The prize, a ginyoowine glass boot (actual height ~6.5?, and freshly sanitized, since I’m not sure how they were packed on their way to Nashville) goes to Dave Malcolm for getting the correct message posted first. Wow, the most non-spam comments ever for a blog entry! (Sad, I know.) Honorary mentions definitely should go to Dave Jones and Toshio for funniest comment — although I am surprised, or maybe relieved, that more people didn’t use the opportunity to lambast my crummy attempt at puzzle-making — and to Gabriel for using /usr/share/dict/words (or at least admitting he did).
Note to self: In any future contest, remember to limit the potential personal cost by restricting the geographic area for entries. According to this comment, Kevin Kofler could have sent me to the poor house. Oh, and Dave, you’ll need to send me your address information!
I think I had a rather unfair advantage, given that I was at the summit – and I think I actually saw you carrying the glass boot at one point!
So IMHO the prize really should go to the best software solution, maybe that’s more fair to everyone else. Alternatively, how about I come up with a cryptogram for you people to solve?
Well, it would be unfair to change the “rules” (such as they are) retroactively, but if you cede the awesomeness that is the boot, then I suppose Toshio is next in line for it. I’ll just keep working my way down the list, ultimately finding that everyone is deathly afraid that I put something unseemly in the boot already, like maybe kopi luwak frappuccino.
Well, I only really considered “glass boot” and “glass boat”, and an earlier blog post mentioning “glass boots” told me which it was. 🙂 (And no, I didn’t see Dave’s and Toshio’s comments both giving the correct solution before me when I posted mine, they were apparently hidden from view.) I didn’t use any software either. (Well, I tried using Google to get “g3s b2t”, but then I found the solution right on this blog.)