Monthly Archives: April 2006

Our apple tree

The apple tree in our backyard is generally good for two things: Making mowing the lawn just that much more difficult; and attracting woodchucks via the small, unhappy-looking apples that it dumps all over the place in late summer. But every year, for two weeks in the spring, the tree redeems itself. Oh, and the [...]
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At last! Some logical thinking about drugs!

From some random schmuck of an editorialist down in Georgia: If I were dictator of this country, I would not only outlaw drug users and addicts, but I would execute them as well, so they don’t needlessly overcrowd jails. In the case of juveniles and marginal offenders that don’t necessarily deserve death, I would banish [...]
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Terry Teachout sums it up

I haven’t had much to say about the Harvard plagiarism thing, but Terry Teachout sums it up nicely: Little, Brown & Co., having been stupid and tasteless enough first to sign a seventeen-year-old author to a $500,000 contract, then to publish a novel by her called How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got [...]
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“Jackie Fisher, who are you? Dreadnought”

That’s the answer to the puzzle which was laced through that judge’s Da Vinci Code plagiarism ruling. All in all, I think I won’t be inviting him to join my Mystery Hunt team.
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I smell a double feature!

Obviously, Bruce Willis is merely jumping on the Wordplay bandwagon.
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Puzzle alert

The Friday New York Times crossword is by me.
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Talent + Technology = Wow

I love the endless talent show that is YouTube. I assume you’ve seen Jake Shimabukuro on ukulele by now. Well, not to be outdone, here is Ethan Winer playing cello 37 different ways, combining it all into a magnificent musical piece. You see anything else along these lines, don’t hesitate to pass it along. I [...]
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Judge hides a puzzle in his Da Vinci Code ruling

Sounds like my kinda guy. I like this quote from the article: “It’s not usual practice for a High Court judge to issue a ruling in which he has hidden an encrypted message.” Whew, here I was going to start reading all those old judgements, looking for puzzles to solve. Guess I’ll stick to crosswords. [...]
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The Wordplay trailer is out!

See it here. I still can’t get over that this movie even exists — a movie about crosswords, featuring so many people I know. And it’s good. All in all, just too cool. Can’t wait to see it again.
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A bushel of book reviews

Lately I’ve been wading through a lot of Young Adult literature, since it’s the genre I’ll be joining in the all-too-distant future. I hadn’t read much YA stuff since I was a YA myself, so I really didn’t know where to start. My local librarian made a couple of recommendations, and my editor at Putnam [...]
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