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Welcome to our
November 18th edition of Puzzleria! This week’s edition ought to be
a pretty big Hoop-di-doo.
That’s Hoop, as
in basketball hoops… or, buckets, B-ball, round ball…
Three of this
week’s puzzles involve basketball, and two involve “do-re-mi…” (which is
fitting because many professional hoops players make lots of “dough-re-mi”)
Our sixth
offering is a Slice Ripping Off Will Shortz’s fortnight-long creative
challenge.
Enjoy the
hoopla.
Hors d’Oeuvre
Menu
Big Game Hors d’Oeuvre:
Sharpshooting
stars
Write one
caption that could be used to describe either of the images pictured here.
Your caption
ought to contain 11 characters – nine letters and two numerals that are not
Roman numerals – plus one hyphen. The two numerals are adjacent to each other
in the caption and form a square number.
Hint: The indoor photo was taken this past April. The outdoor photo was taken this past week.
What is your
caption?
Morsel
Menu
New Orleans
Hornets Aplenty Morsel:
Ramsey,
Lampley, Ewing, Lambert, Rambis
Orlando Magic,
Oklahoma City Thunder, Charlotte Hornets, New Orleans Hornets, New York
Knickerbockers (Knicks), Philadelphia 76ers (Sixers), Seattle Supersonics
(Sonics), San Diego Conquistadors (Q’s), Los Angeles Clippers, Baltimore
Bullets, Boston Celtics, New Orleans Pelicans, Golden State Warriors, Detroit
Pistons, Milwaukee Bucks, St. Louis Hawks, Portland Trailblazers (Blazers), San
Antonio Spurs, Cleveland Cavaliers (Cavs), San Diego Sails, Houston Rockets,
Kansas City Kings, Syracuse Nationals (Nats), Washington Wizards, Phoenix Suns,
Los Angeles Lakers, Sacramento Kings, Indiana Pacers, Miami Heat.
The list above
is a partial list of National Basketball Association (NBA) teams, some of which
no longer exist. A few of the teams listed above were members of the American
Basketball Association, which merged with the NBA in 1976. Some of the teams
are/were sometimes called by a shortened form of their nickname (indicated in
parentheses).
Each cager on the list below played for one or more of the teams listed above. These
cagers are:
Maciei Lampe,
Patrick Ewing, Doron Lamb, Ray Ramsey, Bill Laimbeer, Jim Lampley, Kurt Rambis,
Frank Ramsey, Daniel Ewing, Jeremy Lamb, Jeff Lamp, John Lambert, Peter John
Ramos, Patrick Ewing Jr., Bo Lamar, Sean Lampley, Cal Ramsey.
Take an NBA
team that not a one of the above-listed cagers played for. (It is a team,
therefore, that is not on the first list.) If all of these cagers had played
for that team (and if we used the shortened form of the team’s nickname) we
might have called the players:
_ _ _ _ _
_ _
_ _ _ _ _ _’
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_.
The phrase is a
twist on an idiom that is biblically based. What is the phrase?
Appetizer
Menu
Service,
Company And Product Appetizer:
Mizzou-ri-fa-sol-la-ti-Doh!
Name a Fortune
500 company, in six letters.
Replace its
fifth letter with a different letter to form a product that benefits chaps who
are experiencing a particular misery.
The fourth and
fifth letters of the product form a homophone of one of the names of the notes
on the tonal musical scale: “do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do.”
Replace that
note with the one that follows it on the scale to form the name of a commercial
web-based service with a slogan that would suggest that many clients of the service
hail from Missouri.
This past Monday, November 14th,
a trio of cows were stranded on a small grassy outcrop after a 7.8-magnitude
earthquake in New Zealand. Rescuers dug a pathway for them and the cows ambled
their way to safety upon more settled ground.
A more dramatic rescue, of
course, would have involved a helicopter and a suspended cow harness. A caption
for a photograph (something like the one pictured here) depicting
such a rescue might have read:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
Fill in those 17 blanks with
a rearrangement of the 17 letters in the musical notes of the tonal scale – “do
re mi fa sol la ti do.”
What is your caption?
Ripping Off Shortz Slice:
Switcheroodles!
This week’s NPR Weekend
Edition Sunday Puzzle is a two-week creative challenge presented by
puzzlemaster Will Shortz:
The object is to write a
conundrum or riddle that starts “What is the
difference between ...” — in which the
answer involves a transposition of words.
For example: What is the difference between a chatterbox and a mirror?
Answer:
One speaks without reflecting while the other reflects without speaking. Or:
What is the difference between a lucky criminal and some Saran with a garden
vegetable?
Answer: One beats the rap while the other wraps the beet.
Change of spelling in the words is allowed, but not necessary. Entries will be
judged on their sense, naturalness of wording, humor, elegance and overall
effect. You may submit up to three entries. I will announce my favorites — and
the overall winner — in two weeks.
LegoLambda’s
Ripping/riffing Off Shortz Slice reads:
What is the difference between:
1. ...the title of
Donald Trump’s second favorite book (second only to the Bible, according to Trump),
and the recent auctioning
of Munch’s “Girls on a Bridge” which fetched $54 million at a recent Sotheby’s auction?
2....what grammar
school children in grammar class are often busy doing,
and what Robert
Potter had to do in 1989?
3. ...what you do
so your GMC SUV won’t get stolen,
and what
thieves do to steal your GMC SUV?
4. ...something
your boss might do along with reducing your company health insurance coverage,
and what you
subsequently might not be able to do if you need medical attention?
5. ...what an author
might need to do after returning from a prolonged vacation,
and the
nutritional information on the condiment bottle label on the author’s dinner
table?
6. ...352 for the “End”
at St. Andrew’s in Scotland, and 517 for the “Buffalo” at Jubilee Golf Club in
Australia,
and the entire
amount, everything, as much as possible?
7. ...things in
your wardrobe or closet,
and what might
happen during an aircraft industry slump?
8. ...38 degrees
vis-à-vis 52 degrees,
and to connive
to win another’s praise?
9. ...what you do
when you leave a “dinner bucket” or “build fence posts” at the end of the alley,
and what you’re
watching people do in the image pictured here.
10. ...the title
of an American folk song,
and what
resulted when the hyperopic upholsterer mistook the Thanksgiving bird for an
ottoman?
and the promise
God made to Noah to flood the Earth nevermore?
12. ...1:45,
and the ratio
of bits relative to something with the head of a man and the tail of an eagle?
13. ...a Don Henley
song title,
and the
singular form of a Tracy Chapman song title?
14. ...what a
commuter might do at Grand Central Station,
and what a
corporate CEO might hire Tony Robbins, Suze Orman or Jack Canfield to do?
15. ...a person
with a zero handicap,
and what is
depicted in the picture shown here?
16. ...what Henry
Ellenson (see the Dessert below and the photo at heading of this Slice) does when he is fouled in the act of shooting,
and what a “boy”
ideally does when he is done with his “skydive.”
17. ...the title
of a hit song by Huey Lewis and the News,
and what the
words in that title must overrule in order to achieve peace, according to
Gandhi?
18. ...what you
must do to topple ten pins,
and what you’re
watching lightning do in this video?
Dessert
Menu:
Higher Than
Hoops Dessert:
Seattle
Supersonic Boom @ 1,126 ft/sec!
The National
Basketball Association (NBA), which recently tipped off its new season, boomed
into existence 70 years ago, in 1946, the birth year of the first Baby Boomers.
Over the years,
nearly 4,000 men have played in the NBA. Each wore a numbered jersey. What was
the highest number ever worn by a National Basketball Association (NBA) player,
and who wore it?
Hint: My
intended answer does not appear in any of the images that accompany the text of
this puzzle. That includes the image of the horizontal former Cleveland Cavalier
Matthew Dellavedova, #8… and also the image of Detroit Piston rookie Henry
Ellenson, also #8, who has also been known to dive headlong for loose
basketballs.
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 Wednesdays 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.
Welcome to our
November 11th edition of Puzzleria.
I am still
working on trying to figure out the biggest puzzle of all lately… In the wake
Tuesday’s election I am experiencing flashbacks from 18 years ago, in
Minnesota, and 18 years before that, nationally: 1980, 1998, 2016… I guess
every generation elevates its Bonzos, bone breakers or Bozos via the electoral
process. But that’s not a very satisfying solution.
We feature this
week an appetizing conundrum composed by a legend of puzzletry, Sam Loyd,
author of the “Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles.”
PlannedChaos,
unearthed this timely gem and brought it to our attention. It involves tallying
votes, albeit on a smaller scale that our recent national vote count. It is
titled “Counting On Popular Vote Appetizer: No rigging
aLoyd!” PlannedChaos also contributes a four-pack of puzzles in his Ripping Off Shortz Slice titled “Captions, Clues, Currency and Kryptonite.”
Thanks, PC.
What you need
today is comfort food for the brain.
Spell a musical
instrument backward. The result, given the addition of appropriate spacing and
punctuation, is a musician’s surname and first name’s initial, followed by an
indication of whether he/she is dead or alive, as it might appear on a
document.
(Even though the musician
is not dead yet, the document may be incorrect... Remember Abe Vigoda.)
Spell a synonym
of “marauder” backward. The result, given the addition of appropriate spacing
and punctuation, is the acronym by which an armed European nationalist/separatist
organization is known, followed by an indication of the “death” of the
organization, as it might appear on a tombstone.
(The
nationalist/separatist organization in 2011 announced its cessation of armed
activity, effectively “putting an end to” its marauding status.)
Spell an
obsolete Spanish letter backward. The result, given the addition of appropriate
spacing and punctuation, is a brand-name weight loss drug, followed by an
indication of whether the drug still exists, as it might appear on a document.
(The Food and
Drug Administration has not, as yet, deep-sixed this drug... but again, the document may be wrong.)
Name this
musical instrument and musician, this synonym and organization, and this
obsolete letter and brand-name drug.
Morsel
Menu
Voting
History Morsel:
Alma, Ed,
Gabe and Abel
Alma DeBlog,
while reviewing her personal voting history, notices something curious about
the first letters of the surnames of the last four presidential candidates for
whom she has voted, beginning with the most recent and ending with her choice in the 2004
campaign. Her four letters spell out a word that is a profession.
Alma urges her
neighbor, Ed LaGambol, to do the same. Ed comes up with a word containing five
letters, not four, because in the 2012 election he voted for the Democratic
candidate in Wisconsin, then voted for the Republican candidate in Minnesota. (He
owns residences in both states.) The word Ed spells out is a pejorative term that
one 2016 candidate used to tar another candidate.
Ed challenges
his hunting buddy, Gabe Omdall, to do the same. Gabe alters the rules somewhat,
reviewing the past six presidential elections in which he voted, and using the
first letters of his candidates’ first, not last, names in the 2004 and
2000 elections. Also, Gabe did not vote in the 1976-through-1996 elections
because his residence during those years was in Leavenworth, Kansas. So the
election years from which Gabe’s words are formed, are in order: 2016, 2012,
2008, 2004, 2000 and 1972. The word Gabe spells is a brand name of a product
that a 2016 candidate might keep on his person, along with his tic tacs.
Gabe encourages
his bookie, Abel Magold, to try the challenge. Able also modifies the rules,
using the past six elections, from 2016 to 1996, using four surnames and
two first names. What’s more, for some reason, Abel inserts the initial letter of the first name of his 1992 candidate selection between
his 2004 and 2008 candidate selections. The result spells the name of an implement
associated with a person who was a Civil War veteran, New England insurance and sports executive enshrined in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, and Republican mayor, U.S. senator and governor of his home state. (Interestingly, Abel alternated between Democratic and Republican candidates in his seven presidential votes, beginning in 1992.)
What are the
profession, the pejorative term, the brand-name product, and implement
associated with the New England politician? And, who is the politician?
Appetizer
Menu
Counting On
Popular Vote Appetizer:
No rigging
aLoyd!
The one-L Loyd,
he builds conundrums,
The two-L
Lloyd, he builds condominiums,
And if there is
a three-L Llloyd
We ought
declare him null and void!
At a recent
election, 5,219 votes were cast for four candidates. The victor exceeded his
opponents’ totals by 22, 30 and 73 votes.
Can you give a
simple rule for determining the exact number of votes received by each?
At another
recent election, 125,543,759 votes were cast for four candidates. The victor
exceeded her opponents’ totals by 337,636 votes, 56,172,389 votes and
59,457,124 votes.
Alas, this
victor lost the election... perhaps because they just renamed the Electoral
College. It’s now called Trump University.
MENU
Planned
Chaos Ripping Off Shortz And Stern Slice:
Captions,
Clues, Currency and Kryptonite
This week’s NPR
Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle, created by Ken Stern and presented by
puzzlemaster Will Shortz reads:
Think of a sign
that’s frequently seen around this time of year – two words of four letters
each. Among these eight letters are all five vowels: A, E, I, O and U – appear
once each, along with three consonants. What sign is it?
PlannedChaos’s
Ripping/riffing Off Shortz And Stern Slice reads:
Supply a
caption for each of the two images shown here (one of which might have appeared
on election maps this past week, but did not). Then supply a phrase for the
first clue below, and fill in the blanks in the second clue:
1.Superman,
To Ms. Lane.
2. The ____
currency of the EU is the ____.
Each caption
and each answer to the clues consists of two words of four letters each. Among
these eight letters are all five vowels: A, E, I, O and U (each appearing
once), along with three consonants.
LegoLambda’s
Ripping/riffing Off Shortz And Stern Slice:
A, E, I, O, U (but why not Y?)
Two of the
three segments of this puzzle slice involve the letter “y” in some way.
Supply a
caption for the image shown here. Then supply a phrase for each of the two
clues below:
1. Name a
sitcom character and the first word of what one of his/her caretakers was
called. (The first names of his/her other caretaker and that caretaker’s
coworker end in “y”.
2. Name what
most Americans do in early November, including this past weekend.
The caption and
the answer to the first clue each consists of two words of four letters each.
Among these
eight letters in the answer to the first clue are all five vowels: A, E, I, O,
and U (each appearing once), along with three consonants.
Among these
eight letters in the caption are all six vowels: A, E, I, O, U, and this
time Y (each appearing once), along with two consonants.
The answer to
the second clue each consists of two words: a six-letter verb and four-letter
noun. Among the ten letters in the caption are all five vowels: A, E, I, O, and
U (each appearing once), along with five consonants.
Name a two-word
phrase that is synonymous with a “quick temper.” Say the phrase aloud after
removing the consonant sound that begins the second word. The result describes
phonetic features of the names of two November-of-2016 victors.
Who are the
victors? What is the two-word synonym?
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 Wednesdays 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.
After “shooting
down” our “lame duck” October 28th edition of Puzzleria!, we have
elected to elevate this November 4th candidate to take its place. Our
presumptive “puzzledent-elect” is not lame… nor is it crooked, crazy, goofy… or
tiny-handed.
No, this “duck-de
luxe puzzlefest” is no loser. Indeed, we are confident this week’s edition will
“Make Puzzleria! Great Again!”
Our Enigmocratic Party platform consists of seven planks:
ONE: In an Hors
d’Oeuvre baked up by PlannedChaos, the Donald goes down to Georgia and agrees
to vie with Hillary in a game of darts for all the marbles. (Or is it a game of
marbles for all the darts?)
TWO: A Morsel
co-concocted by LegoLambda and PlannedChaos features names-in-the-news served
up on rebus-platters.
THREE: An Appetizing potpourri of politics poured from a pot simmering on the back-in-time burner.
FOUR: A puzzle Slice
hosted and roasted by Carnac the Magnificent (also known as PlannedChaos), in
which PC invites you in the “studio audience” to hop up on stage, don Carnac’s
turban and divine triple-rhymes.
FIVE: A Rip/riff-Off – composed by PlannedChaos – of this past week’s NPR Sunday puzzle. In PC’s puzzle, a name in the
news morphs into an Oktoberfest order.
SIX: A bonus pair
of NPR puzzle Rip/riff-offs that share a “common denominator” – a passenger in
a vehicle who panders to and seems to appeal to the “lowest common denominator.”
SEVEN: And, for
Dessert, a “video rebus” about a POTUS.
So, no need to
hold your nose and vote. Inhale instead the aroma of mystification... and solve!
We pray you
will decide on the best solution. In any event, enjoy.
Hors d’Oeuvre
Menu
Electing
America’s Chief Hors d’Oeuvre:
Decision
2016 via dartboard
In an
ill-conceived delirium brought on by the nocebo effect of right-wing conspiracy
theories regarding her health, Hillary takes Donald up on his suggestion of
cancelling the election. In its place, she challenges him to a game of “electoral
darts,” in which the candidate that can score exactly 270 points without going
over is the winner.
In a bind and
way behind, Donald’s willing to make a deal. He agrees to her terms, deciding
that he can always blame the equipment if bravado somehow once again proves a
poor substitute for skill. Unbeknownst to him, Hillary has been practicing
darts on and off for two decades on the off chance she might decide one day to be
spontaneous. For extra blasphemy, they use Captain America’s shield as the
target. She hangs the board, and before taking his first shot he declares it
crooked.
The target is
divided as depicted into six concentric regions worth 43, 46, 62, 65, 105 and 108
electoral votes. What areas must be hit so that their sum is exactly 270?
No third-party
candidate was invited to participate in the dissolution of representative
democracy. Reached for comment, a jealous Gary Johnson cited inflated poll
numbers and began to argue that he should have at least been told ahead of
time, but then broke eye contact and gazed at the peeling linoleum of his
moderately priced rental while letting out a dejected sigh. When pressed for
details of his strategy had he been invited, Johnson requested clarification on
what darts are.
Morsel
Menu
Making News
Morsel: Hop aboard
these Access Hollywood Rebuses
This puzzle is a celebration of rebuses (or as I sometimes like to call them, “rebi”). Image #6 is not really a rebus, but what might be called a “spoonerebus.” To solve it, find a two-word phrase that might serve as a caption for the image. The first word is an apostrophized possessive proper noun, and the second word is a common noun. Split the phrase in two parts with the apostrophe as the dividing mark.
Spoonerize the result to form the two-word name for a place where a presidential hopeful might spend a lot of time campaigning. The solutions
to the more conventional rebuses (numbered #0 through #5) are all persons who have recently
been in the news. To solve the rebuses you must name or identify the images in each,
from left to right, and say these words aloud to reveal the name of the person.
For
image #4, you must remove the first letter from the second image and the last
letter from the third image before pronouncing the result. These two letters
can be rearranged to form a famous ratio.
Appetizer Menu
Cabinet-Filling Appetizer: Political
potpourri
#1:
“Blond
Bombshell” blows up “Elvis”!
A
Twentieth-century time traveler wrote that headline. To which year did he
travel and to which candidates did he allude?
#2:
A Rock And Roll
Hall of Famer. A “newsman” who
made news this past August and October.
Interchange the
surnames of these two men to form the names of the major party candidates in a
Twentieth-century presidential election.
(Note: The
first name of one of the major party candidates is one that not many people
have called him, but some have.)
Who are these
four men?
#3:
A man
accused of being a Communist
A man “accused”of being a Buddhist
The accused
Communist was a major party candidate in two Twentieth-century presidential
elections. Interchange the first two letters of his first name to get the
initial word in what people call the accused Buddhist.
#4:
A major
party candidate in a Nineteenth-century presidential election was defeated
politically by a man who roughly a decade earlier had defeated militarily a man
whose full name end-rhymes with the defeated major party candidate name.
Removing an aquatic creature from the middle of the defeated candidate’s
surname forms a word closely associated with the man who was defeated
militarily.
The defeated
candidate died as he was being defeated.
The defeated
military man died two years earlier than the defeated candidate died.
Who are these
three men?
#5:
Rearrange
the letters in the surname of a U.S. president to form a pair of cylindrically
shaped things.
What are they,
and who is the president?
#6:
In the
midst of the Twentieth century, a presidential hopeful garnered about 40
electoral votes. Replace a three-letter noun at the end of his political party
with a two-letter preposition to form a brand-name disposable container of beverages.
The presidential hopeful’s surname consists of two word fragments that might
appear on a calendar.
Who is this
presidential hopeful? What was his party?
He divines the
answer, and you determine the question in the form of rhyming triplets, which
have been hermetically sealed and kept inside a #2 mayonnaise jar since noon
today on Trump and Wagnell’s porch. The great and generous Carnac has donated his
time to provide examples. Sim Salabim:
[Carnacplaces
envelope to temple]
“Harvard
Institute of Politics, Michael Cohen, Chris Christie.”
[Carnacrips open end
of envelope, blows, removes card]
“Name a school,
a fool, and a tool.”
“Martha
Stewart, Bob Dole, Donald Trump.”
“Name a
hodgepodger, an old codger, and a tax dodger.”
“Lester Holt,
Clinton, Trump.”
“Name a
moderator, a debater and an agitator.”
“Space bar,
Oscar Mayer, Paris Hilton.”
Name a blank, a
frank, and a skank.”
Thank you, Oh
Wise One. And now let’s see if you, the humble reader, are blessed with Carnac’s
powers of divination. May we have absolute silence please:
1. Concealed
Carry, the Unabomber, Roosevelt son.
2. Jack Daniels,
Big Bertha, Bubba’s babe.
3. The
Rutherford boy (not “B. Hayes), The Grinch, The Donald.
4. Former PM
Tony, Prince Charles, Charles & Camilla (pre-1996).
5. Julia Louis-Dreyfus
role, Reagan’s 1984 election, Nixon slush fund organization.
6. Wal-Mart,
Iraq, Vice President Al.
7. Pitt, pet
rocks, a hanging, pregnant or dimpled bit.
8. Windex, politician
Anthony, underage sexting.
9. Grenadine,
Bryan Colangelo, Kellyanne Conway.
10. Wrestler
Hulk, 60 Minutes journalist Lara, “Make America Great Again”.
12. Slingback,
targeted IRS tax audits, James Lambert Otis.
13. “Trading
Places” actor Ralph, “Working Girl” actress Griffith, destroying Trump’s Walk
of Fame star.
14. Supermoon,
Julian Assange (at the Ecuadorian embassy), papier-mâché Trump.
15. Air Jordans,
Paul Ryan, Julian Assange.
16. Skewer,
Julian Assange (according to the Clinton campaign), Trump (based on 2005
comments).
17. Lance
Armstrong, Palin (in 1988), Trump (based on 2005 comments).
May the itch of
a thousand jock straps curse your favorite cousin’s locker room!
18. Francis,
Days of Our Lives, Billy Bush (carrying on the family legacy).
19. Former
Australian PM Abbott, viral 2012 criminal Joseph, President Obama (according to
Trump).
20. Goodyear,
Tuck, Trump (according to PolitiFact).
21. Scabbard,
Emma Morano, Frank Luntz.
22. Wisdom
tooth, Truman (on April 25, 1947), Nate Silver.
23. Al Smith
charity dinner, Susan B. Anthony, sexual assault accusers “will be sued after
the election is over.”
24.
Mathematician Leonard, farm worker, Johnson or McMullin.
25. Two-stroke,
an American in a booth on November 8th, Trump (if he wins).
I hold in my
hands the last envelope:
26. Tom’s
Restaurant, Giorgio Armani, Trump (if he loses).
Ripping/riffing
Off Shortz and Gordon Slice:
Achtungberfest,
“Hey you…”
This past week’s NPR
Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle, created by Peter Gordon and presented by
puzzlemaster Will Shortz reads:
Think of a name
in the news that has a doubled letter. It’s a person’s last name. Change that
doubled letter to a different doubled letter, and you’ll get the commercial
name for a popular food. What is it?
PlannedChaos’s
Ripping/riffing Off Shortz And Gordon Slice reads:
Think of a
person in the news, first and last names. Change the first letter of the first
name, and you’ll get a command one might give at Oktoberfest.
Who is this
person and what is the Oktoberfest command?
A Pair Of
Bonus Ripping/riffing Off Shortz And Gordon Slices:
“I’m in
your vehicle, Baby”
PUZZLE #1:
Think of a name in the news this past year that has one letter that appears
consecutively. It’s a person’s first name and last name. Change that
consecutive letter to a different consecutive letter and you’ll get a word for
a vehicle that was the setting of an alleged groping involving a presidential
hopeful, and a word for the target of the groping.
The name in the
news belongs to another presidential hopeful.
Who is this
person whose name was in the news? What are the vehicle and the groping target?
PUZZLE #2:
Think of a name in the news this past year that has one letter that appears
consecutively. It’s a person’s first name. Change that consecutive letter to a
different consecutive letter and you’ll get the second part of a hyphenated
adjective that a presidential hopeful might have used to describe the
extremities of a fellow presidential hopeful.
About a decade
ago, that fellow presidential hopeful was in a vehicle with the person in the
news where the presidential hopeful boasted about his groping strategies.
Note: This
person in the news is a blood relative of the person in the news in PUZZLE #1.
Who is the person in PUZZLE #2 whose name is in the news? What is the hyphenated
adjective?
Dessert
Menu:
Seeking The
Oval Office Dessert:
Getting your
flickers all in a bunch
Think of this puzzle as a “video rebus.” Donald, Evan,
Gary, Hillary and Jill. All seek to be POTUS on the Potomac.
But what POTUS is
suggested by the videos presented here? In the top video, take note of what is happening at the 15, 27 and 40-second marks.
In the bottom video, and in this SALE, this GOAL, and the very beginning of this SWAG video, isolate and concentrate on what is happening to just one of the letters in each video. Who is this POTUS?
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 Wednesdays 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.
Welcome to our
November 18th edition of Puzzleria! This week’s edition ought to be
a pretty big Hoop-di-doo.
Three of this
week’s puzzles involve basketball, and two involve “do-re-mi…” (which is
fitting because many professional hoops players make lots of “dough-re-mi”)
Big Game Hors d’Oeuvre:
Your caption
ought to contain 11 characters – nine letters and two numerals that are not
Roman numerals – plus one hyphen. The two numerals are adjacent to each other
in the caption and form a square number.
Orlando Magic,
Oklahoma City Thunder, Charlotte Hornets, New Orleans Hornets, New York
Knickerbockers (Knicks), Philadelphia 76ers (Sixers), Seattle Supersonics
(Sonics), San Diego Conquistadors (Q’s), Los Angeles Clippers, Baltimore
Bullets, Boston Celtics, New Orleans Pelicans, Golden State Warriors, Detroit
Pistons, Milwaukee Bucks, St. Louis Hawks, Portland Trailblazers (Blazers), San
Antonio Spurs, Cleveland Cavaliers (Cavs), San Diego Sails, Houston Rockets,
Kansas City Kings, Syracuse Nationals (Nats), Washington Wizards, Phoenix Suns,
Los Angeles Lakers, Sacramento Kings, Indiana Pacers, Miami Heat.
The list above
is a partial list of National Basketball Association (NBA) teams, some of which
no longer exist. A few of the teams listed above were members of the American
Basketball Association, which merged with the NBA in 1976. Some of the teams
are/were sometimes called by a shortened form of their nickname (indicated in
parentheses).
Maciei Lampe,
Patrick Ewing, Doron Lamb, Ray Ramsey, Bill Laimbeer, Jim Lampley, Kurt Rambis,
Frank Ramsey, Daniel Ewing, Jeremy Lamb, Jeff Lamp, John Lambert, Peter John
Ramos, Patrick Ewing Jr., Bo Lamar, Sean Lampley, Cal Ramsey.
_ _ _ _ _
Name a Fortune
500 company, in six letters. 
A more dramatic rescue, of
course, would have involved a helicopter and a suspended cow harness. A caption
for a photograph (something like the one pictured here) depicting
such a rescue might have read:
Ripping Off Shortz Slice:
Answer:
One speaks without reflecting while the other reflects without speaking. Or:
What is the difference between a lucky criminal and some Saran with a garden
vegetable? 
LegoLambda’s
Ripping/riffing Off Shortz Slice reads:
5. ...what an author
might need to do after returning from a prolonged vacation,
and what you’re
watching people do in the image pictured here.
15. ...a person
with a zero handicap,
Over the years,
nearly 4,000 men have played in the NBA. Each wore a numbered jersey. What was
the highest number ever worn by a National Basketball Association (NBA) player,
and who wore it?
Hint: My
intended answer does not appear in any of the images that accompany the text of
this puzzle. That includes the image of the horizontal former Cleveland Cavalier
Matthew Dellavedova, #8… and also the image of Detroit Piston rookie Henry
Ellenson, also #8, who has also been known to dive headlong for loose
basketballs.
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.)
Welcome to our
November 11th edition of Puzzleria.
We feature this
week an appetizing conundrum composed by a legend of puzzletry, Sam Loyd,
author of the “Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles.”
What’s Up Document Hors d’Oeuvre:
Spell a synonym
of “marauder” backward. The result, given the addition of appropriate spacing
and punctuation, is the acronym by which an armed European nationalist/separatist
organization is known, followed by an indication of the “death” of the
organization, as it might appear on a tombstone.
Voting
History Morsel:
Ed challenges
his hunting buddy, Gabe Omdall, to do the same. Gabe alters the rules somewhat,
reviewing the past six presidential elections in which he voted, and using the
first letters of his candidates’ first, not last, names in the 2004 and
2000 elections. Also, Gabe did not vote in the 1976-through-1996 elections
because his residence during those years was in Leavenworth, Kansas. So the
election years from which Gabe’s words are formed, are in order: 2016, 2012,
2008, 2004, 2000 and 1972. The word Gabe spells is a brand name of a product
that a 2016 candidate might keep on his person, along with his tic tacs.
Counting On
Popular Vote Appetizer:
At a recent
election, 5,219 votes were cast for four candidates. The victor exceeded his
opponents’ totals by 22, 30 and 73 votes.
Can you give a
simple rule for determining the exact number of votes received by each?
Planned
Chaos Ripping Off Shortz And Stern Slice:
Supply a
caption for each of the two images shown here (one of which might have appeared
on election maps this past week, but did not). Then supply a phrase for the
first clue below, and fill in the blanks in the second clue:
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.)
No, this “duck-de
luxe puzzlefest” is no loser. Indeed, we are confident this week’s edition will
“Make Puzzleria! Great Again!” 
TWO: A Morsel
co-concocted by LegoLambda and PlannedChaos features names-in-the-news served
up on rebus-platters.
FIVE: A Rip/riff-Off – composed by PlannedChaos – of this past week’s NPR Sunday puzzle. In PC’s puzzle, a name in the
news morphs into an Oktoberfest order.
In a bind and
way behind, Donald’s willing to make a deal. He agrees to her terms, deciding
that he can always blame the equipment if bravado somehow once again proves a
poor substitute for skill. Unbeknownst to him, Hillary has been practicing
darts on and off for two decades on the off chance she might decide one day to be
spontaneous. For extra blasphemy, they use Captain America’s shield as the
target. She hangs the board, and before taking his first shot he declares it
crooked.
No third-party
candidate was invited to participate in the dissolution of representative
democracy. Reached for comment, a jealous Gary Johnson cited inflated poll
numbers and began to argue that he should have at least been told ahead of
time, but then broke eye contact and gazed at the peeling linoleum of his
moderately priced rental while letting out a dejected sigh. When pressed for
details of his strategy had he been invited, Johnson requested clarification on
what darts are.
The solutions
to the more conventional rebuses (numbered #0 through #5) are all persons who have recently
been in the news. To solve the rebuses you must name or identify the images in each,
from left to right, and say these words aloud to reveal the name of the person.
“Blond
Bombshell” blows up “Elvis”!
#5: 
Sim Salabim Slice:
“Name a
hodgepodger, an old codger, and a tax dodger.”
2. Jack Daniels,
Big Bertha, Bubba’s babe.
8. Windex, politician
Anthony, underage sexting.
14. Supermoon,
Julian Assange (at the Ecuadorian embassy), papier-mâché Trump.
18. Francis,
Days of Our Lives, Billy Bush (carrying on the family legacy).
24.
Mathematician Leonard, farm worker, Johnson or McMullin.
This past week’s NPR
Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle, created by Peter Gordon and presented by
puzzlemaster Will Shortz reads:
PUZZLE #2:
Think of a name in the news this past year that has one letter that appears
consecutively. It’s a person’s first name. Change that consecutive letter to a
different consecutive letter and you’ll get the second part of a hyphenated
adjective that a presidential hopeful might have used to describe the
extremities of a fellow presidential hopeful.
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.)
