2012 Ginter Code?

This cartoon was passed along to me from a friend.  It is the only thing that made me laugh at the plight that was the 2011 Ginter Code :)

Apparently this blog is now only devoted to the Ginter Code.  I promised I'd swear off the code after they labled the puzzle cards as "code parallels" on last years packs, but I'm a glutton for punishment.

I'll be back.  I really hope this year's code doesn't rely on a bread-crumb trail over a 9-month period.  I love the Ginter Code and all, and puzzle solving in general, but that really took a toll on my interest last year.  I don't ever want to think about another puzzle for 9 months.  I already spend half my life trying to solve Kryptos.

The Ginter Code, finally some progress

The last four tweets that the Codemaster blasted out a few weeks back did limit the search field, and also sucked me back in for a bit on the code.

Since he was nice enough to tell us that the the clocks on the ad cards pointed to baseball cards my brain was focused enough to finally see the connection.  I've shared this revelation with a couple people thus far, and one other code-head(?) agreed with me.  So perhaps me, I, we, us, they, them, all ya'll are onto something finally.

That being said, even if you haven't landed on which cards the clocks point to, what would you do with those cards?

I had been thinking about that right after I read the tweets.  I thought to myself "even if I had the cards, how would I know they were the right cards and what would I do with them?"

That's the kicker this year, you have to believe enough in your method to get from times on a clock to baseball cards to move blindly to the next section of breaking the code.  If you haven't already read the account on how the 2008 code was broken, you should do yourself a favor and do that now because I feel like this code will have some similar properties.

Okay, so we're back to the 2011 code in all its backwards-clocky-goodness.  You have 10 code cards infront of you.  Some of the corners of these cards have symbols on them which you have translated into numbers by either using your decipher cards (which have the numbers on the back in some way shape or form) or you put the puzzle together and realized the first row of the puzzle, plus the next symbol from the second row represent numbers 1-30.  I'm sure after 4 months this isn't news to anyone who has looked at the Ginter Code.

What may boggle your mind is what the heck to do with the numbers on each of the corners of the cards you've pulled.  And it should, because that's what's stopping you from decoding the message this year.  And it's stopping me right now too.

So, if you are burned out on trying to figure out how to find the gosh darned correct cards, sit back and think about how you'd use the numbers in each corner of the cards to decipher the Codemaster's poem.  It's not going to be magic, but it's certainly not going to be straightforward either.

Just remember, no one ever solved a code by staring at it, you've got to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty.  Just keep trying different things, but above all else try to think about how you'd turn a message into numbers using the poem.

That is all.  I'm out for now.

Re-alignment? How I'd Blow Up Baseball And Start Over

The Astros to the AL eh?  Instead of something simple, let's just blow it all up.  Why not?  All the records are tarnished from steroids anyway, right?  Let's just start over and usher in a new era of baseball.

Starting with the divisions.  Four.  Four divisions.  North, South, East and West.  There are no leagues anymore.  The AL and NL are gone.  As is the crazy All-Star game to decide who gets homefield advantage (stay with me, we'll get there).

What's left?  Glad you asked.

MLB East
Toronto Blue Jays
New York Yankees
New York Mets
Boston Red Sox
Philadelphia Phillies
Baltimore Orioles
Washington Nationals

MLB South
Miami Marlins
Tampa Bay Rays
Atlanta Braves
Houston Astros
Texas Rangers
St. Louis Cardinals
Kansas City Royals

MLB North
Minnesota Twins
Milwaukee Brewers
Chicago Cubs
Chicago White Sox
Detroit Tigers
Cleveland Indians
Cincinnati Reds
Pittsburgh Pirates

MLB West
Seattle Mariners
San Francisco Giants
Oakland Athletics
San Diego Padres
Los Angeles Dodgers
Anaheim Angels
Arizona Diamondbacks
Colorado Rockies

There we go.  While we're at it, since it's just MLB and there isn't an AL/NL, we have to make a decision on the DH.  I feel like it's inevitable that the DH will win out someday, so let's just get on with it.  I like the strategy of the NL too guys, but I'm making a concession here.

Let's move onto the schedule and playoffs.  For starters, we're going to shorten the season slightly to accommodate a larger playoff system.  This is win-win.  It allows us to further distance ourselves from the tarnished steroid-era records, and gives us a chance to expand the postseason and only play 7 game series.  5 game series are lame.  I'll sacrifice a couple weeks of the regular season for better postseason play.

All four division winners are in the playoffs, and then we've got 8 wild cards to dish out.

Round 1 of the playoffs is the wildcard round.  It will be seeded based on record.

#1 BYE
#5 v #12
#7 v #10
#4 BYE

#2 BYE
#6 v #11
#8 v #9
#4 BYE

Round 2 of the playoffs is the divisional round and will feature the divisional winners (who did not play during the first round) against the winners of the wildcard round.  Imagine the NCAA brackets, but slightly modified.  #1 gets the lowest seed to come out of the 5/12 and 7/10 games with #4 getting the leftovers.  Same goes for #2 and #3 on the other side.

Round 3 of the playoffs is the championship round.  The Final Four.  Let's do this.

Of course Round 4 of the playoffs is the World Series.

I reckon we're going to need to shorten the regular season to approximately 148-150 games to fit in the new playoff system, and we're going to need some more cable carriers to step up and broadcast all the games.

As for the regular season, each team in the 8 team divisions will play 13 games against each divisional rival.  That's three 3-game series, and a 4-game series.  Each team in the 7 team divisions will play 14 games against each divisional rival.  That's two 3-game series and two 4-game series.  This leaves each team in the 8 team divisions with 57 games to play against other teams in the MLB.  Each team in the 7 team divisions has 64 games to play against other MLB teams.  You'll average a 2 or 3 game series against every other team in baseball.  This is about as fair as it gets people!

In case you are wondering how the season would have turned out, your division winners and 1-4 seeds would have been:

Phillies (East)
Brewers (North)
Rangers (South)
Diamondbacks (West)

The Wildcard round would have featured these matchups:

Yankees v. Angels
Rays v. Braves
Tigers v. Giants
Cardinals v. Red Sox

Let's assume all the teams that made the playoffs moved on you'd have seen a Divisional round like this:

Phillies v. Yankees
Rays v. Diamondbacks
Brewers v. Tigers
Cardinals v. Rangers

I get a smile on my face just thinking about all of this.  And I consider(ed) myself a baseball traditionalist.

Oh yeah, one last thing, home field advantage in each round goes to the best record, and the format will be 2-2-1-1-1 for the seven game playoff series.

A TWO FOR ONE: HEY CODEMASTER AND MVP WATCHERS

It's Matt Kemp's birthday today. In honor of this occasion:

"I'd like to wish Matt Kemp happy birthday today,even though most of the codebreakers have gotten sour. Cheer up, sit back and wait for a tweet to come out slightly half past some hour."

Ryan Braun is the NL MVP

With apologies to Matt Kemp, who is having a great year for a terrible team, I hereby proclaim Ryan Braun NL MVP.

There are a bunch of players in consideration, the Phillies aces, Justin Upton, Albert Pujols, etc, etc . . . but in the end the clear choice is Ryan Braun and I'm not just being a homer about it.

Braun currently leads Kemp in AVG, OBP, SLG, and OPS. Sure, he trails him by a few homers and stolen bases, and sure, Kemp may end up a 40/40 guy, but I don't care.

Maybe the steroid era ruined me. 40 homers just doesn't sound like that many anymore. Maybe if Matt Kemp was going to hit 58 homers and steal 40 bases I'd give him a second look despite his  team's lackluster performance, but he's not going to do that.

Maybe if Matt Kemp was going to steal 80 bases, something really amazing, I could get on board. But what if Matt Kemp is just taking off for second base after every single chasing the 40/40 club thing? I mean, I would. My team is going nowhere, who cares if I'm thrown out. MVP! MVP! Run Matt, run!

Sorry, I'm coming off as a Kemp hater, and I'm not. He's a terrific player and would be even more deserving of the two man fight for the MVP if the Dodgers were headed to the postseason, but they aren't - so he isn't.

Ryan Braun should finish up with around 35 HRs and nearly 40 steals as well. As I said with Kemp, neither total is mind boggling, but in a two man race, the tie goes to Braun.

Silly Codemaster, Tricks Are For Kids!

Dear Codemaster:

Since you have some sort of conduit into the "masses" trying to solve the code, let me give you this to chew on.

No one is quitting, but they could be frustrated because you are straight gaming us. Make with the clues man. I mean, I do love devoting a giant space in my house to an entire set of cards laid out side by side but I'm pretty positive my wife is just going to pick them up and burn them pretty soon. And that's going to make me sad.

Plus, I'm guessing this little chunk of society trying to solve the code, those 613 followers would love to go back to being productive members of society soon. Just a thought.

What's more, do you hear that? All I hear are these wild geese everywhere. It's going to take months to clear them off my property.

Thanks,
Sharpe

Dear Mr. Codemaster, Where Did You Go?

Time for another "where'd the Codemaster go?" post. Seems like every time I post something to this effect he wakes up from his drunken slumber, shaves off his 4 day old beard, gets himself back into shape and manages to fire off another line from his "poem".

I get the idea of wanting to control the pace of the code so that they can make it last longer, but this may be the most boring thing I've ever participated in.

I reserve the right to amend that statement if at some point during this lollygagging something substantial happens and then fun begins.

Ginter Code, moving at the speed of molasses

Hey, so, if any of ya'll out there are working on this thing, and need scans of anything, just let me know. Willing to share everything I've collected to generate more interest in this thing while it plods along at a snails pace. I require nothing in return, just want to see those interested get everything they need to move forward.

Dear Codemaster

I love the wicked games you play, but I've got you licked this year.

Sincerely,
Sharpe

2011 Ginter Code Live Blog . . . I Wish

Who would have known what great lengths The Codemaster would have gone to this year to preserve his precious secret message(s).

But, by gosh, he certainly has. Let's start with the fact there is an entire 350 card code parallel set to go along with some other key cards and who knows what else. This thing is a monster. I can say that after just 5 days of what I'll call "information gathering" I'm tired. I'm tired mentally more than I'm tired physically.

In the past, it's behooved people to work together, or work in teams, or whatever, but this year, even that luxury has been mostly mitigated. Having one person trying to assemble all 350 cards to play around with is one thing, having two or three or four trying to do it? That's just insanity. Just try keeping track of 350 images of cards yourself, let alone making sure someone else has copies of everything.

And even once you get your arms wrapped around that portion of the code, there's still the fact you need to figure out what to DO with the darn cards.

So, between the code, a 15 month old, and just keeping up with my streaking Brewers I could no more live blog my attempt on the code this year than I could figure out how to solve the deficit crisis. Just fitting in a good 7 hours of sleep each night is challenging and I'm sure there are people that are hitting this thing harder than me (YOU GUYS ARE CRAZY PEOPLE!)

That being said, I've had several other bloggers and code aficionados contact me and I've been happy to talk Ginter Code with everyone and I've even done some trading. So please, feel free. I think everyone could use a little banter during what is likely to be the biggest blowout of a Ginter Code we've seen to date.