Friday, October 23, 2015

Marzipawn fit for a king; The sound and the furioso; Poodle skirts and Woods supporters; Jesus was a Capricorn... what's your sign?; Stormin' namin' nounin' Norman; Science is golden... ray shows

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER e5 + pi4 SERVED

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!, our October 23 edition. 

Thanksgiving is still 34 days away (November 26), but we would like to take this time to thank all of you who have commented on and contributed to – and otherwise followed – our puzzle blog during the past 18 months. Without your contributions, interest and support, Puzzleria! is nothing – ZeroZipZilchleria!


One of our puzzles this week is prompted by a comment by charter Puzzlerian! David two weeks ago suggesting that I (okay, daring me to) make a puzzle out of the meerkat/monkey/llama zoo news story.

The puzzle I created was last week’s “Critters In The News Appetizer: IsosZOOles love triangle,” which involved men named “Boris,” including chess master Boris Spassky. This prompted a comment from skydiveboy, who knows his chess, about the legitimacy of a photo I ran of a guy I thought was Spassky.

Our exchange of comments reminded me of my own early infatuation with chess, and of the only chess puzzle I ever created, as a young’un. So, this past week I rummaged through my memory’s cobwebs, dredged up and dusted off my puzzle and recreated and packaged it as this week’s Dessert Menu puzzle: “Not The Whitest Piece On The Chessboard Dessert: Marzipawn fit for a king.”

I am probably not the first person to think up this particular chess puzzle, but I like to think I might be. Of course, I could Duck Duck Go or Google it to see but, because I want to continue basking in my ignorantly blissful afterglow, I shall not. 

After all, I did not perform a computer-search on it when I created it. Of course, that was back when the most sophisticated electronic appliance I owned was a Realtone 6-transistor radio  booty from my birthday. (My Realtone had no search engine function… but it did have a good pop song search function.)

Six transistors had my radio. Six puzzles has this Puzzleria!: 
One morsel, three weekly news-cycle appetizers, a specialty of the house slice… and marzipawn for dessert!

Morsel Menu

Emmy Morsel:
Stormin’ namin’ nounin’ Norman

Take a proper noun seen in today’s headlines. Take also the professional name (first and last) of a late Emmy-winning actor. Remove the final letter from the proper noun and insert it between the second and third letters of the final three letters of the actor’s name. Remove those four letters from the end of an actor’s name.


The letters remaining in the proper noun and in what’s left of the the actor’s name, when spoken aloud, sound the same. The four letters removed spell out a word very familiar to people, both late and living, surnamed Norman, Schwarzkopf, Battle, Sutherland, Price, and Farrell.

Hint: The first names associated with those surnames are not Greg, Norman, Kenny, Donald, David, and James T.

What is this proper noun and who is this actor?

Appetizer Menu

Safer Public In The News Appetizer:
Poodle skirts and Woods supporters

The following clues all have two-word answers that total 14 letters:
1. Those who fashion poodle skirts and bell-bottom jeans
2. Nickname of a Puritan named Williams?
3. What an extreme horror film make-up artist does to faces
4. Mightier motivation
5. Roy
6. Men, according to some
7. What an elementary school pupil perhaps does on an arithmetic test
8. Woods supporters

A public safety news story this past week might put a damper on Black Friday sales of certain items at stores like Toys R Us and Walmart. The story includes:
An 8-letter verb, and
A 6-letter plural noun.
The 14 letters in those two words can be rearranged to form the two words in each of the eight answers above.

What are the verb and noun in the story? What are the eight answers above?

Every Picture Tells A Story Appetizer:
Science is golden... ray shows

A science story from this past week included a nine-letter proper noun and eight-letter common noun.

The blanks in the phrase below represent a four-word, 17-letter description of the illustration pictured below in this puzzle. The letters in this description can be rearranged to form the letters in the science story words.

__
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
__ __ __ __ __
__ __

Hint:
The common noun in the science story can be divided to form a two-word description of insulin or Lasix.
The first three letters of the proper noun in the science story name an Irish band formed a bit more than a decade ago.
The next three letters name a Minnesotan band formed a bit more than two decades ago.
The final four letters of the proper noun in the science story name a Pennsylvanian band formed a bit more than three decades ago.

What are the two words in the science story and the four-word description of the illustration?


Signs And Wonders Appetizer:
Jesus was a Capricorn... what’s your sign?

An international news story this past week may have included the following phrase:

__ __ __ __ __ __’__  
__ __ __ __ __ __ 
__ __ __ __ __ __ __

All three words above are proper nouns. The first is possessive; the others are a man’s name.

 The letters in those words can be rearranged to form three different words:

1. A nine-letter noun for what the person was during August, September and almost two-thirds of October.
2. A five-letter word for a Roman god associated with a certain month; the man would likely prefer not to be associated with this this god because it smacks of duplicity due to being depicted often with an unusual anatomical distinction.
3. A six-letter word for how the man’s future wife might have responded when he first asked her, “What’s your sign?” (Had she asked him the same question, the man would have answered the same as his younger brother who is still alive.)

What is the three-word news story phrase? What are the three words they morph into?


MENU

Specialty Of The House Slice:
The sound and the furioso

Name a word for the sound a certain musical instrument makes. Remove one letter to produce an attribute a player of the instrument ought to have.



What are the sound and the attribute?


Dessert Menu

Not The Whitest Piece On The Chessboard Dessert:
Marzipawn fit for a king

What is the shortest chess game possible? That is, what is the minimum number of moves needed for a checkmate to occur? What are these moves?

In my answer, Black checkmates White. (White always makes the opening move, of course.) Thus, my answer must be an even number of moves.

Also, my answer requires that White make a move (or moves) that are not in White’s best interest. In other words, White plays into Black’s hands.

(Here is a link to a helpful chessboard tool that allows you to move chess pieces around, and even to play matches... just don’t play with matches!)

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!

Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup, Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)

Please post your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not give the puzzle answers away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Friday.

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Thank you.

56 comments:

  1. Happy Friday! We are past our snow and rain for awhile, methinks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good evening, Word Woman, Lego and everyone else!

    Lego, perhaps I am asleep with my eyes open, but in the "What is my Sign" puzzle, aren't there 19 slots to fill? But don't the clues add up to 20 letters? (9 + 5+ 6) Is there a space missing in the International News Story three-word phrase?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, ViolinTeddy. I did somehow misplace a blank in the possessive proper noun. I just fixed it. The total number of blanks, as you noted, ought to be 20, not 19. I greatly appreciate your wide awake eagle eyes wide open!

      Now on to conjure some clues for patjberry, human 10-word-sentence-with-all-words-sharing-the-same-last-letter generator.

      LegoWho,WhenHeAbsentMindedlyDiscardsABlank,ForcesPuzzlerians!ToDrawOne!(See”TrivialScribble”)

      Delete
    2. Always delighted to help you find your missing blanks, LegoMindly, or your blanking misses or whatever....hee hee

      Delete
  3. So far, I managed to work out the nine and eight-letter science story words from Every Picture Tells A Story...and suspect I know what the first and last (shorty) words are for the picture description, but the two long words just will NOT fall out....

    Am stuck on everything else, but LOVE the picture of FURY the horse!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Done better than I thought just looking up stuff! I'm no expert on chess, so I couldn't answer that one if I tried. The seemingly easiest one, about the musical instrument's sound, escapes me. Can I at least have a hint for that one?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you would record the sound the musical instrument makes, patjberry, and then play it backward (like people did with Beatles’ songs), the result might sound something like this

      LegoTheCowWhoLaughsHasAPalInTheDromedaryCamelWhoWalksAMile

      Delete
    2. Watched whatever that was which your last post steered me to last night. BTW I did find two words that might work for this puzzle, but now after the Spanish cow ad, I'm not quite sure. Got anything else?

      Delete
    3. patjberry,
      See if your two words jibe with the three hints below:
      1. One type of this instrument is a three-syllable eponymous word.
      2. The instrument remains a word if you spell it backward.
      3. A teacher asks her third-grade pupils: What is a/an [instrument asked for in “The sound and the furioso” puzzle] for? The son of a music store owner raises his hand and replies, “For anchoring the harmony of the orchestra with its rich sound.” The daughter of a lumber store owner raises her hand and replies, “It’s a standard-sized length of lumber often used in framing a building or constructing roof trusses.”

      LegoTheseAre(InsertHereValleySpeakAdjectiveMeaningBeyondCool)Clues…TrussMe!

      Delete
    4. Still a little confusing, but what with my getting three mentions in the creative puzzle, I'm feeling pretty good and certainly not that desperate to answer this one. I can wait until Tuesday.

      Delete
  5. If I've done my combinatorics correctly, there are eight answers to the chess problem, but they all amount to practically the same thing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Paul,
      Yes. I also am aware of eight "trivially variant" solutions to my chess challenge. We are on the same page... or board, as it were.

      It is interesting (to me anyway) that in one of our eight "different" solutions White would be tempted to capture a Black piece, a move that would sabotage the checkmate in x moves (where x represents our minimum number of moves).

      LegoNotExactlyBorisSpassky(OrEvenBorisSpasskydiveboy!)

      Delete
  6. Replies
    1. # Mozart:
      [Arnold Palmer and Ray Dolby are attending a performance of a military band (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) playing music that does not sound like any Mozart Arnold has ever heard!]

      Palmer: Very neat. But must we sit through any more of this torture? I've got a three P.M. tee time at St. Andrew’s.

      Dolby: I think they're playing very well. Except I detect a little high-end hiss on the “A Day in the Life” coda.

      Palmer: You’re nuts! This is a live performance. There’s no high-end hiss in live performances!

      Dolby: You have apparently never eye-witnessed a cat fight, or snake fight, or cat/snake fight.

      Palmer: You’re right Ray. All I know is, I have no idea what kind of bogey-wogey those furry headed cats up there on stage are laying down. Or whom they’re attacking in a fight, except for my tender and refine musical sensibilities. You need not tell me who wins. Those cats have!
      [gets up eats shoots three over par and leaves]

      LegoAtLeastThomasDolbyBlindedMeWithScienceAndJohnCageMadeMeDeafWithSilence

      Delete
  7. The Emmy Morsel is giving me fits. What's our vector, Victor?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Or maybe it's the public safety blurb. Something's giving me fits.

      Delete
    2. STRONGER URGE and TIGER ROOTERS are both 12 (not 14) letters. Grrrr.

      Delete
    3. Paul,
      Our motto here at P! is, "All the puzzles that give fits we print... er, that is, I mean, not "print" but upload."

      LegoRMN'sMemoToLBJ:"I'mUnsureIfJFK'sLongJohnFitsGerald,CanIDeleteEighteenPointFiveMinutesOfCasaBlanca(OrRalphBranca)Tape?

      Delete
  8. Tough puzzles this week! Even the puzzles have "puzzles ". No real progress on any of them yet. I'm seriously stumped.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Will Shortz’s “two-week Creative Challenge” given on on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday a fortnight ago was to “write a 10-word sentence in which each word ends with the same letter of the alphabet.
    For example: Dartmouth frosh clash with Pittsburgh church parish, clinch fifth triumph. Every word in (that) sentence ends with H. Any ending letter could be used. Entries were judged on sensibility, naturalness of syntax, and overall elegance.”
    Around 1,500 entries came in, according to the NPR website. The most common ending letter, not surprisingly, was E, followed by N, S, T and Y. Almost every letter of the alphabet was submitted at least once. Usually, though, the sentences using the rarer ending letters either read awkwardly or didn't make a lot of sense.
    Will Shortz added that “So many excellent sentences were submitted — too many to read on the air — that I compiled a longer list of my favorites. Some of them are timely and play off current events. We hope you marvel at them as much as we do:”
    The Winner was:
    Can neurosurgeon Ben Carson pin down Republican nomination in 'Sixteen? — Kate Simpson of Kensington, Md.
    The Runners-Up were:
     Almost perfect that first attempt, but it just wasn't right. — Julie Nichols
     Elder pair discover newspaper puzzlemaster eager for their clever answer. — Joseph Tobias
     The compassionate judge gave the contrite juvenile one more chance. — Blaine Deal
     On vacation in Caribbean, sun can turn ashen skin brown. — Paul Koning
     Crazy, pesky country fly may destroy my easy, sleepy tranquility. — Jill Hansen
     Don't forget that fruit tart that got left out overnight. — Ed Pegg
     Frustrated, tired, and overwhelmed, she'd decided Brad had indeed cheated. — Sarah Lipson
     Even stern, stubborn women can soften when open men listen. — Janet Levatin
     Because the crankcase came loose, the engine made excessive noise. — Bob Gookin
     The more we pollute, the more we cause climate change. — Mike Strong
     Isn't it just great that Pitt beat Connecticut last night? — Lloyd Alterman
     Despite the distance, we are close because we have Skype. — Karen Robertson
     Today society may very likely apply crazy "Marty McFly" technology. — Patrick Berry
     Beautiful Chanel model will reveal novel all natural wool apparel. — David Miller
     "Prince George, come here, please!" spoke Kate while Charlotte ate. — John Heydens
     His Holiness Francis wows throngs; millions delirious as Mass concludes. — Rudolph Palmer
     Volkswagen collusion in misbegotten pollution calculation can weaken German reputation. — Anne Kaup-Fett
     [Newspaper headline:] Unbeaten Kenyan Outran American; Won Boston Marathon Again In Rain — Andrew Doucette
     Sanders dismisses Mrs. Clinton's emails, suggests debaters discuss serious issues. — Dave Moran
     Furious Los Angeles Dodgers fans miss fabulous Mets-Cubs Series. — Steve Gilmore
     Mets surpass rivals as hapless Yankees miss this season's Series. — Will Robinson
     Children groan when stern policemen begin crackdown on Halloween fun. — Patrick Berry
     "Titus Andronicus was Shakespeare's opus," says ridiculous student's erroneous thesis. — Noah King
     Miss Manners always answers readers' submissions, whereas Landers fabricates questions. — Jonathan Black
     Funny way they play "Jeopardy!": They may reply only interrogatively. — Patrick Berry
     Before we solve the puzzle challenge, we prepare some coffee. — Steph Merryman
     [Joke entry — greeting the Marx Brothers:] "Hello, Groucho, hello Chico, hello Harpo, hello Gummo, hello Zeppo!" — Steve Baggish
     Please congratulate the one whose creative sentence made the grade. — Matthew Schultz”
    LegoSeeMyCommentsOnTheseResulrsInMyPostBelow,AndFeelFreeToWeighInAlso

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My thoughts on Will Shortz’s “two-week Creative Challenge” given on on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday a fortnight ago:

      1. The real winner was patjberry! Three “Honorable Mention” entries (not “runners-up”) is very impressive. Congrats, pjb! Matthew Schultz’s entry, the last on the list, applies to you threefold!

      2. Although I believe Will’s winning choice – Kate Simpson’s “Can neurosurgeon Ben Carson pin down Republican nomination in 'Sixteen?” is a solid entry, I much prefer the similarly themed entry submitted by veteran Blainesville and Puzzleria! commenter David, which he posted on Blaine’s blog: “Can African-American, non-politician, brain surgeon Ben Carson win Republican nomination?” Congrats to you also, David, for topping the winner, IMO.

      3. I did not expect my entry to win. It read: ”Describe one distinctive attribute those like the sentence here share.” It was my attempt to restate the challenge in a sentence that satisfied the requirements of the challenge. But my best effort yielded a syntactically tortured result. So, no sour grapes here. But either pjb or David shoulda won!

      LegoAhhItFeelsGoodToGetThatOffMyChess…Er,ThatIs,Chest

      Delete
    2. My post that somehow landed below, was SUPPOSED to be a reply here. I can't fathom why it ended up in the wrong spot.

      Delete
  10. Do any of you know if the above entry by "Blaine Deal", is the "Blaine" of Blaine's Puzzle Blog? Just curious.

    ReplyDelete
  11. As far as this week's brain benders go, I need a good hint for the Safer Public In The News. Pretty please?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. clotheslover,
      I’m not sure if there is a Blainesville/Blaine Deal connection. Anyone else out there know?

      SPITNA:
      An 8-letter verb: Maya Rudolph’s mom had a five-octave one.
      A 6-letter plural noun: Mr. Monotonous goes on and on and on…

      EPTASA:
      The 8-letter common noun is associated with “shell” only if it is in the vicinity of Neptune, perhaps?

      LegoOrPerhapsInTheVicinityOfMars,MinglingWithArtilleryShells?

      Delete
    3. Thanks Legolambda! I got the EPTASA. I was working on two possible news stories, and finally(!) figured out the right one. You are anagram wizard!

      Delete
    4. clotheslover,
      Good solving, and thanks for your compliment. Blaine this afternoon revealed on his blog that he indeed is Blaine Deal who, with his better half, composed the great entry: "The compassionate judge gave the contrite juvenile one more chance."

      LegoTheCompassionateBlogAdministratorGaveThePuzzleSolutionBeansSpillerOneMoreChance

      Delete
  12. My congrats, also, to PJB on having THREE sentences in the Honorables! I noticed them immediately when checking the NPR site to see what sentence had won and was suitably impressed!

    And I agree with you, LegoChest, about David's sentence being outstanding; even both halves of both hyphenated words end in 'n's!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Every Picture Tells a Story hint:
    This answer has the same word in it as this week's NPR puzzle answer. Is that TMI?

    Signs and Wonders hint:
    North

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The sound and the furious:
      I'm quite certain I have the right instrument, but a word describing the sound it makes is certainly not easy. I think it was Frank Zappa that said, "writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

      Delete
    2. Not TMI here, clotheslover, but it might be TMI over at Blainesville. But, gosh, this week's NPR puzzle is so scary simple that it probably would not make much difference even over there.

      LegoStill,IWouldNotRiskHavingYourCommentRemovedByTheBlogAdministrator!

      Delete
  14. I'm officially giving up on the morsel and the first appetizer.
    Got the other two appetizers with the help of clotheslover's hints.
    I meant no disparagement to the Middle School musicians with my IPCRESS File link. I hadn't even clicked on the furioso link before posting it. It's just that when I got SOTHS (with the help of lego's 'cow link') I immediately thought of the 3-syllable version of the instrument, and the IF scene soon followed, as did the cover art for a book published about 45 years ago whose title was a trivial variant of a Groucho Marx quote. ('okina) So, if you can figure out the title of that book, then you must know that the removal of a 2-letter syllable (often used to signify hesitation) from the author's surname leaves an adjective which would NEVER be used to describe the sound of the musical instrument in question, although it might be used to describe the sound of some other musical instruments, including human voices (voces humana (or something like that)).

    ReplyDelete
  15. I can't figure out the Morsel either. I've tried so many variables. I think I have the right Proper noun, but correlating it with the name of a late Emmy winning actor is just a mystery.

    Lego left me a great clue above that helped me solve the first appetizer, but getting those 8 anagrams took a very long time to figure out and my answers are probably not the intended word combos.

    I'm giving up on the musical sound. I know the instrument, but the sound is so variable.

    ReplyDelete
  16. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  17. White must move P-g4 and either P-f3 or P-f4, and the order of those moves doesn't matter. Black moves either P-e4 or P-e5 and then checkmates with Q-h4.

    Groucho reportedly said "Military justice is to justice what military music is to music." Robert Sherrill changed "what" to "as" for the title of his 1970 book which (in some printings, at least) featured a cartoon image of a Sousaphone player with puffed-out cheeks. "Moo backwards" led me here, but I'm not quite certain if a tuba player (tubist?) needs energy, vitality, and enthusiasm or a calm meditative state of mind. Clarinets and accordians can be shrill at times.

    Canada's Justin Trudeau
    Candidate / Janus / Taurus


    Hallowe'en asteroid
    A shoreline towel ad

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whoops, Black moves either P-e6 or P-e5. Sorry about that.

      Delete
  18. Whether right or wrong, here's what I came up with:

    Safety in the News:
    REGISTER DRONES
    1. RETROS DESIGNER
    2. DISSENTER ROGER
    3. RENDERS GOITERS/GORIEST RENDERS/TERROR EDGINESS
    4. STRONGER DESIRE
    5. ROGERS RESIDENT
    6. ORNERIEST DREGS
    7. ORDERS INTEGERS
    8. TIGER ENDORSERS

    Every Picture Tells a Story:
    HALLOWEEN ASTEROID
    A SHORELINE TOWEL AD

    Signs and Wonders Appetizer:
    CANADA'S JUSTIN TRUDEAU
    1. CANDIDATE
    2. JANUS
    3. TAURUS
    My hint was "North", because that's where Canada is.

    Sound and the furioso:
    TUBA
    Boom boom?? Bom bom??

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OH! Oomp-ah/Oomph! I never would have gotten that. I was trying for abs or lungs, or breath.

      Delete
  19. This week’s official answers for the record, part 1:

    Morsel Menu

    Emmy Morsel:
    Stormin’ namin’ nounin’ Norman
    Take a proper noun seen in today’s headlines. Take also the professional name (first and last) of a late Emmy-winning actor. Remove the final letter from the proper noun and insert it between the second and third letters of the final three letters of the actor’s name. Remove those four letters from the end of an actor’s name.
    The letters remaining in the proper noun and in what’s left of the the actor’s name, when spoken aloud, sound the same. The four letters removed spell out a word very familiar to people, both late and living, surnamed Norman, Schwarzkopf, Battle, Sutherland, Price, and Farrell.
    Hint: The first names associated with those surnames are not Greg, Norman, Kenny, Donald, David, and James T.
    What is this proper noun and who is this actor?

    Answer: Benghazi; Ben Gazzara
    Benghazi – i = Benghaz
    Ben Gazzara >> Ben Gazz + ar + i + a = Ben Gazz + aria
    Ben Gazz and Benghaz sound very similar when spoken aloud.
    Jessye Norman, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Kathleen Battle, Joan Sutherland, Leontyne Price and Eileen Farrell have sung scores of arias in their days.


    Appetizer Menu

    Safer Public In The News Appetizer:
    Poodle skirts and Woods supporters
    The following clues all have two-word answers that total 14 letters:
    1. Those who fashion poodle skirts and bell-bottom jeans
    2. Nickname of a Puritan named Williams?
    3. What an extreme horror film make-up artist does to faces
    4. Mightier motivation
    5. Roy
    6. Men, according to some
    7. What an elementary school pupil perhaps does on an arithmetic test
    8. Woods supporters
    A public safety news story this past week might put a damper on Black Friday sales of certain items at stores like Toys R Us and Walmart. The story includes:
    An 8-letter verb, and
    A 6-letter plural noun.
    The 14 letters in those two words can be rearranged to form the two words in each of the eight answers above.
    What are the verb and noun in the story? What are the eight answers above?

    Answer:
    Register, Drones
    1. Retro designers
    2. Roger Dissenter
    3. Renders goriest
    4. Stronger desire
    5. Nerdiest Rogers
    6. Sorriest gender
    7. Orders integers
    8. Tiger endorsers

    Every Picture Tells A Story Appetizer:
    Science is golden... ray shows
    A science story from this past week included a nine-letter proper noun and eight-letter common noun.
    The blanks in the phrase below represent a four-word, 17-letter description of the illustration pictured below in this puzzle. The letters in this description can be rearranged to form the letters in the science story words.
    __
    __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
    __ __ __ __ __
    __ __
    Hint:
    The common noun in the science story can be divided to form a two-word description of insulin or Lasix.
    The first three letters of the proper noun in the science story name an Irish band formed a bit more than a decade ago.
    The next three letters name a Minnesotan band formed a bit more than two decades ago.
    The final four letters of the proper noun in the science story name a Pennsylvanian band formed a bit more than three decades ago.
    What are the two words in the science story and the four-word description of the illustration?

    Answer:
    Halloween; asteroid
    “A shoreline towel ad”
    Hint:
    Asteroid = a steroid (like Lasix or insulin)
    Halloween = Hal + Low + Ween

    Lego…

    ReplyDelete
  20. This week’s official answers for the record, part 2:

    Signs And Wonders Appetizer:
    Jesus was a Capricorn... what’s your sign?
    An international news story this past week may have included the following phrase:
    __ __ __ __ __ __’__
    __ __ __ __ __ __
    __ __ __ __ __ __ __

    All three words above are proper nouns. The first is possessive; the others are a man’s name. The letters in those words can be rearranged to form three different words:

    1. A nine-letter noun for what the person was during August, September and almost two-thirds of October.
    2. A five-letter word for a Roman god associated with a certain month; the man would likely prefer not to be associated with this this god because it smacks of duplicity due to being depicted often with an unusual anatomical distinction.
    3. A six-letter word for how the man’s future wife might have responded when he first asked her, “What’s your sign?” (Had she asked him the same question, the man would have answered the same as his younger brother who is still alive.)
    What is the three-word news story phrase? What are the three words they morph into?

    Answer:
    Canada’s Justin Trudeau
    1. Candidate
    2. Janus
    3. Taurus


    MENU

    Specialty Of The House Slice:
    The sound and the furioso
    Name a word for the sound a certain musical instrument makes. Remove one letter to produce an attribute a player of the instrument ought to have.
    What are the sound and the attribute?

    Answer:
    Oompah; oomph
    Oompah – a = oomph

    Lego...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When I think about the word Oomp-ah, I immediately thought of Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory, those odd little Oomp-ah Loompah characters, and that awful earworm they are repeatedly singing.

      Delete
  21. This week’s official answers for the record, part 3:

    Dessert Menu

    Not The Whitest Piece On The Chessboard Dessert:
    Marzipawn fit for a king
    What is the shortest chess game possible? That is, what is the minimum number of moves needed for a checkmate to occur? What are these moves?
    In my answer, Black checkmates White. (White always makes the opening move, of course.) Thus, my answer must be an even number of moves.
    Also, my answer requires that White make a move (or moves) that are not in White’s best interest. In other words, White plays into Black’s hands.

    Answer:
    Black checkmates White on the fourth move of the match. As Paul noted in his comment this week, there are eight scenarios, eight permutations of those four moves that would result in this four-move checkmate. But they all amount to pretty much the same thing -- the gist of all eight is identical:
    In a “chessnutshell,” White uses its two moves to advance the pawn in front of its king’s bishop either one or two spaces, and to advance the pawn in front of its king’s knight two spaces.
    Black uses its first move to advance the pawn in front of its king either one or two spaces. Black’s second move is to advance its queen diagonally four spaces to the easternmost edge of the board (or, to “king’s rook 5”), checkmating White’s cul-de-sacked king!
    Using the “abbreviated algebraic (chess) notation” (which is used on the link provided in my puzzle’s text), the eight four-move solutions to this puzzle are written as:
    1. f3 e6
    2. g4 Qh4#

    1. f3 e5
    2. g4 Qh4#

    1. f4 e6
    2. g4 Qh4#

    1. f4 e5
    2. g4 Qh4#

    1. g4 e6
    2. f4 Qh4#

    1. g4 e5
    2. f4 Qh4#

    Lego…

    1. g4 e6
    2. f3 Qh4#

    1. g4 e5
    2. f3 Qh4#

    http://www.chesscorner.com/tutorial/basic/notation/notate.htm

    Lego…

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  22. Wow! I was certain the Proper noun for Stormin namin Norman was "Patricia", after the Hurricane storm. I would never have gotten Benghazi! Ha!

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  23. Would someone please explain to me where 'Shoreline' comes from for the towel ad? I knew it was Halloween Asteroid, and that "A" and "AD' wer the first and last, but the two middle words were mysteries, and frankly, I am still stumped. Am I just UNABLE to SEE, despite how big I make my screen?

    SPEAKING OF WHICH, for weeks, I have meant to ask you, Lego, is there ANY way to make the COMMENTS (in orange on an orange background) more FIND-able? I can NEVER locate them when looking in a hurry, and often end up in the wrong week! Does the blog format require you to have tiny writing for the Comments title phrase, in a color that is very difficult to even see compared to the background color? Thanks....

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    Replies
    1. The larger image (very hard to see clearly on a mobile device) of the towels is on the sand with the towels next to a sand dollar; and in two of the three smaller images, the towels are on the beach and bank of the river or lake, hence the shoreline.

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    2. Thank you, clotheslover, for mounting a splendid defense arguing that my photo actually depicts "a shoreline towel ad."
      But Violin Teddy makes a splendid point also. Those "shorelines" do not exactly jump out at you!

      LegoTheDefenseRests,ButFitfully.

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    3. Thanks for that, Lego. Even KNOWING CL's explanation re the ad, I still pretty much can NOT see anything shoreline-y. Of course, there being TOWELS was perfectly obvious, and I realize that I should have pulled that word of the remaining letters (knowing "A" and "Ad" already), which might have led me to rearrange those that remained into 'shoreline'......ho hum...if wishes were dolphins, beggar would swim???...or some such thing.

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  24. How did Roy become the "nerdiest Rogers"? I had "resident Rogers" myself. Neither one seems to make much sense, now that I look at them.

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    Replies
    1. patjberry,
      Buck Rogers, Ginger Rogers, Kenny Rogers (both the singer and the pitcher), Will Rogers, Big Bubba Rogers… Roy Rogers.

      The defense rests…

      LegoAndTheOffenseCatchesThemOffGuardWithAnOffTacklePlungeMisdirectionPlayActionFleaFlickerPass

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  25. Everyone to his or her own opinion, I guess.

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  26. Seems a little insulting to the western fans out there, but it wasn't my idea.

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