Guitar and dugout heroes; City critters in our country! "What creature is this, not yet laid to rest?"

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzle –ria!

Don't tell the “pizza police” or city health inspectors, but there seems to be lots of buzz about creatures, critters, varmints and vermin in this week’s puzzle slices. It’s kind of like the kind of name-calling that ricochets across the table during your typical six-person poker game. Speaking of which...

As we mentioned in Tuesday’s (December 2) comments, we are giving you an additional week to work on solving the fine puzzle created by our “guest gourment French puzzle chef,” Monsieur Garcon du Parachutisme (aka “skydiveboy” on the Blainesville blog).

Guest French Chef Slice:

52-Card Poker Pick-up

In a private gaming room at a posh Las Vegas casino six men are playing poker. Going around the table clockwise, Carl is a lawyer who enjoys fine wine. Dan is a banker and loves a dry martini. Ed is a pilot and likes his Jack Daniels neat. Frank is an accountant who prefers Scotch. George is an architect and insists his Manhattans are stirred—not shaken, and Jack is a dentist with a taste for fine cognac.

Each of these gentlemen take turns shuffling the cards, which of course are Bicycle, Rider Back, Poker 808, Standard Face alternating between Red and Blue backs. A fresh deck of opposing color is put into play at the end of six rounds, or upon request.

After several rounds, when it was his turn to shuffle again, one of these players managed to drop all of the cards face up on the floor. From this information can you determine who is all thumbs and why?

Now, the puzzle’s creator and I don’t always see eye-to-eye (I think he’s probably taller than I), but we do both agree that although this may seem like a difficult puzzle, with the right approach it can be solved rather quickly. If one particular approach you are using is not working, then we would suggest a careful re-reading and a different approach.

You will be very pleased with yourself when you do solve it. Don’t give up. The answer is in the cards.



Now here is this week’s menu of fresh Puzzleria! house slices:

 Menu

Easy as Possum Pie Slice:

City critters in our country!

Name a critter often associated with a particular U.S. state. 

Move one of the critter’s letters three places to the right (replacing the letter that is there) to spell out the name of a city in that state. (For example, if the letter you choose to move is the fifth letter, it would replace the original eighth letter in the critter’s name.)

What are this critter and city?

Trade Deadline Slice:

Guitar and Dugout Heroes

Within the past decade an American League Baseball team traded its ace pitcher to a National League team for an outfielder and three pitching prospects. The first name of the outfielder and the last name of the ace can be combined to form the name of a rock/jazz guitarist. Who are the pitcher, outfielder and guitarist?

Hint: Since the trade, another major leaguer has emerged who shares both first and last names with the guitarist. The traded outfielder is still active in the majors. The traded pitching ace, currently a free agent, hopes to still be active.

Zoological Slice:

“What creature is this, not yet laid to rest...”

Name a mammal. Reverse three consecutive interior letters and change one of them to a different vowel to form a word you might see on a theater marquee. What mammalian creature is this? What is the word?

Hint #1: Add the letters in the mammal’s name to an alternative name for the mammal and rearrange this whole mess of alphabet soup to form, indeed somewhat fittingly, a three-word phrase (article, adjective and hyphenated-noun) describing a deckhand aboard a Greenpeace ship during a tempest. 

Hint #2: Both the mammal and the movie-marquee-theater word have much in common – indeed, 57-plus percent in common – with a word appearing in this puzzle proper or its hints.

Hint #3: Place a man’s name in front of the mammal’s name (not the “alternative name” from Hint #1) to form what sounds like a word that one might think would crop up somewhere in Greenpeace International’s Core Values and Mission Statement, but does not.

(As you can see from the title of the Zoolical Slice puzzle immediately above, I tried to “s       t       r       i       n       g out” the Greensleeves/Greenpeace links for as long as possible {including a surreal rendition involving harps and twins outstanding in their field!}. I’m afraid I was influenced by the frayed sleeves of my faded, threadbare, green Brett Favre Green Bay Packers jersey {not a new jersey like the one with Aaron Rogers printed on it!})

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! 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 Puzzle -ria! Thank you.

Cold Turkey Sandwich; "Luv" is just a three-letter word; Mr. Ill

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzle –ria! (The picture above pertains to the bonus [bone-us?] guest puzzle that appears about seven paragraphs down the page.)

Well, it began Thanksgiving Day evening at about sundown and will continue throughout most of Friday, until everything has been picked over and the best stuff is pretty much all gone from the shelves.

Black Friday? That annual bullheaded buyers’ bacchanalia with its deliria of door-busting deals?

Nope. Cold turkey! I’m talkin’ ‘bout the Thanksgiving turkey carcass and carved leftovers -- prime fodder for cold turkey sandwiches -- crammed into the fridge (along with stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes and other microwaveable turkey-day bounty).

Of course, a bit more than a month from now, a different breed of cold turkey will gobble and wobble its way into our holidays. To wit, many of us will make promises to ourselves to “go cold turkey” on Marboros, Big Macs, Michelobs and other perceived vices on New Year’s (Resolution) Day.

 

Speaking of perceived vices, in their quest to achieve a clean 2015 slate, some may resolve to discard “playing stud poker” (along with “whiskers on kittens,” of course) from their “few-of-my-favorite-things” list... 

But probably not the six poker-playing guys described in the bonus puzzle below.

The puzzle was created by our “guest gourment French chef,” Monsieur Garcon du Parachutisme (aka “skydiveboy” on the Blainesville blog) He should be familiar to Puzzleria patrons, as we have posted his excellent puzzles in the past. This one is a kind of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Poker Game.”

Bonus French Chef Slice:

52-Card Poker Pick-up

In a private gaming room at a posh Las Vegas casino six men are playing poker. Going around the table clockwise, Carl is a lawyer who enjoys fine wine. Dan is a banker and loves a dry martini. Ed is a pilot and likes his Jack Daniels neat. Frank is an accountant who prefers Scotch. George is an architect and insists his Manhattans are stirred—not shaken, and Jack is a dentist with a taste for fine cognac.

 

Each of these gentlemen take turns shuffling the cards, which of course are Bicycle, Rider Back, Poker 808, Standard Face alternating between Red and Blue backs. A fresh deck of opposing color is put into play at the end of six rounds, or upon request.

 

After several rounds, when it was his turn to shuffle again, one of these players managed to drop all of the cards face up on the floor. From this information can you determine who is all thumbs and why?

We give thanks to Monsieur Garcon du Parachutisme, our guest French puzzle chef. 

Here is our menu of this week’s Puzzleria! house slices:

Menu

Ripping Off Shortz Slice…
(aka: Easy As Day-Old Pumpkin Pie Slice):

Cold Turkey Sandwich

That post-Thanksgiving Day favorite, the “COLD TURKEY SANDWICH,” possesses a special alphabetic distinction. What is…

Wait, wait! Will Shortz already broadcast, in essence,  this same puzzle  last April on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition Sunday! We’d be ripping him off were we to continue with it…

So, we will challenge you instead with:

Explain how the following three sets relate to “COLD TURKEY SANDWICH”: {450, 650} { } {401, 601} 

What three sets be would you associate with “HOT TOFURKEY BURGER”?

Willy-Nilly Slice

Mr. Ill

Name a seven-letter synonym of one or more hyphenated words that begin with “ill-...” 

Reverse its third and fourth letters and change its fifth letter from a vowel to a consonant to form a word that sometimes modifies the word “bill.” 

What are these two words?

“Let’s Get Series” Slice

“Luv” is just a three-letter word

Consider the series of letters below:

E T E O V I E T N N ? ? ?

It begins with the three-letter French word for “summer,” then an O, a “competitive and contentious” three-letter English verb,  and a former American country music-oriented cable television network. 

The next three letters also spell out a word. What is it?

(Hint: It is not “LUV.”)

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! 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 Puzzle -ria! Thank you.

"Take this giblet and stuff it!"; Centrifugal Synonyms; Greatful Books

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzle –ria!

This week we would like to give thanks for… Thanksgiving. It is our favorite major American holiday. But why, you (“yam” backwards) ask, should we be thankful for Thanksgiving Day?

First: It is probably the most “inclusive” of our holidays. Giving thanks is universal, cutting across cultures and perhaps even species (for example, tail-wagging, purring, etc.).

People of all faiths and non-faiths can participate in Thanksgiving. You can thank God for blessing you with life and gifts. Or you can thank Grandma for preparing the turkey and trimmings, your brother Mike for repairing your antediluvian basement fusebox, your wife for sharing her life (and salted caramel ice cream) with you, or your pal Winthrop for sparing you embarrassment during his preprandial toast by not spilling the beans (and the bubbly) about the time you filched sherry and whiskey from your dad’s liquor cabinet. and prosheeded to turn all the digital clocksh in the housh up-shide down.

 

Second: Thanksgiving is the least commercial of our major holidays. Granted, the mercantile mayhem (marking the advent of Christmas shopping) known as Black Friday is bleeding backward into November’s fourth Thursday. But even so, Thanksgiving Day remains a relatively lean slice of deli turkey sandwiched between thick slabs of Halloween “Pumpkinickel” and Yuletide fruitcake.

Third: A long weekend! (Actually, four-sevenths of a week qualifies as more than just an “-end.”

Fourth: football, football, football… if you’re into that brand of mayhem.

Fifth: of bourbon…. No, no, wait! Fifth: On Thanksgiving Thursday (and every Thursday, for that matter), Puzzleria! looms just around the corner. As the weekend grows nigh, it seems folks just get hungry and “Thursday” for fine puzzle slices washed down with drinks of refreshing thinking..

But before this week’s main course is served, here’s an appetizer-puzzler to whet your appetite. In the following passage, each string of uppercase letters can be rearranged to form a word or words associated with Thanksgiving. The number of words appears in parentheses after the uppercase letters.

If you are having difficulty solving these anagrams, here is a helpful link.

Thanks for Giving the Memory

We always had to snowshoe over the frozen river and through the snowy woods to go to Gramps and Grammar Lambda’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. Their home was nestled like A NORDIC INN (2) on the north shore of northwestern Minnesota’s VAGABOND BIERS LAKE (3).

Each year, Grammar’s fur-dyed-fuchsia French poodle, MS. PINKIE PUP (2), would greet us at the door with yips of joy (or perhaps it was jealously?). Often her flapping jowls would betray the TINIEST DROOL (2), evidence that Cousin Yancey had once again this Thanksgiving slipped a whiskey mickey into her water dish.

Later, when the increasingly MUDDLING PUP (2) began to wobble, weave and slur her yips, Grammar, her mind still quick as a PYTHON TRAP (1), would unravel Yancey's mischief and proceed to track him down so that she could SOB, WHINE (1), kvetch and moan to his face. Yancey would eventually skulk away to Grampa’s den to sulk and nurse his own whiskey sour and Dutch Masters cigar, tail between his legs.

In the MEANTIME, EPIC (2) culinary activity is taking place in Grammar’s warm and aromatic kitchen. As Uncle Winthrop spices the beef for the GROUND ROAST, HE HEMS (2) and haws, trying to explain sheepishly to his fellow food preparers why hash is a dish preferable to turkey, or even mutton, say, on this august November day.

Aunt Gert checks on the status of her signature CEDAR SAP YAMS (2), bubbling in the oven at 325 degrees. In 1963 Gert thought that for a change she’d pay homage to the pilgrims’ and Indians’ first Thankgiving by making an Indian dish. She bought beans, rice, ginger and other spices from her local Piggly Wiggly. Alas the beans were rancid and many Lambda-family guests got nauseous eating her curry dish. After that BEAN CURRY SCARE (2), we are all thankful she has since forsworn Indian cuisine in favor of her more traditional signature yams!

Over by the back burner, Cousin Yancey (no longer sulking but still suckling on his stogie and sour) is demonstrating his LAID-BACK FRY (2) technique on beer-battered green beans, flipping them like flapjacks in his pan. Ms. Pinkie Pup scavenges at his feet, gobbling down any greasy floor-flopped flotsam that falls into her yap.

While Cousin Lulu stirs her pesto brown rice pilaf, Zuzu, the wife of our hosts’ pastor (who is related to a South-African archbishop!), heats up her spinach pesto pasta on the stovetop, thereby foreordaining that we must EAT TWO PESTO (2) dishes!

Uncle Alf sits in the corner, assiduously concocting his Lambda family-favorite GALLON-OF-PORT FLAMBE (4), hoping to make a dent in the monopoly enjoyed by each year’s deluge of dessert pies.

As we are about to gather round the dining room table to pray, Aunt Willa  a vegan, scurries past and plucks from the fridge freezer an ICY EGG, SARAN(2)-wrapped, hard-boiled and hard-frozen, then drops it atop Lulu’s pilaf to thaw, just as the REV. SHAMAN TUTU (2) begins to pray:

“Lord, the whirlwind we hast reaped HATH DUSTY FUROR (2). Refreshest thou our soil with thy rain and our souls with thy holy reign. COMPLY THOU ONLY (2) if we obeyest thy commands. Amen.”

Grammar thanks the parson and, as we all settle into our seats, we admire her familiar centerpiece that doubles as a relish dish, chock-full of peonies, posies, LILIES, YOGURT, BRIE cheese (2) and pickles. Before Grammar settles into her own seat, like a schoolmarm passing out an assignment, she hands to each of us a harvest print napkin to TUCK UNDER (1) our belts, which are about to be loosened a notch or two.

Look for answers next Tuesday. Now, here is this week’s main course, served Puzzleria!-style, of course.

Menu

Easy As Pumpkin Pie Slice:

Centrifugal Synonyms

Think of a word associated with Thanksgiving that has an odd number of letters. Picture the word as a “spinning propeller” with the central letter as its hub. Starting from the center, “centrifugally” spell out the letters of each of the two “blades,” from innermost to outermost, but do not include the “hub-letter.” You will form two words that are synonyms.

What are these synonyms and this Thanksgiving word?  

Literary Slice:

Greatful Books

Think of a word associated with Thanksgiving. Replace its first, fourth and sixth letters with three different letters, and divide the result in two to reveal an author’s last name followed by the title of a work of fiction written by that author. 

What are the word, the author and the work of fiction?

Occupational Slice:

Take this giblet and stuff it!

Think of a word associated with Thanksgiving. Insert a letter in its middle, creating a new word which denotes an occupation practiced by three characters: one portrayed on a television series guest appearance by a two-time Best Actress Oscar winner; another portrayed by an actor who won five Emmy Awards in the role; and a third portrayed in a film by a member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. 

What are these two words?

(Hint: The occupation has a synonym whose first letter has a Scrabble value three points greater than the Scrabble sum of its remaining letters.) 

David’s Run-of-the-miles Slice:

Kleinucopia

Take a word associated with the Thanksgiving Day feast. Remove one letter from the inside of the word and read inside-out in both directions from there. You will get two movie titles.

Hint: Although the puzzle instructs you to “remove one letter from inside of the word,” you may also “remove a mess of letters from the inside of the bird!”

Note: This puzzle was created by the Puzzleria! blog commenter (and exceptional long-distance runner) whose screen name is David. (His astute comments can also be found on other blogs such as “Blaine’s Puzzle Blog”  and “An Englishman Solves American Puzzles,” and “Partial Ellipsis Of The Sun.” We are giving him thanks for letting us “package” his puzzle here.) 
-- LegoLambda

 Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! 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 Puzzle -ria! Thank you.