Friday, August 30, 2019

Get some grub you can grab; That’s one mixed-up professional! All-Caps Capitals & Countries; Life-or-death circular logic; Greco-Romance-language wrestling

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/21 SERVED
 Please accept my apologies for posting this edition of Puzzleria! several hours past the time I usually post it (that is, in the wee hours of Friday morning rather than these waning ones). I am experiencing an internet-access challenge. I hope my challenge does not last as long as the current two-creative challenge posed by Will Shortz!

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
All-Caps Capitals & Countries

Consider the following list of eleven world capitals and their countries. 
Now consider just the nine cities and two countries printed in all-uppercase letters. Ignore the two cities and nine countries not printed in all-uppercase letters.)
Which one of of the eleven places in uppercase letters does not belong in the list? Explain your answer.
Hint: There are a number of people who believe the place does indeed belong on the list.
Luanda, ANGOLA;
ASMARA, Eritrea;
BRUSSELS,  Belgium
CANBERRA, Australia;
COPENHAGEN, Denmark;
KINGSTON, Jamaica;
Bamako, MALI;
OTTAWA, Canada;
PORT LOUIS, Mauritius;
ROSEAU, Dominica; and
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic.



Appetizer Menu


Unbeatable Rompecabezas Y Pazl Appetizer:
Greco-Romance(language) wrestling

🥁1. Think of a common Spanish word for a body part. Add an L and rearrange to name a species of fish.
🥁2. Think of a character from Greek mythology in eight letters whose name is a concatenation of four US state postal codes. 
🥁3. Name a well-known fictional character from a series of novels, in seven and ten letters, whose first and last names start with the same three letters. 
These three letters can be rearranged into a Greek letter. 
🥁4. Name an insect and a Mexican food that each end with the same five letters.


MENU


Worthy Of Note-ation Slice:
That’s one mixed-up professional!

Take six consecutive interior letters from the name of a profession. 
Double one consonant and one vowel and mix up the letters of the result to form the last name of a noteworthy member of the profession. 
Who is it?

Riffing Off Shortz And Zion Slice, Part 1:
Life-or-death circular logic

Will Shortz’s August 25th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Lee Zion, of Lafayette, Minnesota, reads: 
This is a two-week challenge. It may sound impossible, but it’s not. You wake up trapped in a round room with six doors. 
A voice over a loudspeaker tells you that five of the doors are booby-trapped and will bring instant death if you try to open them. Only one door provides an opening that will get you out safely. The doors are evenly spaced around the room. They look exactly alike. Your only clue is that on the wall between each pair of doors is a large letter of the alphabet. Going clockwise, the letters are H, I, J, K, L and M. Which is the correct door that will get you out ... and why?
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Zion Slices read:
ENTREE #1:
This challenge may sound impossible, but it’s not. You wake up trapped in a round room with five doors. A voice over a loudspeaker tells you that four of the doors are booby-trapped and will bring instant death to an unknown innocent person somewhere in the universe if you try to open them. 
Only one door provides an opening that will not take the life of this innocent person. The doors are evenly spaced around the room. They look exactly alike. Your only clue is that on the wall between each pair of doors is a large letter of the alphabet. Going clockwise, the letters are H, I, J, K and L. 
Which door is the correct door to choose, just because it is the right thing to do... and why?
ENTREE #2:
This challenge may sound impossible, but it’s not. You wake up trapped in a round room with six doors. A voice over a loudspeaker tells you that five of the doors are booby-trapped and will bring instant death if you try to open them. But one door provides an opening that will not only get you out safely but will grant you supreme bliss for the remainder of your life. 
The doors are evenly spaced around the room. They look exactly alike. Your only clue is that on each of the doors is a large letter of the alphabet. Going clockwise, the letters are C, D, E, F, G and H. Which is the correct door that will grant you supreme bliss ... and why?


Dessert Menu


No Knife No Fork No Spoon No Problem Dessert:
Get some grub you can grab

Name three body parts that begin with the same letter. 
Each word appears in the name of a kind of food usually eaten without using utensils.
What are these body parts and food names?

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.

34 comments:

  1. If I have the right Mexican food and insect (which is doubtful), the remaining letters can be arranged to form a Mexican name.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Could the name be also Portuguese or Irish? Or an anagrams for things very very tiny?

      LegoWhoIsIredByIshinessAndWhoRemovesGeeseFromHisPorch

      Delete
  2. Question: In the third Conundrum, do the seven and ten letters apply to the title of the novel series OR to the character's name.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I believe, to the character's name.
      Don't know whether Lego has restored Internet connectivity yet.

      Delete
    2. How did he even manage to POST this week's P! at all, given his internet problems?

      Delete
    3. Went to a neighbor or library?

      Delete
    4. Hmm, I didn't consider Lego doing something 'techy' like loading P! onto a flash drive and taking it somewhere. Perhaps Mathew helped him via phone?

      Delete
    5. In the third Conundrum, the seven and ten letters do indeed apply to the character's name, NOT to to the title of the novel series.
      I had prepared Mathew's Conundrums for this week before I lost internet connectivity.
      To put the finishing touches on and upload this week's Puzzleria! I went to a generous neighbor's house. I did not upload P! at 2 a.m. CDT because the neighbors have a great watchdog who would have barked like a canine alarm clock had I ventured within range of their wifi signal.
      I used the Pequot Lakes library wifi on Friday afternoon to see if any of you observant and helpful Puzzlerian! had found any corrections I should make in my puzzle texts.

      LegoBackOnline(AtLeastForNow)

      Delete
    6. I had actually meant that perhaps Mathew helped you load P! from your computer onto a flash drive, to take to the library, which apparently what you did, although maybe you already knew about loading flash drives, so didn't need help. Have you called your internet provider, to find out what the problem is?

      I did solve all four Conundrums by last evening, too, so knew that the 7/10 applied to the character name, but thanks anyway!

      Delete
    7. VT,
      The wifi at the lake (where I am) is provided by a great friend of mine who was away for a few days but then returned. (We, and other lake-goers here, do Sunday New York Times crossword puzzles as we bask in the beauty of Lake Whitefish. It is sheer heaven!) Anyway, when he returned he figured out what the problem was and fixed it.

      LegoRewiredAndRewified

      Delete
  3. Good Friday everyone! Due to unforeseen circumstances, I'm not coming to you from our condo in Florida. The night before we were planning to leave, my mother broke her hip in the bathroom. She's in Walker Regional Medical Center right now, and I must fend for myself(with the aid of my brother and sister-in-law). We went out to eat Mexican this evening, and a good time was had by all under the circumstances. Mom will have to undergo physical therapy in a nursing home for at least two weeks, and Bryan and Renae will have to help me with groceries, etc. until Mom gets home. I noticed Puzzleria! wasn't up and running late last night, and now that I've seen it, I'm not really into it for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, hints will still be greatly appreciated. On the lighter side, Mia Kate has an idea for a new murder-mystery trilogy set in the 1920s. She will occasionally want my input, though I'm no expert on the decade. We've already decided the main character will be a young lady named Ramona Grey, whose name will be anagrammed in the story as "Norma Geary". She goes missing, and it's up to the Quince brothers to help locate her. I'll let you know when we build from there, but it's still in the early stages. I hope she can handle most of the work. I suggested maybe the clues to her whereabouts(in another country)may be in crossword, or crossword clue, form. But rest assured my priorities are with Puzzleria! first, with y'all. I will work on the puzzles(although don't hold your breath on the Entrees---I couldn't make heads or tails of the Sunday Puzzle, so Lego's riff-offs are probably no different!). Good solving to all, and get well Mom!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry to hear about your mom's hip, cranberry. Hope she has a speedy recovery. I'll probably post hints late on Sunday.

      LegoHippo

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
  4. Just got all the Conundrums, but I'll definitely need help with the rest!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sunday/Monday Hints:

    Schpuzzle:
    Massachusetts, New York (twice), Ohio, Rhode Island, Florida

    WONS:
    It doesn't take a genius to figure this puzzle out.

    ROSAZS:
    ENTREE #1
    Some spelling may be involved.
    ENTREE #2
    Some "acronymony" may be involved.

    NKNFNSNPD:
    The three body parts are at the top, middle and bottom of a body that is standing.

    LegoWhoTrysAlwaysNotToBeAcronymonious

    ReplyDelete
  6. Any more hints, Lego? I'm batting zero here!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Tuesday Hints:

    Schpuzzle:
    Coilmeadow, Massachusetts; Barrelsmithsburg, New York (twice); Brewskiholdertwoklb, Ohio; Modernmarina Rhode Island; Hippobishop, Florida...

    WONS:
    That "You Can't Touch This" guy could solve this puzzle... he had oodles of vitality.

    ROSAZS:
    ENTREE #1
    Some spelling-out of letters may be involved, Cee?
    ENTREE #2
    A Rat In The House May Eat The Ice Cream = ARITHMETIC

    NKNFNSNPD:
    A Fantastic and Fun puzzle that may Fool you.

    LegoPopeMinnesota

    ReplyDelete
  8. EINSTEIN was a famous scIENTISt.

    MANOS > SALMON {but manos are body partS)
    GANYMEDE
    HORATIO HORNBLOWER; RHO
    MOSQUITO & TAQUITO (I never really doubted my answer; and yes, TOMAS is an anagram of ATOMS)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, darn, I had TRIED 'scientist' but failed to see Einstein. Nuts

      Delete
  9. I never had time to try the Entrees with the very last set of hints, oh well. And I fear that the last hint for the Schpuzzle negates what I had at least THOUGHT might be on the road to the correct answer....alas, now I fear not. I couldn't make ANY sense of that hint with the crazy made-up city names.

    SCHPUZZLE: There exist: ANGOLA, INDIANA; BRUSSELS, WI; COPENHAGEN, NY; KINGSTON, NY; MALI = LIMA, OH; ROSEAU, MN;
    I am stuck re: ASMARA, CANBERRA, OTTAWA, PORT LOUIS (despite ST. LOUIS, MN and PORT LUCIE, FL) and SANTO DOMINGO.

    CONUNDRUMS:

    1. MANOS => SALMON

    2. GA/NY/ME/DE

    3. HORATIO HORNBLOWER => RHO

    4. TAQUITO and MOSQUITO

    WORTHY SLICE: ENTERTAINER?

    ENTREES:

    1. ??
    2. ??

    DESSERT: I had thought "C": CHEST CHIN CALF => CHESTNUTS, MARASCHINO, but could never come up with a CALF edible.

    But given the hint, I think they must be: FOOT FACE FINGER?

    ReplyDelete
  10. SOTW: The names in CAPS, when read aloud, each contain at least one "letter that says its name" (in some cases, with slightly altered pronunciation):
    Asmara = a-S-ma-R-a (if prounounced as eSmaRa)
    Angola = a-N-g-O-la (must pronounce n-g not ng)
    Brussels - possibly br-S-L-s
    Canberra = K-N-berra
    Copenhagen = c-O-p-N-h-A-g-N (English pronunciation)
    Kingston - no letters say their names
    Mali = M-al-E (a bit strained, methinks...)
    Ottawa = o-T-wa (no second letter)
    Port Louis = p-O-rt l-U-is
    Roseau = r-O-s-O
    Santo Domingo = sa-N-t-O d-O-ming-O

    Massachusetts = Ma-S-ach-U-setts
    Ohio - O-h-I-O
    Rhode Island = Rh-O-d I-land
    New York New York = n-U-yor-Q-U-York
    Florida = Fl-R-ida
    [not a very elegant solution but it is the bet I could conjure up]

    Conundrums:
    #1 MANOS + L = SALMON
    #2 GA + NY + ME + DE = Ganymede (also a Galilean moon of Jupiter- its largest moon)
    #3 HORATIO HORNBLOWER, share HOR => RHO
    #4 MOSQUITO, TAQUITO (ATOMS, TOMÁS)

    Worthy slice: SCIENTIST + E N = EINSTEIN

    Entrées
    #1 ????
    #2 ????

    Dessert: I thought of FACE FINGER FOOT (post-2nd-hint) and had FINGER FOOD but no other foods.

    Also (pre-hints) thought of HIP - CHIPS, EAR - PEAR and WIENER - WIENER SCHNITZEL but no other food pairs for other body parts (e.g., HEEL, HAIR, HEAD, HAND.)
    It also occurred to me that the "standing body" could be non-human (e.g., an animal; or even non-animate; e.g., a legislature) but got nowhere with this, other than more H parts (HOCK, HOOF)

    Not a good week...
    geofan

    ReplyDelete
  11. Not a good week for me either, obviously. I only really have the Conundrums and the Worthy Slice.
    1. MANOS, SALMON
    2. GANYMEDE(Georgia, New York, Maine, Delaware)
    3. HORATIO HORNBLOWER, RHO
    4. TAQUITO, MOSQUITO
    Menu
    SCIENTIST, (Albert)EINSTEIN(E and N)
    Better luck next time!-pjb

    ReplyDelete
  12. This week's official answers for the record, part 1:

    Schpuzzle Of The Week:
    All-Caps Capitals & Countries
    Consider the following list of eleven world capitals and their countries.
    Now consider just the nine cities and two countries printed in all-uppercase letters. Ignore the two cities and nine countries not printed in all-uppercase letters.)
    Which one of of the eleven places in uppercase letters does not belong in the list? Explain your answer.
    Hint: There are a number of people who believe the place does indeed belong on the list.
    Luanda, ANGOLA;
    ASMARA, Eritrea;
    BRUSSELS, Belgium
    CANBERRA, Australia;
    COPENHAGEN, Denmark;
    KINGSTON, Jamaica;
    Bamako, MALI;
    OTTAWA, Canada;
    PORT LOUIS, Mauritius;
    ROSEAU, Dominica; and
    SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic.
    Answer:
    ROSEAU
    Each place name either starts or ends with the surname of an athlete in a professional hall of fame. But Pete Rose (ROSEau, Dominica) is not in baseball's HOF.
    Luanda, ANGOLA;
    ASMARA, Eritrea;
    BRUSSELS, Belgium
    CANBERRA, Australia;
    COPENHAGEN, Denmark;
    KINGSTON, Jamaica;
    Bamako, MALI;
    OTTAWA, Canada;
    PORT LOUIS, Mauritius;
    ROSEAU, Dominica; and
    SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic.

    Appetizer Menu

    Unbeatable Rompecabezas Y Pazl Appetizer:
    Greco-Romance(language) wrestling
    1. Think of a common Spanish word for a body part. Add an L and rearrange to name a species of fish.
    Answer: MANOS, SALMON
    2. Think of a character from Greek mythology in eight letters whose name is a concatenation of four US state postal codes.
    Answer: GANYMEDE
    3. Name a well-known fictional character from a series of novels, in seven and ten letters, whose first and last names start with the same three letters. These three letters can be rearranged into a Greek letter.
    Answer: HORATIO HORNBLOWER, RHO
    4. Name an insect and a Mexican food that each end with the same five letters.
    Answer: MOSQUITO, TAQUITO

    Lego...

    ReplyDelete
  13. This week's official answers for the record, part 2:

    MENU

    Worthy Of Note-ation Slice:
    That’s one mixed-up professional!
    Take six consecutive interior letters from the name of a profession. Double one consonant and one vowel and mix up the letters of the result to form the last name of a noteworthy member of the profession. Who is it?
    Answer:
    (Albert) Einstein; SCIENTIST --> EINTIS --> EEINNTIS --> EINSTEIN

    Riffing Off Shortz And Zion Slice:
    Life-or-death circular logic
    Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Zion Slices read:
    ENTREE #1:
    This challenge may sound impossible, but it’s not. You wake up trapped in a round room with five doors. A voice over a loudspeaker tells you that four of the doors are booby-trapped and will bring instant death to an unknown innocent person if you try to open them. Only one door provides an opening that will not take the life of this innocent person. The doors are evenly spaced around the room. They look exactly alike. Your only clue is that on the wall between each pair of doors is a large letter of the alphabet. Going clockwise, the letters are H, I, J, K and L.
    Which door is the correct door to choose, just because it is the right thing to do... and why?
    Answer:
    The door between L and H (The letters in "el" and "aitch" can be rearranged to spell "ethical.")
    ENTREE #2:
    This challenge may sound impossible, but it’s not You wake up trapped in a round room with six doors. A voice over a loudspeaker tells you that five of the doors are booby-trapped and will bring instant death if you try to open them. But one door provides an opening that will not only get you out safely but will grant you supreme bliss for the remainder of your life. The doors are evenly spaced around the room. They look exactly alike. Your only clue is that on each of the doors is a large letter of the alphabet. Going clockwise, the letters are C, D, E, F, G and H. Which is the correct door that will grant you supreme bliss ... and why?
    Answer:
    Door E; The letters reading clockwise, beginning with C, are the initial letters in the message: Choose Door E For Great Happiness.


    Dessert Menu

    No Knife No Fork No Spoon No Problem Dessert:
    Get some grub you can grab
    Name three body parts that begin with the same letter. Each appears in the name of a kind of food usually eaten without using utensils.What are these body parts and food names?
    Name three body parts that begin with the same letter. Each appears in the name of a food usually (often?) eaten without using utensils.
    Answer:
    Face, finger, foot;
    Open face sandwich; finger sandwich; footlong hot dog;

    Lego!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There was clearly absolutely NO HOPE on my ever getting the Schpuzzle this week. Talk about something I NEVER would have even thought to think of [baseball hall of fame names].....but at least, I had company from everyone else!

      Likewise re the entrees....

      Delete
    2. You are correct about the Schpuzzle, VT. It bordered on the unfair. More than half the names are pretty obscure. Your only hope was to latch onto (Mel) OTTawa or (Yogi) canBERRA, and perhaps Muhammed mALI. The (Pete) ROSEau hint might have helped, but probably not before you realized the Hall of Fame context.
      Your efforts regarding "ANGOLA, INDIANA; BRUSSELS, WI; COPENHAGEN, NY; KINGSTON, NY; MALI (= LIMA), OH; ROSEAU, MN" were quite admirable. So was geofan's observation that "the names in CAPS, when read aloud, each contain at least one letter that says its name."
      All in all, all did well with a darn tough week of puzzles.

      LegoWhoShallAttemptToBeMoreFairFromNowOn

      Delete
    3. Well, LegoFair, I think WE might all say rather that we did equally badly! HA! But thanks for the positive mention of my city/state efforts (and I'm sure Geo would say the same.)

      Delete
    4. Lego, thanks for the compliment on my not-so-worthy effort.

      In the Schpuzzle, I had even noted ROSE (as the word, not the person) and came close to OTT but missed him. Also I noted that RAMS was contained (anagrammed) in ASMARA. So tried a football tactic (knowing that you are a fan) without success.

      But a suggestion: IMHO, the hints were useless. It was clear in the first hint that the states shared a quality with the cities/countries. Thus, the second hint was worthless. A better first hint might have been "Athletes in [named states]" (which would still leave out the Halls of Fame property). Second hint could then be "Cooperstown, et al.) or something similar. This sounds rather like a blatant hint, but not as blatant as those you have previously given in earlier weeks.

      My two 12.5-cent parts of old Spanish coins.
      geofan

      Delete
    5. I did think that the "round room" riffoffs bordered on the unfair, but then the original was yet worse in this regard. All three allowed for too many false "solutions", and the "correct" solution did not really stand out from any of other candidate solutions. In this regard, See the raft of comments on Blaine's blog to the NPR puzzle.

      Correction to last blog: "anagrammed" should have read "backwards" (as to RAMS in ASMARA).

      Looking forward to this week's puzzles - please to not tone them down from this week's experience!

      geofan

      Delete
    6. Thanks, geofan and ViolinTeddy, for these three excellent comments in response to my comment dated September 5, 2019 at 12:11 AM. They ring true.
      I shall take geofan's suggestions about my hints to heart. He is correct -- my Schpuzzle hints were really non-hints. (I always have struggled giving hints, here and over on Blaine's blog. I usually labor over my hints, but without great results. And, geofan hit the nail on the head regarding my inconsistency in the degree of "blatancy" in my hinting... it is scattershot and haphazard to be sure.
      As for the "round room" riff-off," point well-taken. There will, alas, be three more such riff-offs on tomorrow's Puzzleria! The second one, ENTREE #2, is relatively elementary (albeit a bit tedious), and I have just now gone in and tweaked #1 and #3 to make them a tad less baffling.
      (Regarding NPR's "circular room" two-week challenge: Again, I agree with geofan. Even after the deadline (when everyone reveals their answers to Will's Shortz's challenge on Blaine's blog, we are still not certain of the answer. This is very unusual. Usually there is some consensus by the time Thursday rolls around. My money is on the answer Blaine, an others, suggested: M + out + H .)
      On the other hand, Lee Zion's 2-week NPR sparked lots of talk and traffic over on Blainesville, so in that regard it was perhaps a sucessful puzzle.


      LegoWhoLearnedThatAFriendOfHisUpAtTheLakeActuallyKindOfKnowsLeeZionBecauseSheWasInACreativeWritingClassWithHimInSouthernMinnesotaAFewYearsBack

      Delete
    7. For what it's worth your second Schpuzzle hint led me (after a period of some bafflement) to the answer.

      Delete
    8. Megatart Stratagem,
      It's worth somewhat more than geofan's two 12.5-cent parts of old Spanish coins! Glad you solved it.

      LegoWhoNotesThat,Coincidentally,Tomorrow'sSchpuzzleInvolvesACoin

      Delete