Help needed--virtual medallion hunt

[Bill V]

Hi--



As part of their holiday week celebration, my employer is running a "virtual medallion hunt". It's based on the hunts done for the St. Paul Winter Carnival in Minnesota each year, where a medallion is buried in the snow somewhere on public land in the city, then during the carnival, clues are given each day in the newspaper regarding its location. Whoever finds it wins a prize. In this virtual version, there is no actual medallion, but it's theoretically located in a city, on a person, or inside an object. The first person to e-mail the correct location wins a pair of round trip airline tickets anywhere in the US. They've given three of the five clues so far, so far no one has won. Would any of you be able to assist?



Clue #1 (last Thursday) was "Greg Louganis' favorite product distributed by our company". This one was easier for me than some other people, as most people in our manufacturing areas are only familiar with our domestically manufactured products, and are unaware that we sell a product called "Diver" for an Italian company.



Clue #2 (last Friday) was "Country of origin of Greg Louganis' favorite product". Which, as I mentioned, is Italy.



Clue #3 (today) is the one that has me stumped so far--"A smelly test." I can't imagine how this clue might pertain to our company (we manufacture vascular medical devices), so I suspect it's not a clue that is specific to us. But I can't think of what it would be. The words of the clue seem random enough that I thought it might be an anagram, but I haven't been able to come up with anything that makes any sense. Anyone have any thoughts about what this could be?



Thanks for your help! I'll let you know if other clues are announced prior to a winner! (Clues come out daily at 9a.m. central time.)



--Bill

 

[Mark Grumpy]

A Roma, as in Italian for Rome and as in aroma maybe?



grump

 

[TomT]

Limberger?

 

[Bill V]

grumpy--I like the thought, definitely a possibility. Although I'm not quite sure what the "test" would be. Maybe the "smelly" is, as you said, Rome, and the "test" has something to do with some location in Rome? I find it hard to believe that based on the first two clues, no one has already guessed "Rome".



TomT--Isn't Limburg in Belgium? I'm not positive.



FYI, my guess after day 2 was "Cortina"--the Italian ski resort. (We have a new product launching soon that is named Cortina, so I thought there might have been a tie-in there.)

 

[TomT]

Oh yeah. It is in Belgium.

 

[A1cntrler]

Smelly and Italy....Not sure where "Diver works in, but around Naples some of the volcanoes spew sulpher smelling gases....

 

[Bill V]

A1, I'm not sure if there's any connection to the volcanoes there, that's definitely good to know. Thanks!



I think the "Diver" was just a roundabout way of telling us what country we need to be looking in. First we had to come up with that product name (via the Louganis clue), and then that led us to the country of Italy.

 

[A1cntrler]

If the first answers are incorrect, then it would throw off the entire search...



Could there be a decive that has something to do with the fact that Louganis is HIV+ ?? Something to make treatment better, therefore making it his favorite?? What is this Diver product--do you have a link?? As for anagrams of "A Smelly Test", none of the ones I find on the net make much sense either. (do a search for anagram on google and it gives you pages that will come up with the possible combinations). I even tried an Italian Anagram search, and none of thos made any sense either....

 

[Mark Grumpy]

keeping the anagram possibility in mind and assuming a place name in Italy, remember that the actual place names in Italy have different names than we know them by, e.g, Venezia = Venice.



grump

 

[Bill V]

A1, definitely good questions, but I think the first two clues were intentionally easy and that I have the right information on them. Although I agree that I shouldn't just abandon other possibilities. However, I can't make heads or tails out of "a smelly test", be it with a tie to Italy or without.



No, we don't have anything with an HIV-specific usage, indication, or benefit that I'm aware of.



Below is a link to the Diver information, as you requested.



The company that manufactures it is Invatec, who has their own website and some other info on the product there too....

http://www.invatec.com/tool/home.php?s=0,1,55,56,101

 

[Bill V]

Clue #4--"Jared will not greet you with buon giorno here."



It seems to me that this is indicating that it's a city with a subway. (Not the restaurant.) There are six cities in Italy with subways, according to subwaynavigator.com--



Milan

Naples

Rome

Palermo

Genova

Catania



I already guessed Naples yesterday, based on the volcanoes=odor idea. That wasn't it. I'm tempted to go with Rome today based on the "a roma" idea--but any other thoughts before I do that?

 

[Bill V]

I placed a guess of "Milan". No word yet if it (or anyone else's) is a right answer. My theory on that is a new take on "smelly test". "Test" in Italian is "prova"--and provolone cheese is smelly. And it comes from northern Italy, in the region of Milan, which has a subway.

 

[Richard L]

It could be linked to Parma, Italy where the original authentic, and most people think the best Parmasan cheese is made: Parmasano Reggiano (sp). It does smell and it comes from Parma, Italy.



...Rich

 

[Jim Reeves]

Smelly test = poop quiz.

 

[Bill V]

Bad news--the medallion has been found. They'll announce the winner--and the location--sometime tomorrow morning.



Worse news--this evening, shortly after they made that announcement, my mom thinks she figured it out. And I gotta say, I think she's right--It's at the Smelly Gourmet Coffee Shop in Metamora, Indiana. (No, I'm not kidding.)



When you do a Google for "smelly test Italy", it's the main link that comes up. It's Italian themed and run by an Italian. The link below will explain the "smelly test" part. And regarding the Jared clue? It says that Jared WOULDN'T say "buon giorno" here, meaning that it's NOT in Italy. And Jared Fogle is from Indiana. If this is right, it has nothing to do with Subway restaurants, or subway systems.

 

[A1cntrler]

Oh well. If ti is the coffee shop, where does Louganis (diver) fit in, or was that just to get Italy???

 

[Bill V]

That was just to get to Italy. But it was wrong. The correct answer was that the medallion is in:



A Classic Italian Sub at Quizno's.



The "smelly test" means "nose quiz", or "Quizno's". The first two clues were getting us in the direction of Italy. The last clue was an indication that it's not at Subway--alluding to it being at a competitor of theirs.



I think the answer is a bit of a cop-out. After all, which Quizno's? To find a medallion, you should at least need that much information! The Smelly Gourmet Coffee Shop is a much better answer, IMHO, regardless of whether it's right or wrong.