People have asked, so here’s the answer, the first and only time you will ever see it blatantly explained here:

At the end of the month, if I’ve been working on it all month, I will publish a Secret Message post to let everyone know that there is one. Part of it has to do with the calendar, which I’ve resurrected for this purpose. If you take a look at last month’s calendar, you’ll see that on days that I’ve posted, the dates are in bold and have a colored background. Those colored boxes in turn create a message—sometimes a word, sometimes a picture, sometimes a pattern. The first time I ever did this was back in September 2002, and I did it for about a year before I got bored with it.

Okay, so that’s part of it. Another part of it is the subtitle of the Secret Message post, which is usually another clue to the puzzle. For instance, the last one was titled, “What’s the (Exclamation) Point?” This was to point out specifically where to look in the month of posts—in the exclamation point, and within that exclamation point, the point itself. The point itself is a link to that day’s post, the Secret Message post, so if you look at what I’ve written that day, that’s where you’ll find a third clue.

The third clue, however, is usually hidden in the source code. If you go to that post now and view the HTML source, you’ll see a secret message with very specific instructions on how to win the prize.

This is essentially how I hide my secret messages. Sometimes I mix it up a little, so it’s not always done in the same way, but so long as you pay attention to the calendar, the Secret Message post itself, and sometimes the source code, you should be okay.

If you’d like to try your hand at some of my older secret messages as practice for later, feel free. July 2003 was a particularly good month for secret messages, so I suggest trying to solve that one if you haven’t already. Remember where to search for clues: calendar, title, source code. If you’re unable to solve it, let me know, and I’ll tell you how to find July 2003’s Easter Egg.

And now that I’ve told you all how to solve these things, I’ll have to make them a little harder next time. See what you made me do? The next one won’t be easy.

::evil laugh::

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