Cartographic Stylings of SoSG Readers

If nothing else, that last puzzle showed us there are many ways to make a map.

There's the tree-branching method (from Karina):

(click image to enlarge)

• Pros: gets me excited about March Madness.
• Cons: requires a lot of tape.

The MS Excel method (from Fanerman):

(click image to enlarge)

• Pros: very organized and easy to correct errors
• Cons: no visual representation of doors between rooms

And again, the Dusty Baker method (from Dusty Baker):

(click image to enlarge)

• Pros: includes Norwegian phrasebook and invaluable compass
• Cons: none I can think of

And finally, here's SoSG Sax's:

You've seen the various styles. Now, who would you most want to be lost in a hedgemaze with?

Actually, don't answer that.

In related news, UBragg has selected the Furcal Bobblehead as his prize, which means you can look forward to a puzzle from Josh S sometime next season. Email us your mailing address UBragg and we'll get the b-head out to you.

Off-Day Puzzle #19: Solution

Of all the possible uses for excel, creating this puzzle has got be one of the best. The answer to yesterday's puzzle is the matchbook.

So here are the steps you must take:

1. Map out the floorplan of the hedgemaze as you roam around. It should look something like the following:
   

   (click image to enlarge)

2. The key room is the one where Brandon lurks. There are two notes found in this room. The first has a poem with a bunch of missing words, and the second hints at how to find those words. Let's focus on the second note first.
3. This note says:

   The route taken here you must heed,
   For lined it is with those you need.
   For in their homes a Son did speak,
   The 12 missing words that you now seek.

   If you retrace the steps that took you to Brandon's room (outlined in green in the map above), you'll see you traversed Erin, Quad, MSTI, and Brandon, in that order. "In their homes a Son did speak" means that in each of these readers' blogs - Robots Took My Medicine, Bet As Bogus, Mike Scoscia's Tragic Illness, and Reflections of Blue, respectively - one of the SoSG Sons commented. To tell you which comment thread to look for, use the date that the readers' respective room post was made. For example, Erin's room was posted July 10, 8:47pm, so if you look on her blog on that day and time you'll find this post and thread, in which SoSG Orel commented. His comment had three words in italics, which correspond to the first three blanks in the 1st poem (the italics were clued in by the missing words being italicized in the poem).

4. If you proceed thusly for all four blogs (this thread from Bet As Bogus, this thread from MSTI, and this thread from Reflections of Blue), you can find the 12 missing words: cut, walls, south, east, portals, step, first, those, meet, tell, gave, need (three from each blog). Fill in the missing words in the 1st poem in order, and it will read as follows:

   Cut through the walls to the south east
   Four portals deep, and step through each
   The first letters of those you meet
   Translated tell which "gave" you need.

5. Also, you must be aware that to solve the puzzle, you gotta get your Norwegian on. The owl clues you in on this via his last words "ha det bra, og lykke til!" which is Norwegian for "goodbye and good luck," at least according to online translators. Also, "gave" is "gift" in Norwegian. So if you do as the poem says, it will tell you which gift you need.
6. Thus, using the map, do as it says; cut through the walls to the southeast, four portals deep (four portals means five rooms, inclusive of the starting room). Starting from Brandon's room, this will lead to rbnlaw, Alejandro Pena, Nic J, and Neeebs' rooms (in blue in the above map).
7. Using the first letters of "those you meet", it spells "BRANN".
8. Again translating from Norwegian to English, Brann = Fire. Each gift option corresponds with one of the basic elements, earth, wind, fire, and water. The matchbook corresponds with fire. That's your answer!

A big congratulations to DunkHawk and golem, who solved it before any hints were posted. They were followed by Josh S, QuadSevens, J Steve, Mr Customer, UBragg, fanerman, Drewdez, and Berkowit28. Well done gentlemen!

And one note - I apologize I wasn't able to include all regular readers in the puzzle, and particularly all regular puzzle participants. That was my original intent, but in the end I know I wasn't able to as it got just too unwieldy. It ended up being pretty arbitrary who I included and who I didn't, but I apologize to those I missed!

Final standings and prizes to be revealed soon!

Off-Day Puzzle #18: Solution

Name the Dodger from some bling and seven numbers? What? Well, the first clue is the WORLD CHAMPION DODGERS 1988 ring. Second clue is the numbers on the fortune. Are those uniform numbers? The first result of a Google search under "1988 Dodgers uniform numbers" is this page at Baseball Almanac, which reveals:

48 Ramon Martinez
47 Jesse Orosco
3 Steve Sax
30 John Tudor
55 Orel Hershiser
49 Tim Belcher
26 Alejandro Pena

What now? The first letters of the first names spell out RJSJOTA...nonsense...but the first letters of the last names spell out MOSTHBP. Most HBP? Most hit-by-pitches? On what team?

"The answer to this puzzle is a current position player for the Dodgers," reads the puzzle's text, so a quick trip to Baseball-Reference.com tells us Andre Ethier is the team leader in HBP and the answer to this puzzle.

Congratulations to solvers extraordinaire drewdez, LLCoolL, Ubragg, Mr. Customer, Keven C, Golem, QuadSevens, rbnlaw, Andrew, DunkHawk, Matt, fanerman, StolenMonkey86, and Dusty Baker. (Participation points go to Neeebs, MLASF, Josh S., Javier, Jesus (no screen name) and Karina).

Updated puzzle rankings to be posted soon. Up next: The season-ending grand-slam puzzle! More brain cells, more points! Be here 7 a.m. on Thursday, October 1!

Off-Day Puzzle #17: Solution

The answer to yesterday's puzzle is Ronald Belisario.

The first step is to unravel the word configuration to reveal the verse. Each of the four numbered arrows indicate the starting point for each line of the 4-line verse, and you simply read in the direction of the arrow, bending or bouncing around any curve as they are encountered, a la Slot Racers. The only ambiguity is when two lines meet - in these cases the boundary between the two lines must be determined. This is done fairly easily by figuring out what parsing results in actual words.

Here are the four verses separated chromatically:

Written out in normal form:

Though you might search high and low,
The answer's perched under your nose.
And while blood's taken from a stone,
Words I arrange in scattered form.

The second step is to take the verse literally, particularly the second line "The answer's perched under your nose." The 15 letters literally positioned under "Your Nose" are:

I, L, E, B, L, O, O, D, S, I, A, R, R, A, N

Finally, the fourth line "Words I arrange in scattered form" is not only a reference to the logo-shaped configuration of the words, but also hints that the 15 letters are an anagram. Rearranged, they spell Ronald Belisario (not Ronnie Belliard - close, but not quite).

Congratulations to Josh S, LlCooll, J Steve, Keven C, Dunkhawk, Mr Customer, Neeebs, rbnlaw, Drewedez, Fanerman, QuadSevens, and UBragg.

I should also add that I, like some of you, got my Bellies mixed up for a moment. Specifically, I didn't realize LlCooll had sent in the wrong Belli (Belliard). I read his reply too quickly. Since I OK'd his answer and didn't realize my mistake until hours later, I can't penalize him, as he stopped working on the puzzle as soon as I accepted his answer. However, nor is it completely fair to those who fell in after him, who may or may not have gotten it before him. So I'm gonna resolve it by giving LlCoolL 2nd place points, but remove him from the scoring mechanism (i.e., his answer doesn't bump down the score of subsequent answerers). So both LL and J Steve get 2nd place points, Keven C gets 3rd place points, etc. Totally my mistake, sorry Ll and everyone else.

Updated puzzle rankings to be posted soon. Next Puzzle: 7am, Monday, Sept 21, from SoSG Orel!

Off-Day Puzzle #16: Solution

Is Ubragg as good at creating puzzles as he is at answering them? You be the judge. The answer to yesterday's puzzle is Russell Martin. Here's the solution, straight from UBragg himself:

Step 1: "After getting help from the starting lineups..." suggests that you identify the first names of these former Dodger players to get your first message. The Dodgers all-time roster on Wikipedia is a good reference for the names you aren't sure on.

Team 1	Team 2
Andy LaRoche	Irish Meusel
Davey Lopes	Nomar Garciaparra
Duke Snider	Eddie Murray
Dusty Baker	Alex Cora
Ivan DeJesus	Chin-Feng Chen
Greg Brock	Hiram Bocachica
Ike Boone	Rick Dempsey
Todd Hundley	Oscar Robles
Sandy Koufax	Wilson Alvarez

Taking the first letter of the first name of each player, you get the first message: ADD DIGITS IN EACH ROW

Step 2: "you must then keep official score of the game..." suggests that you keep score. A reference was provided for exactly the notation to use. Here is what my scorebook looked like after scoring.

Team 1:

Team 2:

Step 3: Now, as suggested by the message from step one, let's add the digits in each row, and then convert these to letters using A=1, B=2, ...

• Andy LaRoche: (3+1) + (2+2) + 1 + (3+1) = 13 = M
• Davey Lopes: (1+4+1+2) + 1 + 1 + (1+2+2) = 15 = O
• Duke Snider: 0 + (5+3+3) + (1+4+1+1) + 0 = 18 = R
• Dusty Baker: (6+3) + (6+2+1+1) + 0 + 0 = 19 = S
• Ivan DeJesus: (2+1) + 1 + 1 + 0 = 5 = E
• Greg Brock: (1+2) + 1 + 2 + 3 = 9 = I
• Ike Boone: (3+3) + (1+4+2) + 1 = 14 = N
• Todd Hundley: (4+1) + 0 + 3 = 8 = H
• Sandy Koufax: 1 + (1+3+1+3) + 0 = 9 = I
  
• Irish Meusel: 2 + 0 + (5+2+1) + (5+3+2) = 20 = T
• Nomar Garciaparra: 0 + (4+3+3) + (5+2+2) + 0 = 19 = S
• Eddie Murray: 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 = 1 = A
• Alex Cora: 1 + (3+1) + 0 + (6+3) = 14 = N
• Chin-Feng Chen: (2+2) + 0 + 0 + 0 = 4 = D
• Hiram Bocachica: (8+3) + 1 + 3 + 0 = 15 = O
• Rick Dempsey: 1 + (9+2) + 0 + (8+1) = 21 = U
• Oscar Robles: (3+1) + (4+3) + 1 + (6+2) = 20 = T
• Wilson Alvarez: (6+2) + 1 + 0 + (4+3+3) = 19 = S

So this gives the next message: MORSE IN HITS AND OUTS

Step 4: This suggests that you reinterpret the scorebook as Morse code, using hits and outs as dashes and dots. The insight here is to think of them like official at bats, where walks and hit-by-pitches don't count for anything (X), while a hit (H) is a dash and an out (including fielder's choices, which count against the hitter)(O) is a dot.

• Andy LaRoche: OOHO = dot-dot-dash-dot = F
• Davey Lopes: HHHX = dash-dash-dash = O
• Duke Snider: OOHX = dot-dot-dash = U
• Dusty Baker: OHOX = dot-dash-dot = R
• Ivan DeJesus: OHHO = dot-dash-dash-dot = P
• Greg Brock: OHOO = dot-dash-dot-dot = L
• Ike Boone: OOH = dot-dot-dash = U
• Todd Hundley: OOO = dot-dot-dot = S
• Sandy Koufax: HHH = dash-dash-dash = O
  
• Irish Meusel: HXXO = dash-dot = N
• Nomar Garciaparra: XOXX = dot = E
• Eddie Murray: XXXH = dash = T
• Alex Cora: OOOO = dot-dot-dot-dot = H
• Chin-Feng Chen: OXOX = dot-dot = I
• Hiram Bocachica: OHOX = dot-dash-dot = R
• Rick Dempsey: HOXO = dash-dot-dot = D
• Oscar Robles: OOOO = dot-dot-dot-dot = H
• Wilson Alvarez: OHXO = dot-dash-dot = R

So this yields the final message: FOUR PLUS ONE THIRD HR. This of course refers the memorable "Four Plus One" Game, in which the third home run of the four-plus-one was hit by Russell Martin, which is the Dodger being honored in the exhibition game, and the answer to the puzzle.

Congratulations to Keven C for being the first to solve, followed by Keven C, QuadSevens, drewdez, and J Steve. This one was certainly a difficult one, with only 4 solvers - an all-time low! So those four should really feel proud of themselves.

Thanks to UBragg for a fantastic puzzle. You have shown to be as skilled a puzzle creator as you are a puzzle solver.

Updated rankings coming soon, and next puzzle 7am, Monday Sept 17!

Off-Day Puzzle #15: Solution

"Seek and ye shall find", a great pirate once said. The answer to yesterday's Dead Sailors puzzle is eleven.

Immediately after the first syllable in each line (or, in some cases, slightly less than a syllable, but never to begin a line), the numbers one through twelve are phonetically embedded, in reverse order:

No[12]rsed in the high seas,
The ____ sailors caught disease.
Rot[10] mutton made them ill,
Be[9] it looked but looks can kill.

They [8] and when their feast was through,
'twa[7] taking all but two;
Two [6]urvivors lost at sea,
If[5] seen worse, I lie to thee.

Will [4]tune save their aimless boat?
Bo[3]affirm their faith and hope;
Their [2]mbstones nonetheless will say,
"They [1] our hearts but lost their way."

The blank is therefore the missing number in the sequence - eleven.

Congratulations to a record 15 solvers: drewdez, keven c, mr customer, j steve, fanerman, berkowit28, josh s, bwrightson, erin, ubragg, danielle, jose, neeebs, llcooll, and rbnlaw. Special kudos to danielle for her first puzzle solve!

Updated puzzle rankings to be posted soon. Next Puzzle: 7am, Thursday, Sept 10, courtesy of PCS middle-third champ UBragg!

Off-Day Puzzle #14: Solution

You get another video solution today. The secret message from yesterday's puzzle is "The Future Is Bright - Buy Shades! - SoSG." And hopefully you were wearing those shades if you were holding this up to the sun while solving.

The puzzle title and subsequent reference to "Coming Together" were key. Here's the methodology:

Congratulations to UBragg, Josh S, rbnlaw, Keven C, drewdez, J Steve, Matt, Fanerman, and Jose! Special kudos to rbnlaw and Matt for their first solve. New rankings to be posted soon.

Next Puzzle: Monday, August 24, 7am!

Off-Day Puzzle #13: Solution

That is right - the answer to yesterday's puzzle is former Dodger Edwin Jackson.

The key to solving the puzzle is recognizing the significance of each player (mentioned in the third and fourth paragraphs) being linked to his MLB.com profile. Note the URL of each profile contains a unique six-digit code.

The strangeness of the play indicates it provides the rest of the information you need to complete the puzzle. Tracking the play shows that it goes 2B-C-RF-LF-P-RF (Rafael Furcal and Matt Kemp are mentioned, but they never touch the ball and therefore don't figure into the scoring).

Translating the play into scorekeeper-ese, you get 4-2-9-7-1-9.

Plug that number into the MLB.com URL — http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=429719 — and you get Jackson's profile. And, in a touch of remarkable foresight or complete luck — I'm not telling which — the tiger on the field corresponds with Jackson's current team, the Detroit Tigers.

Congratulations to those who cracked the code:

• BWrightson
• Wicks
• Josh S
• Keven C
• Ubragg
• J. Steve
• LLCoolL
• DunkHawk
• Fanerman
• Drewdez
• Mr. Customer

Updated rankings soon, and keep your heads sharpened for the next puzzle, on Thursday, August 13, at 7 a.m. PT!

photo by John T. Greilick/Detroit News

Off-Day Grand Slam Puzzle #12: Solution

Word to the wise: bring a jacket. Because it's off to Norway we go!

The first part of yesterday's puzzle is to find the correct path:

1. As per the Cub's first question in Puzzle #6, his true love is Jasmine. Thus, he must avoid Matilda, Eve, and Grace.
2. As per the Cub's second question, he can move only at night, so he must reach her by 6am. At 30 minutes per move, this gives him 16 moves.
3. As per the Cub's third question, his first move must be to the south.
4. Assuming the Cub moves south with his first move, his next four moves are entirely determined by where he does not cross paths with a tree, an eagle, a vulture, or a spurned love. In each case, he has only one possible move.
5. With his sixth move - at 12:30pm - he has an option of going either East or South. If he goes South, he will not be able to reach Jasmine in time. Therefore, East is his only move.
6. All his subsequent moves are determined not by avoiding enemies, but by beating the clock to Jasmine.
7. Here's the path in its entirety:

Once that's done, you must next figure out the words the forest speaks, as follows:

1. The first 4 utterances are the 4 letters on which the Cub sits at the indicated times: midnight (M), 2am (K), 4am (4), and 6am (5).
2. Using the green="0" and pink="1" convention indicated by the clock color scheme, the last 2 utterances correspond to the ascii translations of the 8-digit binary strings that correspond to the Cub's first 8 squares (01101010 = J) and his second 8 squares (01110010 = R). This device was used in last year´s grand finale puzzle.
3. Put the 6 utterances together and tack 'em to the end of SoSG's tinyurl.com favorite, and you have tinyurl.com/MK45JR, which brings up the Norway wikipedia page.

"Gratulerer" to UBragg, QuadSevens, BWrightson, Josh S, Drewdez, Fanerman, J Steve, Mr Customer, and Erin. Next Puzzle Thursday, July 23, 7am...the first from SoSG Orel! Also, updated rankings to be posted soon, and of course prizes awarded as well!

Off-Day Puzzle #11: Solution

The answer to yesterday's puzzle is James Loney.

There are four steps to solving it:

1. First, unscramble the image on the left. Dig through your CD collection for a reference image if necessary. The unscrambling process will be helpful for two different reasons, one of which is the resulting message "X's mark the spots". Keep that in mind.
2. Divide the image on the right into a 4x4 grid as is the left image. Then re-arrange the resulting sixteen pieces "in sync" with how you unscrambled the left image:
3. Next, find the hidden words. Here are the 32 words you're looking for:
   • Seven (7) Spice Girls or Central American countries: Brown, Bunton, Halliwell, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama;
   • Six (6) Entourage actors or Sex and the City characters: Ferrara, Grenier, Piven, Hobbes, Jones, York;
   • Seven (7) current Supreme Court Justices or 5 last contestants on Rock of Love Bus: Roberts, Ginsburg, Thomas, Stevens, Mindy, Beverly, Ashley;
   • Six (6) top 5 career NFL passing leaders or bottom 5 1st round NBA draftees: Favre, Elway, Moon, Eyenga, Douglas, Gibson;
   • Six (6) last 5 MLB perfect game throwers or first 5 World Cup host countries: Cone, Rogers, Wells, Brazil, France, Italy.

   And here is where they lie in the now-unscrambled word search:

   
4. And finally, going back to the unscrambled message "X's mark the spots," look only at the letters that are part of two intersecting words. You will see there are 11 such letters, which when read in sequence spell "Number Seven". James Loney.

And with that, we will likely never hear Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Mindy from Rock of Love Bus mentioned together again, much less multiple times by multiple people in a single thread.

Congratulations to UBragg, Quadsevens, BWrightson, Josh S, Drewdez, Mr Customer, J Steve, and Fanerman.

Updated rankings soon, and next puzzle tomorrow, 7am. A Grand Slam puzzle!

Off-Day Puzzle #10: Solution

Here's the solution to yesterday's puzzle:

The remaining open squares spell "Leader in Career Grand Slams as a Dodger," who is Gil Hodges.

Congratulations to UBragg, BWrightson, Keven C, Loney Fan, Fanerman, Berkowit28, Quadsevens, Drewdez, Erin, and Jose. And thanks to Mr Customer for an awesome puzzle. And since he had to sit this one out, he's getting the average of his last 6 puzzles (although Puzzle #6 is factored down to 100 pts), which is 72. Updated rankings coming soon.

Also, prepare yourself for two puzzles next week, on the Monday and Wednesday surrounding the All-Star Game. And Wednesday is Puzzle #12, which means Grand Slam!

Off-Day Puzzle #9: Solution

The solution to yesterday's puzzle is the Florida Marlins.

First, superimpose the text over the provided map:

Then, if you focus on the city (or state) names, you will see they end up geographically aligned:

The only city/team to the southeast of Tampa Bay is the Florida Marlins.

Big props to BWrightson for pulling off his first puzzle victory! He and Jose were the only ones to solve it before the apparently infinitely helpful bolding of the city names. Following Jose were Mr Customer, MLASF, Josh S, UBragg, Berkowit28, Keven C, Loney Fan, Neeebs, Midnightdrive, M.S.T.I, Wicks, and Fanerman. Fourteen correct answer! Finally, a more accessible puzzle, at least after the bolding.

Updated rankings to be posted soon. And be sure to tune in for Mr Customer's off-day puzzle Monday, July 6, 7am!

Off-Day Puzzle #8: Solution

The answer to yesterday's Countdown Puzzle is Orlando Hudson.

The first step is to figure out that each line of the poem refers to another line. For example, the 3nd line of the poem states that the 7th line is in past tense; the 6th line mentions how the 4th line is the longest, while the 4th line refers to the 6th line mentioning the 4th line, and so on.

In most cases, each line also mentions how the other line is useless. Except the 1st line, which states "look for the signs within number nine." But the poem has only eight lines?...

The ninth line is where you'd expect it to be - below the eighth line. It's the line of dashes separating the poem from the puzzle rules, written in Morse code (short dash = dot). If parsed correctly - for which hint #1 was required lest someone try endless combinations - it reads "leads the team in runs scored." This is Orlando Hudson.

Congratulations to UBragg, Jose, Fred's Brim, Fanerman, J Steve, LL Cool L, Berkowit28, Mr Customer, and BWrightson.

Updated rankings coming soon, and next puzzle Thursday, July 2, 7am!

Off-Day Puzzle #7: Solution

The answer to yesterday's Off-Day Non-Grand Slam Puzzle #7 is Fred Claire, the former Dodgers GM.

The first step in the puzzle is identifying the players. Here are the two lines from the first page, with the white boxes removed:

As mentioned by hint #3, vertical position is relevant. Some of these cards are positioned "low", which indicates to take the last name; others are "high," indicating to take the first name.

Driving off of that, and reading the two lines, you get:

LOWE - JAY - ZAHN - HU - LEE
VIDA - SHAWN(S) - EARL - LEE - WRIGHT

Shawn Green appears twice ("deliberate"), so he gets a plural (only Josh S called that out in his solution; well done!).

Listening to those syllables from those names, in that order, reveals that they sound remarkably similar to the first two lines of Francis Scott Key's "The Star Spangled Banner", sung before every baseball game as the national anthem. To recap, those two correct lines are "O! say can you see / by the dawn's early light". Hints #4 and #5 indicate you should say the list of names aloud, and even sing them (and the puzzle flavortext speaks to "echoes").

And now, for the second page:

Again, the important names on the four cards, as indicated by their vertical position, are:

STAN - DOUG - BROCK - GOETZ - ?

...which corresponds with the national anthem's:

"And the rockets' [red glare]". So we just need to find a Dodger staff member whose name fits "red glare". Noting that the rectangle spans both the top AND bottom positions--one can derive "FRED CLAIRE" as the sound-alike, and the answer to the puzzle.

I will confess that I thought of this puzzle while listening to national anthem and working backwards from the "red glare" / Fred Claire part. Little did I know how difficult the first two lines would be to locate the full list of sound-alike players. Why I didn't think of SANDY Koufax, rather than the forced "STAN - DOUG" in the final line, is beyond me. Special thanks to checkoutmycards.com, the source of all my card photos.

One final point: the puzzle title "Dodgers Staff Member" is designed to be a double entendre on a musical staff. Admittedly, that's a stretch. I know.

Congratulations to J. Steve who narrowly edged out Ubragg for, er, "ubragging" rights. Other correct solvers (as of 11:40p) were, in order: Fanerman, Mr. Customer, and Josh S. Thanks to all who participated, and I hope you enjoyed this puzzle!

Revised PCS rankings out shortly, and set your alarms for the next puzzle, releasing on Monday June 22 at 7a PT!

Off-Day Grand Slam Puzzle #6: Solution

The answer to yesterday's Grand Slam puzzle is 'south'.

When the Bear deciphers each of the first two answers for his son, he also gives two critical clues: "On his words you must dwell, for you've seen them elsewhere" and "Follow his glance". He is hinting at the solution methodology: scanning the verse for an earlier occurrence of the owl's words, and from there looking in the direction that his eyes indicate to identify a key letter.

Here's the step-by-step instructions for deciphering the Owl's replies:

1. Separate each of the Owl's replies into four segments as indicated by the dashes in his words. Example: the Owl's answer "Ou-fte-ten-ore!" is thus separated into 'Ou', 'fte', 'ten', and 'ore'.
2. Then take each segment and find where you had previously seen the given letter pattern. Some appear multiple instances within the puzzle - take the first instance in each case. Example: the first segment of the first answer is 'Ou'. Do a word search for 'ou' in the poem and it first occurs in the 4th line, in the word 'journey'.
3. Next, make note of where the Owl glances after giving his reply. In the first case, he glances to the left, so look at the letter to the left of where the word segment appears. Example: The letter to the left of 'ou' in the world 'journey'' is 'j'.
4. For the last step, take the resulting four letters that correspond to each of the four word segments, and put them together. In each case, the four letters will spell out the first four letters of one of the choices (you will notice the Cub always phrases his questions as multiple-choice rather than open-ended). Example: The four segments in the Owl's first answer spell j-a-s-m for 'Jasmine'.

Below is the breakdown of each of the Owl's replies, starting with the Cub's first question:

Cub's question: "Which one of my loves will make the best mate: Matilda or Eve, or Jasmine or Grace?"

Owl's reply: "Ou-fte-ten-ore!"

Direction of Owl's glance: to the left

Word Segment	Previous Occurrence	Resulting Letter
Ou	"My journey ends here"	j
fte	"For after tonight"	a
ten	"Now listen my son"	s
ore	"I continue no more"	m

Meaning of Owl's Reply: j-a-s-m, or 'Jasmine'

And the Cub's second question:

Cub's question: "Should I move by the light of the sun or the moon?"

Owl's reply: "Fro-wo-who-peri!"

Direction of Owl's glance: to the right

Word Segment	Previous Occurrence	Resulting Letter
fro	"from a cub to a bear"	m
wo	"A week in the woods"	o
who	"'Wh-wh-whoo!' was the call"	o
peri	"a whispering howl"	n

Meaning of Owl's Reply: m-o-o-n, or 'moon'

And now...for the last question. You'll notice in the Owl's reply, each word segment is 4 letters long. And after he speaks, the Owl crosses his eyes. As with the previous two questions, you have to take your cue from this, meaning you look 'between' each word segment.

In other words, each 4-letter segment must be divided into two 2-letter sub-segments, and as before search the text for where the two subsegments appear somewhere in the poem, but this time with a single letter between them. This is the letter you must pull, as follows:

Cub's question: "Which way should I head: north, south, east, or west??"

Owl's reply: "Depa-alne-jorn-afer!"

Direction of Owl's glance: to the middle

Word Segment	Previous Occurrence	Resulting Letter
depa	"you mustn’t despair"	s
alne	"but alone you must go"	o
jorn	"My journey ends here"	u
afer	"For after tonight"	t

Meaning of Owl's Reply: s-o-u-t, or 'south'

Congratulations to Mr Customer, UBragg, Fanerman, Berkowit28, J Steve, Quadsevens, Jose, and Gil Gamesh for their correct answers, in that order.

Updated PCS Ranking - and puzzle prize awards ceremony - coming soon. Next off-day puzzle: Monday, June 15, 7am!

Off-Day Puzzle #5: Solution

Thank you Jose for a stellar puzzle! Great job of mixing up the puzzle styles - I for one would not have come up with something like this one.

Before I get to the solution, keep in mind the next one is in just 2 days - Thursday, June 11, 7am. And it will be SoSG's first ever "Grand Slam" Puzzle! What is a Grand Slam puzzle? Stay tuned, we will explain in about 1 hour (at 7:30am).

Anyhow, on to the solution, as written by the man himself, Jose:

Since Ethier attends both seatings (and we are given the two lefties Stults and Milton), there is at least 1 pitcher and fielder at each seating. Since pitchers and fielders can’t be alone at the table, we know there are at least two pitchers and two fielders at each seating.

Now, at each table, there are eight spots and four are taken up by the two pitchers and two fielders. There are only four attendees who are not pitchers or fielders: Martin, Ausmus, Torre and Mattingly. Any seating with at least two pitchers and two fielders needs at least two of those four Dodgers to form a buffer, otherwise a pitcher will be across from or next to a fielder, so all four must attend – two at each seating.

Let’s look at our complete list of attendees:

• Pitchers (P): Brazoban, Milton, Mota, Ohman, Stults, Troncoso
• Fielders (F): Blake, Ethier (twice), Hudson, Kemp, Pierre (because of Ausmus)
• Catchers (C): Ausmus, Martin
• Managers/Coaches (M): Mattingly, Torre

Now, each seating has six spots spoken for – two pitchers, two fielders, and two manager/coach/catchers – and two spots left. The remaining two fielders and two pitchers must be allocated to these four spots. Suppose the two pitchers go to the same seating. Then at that seating, we have four pitchers, two fielders, and two manager/coach/catchers. The only way to avoid having a pitcher next to or across from a fielder is to have the four pitchers together in a square on one end and the two fielders at the other end like this:

Then, the other table must look like this:

If we have this, then the catchers have nowhere to sit, since they must sit across from a pitcher. So, the two remaining pitchers must go to different seatings, and both seatings must look like this:

or this:

Pierre has to sit next to Ausmus. Since Pierre is a lefty and Ausmus is a righty, Pierre must sit on his left (row 1, column 3). So the seating that Ausmus and Pierre attend must look like the second of the two choices.

Ethier, a lefty, sits in the same seat both times. He can’t sit in Pierre’s seat, so he must sit in column 4. He can’t sit in row 2 because then, in both seatings, everyone sitting to his left would have to be a lefty too, and the last seating only has at most three lefties. So he must sit in row 1, column 4.

We know that Blake is a fielder and sits in the same row as Ethier. Therefore, Blake must also sit in row 1, column 3 (same seat as Pierre, but in the seating Pierre doesn't attend.) Since Blake and Pierre are both fielders, we know that both seatings look like this:

Mattingly is a lefty, and so the pitcher on his left must be Ohmans, the only LHP left. The last seating already has two lefties (Milton and Ethier), and can’t have more than 3, so Mattingly and Ohmans must attend the first seating. This means Torre attends the last seating, and therefore Brazoban attends the first. Now we have:

Both catchers are right-handed, and so, in the last seating, Troncoso’s chicken dance would disturb his neighbor if he sat in row 1, column 1. So Mota, the only pitcher left, must sit there while Troncoso takes the spot in row 2, column 2.

Since Blake sits on the same side (row) as Ethier, we know that one seating has Ausmus and Pierre in the two remaining spots in the top row and the other has Martin and Blake. Also, since Mota attends the last seating, Hudson must be at the first seating. Row 1, column 3 is taken up by either Pierre or Blake in both seatings, so Hudson must sit in the bottom right corner. Then, the only spot left for Kemp is the bottom right corner of the last seating and we have:

Pierre must attend the last seating to make three lefties, and now we have:

Now, for part 2: Who did the Dodgers at the first seating make a toast to? Let’s look at their first names:

Casey
Orlando
Russell
Yhency
Will
Andre
Don
Eric

Hmm, how about the last names of the Dodgers at the last seating?

Milton
Ausmus
Torre
Troncoso
Kemp
Ethier
Mota
Pierre

Congratulations to QuadSevens, Mr Customer, Fanerman, Loney Fan, UBragg, Keven C, Awesome, and Berkowit28 for solving it correctly. Updated PCS Ranking to be posted soon.

Next Off-day puzzle in 2 days - Thursday, June 11, 7am. See you there!

Off-Day Puzzle #4: Solution

The answer to the Shell Game Puzzle is Gary Bennett.

Successfully follow the 18 moving tiles and you will end up with the following:

Read vertically down each 3-tile column from left to right, insert the dot and backslash, and you get:

tinyurl.com/a9epwe

(thus the hints with links to meaningless sites using tinyurl's spelled out instead of the usual hyperlinks). This leads to Gary Bennett's baseball-reference page. Congratulations for those who stuck with it: loney fan, ubragg, j steve, quadsevens, berkowit28, fanerman, natalie, and mr customer. Updated PCS Rankings will be posted after the long weekend.

Join us again 7am, Monday, June 8 for Season I champ Jose's puzzle!

Off-Day Puzzle #3: Solution

Ok, yesterday's Cosmic Conundrum puzzle generated a flurry of unanticipated thought patterns and subsequent solutions, which created a conundrum in scoring more than anything else.

But more on that later. First, the solution. Here's the poem:

               THE EARTHTRUNS LOOPS

                  AROUNDATHE SUN

                WHILST STARS ALIGN

                FOUR TWOMTHREE ONE

              CONCEALEDPTHEY'RE KEPT

                WITHIN EACH VERSE

                  UNTILMTHE DARK

                ESREVERKNI SENIHS

And here is the intended solution, with the corresponding verses in the poem meant as clues for each step:

1. "CONCEALED THEY'RE KEPT...UNTIL THE DARK SHINES IN REVERSE" --> Reverse black and white by highlighting the poem. Six invisible letters will start to twinkle: T,A,M and P,M,K.
2. "STARS ALIGN" --> Most can get Matt Kemp from only step 1, but if you read vertically down each stanza in the column where the hidden letters appear - including both invisible and pre-existing letters - you'll get all eight letters in his name 'TATM PEMK'
3. "FOUR TWO THREE ONE" --> For sure you can see the anagram after the above step, but technically this line in the poem tells you the sequence in which to arrange the letters to get MATT KEMP.

So as at least one reader mentioned, courier font was used to ensure the proper vertical alignment. And the last line was written backwards not in an attempt to be cute, but rather as a necessity - it kept the poem center-justified while getting a space in the appropriate slot for a hidden letter.

In anycase, that's how the puzzle solution was supposed to go. But it turned almost everybody initially submitted a solution based only on step 1. There were so many solution variations that got the right answer (Matt Kemp) but not quite the right methodology that I had trouble scoring it objectively. The most common semi-solutions:

• Finding only the 6 hidden letters but not putting them together with the 2 pre-existing letters to get only T_AM P_MK, and from there guessing Matt Kemp but wondering why two letters were still missing.
• Finding the 6 hidden letters and thinking 'SHINES IN REVERSE' meant reversing the letter sequence into MAT KMP, but still wondering about the two missing letters.
• Some found the 6 hidden letters, the connection to the FOUR TWO THREE ONE line to get MA_T K_MP, but still wondered why 2 letters were missing.

So ironically it was the 2 letters that were not invisible that were the hardest to find. This chaos was ultimately due to my short-sighted puzzle construction. I fell in love with the hidden text concept but did a poor/rushed job of the execution. My apologies, I just hope I was able to score it equitably.

Anyways, congratulations to Karina for being the first to correctly answer! I'm not sure exactly why, but her winning this puzzle makes me think of Glen Davis in last Sunday's Celtics-Magic game. She was followed by UBragg, Lauro, Neeebs, Dusto Magnifico, Mr Customer, Quad, J Steve, Fanerman, Brandon, Jose, Natalie, MLASF, and stolenmonkey86. And I'm gonna pull the Supreme-Arbiter-of-Puzzle-Scoring card and give MSTI 30 points for a semi-solution that wasn't good enough for full credit but wasn't bad enough for participation credit only. If anyone feels they were scored unfairly I'll hear your case - please email us.

As always, thanks for playing. Updated PCS Rankings to be posted soon. Next puzzle, 7am, Thursday May 21!

Off-Day Puzzle #2: Solution

The answer to Off-Day Puzzle #2: The Continuing Adventures of Dodger Duck / The Duck Stops Where? is LASORDA. Dodger Duck's itinerary was set based on visiting seven cities, and then indexing into the city name based on the number of days that he spends in each city.

The seven cities are, in order (with the key letter which corresponds to the number of days being capitalized):

miLan
stAnford
waShington, dc
bangkOk
new yoRk city
lonDon
Amsterdam

The two pictures that gave the most people trouble were #2, Stanford (fanerman's favorite!) amd #4, Bangkok. Stanford is identifiable not only by the distinctive shape of the lake, but also the interstate symbol in the bottom left map (which is I-280). #4 was a little bit more challenging, as it's an interior shot at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport, but one can make out the Thai Airlines sign in the background, as well as the distinctive Thai Airlines symbol located at the center of the mural design.

Many people identified four to five of the cities, and then figured out the indexing mechanism in order to derive the answer. So long as the methodology was explained and some of the letters were identified, we gave credit. Apologies for the confusion on Milan signalling Alyssa Milano, as berkowit28 and ubragg pointed out (nice work googling, however!); the association was unintentional and irrelevant to the puzzle, though admittedly relevant to my subconscious.

Congratulations to the ten SoSG readers who correctly solved the puzzle (in order of finish by time of email receipt): Mr. Customer (7.17a), MattyA (7.20a), Wicks (9.22a), QuadSevens (9.26a), berkowit28 (10.44a), Ubragg (11.22a), fanerman (12:18p), Neeebs (1:20p), J Steve (5.08p), and Jose (7.02p).

Participation credit goes to karina and stolenmonkey86, both of whom correctly guessed Lasorda for his globe-trotting skills, but did not figure out the methodology to receive full credit, as well as to MSTI and Dusto Magnifico. Full PCS rankings through two puzzles will be available shortly (we have an Apple IIe computer to run SoSG's data analyses, and we're out of 5 1/4" floppies).

Thanks everyone for puzzling, and see you all next on May 11 at 7am PT!

Off-Day Puzzle #1: Solution

The answer to the Leading Off Puzzle is James Loney. As suggested throughout the awkwardly-phrased text, one should (1) pay attention not only on the end, but also (2) focus on the 'leadoff hitter' throughout.

Thus, if you refrain from fixating on the Haiku and instead take the first letter of each sentence throughout the entire text, it will spell out "Last Year He Led Team In RBIs". That was James Loney with 90.

Congratulations QuadSevens for solving this in a ridiculously fast 4 minutes. What?!? Bards will be singing about that feat for generations to come (and did you know he has his own blog?) Quad was followed by his arch-rival Loney Fan in an impressive-but-overshadowed 16 minutes. Then came, in order, MSTI, Andrew, Berkowit28, Fanerman, Natalie, Brandon, J Steve, Ubragg, and Mr. Customer.

Thanks for playing. Updated PCS rankings coming soon, and next Off-Day Puzzle April 20!