AN EYE FOR A MISSION



KLANG VALLEY 10 DECEMBER 2011: As the cinema light gradually dimmed, the catchy theme song of the movie began to play, much to the delight of the audience.

For those growing up during the 1980’s, this familiar tune provided an instant reminder of an awaiting assignment and possibly a thrilling adventure. Watching the premiere of Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol on the silver screen inevitably rekindled the sweet nostalgia of the original TV series. 

Yet somehow it also evoked the hunt memories of previous week, for the participants of Eye Q Treasure Hunt 2011 may arguably claim that they had miraculously survived a more impossible mission.

If Tom Cruise and his team thought that they had it tough in the Ghost Protocol, wait till they attempt the challenges in this Malaysian Mensa hunt. If they considered deactivating the satellite of the Indian mogul Brij Nath (played by the actor Anil Kapoor) as arduous, they should try ‘deactivating’ the lethal questions of the Indian COC Jay (played by err…. the incomparable Jayaram Menon himself).


This time the Eye Q Mission featured a total of 25Q, 5 Crypix Q, 3 Treasures, 1 I-Spy Challenge and 1 Puzzler, to be solved within 5.5 hours in a surprisingly short distance of 9 km.

If one assumed that with minimal travel time, this was mighty generous, the thought was swiftly banished at the sector of first 3 questions. After a mental workout of about 30-45 minutes, the hunters reluctantly left; none fully satisfied with their answers.



Compared to prior Mensa hunts of yesteryear, one can’t fail to notice the dwindling number of hunters in this event. Gone were the days when the participating teams numbered in the thirties.

With only 11 teams this time, perhaps other non-regular teams were presumably still unprepared to gamble their mental health in this suicidal mission. That probably also explained why on the hunt morning, COC Jay heartily thanked the resolute hard-core hunters in attendance and deliberately singled out a novice Mensan team, Bench Nag for Honorary Mention under 'Braveheart' category!



COC Jayaram Menon - It's not too late
 to pull out; the door is over there! :)

Participants having a quiet breakfast
before the storm



 

 

As it is, he was on a damage-limitation crusade, when he casually reassured the contestants about the non-violent nature of this outing in an effort to restore faith among the survivors.

This was, as COC Jay put it to his audience with a deceptive wink, ‘a hunt of only one-star’. For those unfamiliar with his ranking dictionary, ‘one star’ is defined as “equivalent to 2 mistakes, which means that the champion should only drop 2 questions”

Such a remark may have elicited transient relief among the gullible novices, but the ‘been-there-done-that’ hunters knew better. Despite COC’s best effort, one could tell from their sceptical stares and nervous chuckles, that they seemed somehow unconvinced. After all, their past experiences in Eye Q Hunt would have alerted them otherwise!

Unlike the pompous Brij Nath, COC Jay has a knack of downplaying the difficulty of his posers. Q19 was a case in point. Unsolved by all teams, yet the question was rated as ‘easy mah’ by COC Jay after his typically lengthy debriefing.

Q19 AmBank contracted to India its founder.

A. Reliance

Typically one needs a bit of imagination and mental prowess to tackle hunt questions, but the Eye Q Hunt demanded much more; a whole realm of fantasy and in-depth knowledge.

Even Q3 and Q17 were suspiciously solved by a few teams with a bit of luck and ‘sensory’ guesswork, and when seasoned hunter, VK Chong said “I don’t know exactly why, but Butik Sense feels like the right answer!”, you know that Q3 would spell grief for the rest too.

Q3 Sketching it evenly and continuously with nude – front, rear, sideways!

A. Butik Sense

Q17 The alternative to the same writer is to return separately and substitute oddly.

A. Shape Up London

Had COC Jay actually played the theme song of Mission Impossible before the hunt, you get the feeling that would have been more befitting for the occasion! Perhaps the hunters would have gladly hummed along.  



Q21 Topless landmark in Parker, Texas.

I-Spy: textwithoutspacesbetweenwords













 





    

I-Spy Trouble

I-Spy Challenge was interestingly puzzling, with the cryptic clue: textwithoutspacesbetweenwords. The characteristic hint was an unusual sentence of “It allows neighbours to argue from different premises!”. It also turned out to be rather elusive, as only one team managed to spot this below-the-eye-level object.



The Colourful Puzzler



Windows seem to be the common denominator in this Eye-Q Hunt's Puzzler and Ghost Protocol movie. While Agent Hunt physically dismantled and scaled the window glasses of the towering Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the hunters were mentally connecting and interchanging the window glasses of a colourful building in Klang Valley.

Comparatively easy, one might say.

 

Rainbow Puzzler

Eye-Q Hunt 2011 - 5th Winner

 



But when Agent Ethan Hunt managed to casually sprint down the glass windows, as if he was out jogging in the park, while our veteran hunter, Goh Teck Koon grudgingly admitted that connecting the windows in the Puzzler wasn’t a walk in the park at all, you can’t blame others for having doubts which mission was more impossible.

As it turned out for the team 4 Ekor, the hunt didn’t seem all too intimidating when they decisively clinched the Eye Q Hunt title by a safe margin. After all, they were the sole team to successfully solve the Treasure Maze, Puzzler and I-Spy Challenge.

 

Eye-Q Hunt 2011 - 4th Winner

Eye-Q Hunt 2011 - 3rd Winner

   

Eye-Q Hunt 2011 - 2nd Winner

Eye-Q Hunt 2011 - Champion

Emerging champion of this Grand Slam hunt was certainly a kind of poetic justice for them, after they had narrowly missed out on the Kiwanis title by a whisker (or rather by some blue poppies). With such finishing, this team has slowly but surely crept up the hunt ladder to be among the elite hunters.

However it must be emphatically pointed out that the champion dropped 8 questions along the way; which lent itself to a damaging conclusion. This under-rated hunt should have been a 4-star mission; the equivalent of 18 rating for movie that contains adult themes, sex, strong language and nudity. It is akin to the feeling you get when you bring your kids to watch Shrek in cinema, only to end up sitting through the entire movie of Kill Bill!

Come to think of it, this Eye Q hunt should be rightly rated as 18 by Film Censorship Board. After all, it had its fair share of nudity (refer back to Q3), dirty talk (Q9), sex (Q10) and strong language (Q11) too. Perhaps the hunt rating guideline needs to be re-examined and the rating audited in the future, so that the hunters are adequately forewarned.

Q9 Briefly, it’s a workshop to talk dirty.

A. Studio Mudio

Q10 Sex! First and last! No issue!

A. Galeri Perabot Quel

Q11 Male equivalent of holy warrior burnt in hell!

A. Jean D’Arcel

When the curtain came down on this 2011 Eye Q Hunt, regular hunters still rated it as highly entertaining and educational. However the caution sign should read "Be prepared to face terribly tough questions, while being mentally tormented!"

In contrast, when every assignment was predictably accomplished by Tom Cruise and his team with increasing ease, the mission looked hardly challenging anymore. Surely they need more convincingly impossible feats when they reassemble for their 5^th outing.

Perhaps MI5: Perfect Score in Eye Q Hunt would make a more credible title for their next mission.

Now that would be a movie worth ‘eyeing’ for!

The question analysis has been included here, courtesy of the COC!