With brute force and determination

So as many yesterday figured out with very little hints, it was the 5th anniversary of my little corner of stupidity. So the post yesterday was some fun...

...that I almost forgot about. See, I actually started that post a year ago. It would have been the 4th anniversary post. But life got in the way and I had to shelve it. Yesterday, my mind goes "oh yeah - when is the blog anniversary? HOLY SHIT - TODAY!". So I put the finishing touches on the post and clicked submit.

Hurry up, it's getting late!

My goal was to put people on a little bit of a hunt, and the whole wording of the post should have clued you off. If not, the images posted would have. For those with eagle eyes, the first image was that of the Nazi enigma machine. And the second was Jim Carrey as the Riddler, or more exactly Edward Nigma: E. Nigma. Those should have been enough to let you know it was just just a post gone haywire, but a coded post. A simple cipher, really. I didn't want to get too crazy with how the words were encoded. But with any cipher, one must have the key. The title and the video should have made that obvious - five. So if you went to a website for a shift cipher, and entered the text with the shift of 5, this is what you would have read:

So today's date has a lot of importance throughout history. Some of it has to deal with amazing things. It's the wedding anniversary for Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt. The Brtish evacuated Boston in the Revolutionary War. On this day, the National Association of Professional Baseball Players was founded, as was the Camp Fire Girls. Almost a hundred years apart, the first submarine stays under water on this date for almost two hours and IBM releases DOS three.three. The first is little cause for joy when forty years later German U-boats killed over six hundred people in numerous years during the war today.

Word processor from hell

For those celebrating birthdays today, you have Hank Bauer, Shemp Howard, golfer Bobby Jones, Nat King Cole, Mia Hamm, actors John Boyaga and Kurt Russell, and Jophn Wayne Gacy. Deaths included Ray Meyer, Alex Chilton, Amos Alonzo Stagg and St. Patrick. Now you know why today is St. Patrick's Day.

And today is also the fifth birthday of this little corner of my baseball collection stupidity on the internet. After being a lurker for about six or seven months, I decided that I enjoy writing (somewhat) and I just hoped I could carve out a little spot for me. Maybe someone would read it, and maybe it would get ignored. But as I have said in the past, readership doesn't matter. I truly thank you that come here when I write, to read my plodding posts and comment. I hope somewhere you enjoy it, if only to think "hell - just how does he think he's funny?"

IT'S BLOGTIME!

So being my anniversary, we need to have a contest, right? How about you send a message to the Gmail address heroesgiveaways? I've been sitting on a nice autograph I pulled from a box of Archives Signatures, so the winner will get a one out of five signature of Doc Gooden. I think I'll add more to just that prize, based on how this contest is responded to, mainly because if you get involved, you will probably hate me.

There is a long line, folks. Take a number.

If you are thinking a simple email would get you into the contest, you don't know me so well. An email to that address would have gotten you an automatic return that read:

If you got this far, you are pretty smart. That being said, if you paid any attention, this is a contest, and to get this far took a little bit of work, so just emailing here is not enough.

But this 2nd part is the last part, I swear. The winner of the 5th anniversary contest is the first person that leaves a comment on a specific post. What post you ask???? You have to figure it out. I will give you a few hints. 

The post was in 2013. For a one month time span (yes - one month), every music video at the end of the posts all tied together. There was a specific theme/subject that tied them together. If you are not sure what that theme is, think about the post that got you to email here.

Now, ONE VIDEO on ONE POST during that month lacks the theme. That is the post you need to leave a comment on. Call me an asshole. Call me a genius. Leave your recipe for hummus. Doesn't matter what you say. First person to leave a comment wins. 

I have verified all the videos work, so if you find the right time frame, you can play them all, jam out, and then figure out the odd song out.

Yes - I am this sick. And for being this mean, I need so much more than a Doc Gooden encased autograph. I'll work on it. For all I know, no one will ever receive this automatic email.

I'm an ass - you all know that!!! Well, Gavin over at Baseball Card Breakdown must have been very bored, because the number of posts he commented was straight insane. Yet, as of this morning, he had not hit the specific post. About an hour later, though, he found it. In an email conversation, I mentioned that sheer will got it, but did he know what was different about that post. Just a few minutes later, he hit in on the head. First, the post is question is this one:

One more, but still at four

I had to clear the video at the end of another post, but only because it was deleted from YT, and I could not figure out just what the video was. But it did not change the outcome, as it was a video that I think showed an image of the theme. This was the exact post that was different in that month time frame than the others. If you view the posts from  Road trip thru Catching up before I head out, all posts (with a video embedded) have a common theme. That theme? The word Buckingham.

In the videos, you either have Fleetwood Mac, with member Lindsey Buckingham, or a solo Lindsey. You have a couple songs by The Buckinghams. Two videos feature Buckingham Fountain in Chicago (the title video for Married With Children and a random fountain video). There is even a video of Ozzy performing for the Queen at Buckingham Palace. The "One more" post, though, has a song from the band XTC singing about the Statue of Liberty. Now, XTC is from England, but nowhere near London. Plus, it is a song making reference to an American icon.

Well done Gavin. I like that you actually found the tie in and didn't just hammer away until you stumbled on the correct place. Here's what your prize looks like:

It's been in the box since I pulled it, so any imperfections is the dirty scanner. And since you did figure out the true connection in the posts, I'll include a bonus. I hope you get something good out of it.

So there you go folks. Welcome to the start of the 2nd five years. It's gotta get better, right?