Tin Can Alley; Two boys in the city; Silence is silver, Oscar is golden; Siskel vs. Ebert: Opposable digits; Scrabbling across the stage; Where’s Waldo? Getting Hamburgers at the grocery; Dumbos and asses and other critters, oh my!; Green and Goldilocks…

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER e^{5 +} pi³ SERVED

Welcome to our February 26^th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

We are graced this week with not one but two challenging puzzles created by Mark Scott of Seattle, also known by his screen name, skydiveboy. One is an appetizer titled “Two boys in the city,” and the other is a main menu slice titled “Tin Can Alley.” It takes wit and imagination to solve these puzzles… That’s because it took wit and imagination to create these puzzles. Thank you, Mark.

Because the political campaigns are bubbling over like uncorked champagne, we are offering a “Character Assassin Morsel” dealing with a dirty trick. But, don’t worry, it’s not too tricky.

 

Because Will Shortz purveyed a praiseworthy yet “piggybackable” puzzle on NPR this past Sunday, we’ve come up with a pair of Ripping Off Shortz Slices. They riff off pronunciation of the letter G.

And, because the Oscars, are being presented on Sunday, we are presenting a scarfable trio of cinematic sticklers: an appetizer titled “Silence is silver, Oscar is golden,” and two desserts, “Scrabbling across the stage” and “Siskel vs. Ebert: Opposable digits.”

Puzzleria! may not win any Academy Awards for Best Puzzle Production or Best Title Writing. But that’s okay, we don’t wish to be an Oscar winner. We just wish to be an Oscar Mayer wiener consumer at our local picture show or puzzle parlor.

 

So kick back with us, won’t you, fortified with a fat arsenal of concessions swag –  frankfurters, popcorn, Raisinets, Goobers, Milk Duds, Junior Mints and 32-ounce orange soda – and nibble on some primo puzzles as you witness oodles of Oscars being handed over, hugged and hoisted.   

Morsel Menu

 

Character Assassination Morsel:

Dumbos and asses and other critters, oh my!

An elephant is the symbol of the Republican Party. A donkey is the symbol of the Democratic Party. Think of a four-legged critter that would also make a nifty political symbol – one that weighs more than a donkey but less than an elephant.

Remove from the critter two letters. These are the letters that the main opposition party to Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party was known as, for short, from 1975 to 1995. Remove any spaces from that result to form another word for a “blunder” – one, for example, like the dirty trick that was perpetrated (via retweeting) on the campaign trail this past week. It resulted in a “resignation.”

What is the critter, the opposition party to the DFL, and the synonym for the blunder?

Hint: The perpetrator opted to RELY on a TRICK.

Hint: The critter and synonym for blunder have something in common with this week’s first dessert, “Scrabbling across the stage.”  

Appetizer Menu

North American Municipal Appetizer:

Two boys in the city

Think of a well-known North American city whose name is made up of two boys’ names one after the other, without any rearranging or phonetic tricks.

What is this city?

Radio Reprisal Appetizer:

Silence is silver, Oscar is golden

Name a best-actress Oscar nominee for a movie that was a remake of a silent movie seen on the silver screen ten years earlier. Change her first name to a man’s first name that rhymes with her first name. Remove the space between that man’s name and her surname.

 

The last three letters of the result are a shortened form of a man’s six-letter first name. The remaining letters of the result form the name of a body part.

A man with that six-letter first name is a best-actor Oscar winner who had the lead male role in the silent version of the movie. He and the actress – nineteen years after the silent movie – reprised their movie roles in a radio production of the story.

What is the title of this movie? Name the body part. Who are these two thespians?

 

MENU

Please Recycle Slice:

Tin Can Alley

If I had a dollar for every time I heard the idiom “kick the can down the road,” especially by Barack Obama during his presidency, I would be taking a long European vacation. So this got me to thinking, where exactly do all these cans end up? And what road do they take to get there? Both answers are homophones.

Here’s a hint. It is a long way from Washington, D.C.

Ripping Off Shortz Slices:

This week’s NPR Sunday puzzle from Will Shortz reads:

Think of three eight-letter words that are identical in spelling except for the fourth letter. Each word contains a G that is pronounced differently in all three words. What words are they?

(Charles gave a great clue to this puzzle over on Blaine’s blog. He wrote, “All three words are movie titles.”)

Using Will’s challenging puzzle as a springboard, here are a few “rip-off/riff-off/“piggyback” puzzles:

Green and Goldilocks…

 

Think of three seven-letter words that are identical in spelling except for the third letter. Each word contains a G that is pronounced differently in all three words. What words are they?

I have two solutions in mind. All six words in those two solutions share the same final four letters. The six words fit into the six blanks in the following vignette:

All summer long, Buck and Bo, the Birlmeister brothers, and their buddy Bud Bunker had been _______ to do some deer hunting, so when the season opened in November they drove north to their cabin at an abandoned ______ camp which had provided ______ for them since they were kids hunting with their dads. As they approached their cabin – with visions of ______ that elusive ten-point buck square-dancing in their heads – Bo detected wisps of smoke curling from the chimney. Bo and Bud loaded their rifles and aimed at the front door, covering Buck as he gingerly slipped the key into the lock and began turning…

 

The key would not budge! Whoever was inside had changed the locks, the men realized. “Gol Darn Locks,” Bo uttered beneath his breath, as Bud began ______ on the door. No response. The men stepped back, took a breath and nodded in unison, tacitly acknowledging their next step: taking a run at the door and ______ in!

So, they donned their Green Bay Packer uniforms and like helmeted, shoulder-padded defensive ends and linebackers rushing a quarterback, the burly trio rushed the door, knocked it off its hinges and were greeted by…

The Three Bears! (wearing Chicago Bears uniforms, pads and helmets).

Hint: Let’s assume you have discovered both of my intended solutions. If this puzzle would have asked for “three eight-letter words…” instead of “three “seven-letter words…,” you would still have two correct solutions simply by adding an “s” to the end of your three words in each solution.

Where’s Waldo? Getting Hamburgers at the grocery

Think of three six-letter words that are identical in spelling except for the third letter. Each word contains a G that is pronounced differently in all three words.

Here are clues for the three words:

1. Resident of Peru, Montana, Wyoming, Vermont, Scandinavia, Moscow, Montreal, Bern, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Krakow, Juda, Ithaca, Dallas, Charleston or Atlanta, for example, or of Waldo (Where’s that?)

2. To a resident of Birmingham, Lincoln, Worchester, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Newport or Norwich, something you eat, drive or light a match to

3. Grocery store employee

What are these three words?

Dessert Menu

Double Letter (But Not Double Letter Score!) Dessert:

Scrabbling across the stage

Name something seen often on stage during presentation of the Oscars. It is a nine-letter word with a Scrabble value of nine points. It is also a word with one set of double letters (two consecutive letters that are the same).

In between that pair of double letters insert a different letter, thereby more-than-doubling the word’s Scrabble value.

Replace the double letter on the left with the letter preceding it in the alphabet. Replace the double letter on the right with the letter following it in the alphabet. The result is an adjective (with a Scrabble value of 19) describing many of the people seen on stage during presentation of the Oscars.

What is the nine-letter word? What is the adjective?

Extra credit: A word that appears in the title of this puzzle and a word that appears twice in the body of this puzzle are anagrams of each other. What are these words?

Note: For the purposes of this puzzle, use Puzzleria!’s Closed-loop circular seamless alphabet (see illustration).    

Multiple Oscar Dessert:

Siskel vs. Ebert: Opposable digits

In a movie that won multiple Oscars – and most likely would have received a “thumbs-up” from Siskel and Ebert – a couple of characters engage in an outdoor endeavor which is a two-syllable compound verb.

In the course of the endeavor one half of the couple proceeds to do something to an article of his/her clothing. Both halves of the two-syllable compound verb are synonymous verbs (each usually followed by “up”) that describe what she/he proceeds to do to the article of clothing. This action leads to success in the endeavor.

What is the title of the movie? What is the two-syllable compound verb? What does the character do to her/his article of clothing (provide both verbs), and what is the article of clothing?

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.

Don’t hold the mayo, fold it in; Every picture contradicts a story; "Circular? Hmm… Is pi involved?" The butcher, the baker, the beverage maker; “17 P in this IIIS” Record-maker, record-breaker; Drinking from Italy’s boot; Disagree to agree

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER e^{5 +} pi³ SERVED

Welcome to our February 19^th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

We thank ron this week for submitting a handful of puzzles dealing with integers, initials and induction (we might call them “Three-i’s puzzles”) in which you are asked to determine what the letters stand for. 

For example, if you are given “7 D in a W,” you might induce that “7 Days in a Week” is the answer.

Such integer-initial puzzles can be surprisingly tricky and addictive. I “piggybacked” a handful of my own beneath ron’s offerings, as a kind of an “internal rip-off and riff-off.” ron and I both encourage other Puzzlerians! to create a handful and share them with us in the comments section. 

ron’s puzzle, titled “Integer Initial Induction Slice: 17 P in this IIIS,” appears under our main MENU. Thanks again, ron.

Also on the menu this week are a “name’s the same” morsel; a somewhat timely campaign ad appetizer; four Ripping Off Shortz Slices; and a very timely Blue And Red Dessert which involves a couple of couplets.

So, sit back and enjoy a cup of joe or hot chocolate as you nibble on this week’s slices, morsel, appetizer and dessert.

Morsel Menu

 

One Nametag Fits All Morsel:

Record-maker, record-breaker

A Grammy Award winning musician and a deceased major league baseball player have the same first and last names. The ballplayer’s nickname, however, includes an adjective that does not at all reflect the depiction of the musician on his debut album cover.

The ballplayer was not a bust in the majors. Indeed, some think he might have been one of the best to play the game. If the ballplayer had played and excelled in the National Football League in the same manner in which he excelled in Major League Baseball, he likely would have been “busted” in Canton, Ohio. As it turned out he was “busted” instead in a different state that also begins with a vowel.

What name do this ballplayer and musician share?

Appetizer Menu

Campaign Ad Appetizer:

Every picture contradicts a story

A deaf person watching the beginning of a campaign video released this past week might have thought it was produced on behalf of Ted Cruz. A blind person listening to the beginning of the same campaign video released this past week might have thought it was produced on behalf of Ronald Reagan. It was produced on behalf of neither, however, but of a different candidate.

Here is a synopsis of the beginning of the campaign video:

Nice intro narration, sham imaging.

Rearrange the 29 letters in that synopsis to form an alternative introductory sentence to the video. This alternative is identical to the actual five-word intro to the video except that it contains an extra word. The advantage of adding that added word is that it would reconcile the wording of the intro with its simultaneous opening imaging, thereby rendering the imaging no longer “sham.”

 

The numbers of words in the revised intro are, in order, 3, 7, 5, 2, 5 and 7 letters.

What is this new intro that you have come up with? Why was the imaging “sham”? On whose behalf was the video made?

Why would a deaf person think the campaign video was a Ted Cruz spot? Why would a blind person think the campaign video was a Ronald Reagan spot? 

MENU

Integer Initial Induction Slice:

“17 P in this IIIS”

The answer to the first of the “integer and initial” puzzles shown below is “24 Hours in a Day.” Complete the rest.

24 H in a D

5 V in the E A

8 L on a S

1,000 W that a P is W

13 S on the A F

14 L in a S

90 D in a R A

9 L of a C

Lego’s ripping-off-ron Piggybacks:

1 B A that S the W B

>1 W to S a C

2 P in a P

3 O in an I

4 H of the A

5 T on a F

7 D, D S, or D in a W

13 D in a B D

15 M on a D M C (Y H H and a B of R)

Note: ron and Lego invite you to submit your “integer and initial” piggyback puzzle(s) in the comments section.

Ripping Off Shortz Slices:

This week’s NPR Sunday puzzle from Will Shortz reads:

Name something to eat. Change one letter in it and rearrange the result. You’ll name the person who makes this food. Who is it?

Here are a few “rip-off/riff-off/“piggyback” puzzles:

The butcher, the baker, the beverage maker

Name a person who makes a beverage. Change no letters and do no rearranging, but remove two letters from the word. You’ll name the beverage the person makes.

What is the beverage? Who is the person who makes it?

Drinking from Italy’s boot

Rearrange the letters in the name of something to drink. You’ll name the profession of the person who makes this beverage and his first name.

What is this beverage and who makes it? What is his first name?

Hint: There are actually at least two beverage-makers with this first name. One is a real person from the Pacific Northwest; the other is a character in a limerick.

Hint: The beverage is associated with Italy.

“Circular? Hmm… Is pi involved?”

Name something with a circular shape. Replace two adjacent letters with two other adjacent letters, but do no rearranging. You’ll name where the thing is made.

What is it? Where is it made?

Hint: The adjacent letters you replaced each have a numerical value, as do the two adjacent letters with which you replaced them. The difference between the sum of the replacement letters and the sum of replaced letters is 898.28171817154…

Don’t hold the mayo, fold it in

Name the plural form of something to eat in three words of 7, 4 and 6 letters. Change one letter in this edible thing and rearrange the result. You’ll name a reasonably well-known person – first and last names – who makes this food.

Who is it? What is the food?

Hint: I am not 100 percent sure that this person actually makes this food, but it is possible. The person is a health-conscious food maker who is a world traveler who may well have visited Lagos or Abuja, sampled the restaurant fare there, and studied the menus for ideas and inspiration. Ingredients in the food include carrots, lettuce, cabbage, peas, tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, eggs and, most important, baked beans and mayonnaise.

Dessert Menu

Blue And Red Dessert:

Disagree to agree

This past week a presidential candidate and a world leader disagreed publicly about a controversial policy proposal. About 13 years earlier the same future presidential candidate did not disagree (according to him, but not to BuzzFeed) with one of this world leader’s predecessors about a controversial policy proposal.

Rearrange the 20 blue letters in the first couplet below to form the surname of the candidate, the name of the world leader’s predecessor, and a two-word term for the past policy proposal.

Rearrange the 22 red letters in the second couplet below to form the surname of the candidate, the name of the world leader and a two-word term for the recent policy proposal. 

While the path of a pawn sometimes leads to promotion,

Drinking rum from a liquor jar thwarts locomotion.

“Let’s Roll Tide!” shouts a Crimson fan, LOUD, so he’s heard,

Clemson “Cats” mew and purr, like they’re stalking a bird.

Who are the candidate and two word leaders, and what are the two policy proposals?

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.

Valentine ear candy; Papa Razzi’s delivers; Hearts and Mayflowers; An eponymy appliance; Rue the date; “I’ll take Paul Lynde to block!” Prime-ordinal soup; Beastie altar boys; Duelin’ with the devil; Third time’s a charm, quatrieme fois est viral; Oh say, can you ceaselessly headbang?

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER e^{5 +} pi³ SERVED

Welcome to our February 12^th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

Like Cupid with his bow and Eros, we shall be shooting a quiverful of high quality quizzicals your way this week. The sharpest arrow in our quiver is an amazing challenge created by patjberry, a creative and prolific puzzle maker and Puzzlerian! His puzzle, which appears directly beneath our main MENU heading, is titled “Classic Rock Slice: Valentine ear candy.” Thank you, Patrick, for once more hitting the bull’s eye of beautiful, bountiful bafflement… and for being generous in sharing the upshot with us.

Other darts we hope will hit the target this week are a brand-name morsel; a gated estate appetizer; a household wordplay dessert; and seven (count ‘em, seven!) “piggyback” puzzles ripping off Will Shortz’s fine “first-second-third” Sunday puzzle.

So, pull a pencil and paper (and a box of chocolates) from your quiver, draw back your bow, and have a fun and fine ol’ “Valentime” taking aim at our puzzles.

Morsel Menu

Corporate Morsel:

Hearts and Mayflowers

Name an American corporation and brand founded more than a century ago. Spell it backward and divide it into two equal parts.

The first part is a slang term associated with a particular St. Valentine’s Day. The second part is a food often associated with Thanksgiving Day.

What are this brand, slang term and food?

Appetizer Menu

Gated Estate Appetizer:

Papa Razzi’s delivers

Now that I live in a mansion on a gated estate, I own three dogs – a Chihuahua, Pekingese and Toy Fox Terrier. When I lived in a one-room flat, I owned a Great Dane, Irish Wolfhound and Leonberger. I guess that means I possess a haphazard pet-size sense. But I do have a canny (or should that be “uncanny”)  housekeeping sense. Whenever I notice my dogs beginning to shed, I leash them up, don my Lugano Diamonds Sunshades, and venture outdoors. I try to shed the paparazzi if I sense their presence, but if they do manage to snap an “unselfie” of me, I zap a phased hertz pulsation in the vicinity of their cameras’ digital image sensors with my taser gun.

 

Embedded in the paragraph above are three strings if 16 consecutive letters. Each string contains the same sixteen letters. Thus you can rearrange the letters in any one of those strings to form a product (singular form) that certain businesses will be delivering plenty of this weekend.

What is this product? Fill in the blanks:

__ __ __ __ __ - __ __ __ __ __ __

__ __ __ __ __

MENU

Classic Rock Slice:

Valentine ear candy

Take a compound word that begins with a “D” that you might see on one of those little Valentine candies with messages on them. It was the first word in a mid-1970’s debut album title by a mixed-gender rock group.

Another group released a mid-1970’s self-titled debut album with a compound word as its final word. The singular form of that word also might appear on one of those little Valentine candies. The name of this group begins with the name of its lead singer (like Dion and the Belmonts, for example).

The first part of that second compound word is the name of the first group. The second part of the singular form of the compound word is a word spoken by many people who partook in a 1970’s-era fad, including the solo performer of a hit novelty song recorded in 1975.

Four letters in the final word of the second group’s name can be rearranged to spell the title of a mid-1970’s rock ballad by a third group known for its hard rock songs as well as for its members’ unusual appearance. The group’s name is one you would definitely see on one of those little Valentine candies. The lead singer of the ballad, whose stage surname rhymes with the name of the group, doesn’t seem to be playing his instrument during the song.

Remove the last letter from the ballad’s title and place the remaining letters to the right of the subject of a 1974 novelty song about another 1970’s-era fad. A decade later, this third rock group would do something akin to this fad – something that altered their appearance but not as radically as partaking in the actual fad would have.

Switch the first letter of the ballad’s truncated title with the first four letters of the 1974 novelty song’s subject word to form the two-word title of a late-1970’s hit song by a popular solo artist. The title is a famous location from literature, although the characters usually found there are never referenced in the song.

The title of this artist’s debut solo album, which was released in 1971, suggests what one might say to a confectioner who sold the aforementioned Valentine candies bearing messages such as, say, “I loathe you” or “You make me sick” instead of sweet messages such as “Be mine” or “Miss you.”

 

Name all these 1970’s rock artists and all their song or album titles.

Hint: The last six letters of the 1974 novelty song’s subject are the same as the last six letters of the word spoken in the 1975 novelty song.

Hint: In the 1974 novelty song the name of a woman is mentioned several times. The first three letters of that name are the last three letters of the rock ballad’s title.  

Ripping Off Herman And Shortz Slices:

Prime-ordinal soup

This week’s NPR Sunday puzzle from Will Shortz was submitted by Jon Herman. It reads:

If PAJAMA represents first and REBUKE represents second, what nine-letter word can represent third?

(You can find the answer here.)

I have created seven “piggyback” puzzles that “rip-off” (or “riff-off”) this NPR challenge: 

# ONE:

If FECUND represents first and SURD represents second, what six-letter word can represent third?

The other six puzzles:

# TWO

Beastie altar boys

If PRIEST represents first and BEAST represents second, what six-letter word must represent third?

# THREE

“I’ll take Paul Lynde to block!”

A baby girl is born on December 31^st, born shy by just seconds of not qualifying as an income tax deduction. Her parents name her Ginger. 

As an adult, her gig as a football photojournalist requires Ginger to master a basic principle of photographic composition – one in which photographers break down any image into horizontal and vertical thirds. So, whenever Ginger focused on the subjects of her photos, she saw them not as helmeted “gladiators” but as X’s and O’s on a diagram with an imaginary tic-tac-toe grid superimposed. Her goal was to frame the focus of her composition into the “center square,” as if it were Paul Lynde!

Explain how words of the same color in the paragraphs above are related. Can you identify another two-word piece of text that could be printed in red letters? 

(Hint: the other two-word piece is adjacent to already existing red text.)

# FOUR

Third time’s a charm, quatrieme fois est viral

If JALOPY represents first, REBUKE represents second, and CIRCUS represents third, what six-letter word can represent fourth?

There are a few handfuls of possible correct answers to that question, but we are seeking only words that begin with an “N.” There are two possibilities. One is an adjective, the other is an adverb.

# FIVE

Duelin’ with the devil

Place the three phrases below in the correct order – first, second and third:

1. Although he is not human, the devil errs, and idler revs are his workshop.

2. Luigi departed the all-you-can-eat-and-drink Italian buffet, wove as he drove, got stopped by a cop, took a breathalyzer test, and blew only zero because of his new orzo belly.

3. If you get locked in a blog duel with competing puzzle blogs, the worst thing you can do is go be dull, for the next sound you may hear is that of an old bugle playing “Taps.”

Hint: “Babel” and “Nimrod” are random bible words.

Hint: There is a pair of compatible and matching anagramatic clues in each of the three sentences and in the above hint.

# SIX

Rue the date

If February is first but not ninth, rank the following words as first, second and third:

Bionic, empty, eczema

Hint: Are you there? Ranking the three words is easier if you are there, if you are present, if you are hanging around. And, if you close your anemic eye.

# SEVEN

Oh say, can you ceaselessly headbang?

“A rock anthem can inflame youths.”

Rank the colored words in the statement above – first, second and third.

Dessert Menu

Household Wordplay Dessert:

An eponymy appliance

Name an appliance found in many households. Take a verb for an undesirable thing the appliance might do during its operation. Divide the verb in two and place the first half at the beginning of the appliance and the second half at the end of the appliance.

The first five letters of this result, reading from left to right, spell a unit of measurement associated with the operation of the appliance. The last five letters reading from left to right spell an internal part of the appliance.

Replace one letter with a different letter in the surname of the pioneering eponymous inventor (after whom the unit of measurement is named) to form a word that might be used to advertise a particular capability of the appliance.

Hint: If you assign each letter of the alphabetic a numerical value from 1 to 26 (A = 1, B = 2, C = 3,… Z = 26), the sum of the letter and its replacement is 27.

What is this appliance? 
What is the unit of measurement associated with the appliance?
What is the internal part of the appliance? 
What is the “undesirable thing the appliance might do?” 
What is the word possibly used to advertise the appliance?
Who is the pioneering eponymous inventor?  

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.