[Palindrome] mystery hunt rooms (warning, ridiculously detailed)

[Carol A Meyers <carol MIT EDU>]

Hello Mystery Hunters,

Thanks to those of you who sent congratulations.  :)  Our team rocks.

OK, here's the news on the mystery hunt rooms.  Most of the rooms are the 
same as last year, with the notable exception of the *two rooms we had 
last year,* (26-204 and 26-210) which have been remodeled and are 
completely different.  Most notably, they no longer contain phone jacks, 
there is no longer a door between them (though they are still next to each 
other, of course), and they are supposed to have a wired connection but I 
believe it is in a locked cabinet I couldn't get into.  On the plus side, 
the furniture is about a million times nicer; it's modern moveable tables 
and chairs.

I consulted with Mike Korn (who has been helping this team with rooms 
longer than me) and he prioritized the team's room preferences as follows:

(1) some kind of internet access.
(2) When put together, sufficiently large for everyone on the team to be 
there at the same time.
(3) Movable tables and chairs.
(4) Net drop.
(5) Adjoining.
(6) Phone jack.
(7) Good location, nice-looking, blackboard space, whatever else.

(1), (2), and (3) should be easy enough to get-- everywhere at MIT has 
wireless now, and there are plenty of rooms of varying sizes.  A lot of 
places have (4), although our old rooms no longer do.  (5) is pretty rare; 
only a few rooms on campus satisfy this now.  (6) is rare too, but not as 
rare as (5).  (7) I suppose depends on your opinion.

The only rooms on the list that satisfy *all* of these things are 4-145, 
4-149, and 4-153, which are all three adjoining.  I'm guessing these will 
probably go to a bigger team, though, since they have the capacity for 
tons of people.

(If you want to check out what rooms do and don't have, you can look at: 
http://student.mit.edu/roominv/roominv.cgi)

So we will probably have to settle without a thing or two.  4-261 and 
4-265 have everything other than the door between and the phone jack, so I 
think they make a good second choice.  Our old rooms (26-204 and 26-210) 
would be a good choice if I would feel confident that we could get in the 
magic locked cabinet, or if people don't feel as strongly about having a 
net drop.

After that, the rooms on the third floor of building 26 are also decent; 
none of them have a door between or phone jacks, but they do have MIT 
cable, which I suppose is an added bonus occasionally.

Finally, there is 56-154, which has everything we want but it is only one 
room.  (Albeit, it is a room that seats 56 people.)  I suspect that people 
won't like this, but I figured I'd throw it out.

Anyway, all that babbling is to say that I think our preferences should 
be:
1) - 2 out of 4-145, 4-149, 4-153
2) - 4-261 and 4-265
3) - 26-204 and 26-210 (our old rooms; I'll ask about the locked cabinet)
4) - 26-3xx rooms
5) - 56-154

Let me know if you object to this, or if you have any other opinions.  I 
can register the team this weekend, once we get this sorted out.

Thanks!


Carol

P.S. If we wind up not having a phone jack, we can use my cell phone (it 
has a 617 number).  It is free after 9pm on Friday and on weekends, and so 
we would just need to go a little easy before then.  I have Verizon, which 
works OK (though not wonderful) in most parts of campus.