An Act of Unintentional Puzzling?

Posted on September 1, 2020 by gmdirect

Hey there, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers. I’ve got a question for you today:

Have you ever accidentally created a puzzle for yourself?

It could take any number of forms.

A vase you accidentally knocked over and the pieces simply won’t fit back together (until you realize one of the pieces slipped under the table).

An item left in a prominent place, meant to remind you to do something, fix something, move something, accomplish something, complete something.

A Post-it note with a quickly scratched phrase that made total sense when you scribbled it down, but now proves to be nigh-incomprehensible gibberish. (Everyone at one point or another has jotted down a phone number and later struggled to decode it. At least, everyone before the advent of smartphones.)

Gizmodo writer Brian Menegus was presented with a scenario similar to our last example when his modem stopped working. After it didn’t respond to reboots, being unplugged, or “strong language,” he ended up with a new modem after a service call.

All he needed to complete the process and rejoin the greater Internet community was to enter his log-in and password.

And therein lies the puzzle.

wifi password

The password didn’t work as written. The problem was… some of those characters are a little ambiguous.

The first character could be a lowercase G or a 9. The third-to-last could be an 8, an ampersand, or a capital B. Chestnut could be one word or two. There were a litany of different possible interpretations of what was written here.

Multiple interpretations are at the heart of some visual puzzles. Long-time readers may remember the parking lot puzzle, where the solver must unravel how the numbering of spaces in this parking lot works:

The trick is simple: the numbers are upside-down.

Similarly, the wifi password employs a similar level of misdirection, although in this case, it’s quite unintentional.

As you can see from the scribblings at the bottom of the image, Menegus made a list of the possible permutations and tried them all one-by-one, a classic brute force form of puzzle-solving.

So, which version was it?

Well, after trying every combination and getting nowhere — and then resetting the modem to its factory settings — it turned out to be the most obvious one: 95-chestnut-2805.

Sadly, many of these self-made puzzles end up having frustratingly simple solutions.

Still, they do keep life interesting.

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We’re Number Pun! We’re Number Pun! — The ReHASHtag Game

Posted on August 21, 2020 by gmdirect

93621380_2954757837904277_3852074769562206208_n

You may be familiar with the board game Schmovie or hashtag games on Twitter.

For years now, we’ve been collaborating on puzzle-themed hashtag games with our pals at Penny Dell Puzzles, and this month’s hook was #PennyDellPuzzleSports. Today’s entries all mash up Penny Dell puzzles with teams, athletes, famous quotations, and more things associated with the world of sports!

Examples include: Seventh Inning Stretch Letters or Basketball For One.

(The entries leaned heavily towards baseball — understandably, since it only returned a few weeks ago.)

So, without further ado, check out what the puzzlers at PuzzleNation and Penny Dell Puzzles came up with!

Puzzly Athletes!

CrackerJackie Robinson

Simone Biles Says

Tara Blipsinski

Wayne Grepsky

Puzzly Teams!

Arizona Diamond Ringbacks

MilwauKeyword Brewers

Minnesota Twin Crosswords

Philadelphia Fill-Innies

Tampa Bay Sunrays

Washington Wizard Words

Orlando Magic Squares

Chicago Bull’s-Eye Spiral

Puzzly Sports Terminology!

FenWord Ways Park

Doubleheader Trouble

A Few Fielder’s Choice Words

Box Scoremaster / Lucky Box Score

Perfect Dart Game / Perfect Fit Game

Right of Way field

End Zone of the Line

End of the Line drive

BaseLine ‘Em Up

Base Pathfinder

Baseball Diamond Mine

Grand Tour slam

Draw the Defensive Lineman

False Start and Finish

Game, Set, Match-up!

Hall of Framework

These Three-Pointers

Super Bowl Game

Scramble Across & Touchdown

Picker-Upper Deck Home Runs

Puzzly Famous Quotations!

“Are you ready for some Quotefalls?!”

“…The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Delete”

“I never said most of the Everything’s Relative I said.” – Yogi Berra

“This is like Deja vu All Four One again.” – Yogi Berra

“It ain’t Overlaps til it’s over.” -Yogi Berra

“Window Boxes isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” — Red Sanders

“…it seems to me they give these ball players now-a-days very peculiar names… Well, let’s see, we have… Guess Who’s on first, What’s Left on second, You Know the Odds is on third…”

Several of our puzzlers went above and beyond, crafting calls from the announcers at these puzzly events!

The Call of the Game presented by Hall of Framework puzzle announcer Neil Simon Says:

“There’s two Drop-Outs here in the bottom of the Nine of Diamonds, One & Only one man on base, and Wade Mind Boggler steps up to the plate for the Tampa Bay Sunrays. This will be his First and Last at bat of the Word Games World Series. The Pitcher Sleuth looks to his What’s Left, then checks his Right Angles, sets his feet and Square Deals the pitch. It’s swung on by Mind Boggler and holy cow it’s a walk-off Home Run! That Baseball for One was crushed to Bits & Pieces! The Scoreboard says it all folks with a Three-to-One victory for the Sunrays. Who in the world could Picture This kind of ending? Just wow!”

Wide World of Sports reporting from the National Figure Skating competition:

Today, during the synchronized figure skating event, The Ice Chips team, sponsored by Penny Dell Puzzles, began their program divided up into Pairs and glided out onto the ice Two at a Time, and Step by Step taking their positions Face to Face. They gracefully began their number, first skating in a Mirror Image, then dividing up into Odds and Evens. A Small Change in the pace of the music brought a sequence of fast mohawks, turns, spread eagles, swizzles, lifts, and a Shuffle.

Have you come up with any Penny Dell Puzzle Sports entries of your own? Let us know! We’d love to see them!

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Rock Your World With These Puzzly Mysteries!

Posted on August 20, 2020 by gmdirect

Dighton_Rock-Davis_photograph

[Image courtesy of Atlas Obscura.]

We’ve spent a lot of time over the last few months discussing treasure hunts, but those are far from the only puzzly adventures that can send solvers out into nature. If you prefer your puzzling to have a codebreaking or cryptographic angle, we’ve got you covered there as well.

There are three mysterious stones in the United States alone that bear mysterious messages that have boggled the minds of puzzlers for decades upon decades.

In Massachusetts, an eponymous state park museum is the home of the Dighton Rock, a stone covered in petroglyphs that has baffled viewers for centuries. (The earliest writings about the rock date back to 1690!)

judaculla

[Images courtesy of Atlas Obscura. Look at the difference
between the two photos. Time is definitely running out…]

In the mountains of North Carolina, the petroglyphs of the Judaculla Rock defy decoding. Even dating the petroglyphs proves difficult, with estimates placing the origins of the rock’s message between 200 BC and 2000 BC. Sadly, efforts to solve the mystery of this former sacred site of the Cherokee people are fighting the forces of time itself, as erosion threatens the integrity of the glyphs.

And for solvers in the Southwest, New Mexico has the Decalogue Stone, which bears an inscription that, depending on the language used to decode it, could be a record of the Ten Commandments or a report from a lost explorer or warrior. (The possibility that it’s a hoax has been floated by more than one investigator as well.)

rock-inscription

[Image courtesy of The Connexion.]

But for today’s mystery, we turn toward the country of France, more specifically the village of Plougastel-Daoulas in Brittany, the home of a rock that has baffled solvers for at least a century.

Unlike the Dighton Rock, which was moved from the waterline of the Taunton River, the inscription on this rock spends most of its time submerged in the Atlantic Ocean, revealing itself only at low tide. The 20-line inscription utilizes letters from the French alphabet, but the actual language used has eluded solvers. Suggestions include Basque and Old Breton. (There are also two dates on the rock: 1786 and 1787.)

Those dates lead some articles to estimate that the inscription’s origins date back as far as 250 years, but I think that’s unlikely. The rock was only discovered four or five years ago, so that’s a huge window wherein those dates could’ve been carved into the rock.

So, what makes this rock so interesting, given the examples we’ve shared above? Well, this rock inspired the village of Plougastel-Daoulas to host a contest last year to decipher it, offering a prize of 2000 Euros to anyone who could translate it.

13445296-0-image-a-39_1557760832524

[Image courtesy of The Daily Mail.]

In February of this year, the prize was awarded to two solvers who pitched different solutions to the inscription:

The first hypothesis came from Noël René Toudic, professor of English, who has a degree in Celtic Studies. He said that the inscription was likely about a soldier, Serge Le Bris, who may have died at sea during a storm. Another soldier, Grégoire Haloteau, was then asked to engrave the rock in memory of the dead man.

The second hypothesis came from reporter and writer Roger Faligot, and comic book author and illustrator Alain Robert. They suggested that the inscription was by someone expressing their anger against those who caused the death of a friend.

Despite those pitches — and all of the headlines declaring the mystery solved — this case is not officially closed yet. Perhaps other towns will follow the Plougastel-Daoulas model to encourage both visitors and solvers.

It certainly couldn’t hurt.

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Another Treasure-Filled Puzzle Hunt in the Works?

Posted on August 6, 2020 by gmdirect

When it rains, it pours.

Just last week, after lamenting the (possible) end of Forrest Fenn’s famed treasure hunt, we spread the word about a new treasure hunt based in Michigan that had emerged unexpectedly from the ongoing circumstances caused by the Coronavirus.

As it turns out, Michigan may not be the only place an intrepid treasure-seeking puzzler can look for a challenge that ends with riches.

We recently received a message about the latest cache being hidden by “the Treasure Man” H. Charles Beil, a curious figure who is supposedly hiding caches of gold, coins, crystal skulls, and other valuables all over the country.

His goal is to hide a cache in each of the fifty states, and apparently, the hunt for his fifteenth cache — the Gallows Harbor Treasure Hunt — will soon be underway.

ark of the covenant

[This chest, designed to look like the Ark of the Covenant,
is supposedly already in place, awaiting cagey solvers.]

From the message, which was structured like a press release:

H.Charles Beil has hidden a multi-million dollar treasure weighing nearly a half ton in the Appalachian Mountains.

The treasure consists of six large brass chests, crystal skull signed by actor Dan Aykroyd and six smaller chests filled with gold, silver, precious gems, coins, pewter, jewelry, historical items and custom art objects.

I went looking for more information, and was a little surprised to see mentions of H. Charles Beil confined to treasure hunting forums and other odd corners of the Internet, rather than being reported in the major news outlets, as Forrest Fenn’s hunt was.

That’s especially curious if five of the caches have been found. How were none of them reported in online news sources? (At least, as far as I could tell.)

Of course, Fenn’s treasure hunt was quiet for years before it gained mainstream press, so it’s not impossible that this has flown under the radar, just highly unlikely.

The Treasure Man caches have evocative names like The Lost Cache of Wolf Run, The Secret Lovers Lost Cache, or The Legend of Woodsy Swamp, and they’re often steeped in local lore. (Click here for a rundown of many of the caches.)

Although sites like GallowsHarbor.com and TheTreasureMan.com have some details, they’re more like teases — hints you’d expect in a promotional campaign — instead of fully informational sources. It appears that most of the helpful information for these hunts are tied to the Treasure Man’s Facebook Group, where many hunters post videos and information relating to their efforts to hunt down these caches.

The Gallows Harbor Treasure Hunt is apparently tied to a book that hasn’t been released yet. This does make the websites, as well as all the cloak-and-dagger elusiveness feel like a PR stunt to sell a book, rather than a puzzly adventure. But again, I have no proof one way or the other.

gallows harbor

I wish I had more details to share with you, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers. It seems like the most useful and accessible source of information about the caches is Mysterious Writings, a website and YouTube account dedicated to treasure hunts of all sorts. You can check them out here and here.

If this is all true, then it’s a marvelous endeavor that is bringing joy and excitement to adventurous solvers all over the country. If it’s not, then it’s a fairly elaborate and well-constructed hoax that will hopefully boost some book sales for the Treasure Man.

Either way, it’s an interesting story, one that we hope sparked your imagination and your puzzly spirit.

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Treasures Galore Await Puzzlers in Michigan!

Posted on July 30, 2020 by gmdirect

johnny treasure

[Image courtesy of Johnny’s Treasure Quest.]

One famous treasure hunt might finally have ended, but another one has risen up in its place halfway across the country.

And unexpectedly, this new bright spot on the puzzly calendar has grown directly out of the darkness of the ongoing Coronavirus crisis.

I’ll give you the backstory first. J&M Jewelers has been a presence in Washington Township, Michigan, for decades as a local emporium for gold, silver, diamonds, and antiques, but unfortunately the store was forced to close due to the economic strains imposed by the state’s lockdown period.

With plenty of unsold inventory from the jewelry store just sitting around, owner Johnny Perri and his wife Amy came up with an ingenious way to salvage the situation…

A statewide treasure hunt.

Yes, the Perris have prepared actual treasure troves in places all around the state, and they have invited puzzlers and treasure seekers to accept the challenge of their Michigan-spanning “treasure quest.”

If you locate one of the hidden troves — marked by an X, of course — you can either keep the treasure as you find it or exchange it for its cash value with the organizers! How can you go wrong?

There are different quests in different counties on different days, and you need to sign up for your particular quest and pay a registration fee. Also, be sure to join their Facebook group for details.

Several of the quests have already sold out, so new ones have been added, but spots are going quickly!

Honestly, this is a pretty ingenious way to make the best out of a bad situation, allowing intrepid treasure hunters to embark on a puzzly adventure and help out a struggling business all at the same time.

The first of the treasure quests starts on August 1st, with more later in the month and others launching in September. (One was just announced for October as well!)

Good luck to all the aspiring treasure hunters out there. And to Johnny and Amy Perri, thank you for this marvelous puzzly adventure. We here at PuzzleNation wish you and your family all the best.

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The Fun Side of Crosswordese

Posted on July 28, 2020 by gmdirect

Anyone who solves crosswords is familiar with some aspect of crosswordese, even if they don’t know it by that name. Crosswordese consists of words that appear frequently in puzzles, but not nearly as often in conversation or common use. My favorite variation on that definition is “words that crop up a lot in grids but are otherwise pretty useless.”

Part of becoming a better solver is building a personal lexicon of crosswordese and common crossword words so you’re not getting tripped up by the same obscurities, peculiarities, and cruciverbalist celebrities that so often occupy those black-and-white grids we enjoy.

Some of these words seem destined to remain obscure. ETUI will most likely never become commonplace. Most people don’t fence, and couldn’t tell an EPEE from a foil or a saber.

[Image courtesy of Celebs.Infoseemedia.com.]

Others are cyclical. OONA was Chaplin’s wife, until her granddaughter of the same name become a featured player in the first few seasons of Game of Thrones. Similarly, both ELSAS Lancaster and the movie feline have Frozen to thank for that name gaining new life in puzzles these days.

(Here’s hoping there’s a crop of Eastern-European actresses that will storm TV and film soon and breathe new life into clues for ONA, UNA, UTA, and OSA.)

But, for the most part, crosswordese evokes negative feelings. It’s easy to come up with a list of the words that irk us — the ones we’ve never encountered in the real world, or the ones that we simply cannot remember, even after filling them into a dozen grids or more.

But today I’d like to focus on the ones I do enjoy, the strange words I’ve learned through crossword solving and construction that have broadened my vocabulary and sent my mind down unexpected tangents and pathways I would’ve never otherwise wandered through.

[Image courtesy of Driving.ca.]

EDSEL

It’s amazing how a convenient letter pattern can keep an infamous failure in the minds of solvers decades and decades later. It was only manufactured for two years, and that was SIXTY years ago. And yet, whenever I see “Ford flop” or something similar as a clue, I always smile. It’s universal at this point.

NE’ER

There’s a lot of poetic license — see what I did there? — taken with poetry terms in crosswords, and most of them are well-and-truly overused. But for some reason, NEER ne’er bothers me. In fact, I enjoy seeing it. It probably has to do with “ne’er-do-well,” which is an incredibly fun term to throw around. It’s right up there with “deipnosophist” and “raconteur” as far as descriptive terms that need to make a comeback.

[Image courtesy of Digital Spy.]

IAGO

He was first clued as a master manipulator from the works of Shakespeare, then as a conniving Disney sidekick who slowly turns toward the light over the course of the franchise. In either case, he’s a fascinating character whose handy combination of vowels ensures he’ll be a part of crosswords for years to come.

[Images courtesy of StarWars.com and Polina Couture.]

OBI

As someone who is both a Star Wars fan and deeply interested in Japanese culture, I always enjoy when OBI makes an appearance in a grid. (More for the former reasons than the latter, if I’m being honest.)

In fact, this blog entry inspired me to search XWordInfo to see when OBI started being clued as part of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s name (twice, which is weird yet lyrical) and not just as a Japanese sash.

Although the character debuted in the first Star Wars film in 1977, his name wasn’t used in The New York Times crossword to clue OBI until 1990!

These are just the first common crossword entries that came to mind. There are a few others, not to mention all of the neat animals — mostly bird-related or African in origin — that crop up in crosswords. KEA and ROC, IBEX and ELAND, OKAPI and RATEL, just to name a few.

But now I turn the subject over to you, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers. What are your favorite common crossword words or bits of crosswordese that appear in grids but don’t irk you? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.

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PuzzCulture

All about puzzles & games

Tag Archives: DIY puzzling

An Act of Unintentional Puzzling?

We’re Number Pun! We’re Number Pun! — The ReHASHtag Game

Rock Your World With These Puzzly Mysteries!

Another Treasure-Filled Puzzle Hunt in the Works?

Treasures Galore Await Puzzlers in Michigan!

The Fun Side of Crosswordese

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