform, something from dormant days, a great helmet and guarding, heavy and powerful, what I would call a yellow and crimson.

The sun hung low in the sky, constantly setting, my innermost thoughts obsessed with using it as a map to chart my way in this strange land.

I looked up to try to find a street sign, and there was a living mural in its place, a small calvary of nine horsemen, all headless

So frightened was I by the moving sign that I ran into the nearest building, a cafe of sorts

I knelt and gave silent Gratitude for this cafe to cool dog, wise and cool, then stood and looked around.

A woman appeared before me, young, black skinned, beautiful. I asked for a table, and she showed me three options:

The first was the cafe proper. I looked over the tables, and the people eating there seemed dry, stiff, stale. They chewed on sand and rocks

"No, I would not like a table here," I told her, and she smiled and nodded. She led me to another part, a garden.

This garden pulsed and bulged upward, and I knew that there was something terrible beneath the earth. I said "No, miss. Not in the garden."

And she smiled again, and walked me to the last option, a green house in the back.

It was quiet and alive in a simple sense, and a balance of creation and destruction that I knew to be safe, natural, pleasing.

"Yes, I will dine here, in this green house" I told her. "Will you eat with me, please?"

"Yes, but I am shy, so pardon me if I am not talkative," she replied.

"How can such a pretty girl be shy?" I asked her. "The world is open to you, why do you hide from it?"

She blushed and smiled again. "You have done a great thing, to make me feel as a friend. I have felt in a dark forest without friends."

"Because you have offered me your kindness, I will repay you with a secret," she continued.

"Do you see these tables?" She waved her palm across the green house at the three large tables there. "They are not all the same."

"Come," and she took me by the arm and led me to the first table on the left as we entered the green house.

A giant sign hung over us as we sat, asking us a threatening question that I could not understand.

I looked at the menu, and saw a great many unusual foods. "These are just distractions," the girl said. "Where you sit is the secret."

There was a peacock feather and a plant across from where I sat, from my bench against the wall. I asked the girl her name.

"I have many names, but they are not important now. What is important is what you will leave behind. You are an agent of change."

"But what will I leave behind?" I asked her. "I grow old. My legacy will be buildings and lands. I am not a hero."

She looked directly into my eyes. "You leave something behind here, in this secret place, that goes beyond what you know and understand."

"I only hope that it is found quickly, covertly. The owners here, the ones who control this cafe, they are women and men with dark hearts."

"And they must not know of what you leave, so important the artifact."

She leaned over and kissed me gently on the cheek. "You are tired, Duke Chuck, and so now I plant the seed."

"Somewhere quiet, somewhere under. A little, a little. A trifle. Whoever finds it will spread it, and it will grow."

"This table, this seat, under. Reunion."

And darkness was calm on the face of the bay.

Anyway, that's about when I woke up in a gutter a few blocks from my hotel, covered in puked-up crawfish. Voltaire can be a real dick.

Think I'm gonna go eat some vegetables. Tomorrow is Ham-burger day, and the closing of the festival.

_________________
O_o

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 4:20 am
Last edited by PostLarval on Sun Dec 14, 2008 12:14 pm; edited 1 time in total
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mr.judkins
Unfettered


Joined: 26 Feb 2008
Posts: 393
Location: Wellington, NZ
BlessedBlogger wrote:
Just out of curiosity, have you guys been discussing this here ( if so I didn't see it Sad ) or in person or on another site somewhere?


It was all nutted out in the #milwaukee irc channel on the irc.chat-solutions.org server. If you haven't got an irc client, you can join either through mibbit or unfiction (for unfiction, type "/join #milwaukee" once you enter).

Thanks to all those who took part in the brainstorm - it was great fun! Very Happy

EDIT: Oh - and for the potential San Francisco dead drop collectors: here is the website for Cafe Gratitude: http://www.cafegratitude.com/

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 4:31 am
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PostLarval
Entrenched


Joined: 16 Nov 2004
Posts: 806
Location: 32° 43'N, 117° 10'W (give or take)

 		A note for anyone going- the people here are really cool. I've been, and I worked for a company that did business with them for a long time. Don't worry about looking out of place or acting odd... having spent a lot of time around the Raw Food community, I'm sure you'll be welcomed warmly.

And honestly... if you told them a duke from an alternate reality described a trip he'd had to you, which through heavy symbolism led you to a secret hidden within their greenhouse... it wouldn't be the strangest thing they've ever heard Wink
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 5:09 am
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WhiskeyNinja
Boot


Joined: 10 Dec 2008
Posts: 11
Location: Washington
Mars wrote:
I only hope that it is found quickly, covertly...


I suppose it bears mentioning that this may be time sensitive, as quoted above. It could be because it's a drop, and bears potential discovery by any random patron, or maybe we're racing some enemy we don't know about yet.

Either way, the sooner we get a volunteer, the better.

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 5:28 am
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BlessedBlogger
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Joined: 06 Dec 2008
Posts: 111
Location: Delaware

 		Other supporting factors:
The building is green in color and green in practice.
It's near the water.
There is a sign on the wall that says "Who would spirit deny?" and another that says "Can you let go and accept what is?".
There is another sign on the wall covered in hearts.
It is near Sunset Park and down the street from and Golden Gate Equestrian Stadium.
It's on the same road as Sunset Barber Shop.
The moving sign could be a bus advertisement or a truck/van with a big ad on it.
A balance of creation and destruction may be referring to the fact that Cafe Gratitude seems to be a whole food or macrobiotic restaurant.
They offer an abundance of desserts, perhaps even Trifles?
The peacock feather may be an actual peacock feather or a picture of one but it's equally likely a plant (there are several peacock plants) and there are plants hanging all over the cafe. They also sell a 'peacock blue' plate.

I'm sure there are more, but it's late and I'm tired. Again, good job guys/gals Smile

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 5:31 am
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Starblind
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Joined: 10 Apr 2007
Posts: 58
PostLarval wrote:

And honestly... if you told them a duke from an alternate reality described a trip he'd had to you, which through heavy symbolism led you to a secret hidden within their greenhouse... it wouldn't be the strangest thing they've ever heard Wink


I'm sure they are nice folks and all, but the dream seems to unambiguously warn against revealing stuff to the cafe owners. Either the PMs didn't get permission to drop there or they did but the staff don't want to be bugged about it.

Oh, and another thing, one phrase from the dream stuck out like a sore thumb to me: "A little, a little. A trifle." I knew I'd heard it before. I can't even believe I remember this, it must be 10 years since I've read it, but it appears in the book Bart Simpson's Guide to Life, as part of a phrasebook section. Apparently, the phrase "I have a declaration to make: I'm bored" translated to Japanese and back again, becomes "Everybody. A little, a little. A trifle." Weird, huh?

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 11:01 am
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PostLarval
Entrenched


Joined: 16 Nov 2004
Posts: 806
Location: 32° 43'N, 117° 10'W (give or take)
Starblind wrote:
PostLarval wrote:
And honestly... if you told them a duke from an alternate reality described a trip he'd had to you, which through heavy symbolism led you to a secret hidden within their greenhouse... it wouldn't be the strangest thing they've ever heard Wink


I'm sure they are nice folks and all, but the dream seems to unambiguously warn against revealing stuff to the cafe owners. Either the PMs didn't get permission to drop there or they did but the staff don't want to be bugged about it.


lol, I wasn't actually suggesting anyone try this approach Smile My point was that there's no reason to fear you might bug anyone, or worry about whether they gave permission, etc etc. This is a relaxed place with relaxed people, and it should be a fun experience.

That said, obviously don't walk in and announce that the Duke sent you. It's just bad gaming etiquette. Wink
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 11:24 am
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dposse
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Joined: 12 Nov 2006
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 		holy crap. that's amazing!! good thinking, guys. Do we have anyone in SanFran who can go?

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 12:42 pm
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dposse
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 		http://www.cafegratitude.com/

Holy crap, look at the animation at the top! the sun is literally setting constantly. i think you guys were right

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 12:49 pm
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UNTHeath
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 		You guys are awesome.

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 12:56 pm
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Relogger
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Joined: 06 Dec 2008
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 		Alright! I live just south of San Francisco! My friend and I (she's on the east coast) have been reading up but I'm about 20 hours out of date... she just called to wake me up for this.

I can do it! I'll take a lot of pictures!

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 1:34 pm
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synspark
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Joined: 24 Nov 2008
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dposse wrote:
holy crap. that's amazing!! good thinking, guys. Do we have anyone in SanFran who can go?


Holy crap. I'm sick and pissed that I missed this whole thing going on. That's what I get for agreeing to babysit in a house with no computer.

Great job guys Very Happy

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 1:42 pm
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Rakne
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Joined: 25 Nov 2008
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Relogger wrote:
Alright! I live just south of San Francisco! My friend and I (she's on the east coast) have been reading up but I'm about 20 hours out of date... she just called to wake me up for this.

I can do it! I'll take a lot of pictures!


YAY! I cannot wait to see what you find. On behalf of us too far away, thank you for going. And thanks to those who figured out where to send you.

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 1:46 pm
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