My daily crossword

[mandru]

I do a timed crossword puzzle every day for the mental exercise.  Some days the various creators of the puzzles provide creative and challenging works and other days the creators of the puzzles are so off the wall with their requirements for the solver to plug in the right answer that they should be slapped.

"The 12,347th word from War and Peace translated into Cherokee and then back to Gullah"

It makes me want to find them and spare no quarter with a quarter height gym sock 1/4 stuffed with quarters on the front stoop of the crossword puzzle company's head quarters. 

I've come to an uneasy peace that there are untold scores of current popular celebrities that I have quite happily never seen or heard of because I quit monitoring the vapid outpouring ooze of filth flowing steadily out of Hollywood.  Ditto that for 98% of today's music industry.  I'm quite adept at the Alt+Tab flip over to an awaiting window with an awaiting Google search box to sift through the pop culture dross.

But some of the puzzle creators are simply nasty in selecting the themes for their puzzles.  (I'm not even going to go into intentionally misspelled words to force a word into the grid  ::) )

*Archaic Olde English puns misspelled and backwards.
*Amusing physical characteristics of key founding communist party members of Murmansk
*Fun with podiatry (A trick theme name - podiatry anagrams to "try a iPod")

Today's puzzle was "Famished Figures"

One question was "Ravenous Eight".  ????
The answer was "Hungry Ogdoad"

The Ogdoad were the eight deities worshipped in Hermopolis during what is called the Old Kingdom, the third through sixth dynasties, dated between 2686 to 2134 BC.  ???

They may as well have asked for the most uncommonly used word in the English language and it's freaking peckish!   \:/

[Art Blade]

I see a career for you. Decryption and Encryption -- I think there's a rather popular U.S.-based government agency with three letters looking for volunteers. You call any of your friends and talk about it. They'll call you back.  :-()

[mandru]

The trouble with that government agency is that they are so freaking touchy.

The last guy that crossed them had to flee to Russia and got Snowed-In.  ;)


Edit correction: It occurred to me quite a while after posting that a better wording for that gag above would have been "...had to flee to Russia and was Snowed-In."  I spoiled a perfectly good punch line.  ???

See what happens if I just jump in tossing off a quick reply and don't take enough time to properly edit and recompose my thoughts.  :-D

[Art Blade]

  :-X :-D

[PZ]

 

[Binnatics]

  :-X

[fragger]

 

Post in haste, repent at leisure :-()

[mandru]

 ^-^

[fragger]

I can relate to that part of your rant mandru concerning celebrities and such as crossword puzzle answers. I like to do the crosswords in the daily newspaper during my lunch break at w@&k and I strike the same thing in those. These days I wouldn't know a Bieber from a Beyonce and I always get stumped by those clues, having switched off around 1978 as I did.

Sometimes after a hard day at w@&k all I feel like doing is blobbing out in front of the TV for a little while. Only for a little while, because that's about as much as I can stand of it. Around the time I get home appears to be prime game show time on TV. One of these shows is a general knowledge-type question-and-buzzer affair. Yet every second or third question seems to be about some famous twit in showbiz or sports who we're all apparently supposed to be agog over. How the subject of celebrity worship came to be associated with "general knowledge" I don't know. To me, general knowledge consists of history, geography, science and technology, the natural world - stuff that may actually be worth knowing. Knowing who the latest showbiz stars and sports figures are I would place under the category of inconsequential trivia, not general knowledge.

A hundred years from now, will anyone remember who the second singer to perform with Destiny's Child was, or who won American Idol in 2012?

The sad thing is that at least one of the contestants will know the answer to a showbiz question, but if asked what continent Patagonia is in or in what year WWI began, they're stumped. A lot of people might not know the answers to those questions but if someone is going to be a contestant on a general knowledge quiz show I would think that a broad general knowledge would be more of an asset than knowing who the latest pop stars are.

But then, if that's the sort of thing they're going to ask then that's what one should be knowledgeable about. Forget the encyclopedia - grab People magazine and the National Enquirer, absorb everything in them and you could be on your way to quiz show glory.

I guess it's just one more step in the media's dumbing-down process.

[nexor]

You forgot about facebook and twatter!!......ahem, I mean twitter    :-D

[fragger]

 

[Art Blade]

wasn't it faceplant or facepalm, then? Or perhaps farcebook? :-D

[PZ]

 

[Binnatics]

fartbook and splutter  ^-^

[nexor]

fartbook and splutter  ^-^

I'll vote for that anyday  :-X :-D 

[mandru]

When asked for my twitter handle I always reply "I don't twit."  ::)

[fragger]

 

[Art Blade]

 :-D

[nexor]

When asked for my twitter handle I always reply "I don't twit."  ::)

Or........"I don't twit you twat."  ::)

[PZ]

  :-X