A dreaded cold virus that simply won’t die is causing some extreme sloth in these parts. (Well, sloth enough to miss work but not sloth enough to stop my love affair with the Wii). All I can taste on my lips are the remnants of chicken noodle soup with a splash of childrens’ extra strength cough syrup – hmm, a flaming homer?

But instead of complaining about my sad state of affairs, hoping to draw sympathy from you fine folks, I thought I’d puzzle my way to health. What follows is a brief cryptographic-image puzzle. The following nine images represent common illnesses or symptoms that many individuals experience. See if you can identify them all. Happy scheming.

There is however one thing nagging me about my oedipal insistence that I know the contents of my wrapped-up box: I will not get to experience that feeling of incredulous glee that accompanies the sheer surprise of getting something you really, really want.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFlcqWQVVuU]

I’m not going to tell you what the gift is – that’s the bonus question. But hints abound in today’s post. On that note, try your hand at this week’s puzzle.
Happy Scheming.

Puzzle One

Puzzle Two

Puzzle Three

BONUS Question: What am I getting for Christmas?
(I’d wager that it’s some variety of walking clock)

In my line of work, I have a tendency to focus on international news and forget about what’s going on in my own native Canada (all tucked away down there). So I asked a friend of mine, who voluntarily follows Canadian politics, to explain to me the political minefield that is the proposed “coalition” government. His response:

“I am like a kid in a candy store! Not only is Christmas on the doorstep, but now [there's a] heavy constitutional debate in Ottawa – Hot Damn!”

That’s a little more enthusiasm than I am generally used to, but at least someone is happy. The only politician I am more passively embarrassed to proclaim as my Prime Minister than Stephen Harper is this man:

Lordy, lordy, lordy.

On somewhat of a similar note, check the link posted immediately below. It’s a little dated (USA’s November Election), but still relevant given the election turmoil we’re going through in Canadiana. Plus, it’s good for a laugh at my expense.

Link to Video. (A tip of the hat to Lola).
By the way, does anyone know how the interactive video works? I mean, how do they place manipulable text into the video?

Now that we’ve established my status as the motherf*cking, c*cks*cking, lazy f*ck that cost the world everything, it’s time for a Non Sequitur. Or, as the Pythons would have it: “and now for something completely different…”

No, it’s not a man with three buttocks. It is, as my friend R-Shizzle put it, the Daniel M’Mburugu of badgers.

The Honey Badger

Proclaimed by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the most fearless animal in the world:

“The honey badger is among the fiercest hunters … with prey including earthworms, termites, scorpions, porcupines, hares, and even larger prey such as tortoises, crocodiles [CROCODILES!] up to one metre in size, and snakes (including pythons and venomous species). Its ferocious reputation extends to attacks on animals much larger than itself.” (Wikipedia)

To prove it, here is a video of the Honey Badger in action:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c81bcjyfn6U]

Mother of Pearl! Not only does the badger attack a hive of bees while shrugging off their stings – but it gets attacked by a snake, kills it, passes out, then gets back up to finish the job. My proposed Daniel M’Mburugu – Vin Diesel – Honey Badger coalition government is looking pretty kick ass.

**except, of course, when I’m not.

Puzzle One: CAMEOS

I spent a good chunk of the last two weekends participating in a random Lord of the Rings (extended version) viewing marathon. That’s 682 minutes of footage, or 11.5 hours. I had once heard through the grapevine that Bret McKenzie, of Flight of the Conchords fame, made his acting debut in the Lord of the Rings movies: appearing in the first movie at the council of Elrond and the third movie as Arwen’s escort. Well, the rumors were true. I hastily searched for the “pause” button in the following scene in the third Lord of the Rings, then promptly took a screenshot.

Alright, it’s also an excuse to post a picture of Liv Tyler, so sue me. But now for the segue. See if you can figure out the movies that these famous people had a cameo in:

Puzzle Two: SPOILED BREAD

On Saturday morning, Brooke was going to make some fried egg sandwiches for lunch. I noticed that the bread’s “Best Before” date was Friday, and I threw, as Brooke would describe, somewhat of a tantrum. My refusal to eat the bread resulted in Brooke throwing some pretty nasty effeminate adjectives my way. But whatever. I’m comfortable with who I am. Would you eat food beyond it’s “Best Before” date? Have a shot at identifying these famous brands and the foods for which they are known.

Puzzle Three: CHAIN RESTAURANTS

Remind me why I bother going to the Keg on a weekend? Their “no reservations” policy on busy days means that your plans for a tasty steak are foiled by the hundreds of other people who also don’t mind waiting for a table. At least other places have the decency to turn you away!
See if you can identify the following five chain restaurants from cryptic pictorial clues.

I mention this to Scamper and he’s dumbfounded… Mumbles something about how it’s been out forever, then mumbles something about the movie “Twilight” and its crazy opening weekend.

So I get back and do the Google. Website extraordinaire “The Numbers” has box-office information for Bonds’ second weekend: a respectable but admittedly underwhelming $26 million… certainly not enough to cause a sell-out at the ol’ Varsity.

But crap. This Twilight movie? $69 million on its opening weekend. Not only did it beat Quantum of Solace’s $67 million, but it also beat out every other Bond movie opening weekend. The historic weekend places the movie 35th on the all time biggest weekends at the box office. Ever. And the only thing I know about it is that it stars the guy who died in the fourth Harry Potter movie. And vampires. Lots of vampires.

I suppose it’s time to climb out from under that rock.

For those of you wondering…

Unseasonably warm weather coupled with an election-crazed city rooting for its hometown boy made it an interesting time to visit Chicago. The city felt very much like Toronto, only with a nicer waterfront, noticeable (and relevant) architecture, and – for lack of a better way to put it – more of everything.
More clubs, more museums*, more subway lines, more shopping*.

Oh, and more food.
The portions of every meal at every restaurant are roughly twice that of any restaurant in Toronto. From the quaint Cheesecake Factory to the random deep-dish pizzeria, it is evident that Chicago folks love their food. Case in point: the largest cut of steak I had ever eaten before Chicago was a 14-ounce New York striploin; hardly a case for classifying me as gastronomically challenged (maybe cheap, but that’s neither here nor there). At the original Morton’s steakhouse in Chicago, there is not even a 14-ounce steak on the menu. The “recommendation” is a 24-ounce Porterhouse! If you don’t get the steak sweats by ounce 18, you are either my friend Jeremy or you are not human.

*(Anyone with a pulse will want to visit the Art Institute of Chicago: the sheer scope of Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon” and de Kooning’s “Excavation” is awe-inspiring)
*(Guys: Burberry is a DANGEROUS place to take your ladies)

But enough of that. Time for the puzzle!

Puzzle of the Week: The Traveling Emperor

The most significant outcome from my trip to Chicago? I can no longer count the places of the world I have visited with one hand.

This week’s puzzle is a variation on the very famous “traveling salesman” puzzle; but this time there are only six cities are on the map: Montreal, Toronto, Regina, Tampa, London, and Chicago. These cities are also some of the places that I have visited in my lifetime.

Here are the rules:

1. You can start at any city. Say, Montreal.
2. From that city, you must create a “path” to the other 5 cities. In my example below, the path is from Montreal, to Toronto, to Regina, to Tampa, to London, and then to Chicago.
3. Add up the total distance traveled from start to finish.

Your task: find the SHORTEST path connecting the six cities.
Happy Scheming.

Happy Scheming.

Puzzle #1. A sample of three movies’ cast members are pictured below. Your task is to identify the movie.

Puzzle #2. Two lines trisect a square into three shapes of equal area. The rest is explained in the graphic.

Puzzle #3. Identify the Artist and the Title of the work below. It has been altered using a filter in a photo-editing software program.

Puzzle #4.

For the past two weeks, I have not done much (of whatever it is I do) on this site. The truth is that I have stayed up late at night to watch 12 year olds with fake passports accumulate gold medals.

I love watching the Olympics. Not because I wish to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport, practiced without discrimination and embodying the spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play; no, no, no. I watch the Olympics because I’ll watch anything on TV. I’m a competition whore. So these two insomniac weeks of consecutive competition has me giggling like a school girl.

It did not start out rosy, as Canadians began the week worried about our athletic fortitude. Even the Americans started making fun of us. After all, Uzbekistan and Mongolia had a commanding medal lead on Canada through the first 7 days of competition. Those doubts would soon lay to rest thanks to the sport this country is most widely known for: women’s wrestling. A Gold and Bronze in that sport propelled a frenzied three days of medal grabbing for the Canucks. As of August 20th, our medal count was lucky 13 (with more hopefuls to come). That number still sounds a tad disappointing, but if you ignore the 44 medals we got at the Russian-boycotted Los Angeles games, our 13 medals is among the best results for Canada in the history of the Summer Olympics. (Now that I reflect on that thought, I don’t know whether to feel proud or to feel sad). Brookie said to me: “you know, they should think about adding a Platinum medal to the Olympics. That way, all our fourth-place finishers would get Bronze medals.” I think she’s on to something.

The hot topic right now, particularly if you read some of the online discussions at CBC’s website, is the question of Phelps vs. Bolt: who is the better athlete? While some people say Phelps (“he’s the most decorated Olympian of all time, with 8 gold medals at this games alone!”), and some people say Bolt (“OMFG Bolt is a God”), most people are copping out: “you can’t compare apples to oranges, they’re both gifted athletes.”

The way I look at this in my mind is not “who is the better athlete” but instead “which athlete would you rather be”? (For me, Bolt gets that nod. And not just because I want a pair of Golden Shoes)

I also wanted to take an opportunity to mention a milestone for the country of Afghanistan. Seventy two years after its first appearance at the Berlin Games in 1936, Afghanistan yesterday won its first ever medal, a bronze in Men’s 58 kg Taekwondo. For his accomplishment, Afghan president Hamid Karzai announced that the winner, Rohullah Nikpai, will be given a house at the government’s expense. (By the way, I have a cool story about Hamid Karzai that you can goad out of me sometime over a pint).

For now, I’ll go back to gluing my eyes to the television set until Sunday’s closing ceremonies, eating nothing but chicken nuggets and yams.

Or three sandwiches of fried eggs, an omelet, a bowl of grits, French toast, and chocolate chip pancakes.

(God, I will miss CBC’s Olympic coverage when they hand the reigns to TSN for the 2010 games in Vancouver. You just know that TSN will screw things up by playing the Hockey Night in Canada theme before every event and giving McKenzie and Dreger too much air-time. Is there a single TSN personality that compares to Ron MacLean’s awesomeness?)

A KANGAROO WORD is a word that contains, within its own letters, a smaller word with the same meaning (i.e. much like a kangaroo, which carries its baby inside its own pouch). An example might help illustrate the idea:

The word PRECIPITATION above contains within its letters the synonym RAIN. Notice also that the letters of RAIN appear in order from left to right, another characteristic of Kangaroo words. (Incidentally, the word RAIN is called a “joey” word for PRECIPITATION, much like the offspring of a kangaroo is called a “joey”).

The following is a list of 16 Kangaroo words. Can you uncover their hidden Joey words?
Happy Scheming.

The story of “Through the Looking Glass”, which is a sequel to “Alice in Wonderland,” is among the earliest attempts to base a fictional narrative on a game of chess. Alice, once she enters the world of the “looking glass,” becomes a pawn in a giant game of chess. Hilarity ensues.

From Martin Gardner’s “The Annotated Alice”:

“For many reasons chess pieces are singularly appropirate to [Through the Looking Glass]. They complement the playing cards of the first book (Alice in Wonderland), permitting the return of kings and queens: the loss of knaves is more than offset by the acquisition of knights. Alice’s bewildering changed of size in the first book are replaced by equally bewildering changes of place, occasioned of course by movements of chess pieces over the board. By a happy accident chess also ties in beautifully with the mirror-reflection motif. Not only do rooks, bishops, and knights come in pairs, but the asymmetric arrangement of one player’s pieces at the start of a game is an exact mirror reflection of his opponent’s pieces.”

Having loved that book as a teenager, and even writing a paper on it in university, the following project from design student Yasmine Sethi blew my mind:

ALICE CHESS SET

“In ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’ by Lewis Carroll, Alice falls through a mirror and on the other side of the mirror, she becomes a piece in a game of chess. Inspired by this, the chess pieces have an opaque mirror finish, when they touch the surface of the board they magically turn transparent and reveal the identity of the piece contained inside them. When removed from the board they revert to being opaque, hiding the identity of the piece.”

How freaking cool is that?
Wait, my favorite part is still to come. In the 8th Chapter of “Through the Looking Glass,” Alice noted that the White Knight spends a considerable time “head downwards” – to which the Knight responds: “What does it matter where my body happens to be? … My mind goes on working all the same. In fact, the more head downwards I am, the more I keep inventing new things.”

Sethi: “In the book the White Knight talks about how he thinks better when he is upside down. In a reference, the White Knights in the set only work when they are placed upside down. This joke is hidden to all but those who know the background of the chess set.”

Ah, a true fan of hidden puzzles!

The mechanism for how the board works is also wonderful and details can be found by clicking on the links below.

————-
Link to Yasmin’s website (which details the Alice Chess Set project).
Link to Boing Boing’s take on the chess set.

Honcho: Hello everyone. Thank you for coming to today’s strategy meeting. Given what’s happened recently, I think you all know why we’re here.

Underling1: Oh no! Is the public is on to us about our extensive use of foreign product sourcing and low rates of employee health insurance?

Honcho: No.

Underling2: Then the word must be out about our environmental problems, lack of public safety, bad public relations, low wages, and predatory pricing?

Honcho: No, you idiots. I’m talking about the drastic measures our competition is using to grab market share away from us. Did you know that TARGET recently patented the shade of red they use in their logo? That color is so much more upscale and appealing than our Cerulean Blue. Why haven’t we changed our logo in 16 years? Tell me, what on earth do I pay you slackers for?

Underling3: But sir, we’re the world’s largest public corporation and largest private employer. We are one of the most recognizable and iconic companies on the planet. We just initiated several environmental measures to increase energy efficiency and lessen our carbon footprint. Forbes called us the most powerful company in the capitalist world.

Honcho: Fuck that. Those things don’t matter. I’m telling you we need a new slogan. Something like “Save Money, Live Better.” Only not as corny.

Honcho: Get those folks who did the GEICO commercials and the funny cavemen. They’ll know what to do.

…

Ad Agency Rep: Market research suggests that people today don’t care much for hyphens. We have a radical new design that will blow you away.

Honcho: Roll with it. Let me see what you’ve got.

Honcho: What in the name of Jesus H. Christ is that?

Ad Agency Rep: That’ll be $1.5 million.

Honcho: (Takes a swig of Jack Daniels).

———————–

You may find these useful:
Walmart’s Press Release.
The Business Spin on Walmart’s Press Release.
“Brand New” Take on the Change in Logo.