One Word Wonder

You are the 1st fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 1st Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

I think this will be the only time I will ever be first!!!

Can someone explain what i should be looking for in those puzzles? Usually i don't have a clue what I am looking for.

I've noted something interesting about the message...trying to see if it leads anywhere.

Please tell me I don't need to know anything about music to solve this...

Doubt it. Lily Tomlin is a comedian, known for doing the phone company operator character emulated in the text.

I haven't figured it out, but I don't know why this would have anything to do with music.

No music involved

But what IS involved? :)

How about some salt? I got nothin'.

i just feel stupid

do the ellipses have anything to do with it?

Do we need to be looking at brachiopod?

lollipop? please?

reading . . . re-reading . . . re-reading . . . huh?

No internet research required

[11] Josh
No

Still not sure what to do with what I've noticed about the message...

Ernestine was a bottom line kind of person

Is this anything like the E.T. puzzle from a week or so ago?

With regard to [15], does that mean no anagramming is necessary?

no anagramming

no clue

[23] Arnott
replied

You are the 2nd fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 2nd Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

If you need a hint, you know who to call.

[25] Erich
I'm glad somebody got it! I'm so relieved!

Not the phone company - that's for sure :)

I'm not relieved! I have no clue! ;-)

Congratulations, Erich. A grain or two of salt, perhaps?

i'm freaking out! only 35 minutes left to solve this one... it's never going to happen....

is the key to the answer involving numbers 1 through 5?

The phone company has a lot of numbers

It took you 21 minutes and 46 seconds.
You are the 3rd fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 3rd Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

Absolutely brilliant...they saved the best for last. Kudos to all the designers.

some help please

I'm stuck on the goofy phrase. I can't help but notice that the first letters of each word are the first 5 letters of the alphabet. Am I dialing the wrong number?

It took you 30 minutes and 46 seconds.
You are the 5th fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 5th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

Phew! Once I got out of the box I put myself in this one was very nice :)

-MMM

i agree please help, i am jsut not getting this

MMM:

What made it click? Try not to be too salty, but what was it that got your ball rolling?

I keep trying to read it as a cryptic clue :-( A grain of salt, please.

Something I'd noticed before the thing that I noticed that got me stuck.

:)

at8ax-u asked for a grain of salt and got...a sliver of a grain of salt.

my husband asked his parents to come over for dinner... they are here now and we are going to walk out the door any minute. Help! I am going to obsess over this at dinner if I don't get some salt and solve this thing. Why did he do this to me?

Will this help?
http://www.ugoplayer.com/games/virtualkeyboard.html

Well, I have to hand it to the puzzlemaker. He's crafted a doozy of a puzzler on this one. Everyone but 4 people stumped so far.

This will make determining the winners much less random.

I keep thinking this should be elemental, my dear Watson....?

We'll sing your praises as a puzzle creator, leadfoot. Please can we have a little salt?

this is very cruel

[44] John
wrong keys

8 letter word?

Ernestine left messages from many people

Oh well. I certainly couldn't identify a tune out of it.

[51] yes

leadfoot-

why must you taunt us with completely cryptic clues...

16 minutes..... and my husband is trying to stall the leaving for dinner and I feel like a horrible daughter-in-law for ignoring my in-laws.

can someone salt me by geekmail?

There are tanga numbers to apply to the message

!!! I had the right keys, but didn't know how to use them. Very nice.

can someone post some salt on bgg??? I set up an account today but it hasn't been approved yet, so I can't get geekmail!

Got it with 12 minutes to spare!

You have already solved this puzzle.
It took you 40 minutes and 31 seconds.
You are the 14th fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 20th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

Oh, man. That was totally evil. Totally, totally evil. I can't imagine how many combinations there would be if you didn't have the right clue.

Oh well, I'm running around in circles, and I can't see what's going on.

Will 23/24 be a winner?

And the right clue is....?

[61] dajagr
I really didn't mean to be evil. well, not much. The tanga guys picked this one to put at the end.

I've sprinkled some salt at BGG.

PPOOYNCE?
CCNEPMON?

I'm just annoyed now

Got this one with minutes to spare. Nice puzzle - would have been nicer if the Puzzlethon wasn't ending to put time pressure on it.

[64] No, really, it's a good evil. The AHA moment at the end was _totally_ worth the 40 minutes of refreshing the blogs hoping for some salt. Seriously! :-) Oddly, it was [58] that pushed me in the right direction, and I can't begin to explain how.

that was the best puzzle ever... AND i got 24/24 YES!!! and i was in the top 50 to do it YES!!! lol for anyone still stuck... good luck idk how to give salt without giving it away...

Ah! numbers, where to get the Tanga numbers?
Once I figure it out, it was there, no anagram needed :-)

<whew> solved with 6 minutes to go. Clever!

Thank you Mundane - got it with 5 minutes to spare (see Mundane's clue on bgg)

[62] no 23/24/ will not be a winner

You have already solved this puzzle.
It took you 53 minutes and 42 seconds.
You are the 51st fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 50th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

Average solve time: 39 minutes and 36 seconds.
Median solve time: 43 minutes and 52 seconds.
20.000% of Tanga members that have attempted this puzzle have solved it.

That is assuming that everyone that got this one got all the others of course.

yes this would have been more fun if not comming at the end. I think it is somewhat inspired. The clues are there. I just stop waiting for help and was able to solve on my own.

got it with 3 minutes to spare -- Peggy, that was just plain *evil*! I *love* it!

whats BGG?

[68] dajagr
That is high praise coming from you.
Thanks!

I love you all. That was way to close.

if anyone wants the answer look at bgg or email there in the next 2 minutes.

help

I HAVE TRIUMPHED OVER PUZZLETHON!!!

Now I can go to dinner with my in-laws.

help!

excellent puzzle which, ironically, was solved entirely on my smartphone!

Wow. I solved it with 90 seconds to spare. Didn't have time to even work it through, had to guess from the first six letters.

I liked that it came at the end...but had I not solved it with a bit of time to spare I might have liked it less! The early ones were too hard to have been at the end, and the "easy" ones would have taken some of the fun out of the challenge had they been last. Then again, none of these puzzles was really all that easy, but all were solvable.

Congrats to all the puzzlemakers, and to Tanga.

CRAP! I got a "nice job" message instead of "1 tanga point".

I guess I was too late

the puzzlethon tab is gone. Weird.

Great puzzle, leadfoot!

I got it with 2 minutes to spare. Phew!

You have already solved this puzzle.
It took you 1 hour, 0 minutes and 4 seconds.
You are the 166th fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 154th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

4 seconds?!?!?!?!

.

Well! Phew! My first time in the barrel. And with a tough puzzle and an hour deadline. I was surprised at how much I was involved with this during the solve time.

As I sat there reading the blog (after being up for 37 hours & a margarita), trying to decide when and what to salt, I was heavily torn between wanting everyone to solve it and be happy, and not wanting to make it too easy.

The "what" to salt was hard. Sometimes I was lucky with a post that I could answer that would provide more salt (ref: keys). Other times it was hard to figure out just what to say to nudge the solvers.

I understand (boy do I understand) the frustration that the solver has - I am usually immersed in it head to toe. So I was happy when other people started salting at BGG the things I wanted to salt - and then the solves started to come in fast and furious.

Anyway. I enjoyed crafting the puzzle, and I am glad there were people who enjoyed it. My apologies to the people left frustrated by this one.

Get crafting youself and submit one - paybacks are a b4824!

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/131250/master-tanga-puzzle-thread/page/142