/dev/joe wrote (July 08, 1997):

The following parade description is interesting.

All the players of Acka gathered for the parade, which began in front of one of Ackanomic's most famous buildings, where a jolly red A was dancing. We passed a B standing on the side of the road, who reminded us of something which Acka holds sacred. A character right out of Tolkien was holding a small C. We reached the shore, where a D was swimming in a small arm of water. An E standing there told us a story about a fabulous place, which some say is round. We saw a stand of what looked like those things you use to help put on tight footwear; they were covered with F's. But they weren't real -- these had fangs shaped like G's, and we know there's no such thing. Barney Rubble's wife then joined the parade, wearing a dress shaped like an H. A dark, sinister, evil-looking I was lying in the road and most of the paraders tripped on it; one of them felt as if he'd gained +2/+1, though. The next thing we saw was amazing -- a name from acka's past -- which was covered with tiny J's everywhere. Another word followed it, covered with K's; this was one of the silliest words we could imagine. At this point, we realized that the sun had ascended past the L-shaped clouds. Through somebody's lack of ability, we missed seeing the M entirely. But soon we went through an area where the road was covered with small, N-shaped stones. Then we ran into the thief from the YORL story, who we caught stealing an O from the sign of some building. Next we encountered the last of a dying breed, those who craft headwear for players who have been on vacation for a long time; one of them was working on a chapeau with a P atop it. Next we entered Acka's baseball stadium, where the world series was about to begin; since Toronto was playing this year, they played both "O Canada" and "The Star Spangled Banner", and some strange beast shaped like a Q delivered the words in a beautiful voice. John Lennon was there too; he followed those other songs by singing one of his own, while wearing a jacket with a large R painted on the back. Finally we paraded on out of the stadium, and we met an S who suggested we play one of Acka's sub-games. Next we met a T quoting maxims; but the parade was loud, so all we heard was "Do unto ...." Near him was a U also quoting stuff; we heard the end of one of his sentences, "... is not gold." A rabid-looking V ran past us shouting out some web address. Finally, we ended our trip near a group of small pools of water, one of which somewhat resembled the one Cow Town is in, but when we looked into it there was just a W at the bottom. Now, some of us were disappointed we did not encounter an X, Y, or Z on our trip, but I went home and tried to make a record of the trip.

/dev/joe wrote (July 08, 1997):

Mohammed wrote:
> The best bus trips may fog up.

The map was:

Post "the best bus trips may fog up" publicly.

The solution to the puzzle follows SPOILER space:

This is not the hidden contest. The treasure may be found by posting publicly the phrase formed by the first letters of the answer words. And by the way, the tromino go treasure isn't all that hard.

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