Solution for 12.16.07

NPR Sunday Puzzle Challenge for December 16, 2007:

Think of a common six-letter word with the following unusual properties: The third and fourth letters are consonants, which are silent, and the fifth letter is a “T” which is pronounced twice.

Solution for 12.09.07

NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle for December 9, 2007:

Think of a well-known actor. Take the first five letters of his first name, and the last five letters of his last name, together, in order. These letters spell the name of a major American city.

Solution for 10.28.07

NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle for October 28, 2007:

Name something you might wear in the summer. The answer will have two words, with five letters in the first word and three letters in the second. Remove the next-to-last letter and read the result backward and you’ll get a word that means “blocks.”

Solution for 10.15.07

NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle for October 15, 2007:

Name a country in 11 letters that has an R in its name. Change the R to a K. Rearrange all the letters to name three makes of automobiles.

Solution for 10.7.07

NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle for October 7, 2007:

Name a well-known city in the United States, two words, 10 letters altogether. Add the letter A at the front, add the city’s two-letter state postal abbreviation at the end, the resulting 13-letter chain will be palindromic.

Solution for 9.30.07

NPR Sunday Puzzle Challenge for September 30, 2007:
Take the word “underachievement,” change one letter in it, and rearrange the result to get a famous actress, first and last name.

What actress is it?

Solution for 9.23.07

NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle for September 23, 2007:

Name something a football player wears, in eight letters. Rearrange the eight letters into two four-letter words associated with a fraud.

What words are these?

Solution for 9.2.07

NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle for September 2, 2007:

Rearrange the letters in CHARADES, to make two words that are synonyms.

What are they?

[Highlight between the lines for the answer]

______________________________

Race, Dash
______________________________

Simple, yet completely annoying!

Solution for 8.26.07

NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle for August 26, 2007:

Name an event at which food is served (eight letters). Inside this word is the name of a food in four letters. Remove these four letters, and the remaining four letters, in order, will name another food.

What words are these?

[Highlight between the lines for the answer]

______________________________

clambake, lamb, cake
______________________________

At least, that’s the answer I came up with!

for all you big cheaters…

Solution for the Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle for August 12, 2007: Rearrange the letters of NITROGEN to get a familiar word everyone knows, that did not exist 10 years ago.

What is it?

_____________

RINGTONE

_____________

Are you happy now? (semi-colon close parenthesis)

foiled by smatt read

For the most part, the Sunday puzzle is a fun challenge. While I usually solve it before Thursday, it is definitely down to the wire on some [1]. This week?

Totally grasping at straws.

For some reason, the only answer I could think of was “jade plant.” Plant, as in Robert Plant, and Jade, as in Ms. Jade of Beat Club Records.

Like I said, a stretch. I am sure that when I hear the correct answer, I will feel suitably mortified. In any case, if anyone’s figured it out, please correct me. I am festering in my wrongitude.

In the meantime, I’ll just be over here shaking an angry fist at Will Shortz. At least, that is, until I get my lapel pin. Sigh.

EDIT:  ARGH!  Who feels dumb now?!  Not only was I not even close, but the answer was so obvious!  PETTY CASH!  argh.

_____________________________________________________
[1] For some reason, most of the people selected to play the Sunday Puzzle with Will and Leanne will say something like “Oh, I got the answer to the puzzle right away. I solved it on the way home from brunch.” Almost every dang one of them. Just once, I would love to hear, “You know, I did a Google search, and read every single entry on Greek gods in Wikipedia, until I realized that the answer was a Roman god. By that point, I was just using my mad search engine skills until the answer jumped out at me. Even then, I wasn’t too sure, but I figured, hey you wouldn’t pick me unless I was right. So here I am. Oh crap, you’re going to make me do anagrams?!” A girl can dream.

let my Cameron go…

Not too long ago, I was but one of the unlucky hoard. Every morning, I would climb into my Corolla, say a little prayer to my plastic Jesus, and join the legions of do-bees in a daily ritual: morning rush hour. Those who love me might say, “It couldn’t have been that bad. You worked out in the suburbs.” To that, I say, “au contraire.” Those from the city of big shoulders know that when it comes to Chicago traffic, there is no such thing as “the opposite direction.”

Sure. Perhaps in the early morning hours, before the sun would break the horizon, my long drive to Libertyville might have been 50 minutes. Pipe dream at best. Try as I might, there were very few occasions where I would log a drive under an hour and 15. So after a harrowing beginning, my day would be filled with the fun and excitement that only a large, suburban corporate campus might provide. After too much joy, my work day would end, and I would join the traffic once more. If there is anything worse than morning rush hour, it is the evening slow jam. Heaven forbid if there was weather. Some days, I spent hours upon hours in my car. Literally.

There were two things that made these moments bearable: baseball and This American Life. I won’t bore anyone with my endless rhapsodies on baseball, but I will say that Sox trivia will always end with Roger Bossart. Rather, I call your attention to the latter of my saviors.

On Friday nights at 7:00, I tuned into WBEZ for another installment of “This American Life.” Ira Glass et al accompanied me on my lonely trek back into the city, transporting me into the minds of strangers 20 minutes at a time. Funny stories, bizarre stories, touching stories. In truth, there are still times when I sit in my car for a few extra minutes so as not to miss the end of the story. It is that good.

Imagine my shock when I found out that TAL will join the ranks of the talkies. Showtime, no less. Sigh. Reason number 8 to break down and get cable. Anywho, they have the first episode in all of its glory on the Showtime website. It is a beautiful extension of the radio program. Frankly, after seeing the skin of a Brahman bull pulled from a box housed in a hall closet, I began to realize that there are some things that you need to see to believe.

The only thing that trips me out, and this is not a criticism, is seeing Ira Glass speaking. For some reason, I had always pictured him looking like Rick Moranis.

In any case, if you love me, you will infringe on a few copyrights. I’m just saying.