Friday, August 15, 2008

Attention Puzzlers: This Is What You're Playing For

As if worldwide recognition and the resultant boost to your sex life were not enough, there's now even more at stake in SoSG's Puzzle Championship Series. Yes siree. The season champ - that is, whoever holds the top PCS ranking after the season's final puzzle September 29 - will be rewarded with his or her choice of one of the following:

Prize Option 1: The opportunity to create the next puzzle! As this inaugural puzzle season has taken shape and I've been faced with the increasingly challenging task of coming up with new and original puzzle concepts (a load I now thankfully share with SoSG Sax), I couldn't help but start wondering what concepts you top puzzle solvers would come up with. So now is your chance to see things from the other side. If you win and choose this prize option, you can either send us the concept and we'll write it up, or you can write it up soup-to-nuts and include any accompanying pictures (although SoSG gets final cut).

Or, if you aren't ready for that responsibility, you can choose...

Prize Option 2*: An official Rafael Furcal Bobblehead. We know you've missed him and his 0.597 slugging % (which outpaces even Manny's 2008 slugging) since he went down on Cinco De Mayo. Winning the PCS won't get Raffy back in the lineup, but it will allow you to place his plastic facsimile in front of an open window and watch it respond correctly when asked "Isn't Colletti a douchebag?"

And as an added bonus, the season's runner-up will receive the prize not selected by the champion. We just can't stop giving!

So that's right, folks: It is ON. Time to cancel your vacation, leave your spouse, quit your job and/or the ganja - basically take whatever drastic action necessary to maximize performance over the remaining 5 puzzles of the season. Five more puzzles - plenty of room with which to catch heretofore master Quad...or not?

FYI, the next puzzle will be posted at 7am PST Monday, Aug 18. It will require neither scissors, blue paper clips, nor the internet anagram server. But it will definitely require an open mind. Good luck!

*mailing address required for this prize option (we are not responsible for any items lost in the mail).

8 comments:

QuadSevens said...

I will have to work hard to stay on top for these next 4 puzzles. On Sep. 29 I probably won't have access to a computer so everyone will have a last minute chance to take my top spot. I'll be in San Francisco on vacation (hopefully watching at least one Dodgers/Giants game up there). Good luck to all.

Jake said...

hello,

by any chance, could you please make the "archives" a set of hard links, as opposed to a drop-down box? I tend to read your blog on my train commute, which features a severely intermittent internet connection. Consequently, I like to prefetch websites by doing "open in new tab", so that by the time I am done with page N, page N+1 is already loaded and I don't have to wait.

Alas, due to some web browser misfeatures of 1994 *still* sticking around, drop-down boxes permit only left-clicking, and not the full selection of options available to other links via the right mouse button. Thus, a long wait. In the absence of a revision of the HTML standard, is there any chance you could make hard links?

Thank you!

Erin said...

Hey Quad, I think there's a chance I'll be up in San Fran for the last game of the season.

QuadSevens said...

Oh yeah Erin? We'll have to meet up for a drink at the game so we can cheer on the Dodgers together.

Eric Karros said...

Quad, can't you get your staff at Red 5 Research to cover for you Sept 29?

Eric Karros said...

And Jake, thanks for the suggestion. We'll look into it, but no promises...

Steve Sax said...

Jake

Thanks for the feedback. Our VP of Web Design believes in as slim a sidebar as possible, hence the regular purging of links and the drop-down box for archives. I'll bring this up to her, but I'm not sure if she's going to budge on this one. Thank you for reading, though!

Orel said...

Jake, how about doing a URL cut & paste? For example,

http://www.sonsofstevegarvey.com/2008_08_01_archive.html

is the address of our archives for this month. Change the "08" to "07" to go to July and so forth. Hope that helps.