Sunday, December 27, 2015

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 27, 2015): The Duck Says "Quack"

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 27, 2015): The Duck Says "Quack":
Q: Name a famous actress who has four letters in her first name and four letters in her last name. Add one letter, and rearrange the result to name an animal and the sound this animal makes. Who is the actress, what is the animal and what is the sound that the animal makes?
Personally I'd say the sound is more like the last name with a letter removed.

Edit: GRR!
A: TERI GARR + O --> TIGER + ROAR

Sunday, December 20, 2015

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 20, 2015): Four Six-Letter Words Ending with the Same Five Letters

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 20, 2015): Four Six-Letter Words Ending with the Same Five Letters:
Q: Think of four common six-letter words that all end in the same five letters, in the same order. And the first letters of these four words are consecutive consonants in the alphabet (like B, C, D, F). No other common six-letter words end with these five letters. What are the words?
And the five letters (without the starting consonant) sound like another word that would have fit in the sequence.

Edit: Without the starting consonant, the remaining letters sound like OCEAN which would have fit into the sequence at O.
A: LOTION, MOTION, NOTION and POTION (alternate BROWNS, CROWNS, DROWNS and FROWNS but Will was less enamored by the use of plurals.)

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Christmas Puzzle for 2015

Our annual Christmas puzzle is available now.
As in prior years, the reward for solving is a video Christmas card, but you'll need to figure out the password by solving the puzzle first.

Note: If you need some help, the full answer is posted here, but try solving it without help first... it's more fun that way.

Feel free to add a comment below to let us know that you successfully figured it out (without giving away the answer to others). We are always looking for new ideas for next year's Christmas puzzle, so submit those too.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 13, 2015): Character of TV, Movies and Comics

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 13, 2015): Character of TV, Movies and Comics:
Q: Name a well-known character of TV, movies and comics. Two words. Replace the 8th, 9th, and 10th letters with an S. Then rearrange the result to name a well-known actor who played this character on film. First and last names. Who is it?
I incorrectly assumed that each of the letters were replaced by an S (for a total of three Ss). Apparently that is not correct.

A: GREEN HORNET --> GREENHO(S)T --> SETH ROGEN

Sunday, December 06, 2015

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 6, 2015): State Capitals Puzzle

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 6, 2015): State Capitals Puzzle:
Q: Name a state capital. Drop one of its letters. The remaining letters can be rearranged to name of another major city in the United States. What is it? There are two different answers, and you should find both of them.
A: SALEM (MESA) and ST PAUL (TULSA)

Sunday, November 29, 2015

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 29, 2015): Thanksgiving Leftovers

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 29, 2015): Thanksgiving Leftovers:
Q: Take the name of a well-known actress — four letters in the first name, nine letters in the last. Insert a letter between the second and third letters of the first name. Remove the last two letters of the last name. The result is a two-word phrase that means "freedom."
Since we've had this puzzle before, I've got nothing further to add.

Edit: Nothing = Blank
A: Cate Blanchett --> Carte Blanche

Sunday, November 22, 2015

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 22, 2015): Happy Thanksgiving

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 22, 2015): Happy Thanksgiving:
Q: The following three Thanksgiving dishes have something very unusual in common:

  • Spit-roast turkey
  • Cornbread stuffing
  • Boiled squash
  • What is it they have in common, and can you name one other thing that might be served at Thanksgiving dinner that has the same property?
    Well, it isn't Baked Alaska.

    Edit: My hint was a callback to the recent (MOUNT) DENALI puzzle. The food I submitted was the simple CAULIFLOWER.
    A: Each food item uses all five vowels (A, E, I, O and U) exactly once. Other possible foods with this property: Whipped young yams, cranberry coulis, pumpkin gelato, robust Zinfandel. Any food whose name contained all five vowels exactly once was accepted.

    Sunday, November 15, 2015

    NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 15, 2015): Under the Canopy

    NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 15, 2015): Under the Canopy:
    Q: Think of a word that contains three consecutive letters of the alphabet together — like CANOPY, which contains NOP. Change these three letters to one new letter to make a synonym of the first word. What words are these?

    This puzzle reminds me of a joke I heard back in grade-school.

    Edit: Here's the joke.
    Teacher: "Who can use defeat, detail and defense in a single sentence?"
    Johnny: "De-feet and de-tail of de-cat went over de-fence."
    A: DEFEAT --> BEAT

    Sunday, November 08, 2015

    NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 8, 2015): Actor Becomes On-Air Contestant

    NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 8, 2015): Actor Becomes On-Air Contestant:
    Q: Name a famous actor — using both first and last name. Drop the first two letters of the first name and the last two letters of the last name. Then put a Y between what's left of the two names. The result, reading from left to right, will identify who might solve this challenge and play puzzle on the air with me next week.
    Or take the letters that remain in the actor's last name, add a letter before and after to name where you might see the actor today.

    Edit: The answer to my hint was the TV show, BONES
    A: RYAN O'NEAL --> ANYONE

    Sunday, November 01, 2015

    NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 1, 2015): And Three Nines are Twenty

    NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 1, 2015): And Three Nines are Twenty:
    Q: This is one of the "lost" puzzles of Sam Loyd, the great American puzzlemaker from the 19th and early 20th centuries. It's from an old magazine with a Sam Loyd puzzle column. The object is to arrange three 9s to make 20. There is no trick involved. Simply arrange three 9s, using any standard arithmetic signs and symbols, to total 20. How can it be done?
    The whole point is there are no tricks involved. So you don't need to flip numbers upside down or involve higher order math like square roots or factorials... at least my solution doesn't need those.

    Edit: My hint was point as in decimal point.
    A: (9 + 9)/.9 = 20