PRIOR WEBSITE PUZZLE:Don't miss any of the bright spots in the photo here (courtesy of NASA). If you think Mr. Shortz made a mistake in the population count, he did not.Q: An easy-sounding challenge this week that turns out to be not so easy: Two major U.S. cities, each with two-word names, each have an unusual property: The last two letters of the first word in the name are the same as the last two letters of the second word in the name — like University City, in Missouri, in which both "university" and "city" end in "-ty." But both cities in my answer are much larger. According to the 2010 U.S. census, each city has more than a quarter-million people. What cities are they?
Update: The puzzle above is apparently *not* the puzzle that was presented on air. Here's the one that was presented on-air and has now been corrected on the website.
ON-AIR PUZZLE:This one's easier and less controversial. I'm guessing it was inspired by another recent puzzle.Q: Take the start of the name of a country and the end of that country's capital. Put the parts together, one after the other, and you'll get the last name of a character in a very popular movie. It's a character everyone knows. Who is it?
Edit: The recent puzzle involved Alec Guinness.
A: KENya + nairOBI --> (obi wan) KENOBI
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.
ReplyDeleteYou 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.
It appears the puzzle was changed from the one that appeared on the NPR website. We're still waiting for a transcript.
ReplyDeleteI have two cities that work for the website version. I'll wait to submit them until I hear the on-air version.
DeleteNPR has now updated its website to match the on-air puzzle. The cities I had were Las Vegas, NV and San Juan, PR. The 2010 census population of Des Moines, IA didn't meet the 250k threshold.
DeleteI wonder if the puzzle was cancelled because of the "trick" calling attention to our neglect of the region
DeleteBlaine, I think you should delete/ withhold answers on the non-puzzle puzzle, including your own. It's a decent puzzle and may be used for another show.
DeleteI just took mine down, no big deal to me.
DeleteI'm all for not spoiling the current puzzle, but if they've accidentally revealed a future puzzle, I've already ruined it apparently.
DeleteYou've ruined it for the early risers, many of whom had figured it out. But not for all of (normal, late-sleeping) humanity. Your choice, of course.
DeleteI now see Will's comment below, so I guess San Juan is ruined, mostly by National PR.
DeleteWell, National NPR and Hurricane Maria.
DeleteI have two cities that work, but now I am curious about these two possible versions. My two cities fit the one published on the NPR web site. I did not hear the broadcast version.
ReplyDeleteThe one I heard on the broadcast was a completely different puzzle.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, I have answers for both puzzles. Ho-hum!
ReplyDeleteFort Worth obviously doesn't work, but riches are riches, an F can easily be changed to a P, and some medicinal herbs, as well as some capital cities, get named for biblical figures.
DeleteAs usual, the website's list of on-air puzzle clues does not coincide exactly with what I heard.
Congrats to Joe Young for having another one of his puzzles used on the air. It's not the one published on the Puzzle's website.
ReplyDeleteMy 85yo aunt would never get the answer to the on-air puzzle. The 2 cities I found but for one the population falls short. What's going on with NPR?
ReplyDeleteSo, national flubbed. Can somebody help?
ReplyDeleteGood job, Mighty Joe Young.
I got the answer to Joe Young's puzzle as read on the air. I didn't bother with the one published on NPR's website.
ReplyDeleteI have an answer to the broadcast (not website) puzzle that I think works, but I bet isn't the intended answer. I won't tell you the route I took to get it, of course, but I won't be looking any further. I'll be glad to see the intended answer Thursday.
ReplyDeleteRob, based on your post, I seriously think I came up with the same alternate answer that you did.
DeleteRob and Philly Cinephile,
DeleteI am no cinephile, Philly or otherwise. I have not even seen the movie in which my intended-answer character appears! I have identified a handful of possible surnames that can be formed using my country/capital algorithm, and there are surely more. One of these may be the surname in your alternative answer. But I am not sufficiently familiar with movie characters to know any of these would lead to an alaternative answer that WS would accept, given the "character everyone knows" and "very popular movie" stipulations in my puzzle's text.
I congratulate you both for discovering this(these) possible alternative(s), however, and thank you for working on my puzzle.
LegoWhoInhabitsAnAlternativePuzzleUniverse
I have the answer to the new CHALLENGE. I had the following to the first CHALLENGE:
ReplyDeleteLAS VEGAS Nevada (2010 Census: 583,756)
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (2010 Census: 395, 326)
DES MOINES, Iowa (2010 Census: 203,433)
SANTA CLARITA, California (2010 Census: 176,320)
MOUNT PLEASANT, South Carolina (2010 Census: 67,843)
GRAND ISLAND, Nebraska (2010 Census: 48,520)
WALLA WALLA, Washington (2010 Census: 31,731)
MOUNT PLESANT, Michigan (2010 Census: 26,016)
LOS ALIMOS, New Mexico (2010 Census: 12,019)
Make that "LOS ALAMOS
DeleteAnd MOUNT PLEASANT, Michigan 😁
DeleteI have SIX answers to this week's challenge.
DeleteMake that SEVEN answers.
DeleteI am shocked, shocked that WW let you get away without mentioning Las Animas, Colorado, 2,410 at the 2010 United States Census.
DeleteAnd I am shocked no one has yet got the two cities with the 4 identical 2 letter endings.
Deleteeco, I passed through Las Animas, CO, enroute to Arkansas/Tenn last spring. Soulful place with a high school car wash.
Deletesdb, still working on your puzzle.
Des Plaines, Illinois & Des Moines, Iowa.
Deleteron:
DeleteI like that one, but it is not my intended. Mine has 3 of the words the same length. I would also mention that while Des Plaines has more population than either of my answer cities, I suspect both of mine are more well known.
SDB's other criteria is 3 of the 4 words are the same length, so Des Plaines/ Des Moines doesn't work.
DeleteBut Walla Walla and La Jolla does.
Jolly good!
Deleteeco wins and his pin will have to wait an extra day due to the bogus holiday tomorrow and post offices being closed.
DeleteBogus holiday or not, I'm buying a car! Old limo has a funny smell whenever the chauffeur returns.
DeleteRon's city list should also include Los Altos and Los Banos, both in CA.
NPR wouldn't let me use the cities puzzle, because they don't consider San Juan a "U.S. city." So I had to change challenges at the last minute. I agree the point about San Juan is debatable, but a) residents of San Juan are U.S. citizens, and b) I thought I fairly signaled the trick with my introductory sentence saying the puzzle turns out to be not so easy. Anyway, this was their call. So you get two puzzles this week. :-) --Will Shortz
ReplyDeleteThanks for the explanation, Will. The segment usually tapes Friday around noon. When was the decision made to switch puzzles? The (incorrect) puzzle didn't appear on the NPR website until after 8:00 a.m. ET today.
DeletePuerto Ricans are US citizens, doesn't that make their capital city part of the US? I think NPR's judgement on San Juan is unfortunate, but I suppose they are not alone in denigrating San Juan and PR.
DeleteI liked the puzzle, it had a nice twist, as many (most, all?) lists of US cities don't include San Juan.
Cool to see Will posting to the site! Thanks Will, we all love the puzzle.
DeleteTurned out the second puzzle was much easier than the first. Congrats Joe(and Legolambda)! A puzzle of my own has been used on Puzzleria! this week, if anyone's interested.
DeleteYeah, San Juan blew me out of the water for not thinking outside the box. Especially after I found Des Moines Ia. I figured somebody found bogus census data for Des Moines.
DeleteYou can piece together parts of the answers to both puzzles for this week and end up with the movie character's full name (at least phonetically).
ReplyDeleteNice, Nick.
DeleteThanks to all for the kind words regarding my "substitute" puzzle!
LegoWhoIsJustAJourneymanLongReliefPuzzlerWhoMustTakeTheMoundWhenNationalPublicRadioManagementMysteriouslyAndUnjustlyGivesTheStartingAcePuzzlemasterTheHook!
Take the start of the name of another country and the end of that country's capital, put the parts together, one after the other, and you'll get the first name of the same character.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting Sunday morning:
ReplyDeleteA puzzle is offered and answered.
Dr. Shortz makes an appearance.
I knew a movie character.
My annoyed-o-meter got mixed signals.
Can you imagine a bigger kerfuffle than this morning on the NPR puzzle? Drank my coffee along with a little laughter for quite the Sunday brewhaha ;-).
DeleteClue #7
DeleteI don't think that's too much
I don't think it's too little
I think it's just enough damn information
Yawn
But I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHere is an alternate puzzle, similar to the first one, but the two well known lower 48 U.S. cities I am thinking of, and came up with first, all have the same 2 letter ending, but do not meet the original population criteria. Hint: Three of the four words have the same number of letters.
ReplyDeleteCan we see the Puzzlemaster's birth certificate?
ReplyDeleteTammi or Tommi.
DeleteLiked Blaine's clue.
ReplyDeleteDo you mean to the two cities puzzle? The common ending letters were AS and AN which were hinted in the NASA photo credit.
DeleteBlaine: I was referring to the sentence under the new puzzle that was substituted for the two cities puzzle. I wonder if you knew it was a clue that could lead to the answer.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLego - Nice puzzle. As I'm sure you are aware, there are several possible answers, but the most elegant is the one that you probably intended.
ReplyDeleteJust wondering. For those of you who started without using a list, what character names initially came to mind? My first three were Forrest Gump,James Bond and Mary Poppins.
ReplyDeleteMine was Rhett Butler.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYup, that's what the puzzle asks for, the last name.
DeleteDoh!!! Pardon my facepalm!!!
DeleteIt happens.
DeleteIs it fair to say that most of us found the answer by route of country/capital rather than by role?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteSdb; tmi?
DeleteSorry everyone. I must have had a brain fart whilst I was cooking dinner and got sidetracked by there being two puzzles. I can't believe I actually did that!
DeleteTks sdb
DeleteWeirdest puzzle Sunday ever?! Two puzzles presented in error, NPR censorship, sdb brain fart . . .and there's not even a full moon!
DeleteSDB: Glad I caught it early. I could not imagine you would post the answer. At first I thought my answer was incorrect as it agreed with yours.
DeleteNatasha:
DeleteMe neither, but even skydivers make mistakes, and the graveyards are full of us. BTW, you would have loved the PNB Swan Lake production I recently saw. It was really amazing.
Oh..so glad you saw it. I saw sleeping beauty a few weeks ago at San Francisco ballet. I was transported to another world that afternoon. I will look up the pacific ballet swan lake. I saw it last year i think. My favorite is Giselle. Btw..better you make mistakes here than skydiving. My niece is a new flight attendant for spirit and her husband a pilot. I worry about them.
DeleteWho says I didn't make mistakes skydiving? I did make mistakes, but survived anyway. Everyone make mistakes.
DeleteI don't think you should spend your time and energy worrying about your niece and her husband.
Well they are very happy flying everywhere..not in same plane though. Ok..i will try not to worry.
DeleteStatistically they are in far more danger driving to and from the airport than they are flying. Consider the recent death of Bob Simon, who was a top 60 Minutes corespondent and war corespondent during Viet Nam and who was flying all over the world all the time, but died in his home city, New York in a chauffeured Limo.
DeleteInteresting.
DeleteOh thanks a bunch SDB! Now I'm so terrified; I simply won't be able to get into my chauffeured Limo tomorrow morning to go to the office!
DeleteI'll just have to take the helicopter. Fortunately the helipad is on the roof, so I don't have to be driven there.
Silly architect, you don't have to go to word tomorrow. It's a holiday! Give your chauffeur a day off so he can shoot up and get ready for Tuesday.
DeleteSo much for proof reading.
DeleteBbbbbbutttt you told me it was a bogus holiday?!?!?!?!?
Delete****Bonus Quiz*******
ReplyDeleteTake the start of the name of a country and the end of that country's capital. Put the parts together, one after the other, and you'll get the FIRST name of a character in a very popular TV comedy.
Excellent Riff-off, Mort Canard. Your answer is one half of the answer to one of ten (count 'em, TEN) Riffing-Off Shortz and Young puzzles that are set to appear on this Friday's Puzzleria! blog.
Delete(It seems that it is really easy to rip off one's own puzzles! And besides, I got a 2-day head-start on creating them.)
Incidentally, I really enjoyed Puzzlemaster Will Shortz's "NPR-quashed" puzzle. That San Juan sneakiness and Des Moines misdirection are examples of what makes Will the puzzlemaster (as contrasted with me, a mere puzzlemonger).
I say, let NPR handle the airing of History-Making, and let PWS handle his sharing of Mystery-Making.
LegoWhoIsOneProudMemberOfTheAntiPuzzlerMuzzlingLeague
Well now that it's Friday I will post the answer.
DeleteMONtenegro, PodgorICA = Monica or Monica Geller from Friends.
While nowhere near as elegant as the intended answer to this week’s challenge, I have an alternate solution which shares a feature with this blog.
ReplyDeleteOops, he did it again. But I bet he’ll plead innocent.
ReplyDeleteThere is something quite disturbing about the strange events leading to the two challenges.
ReplyDeleteWill says "NPR" decided, but of course it was some specific person or group that made the decision, which apparently their Puzzlemaster was powerless to ignore.
The timing is confusing, but without knowing when the text is prepared vis-a-vis the taping we probably won't know the sequence.
Most disturbing is that there was any censorship possible at all.
Has there been some individual or committee studying and passing on every puzzle for the last twenty years? Is this only the first one we have learned about? Was the real screw-up that we found out about this one?
Do they have some written, or even consistent, guidelines?
Are they only concerned with the subject but not the quality?
I see the kind of BS that has become common in the past year. Is that possible?
Would a campaign by listeners be likely to get the truth?
I almost gave up on this - but I figured it out before I moved along
ReplyDeleteYou've gotta have balls to present this to an audience expecting a Philharmonic concerto. Little white ones. What would our ping-pong playing Puzzlemaster think?
ReplyDeleteI hear are planning to bring this presentation to the Winter Olympics in PongChang.
Delete^^^they
DeleteYeah, and since there will also be Russians there, I think it will be referred to as: Cheats & Pong.
DeleteI have two alternate answers (one that reminds me of tax season, and the other of spring cleaning), and I think the intended answer (which really shouldn't have taken me so long). --Margaret G.
ReplyDeleteDo I get a prize for the shortest alternate answer?
ReplyDeleteHeavens to sidekicks. I can do that in four letters.
DeleteI've got three letters.
DeleteTwo.
DeleteJa, SuperZee. That's about as short as you could get. Nei, I am not a real puzzlemaster... I just play one on Puzzleria!
ReplyDeleteLegoThinksThereIsNoWaySuperZeeDoesNotMeritSomeKindOfLapelPin
Lego - I know it's Wednesday already, but congrats on your puzzle being picked! I was disappointed with the first one being yanked but it's good to see yours as the back-up puzzle!
ReplyDeleteAnd on the topic of cities lost, congratulations 68C, for residing in the state with some of the most remote places in the lower 48.
DeleteEco - You aren't telling me anything new! Eastern KS isn't bad to drive through but middle-northwestern KS is awful! I dread the trip across KS, from Kansas City to Denver. Along I-70, after Topeka, it is one long, boring trip. The only thing to look forward to are the wind farms along the way. They are pretty cool to see, no pun intended! After that, it is the middle of nowhere.
DeleteOne of these days, I need to take a diversionary trip to see Mount Sunflower! It is, I guess, about an hour off of I-70 near the Colorado border. It is the highest point in Kansas. Usually though, I am so glad to get to the CO border that I want to just get the "heck out of Dodge". (Although that is not in the area!!!)
Maybe later I can tell you how boring S. Dakota is, from it's eastern border to the Rapid City area!
Harvest time at a wind farm must be a real breeze.
DeleteI have driven I-90 across South Dakota both directions several times and completely agree with you about how boring it is. I call South Dakota The Billboard State. So, at least you have plenty of reading material as you struggle to stay awake.
DeleteIt is amazing how big those "wind turbines" are. They are huge, especially when there are maybe 50 or so grouped together. Not sure of those numbers, just a SWAG!
Delete"Boring driving" index is different from "remote" index, though. For the former, what about North Dakota?
DeleteWW - Never been to N. Dakota. It must be pretty boring too! Boring in this context is in the same category as remote.
DeleteSDB - You're right about the billboards. The only time I have driven there, Wall Drug signs were everywhere. I was ready to actually stop in there when my car lost a water pump. I stopped in Murdo, on a Sunday, and a repair shop replaced it in 2 hrs. What a break that was!!
It was pretty cool on that trip, though. About a quarter way across S.D., one of the flattest places on earth, a B-52 did a low level pass right over our car! I bet it was no more than 300 ft above us, and we could see it coming from miles away. That was the highlight of the trip!!
SDB - An earlier post disappeared.
DeleteAs you approach those wind turbines you feel like you need to give the engine a little extra gas just to fight the headwinds from those things!!
Yeah, I saw your invisible post that disappeared.
DeleteI wish instead of running for President, Trump had started a sideline business erecting windmills for wind farms. He seems well suited for a blow job.
Nevada, on either 50 or 80, also has its very long moments. West Texas can be pretty dreary, so can eastern Oregon/ west Idaho.
DeleteThe area around Dodge City, on US 50 hwy, is something else. The area for miles smells like you know what, it is a huge livestock area and it doesn't clear up until you pass Lamar, CO. The ranchers there say it's the smell of money!!
DeleteI had some kind of an oddball car problem driving West across South Dakota many years ago. I think it was just as I pulled into Mitchell, which happened to have a Ford dealership. I had to stay the night and the next day an old mechanic at the shop fixed it with a Rube Goldberg solution that saved me both time and money.
DeleteSome years before that, probably in 1975, I drove my old Dodge Dart alone to go on a hike that was new to me. It required a long drive which included going East over Chinook Pass to Eastern Washington. The hike trailhead was several miles in along the Bumping River Road, which is right along the river. Supreme Court Justice Willian O. Douglas had a cabin up the road too, and coincidentally was vacationing there at that time. My waterpump blew out as I was driving along this road and I had to pull over to the side and park in this very remote area.
I managed to hitch a ride farther up the road to the general store, which is all there is of Bumping Rover. I asked to use their phone and was told there are no phones in that area. I managed to hitch a ride all the way back home, which was amazing, and got my mom to drive me and the waterpump I bought back the next day. She then drove back and I changed the pump and filled the system with water from the river and was then able to drive back home. The next weekend I drove back and did the hike.
While I was hitchiking and fixing the car numerous law enforcement vehicles kept coming and going by and one stopped to see what I was doing. They were there because of Justice Douglas. An interesting experience.
That is an interesting story!
DeleteOne reason I still buy popular American cars is because if they break down, parts are "usually" cheaper and easier to find. That water pump that was replaced in Murdo was for my old "land boat", an Olds Delta 88. It was still working 60,000 more miles before I sold it. I know there are a lot of arguments pro/con on that, but there are advantages to having a reliable car with home grown parts!
Yes, but most of those "home grown parts" nowadays are not made here. My Mercury Grand Marquis is a foreign car.
DeleteThat's something, isn't it...
DeleteI guess that's Canadian? My Chevy Equinox is. I'm curious now what the percentage of parts in it are?? So far so good on it's reliability, knock on wood!
Yep, Kanadian. Last summer I needed to replace my intake manifold due to an engineering goof that causes them to eventually self destroy. I managed to get an off market replacement that was made here. Nasty job.
DeleteWas it related to a fuel injection system with plastic distribution lines running to each cylinder, by chance?
DeleteIf it was, a truck I used to have had the same thing.
No. Years back they stopped making aluminum intake manifolds. The plastic ones had major problems, and so Ford redesigned them with a metal bypass on the top front. It helped but eventually where it bolts onto the plastic it rots out and you have to replace the entire thing. This is on all 4.6L V8 engines.
DeleteWow. Mine was a "spider" system that distributed the fuel to the injectors. It was sandwiched between the top & bottom intake manifolds(never heard of that before). Usually around 100,000 miles, mine was about 120K, the connection where the plastic lines meet the fuel injectors, the line wears out and leaks fuel into the cylinder. The dealer had it for over a month trying to fix it. It was bizzare in that the whole time they gave me a loaner car, a Buick Enclave. I kept expecting the GM dealer would call wanting their car back but they never did. I kept calling them once a week until they finally fixed it. I'll have to admit, it was a pretty good trade while it lasted.
DeleteHere's one.
DeleteWW - Good one!
DeleteBB - Too bad on that...
KENYA, NAIROBI >>>> OBI-WAN KENOBI
ReplyDelete"Can you (**Ken ya**) imagine a bigger kerfuffle than this morning on the NPR puzzle? Drank my coffee (from Kenya) along with a little laughter for quite the Sunday brewhaha ;-)."
Obi-wan KENOBI from Nairobi, Kenya
ReplyDeleteKENYA, NAIROBI -> KENOBI
ReplyDelete> Playing off another recent puzzle, Lego?
Alex Guinness played Obi-Wan Kenobi, of course.
> Oops, he did it again. But I bet he’ll plead innocent.
In Monday’s New York Times Crossword, 21-A is “’Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi,’ e.g.”, for PLEA. I asked Will about this once on-air, and he denied doing it intentionally.
Obi-Wan Kenobi (Kenya/Nairobi)
ReplyDeleteDorothy Gale (Gabon/Libreville)
Ethan Hunt (Hungary/Budapest)
Peter Pan (Paraguay/Asuncion)
Dr. No (Norway/Oslo)
Lois Lane (Laos/Vientiane)
Delete1. KENYA + NAIROBI → Obi-Wan KENOBI (Star Wars)
ReplyDelete2. BOTSWANA + GABORONE → Daniel BOONE, Trail Blazer.
3 & 4. FRANCE + PARIS →
FRANCIS THE TALKING MULE. Or Saint FRANCIS of Assisi.
5. JORDAN + AMMAN → Saint JOAN, The Messenger: The Story of JOAN of Arc. (1999)
6. LIBYA + TRIPOLI →
LILI.
7. MOZAMBIQUE + MAPUTO → Mr. MOTO
8. NORFOLF ISLAND (Australia) + KINGSTON → Ed NORTON of The Honeymooners (movie).
9. NEW ZEALAND + WELLINGTON → Sir Isaac NEWTON, Isaac Newton: The Last Magician.
I know, Will said you will have “the last name of a character in a very popular movie. It's a character everyone knows.” Some characters do not have a last name.
Last names: Obi-Wan Kenobi (last name), Daniel Boone (last name), the mule Francis has no last name, Saint FRANCIS (last name), Saint Joan (last name), Miss Lili (no last name), Mr. Moto (last name), Ed Norton (last name), Isaac Newton (last name).
I wrote of my answer, "I won't tell you the route I took to get it, of course, but I won't be looking any further." "Route" is the hint to my answer: LAOS / VIENTIANE ; (Lois) LANE. I know this isn't the expected one, but it fits.
ReplyDeleteRob, I especially like this answer: Super, man.
DeleteThanks. I think Will has some good alternatives to _neglect_ this week.
DeleteI like Lorenzo's Dorothy Gale, ron's Damiel Boone and Rob's Lois Lane.
DeleteIn restrospect, I should have written:
"Take the start of the name of a country and the end of that country's capital. Put the parts together, one after the other, and you'll get the last name of a character in a very popular movie. It's a character everyone knows. Also, the character's first name begins with the end of the capital. Who is it?
Incidentally, I did not know Alec Guinness portrayed Obi-wan Kenobi. I thought Mr. Kenobi was one of those gnomey/furry/robotey characters, like Yoda, Chewbacca or R2D2!
Lego-Wan Lamblego
Ah, yes, Lego, that would have done it! But, given the last minute changes, I imagine there wasn't time to pre-test it on many folks. I am sure you and Will are thinking "Obi still my hearty answer!" ;-)
Delete"Obi still my hearty answer!..."
DeleteNow that's what I call wordplay!
LegoWondersHoweverIf"ObiStillMyHeart"MayBeSomeKindOfDeathWish
Rob, I liked your answer, too – it was the one I sent in. Also loved your clue for confirmation, re “route”.
DeleteKENya nairOBI
ReplyDelete"So, national flubbed. Can somebody help?" aimed at the errors by our Fear Leader in addressing the catastrophe in San Juan. And of course reference to Princess Leia's "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."
In writing "Good job, Mighty Joe Young." I am not saying the Puzzleria Master is a gorilla, merely that he is aping (as in mimicking) a previous puzzle.
Did anyone see Blaine's comment a a clue to Alec Guinness posted answer on Jan. 28? ("I'm guessing it was inspired by another recent puzzle.")That is what gave it away for me. Grateful!
ReplyDeletecorrection: as a clue
ReplyDeleteAsking for a birth certificate was TMI for me (Tammi or Tommi). Who else but President Obama has been asked about his "Kenyan" birth certificate for the past decade?
ReplyDeleteWW: I did not understand that clue. TKS for explaining.
DeleteSorry I missed you guys earlier: I was checking out new computer systems all afternoon. I went with the Star Wars answer most of you used.
ReplyDeleteKENYA, NAIROBI, (Obi-Wan)KENOBI
ReplyDeleteI was sort of afraid of using the word "force" in my posts(or any form of the word, such as "forcing"), lest Blaine should remove them once again. "Force" would have been such a dead giveaway anyway. Also, between the two challenges we ended up having, this one was much easier, IMHO.
I realize those in the military may be called upon to take the lives of others during times of conflict, such as wars. What I am not so clear about is what is expected of these people during times of peace. For example, was General Mills a cereal killer who was acting legally and responsibly?
ReplyDeleteColonel Sanders was an original, seasoned Kentuckian, whose secret recipe for success was to beat his breasts thirteen times before his business began to flour. He did this for years before finally kicking the bucket. All this to drum up business. At his passing, many of his employees tendered a huge thigh of relief.
DeleteWas he embalmed with 11 secret herbs and spices?
DeleteHah! I thought it was 13, oh well, as long as it wasn't too fowl smelling!
DeleteI don't know why my posts disappear
Perhaps the same reason 7 of the kernal's 11 secret herbs and spices were not there either. The truth is his chicken has only 4 herbs and spices.
DeleteCol. Sanders didn't die; he just chickened out.
My candidate for shortest alternate answer is Oslo, Norway and Dr. Julius No, the eponymous villain from the Bond movie Dr. No.
ReplyDeleteI’m just but sure if he still qualifies as well known. He certainly was 55 years ago, when the movie came out.
Ja, SuperZee (and Lorenzo), "Dr. No" does indeed satisfy my puzzle's criteria, except perhaps the "character everyone knows" clause.
DeleteLegoAsks"NoWay?"No"Norway!"
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think they'll have a word with the intern responsible for posting the puzzle...
DeleteThey've now removed the answer from the web page.
DeleteOver 900 answers last week.
Problem is, the author of next week's puzzle has submitted a puzzle previously, and his home town was identified then.
DeleteTherefore, I've deleted my original posting of the new puzzle, and am re-posting it without the author's name:
DeleteNext week's challenge: Name a place in the United States that contains a W. Drop the W, and you can rearrange the remaining letters to name two types of mammals, each in the plural form. What place is it, and what are the mammals?
Wonder if the (former?) intern will take a pay cut?
DeleteI can't imagine working in a job where thousands of people see your every mistake.
Deletekerfuffle
ReplyDeleteLOL! I worked and worked on the answer before I saw that it was already given. Hey, maybe Will will read another one on the air!
ReplyDeleteThe puzzle section has already been broadcast and the answer is still up.
ReplyDeleteWhoa, two weeks in a row of mix-ups at the Sunday puzzle. What's going on?
ReplyDeleteSlept through the initial puzzle presentation (thanks Olympics!). Did Will mention any alternatives to Lego's puzzle?
No mention of Dr. No, nor any of the other alternate answers.
DeleteI submitted "Gabon - Libreville - Dorothy Gale (The Wizard of Oz)". Am I wrong?
ReplyDeleteBack where I come from, there are winners who are no more right than you. But they have one thing you haven't got: a lapel pin.
Delete