• Location: ~/Brainstorm
• Mood: perplexed
• Music: Sting, "Desert Rose"

Anyone for rebuses?

So, killing time while I'm sick, I'm playing a very obscure free Mac OS X game called "Explore!" It's basically a click-until-you-die easter egg machine; every once in a while you'll find a completely random encounter that gives you either resources or "souvenirs". If you've got a Mac you can download a copy here.

Of course, with a name like "Explore" and that level of obscurity, there's nobody out on the Internet talking about how to optimize the game or beat its puzzles. And that means when I run across a brain-breaker, the only thing I can do is pause the game and turn to my friends list.

As my latest easter egg encounter, I seem to have randomly stumbled across the game's programmer during my desert walk. He sys he'll give me a souvenir if I can solve a Unicode rebus. I said yes, and this popped up on the screen:


(It's accompanied by a caption that reads something like "Your nerd senses tingle".)

The good news is that I appear to get infinite guesses (as long as I don't leave the encounter, he just says "Nope, that's not what the Unicode rebus says" when I'm wrong). I've tried a few simple variants -- 'bang' and 'not' for the exclamation marks, for example -- but can't make anything out of it. Of course, since I downloaded the game from a site in Sweden, it's possible the rebus could be in something other than English ...

Anyone want to give it a crack? I'll leave the game where it is and keep trying anything that's posted here. Baxil points and major self-esteem to the first solver.

EDITED TO ADD: The "//" glyph is not a double solidus, it's actually "parallel to" (Unicode #2225) -- it just inexplicably displays at an angle on the Mac. See comments.

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ALSO EDITED TO ADD: Bonus riddle! Once upon a time while in a whimsical mood, I posted this comment about the hypothetical playlist of an AD&D "Jukebox of Many Things":

> I considered that, but 3E really nerfed the Jukebox of Many Things. Have you seen its playlist these days? For example, they took out the high-morale skeletons and replaced them with an electrum piece.*
>
> * Gamer humor + pop-culture reference = ow.

The two things mentioned are oblique references to bands. I remember what the first of them ("high-morale skeletons") was supposed to mean but I no longer remember what the hell I meant with "electrum piece." Care to refresh my memory?

ETA x3: I really should give out some sort of actual prize or reward for these.