July, 2003 Puzzle Contests
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7/31-8/1/03 Contest:
The movies Army of Darkness and The Day the Earth Stood Still both have something extremely unusual in common. It is not related to the titles of the movies or any of the actors or actresses. What is it?
Answer (from the winner):
"The words needed to activate the book of the dead in Army of Darkness are
'Klaatu, Barada, Nikto'. These are the same words needed to command the robot
in The Day the Earth Stood Still."
This may seem like a tough trivia question that you would have to have watched both movies to get, but I verified that doing search engine queries for the two movie titles will also lead you to this answer, if you dig a little bit. The only thing I might add is that those words are supposed to send Ash (Bruce Campbell) back to the future (he was sent back to medieval times) in Army of Darkness, but he mispronounces the last word, thus awakening an army of the dead, which is bad. Really bad.
Winner: Nathan Glasser, Somerville, MA
7/30-7/31/03 Contest:
I'm somebody who you might find in the western part of Africa, not a weredog from Australia! I contain 8 letters. What am I?
Answer (from the winner):
"The answer is 'mandingo.' My husband is working at his
desk behind me. I read out the question. His response
was immediate: 'mandingo.' I don't want to know how he
knows this but hey I'll go with his answer."
A dingo is a dog from Australia, so conceivably a mandingo would be a half man, half dog if you didn't know what the word meant, at least in the silly world of Puzz.com.
Winner: Lisa Stevenson, Toronto, ON Canada (plus hubby, if she's going to "share the wealth" :-)
7/29-7/30/03 Contest:
An interviewer for a certain wireless communications company is interviewing applicants for a sales position. In the waiting room are Laura, Lisa, Lonnie, Leonard and Louis. Laura is interviewed first, and after she leaves, the interviewer jokingly says the name of the company to prompt another applicant to come forward to be interviewed. What is the name of the company?
Answer: Nextel (next L)
Winner: Evan Jeng. "Just your typical 10th grader in Los Altos, CA"
7/28-7/29/03 Contest:
Today's puzzle is the 7/24-7/25 puzzle, reissued. Nobody solved it! However, this puzzle is now worth TWO puzzle pieces, which means the winner can have 2 t-shirts, 2 books, whatever they want. I'm also giving you this hint: each set of numbers represents a word.
Replace the question marks in the following series with the correct numbers:
51632518 51632518316 ?????????????
Answer (from the winner):
"5163251831718 (greatest)
51632518 or 5 16 3 25 18 = great
Use g=5 as the starting point. Therefore, 16 (11
letters more than 5) is r; 3 (13 letters less than r)
is e, and so on.
51632518316 = greater
5163251831718 = greatest
This was really hard!! I had originally thought the
numbers represented words, but couldn't figure out the
relationship. Then it occurred to me that 316 was
half of 632, so I thought it was a math problem. Your
hint changed my focus-thanks!"
The sequence was great, greater, greatest. The numbers represented letters of the alphabet, but 2 numbers low. C=1, D=2, E=3, etc., with A=25 and B=26 due to rollover. This was a toughee, no question.
Winner: Shirley Wolf, Rockville, MD. Only Shirley got this one, even after submitting this a second time and with a hint plus a reward of 2 puzzle pieces.
7/25-7/28/03 Contest:
Decide what should replace the ? in the following analogy:
Foul smelling, not loud (7 letters) is to NOISOME as An Islamic individual, not a male bodybuilder (9 letters) is to ?
Answer: Mussulman
Winner: Leonardo Cocito, Genova, Italy
7/24-7/25/03 Contest:
The puzzle for this period was not solved, and is being reissued for 7/28-7/29, but with a hint, and it's now worth 2 puzzle pieces!
7/23-7/24/03 Contest:
Flip me upside down or read me backwards, and you have the same thing. Remove one of me, and you have what a famous Henry was. If you instead remove the other of me, and turn me on my side, you could try to count to me, but would never arrive. What am I?
Answer (from the winner):
"The answer is 88, the same backwards and upside down, and remove one, you have 8 as in Henry the, remove the other, and turn it on its side, you have the symbol for infinity, an impossibility to count to."
Winner: Marc Lessard
7/22-7/23/03 Contest:
I am a boring part of something that you read. Remove my last 2 letters and change my second letter, and you have a word relating to language. What am I?
Answer (from the winner):
"longueur, langue
(Longueur is 'a tedious passage in a book, play,
musical composition, or the like.' Langue is
'language viewed as a system including vocabulary,
grammar, and pronunciation of a particular
community.')"
Winner: Shirley Wolf, Rockville, MD. Shirley was the only person to get this one right.
7/21-7/22/03 Contest:
X-tra Special Secret Agent Coyote Smoulder is again on the job, trying to protect us from supernatural bad guys. This time he must stop a globular manifestation that spews green goo on its victims. This of course does not harm them, but quickly disintegrates their clothes. Worst of all, "Globbie," as authorities have begun calling it, always strikes in public places!
Before Globbie attacks, it always taunts its victims by asking them a riddle. If they cannot answer it quickly, it goos the poor souls, and quickly rolls away. Coyote finds the creature in an outlet mall, where potential victims abound. It is asking a riddle of a group of people. Smoulder believes that if he can answer it, Globbie will hesitate, giving the other agents time to capture it using an anti-goo solution they have concocted. Globbie asks:
"I have a hand, only a fraction of the number you would expect, given my name. Each of you has 2 of me. What am I?"
Coyote Smoulder quickly blurts out the answer, leaving the creature absolutely stunned. Other than the anti-goo, what is the solution to this problem?
Answer: forearm (four-arm)
Winner: Joe C., Wayne, PA
7/18-7/21/03 Contest:
Determine what word connects the 2 following items:
Lisa
Drowning
Decide what word connects these 2 items:
Supper
words, famous
A famous person is connected to 2 of the items formed above. Who is it?
Answer (from the winner):
"Determine what word connects the 2 following items:
Mona Lisa
Drowning Mona
Decide what word connects these 2 items:
Last Supper
famous last words
A famous person is connected to 2 of the items formed above. Who is it?
Leonardo DaVinci"
Winner: Kate DeMello, Brooklyn, NY
7/17-7/18/03 Contest:
This puzzle has been removed, but is now part of our 10 Puzzle Logical & Lateral IQ Test
7/16-7/17/03 Contest:
Which of the following does not belong with the others?
harbor soak spine helm write
Answer: write. The others all involve trees if you remove the first letters (i.e. arbor, oak, pine & elm).
Winner: Michelle Nichols
7/15-7/16/03 Contest:
I am teasing you, but if you change my last letter, I could make you sore. What am I (5 letters)?
Answer (from the winner): "Chaff & Chafe"
Winner: Jessica Graham, Australia
7/14-7/15/03 Contest:
Given the first 3 sets, what should the 4th look like?
?
Answer (from the winner):
"Counting across each row from left to right, the
position of the X in each set seems to correspond with
the first six digits of pi (3.14159). In the first
set, X is in position 1 and 3; in the second set, X is
in position 4 and 1; and in the third set, X is in
position 5 and 9. Since the next two digits of pi are
62 (actually it's 26, although it works out the same in this puzzle. See below - Puzz), the fourth set should have X in the 6th and 2nd
positions, as such:
OXO
OOX
OOO"
Per http://www.zyra.org.uk/pi.htm pi's first numbers are 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510... many people submitted other answers, but I think this is the BEST answer. The X's are definitely in the numeric positions for pi, while most (if not all) of the other answers I looked at had somewhat arbitrary reasonings for the movements of the X's. However, many people made good efforts on solving this one, and I must commend you.
Winner: Shirley Wolf, Rockville, MD
7/11-7/14/03 Contest:
Remove my last 6 letters and you have a tide. I am a type of ice cream. What am I?
Answer (from the winner):
"'Neapolitan' is a type of ice cream with layers of vanilla, chocolate, & strawberry.
Removing the last 6 letters-'olitan,' leaves 'neap,' a very low tide."
Winner: Joy Windle
7/10-7/11/03 Contest:
Decide what number should replace the ? in the following table:
This puzzle has been removed, but is now part of our 10 Puzzle Logical & Lateral IQ Test
7/9-7/10/03 Contest:
What do all of the following have in common?
ashes
Arizona
River
University
Answer: Phoenix. Phoenix rising from the ashes, Phoenix Arizona, River Phoenix, the University of Phoenix.
Winner: sasiteck; Fairfax County, VA
7/8-7/9/03 Contest:
What do all of the following have in common?
fool's gold
tetrahedron
fire starter
pile for a funeral rite
Answers (from the winner):
"fool's gold pyrite
tetrahedron pyramid
fire starter pyromaniac
pile for a funeral rite pyre
They all begin with pyr"
Winner: Andrew Silikovitz from West Orange, NJ
7/7-7/8/03 Contest:
Remove my last 4 letters, and I am coy. Remove my first 3 letters, and you have something on most doors. Antonio wasn't too fond of me. Who/what am I?
Answer (from the winner): "Shylock. A Jewish merchant in the Merchant of Venice."
Winner: jhardy. This is part of the person's email address, as no other information was provided.
7/3-7/7/03 Contest:
This puzzle has been removed, but is now part of our 10 Puzzle Logical & Lateral IQ Test
7/2-7/3/03 Contest:
Given the first two complete equations, determine what should replace the ? in the last one:
S x B = S x S x L
F - Y = Q
M (W + P) = C x ?
Answers:
Only Gustavo Zardeneta and Shirley Wolf submitted answers for this one, and both got it right. However, they both used a method different from the one I used to create the problem:
Gustavo's answer:
"? = M.....since:
0=M
1=Q
2=S
3=W
4=L
5=C
6=Y
7=F
8=B
9=P
(note: values for C, W & P are interchangeable, since
they are multiplied by M (which is 0).
S x B = S x S x L
F - Y = Q
M (W + P) = C x ?
thus, 2 x 8 = 2 x 2 x 4
7-6 = 1
and 0(3+9) = 5 x 0"
Shirley's answer:
"M
The only way that I could make sense of this puzzle
was to assume that the ten letters
(S,B,L,F,Y,Q,M,W,P,C) represent the digits 0 to 9 in
some order. If that is the case, then 0 cannot be in
the first or second equations. In the third equation,
M must be zero. No matter which numbers are left
after the first two equations (0457, 0459, 0789, 0178,
0157, 0359, 0379), the only place for zero is as M.
Zero cannot represent W or P or C. Therefore, M=0,
and the missing letter is M.
(If I have totally misinterpreted this puzzle, then
all bets are off!)"
My answer (this puzzle was inspired by one in Victor Serebriakoff's book The Mammoth Book of Astounding Puzzles, although mine is possibly tougher):
In the alphabet, start with K=1, L=2, M=3... Z=16, A=17, B=18... J=26:
9 x 18 = 9 x 9 x 2
22 - 15 = 7
3 (13 + 6) = 19 x 3
Any way you slice it, the correct answer is M.
Winner: Gustavo Zardeneta. Gustavo and Shirley had a 50/50 chance of winning, and Gustavo got lucky on my die roll. But don't feel bad for Shirley: she still has over TWENTY puzzle pieces she has not cashed in. By far a record!!!
7/1-7/2/03 Contest:
Remove my last letter, and you are trying to lift something. Remove my first and last letter, then add a new letter to the end of me, and you have something on the exterior of a house or building. I am a wonderful place to be, although you may have much difficulty locating me on any map. What am I?
Answer (from the winner):
"The word is heaven. Remove the n and you have heave. Remove the h and n and add s to the end of what remains and you have eaves."
Winner: Barbara Cody
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