FYI: the Mystery Hunt is an annual puzzle-hunt organized at MIT starting the Friday before MLK Jr. Day, at noon. Participants work in teams (of unlimited size) to solve tons of puzzles and meta-puzzles, in order to recover a coin hidden somewhere on the campus. The Hunt usually lasts until someone finds the coin, which typically takes 48 to 60 hours. The winning team gets to write next year's Hunt (and thankfully, we're nowhere near that good).
No experience or commitment is necessary to participate--you can help out as much or as little as you like. If you are in the Boston/Cambridge area, you can join in several on-campus events that are part of the Hunt (there's a pool party on Saturday, and I might still be able to get you in if you really want to go), but you can still participate remotely if you're nowhere near there. I'm participating remotely and I'm heading the darn team.
And it's okay to join our team after the Hunt begins, though you'll just be missing out on the fun before that!The team I'm heading is a motley bunch, with a few of us MIT alums being the historical core group (we created the team in 2008), and bunches of random friends and acquaintances, including a number of people from the extended TV Tropes community. We're just getting together to have fun and solve puzzles.
For more information on the Hunt: http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MITMysteryHunt. Request an account, and I'll go and approve you for membership. You can also find us on IRC: we will be using channel #ducksoup on Espernet (irc.esper.net); here is a Mibbit link to that channel if you don't have an IRC client.
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Apologies to laszlow about not reminding him earlier about this--I know he and his friends like puzzles, and would love to have them on board. They helped us out a few years back (I think in the 2009 Hunt), and I'd love to see them again. So yeah, lasz, a special invitation goes out to you and your crew.