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Question 29 of the Cryptic Quiz: "Three is the Magic Number!"

It’s question time quiz fans! This is question two for the day (the 29th in total). If you also want to try your hand at today’s first question (no.28) feel free. We’ll be picking our winners at random tomorrow morning. We now join the three bears as they continue on their adventure…


Unbearable Lightness of Being

When the three bears were finally all back at the office together, they found that their tempers had cooled considerably. What they didn’t find was their client–Goldilocks. Instead, they found a cryptic note:

T N G J K U ! J Y B T A B Y M V L A L G Y O R Q N O L Q K L K K E L . T Y G ‘ O O

U W L O Q K U . R K R A B B M Y G O N M O X Y W R A O Q E Y U K A G H Y U E

N O A Y G L Y Y G .

L A G M K U K B X ,

O Q K O Q U K K F B A G T E A M K

“What nerve, standing us up like this,” poppa bear roared.
“This is the final straw,” momma bear grumbled, “leaving us an unintelligible note?”
“I’m not so sure this note is from Goldilocks,” baby bear said as he pulled out a pencil and got to work.

Q: What does the note say?


Today’s prizes are 3 Pokens – one for each winner of today’s 3 questions. Wondering what the quiz is all about? Explore the discounts and fun to celebrate MOO’s 3rd Birthday throughout September!

Post your answer in the comments for your chance to win. Good luck!

Yesterday proved trickier for some, easier for others as our stories develop and the MOO birthday quiz continues. There are more questions coming later on today, but for now – the answers and our prize winning heroes!


Question Four:

Answer: Workplace: MOO | Suspect: Dan St Jacques
(Both parts of this answer were required to win. Please also note, Dan is very nice, and has never, to our knowledge, been involved in frog theivery)
Winner: RobW
Time question posted: Sept 2, 11:18 am
Time answered: Sep 2, 11:25 am


Question Five:

Answer: Alicia Zur-Szpiro*, Lisa Rodwell, Richard Moross
Winner: Caroline Wallis
Time question posted: Sept 2, 5:01 pm
Time answered: Sep 2, 5:24 pm


Question Six:

Answer: Tag, Atlas, Index.
These are the MOO Investors
Winner: istoo
Time question posted: Sept 2, 8:22 pm
Time answered: Sep 2, 10:24 pm

Congratulations to our winners, who will each receive a pack of 25 Greeting Cards (We’ll contact you as soon as possible with the details).

Watch out for new questions and new prizes later today, and throughout the month of September.


*Alicia has very recently left MOO to start an MBA. Good luck, Alicia!

After the shock of the last question and the sheer beauty of a composite MOO employee, we’re picking up the story of our three graphic designers from yesterday. This is our last question for today – stay tuned for the answers and more questions tomorrow!


The Third Zone: The Guides

Our three young friends decide to split up and each go their own way. “No use in all three of us competing for the same design jobs,” Rod confidently tells the other two. Grant is secretly relieved and agrees. Balise smiles vaguely and nods her head. Rod sets off across the school grounds down the left road into the city, Grant takes the center road, and Blaise sets off down the right road. But before they even leave campus, they find themselves at the threshold… of the Third Zone.

Their first sign they are no longer in the real world is a great lowing echoing across the campus, as if they are surrounded by a vast heard of cattle. They do not know it, but this sound is their herald to the Third Zone. Puzzled they all stop and look around, seeing nothing at first. But then each of them meets their guide for what is to be the most disturbing venture of their young lives. But it is a journey that will endow them with power, if only they are willing to commit themselves to it.

Rod stops, taking out his ear-buds, and looks about for the source of the bovine utterance. Suddenly, he feels a tug on his favorite red hoodie. “Hey you,” shouts a voice from right at his side, “don’t stand about! You’re it! You’re it!” Turning, Rod sees a young boy, also in a red hoodie running away laughing.

“Who are you,” he shouts after him, “what are you doing?”

I am the game,” shouts the fleeing youth,”if you want to know who I am, you have to play!”

Grant sees what appears to be another student ahead and stops to ask if he can hear the bellowing too. The youth, who is carrying a large green and blue ball on his shoulder, shrugs. In response to Grant’s question, he holds out a book of maps to Grant, who thanks him but shakes his head. “Take it. I am a titan among men, you know,” the man says.

“Great,” thinks Grant, “a loony,” and he hastens his step to leave the burdened man behind.

What Grant doesn’t yet realize is that he might need those maps—the city streets don’t follow the pattern they once did.

Blaise decides the lowing has nothing to do with her and walks on, only to be brought up short by a long bony forefinger being pointed directly at her face. She stops short before she gets her eye poked out, and looks at the old lady standing in front of her. The woman carries three books in an old-fashioned book strap. Their spines are labeled A-H, I-Q, and R-Z. Ruled pieces of cardstock spill out of her pockets. What looks like speech notes are carefully written across several of them. Others are stained and appear to hold recipes. Her threadbare sweater sags and droops, turning its stripes into a financial chart.

“Oh excuse me,” Blaise says (not un-sarcastically), “I didn’t see you there.”

The woman slowly turns away and continues to point, but this time towards the city. “Yep, just where I was going,” Blaise says, rolling her eyes and continuing on her way.

QUESTION: Who are the three guides Ron, Grant, and Blaise have found?


Answers in the comments please – and we’ll approve them all on Thursday morning, when we put the next clues online and announce today’s winners! The three Wednesday winners will each receive a pack of 25 Greeting Cards

The “Three Is The Magic Number” quiz is part of our third birthday celebrations!

Here we are at day two of our Birthday Quiz. We have three winners, quick off the mark in answering yesterday’s questions, and three new questions for today.

Not only that, but we have three new prizes!

The prize for the first person who answers a question correctly today will be a pack of 25 Greeting Cards. (We’ve updated the functionality of Greeting Cards too – so you might like to take a quick look. Resellers will love the fact that for a limited time, you can remove the MOO logo for free – and of course, add your own!)

But anyway – on with today’s first question, Hardboiled, Part Two. We continue yesterday’s tale of The Three Blind Mice…


Hardboiled, Part Two

Nick’s Brass Tacks Facts

I’m not a talker like Ray, or a play-on-words-guy like Sam. Me—I’m about data. Information. Brass Tacks. No, strike that. Brass tacks is too poetic. Facts. That’s it—I’m about plain simple facts.

And the “facts” Mary presented to us were these:
1) An online print-on-demand outfit with offices in the UK and US was threatening her.
2) One of their employees had even gone so far as to steal her pet frog.
3) She didn’t know the kidnapper’s first name, but knew three people with the exact same name worked at the company.
4) She didn’t know the kidnapper’s last name, but thought it might also be a first name.

I thought she should go to the police, and said as much. She said the police thought she was crazy. I thought she was crazy too, but we needed the cheese, so we took the case. Our first task was to find the suspect.

QUESTION: Where does the suspect work and what is his name?


Answers in the comments please – and we’ll approve them all on Thursday morning, when we put the next clues online and announce today’s winners!

The “Three Is The Magic Number” quiz is part of our third birthday celebrations!

Wow – you lot are good! The first three answers and the winner of each prize are:

Question One:

Three Blind Mice
Winner: gnomeangel
Time question posted: Sep 1, 2:00 PM
Time answered: Sep 1, 2:02 PM


Question Two:

Goldilocks
Winner: Justine
Time question posted: Sep 1, 5:00 PM
Time answered: Sep 1, 5:02 PM


Question Three:

The colour wheel: RGB or Red, Green and Blue
Winner: Katie
Time question posted: Sep 1, 8:19pm
Time answered: Sep 1, 8:26 PM

Congratulations to our winners, who will each receive a Flickr Pro account, and one Free pack of MiniCards! (We’ll contact you as soon as possible with the details).

Congratulations also to everyone who has taken part so far. Even the incorrect answers were good (and perhaps better than some guesses of the MOO crew.)

Watch out for new questions and new prizes later today, and throughout the month of September. Good luck!

Here we are already, at the last of three questions for today! Join three graphic designers at the very start of their careers – one confident, one sad and one wet-behind the ears.

We found this question harder than the first two, but have full confidence in your puzzling skills! The first to answer this question will win a Flickr Pro account and a pack of MiniCards. Good luck!


The Third Zone: Painting the Town

This is the story of three carefree young graphic designers—Rod, Grant, and Blaise. Diplomas in hand, they have just tossed their caps in the air and are setting out into the Big City to look for work. They are full of hope and wonder, these three close friends, eager to see what is in store for them. But they will soon realize that the turn of the wheel will bring them only fear. You see, what they are about to endure will test them in ways they never could have imagined. For soon they will face terrors of the sort you can only find…in the Third Zone.

Rod, the eldest, is listening to the sixth Weezer album through his ear-buds and zips up his lucky hoodie (a gift from his cousin who’s on the most fun and friendly ruby team in Stockholm) and glares at the neon reflecting off the wet city streets before him. Nothing will crush his fiery spirit, or so he believes.

Grant, slightly younger than Rod, watches his confident friend a bit enviously. He feels completely unprepared for the real world. He believes himself to wet-behind-the-ears, untried, a real noob. He hums When I Come Around in an attempt to bolster his spirits and plans the fastest route to the nearest city park. He’s thinking that cool leafy spaces will calm his nerves and prepare him for what’s to come…

He’s completely wrong of course.

Blaise feels a momentary sadness at the passage of time. She’s been prone to melancholy after major events like birthdays all of her life. But she’s trained herself not to dwell on the pas and instead focus on the clear skies ahead of her. She twists her lucky lapis lazuli pinky ring around three times widdershins and whispers to herself, “The less I seek my source for some definitive the closer I am to fine.”

QUESTION: Upon what kind of wheel do Rod, Grant, and Blaise turn and what do each of them represent?


Answers in the comments please – and we’ll approve them all on Wednesday morning, when we put the next clues online and announce today’s winners!

The “Three Is The Magic Number” quiz is part of our third birthday celebrations!