And Random Acts of Retail

My brother complained, after the mail came yesterday, "I just threw out every catalog in my room!" by which he meant approximately three dozen or so recent arrivals (and didn't count the twenty or so still in the living room). He held another even dozen in his hand fresh from the mailbox.

I often wonder from whence the catalogers get our address. It's kind of a game trying to figure out whose mailing list we came from. Sometimes it seems pretty obvious: Wild Wings, purveyor of wildlife coffee mugs, nostalgic animal art and clothing, most likely came by way of the World Wildlife Fund or Birds and Blooms magazine, both of which have had our information for years. Likewise, we know where Wireless (NPR), Signals (PBS), Smithsonian and National Geographic catalogs all come from.

But what about Front Gate? Their publication (I hesitate to call it a mere catalog) is printed on heavy glossy paper bound in a clay-coat four-color-process cover stock more suited to a commercial real estate prospectus. Then again, projecting that kind of image is necessary when your offerings--one-off holiday decorations and full-size pre-decorated Christmas trees--are priced from the low three-figures to the mid (and upper) four-figures. Are these guys, maybe, second generation from the Grandin Road people of life-size Hallowe'en zombie fame?

And then there's Russell's For Men. Apparently, there's an A. G. Russell's with a more general demographic somewhere that has skipped over us in favor of leather wallets, leather vests, leather travel accessories and knives of various sizes, shapes and utility (including, one presumes, scraping hides preparatory to making leather). Neither my brother nor I, are particularly lacking in testosterone yet we can not determine the provenance of this one.

Thanks to FedEx overnight delivery, we have a long way to go before the catalogers stop sending in the realization that is too late for us to order.

Eat Your Heart Out, Hammacher Schlemmer

The catalogs have been coming in pretty steadily for the past few weeks now and the floodgates will open soon but we may have received the winner of the season already.

In along with Grandin Road (the purveyor of those new Hallowe'en ghoulies we had out this year), Stauer (watches and jewelry), Smithsonian, National Wildlife Fund and a couple of others was Museum Tour, a new one to me.

Most of what Museum Tour offers is standard science education stuff for kids of various ages: puzzles, games, experiments, microscopes, telescopes, chemistry sets and selected intellectually stimulating toys.

And then there's the life-size Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton.

Thirteen feet tall, 39 feet long and weighing 661 pounds, this is a museum-quality cast resin model for only $249,000! Delivery and expert installation extra.

From the web site:

Educator Comments:Not everyone has room for a full sized T-Rex in their home, but if you do, you can be assured that the quality of this model is excellent and will make a perfect display. Museums around the world have installed this large dinosaur to the amazement of their audiences. The Geoword lab is meticulous about details. Even if you could find one, a "fossilized" T-Rex would be extremely heavy and cost many millions of dollars to display. This detailed representation is the way to go. It will inspire children and adults who are interested in the story of evolution.

        If you are interested in purchasing this model for yourself or a local museum, please call during business hours for details about shipping and installation. As you might imagine, displaying this large creature is not easy. An experienced team will be sent to your site to install the T-Rex to meet your specifications.

Of course, if that's a little beyond your budget (and in these times we would certainly understand) you can purchase just the skull (as seen in the rear of the photos) for a mere $24,900.

The web site helpfully lists the item status as "In Stock."

Don't delay! Order yours today!

End Games: My Face-Palm Moment

In the first book of the Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, there is a scene outside the gate to Moria in which Gandalf sits pondering the riddle written over the door trying to uncover the password that will let his party through. He translates it as "Speak, Friend, and Enter," and becomes increasingly frustrated as his "300-lives-of-men" worth of accumulated wisdom allows him to drag up virtually every secret password known to history all to no avail until it is pointed out to him that the riddle can also be translated as "Say 'Friend,' and Enter."

Face palm.

Boy, have I been over-thinking these puzzles. I solved two of them in short order over the weekend after dialing back a bit. I blame the need to discover an extra step in Puzzle 3 for my assumption of an unnecessary extra step in Puzzle 4. I was looking for the right solution and muddied up the clues which had been presented as straightforward as possible.

Puzzle 5 I rebuilt three or four times and kept fiddling with until I finally noticed, through sheer physically manipulative luck, the final instructions were built into the structure of the puzzle itself. When followed, the puzzle changed shape on its own, without further fiddling, and the answer was written right on it (although that did take a little squinting to see).

Unfortunately, that still leaves me four puzzles to go, the last one being unlocked yesterday. With all of them released, it is now a simple race to see who can deliver the last answer first. I am sure I am so far behind as to be completely out of the running but no announcement has yet been made, so I will keep plugging away.

And Back to Feeling Stupid, Again

I am going to be certifiably manic depressive before this Smithsonian puzzle contest is over.

Puzzle #7 opened yesterday and in short order I solved the surface conundrum but, of course, there is at least one more layer beneath that.

To make things worse, I have made no progress at all on puzzles 4 and 6. It doesn't help when I check Ken Jenning's puzzle blog and find comments from others about how quickly they have found the correct answers  and warning not to over-think the problem.

Right now I still have time but, if unsolved puzzles continue to accumulate, that will run out quickly since the winner will be the one who not only solves the last puzzle but is the first to respond. So they all need to be solved before the last one comes up next Monday.

One of Those Days

Sometimes a bunch of little things that, individually, don't mean anything accumulate in such a way that you just have to say "Well, this has been a strange day."

Today was platelet donation day but my appointment wasn't until noon so I decided to get a couple of things done on the way.

First off was gasoline since the car was running on fumes. As I pulled into the station I noticed a lizard had hitched a ride and was now clinging to the driver's side window opening just off the mirror. It was maybe three inches nose to tail tip, brown with a gorgeous delicate greenish stripe down its back. I tried catching it with the intention of releasing it in some nearby shrubbery and ended by chasing it up and down and around the side of my car while the attendant looked on from a distance. Eventually it got away. I tried looking for it when I was done fueling up but couldn't find it so maybe it got to somewhere green on its own.

(Not my barber. Although the resemblance
is scarily close. Stan's hair is fuller on
the back and sides.)

Next stop was the barber shop for my semi-annual shearing where I found my barber undergoing some sort of identity shift. He's always been on the doughy side and kind of soft with a Richard Simmons Sweatin'-to-the-Oldies thing going on, especially with his own hair, which I found amusing because of his very vocal full-on-Ebeneezer are-there-no-workhouses? libertarianism. Today I didn't recognize him. He's gone the full "It's Pat!" His voice is still upper baritone but he was wearing big dangly emerald glass earrings and his hair was classic middle-age matron.

Then it was on to the hospital where the TV over the donation couch was playing an episode of "House" and a patient was crashing out. "Oh uh," said my phlebotomist, glancing at the set while she stuck me. "Somebody's dying!" There's a reason the airlines all have a policy against showing in-flight movies involving plane crashes. I changed the channel.

And then on to the Smithsonian website where today's puzzle turned out to be an exercise in three-d. Even now that I'm done constructing it, the lettering makes no sense. I've already rebuilt it once. Well, back to feeling stupid again.

The Games Are Back On Track

The unseemly amount of fist pumping, happy-hopping and hooting accompanying my solution to the third puzzle would have been embarrassing if there had been anyone around to see it but, after six days of frustration, my elation was very real. So, take that, Ken Jennings! I'm back!

In the end, the answer just sort of appeared.

The Smithsonian released the fifth puzzle yesterday. It required some effort but was totally straightforward. Step one was basic, if time consuming, and yielded three clues, the first explaining what to do and the other two how to do it. An hour and a half and I was done.

That still left me with puzzles three and four. Letting them age was not working so I took out puzzle three again. I noticed that a few potential components had not been used and in attempting to identify all that might be missing began deconstructing the blamed thing when the answer just popped out. Actually, it more oozed out and I paused part way through when it suddenly seemed to not make sense any more only to realize it consisted of two parts and I was seeing the juncture. Now I'm wondering what the hidden extra steps in puzzle four might be.

Puzzle six will be released tomorrow and I still have number four on backlog but I no longer doubt my ability to work through this challenge. Whether or not I can work through it faster than anyone else is the question.

The Games Continue

O.K., Ken Jennings is currently kicking my butt.

The Smithsonian's puzzle contest started off well enough. I solved the introductory clues in the magazine fairly easily and unlocked the secret password needed just to get into the contest in plenty of time for the official start. The first on-line puzzle was a riddle and, after a little judicious Googling, I felt confident in my answer.

However, the next two puzzles have now been unlocked, one on Wednesday the other yesterday, and my brain seems to have shut down. My only consolation is that, from what I can gather on Jennings' puzzle blog, a lot of other people are in the same boat. On the other hand, anyone who is breezing through these isn't going to be complaining to Ken.

At least I have the long holiday weekend (thank you Cristobal Colon!) to wrack my brain before the next test becomes available on Tuesday.

Let the Games Begin

I'm a sucker for puzzles. Crosswords, acrostics, Sudoku, you name it I have to try it. I will often try to do them in my head, which I can manage for some crossword puzzles (although not the New York Times') and the local letter-substitution cipher (but not the Sudoku).

A button from the Twain's World
contest. I also still have the T-shirt
lying around somewhere.

I once participated, back when I lived in Hartford, in the "Twain's World" contest, a sort of scavenger hunt around the city for clues put on by the Hartford Courant over the course of a month or so with the final clue and solution to be determined by all the participants in a gathering in a city park under the direction of Merl Reagle. I was the first to come up with the correct answer, but my brain works differently and I did it intuitively, a sort of flash of insight, about two thirds of the way through. Merl and his gang were still setting up when I came up and showed them my answer whereupon he immediately made up a new rule, which wasn't in any of the written material, that we now had to "show your work" in order to claim the prize. I have held him in contempt (which I am sure bothers him immensely) ever since.

All of which is a mostly irrelevant introduction to the fact that the Smithsonian magazine is holding a contest designed by "Jeopardy" whiz Ken Jennings (who used to patronize the bookstore where I was a manager in Salt Lake but that's also mostly irrelevant). The first clue was in the magazine itself and I felt very Nic Cage-ish (unfortunately, without Diane Kruger) as I solved that one which gave me the password to get into the real puzzle that started today on line. It took a half hour to solve the first on-line clue. The next one will be released Wednesday and then every second or third day for the next couple of weeks.

It's totally ridiculous how much I am enjoying this.