Bilingual puzzle

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 06:23:31 GMT

Think of two semi-synonymous phrases, one English, one not, which share the same consonants, but in different order (a la ROBIN WILLIAMS/YELLOW SUBMARINE, as found by Ed Pegg, Jr). I say "semi-synonymous" because one of the phrases is decidedly more formal than the other. The enumerations are (3'1 2 6') and (3 4 2 *5).

Karaoke update

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:58:14 GMT

Four songs last night; first and last were good, middle two less so. My apologies to Messrs. Costello and Williams.

1. "Lawyers, Guns, And Money"--Warren Zevon
2. "Red Shoes"--Elvis Costello
3. "It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year"--Andy Williams
4. "The Sweetest Thing"--U2

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:18:15 GMT

Meme time. Reply to this entry with the word "words", and I will reply with five words which remind me of you. Then post to your livejournal describing what those words mean to you.

The words I got from hahathor were:

Competitive: I really don't consider myself a competitive guy; the fact that it made the list may make me rethink that. In any case, I know I don't get bent out of shape about losing competitions/games/whatever, though I used to. Perhaps it is the case that sometimes, when I'm in the middle of competing and I feel like I or my team may have a chance at winning, some of my more Type A tendencies may shine through. I guess I do usually sign up to be a "runner" rather than a "walker" for NPL extravaganzas, but I think I was a walker last year. Probably will be this year too.

Akron: OK, so at one NPL convention, Will Shortz was running a game of "Beat The Champ", wherein he reads off short wordplay teasers, and groups of people from opposite sides of a room try to answer them out loud the fastest. One of his teasers began "What midwestern city..." and before he could get another syllable out, someone shouted "Akron!". Which turned out to be the correct answer--the teaser itself went on to say that the city would become a unit of currency if you moved the first letter to the end. The story became legendary, and somehow in the most-commonly told version I was the one who made the preternatural guess. But I *didn't*. I'm pretty sure it was Tinhorn. So, as for what Akron means to me, it represents my most impressive achievement that I never actually achieved.

Karaoke: It keeps me sane. Now that every one of the group of people who hold the weekly movie nights has moved across town (and I rarely feel like driving to the grocery store, much less through downtown), without karaoke I don't think I'd have any social interaction.

Games Magazine: The source of everything good and decent in this world. The first year I joined the NPL, Dandr sent me a boxful of old issues of GAMES and its sister publications; I don't think I would have ever made a single puzzle if I hadn't seen the levels of art that could be achieved and wanted to replicate.

Criticism: This is a tough one. I've always been particular in my tastes when it comes to puzzles, and I haven't made too many friends in expressing those tastes. Twice I've attempted to run a blog as a more critical counterpart to the sites of Amy, Rex, et al. and twice I've found that it was a lot more time and effort than it was worth. I still think that the quality of the puzzles in existing publications leaves a lot to be desired, and that this is the result of a needlessly lax standard for what is expected from a crossword than from any lack of talented constructors, but I've long since realized this isn't the sort of thing one can change opinions about or would even want to. I try to set pretty high standards for myself (witness the hyperbolic outburst about "illegitimate" crossword entries in my previous post), but I doubt I'll ever again take to proselytizing.

Squaresville

Bilingual puzzle

Karaoke update