We Have a Winner!!!

Thanks to everyone for playing. If you want to keep going please do, just don't look at the comments in the trivia section post or you'll get the answer.

But for everyone who is still playing I must inform you that at this point you are playing for fun only. That's right, we have a winner.

It is...

Drumroll please...

Bill! It was a five way race among Bill, Kimberly of Cinebeats, Adam of DVD Panache, Marilyn of Ferdy on Films and Given to Hyperbole who just baaaaarrrreeely missed out on answering before Bill. Marilyn showed up shortly after that.

And now for things I learned during this game.

1. Next time, hire a staff. My god, the zipping back and forth between blogs to check comments and leave them was maddening. I need a pot of coffee and an entire pack of unfiltered cigarettes right now. I'm frazzled.

2. Never assume. I assumed, like an ass, that the first one was a gimme with the "lavender" (Lavender Hill Mob) and "white" (Man in the White Suit) and "bridge" and "what I've done" ("What have I done" from Bridge on the River Kwai). So I didn't check in on that one until late and some 30 comments had piled up with everyone stuck.

3. The frontrunner doesn't always win. Adam Ross of DVD Panache got to the last riddle so damn fast I figured he'd have the whole thing wrapped up in less than twenty minutes. But then Cinebeats, Bill and Marilyn caught up and plowed forward. After the last riddle, Given To Hyperbole showed up out of nowhere and almost got it.

I hope everyone enjoyed it. I know I did. And one last thing.

I put the rules up around two to give everyone time to read them. I planned on them being up for about two minutes tops. Then someone walked in my office and needed help with something. ARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!! I told them I was on a tight deadline for a report and got rid of them as fast as I could. Now you know why no one here knows about the blog. That's not exactly professional behavior but geez, I just couldn't believe the timing. I resolved everything through manic e-mails during the game.

So biggest lesson learned: Next time, I have to take the day off first.

UPDATE: I'm purposely not revealing the answer in case anyone wants to play through for fun.

Also, Bill asked in the comment section how many were playing. I don't know exactly but I do know that between 2:05 and 2:15 I had about 160 unique visitors, which would average out to 23,040 visitors a day and I can tell you I've never had 23,040 visitors in one day. Never. Even. Close. So for a brief period there this blog had one hell of a visitorship. And the page views, wow. With everyone re-clicking while I was trying to get that co-worker out of my damn office, they were through the roof. So anyway, I'd say we had anywhere from 100 to 150 start out. Anywhere between 20 and 40 in that time would be close to normal so they could have just been visitors who happened upon the site. I didn't bother to set up a sitemeter for the riddle blogs so I have no idea how many made it past the first click.