Friday, May 19, 2017

Mixed Baggish; The pit and the Phnom Penh Dublin; Raiders of the “lost” parked; Big Apple Panhandle;

P! SLICES: OVER (76 + 543) SERVED
  
Welcome to our May 19th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

We are serving up eleven puzzles this week, including eight Rip/Riff-offs of Will Shortz’s “Cheerios in the morning/soiree in the evening” NPR puzzle created by Steve Baggish.
 
Also on our menus are:
A world capital Hors d’Oeuvre that is really the pits,
An Appetizer that is a bit shady, and
A Dessert that takes place right here in Ben Bailey’s taxi.

Note: I am scheduled to play the on-air puzzle with Puzzlemaster Will Shortz and Lourdes Lulu Garcia-Navarro this May 21 on National Public Radios Weekend Edition Sunday program.

I pray that I will be able to relax and enjoy Wills on-air puzzles as I tax my brain to achieve decipheration.


In the meantime, please relax and enjoy our puzzles as you taxi toward your destination. 

Hors d’Oeuvre Menu

Lug Nuts? Dire Wolf Bones? Butterflies? Hors d’Oeuvre:
The pit and the Phnom Penh Dublin
 
An English translation of a world capital rhymes with a two-syllable plural word for what you might find in a pit.

What is the capital and what might you find in the pit?

Hint: The capital is a city, not “capital” in the monetary sense. The capital, therefore, is not yen, euro,  franc or kroner, for example.


Appetizer Menu

Remade In The Shade Appetizer:
Raiders of the “lost” parked

Name an 8-letter 2-word slang term for a shady location where hot cars are often parked. 

Remove one letter to form a 7-letter 2-word slang term for the location that is the base for public employees who are often in hot pursuit of those hot cars, and who sometimes raid and shut down such shady locations.

What are these two slang terms?


MENU 

Ripping Off Shortz And Baggish Slices:
Mixed Baggish

Will Shortz’s May 14th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, composed by Steve Baggish, reads:
Take the brand name of a product that’s usually consumed in the morning. Drop the first two letters and read the remaining letters backward. You’ll get a word associated with the evening. What is the brand, and what’s the word?

Puzzleria’s Riffing/Ripping Off Shortz And Baggish Slices read:
ONE:
Take the brand name of a product (not a breakfast cereal) that’s usually consumed in the morning. Replace the first four letters with a prefix meaning “anew” or “again” and read the resulting letters backward. You’ll get a word associated with geometry. What is the brand, and what’s the word?

TWO:
Take the brand name of a product that’s sometimes consumed in the morning (after an evening of binge beer drinking) as a “hair-of-the-dog” hangover cure. Replace the first letter with a letter possessing a much higher Scrabble value and read the resulting letters backward. You’ll get a name associated with puzzles and with a sport that is a competition in the Olympic games.
What is the brand, and what’s the name associated with puzzles?

THREE:
Take the brand name of a product that’s usually consumed in the morning. Interchange the first and fourth letters. You’ll get a word for athletes whose performance may be enhanced by consuming the product, according to a 2015 Auburn University study.
What is the brand, and who are these athletes?

FOUR:
Take the brand name of a product that’s usually consumed in the morning – and presumably consumed during the past year-or-so by Penguins, Cavs, Cubs, Pats, Tar Heels….
Replace the third letter with an “s” and drop the first two letters. Rearrange the six letters of this result to get a word associated with the afternoon.
What is the brand, and what’s the word?


FIVE:
Take the brand name of a product that’s usually consumed in the morning. Drop the last four letters and read the remaining letters backward.
You’ll get:
Willie Horton’s main position on defense, for short;
The city he and Al Kaline most often played in, for short;
What Willie and Al did 2,333 times, for short;
Al’s main position on defense, for short.

What is the brand? What are the short forms of Horton’s position, the city, what Willie and Al did 2,333 times, and Al’s position?

SIX:
Take the brand name of a product that’s usually consumed in the morning, usually by kids. Spell it out, replacing the Roman numeral in the name with its spelled-out number to form a six-letter string.
Spell the brand name backward, replacing the Roman numeral in the result with its spelled-out number to form an eight-letter string.
Rearrange the 14 letters in the two letter-strings to form the three words to complete the following paragraph:
“For about 320 days out of the year, Elsie, a lapsed Catholic, skips Mass, blows off confession, and performs no corporal works of mercy whatsoever. However, every year, sometime after Groundhog Day, Elsie becomes a model Catholic – volunteering at the soup kitchen, teaching Sunday school and basically “camping out” in church. Elsie is a virtual and unvirtuous heathen most of the year, but at least she is ________ __ ____.”
  
SEVEN:
Take the brand name of a product that’s usually consumed in the morning. Place a duplicate of its last letter at the beginning of the name and read the resulting letters backward, adding a hyphen between the first and second letters. You’ll get a word for what many people do annually, usually sometime around Groundhog Day, give or take a month or two.
What is the brand, and what’s the word?

EIGHT:
Rearrange the letters in the first two words of the four-word brand name of a breakfast cereal to form three words, of 5, 4 and 3 letters. Replace the 3-letter plural word with a synonym and place it on the end of the 5-letter word to form an 8-letter compound word not found in dictionaries but occasionally found on record album charts…
A rock group was formed in Liverpool almost two decades after that “other group” was formed in Liverpool. The name of the second group consists of the 4-letter word, the words “and the” and the 8-letter compound word, thus forming the name of the group: “____ and the ________.”  
What is the cereal brand, and what’s the name of the rock group?


Dessert Menu

Brother, Can You Spare A Quarter Dessert
Big Apple Panhandle

Logan and Masa hail a taxi in New York City’s South Village. Their destination is 23rd St. and 9th Ave., the Chelsea Bistro and Bar, so they can treat themselves to chef Phillippe Rousell’s fabulous mussel and clam soup.

After giving their cabbie the address, however, a fanfare of music blasts forth and the taxi’s ceiling cascades with colorful lights. They are passengers in Ben Bailey’s “Cash Cab,” the rolling game show that takes place right there in his taxi!

Masa and Logan do well during their trek Chelsea-ward, answering most of Bailey’s quiz questions correctly and racking up a whole cabload of cash.

As the passengers depart the cab, joyously brandishing their wad of eight Benjamins for the benefit of the Cash Cab cameras, a nearby panhandler approaches them and asks if they can spare a quarter. Logan and Masa comply, handing the man two bits from their winnings.

One day later, Lego and Smitten, his kitten, also hail a taxi in South Village, also seeking a lift to the Chelsea Bistro and Bar. 
(Smitten loves chef Phillippe Rousell’s fabulous mussel and clam soup more than she loves Meow Mix or Fancy Feast! Lego will likely just order something from the bar.)
After the usual flourish of music and cascades of colorful lights greet the astounded new occupants, Bailey begins retracing his taxi’s tire-tracks northwestward toward the Chelsea Bistro.

Smitten and Lego do not fare as well as Masa and Logan, but they do at least manage to make it all the way to the Chelsea Bistro without getting kicked out of Bailey’s taxi.

The passengers depart the cab somewhat sheepishly (and cattily) brandishing their wad of four sawbucks and four fins for the benefit of the Cash Cab cameras. Not surprisingly, the same panhandler approaches them and asks if they can spare a quarter. Lego and Smitten also comply, handing the man two bits.

The weight of two bits Logan and Masa handed the panhandler is roughly one-third the weight of the two bits Lego and Smitten now hand (or paw?) the panhandler.
Exactly how much total cash did the panhandler receive from Logan, Masa, Lego and Smitten?

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.

55 comments:

  1. Puzzlerians!,
    I just got off the phone with Will Shortz and Lulu Garcia-Navarro. We were recording Will's puzzle segment for NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday segment.
    I didn't do too well with the on-air puzzle, which actually was pretty clever, but was not actually all that difficult... unless you are me!
    Will named a U.S. state and a word or common phrase that contains the letters (in their correct order) of the name of a 7-letter U.S. city in that state. For example, the answer to "New Jersey" and "intervention" is "Trenton" (inTeRveENTiON).
    This on-air puzzle was, IMO, one of the best that Will has ever presented: Coming up with a bunch of well-known U.S. cities, all 7 letters long, within words or a common phrases is really quite remarkable. Not at all easy to do. Had I made up such a puzzle I would be very proud of myself. But I wish I would have done the puzzle better justice by not stumbling around so much mentally in my "solving" process. But my brain was pretty mushy. I hope NPR will edit kindly.
    Next week's puzzle is similar to the on-air challenge that I found so challenging. It involves removing two consecutive letters from a something to come up with something else, maybe a city but I am not sure. Sorry, I cannot provide more details but I was in a post-brain-frozen daze.

    LegoWhoWasNotSoStellarOnAirWithLuluAndWill

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's okay, Lego, don't be so hard on yourself. [For instance, I took one look at the puzzles for last week, and breathed a sigh of relief that those hadn't been MINE when I was on]! How would you say these on-air puzzles compared to the other two times you won?

      Anyway, we were rooting for you, and I bet it'll be okay.

      Delete
    2. VT,
      I have "gotten the call" thrice, each instance around this time of year, May/June. I believe I have performed progressively worse (regressively better?) each time! I blame it on the aging process.

      LegoWhoAppreciatesThatViolinTeddyIsRootingForHimButObservesThatHisOnAirExperienceTHatWillBeReplayedTomorrowWasAkinToUndergoingARootCanalSurgery...OnePrecipitatedByConsumingMassQuantities(00:19-00:26)OfColaOrRootBeer

      Delete
    3. Well, Lego, it's a crapshoot as to what on-air puzzles one gets. They can be do-able, or impossible, just like your puzzles on here. Come to think of it, WHY do we all WANT to subject ourselves to the nervousness and possible agony (as you seem to be going through) of feeling we are going to flub it on air? If we were smart, we would NOT send in answers to the Sunday puzzle, huh?

      Delete
    4. ViolinTeddy,
      I was perhaps being overly dramatic. In actuality:
      1. The experience is fun -- it's a PUZZLE, after all!.
      2. Will and Liane/Rachel/Lulu are always encouraging and supportive.
      3. If you hang in there long enough you are allowed to shamelessly plug your puzzle blog.
      4. You get a lapel pin... and other "fabulous parting gifts!"
      5. They usually do some editing for the final broadcast.

      LegoWhoIsLappingUpLapelPinLikeSmittenLapsUpHerMilk

      Delete
    5. Some of us don't HAVE a puzzle blog to plug -- ha ha--do you suppose they'll leave whatever plugging you did IN the broadcast?

      Yeah, I know re the prizes, but once one has got one set of them, why does one need more? (E.g., I gave my second crossword puzzle book away to a friend.) I suppose we DO hoard the lapel pins!

      Delete
    6. VT,
      I think there are pretty good odds that the NPR powers-that-be will allow my shameless Puzzleria! pluggery to air. Will seemed to be familiar with Puzzleria!, and Lulu seemed enthusiastic and somewhat tickled that an on-air contestant was himself a puzzlemonger.
      I may be overly optimistic, but I trust that any mention at all of Puzzleria! over nationwide radio airwaves (to an audience of puzzle aficionados, no less!) will be a boon to our blog. The more the merrier; I hope to share what we have here with as large a community as possible.

      LegoWhoseVoiceIsJustHoursAwayFromFloatingAcrossTheEther

      Delete
  2. Well, Lego, I am pleased to say that after some effort, I have solved all the Rip Offs except #2 and #3. (Only #4 was 'immediate', although #1 came pretty quickly.) The others were just enough of a challenge to be fun, but not impossible. I ask again: HOW DO YOU EVER THINK UP THIS STUFF?

    I also have answers for the Appetizer, and the Hors D'O, although I am NOT sure about the latter as the 'item in the pit' seems rather odd to me.

    The Dessert has me completely confused. If two bits equals 50 cents, how are we supposed to know how much different COINS weigh? (I am sure I'm missing 'the trick' here.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Happy Friday everyone! Just read your explanation of the on-air puzzle you got to participate in with Dr. Shortz earlier today. Have you really won THREE different times? Amazing! Wish I had your luck. I certainly look forward to hearing it Sunday. I'm sure you didn't do too badly or embarrass yourself too much. As for this week's puzzles, they're pretty tough. I could only get Ripoffs #1, #2, and #8. And the Dessert is a math problem, so I may not even attempt that one at all. I will, however, be expecting hints for all others. And again, congratulations on winning once more, Lego! Couldn't happen to a nicer puzzler!

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

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd better keep my mouth shut until Wednesday.

      Delete
    2. Noooo!

      LegoWhoGentlySuggestsToPaulThatHeCanStillPostHisWittyAndInsightfulCommentsHereWithoutHavingToOpenHisMouth...AndBesidesIfHeDoesIndeedGoThroughWithThisMisguidedGandhiesqueNotionToKeepHisMouthShutUntilWednesdayHeWillBecomeMightyHungry!

      Delete
  5. Late Saturday Hints:

    LNDWBBHO:
    The pit is usually found indoors, in a very large space where many people are gathered. The people are usually pretty well-dressed.
    The "leader" of the country associated with the capital city is the leader of the Zombies!

    RITSA:
    Raiders of the “lost” parked
    Young George Washington could have been a candidate for a job at the shady location where hot cars are often parked.

    ROSABS:
    ONE:
    The brand name: Tiny tiny tiny Rita
    The word associated with geometry: ends with the first word in Rita's two-word job title
    TWO:
    Hmmmm, what name associated with puzzles has a last letter with a high Scrabble value?...
    THREE:
    How one might address Denver native and Duke alum Leif's wife
    FOUR:
    A future prez pitched the brand-name product... then took an afternoon nap.
    FIVE:
    Willie and Al? They're great!
    SIX:
    The words in the three blanks are 8, 2 and 4. The 4-letter word is bookended by Fat Tuesday and Easter Sunday. If you replace the final letter of the 8-letter word with a "d", you've got a member of the clergy.
    SEVEN:
    The brand name of a product is also the name of a magazine and of a board game.The hyphenated word for what many people do annually, if you remove the hyphen and add a "d" at the beginning, is a synonym of "desecrate."
    EIGHT:
    The singular form of the first two words in the brand name is a term of endearment.
    The name of the rock group: "Reverberation and the Playboylogoguys"

    BCYSAQD:
    "Logan and Masa comply, handing the man two bits from their winnings."
    If Lego and Smitten had handed the panhandler two bits from their winnings (which would of course have meant that the weight of two bits Logan and Masa handed the panhandler would have been equal to the weight of the two bits Lego and Smitten handed the panhandler) the panhandler would have pocketed about 12 percent more moolah.

    LegoWhoSpentJustTenClamsOnHisMintJulepWhileSmittenSpentAMintOnHerMusselAndClamSoup

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ah, thanks for the hints. Oddly, I'd gone through a whole list of brands of the correct item for Rip Off 3 and never SAW the correct brand, which the hint led to (that was the most "far-fetched', interesting hint of the bunch, I thought.)

    I'd, of course, never HEARD of the brand for Rip Off #2; had THOUGHT of the correct end word for the answer, but dismissed the whole idea initially.

    As for the infernal Dessert, I can see a way that L and M's donation weight is 2/3 of L and S's donation, but NOT only 1/3.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I forgot, the hint made it clear that I must have the right answer after all for the Hors D.O. Have to chuckle that I am VERY familiar with the kind of 'pit' you mean!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I heard you on NPR - great job!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Jason. Welcome to Puzzleria! I appreciate your comment.
      We try to offer weekly puzzles on this blog that are patterned after, and in the same spirit as, Will Shortz's offerings on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday.

      LegoWhoLovesToWelcomeNewGuestsIntoPuzzleria!

      Delete
  9. Yes, great job on NPR, Lego! And this next week's puzzle is quite easy. Popped right in my head immediately! I also now have the Hors d'Oeuvre(I think), and Ripoffs #5 and #7! May still need a few more hints for the rest, but those did help.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Replies
    1. Thanks, cranberry. I'll dribble out a few more hints later this evening.
      The capital (and its country) are in the Western Hemisphere.

      LegoAddsThatViolinTeddyGaveAnExcellentHintAsToTheTypeOfPitWeAreDealingWithInHerMay20,2017At10:57PMComment

      Delete
  11. I just managed to find and listen to your morning appearance, Lego! Fun to hear your voice. But I realized, with chagrin, that ALL THIS TIME, I have been pronouncing your blog WRONG to myself!!!!! Somehow, I have always added an 'a' to it, i.e. PUZZLERARIA.....when I've thought/said the name. It will take some adjusting to hear it in my head properly from now on.

    You got a couple of the cities very fast!! I realized, I SHOULD have told you the helpful hint that the lady who had called me this last time (in Dec.) had told me, which is to have paper and pen handy to WRITE DOWN the puzzles as Will tells them, because the visual is MOST helpful. Of course, some of those clues today were very LONG , so scribbling them might well have been difficult. Still, you got all the answers in the end, when it surely was easy to get lost in Will's LONG clue words, especially if each state's cities didn't readily come to mind (as I saw for myself when I first read them online a little while ago. No answers came quickly to me, except for 2, 3 and 4!) Anyway, congrats.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OOPS, I typed my mangling of Puzzleria wrong, I now see......I have been saying Puzzle-AIR-ia. Somehow above I typed an extra 'r' in the mix.

      Delete
  12. Late Sunday Hints:

    RITSA:
    The four words in the two slang terms all rhyme with each other. (Actually, there are only three different words.

    ROSABS:
    THREE:
    One might think these athletes would prefer to consume "green tea" ("tea" homophonically) to this brand name consumable, one that one would think might give these athletes the "yips."
    SIX:
    The brand name product, if you believe the commercial hype, really is for kids.
    The longesr of the three words in the blanks = a biblical book, for short + word that appears 10 times in the KJV of the bible + abbreviation associated with the "biblical book, for short"

    BCYSAQD:
    Lego and Smitten are stingy. They keep chicken feed in their pockets. Logan and Masa are generous... they jingle not when they walk.

    LegoWhoGaveTheFinsToSmitten(SheLikesFish)AndSavedTheSawbucksForHimself

    ReplyDelete
  13. I have two different answers to the Hors d'Œuvre puzzle which involve two different kinds of pits.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Great work ron! I have no idea what your alternative solution is, but I will give it some thought. I assume you also have my intended answer.
      If I cannot figure out what your second solution is, I look forward to Wednesday (if that is when you wish to reveal it). Or perhaps we could run it as a Puzzleria! Riff-Off this Friday, if you would prefer that.

      LegoWhoIsNotSoKeenOn"AlternativeFacts"ButWhoIsPeachyKeenOn"AlternativeAnswers"

      Delete
    2. I will post Wednesday. The second capital is not in the western hemisphere.

      Delete
    3. My alternative answer, which I posted because I thought it was too far-fetched and then deleted after determining that it actually might have some plausibility, pairs the "correct" (Western Hemisphere) capital city with a different sort of pit.

      Delete
    4. Thanks, ron and Paul.
      Wednesday cannot come soon enough for me.

      LegoWhoBelievesTheWords"WednesdayCannotComeSoonEnoughForMe"HaveNeverBeforeBeenUtteredOrWrittenInTheHistoryOfHumanity

      Delete
  14. I now have #3 and #6! That one about the hot cars is still eluding me though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sijb,
      TWPE, da xd mpt Qpmgyvic Evbteiiixlk Pstltcb wu Ekbwesmsyva? Exbaxsbici zpd sawe qql aei ict vtxsx ict gqru uwcuv ict lcrx? Wpt Txbgelb Eylbddv wcsx (xthkiei lbxbo ld?) stta jkmxh wicsh btqf bwu "Ftpilg Rxdahyl."
      Ijjr jdtr = Pjcdv qewg?
      AujwRxhxeuuTdfimgIoqrukLxshz

      Delete
    2. Lego.
      No need to travel to the Sheraton Grand Chicago on Thursday Oct 12 – Saturday Oct 14 to find a "convention" of the sort I'm thinking of. And don't go to Miami, either (that would be OAOA). If you have your heart set on a road trip, you might find what you're looking for in Las Vegas. But, really, you ought to be able to find the sort of get-together I'm thinking of just "around the block" almost any time of the day or night.

      Delete
    3. "Dwpe" fmpdv "btqvpth" lv Hqfwpd, eci Y wwc'j wpxdd bwqw qh maii orc phx otjwqcw tb. X qp rjim vdj vcuvbkxuqbao liklb bd shvcufb "petw" lywp pdrbwyqo wqoqcw ww se pqix "jibreqcw."
      Rz, bqrjt wduqbbvv xda cempxdj bd th exjk qi!
      BxoDbgUpsWwcqolWqwIUquuPETWX

      Delete
    4. Gambling? You mean like an ankle bracelet?

      Delete
    5. I have no idea what I mean! Do I mean this? Or do I mean this, or perhaps this?
      I sincerely do not know. But I suspect that you know, Paul. You who are always a hop, skip and jump ahead of me.

      LegoWhoWondersWhatHappenedToThePerfectlyFineWord"Anklet"AndAlsoWondersIfWeWillSomedayBeDescribingABraceletAsAn"AnkleBraceletThatIsWornOnTheWrist"

      Delete
    6. An ankh-le bracelet?

      LegoBelievesThatEquipmentAtTheShadyHotCarPlaceMightIncludeHatchetsAndGuillotines

      Delete
    7. According to lyricsfreak.com:

      All the cops in the donut shop say
      Ay oh whey oh, ay oh whey oh
      Walk like an Egyptian

      Whatever. As far as I'm concerned, it sounds like AOAO.

      Delete
    8. Paul,
      Beautiful. I always thought that Bangles lyric sounded like "AOAO" also. But I never listened closely enough to hear the preceding lyric about the "cops in the doughnut shop."

      LegoWhoAlwaysPreferredPrince'sManicMonday

      Delete
  15. HORS D'ŒUVRE.

    1. BUENOS AIRES (Argentina), translation: GOOD WINDS, two syllable rhyming word for things found in an (orchestra) pit: WOODWINDS.

    2. PARIS (France), (“pari” in plural) translation: BETS (wagers), two syllable rhyming word for things found in a (barbecue) pit: BRIQUETS.
    As I speak French, I actually came up with this answer first and I looked no further until I saw that the “intended answer” involved a capital in the Western Hemisphere and an indoor pit. The “intended answer” then became fairly obvious...
    A third answer with PARIS is possible if you accept that WAGERS and EMBERS rhyme.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wikipedia says, '"Buenos aires" can be translated as "fair winds" or "good airs"'. I figured if "Reince" rhymes with "pints", then "fair winds" rhymes with "bearskins", but I couldn't figure what a bearskin would be doing in a pit until it occurred to me that the bear might still be wearing it.

      Delete
    2. Very nice alternative answer, ron. And a French lesson to boot! Thanks.

      LegoWhoIsCurrentlyLoungingOnA"FairWinds"Rug

      Delete
    3. Paul, I LOVE your idea about the bear in the pit still wearing his own skin! I myself never saw any translation for B.A. being "good winds" or else I'd have come up with Ron's answer.....which is why initially, I thought my 'wood stairs' were suspect as the correct thing.....

      Obviously, those of us playing 'in the pit' need some way to get down there....so I finally decided stairs would be okay as an answer. But I like your bear better!

      Delete
  16. Just happened to be on the computer for other reasons, noticed it is NOON here, i.e. time to post answers, so for once I am right on the dot!

    HORS D'O: GOOD AIRS (Buenos Aires) => WOOD STAIRS Second Idea: GARDENS (Riyadh) => CAR PENS (i.e. discarded autos thrown in a pit, rather harks to the next puzzle answer!)

    APPETIZER: CHOP SHOP => COP SHOP

    RIP-OFFS:

    1. MINUTEMAID => DIAMETER

    2. STROHS (Beer) => SHORTZ

    3. FOLGERS => GOLFERS

    4. WHEATIES => SATIES => SIESTA

    5. FROSTED FLAKES => FROSTEDFL => LF DET SO RF [Left Field, Detroit, Strikeouts, Right Field]

    6. TRIX => TRNINE and XIRT => ELEVENRT => TRNINEELEVENRT => REVERENT IN LENT

    7. LIFE => ELIFE => E-FILE

    8. HONEY BUNCHES (of Oats) => HES, ECHO, BUNNY => MEN, ECHO, BUNNY => ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN


    DESSERT: Hmm, well, if Logan and Masa won $800 and gave the panhandler 1/4 of it, i.e. $200; then Lego and Smitten winning $40 + 20 = $60 gave the guy 1/4, that would be another $15. So the total the panhandler scooped in would be $215. Not bad for just standing around.

    What WEIGHT has to do with it, however, I still fail to grasp. L and M had no choice but to give TWO $100 bills, but Lego and Smitten could have handed the guy either THREE fiver-s or a TEN and a fiver. But that means that either L and M's donation weight is 2/3 (not 1/3) of L and S's bills, or the weight is the same (two bills from each duo.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ViolinTeddy,
      You aced the Shortz Rip-Offs. Very impressive!

      LegoWhoDidNotRealizeThatViolinTeddyWasSuchAnEchoAndTheBunnymenAndWillieHortonAlKalineFan

      Delete
    2. Thank you, Monsieur maitre de puzzle. But I am NOT any fan of Echo and BUnnymen...as usual, I'd never heard of them before. It was just successful sleuthing and googling that caused me to come up with the answer. LIkewise for the baseball guys.

      Delete
  17. I think L&M received 8 $100 bills, 8 bits of paper, and gave away 2 of those bits of paper, $200, a quarter of what they received. I think L&S gave the panhandler a quarter as in a 25-cent piece, sometimes called "two bits". I think the panhandler got $200.25 for his efforts.
    I read somewhere that a Federal Reserve Note of any denomination weighs about 1 gram. I read somewhere else that a quarter weighs 5.670 grams which is a bit less than 3x2.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hors d'Oeuvre
    BUENOS AIRES(good winds), WOODWINDS
    Menu
    Ripoffs
    1. MINUTE MAID, DIAMETER
    2. STROH'S, SHORTZ
    3. FOLGER'S, GOLFERS
    4. WHEATIES, SIESTA
    5. FROSTED FLAKES, LF(left field), DET(Detroit), SO(strikeouts), RF(right field)
    6. TRIX(TRnine, elevenRT), REVERENT IN LENT
    7. LIFE, E-FILE
    8. HONEY BUNCHES OF OATS, ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN
    Next time we meet on this blog, my oldest niece Morgan will have graduated from Walker High School that night.-pjb

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Way to go, Morgan!

      LegoWishingACongratulationToOneCelebratingGraduation

      Delete
  19. This week's official answers, for the record, Part 1:

    Hors d’Oeuvre Menu

    Lug nuts? Dire Wolf Bones? Butterflies? Hors d’Oeuvre:
    The pit and the Phnom Penh Dublin
    An English translation of a world capital rhymes with a two-syllable plural word for what you might find in a pit.
    What is the capital and what might you find in the pit?
    Hint: The capital is a city, not “capital” in the monetary sense. The capital, therefore, is not yen, euro, franc or kroner, for example.
    Answer:
    Buenos Aires (Argentina),
    which can be translated into English as "good winds,"
    which rhymes with "woodwinds,"
    which can be found in an orchestra pit.


    Appetizer Menu

    Remade In The Shade Appetizer:
    Raiders of the “lost” parked
    Name an 8-letter 2-word slang term for a shady location where hot cars are often parked.
    Remove one letter to form a 7-letter 2-word slang term for the location that is the base for public employees who are often in hot pursuit of those hot cars, and who sometimes raid and shut down such shady locations.
    What are these two slang terms?
    Answer:
    Chop shop;
    Cop shop

    Lego...

    ReplyDelete
  20. This week's official answers, for the record, Part 2:

    MENU

    Ripping Off Shortz And Baggish Slices:
    Mixed Baggish
    ONE:
    Take the brand name of a product (not a breakfast cereal) that’s usually consumed in the morning. Replace the first four letters with a prefix meaning “anew” or “again” and read the resulting letters backward. You’ll get a word associated with geometry. What is the brand, and what’s the word?
    Answer:
    Minute Maid;
    diameter
    MinuteMaid >> Retemaid >> diameter
    TWO:
    Take the brand name of a product that’s sometimes consumed in the morning (after an evening of binge beer drinking) as a “hair-of-the-dog” hangover cure. Replace the first letter with a letter possessing a much higher Scrabble value and read the resulting letters backward. You’ll get a name associated with puzzles and with a sport that is a competition in the Olympic games.
    What is the brand, and what’s the name associated with puzzles?
    Answer:
    Stroh's (Beer);
    (Will) Shortz
    Stroh's >> ztrohs >> Shortz
    THREE:
    Take the brand name of a product that’s usually consumed in the morning. Interchange the first and fourth letters. You’ll get a word for athletes whose performance may be enhanced by consuming the product, according to a 2015 Auburn University study.
    What is the brand, and who are these athletes?
    Answer:
    Folgers (Coffee);
    Golfers
    FOUR:
    Take the brand name of a product that’s usually consumed in the morning – and presumably consumed during the past year-or-so by Penguins, Cavs, Cubs, Pats, Tar Heels….
    Replace the third letter with an “s” and drop the first two letters. Rearrange the six letters of this result to get a word associated with the afternoon.
    What is the brand, and what’s the word?
    Answer:
    Wheaties
    siesta
    Wheaties >> saties >> siesta
    FIVE:
    Take the brand name of a product that’s usually consumed in the morning. Drop the last four letters and read the remaining letters backward.
    You’ll get:
    Willie Horton’s main position in the field, for short;
    The city he and Al Kaline most often played in, for short;
    What Willie and Al did 2,333 times, for short;
    Al’s main position in the field, for short;
    What is the brand? What are the short forms of Horton’s position, the city, what Willie and Al did 2,333 times, and Al’s position?
    Answer:
    Frosted Flakes
    LF (Left Field)
    DET (Detroit)
    SO (Strike Out)
    RF (Right Field)
    Frosted Flakes >> frostedfl >> lfdetsorf >> LF + DET + SO + RF

    Lego...

    ReplyDelete
  21. This week's official answers, for the record, Part 3:

    MENU (continued)
    Ripping Off Shortz And Baggish Slices:
    Mixed Baggish (continued)

    SIX:
    Take the brand name of a product that’s usually consumed in the morning, usually by kids. Spell it out, replacing the Roman numeral in the name with its spelled-out number to form a six-letter string.
    Spell the brand name backward, replacing the Roman numeral in the result with its spelled-out number to form an eight-letter string.
    Rearrange the 14 letters in the two letter-strings to form the three words to complete the following paragraph:
    “For about 320 days out of the year, Elsie, a lapsed Catholic, skips Mass, blows off confession, and performs no corporal works of mercy whatsoever. However, every year, sometime after Groundhog Day, Elsie becomes a model Catholic – volunteering at the soup kitchen, teaching Sunday school and virtually “camping out” in church. Elsie is a heathen most of the year, but at least she is ________ __ ____.”
    Answer:
    Trix;
    "...reverent in Lent"
    Trix >> TR + IX = TR + NINE
    xirT >> XI + RT = ELEVEN + RT
    TR + NINE + ELEVEN + RT = REVERENT IN LENT
    SEVEN:
    Take the brand name of a product that’s usually consumed in the morning. Place a duplicate of its last letter at the beginning of the name and read the resulting letters backward, adding a hyphen between the first and second letters. You’ll get a word for what many people do annually, usually sometime around Groundhog Day, give or take a month or two.
    What is the brand, and what’s the word?
    Answer:
    Life
    e-file
    Life >> eLife >> e-file
    EIGHT:
    Rearrange the letters in first two words in the four-word brand name of a breakfast cereal to form three words, of 5, 4 and 3 letters. Replace the 3-letter plural word with a synonym and place it on the end of the 5-letter word to form an 8-letter compound word not found in dictionaries but occasionally found on record album charts…
    A rock group was formed in Liverpool almost two decades after that “other group” was formed in Liverpool. The name of the second group consists of the 4-letter word, the words “and the” and the 8-letter compound word, thus forming the name of the group: “____ and the ________.”
    What is the cereal brand, and what’s the name of the rock group?
    Answer:
    Honey Bunches (of Oats);
    Echo and the Bunnymen
    Honey Bunches >> Bunny + Echo + Hes;
    Bunny + hes = Bunny + men = Bunnymen

    Lego...

    ReplyDelete
  22. This week's official answers, for the record, Part 4:

    Dessert Menu

    Brother, Can You Spare A Quarter Dessert
    Big Apple Panhandle
    Logan and Masa hail a taxi in New York City’s South Village. Their destination is 23rd St. and 9th Ave., the Chelsea Bistro and Bar, so they can treat themselves to chef Phillippe Rousell’s fabulous mussel and clam soup.
    After giving their cabbie the address, however, a fanfare of music blasts forth and the taxi’s ceiling cascades with colorful lights. They are passengers in Ben Bailey’s “Cash Cab,” the rolling game show that takes place right there in his taxi!
    Masa and Logan do well during their trek Chelsea-ward, answering most of Bailey’s quiz questions correctly and racking up a whole cabload of cash.
    As the passengers depart the cab, joyously brandishing their wad of eight Benjamins for the benefit of the Cash Cab cameras, a nearby panhandler approaches them and asks if they can spare a quarter. Logan and Masa comply, handing the man two bits from their winnings.
    One day later, Lego and Smitten, his kitten, also hail a taxi in South Village, also seeking a lift to the Chelsea Bistro and Bar.
    (Smitten loves chef Phillippe Rousell’s fabulous mussel and clam soup more than she loves Meow Mix or Fancy Feast! Lego will likely just order something from the bar.)
    After the usual flourish of music and cascades of colorful lights greet the astounded new occupants, Bailey begins retracing his taxi’s tire-tracks northwestward toward the Chelsea Bistro.
    Smitten and Lego do not fare as well as Masa and Logan, but they do at least manage to make it all the way to the Chelsea Bistro without getting kicked out of Bailey’s taxi.
    The passengers depart the cab somewhat sheepishly (and cattily) brandishing their wad of four sawbucks and four fins for the benefit of the Cash Cab cameras. Not surprisingly, the same panhandler approaches them and asks if they can spare a quarter. Lego and Smitten also comply, handing the man two bits.
    The weight of two bits Logan and Masa handed the panhandler is roughly one-third the weight of the two bits Lego and Smitten now hand (or paw?) the panhandler.
    Exactly how much total cash did the panhandler receive from Logan, Masa, Lego and Smitten?
    Answer:
    $200.25
    The "two bits" the panhandler received from Logan and Masa were two bits of paper money -- two of the eight $100 bills Ben Bailey have just given them, which was "a quarter" of their Cash Cab earnings.
    The "two bits" the panhandler received from Lego and Smitten was a quarter.
    A quarter weighs 5.67 grams.
    Two "Benjamins" weigh about 2 grams, which is about 35 percent of the weight of a quarter.

    Lego...

    ReplyDelete
  23. By golly, it is crispy to study, covfefe, even. . .

    ReplyDelete
  24. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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