Decoder Ring is a column about the clever stuff the world serves up for our entertainment. As always, if you come across some topical puzzles or wordplay, send them to decodewired@gmail.com.
NaNoWriMiWi (National Novel Writing Minute Winners): A quick review (and there could be no other kind) of the entries of Wired‘s first National Novel Writing Minute challenge has produced a short list of winners. I read all the entries, took the bylines off, and then gave myself exactly one minute to decide which had won. (That it took me a month to do that is… well, this isn’t National Organize-Your-Life Minute.)
Here are the ones I liked best, followed by a minute of commentary: Landing Why did you come back here? I forgot my pen. I told you never to come back here. I know what you said. But they’re getting nervous back there. They should be. I’ve never landed one of these things myself. So you want my help? Hell no. Go read a magazine or something. We’ll be fine. Mike’s One-Minute Comment: Editor Will Hindmarch chooses the smart path of letting the editor add the quotation marks in later. It’s a dialogue that puts you right in the cockpit, and makes you wonder what will happen next, but you’ll never find out. That may be the whole story, minus the crashing bits.
BOLT I pulled on the high-end torque wrench to tighten the last nut to the prescribed 24 foot pounds. When the bolt snapped, so did I. After all, if the position for God needed filling, why not me? Mike’s One-Minute Comment: When the position for God becomes available, where does the want ad appear? In the sky? Author bobnease made me want to know.
Green people have it hard. For one thing, they’re green. Absolutely no two ways about it. They aren’t white, black, yellow, brown. They’re green. Can’t fit in except in the blood line for the asparagus conference. Green is the most racist color. Boron. Mike’s One-Minute Comment: I expect NaNoWriMi to have some stream of consciousness, but I was not prepared for the sudden arrival of the fifth element at the end of this story by douglasmain. That dude Kermit knew the score.
So to these three authors, welcome to the literary wing of the Decoder Ring of Honor. And come back next year for more minutes of fun.
Things that rocked my zodiac this week:
The year 2011 is a prime number, but it is also the sum of 11 consecutive prime numbers, as noted by @mathematicsprof on Twitter. And if you want some more prime number craziness, check this out.
Saddam Husseim had a Koran written in his own blood? Gor blimey. This led to perhaps the only time I’ll be able to make this joke: “Why did Saddam have his blood Koran transcriber executed? Because he made a Type O typo.”
The interminable college football bowl season finally terminated, with some interesting storylines appearing. The Big Ten went 0-5 on New Year’s Day, and then insisted on keeping its highly mockable division names “Legends” and “Leaders”—both of which appropriately begin with “L.” One of those losses was Wisconsin’s in the Rose Bowl, whose parade featured the delightfully redundantly named Upland Highland Regiment. And before the BCS Championship Game, Oregon called out the defensive player of the game as a dirty player, unironically ignoring the fact that his name is Fairley.
Take a look at this picture of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” being dishonorably discharged. Yup, you know it’s on the Defense Department’s own website, because they spelled the president’s first name like a building for quartering soldiers.
This week’s Noodler: Last time I wanted to know what topical phrase had the cryptogrammatic pattern “123 1243567839.” Reader Dunn Miller jumped into the Decoder RIng of Honor by being the first of many folks to answer with NET NEUTRALITY. This week I want know the name of the NHL player whose last name is spelled the same as a monster from Greek mythology. If you’re the first to send that to decodewired@gmail.com, you’ll be a Ringer too.
Where the geeks are this week: Gathering right now in Lobby 7 of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MIT Mystery Hunt. For three straight days, teams of up to 100 people will crash their brains into the most convoluted, complicated, downright bizarre puzzlehunt on the planet. This year’s theme: a wedding. Next week we’ll have a report from the granddaddy of all puzzlehunts.
Mike Selinker is a game and puzzle designer who heads the Seattle-area studio Lone Shark Games. He also writes a blog about non-puzzly stuff called The Most Beautiful Things.
