Author Archives: gmdirect

I’ve got a five-letter word for you…

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Last week, Eric posted a link to an article chronicling the top ten works of fiction to prominently feature crossword puzzles.

While the Guardian’s countdown included some choice entries — mentioning not only The West Wing but another show near and dear to the heart of yours truly — there’s one glaring omission from their otherwise impressive listing.

M*A*S*H. More specifically, the season 5 episode entitled “38 Across,” which aired on January 11, 1977.

Now, for those of you who’ve never known a world without the Internet, I’ll explain. 

(*gasp* I know! A world without the Internet! Think of it! Heaven is chock full of people who’ve never known Facebook!)

M*A*S*H centered around a mobile army surgical hospital (mad acronym skills at work here) and the trials and tribulations endured by those stationed in Korea during the war.

Some of M*A*S*H’s best episodes came from the medical staff’s desperate need to alleviate boredom at all costs during their downtime, and in “38 Across,” Hawkeye becomes fixated on completing the New York Times Crossword.

Stymied by a single clue — the Yiddish word for bedbug — he goes as far as to contact an old naval buddy, Lt. Tippy Brooks. In his fervor to solve the puzzle, he says it’s an emergency.

This comes back to bite Hawkeye and his chums when Tippy arrives, with his commanding officer Admiral Cox in tow, expecting a medical emergency, not a linguistic one.

(Click here for a terrific plot synopsis of the episode.)

It’s a very funny episode that plays nicely with a classic sitcom trope — the big misunderstanding. (The title is also a clever inside reference to the 38th Parallel, the line crossed by invading Communist forces, igniting the Korean War.)

Considering how beloved M*A*S*H was, and still is, I was surprised this episode didn’t make The Guardian’s cut.

Alas, no top ten list is perfect. (Just ask David Letterman.)

Oh! For the curious readers, the answer was “vantz.” (The fact that Hawkeye never once mentions the Down words crossing the entry makes me think puzzles aren’t exactly his forte. *laughs*)

And there you have it! All is well with the puzzle world once more. Hope you enjoyed this post, and as always, keep calm, puzzle on, and I’ll catch you next time.

Now can you dig that?

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There are a lot of great puzzle games out there, but only a few have characters to go along with the puzzle solving.

Several PuzzleNation games have characters that drive or contribute to the actual solve of the puzzle — Crossword Raiders and Tanglewords among them — but my favorite is easily Diggin’ Words, our timed anagram game, because of the Diggin’ Dogs.

In the game, the dogs dig up seven letters, and it’s up to the solver to assemble as many words as they can (from 3 to 7 letters) from those seven in the time allotted.

It’s up to the Diggin’ Dogs to dig up those letters and cheer you on as you shuffle and noodle over the numerous possibilities.

But other than a friendly demeanor and a penchant for amateur paleontology, what does the average solver know about the Diggin’ Dogs?

Precious little.

So, it’s my distinct pleasure to introduce the seven lovable pooches who make Diggin’ Words possible.

From left to right: Stormy, Barkley, Copernicus, Sam, Veronica, Lorenzo, and Kana.

Stormy

The elder statesman of the pack (Stormy’s 3 months older than Lorenzo, the next oldest), Stormy assembled this elite team of expert hole-diggers from a wide range of friends, colleagues, and confidantes he’d made over the years. He’s wise beyond his years and proud of his fellow Diggin’ Dogs.

Barkley

The troublemaker of the group, Barkley is mischievous and playful, always ready with a joke or a squeaky-toy prank to lighten the mood. He also participates in a howling barber shop quartet every Saturday night around midnight behind the farmers’ market.

Copernicus

Alert, attentive, and all around excitable, Copernicus (Nicky for short) is enthusiastic enough for a dozen Diggin’ Dogs. Of course, if letter-inscribed bones rocketed out of the ground in your owner’s backyard, you’d probably be the excitable type too.

Sam

You may recognize him from the famous Dogs Playing Poker painting. Sam has since retired from the professional circuit and now spends his time panting expectantly while players try to anagram on the fly under his watchful gaze. He also enjoys barking at passing cars, birds, and sometimes, nothing at all.

Veronica

Veronica is a former Iditarod champion who stepped down after four consecutive victories. Now enjoying a peaceful lull before her next adventure, Veronica joined the Diggin’ Dogs for some much-needed R & R. Digging up these bones and shuffling the letters around is the perfect way to stay in fighting trim.

Lorenzo

With his love of quoting Shakespeare and coloring suggestive of the Phantom of the Opera, Lorenzo is the mysterious one. No one quite knows what breed or mix he is, and he’s happy to keep them guessing.

Kana

The sweetheart of the group, Kana is the affectionate one in the pack, with everyone’s best interest at heart. She keeps bowls of water offscreen for any of the dogs that start panting too heavily, and makes sure everyone sits far enough back that the bones won’t hurt anybody. You can also thank her for the lack of visible drool.

Without these adorable pups, Diggin’ Words wouldn’t be nearly as fun to solve. Thanks, guys and gals. There’ll be an extra MilkBone for each of you tonight.

And thanks for reading. As always, keep calm, puzzle on, and I’ll catch you next time.

She must be no fun to play Hangman with.

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We’ve all seen some lucky guesses and fortunate letters on Wheel of Fortune and other game shows in the past, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like this:

Get a clue.

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One of the most challenging parts of making a puzzle is coming up with new or clever clues. I daresay it’s the toughest part of creating a puzzle.

Of course, that same challenge also makes it one of the most enjoyable aspects of both puzzle-making and puzzle-solving. (After all, if every clue is simply a synonym or a fill-in-the-blank, it wouldn’t be much of a puzzle.)

Now, I love wordplay, I always have. Whenever I can work palindromes or anagrams or the like into a puzzle or its clues, I’m all over it. Getting to do a series of Tom Swifties as clues one time was a particular joy.

But this style of cluing is harder than you think, since sometimes you only have so much space allotted for cluing an entire puzzle. The difference between two lines and three can be crucial.

So your goal should be wordplay that’s funny AND space-efficient while still being appropriate for a wide audience. A personal favorite that I’ve seen in crosswords for a while now is the clue “It’s for posers.” (The answer is “yoga.”)

In my own cluing experience, my sense of humor occasionally causes me to stray toward impropriety when it comes to clues.

For instance, I had a puzzle where I needed to clue “bald,” so I used “unlocked” as the clue. Mildly clever, not too bad, and totally unoffensive. That’s the trinity I need to hit for new cluing.

But in the same puzzle, I had the word Lisp, and I was trying to conjure up a fun clue, instead of relying on something like “speech issue,” which is bland. The clue I eventually came up with — “Make sin thin, e.g.” — made me smile, but I scrapped it, because it might come off as insensitive.

That’s why a clue like “Grass guillotine” for “lawnmower” could cause some problems. You could offend people with that. (The French, or the recently decapitated, I suppose.)

But sometimes, you simply can’t help yourself. A fellow puzzler was trying to come up with an inoffensive way to clue “witch hunt,” a phrase that would’ve fit nicely into a particular crossword grid. (Referring to either the historical pursuit of witches OR the general connotation of persecution was out of the question.)

My thought was that wordplay could save the entry, by getting people to summon up the phrase itself without the negative connotations. You know, like “spellcaster’s search?” or something like that.

That clue came to mind later. After another clue. One that I loved so very, very much, but that I could never use for the above reasons.

My clue for “witch hunt”…

“Pressing engagement.”

I prefer ink to pencil.

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(Yes, that’s a tattoo of a Where’s Waldo? scene.)

A buddy of mine was showing off his latest tattoo the other day.

Naturally, this led to everyone in the group showing off their choicest pieces of body art.

And then other people at the coffeeshop joined in. Total strangers lifted sleeves and doffed shirts to show off their tattoos.

At one point, I was pretty sure every inked person in a 3-mile radius was there, and I was awash in butterflies and tribal patterns, cursive script and symbolic tributes to loved ones.

I was the odd man out, seeing as I have no tattoos to compare and/or flaunt, as the case may be.

I’ve got nothing against tattoos. I think they’re cool, actually, and they can be creative and artistic (and just plain badass). Obviously, many of my friends are tatted up. I just haven’t taken the plunge yet, and I don’t know that I ever will.

But I do have plenty of ideas for tattoos.

They range from the nerdy to the esoteric:

–Luke Skywalker’s severed hand, still clutching Anakin’s old lightsaber, with the words “Never Forget” underneath.

–A teddy bear with a hatch open in its belly, revealing a little green man as a pilot

–A chainsaw with the word Groovy along the chainbar

–A globe made of LEGO bricks

–Zombie Lincoln, surrounded by campaign signs

–Silhouettes of a man and woman tangoing across a crossword grid floor

And that last one got me thinking. I’ve seen plenty of tattoos honoring fandom and hobbies. From movies and TV shows to literature and music, but I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a puzzle-centric tattoo in the wild that wasn’t a jigsaw puzzle piece. (Surprisingly common, as it turns out.)

So, I did a small incantation, tossed a little salt around, and summoned a helpful imp to search the Internet for me. That imp is better known as “Google Image Search”.

And I turned up quite a few puzzle-themed tattoos! Check it out!

Here’s a fresh shot of an asymmetrical puzzle grid. (And it’s 12 x 12 boxes too. Definitely a personalized grid.)

A lot of crossword-style tattoos I discovered involve answers with a personal connection: the names of children, family members, hobbies, accomplishments, etc.

This one is a particularly lovely example of the above style.

And, of course, here’s a nod to the most legendary and infamous crossword of all, The New York Times Crossword.

This one is probably my favorite. (Except for the Connect-the-Dots giraffe tattoo I found while searching.) I love the idea that lurking just beneath the surface is a puzzle fiend, easily recognized by all and sundry. =)

And here’s a Sudoku! Perfect for lazy days at the beach.

Why, the possibilities are endless! Maybe I could get the Diggin’ Words dogs along the inside of my forearm, or a cryptogram of a favorite Mark Twain quote along my calf! Or the PuzzleNation logo on my forehead! It’s free advertising!

…

Yeah, it’s probably best that I remain tattooless for now. But in the meantime, I can keep calm and puzzle on, and I suggest you do the same. Until next time…

Puzzles in Pop Culture: The Simpsons

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From Stanley’s love of crosswords on The Office to the clever conundrums constantly conjured by the Riddler in various iterations of Batman, puzzles have played roles both big and small in numerous TV shows and films.

But for my money, few shows have made puzzles the centerpiece of storyline development and family interaction quite like The Simpsons.

The first episode that comes to mind — and my personal favorite — is season 9’s Lisa the Simpson.

In the episode, Lisa is stumped by a brain teaser and begins to worry about her intelligence, a concern that is only exacerbated by Grandpa’s revelation of the Simpson Gene, a genetic quirk that caused Homer and Bart’s descent from academic achievement to hilarious idiocy.

In the end, of course, Lisa discovers she’ll be just fine — the defective gene is on the Y chromosome, so only male Simpsons are afflicted — and she conquers the brain teaser.

Puzzly themes would continue to crop up in the show from time to time.

For instance, Homer discovers a secret acrostic message from his mother in the newspaper in season 15’s My Mother the Carjacker. But most of the puzzle-centric goodness centered around Lisa.

She indulged in palindromic fun with fellow Mensa members in season 10’s They Saved Lisa’s Brain, as well as an anagramming game in the season 6 classic Lisa’s Rival.

(That’s when I first learned that Alec Guinness anagrams into Genuine Class.)

But puzzles wouldn’t again take center stage until season 20’s episode Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words.

In the episode, Lisa quickly becomes a crossword fiend, solving all the puzzles she can and eventually entering the Crossword City Tournament.

Trouble brews when Homer bets against her in the championship round, and their relationship fractures.

This was a real watershed moment in synergy for the show, since they somehow managed to convince The New York Times to publish the same puzzle in the paper that Homer uses to apologize to Lisa.

(You can click here to see the full puzzle.)

Homer’s hidden message runs along the diagonal, and it’s a brilliantly unobtrusive trick. I’m sure some solvers never even noticed the tie-in. (The puzzle didn’t reference The Simpsons or the episode in any other way.)

Puzzlemaster Merl Reagle created the puzzle, and Will Shortz oversaw the project. Both also appeared in the episode. (Reagle also created the word crossings for the hopscotch puzzle pictured above.)

It’s a real treat to see puzzles incorporated into a narrative like this. Instead of a time-killer or a mere passing interest, they become linchpins of each story. The puzzles create conflict, drive epiphanies, and bring people together.

It’s a testament to the power of puzzles in pop culture. Plus, they’re just a buttload of fun.

Hope you enjoyed this little (animated) trip down memory lane. Until next time, keep calm, puzzle on, and I’ll catch you again soon.