What a Dolorimeter Measures

Photo
Rachel Maddow of MSNBC.

Credit Virginia Sherwood/MSNBC
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FRIDAY’S PUZZLE Sometimes the hardest thing about blogging puzzles is limiting yourself to picking out only a few of the things you like about a puzzle.

I know, poor me; it’s such a hardship to relish a puzzle and then have to write about it, isn’t it? But I can’t reveal all the answers or they will lock me in the coat closet {No, the coat closet is for missing deadlines; cleaning the bathroom with a toothbrush is for revealing all the answers — Ed.}, so I will do my best to pick out the best of this wonderful, crunchy puzzle by Josh Knapp. How do I do it? I MANAGE.

I dove right into the middle of this puzzle with the one easy fill-in-the-blank “Sturdy as AN OAK,” and immediately fell in love with the grid when I noticed RACHEL MADDOW peeking out at me at 28 Across.

Ms. MADDOW is crossed by LINE DANCE and ARCTIC FOX, but we’ve got a total of 12 unique entries today, and all of them are pretty spiffy. I liked PLAYING HOOKY, DEMIGOD, FRENEMY, MARTY MCFLY, and BIODOME the best.

My vote for Most Interesting Entry is 1 Down’s PAIN and its clue “What a dolorimeter measures.” I knew from the base “dolor” that this was going to mean we were measuring something unpleasant, but never in a million years would I have thought that someone had invented something as sadistic as something that actually causes pain for the express purpose of then measuring it. You can apparently buy these things, although heaven only knows what you would want to use them for, and please keep it to yourself if you have any ideas.

So, to recap: Great puzzle, Mr. Knapp. Let’s start our weekend off right, with some Chuck Berry. I’m sorry, I read that wrong: Let’s start it off with some MARTY MCFLY:


Mike Selinker is the head of a company in Seattle called Lone Shark Games, and not only is he a stand up guy, a great puzzles and games maker, and a creative mensch, but it turns out he’s a writer as well. Mr. Selinker came up with the idea for a book called “Maze of Games” 18 years ago, and has decided to bring it to us via a Kickstarter campaign, which will allow him to produce the book at the sophisticated level that befits it.

So what is “Maze of Games”? It’s a puzzle novel where you jump from page to page in a “solve your own adventure” style. You use a series of mazes to tell you what pages to go to, solve those puzzles, and get back into the maze. Getting out of the maze is … harder.

The artwork is by the great Pete Venters, one of the designers behind the popular “Magic: The Gathering” card game, and the puzzles have been created by some of your favorite constructors. Patrick Berry, Ken Jennings, Brendan Emmett Quigley, Eric Harshbarger, and many others are contributing puzzles to the section called The Conundrucopia, a series of puzzles in the turn-of-the-last-century style of Sam Loyd and Henry Dudeney. Should be great to see who gets “unlocked” in this campaign.

Take a look at the video Mr. Selinker narrates and tell me that doesn’t look like fun!

Your thoughts?