Smooth Blog

Clue: Is Thomas a brute?

Solution: By [Up The Creek]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/3482427707/

Heres a thought.. The link leads to “Beauty and the Beast” (Beast is another word for Brute)

The Picture is from a Thomas Hawk
A Ford “Thunderbird”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbird
Zoology
Thunderbird: (cryptozoology), in cryptozoology, a rumored large flying birdlike creature of the Americas, allegedly the source of the mythical bird.

Phorusrhacidae:, an extinct family of giant predatory flightless birds of South and Central America

Dromornithidae:, an extinct family of giant flightless Australian birds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbird_%28mythology%29
Thunderbird (mythology)

Common depictions
Across many North America indigenous cultures, the Thunderbird carries many of the same characteristics. It is described as a large bird, capable of creating storms and thundering while it flies. Clouds are pulled together by its wingbeats, the sound of thunder made by its wings clapping, sheet lightning the light flashing from its eyes when it blinks, and individual lightning bolts made by the glowing snakes that it carries around with it. In masks, it is depicted as many-colored, with two curling horns, and, often, teeth within its beak.

Clue: To win, you must first face the burden of losing..

Solution: [by Up the Creek]

Australian Contest, so this would be appropriate..
You need to lose some to Win some..

http://www.thebiggestloser.com.au/finale-2009.htm

“The final four then walked out one by one onto the finale stage”.

“The Biggest Loser would win $200,000 and second place would win $30,000. Third place would earn $20,000 while fourth would take home $10,000″.

Appears the Fourth Word will win someone $10,000..

Clue: New Zealand has more species of these types than any other country

Solution: Our pals at Whirlpool have been on to this one early again. Suggestions of flightless birds, penguins and lizards, but I’m leaning towards the flightless birds at the moment http://www.birds.cornell.edu/celebration/birds/questions-about-birds/questions-about-feathers-and-flight.

In the last 3 clues we’ve now had references to a horse with feathers and flightless birds (which tend to have more feathers than flying species). So more clues pointing to flight/flying things? Or, as pointed out on Whirlpool, is this a reference to the NZ flightless bird, the Kiwi, which, when taken as an anagram, spells wiki?

Additional thought by Wombat:

Possible thought: The reason NZ has more species of flightless birds than anywhere else is due to the non-existence of any predators, and therefore the birds have no reason to use flight as a means of escape. I.e. no competition. Is MS boasting that there is no serious competition to Bing/IE8?

Clue: http://twitpic.com/c2krk – Clue 45

Solution: As per ‘Up The Creek’ answer:

http://www.mgm.com/title_cast.php?title_star=LASTWORD#

“The Last Word”

Clue: What kind of horse has feathers?

Solution: By Wombat:

This made me think of 4 to begin with, as in the 4 Marx Brothers in Horse Feathers (film). But I’m now wondering about Pegasus as it says what KIND of horse.

Clue: Comic book marvel is followed by modern guilt for giving leather

Solution: By gdesignr [to be updated with more ideas and filtered to the best]

Of course Marvel Comics comes to mind. Giving leather reminds me of anniversary gifts. Traditionally leather was given on the 3rd anniversary, but modern standards have it given on the 9th.
http://www.findgift.com/Anniversary-Table/

Clue: When starting your day at the cafe don’t reach for the pepper

Solution: As per Templeton’s idea:

When starting your day at the = at the begining?
Cafe = Cafe
Therefore Don’t put the P at the begining of Cafe = Pafe
Put the S there instead = Safe

This Flickr would match the sense of the above:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/_sweeney/2889912096/

Clue: Don’t follow your date across the river from Gilbert Fraser reserve

Solution: Thanks to Wombat and TrigZ for this:

Going in the inversed direction of East (West) we can find that there is a school in that direction.

On the Main website it shows a nice view of the river and you will notice the big lettered body section ‘GO FORWARD‘ which can be interpreted as Go Four Word.

Pre throughts:

Map of the Gilbert Fraser Reserve

Coordinates: 32°2’6″S   115°45’32″E (for the reserve)

Across the Reserve you have East Fremantle the coordinates for that area are about: -32.035511,115.764495

What are the different ways you can follow your date accross the river?:

• Swimming
• Boat
• Driving – walking accross ‘Stirling HWY’ (you then get into an intersection on Canning HWY)

One thing to keep in mind is that the clue says ‘Don’t Follow’ which means you have to stay on the left hand side, trying to figure it out still though.

Clue: There is no neat census in a surf gear binder

Solution: Anagrams – There is no “Sustenance” in a “Burger and Fries”

In other words , there is no “sustenance” in “Fast Food”

Take the Sustenance (Food) out of “fast food” and you are left with “FAST”

Solution by Team WP and Credits to “Lady_Tbird”

Other thoughts that we initially posted:

Suggested by Wombat (thanks )

First thoughts: Gear binder = bing reader?
Census SURF: http://www.stats.govt.nz/schools-corner/surf-for-schools/census/default.htm
The 2006 Census SURF is a synthetic unit-record file (SURF) that allows teachers and students to investigate some of the relationships between variables from the 2006 Census of Population and Dwellings. The 2006 Census SURF contains unit records for 300 individuals for each of the 16 regional councils around New Zealand, and 11 variables, based on data from the 2006 Census of Population and Dwellings.

These records are not information about real people, but were generated using statistical techniques to give them similar characteristics to census respondents. This modification procedure helps Statistics New Zealand to prevent any unintentional disclosure of an individual’s personal information.

The 2006 Census SURF includes a dataset (in Excel format), information on how the dataset was constructed, and some activities. The activities are designed to give ideas on how the 2006 Census SURF can be used at different levels in the classroom, and to link to the statistics strand of the New Zealand Curriculum.
Click on the RSS button on the left of a Bing page and this takes you to the Bing Reader. This is a list of newsfeeds, including this one that tells you how to optimize webpages for Bing:
http://www.searchnewz.com/latestsearch/senews/sn-4-20090720BingSEO.html?FORM=ZZNR9

So – another pointer to “schools”? And highlighting another feature of Bing?

Clue: He may be an insider, but Doug needs to update his technology on V3I3

Solution: Thanks to Dazzer from Whirpool for this solution:

http://newsletter.everonit.com/e_article000553905.cfm?x=b11,0,w

The site talks about 4 keys to success which comes down again to our solution from previous clues which mention 4 words for the URL we are trying to find.

The article is from 2006 which is quite old and mentions mostly other web search engines such as yahoo, google, MSN, etc (Bing was not functional at the time).