Happy Nat

Here is the moment some of you have been waiting for. I am very pleased to announce that we have a winner to the “Secret Holiday BROW’ contest. Lucas contacted me late last night and let me know that he found the hidden BROW post and described perfectly where it was. Lucas tells me he is a big Beatles fan and his attention to detail has paid off. Congratulations Lucas! He will be receiving one of these three prizes (depending on his preference):

In His Own Write, 1964 Hardback book of John Lennon’s first book (1964) titled In His Own Write – Anyone who hasn’t read it and appreciates John Lennon’s brand of humor will love it. Both the stories and John’s illustrations are hilarious! 80 pages. Buy this on Amazon.

The Beatles Unseen Archives, 2003 Paperback edition of The Beatles Unseen Archives (2003 Barnes & Noble edition) – Beautiful photo book! 600 fabulous photographs of The Beatles (before and after breakup, up through 2001) including a chronology that covers up to George Harrison’s death in 2001. 385 pages. Buy this on Amazon.

TheBeatlesRarity, tee TheBeatlesRarity.com black tee shirt – this is only available in large. Includes stenciled TheBeatlesRarity logo on front and “Bringing you the best and worst of The Beatles since 2007″ phrase on back

Solution/rationale: I’d like to thank everyone who made an effort to find the secret BROW! I suppose a few of you that searched unsuccessfully might like an explanation as to where it is/was. If this is you, then please read on (refer to copy of original post as needed (with poem, etc.) below).

A few people told me it was too hard. I hear you. Please hear me too when I say I tried to not make it too hard. I knew the site had a lot of material on it, and no one would be able to plow through every single page and see if something was there that wasn’t there before that would be indicative of a “secret brow”. It just would not be practical. All I did was simply place a link that leads to the secret BROW somewhere that can be accessed from every single page on the site. Then I placed subtle clues as to where that place would be in the post titled ‘Do You Wanna Know A Secret’, the very same post that notified everyone of the contest. I also hid the secret BROW from my on site search engine. Read on.

In the little poem at the end of this post I indicate “seven simple clues that you’ve already read”. How would I know you’ve already read it? Well, I figured it was safe to assume that if you were reading that ending line of the poem, then you would have also previously read everything before it within that same post. So what in the post has recurred seven times? The first line in the post says “I have an ‘exclamatory’ announcement to make”. Now why would I make a statement like that? Exclamatory, huh?…For those that have read many of my posts, you should agree that this is not a word I use commonly in other posts, right? Following this word, there are 4 uses of the exclamation point within the same short paragraph, or instead of ‘uses’ I should say ‘overuses’. Four ‘exclamatory’ exclamation points. Again, for those that are used to my writing style from previous posts, I think you’d agree that I’m not one to normally overuse exclamation points. I never seem to type ‘AWESOME!!!!!!’ in my posts. Then there is the little poem. Within it, there are two more exclamation points, bringing the total number of exclamation points up to six. One of the exclamation points in the poem is mis-used and should actually be a question mark. This was an intentional error to draw your attention to it, similar to the way the word ‘exclamatory’ was to draw attention to all the exclamation points in the first paragraph. So if the “seven simple clues” are, in fact, exclamation points, but there are only 6 of those in the post, then the question becomes: Where is that 7th exclamation point and how would I know you’ve already read it? Read on.

The poem says “seven simple clues that you’ve already read” and if only 6 are in the post, and I’m still assuming you’ve read seven of them, then the seventh one would have to be in a very obvious place, right? That is, somewhere that I should be fairly certain that you have also read. It is also on every page on the site! Read on.

Within 24 hours of making this ‘exclamatory announcement’, I changed the top scroll bar of the site to make it more ‘holiday festive’ in the most obvious way. I added pictures of Christmas-related Beatles releases from my very own vinyl collection (and you can click each of them for more info). I also added the message HAPPY HOLIDAYS! in the scroll bar in enlarged obvious letters alternating red and green (again to draw attention to them) and conspicuous also because it is at the very top of the page. Click on any of the letters to return to the home page, and yes, click on this (7th) exclamation point after HAPPY HOLIDAYS to find the secret BROW. If you are reading this and still see HAPPY HOLIDAYS! in the scroll bar now, you can still click the “!” and find the infamous “secret BROW”.

And if you still think this was “too hard”, there’s more. As a final clue to point to the scroll bar, the post repeats the HAPPY HOLIDAYS! message (just before the poem). Additionally, if you read the comments of the post, you will also see that I said HAPPY HOLIDAYS! (complete with the ‘!’ ) yet again. Also, I tried to help after-the-fact by making every comment reply about this on the FB site and the main site include an exclamation point. I even repeated HAPPY HOLIDAYS! in a comment to factory_worker (see the comment thread). So when I said in the poem “seven simple clues that you’ve already read” I assumed, not only that you had read everything previously in the same post, but had also read the giant new message in the scroll bar, bringing the total number of exclamation points to seven, as in seven years that The Beatles recorded together.

Copy of original post announcing contest:

I have an exclamatory announcement to make. There is a ‘Secret Holiday BROW’ on TheBeatlesRarity.com that will remain on the site (but in a secret place) until midnight on Dec. 25th, 2010 (US EDT). Crack the code and be the first to find it and you will be receiving a Beatle-prize in your mailbox directly from yours truly, Happy Nat! You must email me with a brief explanation of how you found it and sorry, search engine usage will not count. More details on this are available once you locate the secret BROW. A winner will be announced right here next week. Happy Hunting! Happy Holidays! Happy New Year!

Happy Nat.

How, oh how
Could I allow
The mysterious idea
Of a ‘secret BROW!’

And for the record, I have said
You’ve already been so cunningly led
To seven simple clues
That you’ve already read!

Amazon links for your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

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