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Another Frightening Puzzle Piece
More election fraud news from Ohio (seems there may be attempts by the companies responsible for the voting machines to manipulate the recount)
NYTimes article on these reports.
A new Goozle at Goozle.org
There's been a new goozle posted at goozle.org.
We just thought some might be interested.
It should prove challenging, we hope. In case you wonder after seeing the challenge, all information needed to solve it is there (with the assistance, naturally, of your internet search engine of choice). No special knowledge is required.
We acknowledge assistance on the creation of this challenge from John.
Putting the Pieces Together Can be Frightening
18 Amazing Facts about Voting in the USA
Did you know....?
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886
5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator in a surprise upset, with votes counted by ES&S machines.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm
http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html
8. Kenneth Blackwell co-chaired George Bush's Ohio election campaign. As Ohio secretary of state, he left no stone unturned to surpress the democratic vote.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004Y.shtml#1
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/894
http://67.15.90.110/article.pl?sid=04/10/29/1414219
9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm
11. Exit polls are usually excellent predictors of election results. Reputable analyses could not find and explanation of the discrepancy between exit polls and results of the 2004 presidential election.
http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/Unexplained_exit_poll_discrep_v00l.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/international/europe/23ukraine.html?ex=1102245800&ei=1&en=3a3c24b7e64fe49
12. A Diebold subsidiary employed 5 convicted felons as senior managers and developers. These people helped write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml
13. Jeff Dean, senior programmer on Diebold's central compiler code, was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
14. Jeff Dean was served jail time for planting back doors in his client's accounting software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh.html
16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it!
See the movie here with the chimp: http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov
http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190
17. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html
http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=950
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm
18. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,97614,00.html
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html
http://uscountvotes.org
Individually, each is circumstantial. Together, they are all circumstantial. But the odds of coincidence get less and less. Without a smoking gun, nothing will likely be proven. We will be left with suspicions.
Cipher
Abj vf gur gvzr sbe nyy tbbq zra gb pbzr gb gur nvq bs gurve pbhagel.
Gur dhvpx oebja sbk whzcrq bire gur ynml qbt.
Tveyf ehyr, oblf qebby.
Decipher the above, and come up with a five-character name for this particular cipher. Add ".com" at the end, and you can create your own.
We may use this cipher in the future in place of our 'invisible ink'.
Test for Demenia
Test for Dementia (We answered 4/5 correctly, and feel 1/5 of our answers were superior to the answer provided by the test's creator)
Below are four (4) questions and a bonus question. You have to answer them
instantly. You can't take your time, answer all of them immediately. OK? (Answers are added for your convenience in invisible ink]
Let's find out just how clever you really are.
First Question:
You are participating in a race. You overtake the second person. What
position are you in?
Answer:
If you answered that you are first, then you are absolutely wrong! If you
overtake the second person and you take his place, you are second!
(Try not to screw up in the next question.)
To answer the second question, don't take as much time as you took for the
first question.
Second Question:
If you overtake the last person, then you are...?
Answer:
If you answered that you are second to last, then you are wrong again. Tell
me, how can you overtake the LAST Person?
(You're not very good at this, are you?)
[Actually, our answer to this question was you are running the wrong
direction. We've also heard the suggestion from a co-worker that if you are running a race with multiple laps around a track you can pass the last person, and in this case, there isn't enough information. ]
Third Question:
Very tricky math! Note: This must be done in your head only. Do NOT use
paper and pencil or a calculator. Try it. Ready? Go!
Take 1000 and add 40 to it. Now add another 1000. Now add 30. Add another
1000. Now add 20. Now add another 1000. Now add 10. What is the total?
(Scroll down for answer.)
Answer:
Did you get 5000?
The correct answer is actually 4100.
Don't believe it? Check with your calculator! Today is definitely not your
day. Maybe you will get the last question right!
Fourth Question:
Mary's father has five daughters:
1. Nana, 2. Nene, 3. Nini, 4. Nono.
What is the name of the fifth daughter?
Answer:
Did you answer, Nunu? Well, that's wrong!
Her name is "Mary". (Read the question again!)
Okay, now the bonus round.
There is a mute person who wants to buy a toothbrush. By imitating the
action of brushing one's teeth he successfully expresses himself to the clerk,
and the purchase is completed.
Now, a blind man wishes to buy a comb. How should he express himself?
Answer:
If you answered:
He points to his head, and imitates the action of combing ones hair?..then
you are wrong!
He just has to open his mouth and ask the clerk! He is "blind", not
"mute"!
Yes we know it looks weird
We're likely to revise it a bit, or perhaps backtrack and remove it completely.
We haven't had any problems with spam, yet. But it's preventative. We know bots have difficulty travelling through forms. If they can't find the comment page, they're not going to leave spam.
Yes, we know the "recent comments" to the right pretty much negate any benefits this might have.
MIddle Names
Normally, the middle name is initialized if it appears at all. Can you identify the individuals with the first and last names initialized, and the middle names spelled out?
We admit there may be more than one answer, but the below individuals all had a common endeavor. (Though one had a significant difference from the other nine.)
V. Marie H.
S. Taylor C.
H. David T.
R. Lee F.
E. Estlin C.
E. Brooks W.
A. Randolph A.
W. Hugh A.
D. Rothschild P.
C. Lutwidge D.
Solve
Solve what no man has solved before...(because we just created it)
DITLOID + B in a W = F the W is H and IHT the S.
B in a W = WYSLMWYSNM.
F the W is H and IHT the S = SOL - H of the A - BY of ST (of T and H).
Hint: No sport is involved
We have added two equations which may help, or confuse matters. All three are one. That is, once you figure out the number that corresponds with a group of letters and words, that same number fits in the other two equations where you would expect it to.
If you have absolutely no idea what is going on above, put the first word into a search engine. (The rest is difficult enough)
Questionable Diagnosis
Latvian doctor arrived at scene, and pronounced the cause of death as 'old age'.
Workers at a funeral parlor discovered 45 stab wounds on the body.
Mathematical Word Puzzle
We saw this elsewhere, posted today, and have figured out the answer...can you?
John celebrated his birthday yesterday. He realised that this particular birthday was a once in a lifetime event.
He also realised this would not happen to anyone next year, and did not happen to anyone last year but would happen to his sister, who was 1 year younger than him, in 2006 and had happened to his brother, who was one year older than him, in 2002..
How old was John?
(btw he was NOT a newborn baby).
Note: Observant persons might realize the originator of this puzzle was probably British. They'd be correct, we believe, but it is irrelevant to the solution of the puzzle. But for extra bonus points -- tell us how we know.
Results by IQ
Because it's fun to be a troll. If you want to read it better, open the image in a new window. We've shrunk it to fit. But all you really need is the colors, and know that the IQ is listed from highest to lowest. (IQ is ranked by average IQ in the state. The notes at the bottom talk more about when the study was done, and by whom. We haven't verified anything.)
An announcement
Christy mentions below that a Goozle would help her feel better.
We feel she's probably not alone in her desire for a distratcion.
We've been working on something, which isn't completely ready yet. We made a post a few weeks back about an upcoming announcement, and this is it.
Goozle.org (comments, input, suggestions welcomed)
(if you go back to that post of a few weeks ago, and remove all the a's, s's, d's and f's, all that will remain are the letters in the url above)
The first goozle is already up.
You will find it is rather long. And should provide suitable distraction for longer than prior goozles.
The site is set up so that no search engine robot should find and archive either questions or answers.
Entries will be posted to this blog announcing new Goozles (perhaps monthly), and comments about particular goozles can be made. But any comments to this blog including answers will be deleted.
Non-Goozle type puzzles will still be posted here.
We do plan on mentioning this site on rec.trivia once we feel it is 'ready for primetime' in hopes of gaining fresh participants.
One final note: goozle.org is privately registered. Just in case clever individuals thought we might have been a little careless...
NOTE 11/5: A couple corrections have been made.
Caption This
Early Exit Polls for Kerry
Early exit polls lean towards Kerry
While exit polling is notoriously unreliable ... there is apparently also a tendency for Republicans to vote earlier in the day. Which suggests if early exit polls are leaning towards Kerry, it will only build as the day progresses.
We just got this in our email, not sure if the numbers match the link (once again, these are exit polls):
Pennsylvania
Kerry 59 Bush 40
Ohio
Kerry 52 Bush 48
Florida
Kerry 52 Bush 48
North Carolina
Bush 52 Kerry 47
West Virginia
Bush 52 Kerry 40
Maine
Kerry 55 Bush 44
Missouri
Bush 55 Kerry 44
New Hampshire
Kerry 58 Bush 41
Arkansas
Bush 55 Kerry 44
Arizona
Bush 55 Kerry 45
Colorado
Bush 51 Kerry 48
Louisiana
Bush 57 Kerry 42
Michigan
Kerry 51 Bush 48
New Mexico
Kerry 50 Bush 48
Minnesota
Kerry 58 Bush 41
Wisconsin
Kerry 52 Bush 48
Kerry in a landslide
That's what Jimmy Breslin of Newsday predicts.
Based on
- The assumption no one who voted for Gore would vote for Bush
- Heavy registration drives that are unaccounted for in polls
- Millions of people with cell phones (and no LAN lines) unaccounted for in polls
Things in your garage
Next up on the $25,000 Pyramid
Things in your garage:
car, ladder, paint, lawnmower, plutonium, fertilizer, shovel
Goozle from Gavroche
As we suggested he should, Gavroche sent us this Goozle. (or is it an urban challenge?)
1) 
Name this First Lady
2) Two teams of Christian monks can hear #1 on this same radio frequency, even though they're hundreds of miles apart. Some of them might run into Archie, Betty and Veronica...the others might run into eagles that can talk.
3) Year belonging to this literary cousin of “Benjamin” “Snowball” and “Squealer”
4) According to the author of "A Boy Named Sue" – there were originally this many items in a famous list, but it proved too heavy, and some of the list was dropped.
5) Bob Newhart played a character with the same first, middle and last name in a movie based on a book by this author.
6) The author in #5 followed up the book in #5 with a bestseller where a character transposed the name of a famous author. The answer to this clue is either the last name of the character, or the first name of the author.
(3)+(4) – int(2) will give you an address
(6) will give you a street
Once you find the business at that location, in the city of St. Louis, tell us who the first person was to ‘solve’ the challenge, and when this something happened.
Note: 4pm Wed: Gavroche asked us to add some punctuation to question #2. We did.
Note: 1:15 pm Thurs: Gavroche has reworded question #2 realizing there are two possible ways to get to the same answer.
Monday Goozzle
(Nobody found this on a discussion board. It was written by Alexandra Dixon and Jen van Stelle. Nobody doesn't know either woman. It may or may not be important to note that the puzzle was originally posted on 7/4/03. It wasn't important to Nobody.)
Just the FACTS, Ma'am
1)
The actor in #5 shares his first name with an actor first made famous
in a TV sitcom whose title is another word for the answer to #5. What
is that word?
2) OK, team: frame one. List.
3) A
trilogy of 1990’s films directed by an Eastern European director can be
seen everywhere in America today. On what are they seen most often?
4)
Our 16th President shares his nickname with an actor on another sitcom
which went off the air a year before the sitcom in #1 went off the
air. What character did that actor play? In what group would you find
a lot of that character’s name?
5) An actor who spoke the
words in the title of this clue also appeared in a movie whose first
word contains the title of the first film in the trilogy mentioned in
#3. What famous jazz musician appeared in the movie? What was his
nickname?
The answers to the five questions above combine to
form the name of a business in San Francisco, but not in the order given. A hint to
the order can be found somewhere in the clue. The answer will be the name of the business and its address.
Easy baseball trivia
The above picture was taken on October 13, 1967.
1) Who is it?
2) What team did he pitch against on that day?
3) Who won the game?
We wonder if this is a first...
An LA television station covers the demise of a blog.
(The blogger was an anonymous employee in City Hall who decided to quit blogging because "interest in my identity ... has compromised my ability to protect confidential sources.")
Oops, wrong photo!
The Riverfront Times this week says they put the wrong picture on last weeks' cover
| Last's week's RFT cover | Intended Photo |
 |  |
We're curious how long it took to add the clothes to the bodies of the women in the photograph. They also clearly moved a few of the women around in the photo. All in all...great 'Photoshop' work. Worthy of Fark.
This looks like fun
This looks like fun: National Novel Writing Month
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over talent and craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
An Old Classic
But there's always the chance someone hasn't seen it yet
Since the small print is very difficult to read: "A rat under the influence of Marijuana...To readers that are not acquainted with the anatomy of rats, the hairless, scaly structure protruding in front is the tail."
Cool Car
They ran out of cubicle space at work...
Does the bear pee in the woods?
We guess this means the Pope's not Catholic either. We better inform the press.
On this date in history (month/day/year), one leader of a superpower was removed from office, one day after another great leader of men received the Nobel Prize.
This was the same year a major British rock group had their first North American hit, and a spaceman resigned and entered politics.
Today's Trivia
One thousand nine hundred and fifty years ago today, this man was in the 'grips' of death after being poisoned by his wife.
A trivia question -- what else?
Two talk shows have been in the news lately due to announcements about future occurrences. One will take place in 2006, and the other in 2009.
Three big names in the entertainment industry passed away within the past week to week and a half. Two of these three have appeared on both talk shows mentioned above. (We are treating it as the same show even if the host changes) The third did appear once on one of the two shows. (Despite one major internet source not listing it in their credits)
Match the actor(s)/actress(es) with the talk shows.
In other words...
Famous Poetry Paraphrased
Name Poet, Work, and original phrasing:
1)
A small amount of education can be hazardous. One should take big gulps from the waters of knowledge or none at all. Down a couple pints to cure any hangovers caused by little sips. http://www.bartleby.com/100/230.99.html
2)
An old sailor waylays about 33.3% of those he sees. "You with the long beard, and twinkling eye, why are you stopping me? The church doors are open, and I'm family of the bridegroom, and goddamit, I want to party!"
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Rime_Ancient_Mariner.html
(slight liberties were taken there with the text)
3)
I'm leaving to retrieve the baby cow that's next to her ma. It's a youngun, yes sir, it even wobbles when its mother licks it. It won't take me very long, you can join me.
http://www.online-literature.com/frost/754/
4)
Sweets are great, but alcohol is faster. http://www.westegg.com/nash/
5)
Cornflowers are Blue, and Roses are the color of Merlot. Cornflowers are blue, and I really like those I like a lot.
(Originally written in a language other than English)
http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/gallica/Chronologie/19siecle/Hugo/hug_1706.html
Links to originals added above in invisible ink...
Alphabetized Quotes
Quotes from Vice Presidential Debates of Years Past. Who said it, what year, And if applicable, to whom was it said?
1) a friend I I knew mine no of Senator Senator served was with you're
(2 words, repeated four times, have been removed.)
2) am am and doing here I I what Who
Episode of 'Jack and Bobby' Results in Goozle
We have been watching most episodes of the new WB series Jack and Bobby.
At the end of episode 1 we learned Bobby would become President in 2040, and Jack wouldn't live to see it. The series is set in current day as we watch the kids grow up. (The character names were chosen for obvious reasons)
In last night's episode it was revealed that Bobby would be the second president with a background in religion. He will become a Reverend, before he becomes President.
The Whitehouse.gov bio of the President the tv show mentioned as the predecessor doesn't mention any religious education at all. However, the tv show was correct. This former President did attend a seminary. He died in office after being shot. Though some claim it wasn't the bullet that killed him. Who was he?
Of course, if you watched the show last night, this could well be easy.
Home..Home on the Goozle, where the deer and the antelope play...
If you take the age of the man in the Brooks-Reiner comedy routine, and subtract a section # of the US Internal Revenue Code allowing the deferment of cg taxes on the "swapping" of similar properties you will arrive at the age of someone in the bible when they died.
A planet was recently named after that biblical figure. In billions of years, how old is this planet?
Benjamin Franklin says to awaken early, but the Bible says this is vain. Where? Take the number you find there, divide it by the billions of years above, and tell us what number you have left.
Another Day Another Goozle
This Australian singer-songwriter cut an album titled after the official name of the Tasmanian Tiger. You take her first name, and add it to the last name of a former Supreme Court Justice who died in the past 20 years, and you will have the name of a lead singer of a band named after a popular 1980s movie.
Coming Soon
gsdfasfsdfsdfsdosdfasdfsdafsdafasddfoasdfasdfsdafasdzsdfasdfasdfsdldfasdfasdfsdesdfsdfasdf.
dfasdfsdafasdosdfasdfsdafsdafrsdfasdfasdfsdfasdfsdg
If you can't translate the above...we'll explain more later.
A Goozle from Christy
This General whose final resting place is in St. Louis, shares his
name with poet who wrote about the seizure of epidermal outgrowth.
Add his burial plot coordinates and the year of his death to the year
that this "good" king was crowned in France to get the year when
everything you think do and say is in the pill you took. The year
represented in the last 3 digits saw a person who shares his name with
the previously-mentioned King of France end a reign of a different
kind. This man was the first of his kind to do what?
We're Cool, and You're Not!
As Christy says, those of us with Bloghorn are just plain cooler than everybody else. Thanks to the Evil Mastermind behind Bloghorn and its new "comment filtering" feature.
At the current moment all comments will be converted to jive.
At future moments in time, it might be Swedish Chef, Valley Girl, or Warez, or a filter yet to be developed.
We will have to take this into consideration when judging whether an answer to a puzzle question is correct.
Wednesday Goozle
1. In the musical trivia question asked earlier, three musicians died all the same age. Within the past year an actor died the same age. He died on the same day the comic book trade paperback Batgirl Year One was released.
2. The television series in which the actor in question 1 is best known for his role. (Not a soap opera)
3) Name of the animal character on that television show. (Actually not portrayed by a real animal, but through special fx)
4) Scientific theory scientist sharing name of #3 is best known for.
5) Actor who shares last name of author of TPB mentioned in #1, and who portrayed famous individual with initials JEH in a documentary about a political figure assassinated in the 1960s
6) Country musician turned mystery writer who wrote a book with a title parodying a TS Eliot poem and containing the name of the JEH person mentioned in #5.
7) A musician with the same last name as #6 who recorded a song with a title matching a famous disney mermaid.
8) Another song by the musician in #7 about a girl at a fast food restaurant
9) The song in #8 was re-recorded by this group which has recently signed a deal with a network to do a variety show.
10) Complete these lyrics: "I said, 'Hi.' She said..." (5 words)
Musical Trivia
Just one question. Could be a goozle...you might know it off the top of your head.
Three musicians. All died within a 12 month period. All were born within a 13 month period. Their first names began with the same letter.
We're sorry we didn't post this question yesterday...
From Nobody's email to your computer screen
It's old, but for those who haven't heard it before, it will be new:
Major League Baseball Fans
Four Major League Baseball fans went rock climbing: a Yankees fan, a Red Sox fan, a Cubs fan and a Cardinals fan. They had been arguing all the way up the mountain about who amongst them loved their team more and was the most "diehard" fan.
The argument grew hotter and hotter and the four fans grew more and more agitated. Such was the emotion that upon reaching the top of the mountain, the Yankees fan proclaimed loudly and earnestly to the other three, "This is for the New York Yankees!" and without a moment's hesitation threw himself off the mountain. The supreme sacrifice!
Not to be outdone by a Yankees fan, the Red Sox fan jumped up and cried out, "This is for the Boston Red Sox!" and quickly threw himself off the mountain, also willing to sacrifice himself to prove his devotion to his team.
Refusing to be outdone by the Yankees and Red Sox fans, the Cardinals fan rose to his feet, summoned up every ounce of his courage, and yelled at the top of his lungs, "This is for the St. Louis Cardinals!" and without a moment's hesitation, shoved the Cubs fan off the mountain.
Goozzle
It seems everyone's supplying Nobody with Goozzles. Thanks! We like to try solving them too. Feel free to email us with your own. Our email address is to the right. (Email any puzzle/challenge you may have...we'll give you proper credit.)
Maybe we need to create a website just for Goozzles. Goozzle.com maybe?
The below comes from Gavroche, and hopefully will provide some with a challenge for the weekend.
- A Central American democracy
- Organic farm in #1 named after a stage of the moon
- Name the President of the company that operates this farm.
- #3 appeared before a court in 1996 in what capacity, and in what case? (I believe it can be safely said that every major newspaper in the nation mentioned this case, even if they didn't mention #3)
- How does the appellant in the above case most closely associated with #3 currently suggest we prevent war and terrorism?
- Some of the finest Conservative minds in America today do their work in this think tank, according to Rush Limbaugh in 2000.
- A Vice President of this think tank who shares a name with the individual in #5
- A Bajoran religious title connected in some way to a previous answer.
- A quiet character on the TV show where several Bajorans with the above religious title appeared. He was named after a character on a long-running TV series where an ex-professional athlete with the nickname “Mayday” ran a business.
- Identify the mirror in an extremely popular children’s book and movie named in a similar fashion as the character in #9.
Answers to 9/22
1) The year was 1951. It was New York Giant Bobby Thompson who hit the "shot heard round the world" against the Brooklyn Dodgers. (Game winning homerun of a playoff). 212 miles away from Lexington, MA where the first shot of the American Revolution was fired. (MA was a colony of Great Britain at the time, so technically not the same country as the baseball game in 1951)
2) Musician Bobby Thompson played the banjo for a band called Area Code 615. Later this band renamed itself Barefoot Jerry.
3) Robert Thompson and his friend Jon Venables dragged Jamie Bulger through the streets of Liverpool on Feb 12, 1993, before murdering the toddler. Robert and Jon were kids themselves, and in 2000, when they turned 18, the British courts released them from prison, and gave them new names, which they ordered to be kept secret.
Thursday Goozle
This one is from Christy
1. Find one of the directors of "Sex is Sex."
2. Find a picture of that director is a certain state's Supreme Court Room.
3. ONe of the justices also pictured was nominated by this person who shares his last name with a former prominant congressman
4. This congressman made a cameo appearance on an early episode of a long-running sitcom which was set in his home state's capital.
5. Find the episode #.
6. In the following episode, an actor debuted his recurring role in the same series. He later went on to star in a series that has something in common with #2, above.
7. One of his co-stars in that series later had an eponymous sitcom set in this city.
8. Which is interesting because one of his early co-stars in the earlier series hails from this city.
9. And that person is featured prominantly on a song that also features the voice of Phil Rizzuto.
10. As long as we've gone there, let's go one more: David Letterman is featured on another song, much in the same way, which was co-written by a man whose name is a homonym of the medium on which the song (and most songs, really) appears. This guy, the only co-writer still alive, will probably meet Morrie, along with four other people, when he dies.
Wednesday Goozzle
1) No one knows who fired the "shot heard round the world" on April 19th, 1775. Who fired the one in the same year Libya became an Independent nation and women were given the right to vote in Greece? (Both shots occurred only 212 miles apart from one another, though technically not in the same country.)
2) He played Banjo in a late 1960s early 1970s Tennessee Area Code band that later went Barefoot.
3) On Feb 12, 1993, in the hometown of Four Lads who appeared on Ed Sullivan 29 years before, this kid, with a friend named Jon, became infamous. In 2001 they were given new names. These new names aren't available via the internet. Yet. Though some fear/hope they might be.
answers
Musical Goozzle
1. He hung himself on April 9, 1976. There but for fortune go you or go I.
2. He dreamed he saw #1 last night.
3. He woke up the neighborhood with his fiddle on an album by #2.
4. #3 currently teaches in this state.
5. Recorded "A Boy in (#4)" on a tribute album for #1
6. #5 helped Tom Paxton write one of his "Short Shelf Life songs" about this entertainer.
7. Royalty. #6 was briefly married to his daughter.
Wacky Wordies
Wacky Wordies: Phrases or words that are converted into a combination of letters and pictures.
e.g.
HEAD
LO VE
HEELS
would be head over heels in love
or
0
PhD
MBA
JD
would be 3 degrees below zero
The answers to the three below are all related in some way
1. doGrSlytheryffr
2. clRavaw
3.
(imagine straight lines)
Wednesday Goozzle
Start off with the #1 all-time box office movie in the US, International, or Worldwide. (It's the same for all three.)
Now take the male-star of that movie, and his first re-occurring role on television. (Not on a soap opera)
The TV show - shortlived - was based on a popular movie. Name the TV show, name the movie.
This popular movie's top-billed star had his first appearance on a tv show in 1967. Name the tv show. (It didn't involve two brothers, we believe he only wrote for that one.)
The popular movie above was directed by a guy who had his first movie role at 18...in 1956. Name the movie. Name the guy.
The top billed star above (who had his first tv appearance in 1967) was born in a city now heavily associated with the date April 19th. Name the city. Name 3 other cities where something of historical significance occurred on April 19th prior to 1950. (Hint: a few states in the US, and an entire religion observe separate holidays on or about this date every year)
One of these three cities shares its name with a grape. What US state processes the most of these grapes per year?
warning: one of the parts above might be considered a "trick question". We dropped a clue that is technically accurate, but might be misleading.
annoying email addresses
E-mail Addresses It Would Be Really Annoying to Give Out Over the Phone.
BY MICHAEL WARD
• MikeUnderscore2004@yahoo.com
• MikeAtYahooDotCom@hotmail.com
• Mike_WardAllOneWord@yahoo.com
• AAAAAThatsSixAs@yahoo.com
• One1TheFirstJustTheNumberTheSecondSpelledOut@hotmail.com
(Not sure any of these are real...maybe, just maybe, they're available)
Source: mcsweeneys
however, since nobody didn't have a hotmail account yet, nobodyatyahoodotcom@hotmail.com is no longer available
we selected the free 2 MB storage option. we have no intention of ever checking it for anything.
license plates
A series of letters to the NY State License Bureau regarding offensive license plates
(Some from those who saw the license plates, and were offended. Others trying to defend them and convince the bureau not to take their license plate away from them.)
For example, the person who insisted that BIGPNS stood for a large Petri-Net System Simulation. (For some reason we thought of Office Space) And the Systems Tech who was befuddled why ByteTh1s was rejected.
Psychopathic Cheaters
Four people so far today have found this site looking in Google for the answer to the psychopathic test. Note to these people: Cheating on this test is psychopathetic.
Wednesday Goozzle
Find the Italian actor whose name was the same as ours in 1973 in West Germany, France and Italy, and in 1974 in the US, and connect him to Kevin Bacon in 2 degrees, but don't use this movie. (You can do it in 2 degrees with this movie, but we don't want you to.)
Instead, find the movie where the Italian actor's character shares a name with a famous musician who changed his name. Originally the musician's first name was that of a common domesticated pet. Now his last name is that of a major religion. The name of this movie, when it appeared in the US, is a phrase common to gamblers.
The go-between actor in this connection, the one who appeared in a movie with Bacon, and appeared in the movie described in the second paragraph above with the Italian actor, has the same last name as a baseball player who retired in 1996. What baseball team was this ballplayer playing for in 1996, and what fraction was his salary in 1996 compared to his peak annual salary over his career.
The team this ballplayer ended his career on hasn't always been located in the same city. What city did it originate in?
There is a 1945 movie with that city in the title (along with a living organism). The movie is based on a book that was published in 1943 with the same title. Who was the author?
Corrected Sept 13
A Riddle -- courtesy of our referrer logs
Somebody in New Zealand today found our blog by searching on google for the phrase:
I store your children in paper-form, And other materials easily torn.
They didn't put it in quotes, or they wouldn't have found our blog. We've never asked that riddle before. However, a quick search of our own did yield the entire riddle, and the answer.
Here's the riddle:
I store your children in paper-form,
And other materials easily torn.
I'm quite small, but can hold lots,
And travel with you, on your buttocks.
We have a new email address
Nobody may have done something we will later regret. We now have gmail.
However, we have learned it is impossible to be signed into gmail simultaneously under two accounts.
We believe this has something to do with gmail's rule that one person is supposed to have one account. However, we're not one person, we're nobody!
noebody at gmail dot com
From Nobody's Email to your Computer Screen
Men of Intellect
"I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine.
He who denies another this right makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it."
—Thomas Paine, 1783
"Free speech exercised both individually and through a free press, is a necessity in any country where people are themselves free."
—Theodore Roosevelt, 1918
"The truth is found when men are free to pursue it."
— Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
— George Orwell, 1945
"Any time we deny any citizen the full exercise of his constitutional rights, we are weakening our own claim to them."
— Dwight David Eisenhower, 1963
"What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant."
—Robert F. Kennedy, 1964
"Go fuck yourself."
—Dick Cheney, 2004
Celebrity Photo Challenge
1) Identify the names of the 5 people above, and tell us what they have in common.
Jim Carrey, Ron Reagan, Tim Conway, Don Knotts, Tom Cruise. First names have 3 letters, last names have 6 letters.
2) What is the grammatical term for the way the second half of the above question was worded? (It shares its initials with a popular candy)
misplaced modifier. the 'they' refers to the names, and not the people.
9/7: Answers added in white above.
Another Comic Challenge
This comic's slightly older than the last.
Your challenge:
Identify this comic by title, issue#, and year of publication. Your only clues are in the picture.
9/7: Answer added in white below:
Answer: Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, issue #88, October 1965
Comic Challenge
This comic was produced by DC comics for a 501(c)3 charitable organization with a famous actor or actress in its name. This actor or actress sang a song in a 1950s Alfred Hitchcock film.
Your Challenge:
Name the comic: Superman for the Animals
Name the actor/actress and the foundation: Doris Day Animal Foundation
Name the song: Ce Sera Sera
9/7: Answers added in white above next to questions
Can you identify the name of this cat?
Nobody's not sure if the cat is still alive or not, but he or she was relatively famous for awhile.
bad news good news
Nobody's going to be hard at work today so isn't going to be able to post much, but recently we started supporting the blogging services we are using, and as a side benefit, we have more space to play with. So the devoted minions are likely to see more "visuality" in the puzzles and other posts. (Meaning more pictures.)
Coppermine - Virgin Gorda
test
This is a test.
If you are reading this, the test has succeeded.
How well it has succeeded depends on how well this entry is formatted.
If there is a space above, it has succeeded immensely
If there is a picture of us below, we are very pleased
Footage of our foot
A picture of our foot and a beach in the Caribbean from our recent trip. (Which got a little rained on)
Catering to Google
We noticed Google's googlebots haven't been crawling through our archives like they do other archives we've know and loved.
For example.
When you search Google for Zombies eat Jesus for Breakfast, you would think that blog entry would turn up. But it doesn't. Put it in quotes, and nothing appears at all. We spent a good solid 30 seconds coming up with the most offensive title we could for that blog entry, and we would like to be rewarded for it dangit.
We think we might have a solution...We have added the two yearly archives to the right. We'll see in a couple weeks if it has had any effect.
We don't think Google likes calendars in general -- especially javascript ones. (Bots generally ignore javascript) So it doesn't find an entry unless it happens to come by before it is archived, and is still on the main page. Or unless there's a separate link to it on the main page. So we've added the yearly archives. We could have added monthly archives, but that would have taken too much effort, and we're lazy.
Random Blogger Quotes
We've done this in the past, and it seemed to provide some with an enjoyable waste of time...so...here we go again.
We went to stlbloggers.com and hit the random key
The first five blogs that appeared that weren't 404s, We copied down a sentence or two from one of the two most recent posts. Even if we thought due to the nature of the blog it might be easy for some people to guess, we didn't skip over that blog. That's what you get with random.
1) The Jeep in today's strip is modelled off of Drew's actual Jeep.
2) The first American waffle iron was patented Aug. 24, 1869, by Cornelius Swarthout of Troy, N.Y.
3) William is learning his Alphabet.
OK. William is learning the alphabet song...
4) I was hungry so we had decided to go up to the "Eats" bridge
5) I think it means my Razzle obsession has gotten out of hand when, in less than a week, I purchase approximately 20 packets of the darn things.
Identify the blogs.
Mon Aug 30: Links to blogs have been added above
Olympic Trivia
1) Name the only nations to be present at all modern (since 1896) Summer Olympic games.
2) Of this list, name the only nations also to be present at all modern Winter Olympic games.
3) Name the three continents out of seven represented in the answer to (1).
4) Name the one (and only one) continent represented in the answer to (2).
5) The nation that homophonically shares its name with a well-known musical, starring an actor who made a comeback in a movie directed by Quentin Tarrantino -- which games has it missed? (Nobody's not sure the answer yet to this yet, but we are surprised, and curious.)
6) The Winter and the Summer Olympics have been located in the US 8 times, in a total of six cities. Three US cities have hosted the Winter Olympics, and three have hosted the Summer Olympics. One city hosted the Summer Olympics twice, and One city hosted the Winter Olympics twice. Name the four cities that have hosted once, and the two cities that have hosted twice.
Here are the seven continents to help: North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Antarctica.
Updated 8/24
More fun with google
GoogleFight allows you to compare the search results for two words or phrases
such as
War vs Peace (War wins)
Pride vs Prejudice (Pride wins)
"Dolphins are fish" vs "Dolphins aren't fish" ("Dolphins are fish" wins by a nose. This will stun most biologists - who are for the most part under the belief dolphins are mammals. The difference is even more pronounced if you remove the quotation marks, but that's not too surprising)
If Googlefight is to be believed, Kerry will wallop Dubya in the election, but will lose to Bush.
NPR Puzzle of the Week
Name two creatures -- one very tiny, the other one large. Take the first three letters of the name of the tiny creature, and move them to the front of the name of the large creature. The result will spell two world capitals. What are they?
NPR's Weekend Edition Puzzle of the Week.
Answers are due in to NPR (not us) Thursday at 3 pm (Eastern). Click on link for details. (You can post your answers on this thread, we can't really stop you, but if you do it before 3 pm Eastern on Thursday, that will allow others to submit it too
Nobody hasn't figured out the answer yet, so will be playing along with you.
We finally looked up the answer to the one we posted Thursday morning, July 29. It wasn't the answer we submitted. Their answer was indeed better, and can be found on the answer page linked to at the right.
Answer: Mosquito/Cow Quito/Moscow
No wonder the hotel rates were so cheap!
Nobody's back from our trip to the Caribbean, a little wetter for the experience. Nobody wishes somebody had told them it was hurricane season, but alas, nobody did.
Good news: We survived.
Thanks To: Nobody for posting a challenge on Thursday. We were unable to find an internet connection where we were, or we would have.
nobody hopes we weather through the hurricanes in the Carribean.
Today's challenge:
Can you complete this sentence using two words which are anagrams of each other?
Whilst driving his car at a reckless
speed, the driver was distracted by his dog ==?==. Luckily, he managed
to complete the ==?== manoeuvre without crashing.
Rick Ankiel making a comeback?
From the Post:
Ankiel update: 3 innings, 0 walks
By Joe Strauss
Of the Post-Dispatch
08/09/2004
Lefthander Rick Ankiel made his second consecutive positive showing Saturday night in a 1-0 loss by Palm Beach to the Vero Beach Dodgers.
Ankiel worked three innings for the Class A Cardinals, allowing one run on three hits with four strikeouts and no walks.
Ankiel mixed 33 strikes among 49 pitches. His fastball was clocked at 88 to 92 miles per hour; Ankiel threw first-pitch strikes to eight of the 11 hitters he faced.
On a rehab assignment after having ligament replacement surgery for his left elbow last summer, Ankiel is expected to make a third start for Palm Beach on Thursday against Daytona.
The club might consider advancing Ankiel to Class AA Tennessee in the hope of promoting him to St. Louis next month for the first time since May 2001.
Seeing Ankiel return to St. Louis would be great. He's still young, and showed a lot of promise, before he was struck by a Bermuda-Triangle type effect that caused him to walk any player who stepped up to the plate.
The Wiggles are in town
The Wiggles are in town (They were part of the solution to one of our Stump questions)
We will be gone for a bit...
After work today, plane leaves at 7, we are taking a trip.
We will be going South, to the Caribbean for a week.
It is hellish hot down there this time of year, but we will bring back pictures.
Other Nobodies may or may not make posts while we are gone. We can't predict.
Yes, I know this is stupid, and this may completely blow my cover to some people, but enough people knew anyway. One or two others may now know. It doesn't matter. We remain Nobody.
GoogleWhack Yourself
A GoogleWhack is a search on Google consisting of 2 words without quotation marks yielding one, and only one, result. The words must be real words, and spelled correctly.
How many GoogleWhacks can you find that will deliver a web searcher to your own website?
This challenge has been suggested by both Christy and John.
Important Suggestion if you wish to submit GoogleWhacks officially to GoogleWhack.com:
When posting googlewhacks in the comment thread, insert spaces or *s or in some way alter it so that while it will be obvious what must be searched for, once the comment thread is archived by Google, it will still remain a googlewhack.
We will create a page of Reader GoogleWhacks, but in creating this page we will use either this Email Encoder or this Email Encoder to convert the search words to decimal or hexadecimal codes so the search engine won't pick it up. (Feel free to use one of these encoders for creating your comments in the comment thread)
Another 3 egg omelette
The Three Eggs: a quote, the author, and the work it appeared in.
Letters of each "egg" remain in sequential order
tsiwmphliafyosilmprlidfyeasiempulinfy
Unscramble the eggs
(This one could be relatively easy)
Indian Elephants and African Elephants
How To Tell An Indian Elephant From An African Elephant
by Lore Sjöberg
| Indian Elephant | African Elephant |
|---|
| Smaller ears | Larger ears |
| Head is the highest part of body | Shoulder is highest part of body |
| Tapering skull | Domed skull |
| Smooth trunk | Ridged trunk |
| Gives live birth | Lays eggs in sand |
| Nurses young | Nurses elderly |
| Favorite number is six | Doesn't have a favorite number |
| Prefers "Paul's Boutique" | Prefers "Ill Communication" |
| Once won fifty dollars in a radio call-in show | Has never won anything |
| Does not have a Transformers toy modeled after it | "Ironhide" |
| Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from University of Washington | Still working on dissertation |
| Is an anagram of "Tanline Pinhead" | Is an anagram of "Nathan Fireplace" |
Three-Egg Omelette
Unscramble the following:
shtohabeamkeorspnolttoeteabere
It contains an author, a quote, and the work the quote appeared in.
The letters of each remain in sequential order
If you're confused, here's where we got the idea from, but we made up our own.
Today's meeting
The meetings where Nobody works can be quite interesting at times.
Today we discussed boom-box blasting, plop marks, the difference between the words 'lapidary' and 'topiary', and whether or not 'edified' was a word. (Edified is a word, but it was used in the wrong context in the meeting, and lapidary and topiary are basically the same thing, but with different materials -- stone or bushes)
We think we may actually have addressed some issues that related to business, but none of these were they.
Kerry-Affleck
We haven't had a non-puzzle post for awhile...
Actor Ben Affleck seems to be trying to pick up one (either one) of the Kerry girls (Or maybe it's them, trying to pick up him...it's not quite clear.)
Thursday Puzzle
Think of a familiar four-word phrase, of the form, ______ , ______ the ______. The first two words are a phrase that is a synonym of the last word. Here's a hint: the first word starts with the letter B.
If you can figure this out before 3 pm ET (2 PM Central) today, you might wish to go here and submit your answer to NPR.
Each week, The New York Times Crossword Puzzle editor and Weekend Edition puzzle master Will Shortz presents a listener with an on-air quiz and gives a challenge for listeners at home.
Entries to the weekly challenge are due at 3 p.m. (ET) on Thursday. Please include a phone number where we can reach you at about that time. Only one entry per person, please. The winner will play on the air with host Liane Hansen and Will Shortz. Click here for the complete rules.
A possible answer (posted at 2 pm central 7/29)
Another Word Puzzle
Take the name Erle Stanley Gardner. Select the first and last letters of the first name, the first and last letters of the middle name, and the first and last letters of the last name, arrange them properly and they'll spell GEYSER. What famous person has a three-part name, in which the first and last letters of each part can be re-arranged to spell DANCER?
(Stolen from NPR's Weekend Edition puzzle archive)
Answer
