Sunday, December 10, 2017

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 10, 2017): Put Your Vehicle In Reverse

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 10, 2017): Put Your Vehicle In Reverse:
Q: The name of what vehicle, spelled backward, becomes phonetically a four-word phrase identifying another vehicle?
Parallel parking requires you go backwards but if you've gone back more than 3 times, you're doing it wrong.

Edit: Three weeks ago we had a puzzle on car makes where one of the answers was SUBARU.
A: SUBARU --> URABUS = "You are a B-U-S"

211 comments:

  1. Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any hints that could lead directly to the answer (e.g. via a chain of thought, or an internet search) before the deadline of Thursday at 3pm ET. If you know the answer, click the link and submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.

    You may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't give the answer away. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the Thursday deadline. Thank you.

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  2. Replies
    1. Yes. Silly... The answer can be anagrammed to certain national sandwiches!

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. To Carole Highland of Ephrata, Wash: Puzzle Creator, I solved with Joseph Young. I knew Joseph Young. Joseph Young was a friend of mine. Puzzle Creator, you're no Joseph Young.

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    1. Ah, yes, jan, so much can be known in this digital age.

      eco, I believe I understood the intended spirit of your comment. This is a silly puzzle. Joe's was elegant. They are very different puzzles.

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  5. That was uncalled for, ecoarchitect.

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  6. I'm pretty sure it's not the Chevy Spark...

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  7. I'm not sure if I have the correct answer, but if so, I came up with the same puzzle independently a few years ago. However, if I am incorrect, it could seriously impede my ability to arrive at the actual answer. I am sort of conflicted here...

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    1. I know what you mean, sort of, maybe. I thought of a short word for a type of vehicle which reverses to another type of vehicle, and I'm having a heckuva time getting it out of my thought patterns. Comments like ron's (above) don't help any.

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    2. It's not supposed to help. It's supposed to verify you have the correct answer when you come up with it on your own...

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    3. Paul, I think you may be closer than you think.

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    4. I didn't say your comment didn't help me find the answer. I said it didn't help me avoid territory I'd already deemed quicksand.

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    5. Ah, Paul, my favorite colloid hydrogel. . .

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    6. This is great! Now I feel like I know what Bob Dylan felt like.

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  8. Alternate puzzle:

    Think of a vehicle. The first three letters refer to a historical person. The remaining letters, anagrammed, form something that person was famous for. What is the vehicle and who is the person?

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  9. I am not pleased with the answer I got. Is it -partially- phonetic?

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    Replies
    1. Well, OK. But this is a badly-worded puzzle, then, in my opinion. Good thing _that's_ never happened before.

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    2. WW, does this involve certain AWD vehicles common in our fair state?

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    3. Curtis, I knew you'd get there.

      But, don't tell anyone.

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    4. If I found the answer, it's a little contrived

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    5. Curtis, it's a lot contrived, aka "playful."

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  10. Not sure I have the right answer, but I may have mentioned earlier that I once saw a black-and-yellow Smart car with the license plate "CDB".

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  11. If I have the intended answer, I can think of no realistic context in which I would utter the four-word phrase.

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    1. There's a fairly well-known riddle, with many variations, that starts with the four-word phrase. (If I've got the right answer.)

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    2. In that case, I believe you have a connection to the vehicle in question, right, Word Woman?

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    3. Lorenzo, I agree; I'd never utter this phrase. Reminds me of an old George Carlin routine where he talked about sentences you'd never hear. Example: "Hand me that piano."

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  12. If you're not one of us lucky ones for whom it came right away; just wait; it'll come.

    Then you can try solving my incredibly complex and difficult spin off puzzle:

    Spell the name of a well known vehicle company backwards to get the name of a well known foreign car.

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  13. Didn't we see GM/MG three weeks ago?

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  14. Replies
    1. Indeed, eighdreeuhn, at this time of year, thank g_d.

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  15. My grandfather used to joke, "I can row a boat. Canoe?"

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  16. I suppose poor or misleading solve-at-home puzzle wording is just the price we pay for playing each and every week – there’s bound to be some. Or perhaps Will was just running out of decently worded puzzles.

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  17. I recommend following @meganamram on Twitter. One of her recent gems:


    Jared Kushner's only going to get into jail because he's a legacy.

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  18. 2 Bonus Puzzles:

    1) What unusual property does an Audi and Mercedes have in common with the Toyota Prius? Hint: you don't need to be an expert in mechanics to answer this. And don't blurt out the answer (Ron and SDB!) if you know the answer, instead name another vehicle with the same characteristic.

    2) Change one letter in the name of a famous football player to get the name of a country. Who is the football player and what is the country? Try to control yourselves and only give hints, not solutions.

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    1. Will Shortz used your second puzzle on NPR many years ago, serenely.

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    2. Oh YEAH? Well how about this!?!? YOU posted that same comment on the Puzzleria! blog when Young Lego used the same puzzle.

      So you're also guilty of re-using messages too! Nyeah!

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    3. Gentlemen, gentlemen, surely there is some gray area here. . .

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    4. Not so long as Jan keeps hounding me with facts.

      Speaking of which, all (except WW) might notice today's Google doodle honors the 135th birthday of Nobel Laureate Max Born, whose most famous quote is "The belief that there is only one truth, and that oneself is in possession of it, is the root of all evil in the world."

      Leaving out that inconvenient "oneself is in possession" part, could one say Kellyanne Conway is Born Again?

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    5. Bourne, again! is what I say when stuck in traffic, waiting to cross the Cape Cod Canal.

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    6. Quite the identity!

      eco, I did see the Google doodle. Waiting for a duckduckgo quack.

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    7. You should register for a Cape Cod Canal tunnel permit, Jan.

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  19. You are all giving strange hints.

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  20. Well, I am a hog for a puzzle like this!

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  21. Is the intended answer a model and make of a specific car, for example, Ford Focus?

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    Replies
    1. You are partly correct, Dave.

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    2. Thanks. I'll see what I can come up with.

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    3. Alternate puzzle (that takes WS liberties as well): The name of what vehicle, spelled backwards, becomes phonetically a three-word phrase identifying something that might be a Christmas gift.

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    4. My answer might be a gift for mares and does, but not little lambs nor kids.

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    5. Uh-oh, look's like someone might have taken up the challenge and been dining on ivy plants!

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    6. A: TOYOTA --> ATOYOT = "a toy yacht"

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  22. How do I send a puzzle idea to Lego?

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    1. Email him at jrywriter@aol.com. It's how I give him my cryptic crossword ideas.

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    2. Thanks, cranberry. Yes, that is the best way to submit a puzzle to Puzzleria!. And I really do do appreciate puzzle contributions. Thank you.

      LegoWhoLovesCreativePuzzles

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  23. Talk about "Fake News!" This morning I found this as the lead-in on the first story in The Seattle Times. I telephoned their office and we had a little conversation.

    The tale of a lost ship and a billionaire’s discovery: Jae Anderson of Seattle never knew her father. He died when the submarine USS Indianapolis went down during World War II, and most of what Anderson knew about him was contained in a box holding 50 wartime letters. When a team backed by Paul Allen located the sub’s wreckage last summer, she wasn’t sure how to feel. But now she’s answered a question she’d always had about her father. (Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times)

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    1. They've since "updated" the article. They don't identify the ship as a cruiser, but at least they no longer call it a sub.

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    2. They should have also sent out an online correction. They do this all the time with breaking news, but they have not done an online correction.

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    3. SDB - This reminds me of a local TV news spot that aired here a couple of months ago. A Stearman flying club had their plane making the circuit around here offering a few lucky veterans, flights in their plane. One guy, was a 92 yr old vet who still had his wits and health. I guess he flew P-47's & P-51's during the war. When he flew in the Stearman, he was able to take the controls and fly the plane himself. I was working in the yard when the plane flew over, pretty cool! His flight was covered pretty well on-air, but the internet story mentioned some embarrassing facts.
      The internet story said that his squadron started in New "Ginny" and moved on to the "Philippians". I was disappointed but still had to laugh. I immediately wrote a nice letter to the TV station & the article was changed in about 10 minutes. The editor wrote me a very short thank you note but it was still aggravating that they could make such a mistake. At least they fixed it!

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    4. "Ginny" is a derogatory term for Negro people, if I remember correctly. I think I only, or almost only, heard this word in a WWII movie about Black U.S. soldiers in the South. It was used by the Black SDI to berate the soldiers he supervised and despised. It is a very good film, and I will have to try and remember the title. Well worth watching.

      Got it. "A Soldier's Story" and it stars Denzel Washington. 1999 I think. 5 stars.

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    5. Possible Correction!

      I was thinking about that movie and am now thinking I may be mistaken. I am not sure that word was used in that movie, but a worse one that is similar was. They both could have been. Ginny, and I do remember this, is an old derogatory term for Italian immigrants. I think there may be a connection having to do with hair. Thankfully it doesn't seem to be in use today.

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    6. I never heard that one about ginny before. No, I just get mad when young reporters have no concept of history. About 10 years ago a local newspaper had a story about a Ham Radio club that was using "morris" code to communicate during emergencies. "Morris" was used several times in the article so it just wasn't researched very well. That kind of thing just bugs me!

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    7. I think it code for time to feed your cat.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCja1WGZx-E

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    8. Most local newspapers don't have editors worthy of the name, let alone fact-checkers. At least the New York Times published a column of corrections every day. But, at The New Yorker, it's an art.

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    9. I also think we have to be careful not to fall into the Trumpian trap of sloppily calling media missteps "Fake News", even in jest. This is exactly what this Fascist wants you to do, following a long pattern of dictators.

      There is a vast difference between making a factual mistake and purposely trying to put forth absolute lies. Trump's intent is to create that false equivalency, so the populace, already overwhelmed with his scandals, corruption, outrages, and assaults against people will become so cynical as to not believe anything.

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    10. From dictionary.com: "Guinea "derogatory term for Italian" (1896) was originally Guinea Negro (1740s) and meant "black person, person of mixed ancestry." It was applied to Italians c.1890 probably because of their dark complexions relative to northern Europeans, and after 1911 was occasionally applied to Hispanics and Pacific Islanders as well. New Guinea was so named 1546 by Spanish explorer Inigo Ortiz de Retes in reference to the natives' dark skin and tightly curled hair."

      It has a hard "g" as in "go" not "gin."

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  24. I find this puzzle a little broad. A vehicle can be anything that moves. A skateboard or a personal drone are vehicles. Any make, model, or type of car, truck, airplane, boat, bicycle, or motorcycle could fall into this category. As could any type of remote control toy. Sorry, I think I'll pass on this one.

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    1. Too bad, Curtis. Bet you know someone who has one.

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    2. If you don't get the answer right away, a little logic should get you there.

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    3. Well I'm sure everyone here will join me in wishing both of you a wonderful future.

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  25. A "vehicle" could be a movie or other artistic medium. Way too broad. With WS every word is significant.

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    1. Oh-- I was on the air w/ Will & Lulu 3 weeks ago. Got my pin, but still waiting for my other promised swag.

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    2. I suspect you may be overthinking this one just a bit.

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    3. Well good luck on that. I am still waiting for the books. I got the Scrabble in about a week or less. I had to ask repeatedly to get the pin, which I wanted because I was offered $100. for it. It finally came and I sold it. I just an hour ago posted the Scrabble game on Craig's List. I never even opened it. I got one reply for it already too, but he lives on the other side of town.

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  26. Thanks for JY's email address, cranberry. Just sent my idea to Lego.

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  27. Replies
    1. In case you were worried the campaign wasn't weird enough, there's this interview. Roy Moore is hoping for cold weather today, he prefers the teens.

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    2. Creepy. Why set this up anyway? Very weird.

      Hoping mom and dad were right there the whole time.

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    3. Good ol' Roy puts the fun back in fundamentalist.

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    4. How would he eliminate many problems? Simple: Get rid of constitutional amendments 11-27.

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    5. AP and NPR calling it for Jones!

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  28. eco: This is for you:

    http://lunarlanderdwelling.tumblr.com/

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    1. That would make it a launch pad.

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    2. Yes, and don't be late for launch. It's gonna be a blast. Oh, and we have a member of the Royal Family here who must leave early. Maybe you will be here in time to witness when we let the Count down.

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    3. More for an exoarchitect, I think. But mobile homes don't tend to retain their value so well. And I can hear the neighbors: Not In My Blue Yonder!

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  29. All in all, not quite perfect.

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    1. Omnibus, which we shortened to "bus," means "all" in Latin. Not much of a clue, but not much of a quiz either.

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  30. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  31. It's now being called for Doug Jones!!!

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    1. The write-in votes turned it.

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    2. F*ck Roy Moore and the horse he rode in to vote on.

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    3. Shows what can happen when people finally get out and vote!
      I can't wait for the next wave of tweets!

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    4. Trump will say Roy Moore came in second, and Doug Jones came in next to last.

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    5. That sounds about right!!
      This must send shock waves through out the Republican party. Maybe the Party is over???

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    6. It's their party, and I'll laugh if I want to.

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    7. :)

      So far I see a margin of victory of about 1.5% I hope it stays there, at least by that much! I would hate to see a dang recount.

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    8. I'm not worried about a recount unless thousands of uncounted ballots are discovered in Roy Moore's saddle bags.

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    9. You're probably right but I think things will get very ugly before Ol' Roy admits defeat.

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    10. Things are ugly enough: A president who'd all but call a senator a whore is unfit to clean toilets in Obama's presidential library or to shine George W. Bush's shoes.

      Opinion piece in USA Today: "Will Trump's lows ever hit rock bottom?"

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  32. And now, from here on out, everyone else in the country will look at the people of Alabama as a lot smarter than they originally thought!(No they won't.)

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    1. You're right, but it is not just Alabama; it is the whole country. Did you notice that only about 40% of the registered voters actually voted? All empires eventually come to an end; usually they self destruct. Of course that cannot ever happen here—we're the U.S.A.

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    2. I just hate to hear people criticize my home state. Almost any time they make jokes about the South, they mention Alabama. You know, there are other Southern states to joke about(I hate to throw them under the bus like this). Sometimes it just doesn't pay to be first alphabetically. They go right to you. Makes me wish this kind of thing were happening in Wyoming. Nothing ever happens there.

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    3. True. Alabama’s no worse than Mississippi.

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    4. My hometown is Detroit, and it deserves all of the derision it gets. They’ve done some industrial strength stupid things over the years, most of them along the lines of “cutting off your nose to spite your face.” I look at being born there as an accident of random geography. I try to talk sense into friends that still live there, but hate and ignorance runs DEEP.

      On a lighter note, I once had a conference of my company’s customers in the Gulf Region and two of the guys wore the proud red of the Crimson Tide. I was pandering, and said “hey, at least it’s not Mississippi.” The next day three customers wore their Ole Miss shirts.

      GULP

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    5. Cranberry have you read Garden & Gun Magazine? I’m really trying to understand the south and that’s my starting point. ALso the website the Bitter Southerner (not what you think)

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    6. I usually pick Mississippi first and Alabama second. It just seems to be the one that comes to me first, but I don't see any difference between either state.

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    7. And then there's Nebraska--at least it's not North Dakota.

      As to Wyoming, I've talked to several Wyomingites who are quite liberal on social issues. Live and let live...

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    8. I too consider my birth an accident of random geography. Once I learned about our state's civil rights history and the fact no one else in my family seemed too pleased with having our first black President(gee, I wonder why?), it occurred to me we're definitely an imperfect state. Now that a Democrat has won this race for US Senator, maybe there will be change for the better. As for being born here, I don't know if anyone else has ever given this thought before, but while you're still in the womb, you're never really told where you'll end up when you come out anyway. At least I don't recall any strange God-like voice telling me anything about Alabama before I finally arrived. So if you think about it, when coming into this world, none of us entered our respective home states on purpose.
      We're all here by accident. Life may never have really been meant to happen on Earth. Who knows?

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    9. I know this will not be accepted as even sane, but we do choose our parents, and know where they are living at that time. We also choose our name. I know it may sound crazy due to always hearing otherwise, but I have been doing past life regressions for 25years now and when I heard that this is a common belief in Asia I decided to try looking for how it might work during a regression. It works great. I have since discovered more evidence via the internet. I don't know what the reasons were for you to choose what you chose before deciding to be reincarnated, but I have no doubt you do, and you might want to try a regression to find out.

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  33. It's not a slow boat is it?
    That's not a hint; more of a nudge.

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  34. Are those crocodile tears, Roy? Go Cialis and see if she can help.

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    1. Poor Donnie has to cruise The National Mall alone.

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  35. I have not spent much time on this, thankfully.
    I still don't have an answer, but I don't much care.

    On the other subject, I hope we really don't have to look at or hear Roy Moore any more.

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    Replies
    1. I was overwhelmed by this puzzle so did not spend time on it either.

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    2. When you hear the answer you will be underwhelmed.

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  36. Last night some of 68Charger's posts did not get posted, and this morning one of Buck Bard's did not post. He was LOLing one of us. Imagine that!

    What's up with blogger?

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    1. SDB - Last night I was trying to reply to your posts & they would show up for only a few seconds, & then they'd disappear. Some of those that stayed, took 2-3 tries to get there.
      Oh well, I guess you might have seen some of those that quickly went away, though.
      This is my first try today, let's see what happens!

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    2. You’re right. I was “LOL-ing” cranberry for his Alabama insight. But if it didn’t post how did you know.....

      Now I’m scared. Very scared.

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    3. I get the posts in my email by checking the Notify me box below.

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    4. Ahhh, the “SPAM me” checkbox. 😀

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    5. Notify me sounds like a great idea. However, I do not remember my pw for that email address and do not want to go to the trouble to get a new one.

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    6. Natasha, if you are commenting here, all you need is to check the "notify me" box just below and to the right of the comment box. You don't need a separate password.

      Check below here ------------->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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    7. However, the check me box didn't work so well for Roy Moore.

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    8. Thanks, word Woman. I will try that. But I think I need to know my google pw to access the notification. I for got that pw.

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  37. Word Woman, you’re a Smith alum. That’s one of the Seven Sisters, isn’t it?

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    1. Yes, if you please. RoRo and VT, too. Any others here?

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  38. From Today's Washington Post---Note the southern end of the Northbound horse.
    https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/12/12132017RoyMooreDefeat-1024x863.jpg&w=1484

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  39. Replies
    1. WW is a long time pitcher of obscure clues. Her dialog with Curtis on Wednesday is much more direct.

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    2. Yes, trees. They are green, branching things ;-). Sometimes there are lots of them together.

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    3. eco, pot calling the kettle black (green?). . .

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    4. Natasha knows to ignore my clues.

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  40. SUBARU >>> U R A BUS

    "silly" and "rare" refers to the silliness of this puzzle and the rarity of ever uttering the "You are a bus!" phrase.

    There is a Colorado "Mechanic" called URABUS.

    I have a SUBARU Forester (forest green, of course) and was hinting at the State Car of Colorado ;-) to Curtis. 

    "Yes, trees. They are green, branching things ;-). Sometimes there are lots of them together. " as in "You can't see the Forester for the trees."

    "Yes, if you please " refers to the Pleiades or Seven Sisters constellation of the SUBARU logo to which jan was hinting.

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    1. Speaking of kettles, are we supposed to know the names of Colorado mechanics???? (smiley thing).

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    2. Yes.

      I figured URABUS mechanics might work on URANUS as well.

      Btw, "pot calling the kettle black (green?)" was a reference to special green pot in our state (as well as to my car color).

      Curtis can likely attest to the abundance of forest green Foresters in CO. I once went back to my car to see 5 green Foresters all in a row. . .

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    3. As a proctical matter I'm not sure I'd want to go near your mechanic.

      And yes, there are more Foresters than trees around here too. My biodiesel Jetta is also green, at least the small bits of paint visible under the mud and dust.

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  41. SUBARU > You are a bus.

    My Hints:

    “Not even a short one?” Referring to the porn movie Shortbus that presented itself as a legitimate movie.

    “If you're not one of us lucky ones for whom it came right away; just wait; it'll come.” Just like when you have to wait for the next bus to come.

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  42. SUBARU -> U R A BUS (YOU ARE A BUS)

    > There's a fairly well-known riddle, with many variations, that starts with the four-word phrase.

    It starts “You are a bus driver,” continues with a confusing list of stops the bus makes, with various numbers of people getting on and off, and ends with “What color are the bus driver’s eyes?”

    > Word Woman, you’re a Smith alum. That’s one of the Seven Sisters, isn’t it?

    Subaru is the Japanese name for the Pleiades, the constellation also known as the Seven Sisters. The Subaru logo represents the star pattern.

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  43. SUBARU = U R A BUS = YOU ARE A BUS.

    My clue: SUBARU can be anagrammed to BAURU(S), Brazil's great sandwiches. I was not referring to a SUB (What do you call a SUB going the opposite direction?)

    The Missios puzzle: CHEVROLET, historical person: CHE Guevara, famous for REVOLT.

    Many riddles begin: “You are a bus driver...”

    SDB's hint referring to the puzzle of 3 weeks ago where, when you drop an E from the given words, you have an anagram of a brand of car. GEM (-E) = GM/MG and BUREAUS (-E) = SUBARU.

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    1. I'd never heard of the life-changing Brazilian sandwich. I thought it might have been U.A.R SUB.

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  44. Subaru --> u r a bus (you are a bus)

    Last Sunday I said, “I suppose poor or misleading solve-at-home puzzle wording is just the price we pay for playing each and every week – there’s bound to be some. Or perhaps Will was just running out of decently worded puzzles.” Out as in Subaru Outback.

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  45. This puzzle takes me back to my Japanese class where a classmate was supposed to say he was riding on a bus and what he said translated to "I am a bus."

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    1. Blaine:
      I guess you had a lot of fun in that class. Fortunately your teacher must not have been tempuramental.

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  46. Subaru = U R a bus

    No offense to Carole Highland, but when I wrote "you're no Joseph Young" I was just trying to riff on "You are a bus." I trust cranberry wasn't offended, just filling in the response Dan Quayle gave 25 years ago.

    "WW is a long time pitcher..." pitcher = ewer, another reference to "You are"

    Bonus Puzzle answers: All 3 autos are Latin words or expressions, Audi = hear, Mercedes = earnings, and Prius = first. Volvo (I roll), Chevy Nova (new), and Vespa (wasp) would have been additional answers.

    Dan Marino = San Marino, puzzles from both NPR and Puzzleria! WW commented about the gray area, to which I responded about hounding from Jan. Greyhound, get it?

    Nick Missios puzzle: Chevrolet = Che + revolt (anag.) I wrote "I won't believe ya in the end", somewhat homophonic for Bolivia, where Che met his end.

    I think xfyre's intended was Toyota = a toy oat? But only mares eat oats and does eat oats.

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    Replies
    1. Ah yes, "gray" area referred to bus rider Rosa Parks' lawyer, Fred Gray.

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  47. One of the first vehicles I thought of was SUBMARINE. I didn't think that worked, but it was hard to get the SUB/BUS connection out of my mind. Comments by Nick Missios and ron indicated that perhaps I shouldn't get it out of my mind, but I still couldn't see how to make it work until jan's CDB gave it away. I still kept hoping it wasn't so.

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  48. I didn't get the call, but I did get an answer in today - I didn't like it then, and I don't like it much now either. I figured it was a make-and-model, so went with "Suburu G", which translates to "Gee! You're a bus!" I think the U R A Bus is a better answer, though - or at least, cleaner. --Margaret G

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  49. I always wonder why I don't get any support for my campaign to discover how much we pay Will Shortz.
    This week I wonder why we pay him anything.

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  50. "Jared Kushner's only going to get into jail because he's a legacy."

    The Legacy is Subaru's mid-sized sedan.

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  51. SUBARU, URABUS(You are a bus.)
    One of Weird Al's earliest song parodies was "Another One Rides the Bus", for Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust".
    BTW, SDB, I've never really given reincarnation much thought. It just seemed to me that we just end up where we do at birth at random, that's all. Would be interesting trying to figure out what I might've been in another life, though. Wonder if you were a bus? LOL

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    1. I think most people overlook the fact that lack of evidence is not evidence. If more people would do a bit of research, instead of simply buying into whatever they have always heard, we might evolve a little faster. Google is a good place to start.

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  52. But I am not a bus... What a terrible puzzle.

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  53. Maybe a better clue would have been “A four word phrase *mentioning* another vehicle”

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  54. If "SUBARU/U R a BUS" is really the solution, then this has to be the lamest Sunday puzzle ever... well beneath the established standards of cleverness and classical enigmatology we have come to expect from Mr. Shortz. I humbly suggest this improved version-- Think of a well-known neighborhood; spell it backwards, and you have the initials of a well-known vehicle. What are the neighborhood and the vehicle?

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  55. Daniel May: I agree with your assessment. At first I was thinking of submarine but stopped after that yielding no results.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. R U saying submarines are beneath you?

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    2. SDB: I was looking for types of vehicles not names of cars. Congratulations to all her solved puzzle!

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    3. Natasha: My comment was meant as a joke.

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  56. I figured out that the word "bus" was somehow involved, but I never made the leap to Subaru.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dave,
      One cannot leap onto a sub when it is beneath the surface.

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    2. The brother of a friend of mine was flying a plane when he collided with a submarine.

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    3. That must have been a low moment in his life.

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  57. Speaking of vehicles, I was flipping through the TV channels this morning and came across the live coverage of the Space X launch to the ISS. That was amazing! It launched without a a hitch and within 6-8 minutes the 1st stage booster returned, making a bullseye landing on a pad not far from where it took off, without even using a parachute. All of this was caught beautifully on camera.
    It is supposed to dock with the ISS on Sunday so maybe tonight or tomorrow they may both be visible, either flying together or somewhat close to one another.

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  58. I am so embarrassed that it took me til Wednesday to figure this out, since I've owned more than one Subaru.

    ReplyDelete
  59. ZITI DELIVERY VAN --> NAVY REVILED, IT IZ
    -- Yoda's description of an enemy U-Boat.
    OK, I was way off.

    ReplyDelete
  60. The answer to this week's Car Talk Puzzler has been posted. It is bogus. Can you explain why?

    https://www.cartalk.com/puzzler/vinnie-goombatz-and-247-arm-wrestlers

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Because BOGUS is GO backwards inside BUS?

      OK, I'll go read it now.

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    2. I got the same answer as Einstein. If you've got 247 contestants in a single-elimination tournament, with no ties possible, it's gonna take 246 bouts to eliminate everyone but the champ. What's bogus about that?

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    3. OK, I've read it and also get 246. I also figure it takes 7 rounds, which may be of more interest to the guy trying to decide how much time it will take. And then there's the issue of tired wrestlers competing with fresh ones, which could be a topic in itself.

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    4. I quit working on this type of puzzle years ago.
      When I read this one, however, I thought the bye for the odd man was going to confuse things.

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    5. What about the logic is flawed? It’s correct.

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    6. Unless you read into the question and look at the implied puzzle - how long does the bartender have to leave for the tourney. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the explicit question. It looks like it will take 8 rounds, and at 5 min each the time he needs to leave for the tourney is 40 min. But again, that wasn’t the explicit question, but implied from the background info.

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    7. Yes, I miscounted; 8 rounds.

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    8. To me the puzzle would be fine with the answer being 246 if it had been stated clearly what was to be looked for, as I believe Einstein would have done (not so sure he ever did this though) instead of Tom, once again, over complicating with his obfuscation.

      I read the puzzle as the bartender asking a practical question and expecting a practical answer. If the guy told the bartender 246 he would have been 86'd on the spot.

      What I did was to work it backwards:
      2 4 8 16 32 64 128 & 256, which = 8.

      It doesn't really matter that it doesn't go quite that high; the end result is the same.

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    9. "That's two to the fighting eighth power," Yossarian pointed out, "if you're thinking of writing a symbolic poem about our squadron."

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    10. jan, That's a major, major, major error.

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    11. I think it also must be considered as to how long needs to be taken between bouts, including pairing up and what to do with an uneven number of contestants at times. I would say either 3, 4 or 6 ______s per hour. More than that and you would have an arms race.

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    12. We're spending way too much time on questions not asked by the puzzle. Nowhere does it say that more than one match can occur at once, so there's no point in talking about "rounds" versus "bouts". Rather, it says pretty explicitly, "the barkeeper wants to know how many bouts have to be fought", and then, "figuring a bout takes about five minutes, he wants to know at what time he should start the event so that it will conclude before closing time."

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    13. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    14. I doubt we are going to agree on this.

      The puzzle indicates it begins at exactly 6:30PM. If only two contestants play at a time it could take 20.5 hours with zero time between bouts.

      Delete

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