Tag Archives: Geeking Out

Octopuzzling!

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Fellow puzzlers, I must apologize. Over the last few months, I’ve attempted to cover as wide a swathe of the puzzling community as possible in my blog posts, but I failed.

Make no mistake, I’ve done a pretty decent job of it, exploring everything from puzzle tattoos and Halloween costumes to brainteasers both new and old, from puzzle references in movies and TV to writing clues and book reviews.

But I’ve managed to neglect an entire sector of the puzzle-loving community: non-human puzzlers.

Oh yes, I’ve been unintentionally speciesist, and that stops today. Let’s take a look at Earth’s other great puzzle-solving creature: the octopus.

Think I’m kidding? Hardly.

Scientists have repeatedly found that octopuses can solve mazes, remember solutions, and apply past experience to new puzzles. They are infinitely curious and adaptable puzzle solvers in their own right.

In fact, some researchers have taken to offering what are known as “prey puzzles” to octopuses in captivity in order to study how they learn, as well as their dexterity, both mental and physical.

From locked boxes to screw-top jars and bottles, prey puzzles have all been solved with relative ease by octopuses. (In fact, Lucy the Puzzle-Solving Octopus — which should really be a children’s book or a kids’ TV series — has been the subject of several articles.)

True, they’re not exactly solving Rubik’s Cubes or decoding cryptograms, but they do impressive mechanical puzzle-solving for a species lacking thumbs, don’t you think?

So, it is with deep regret that I apologize to the octopus community for ignoring your puzzle-solving skills for so long. It shan’t happen again, I assure you.

And now, as a final act of contrition, I give you the following video, featuring a poorly-filmed octopus solving a fairly simple prey puzzle in under two minutes. Enjoy!

How did you get into puzzling?

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More than a few people have asked me how I became a puzzler. What strange, meandering road led me to the hallowed halls of puzzlesmithery? Could aspiring puzzlers follow the same path to puzzlewonderful adventures?

There’s no single path to puzzlerhood. Sure, there are some fairly universal commonalities. Do you have a great vocabulary? Mad trivia skills? Are you a whiz with palindromes, anagrams, or other forms of wordplay? These can all help. Also, a background or degree in English doesn’t hurt.

But every puzzler I know took a different route. It’s not as if we all one day awoke to a knock at the door, only to discover a small basket left on the doorstep, and tiny elfin footprints leading back toward the enchanted forest down the street.

Though, admittedly, that would have been awesome.

Here, let me take you through some of the highlights in my puzzle resume, and we’ll see if my experiences offer some guidance or inspiration for those with puzzletastic aspirations.

Unrecognized Wheel of Fortune Grand Champion, USA, 1988-present

Since I was about seven years old, family members have called me into the family room to see who can puzzle out the quotes, phrases, and punny answers behind the lovely Vanna White, and I regularly school both contestants and kin with ease. While Mr. Sajak refuses to recognize my two decade reign as Wheel of Fortune Grand Champion (Stay-at-Home Division), that doesn’t make it any less noteworthy.

Internship with the Riddler, Gotham City, 2000-2001

There are few puzzle personalities in the world with the flair, cachet, and renown of Edward Nigma, otherwise known as freelance detective and occasional criminal mastermind The Riddler. So when I had the opportunity to sit in with him and learn from his decades of riddle-centric shenaniganry, I leapt at the chance.

I studied the intricacies of mechanical puzzles, wordplay, and punsmithery while under Nigma’s wing, and although I frequently found myself in legal and moral gray areas — and on the receiving end of more than a few POW!s and BIFF!s — the experience was well worth it.

Tetris Foreign Exchange Program, St. Petersberg, 2002

There’s no better spacial awareness training than Tetris — I can feng shui the packages in the back of a UPS truck like nobody’s business, and don’t get me started on my legendary vacation-packing skills — and with the addition of that horrendous tension-inducing “you’re near the top!” music, I’m cool as Siberia under pressure.

Puzzle Summit with Will Shortz, New York City, 2007

Okay, it wasn’t so much a historic meeting-of-the-minds as it was me yelling puzzle ideas at him with a megaphone as I chased him down the street. But that totally counts.

Freelance Puzzle Historian, Self-Appointed, USA, 2009-present

Oh yes, puzzle history is a rich and varied field of study, one to which I have devoted a great deal of time and effort, unearthing some fascinating and surprising discoveries. For instance, did you know that Nero did not, in fact, fiddle while Rome burned? He was far too busy being frustrated by the extreme Sudoku puzzle he’d picked up in the marketplace.

PuzzleNation Citizen, PuzzleNation, 2011-present

Yes, I was granted full citizenship in PuzzleNation, with all rights and responsibilities that entails. (Like walking the Diggin’ Words dogs and such.)

Well, there you have it. A brief glimpse in my particular puzzle experiences and how they’ve shaped me. Here’s hoping you can blaze your own puzzlerific trail, be it through decoding Linear B with Cryptogram-ingrained proficiency or anagramming your friends’ names to your heart’s content.

Good luck, and in the meantime, keep calm, puzzle on, and I’ll catch you next time.

PuzzleNation Book Review: The Puzzling World of Winston Breen

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Welcome to the second installment of PuzzleNation Book Reviews!

All of the books discussed and/or reviewed in PNBR articles are either directly or indirectly related to the world of puzzling, and hopefully you’ll find something to tickle your literary fancy in this entry or the entries to come.

Let’s get started!

Our book review post this time around features Eric Berlin’s novel The Puzzling World of Winston Breen.

That name might look familiar. Yes, Eric and I are both contributors to the PuzzleNation blog. You may think that biases my review in some way, but I assure you it doesn’t. Yes, we both work on the same blog, but Eric stole my lunch money once, and I think that evens things out nicely. Remember: coworker + stolen lunch money = objectivity.

Anyway.

Young Winston Breen is a puzzling fiend, and most everyone in his town knows his penchant for puzzles is unmatched. So when the box he buys his little sister for her birthday turns out to have a secret compartment with a puzzle inside, everyone assumes Winston is behind it. But he’s not, and worse yet, he can’t solve the puzzle at all.

Winston and his chums start investigating where the puzzle came from, but after a curious encounter with the town librarian and crossing paths with a few shady characters, he soon discovers his puzzle is part of a much larger mystery: an actual treasure hunt. Can Winston, his pals, and these strange treasure hunters unravel a 25-year-old puzzle? More importantly, who can Winston trust?

I’ve seen this book described elsewhere as The Da Vinci Code for younger readers, but honestly, I enjoyed this book a lot more than Dan Brown’s efforts. The Puzzling World of Winston Breen is not only a fun read and chock full of all sorts of puzzles — some central to the mystery, others as stand-alone little challenges — but it’s a delightful romp of a story.

The voices of the younger characters all ring true, avoiding the common YA pitfall of having preternaturally sharp protagonists and supporting characters. Winston is often flummoxed by the challenges and obstacles he encounters, but he never gives up, always looking for another solution or pathway to solving whatever problem he faces.

But I also appreciate the lingering sense of menace to the book’s central mystery. You never lose that feeling that there’s some potential danger involved. With break-ins, vague threats, and shady characters with their own agenda, that shadowy feeling doesn’t overwhelm the more carefree puzzle-solving fun of the book, but it does add some stakes to the treasure hunt itself, which I quite enjoyed.

A quick and immensely charming read — the first in a series — The Puzzling World of Winston Breen is perfect for younger readers and puzzlers alike. (Check out the website by clicking here!)

Well, I hope you enjoyed the latest installment of PuzzleNation Book Reviews, and I look forward to more book discussions in the future. In the meantime, keep calm, puzzle on, and I’ll catch you later.

A twoderful holiday five you and yours!

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A holiday hello to my fellow puzzlefiends and solvers!

In the giving spirit of Christmas, I wanted to leave a small token of wordplay wonder for you. As such, I’m happy to present one of my all-time favorite comedy routines, a Victor Borge classic called “Inflationary Language.” It’s a little word puzzle in and of itself, and I think you’ll quite enjoy.

This is impossible!

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There are puzzles out there for every skill level, from super-easy to staggeringly challenging. And every once in a while, you will come across a puzzle that feels expressly engineered to be as difficult as possible, if not borderline mind-meltingly impossible, even for an experienced solver.

If you’ve ever suspected a puzzlesmith of such diabolical shenaniganry, you’ll probably feel vindicated by Sean Adams’s post on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, a bitingly funny introduction from a (hopefully) mythical puzzle book.

Enjoy!

Answers? Why, you shouldn’t have!

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Apologies for the delay in posting the answers to the Word Mastery for the Holidays post, my fellow puzzle fiends! The holiday season, so ridiculously hectic.

In any case, here are the answers! How did you do?

1.) Move hitherward the entire assembly of those who are loyal in their belief.

Oh Come All Ye Faithful

2.) Listen, the celestial messengers produce harmonious sounds.

Hark, the Herald Angels Sing

3.) Proceed forth declaring upon a specific geological alpine formation.

Go Tell It on the Mountain

4.) Nocturnal timespan of unbroken quietness.

Silent Night

5.) Embellish the interior passageways.

Deck the Halls

6.) An emotion excited by the acquisition or expectation of good given to the terrestial sphere.

Joy to the World

7.) Twelve o’clock on a clement night witnessed its arrival.

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

8.) The Christmas preceding all others.

The First Noel

9.) Small municipality in Judea southeast of Jerusalem.

Oh Little Town of Bethlehem

10.) In a distant location the existence of an improvised unit of newborn children’s slumber furnishings.

Away in a Manger

11.) Tintinnabulation of vacillating pendulums in inverted, metallic, resonant cups.

Jingle Bells

12.) The first person nominative plural of a triumvirate of far eastern heads of state.

We Three Kings (of Orient Are)

13.) Geographic state of fantasy during the season of Mother Nature’s dormancy.

Winter Wonderland

14.) In awe of the nocturnal timespan characterized by religiosity.

Oh Holy Night

15.) Natal celebration devoid of color, rather albino, as an hallucinatory phenomenon for me.

I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas

16.) Expectation of arrival to populated areas by mythical, masculine perennial gift-giver.

Here Comes Santa Claus

17.) Obese personification fabricated of compressed mounds of frozen minute crystals.

Frosty the Snowman

18.) Tranquility upon the terrestial sphere.

Peace on Earth

19.) Omnipotent supreme being who elicits respite to ecstatic distinguished males.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

20.) Diminutive masculine master of skin-covered percussionistic cylinders.

Little Drummer Boy

21.) Jovial Yuletide desired for the second person singular or plural by us.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas