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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!) » The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!): Axon Coordination
[LOCKED] [INFO] Post reports of visiting Axons here **Spoilers**
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Guest
Guest


 		Re: Austin Axon Activated
Guest wrote:
There were about 30 of us, but some how we quieted down and activated it.


The Austin Axon

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:04 pm
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ABoxInABox
Decorated

Joined: 10 Aug 2004
Posts: 232
Location: The Future

 		Re: 'beer'
kger wrote:
ABoxInABox wrote:
'beer' is up. This set is before 'parasites'.

http://ilovebees.com/outbound/Beer.wav


Beer is after the Parasites...

Yeah, I noticed that so I edited my post.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:09 pm
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HitsHerMark
Unfictologist


Joined: 22 Aug 2004
Posts: 1521
Location: Austin, TX

 		Adventures in answering phones... (With links to pictures)
I hope this story will be of some assistance to others who want to look for Axons, but don't have a GPS device...

Okay so I seem to be the only one on Orange County, CA. And the Axon I planned on visiting was at a shopping center called The Block. The call was supposed to come in at 11:23 AM PST.

I have the week off from work starting today, so I had plenty of time to scout out the spot in the morning.


I don't have a GPS device, but I did have this map and a whole lot of stubborn.

Using the street called "Entertainment" as a land mark of sorts I figured that the spot had to be somewhere around the Virgin Megastore. I drew a line extending from where Entertainment ended and the parking lot began on the map. The coordinates where just to the left of the line. I figured I'd end up entering the store from the parking lot side, walking through, turn left as I exited on the other side of the store, turn left, and there'd I bee. (Ha ha)

I arrived early. Very early. And I saw as I turned onto Entertainment that I was right. I parked, and stood with my back to the center of Entertainment where it ended, the front door to the Megastore was a strait shot across the parking lot. So I go up to the front doors and peer through, though the store is closed, I can see all the way across to the other side. The back door, that opens to the inside of the center, is directly across the store from the parking lot door. "Sweet," I think to myself, "all I have to do is go around and the spot will be to the left of that door." And I know that there's a phone to the left of that door, because the phone is next to a Starbucks where I used to meet a friend who worked in one of the nearby office buildings.

I'm about to walk away and go around when I hear people talking to my left... And oh look! A payphone!

You can't see it from the parking lot, because there's a wall in the way, probably there to hide the garage, trucks, and the garbage compactor. But the moment I see this spot I'm like, "This has got to be it". It just really looks the part.

But I go around just to be safe, and sure enough, there's a Bathroom/Telephones alcove next to the Starbucks. (Albit a less photogenic one.) They're pretty much parallel to each other, which is understandable, and they're close enough together that it could be either... But far enough apart that, if I can just figure out how to place them on the map, I'll know which one it is.

The first spot called to me on an aesthetic level... I know that if I was going to choose a spot for something like this, I'd choose that one. It's not out in the boonies, but still nicely tucked away. And the second locations was in a pretty high traffic area. But I was leaning towards the theory that they hadn't sent somebody to scout out locations, but simply looked up public phones in a directory and used a map like the one at Rand McNally to get GPS coordinates... So I had to either figure out which one it was, or find a way to cover both. And there wasn't anybody that I knew who was free in the morning...

So I get a cup of tea and sit down at a table near the second location and take out a print out of the map. Using the mileage key on the map, I figure that it's about 500 feet from the far end of the parking lot to the coordinates.

It is at this time that I realise that, not only do I not have a GPS device, but I also have NOTHING with which to measure distance with... I thought about going to McDonald's and getting a salad and a bottle of water, because they give you a free pedometer when you do. A device that would tell me how far I had walked in a given time would have been very useful... But there weren't any McDonald's that I knew of around that area, and I really wasn't thrilled with the idea of a salad from there anyway.

I was walking back thought the parking lot, not sure how I was going to measure it, when I realised something... The lot is marked with a grid, a grid of, what else, parking spaces. If I could figure out the dimensions of a parking space, figuring the length of most of the lot would be a snap and I could eyeball the rest.

But again... I didn't have anything to measure with.

Now I'm exactly 5' 1" and I was... Sorta, kinda, maybe getting near the point where I was going to lie down perpendicular to a space to see how wide it is... (The thought had occurred to me anyway, it's always a temptation when your hight is so easily multiplied... Very Happy )

But then, an Orange County Transit Authority shuttle pulled up and parked perpendicular to the parking spaces. It took up, exactly three, from outer edge to outer edge. What a beautiful sight. As the driver got out of the shuttle I approched her and asked if she knew how long it was. And she said that it was 25ft long.

... Do I not rock the proverbial casbah?

So I counted parking spaces (31), eyeballed the rest, and the first location (my favorite) came out to 450 feet from the far end of the parking lot by my reckoning.

Bingo!

I still had a little under an hour, and I still wanted to see if I could find somebody to cover the less likely location. The EB was a bust, though the guy behind the counter did warn me of a roving group of "young guys" looking for free Halo2 shwag.

There was a cart not far from the phones in the second location, with a very nice lady who sold jewelry and bandannas... I gave her my Letter of Intent and explained the situation in a nut shell. She agreed to answer the phone if it rang at 11:23 and follow the directions I gave her on a piece of paper... So, if you're ever at the Block at Orange, Buy jewelry and bandannas from the cart near the Starbucks and the Virgin Megastore, because she's cool.

So I went back to the more likely location (which was deserted by that time... I guess the Xbox fanboys didn't have a GPS device either), got my digital voice recorder ready.

It's kind of embarrassing, because the sound was rather wimpy actually, but as I was doodling when the phone rang and scared the hell out of me... I turned my recorder on.

Wasn't exatly what I expected... But when I got home, checked the links page, and my Axon was hot.

Yea me. Very Happy ... I think.

So remember kids... A parking space is 8'4" wide and 16' 8" - 20' long!
_________________
"COVERED IN BEES!"
GirlInFocus
flickr

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:11 pm
Last edited by HitsHerMark on Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:26 pm; edited 3 times in total
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matias
Guest


 		I was at Union Square (SF) this morning with Addict and Maizen(sp?). When we failed that one I called my friend who was in Palo Alto (identified as Menlo Park). He said they blew it there too, might have been ambinet noise, but according to him the guy who took the call said he was only asked for his name, never Melissa's...

Actually I'm bummed we went hot with "our-hoodlums" 'cause I wanted to try again tomorrow! Smile

Also I went to scout the 2nd Menlo Park location but it is definitely a dummy... don't bother going there...

P.s. Addict, any luck with the other Axons?

[EDIT: Deleted triplicate posts. Reminder to all. Hit submit once. It may take awhile, but it'll take. Smile -vpi ]

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:13 pm
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soapcore
Kilroy


Joined: 24 Aug 2004
Posts: 2
Location: Philadelphia, PA

 		Re: Philly failure
Admetus wrote:
armrha wrote:
Dirtball and I were at the 8:31 location. There is a payphone right ontop of it but no phones rang, dissappointingly. Dirtball is returning tommorow. He has audio recording equipment, so hopefully...


I scouted the location the day before with a friend, got some guy freaked out with my GPS / PDA / Camera combo... he seemed to think I was scoping the place for a terrorist attack or something. =) This morning, while all of us were hanging around waiting for the phone to ring, we had cops watching us on the corner.

A bunch of our group was from GameFAQs or something, one guy from SomethingAweful... would have been great to hang out and meet some of you all, but nobody seemed to have time or motivation to go get some lunch after we failed to get the call.

There were so many phones to cover. I'm certain the ones we were guarding were working, we'd tested each by calling them last night. Some volunteers will be back tomorrow to get some of the phones we couldn't reach (inside the subway station) and one that was busy (cop talking on the phone straight through the critical time).

Dang!

Well, if they do repeat every day, like we were told they would, maybe I can visit again on the weekend?

Good luck on the last few points...




Makkablue is hijacking my account while we're at work to make this post:

Soapcore and I were searching around for the same 8:31 location. We undershot the location and ended up in the local bus station looking all sneaky. Realizing our mistake, we moved back down the street towards where the locations SHOULD have been.

We met up by sheer chance with another small group while searching for the actual location, although none of us could find it.

Makkablue did some research and best figure is the payphones inside the Farmer's market in the SW corner. This coincides exactly with the info given. Will scout and camp tomorrow.

Later, from Soapcore:

MakkaBlue made an interesting observation upon looking at the coordinates & scouting the area after the alloted time. The area between 11th & 12th street, where 1117 Filbert should be, is occupied by the farmer's market, a large food/craft extravaganza. The addresses on that side of the street hold an abandoned store fron, 1103, which is a nail salon, a parking garage entrance, and the aforementioned market. the opposite side of the street is an entrance into the conventions center, the Gallery, & the subway.

Underneath street level were a large group of payphones, which seems to be the logical choice for a placement of a phone call. However. the GPS coordinates are fairly exacting, marking a location on the "odd numbered" side of the street: i.e. a space occupied by the farmers Market. The space DIRECTLY underneath the Farmer's market is the Market Line subway stop, with the payphones in the station being located on the OPPOSITE side of the rail terminal, placing it ont the even side of the street.

The problem is, where could there possibly be a phone on the odd numbered side of the street?

Initial investigation showed not a single payphone in any direction for a 2 block radius. However, with further investigation by MakkaBlue, He discovered a set of 2 payphones in the southwestern most corner of the market, coinciding almost EXACTLY with the GPS coordinates.

Although it's a long shot, it remains a possability that the reason the 2 philly teams were unable to intercept the phone call was because they were in the wrong spot, the the phone calls were NOT aimed for the subway, but instead for the market?

Makka & I will camp tommorrow, so hopefully at least one of our groups will discover something useful.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:20 pm
Last edited by soapcore on Tue Aug 24, 2004 7:05 pm; edited 1 time in total
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astrovanman
Decorated


Joined: 04 Aug 2004
Posts: 162
Location: Dallas/Fort Worth

 		Couple of thoughts:

1) We're all pretty sure that the non-fired axons will be called again tommarrow.

So my questions is: will any of the axons that did go hot have there non-as-of-yet-connected sites ring again. For example, the Mesquite, Tx site at 9:47 PDT, "PQI", we were there, we answered the phone, aparently we did something wrong, because our site didn't go hot.

2) We have yet to get all the axons hot for one of the sestets(closest we've come so far is "beer" with 5/7 hot) I think the progress meter at the top of the ILB page will jump when we fill up on of the groups. So I think it's important that we try and get all if not as many as possible today and tommarrow.

3) The Payphones are all recieving calls. From Where? Are they all coming from the same source? Is there a way we can run a trace or get a log of the calls recieved by a phone. Maybe we can figure out the physical source of these calls or is that idea just set over the rules of the game a bit?

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:28 pm
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Grout
Veteran

Joined: 25 Jul 2004
Posts: 105

 		Re: Chicago (14:02 PST)
madopal wrote:
Sorry all,

I missed the call there. I didn't check the map closely enough, and I went to the wrong set of payphones (the ones in the Century Mall). Turns out, I think it was at the Borders'. No one over there heard the phone ring, though.

BTW, I also wanted to say tha the siren in the background of walkaway_girl was used in The Beast with a sample the Red King put out there. Good to see them using the same sounds. Smile


We were there madopal. The phones in Borders don't accept incoming calls. That site is a dud. But I'm 2 for 3 today and that aint too shabby.

got walkaway_girl and beer.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:33 pm
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Klatuu
Guest


 		14:53 St. Louis
I got the one in St. Louis @ 14:53 PDT. Guys you need to look inside buildings and stores. I have done 2 AXONS in St. louis myself, both were in buildings. One was a community college the other was a Best Buy. At the "Beer" AXON there was 6 people gathered around a phone that did not take calls. I told them there were pay phones in the Grocery store and the Best Buy. To my suprise NO ONE followed me into the Best Buy, but one person did follow Ranma in to the other store. The Morale to the story is CHECK ALL BUILDINGS FOR PHONES, and make sure the phone takes calls.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:36 pm
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Guest
Guest


 		DC Morning (11:15, 12:14) Axons
Went to the 11:15 EDT DC coordinates, which ends up to be in front of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. Few other folks showed up. There was some debate as to whether the coordinates may include the phones inside the Smithsonian (unfortunately, there are a number of phones scattered in odd locations in corners in there. There were two Verizon payphones in view from the entrance, along the north side of Constitution, one on the NW corner of 10th and Con, and the other along Con. Neither appeared to take incoming calls. Although the caller would hear the phone "ring", the payphones themselves would remain silent (that is, there was no fast busy, out of service, or other indication that the phone was rejecting inbound calls). It's possible, given the Sept. 11 events, that payphones near prominent areas, or indeed all payphones in the DC area, may have had incoming calls disabled and it's not merely a problem with the phones malfunctioning.

The group moved North a ways to reach the 12:14 EDT DC coordinates, which appeared to be one of two payphones near a deli on P St. Unfortunately, along that block there was construction in progress, and there was some concern that the coordinates would have put the phone inside the construction site (we didn't see a payphone in evidence there however). We left a few people at the payphones and spread out to search the area. We did find another payphone within the error of margin - or I should say, the shell of a payphone. The phone itself was missing.

As we circled around the block, one of the group stopped us and pointed. We surely thought we'd hit paydirt! We were standing in front of a doorway marked halo!



Very exciting! Seemed like the perfect tie-in.

The door was unlocked, so we ventured in. Turns out it was some sort of nightclub, and nominally closed. I decided to go up the stairs into the main area, and called out, as no one was in view. Eventually, a woman emerged from the back, rather wide-eyed. I explained that we were pursing an ARG created as a marketing campaign for Microsoft's new game Halo 2, and that we'd been given GPS coordinates very near here. Since the name of the club was "halo", we thought surely there might be a connection. As I was speaking, she shook her head "no." Unfortunately, she had no idea of what I was talking about. She seemed quite nervous, and I judged that having three young men wander in to a nominally closed club when she was probably alone was probably a little disturbing. I thanked her, and we departed, taking a few business cards as "prizes" for the rest of the group.

Unfortunately, the rest of the party fared no better, as the phones didn't ring. Two duds.

It was quite discouraging to walk the spots and not come away with even the call as a prize. There's a LOT that can go wrong with these payphone scheme. The GPS coordinates have a lot of slack in them, and if you start including phones that are in buildings... Most of the phones weren't within hearing distance of each other, even being in sight. And sadly, it appears that quite a few of the phones weren't even in operation!

I had to get back to work, so sadly I wasn't able to continue on with the group.

Still, it was a nice day for a walk. Hi to the rest of the DC crew!

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:37 pm
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Viirden
Guest


 		Phone calls
I went to the 10:41. Only phone. No call.

I'm seeing different descriptions of calls. Please help.
I have to leave for the next axon in 25 minutes.

Some are saying that you could be asked for "name" or "nickname".
Which is it and what are the proper responses?

Some are getting the question "repeat or continue".
Is this getting anything but the "hardware failure" response?

Some say that a password is asked sometimes.
For 5:31 what would it be and has it gotten us any further using the
titles of .wav files or not?

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:41 pm
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kazzai
Boot

Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 10

 		Wow I just realized that one of the points is right down the street from me. Within walking distance. Unfortunately, I was at work today. It's the one that's (40.322501 -80.039045) under stupid_cop. Do you think that it will ring tomorrow? Cuz ill totally be there. I'm going to check it out right now just to see if there is a payphone.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:45 pm
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astrovanman
Decorated


Joined: 04 Aug 2004
Posts: 162
Location: Dallas/Fort Worth
kazzai wrote:
Wow I just realized that one of the points is right down the street from me. Within walking distance. Unfortunately, I was at work today. It's the one that's (40.322501 -80.039045) under stupid_cop. Do you think that it will ring tomorrow? Cuz ill totally be there. I'm going to check it out right now just to see if there is a payphone.


Yes! Please go there tommarrow. We should try and make as many axons go hot as we can. See my earlier post in this thread.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:47 pm
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Nate263
Guest


 		sorry about the anon post im just too excited too log in right now. Quick question, how did you know what to say at the payphone?Could i have the link from someone to the thread where we figured this out. Im such a noob Embarassed

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:47 pm
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Billness
Greenhorn

Joined: 22 Aug 2004
Posts: 6
Location: Santa Cruz, CA

 		Santa Cruz, 1044:

I was there with my buddy after dropping my bike off at the shop. We were at the one phone known to take incoming calls. Someone mentioned that four phones were listed on some directory as accepting calls, but no joy for our merry band.

Those showing up in SC tomorrow: There are also phones at the entrace to the Boardwalk (a little east) that should be scouted. Someone else there mentioned that there are a couple of phones to the west (away from the Boardwalk); I didn't see them before but watch them if you can find them.

Also, if you are watching phones, please stand right next to them. Give yourself a couple minutes of boredom and don't wander fifteen feet away. (Especially near the loud arcade entrance.) The phone that definitely rings (we tested it that morning and the other night) is very, very quiet.

I also don't trust the tapes that say "no incoming calls" around here ... even if it has the sticker, have someone stand at post.

Anyway, good to see a bunch of people show up in town. Good luck tomorrow.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:48 pm
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beauseizure
Kilroy

Joined: 24 Aug 2004
Posts: 1
Location: Bay Area, Boston

 		This is a little late (I had to go to work), but HerbertQ and I hit up the 9:26 Sausalito location. The payphone was on the beach in a shipyard, very cinematic. We got the same routine as everyone else. She asked us "Repeat or continue," we said continue, and then she started to complain about our system being too broken for her to communicate with us. I frantically repeated "parasites" a few times, and I guess it worked, because the axon is hot. The audio clip linked to from ilovebees.com/links.html in the parasites section is the same one that played on the phone. Nothing else notable to report.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:50 pm
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