Donovan Strain deduces which day was Ice Cube's "Good Day".

Using six lines from the song, he narrows down the possibilities from 12 to 4 to 2 to 1. A masterwork of pop culture deduction.

CLUE 1:
“went to short dogs house, they was watching Yo MTV RAPS”. Yo MTV RAPS first aired:  Aug 6th 1988

CLUE 2:
Ice Cubes single “today was a good day” released on: Feb 23 1993

CLUE 3:
”The Lakers beat the Super  Sonics”
Dates between Yo MTV Raps air date AUGUST 6 1988 and the release…

Challenge #22: Oscar Food 2012 Time again for the annual Oscar Food Challenge, where you make the puns, and we make the food. The nominees were just announced, which is our sign to start thinking of the menu for our annual Oscar-watching party. For inspiration, here a some of last year’s entries: King’s Peach Melba, Cured Tongue, Like Button Mushrooms (Social Network), True Grits, LeBeouf Stew, Winter’s Bon-Bons, Tron: Eggacy, Exit Through The Pork Chop, The Squids Are All Right, 4-layer Mexican Dip (Inception), Cobb Salad.  Many of these came from you, via last year’s challenge. I turn to you again. Here’s the list of ten Best Picture nominees to get you started: The Artist The Descendants Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close Hugo Midnight in Paris The Help Moneyball The Tree of Life War Horse Some suggestions have already been rolling in, like: The Tartist Belly Beane dip The Kelp Midnight in Pear-is Hu-Gomae Any nominated movie in any category is fair game. Post as many ideas as you have in the comments, or post them to Twitter using the #oscarfood tag. The best ones will get posted in a follow-up — and the cream of the crop will get created in our kitchen for our party on the 26th.
Pop-upView Separately

Challenge #22: Oscar Food 2012

Time again for the annual Oscar Food Challenge, where you make the puns, and we make the food. The nominees were just announced, which is our sign to start thinking of the menu for our annual Oscar-watching party. For inspiration, here a some of last year’s entries: King’s Peach Melba, Cured Tongue, Like Button Mushrooms (Social Network), True Grits, LeBeouf Stew, Winter’s Bon-Bons, Tron: Eggacy, Exit Through The Pork Chop, The Squids Are All Right, 4-layer Mexican Dip (Inception), Cobb Salad. 

Many of these came from you, via last year’s challenge. I turn to you again. Here’s the list of ten Best Picture nominees to get you started:

  • The Artist
  • The Descendants
  • Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
  • Hugo
  • Midnight in Paris
  • The Help
  • Moneyball
  • The Tree of Life
  • War Horse

Some suggestions have already been rolling in, like:

  • The Tartist
  • Belly Beane dip
  • The Kelp
  • Midnight in Pear-is
  • Hu-Gomae

Any nominated movie in any category is fair game. Post as many ideas as you have in the comments, or post them to Twitter using the #oscarfood tag. The best ones will get posted in a follow-up — and the cream of the crop will get created in our kitchen for our party on the 26th.

Democratic Chess is a new interpretation of the traditional chess game. New ways of playing are made possible by the shape of the figures. Pieces taken are not eliminated but stacked, thus creating new figures, which have more abilities. For example, a knight or even a second queen can be made from several pawns etc. (via Dezeen » Blog Archive » Democratic Chess by Florian Hauswirth)
View Separately

Democratic Chess is a new interpretation of the traditional chess game. New ways of playing are made possible by the shape of the figures. Pieces taken are not eliminated but stacked, thus creating new figures, which have more abilities. For example, a knight or even a second queen can be made from several pawns etc.

(via Dezeen » Blog Archive » Democratic Chess by Florian Hauswirth)

When I first heard [Duncan] described as a “master palindromist,” I imagined, briefly, some sort of governing body with an esoteric ranking structure, doling out titles like “grandmaster” in chess. But no. For Duncan the title is self-proclaimed. “When I say I’m a master palindromist, there are two answers for what that means,” he explained. “One is that it means, when it comes to palindrome-writing, I know what I’m doing. The other, slightly longer, slightly more combative answer is that it means you shouldn’t confuse me with any of those garden-variety, ‘Madam I’m Adam’ hacks who couldn’t paint my shadow.
Gregory Kornbluh, in an article for The Believer about master palindromist and word tamer Barry Duncan.

Puzzle #89: Pop Song

The title of one of the greatest rock songs of all time can be reversed to get the name of its producer. What’s the song?

The Morning News' 2011 Good Gift Games Guide

Matthew Baldwin’s annual wishlist filler is up at the Morning News. It’s only the wife-imposed ban on personal game purchases that is preventing me from getting everything on this list for myself.

Troy at The Art Institute of Chicago blog is inviting us to play a game: We are pleased to present Escape from Thorne Mansion, an online game that places you in the midst of the beloved Thorne Miniature Rooms (now decorated for the holidays!) and challenges you to, well, escape. To play: point and click your way through the maze of the Thorne Rooms… Took me about five minutes to find my way out of there. It was a nice five minutes spent reminding me how awesome the Thorne Rooms are. (Never been? You must go.)
Pop-upView Separately

Troy at The Art Institute of Chicago blog is inviting us to play a game:

We are pleased to present Escape from Thorne Mansion, an online game that places you in the midst of the beloved Thorne Miniature Rooms (now decorated for the holidays!) and challenges you to, well, escape. To play: point and click your way through the maze of the Thorne Rooms…

Took me about five minutes to find my way out of there. It was a nice five minutes spent reminding me how awesome the Thorne Rooms are. (Never been? You must go.)

This morning, as the alarm was beginning, the song entered my mind as I was still somewhere in between sleep and reality. And in that synesthesia, for the first time, I saw the words as literal shapes: a swan, a swan, and a hummingbird. And you know what those shapes look like? Musical notes.
My friend Derek solves a musical riddle that’s been puzzling him for twenty years.
matthewmcvickar: A few minutes of Googling has me thinking I just invented emoji chess.
View Separately

matthewmcvickar:

A few minutes of Googling has me thinking I just invented emoji chess.

Challenge #21: Movies that are bands

Latest obsession: bands or musicians that have the same name as movies. I figure the list can be organized into three categories:

  1. Bands named after movies
  2. Movies named after bands
  3. Bands/movies that coincidentally share a name

Certainly category 1 has a lot of entries in it, as a cursory Google search turns up many lists. I can’t think of any in category 2, but I’m guessing there are some out there, even if you exclude movies that are documentaries (real or fake) of said band, which you should. But it’s category 3 that I’m most interested in. I’ve come up with a few, with the help of my friend Joe:

  • The Fall
  • The Grifters
  • The Church
  • Traffic
  • (The) Roots
  • (The) Sting

There must be lots more. In order to avoid those movies or bands that “must exist somewhere”, I’m invoking the Wikipedia page rule: an entry must have one to qualify. How many can you think of?

bigwriting: “You can move just like Pac-Man… when you exit one side you pop up on the other. Once you consume a letter, it’s gone; keep going until you get to the next uneaten one. Without doubling back, find the path that lets you eat all 32 fruits.” (via Decode: Gobble Fruit, Pac-Man Style | Magazine | Wired.com)
Pop-upView Separately

bigwriting:

“You can move just like Pac-Man… when you exit one side you pop up on the other. Once you consume a letter, it’s gone; keep going until you get to the next uneaten one. Without doubling back, find the path that lets you eat all 32 fruits.” (via Decode: Gobble Fruit, Pac-Man Style | Magazine | Wired.com)

Puzzle #88: Elevens, again

How do you take eleven away from ELEVEN to get 44?