VFYW: Epic Explosions And Ghosts

Plus a supervillain origin story, for contest #401.

(For the View From Your Window contest, the results below exceed the content limit for Substack’s email service, so to ensure that you see the full results, click the headline above.)

My apologies for the late results this week. The Dish had an unplanned Christmas party last … consisting of Andrew and me getting stoned while watching the new South Park episode and PSB videos on his giant projector. We haven’t hung out in a while, since he’s been so sick, and I’m flying out to Portland this weekend to ski and visit family for two weeks. After the revelry I got back to the contest results, but by 2am my brain was completely fried, going on four hours of sleep that morning (which is pretty standard for Dish publishing day). Plus, this week’s view elicited 122 entries — the most in a long time. As always, they were packed with varied, fascinating facts and stories, so it was very difficult to not include most of them. Anyway, thanks for your patience, and on to the results …

A sleuth writes:

Firstly, a followup for the latest VFYW. Many, many years ago, my parents took my brother and me to Vanuatu. On the last night, the rustic resort put on a feast for guests. There were many courses, but I vividly recall the main one, because my brother and I were starving hungry and the previous ones involved vegetables (we were aged 8 and 6). Finally some meat!

The waiter placed our plates in front of us and a mix of emotions overcame me as he announced it was the island’s delicacy: fruit bat! I’m not proud I ate it, but my abiding memory is how little meat there was. The taste was ... a bit like spatchcock.

Makes me think of this scene:

Another followup from the super-chef:

I was struck by the juxtaposition of the statements by the DC super-sleuth and the CO/NJ super-champ: “Guam contains the westernmost point in the United States” and “Guam is the first place in the world where the sun rises on US soil.” But the sun rises in the east! At first I thought they couldn’t both be right, but a look at the globe makes it clear:

From the biologist in Milwaukee:

It was neat to hear from the new sleuth in Guam, complete with the snazziest hermit crab I’ve seen!  *waves* And I really enjoyed the video of the lassoing tree snake. I may be the only sleuth who finds the idea of a six-foot snake falling on me from a tree to be a feature, not a bug. 

I am ticked at myself that I didn’t realize the Challenger Deep trench was over there. I may have to turn in my marine biologist card.

She redeems herself this week with plenty of marine life. But first, another followup comes from our previous winner in Bend:

For all of your readers hearing sad trombones about defunct Blockbuster stores, I took a photo of my local Blockbuster while passing by it today. Hopefully this will cheer them up:

More holiday cheer comes from our long-lost postcard artist:

Here’s a little gift to you: an updated (improved?) Dishhead Christmas card homage, including Bowie w/halo ... sniff.

Sorry to have dropped from the face of the earth — I’m still a fan! Best wishes to you and Andrew for the New Year!

Another Christmas gift comes from our super-sleuth in Toronto:

I have been traveling for the last few weeks (without a laptop, which doesn’t happen very often). Here’s how one view from a “window” looked:

On to this week’s view, here’s the beginning of the entry from Team Bellevue:

Ahh, this view was full of little gifts. This location yielded pretty quickly for Team Bellevue, with plenty of interesting ships to explore, a few micro puzzles to solve along the way, and a unique “Belle View” opportunity that had us smiling …

QUICK READS

• Marine environment, clearly tidal (see walkway designed to rise/fall).

• Historical ships (with guns!) and interpretive signs. Feels semi or entirely permanent moorage, which should be helpful.

• Large ship/docking in the distance — this is a major port city.

• Nautical alphabet/flags in use on the white hut! A quick reference check yields the not-so helpful translation, “WELCOME.”

• Blurred flag above the hut, and a luffing flag at the top of the black sailboat mask.

Another simply guesses, “Oban, Scotland.” Another goes with “Stockholm, Sweden.” A gut guess from a newbie:

Looks Scandinavian to me. Copenhagen? It’s my first entry and I’m not a subscriber … yet.

From another sleuth who threatens to pay for the Dish:

I am not a subscriber, but I may be in the new year. I think the window is in Astoria, Oregon, on the Columbia River, toward the west end of downtown. Behind where Red Lion Hotel used to be, so the window is in the “new” hotel (Riverwalk Inn, I think).

Right continent. The Bend sleuth again:

That ship is obviously the HMS Beagle, which Darwin used to sailed around the world from Plymouth, England. But seeing a battleship exhibit on Pearl Harbor Day (December 7) suggests that this view is Hawaii.

The SF super-sleuth gets to the right side of the continent:

Either you took it easy on us this week (at least finding the city) or I got lucky, but I was very happy to find the location (but not window) in about five minutes while scarfing down lunch between meetings. A little island with a lighthouse in the middle of a harbor somewhere in northeastern North America proved quite easy to find.

Another gets more specific with “Provincetown, Massachusetts.” From the super-sleuth in Eagle Rock:

Well, this is a head scratcher. Took about 30 seconds to find the location, but the window ... appears to be nonexistent, if you believe the 2023 dates on the Google Satellite View captures. (I don’t.)

Hint: what looks like a parking lot is actually a giant building now:

It’s a little tricky to find a good angle on the mystery window. This is where it really helps to be Chini, with his global drone network.

Here’s the drone maven:

The super-sleuth on the UWS names the right country: