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Post by Rob Allen on Jan 9, 2017 15:11:21 GMT -5
RAY: A woman and her husband decide to go shopping one Saturday for a used car. So they go to the neighborhood used-car dealer and a young man is shows them the various cars in the lot. They don't seem to be really excited about any one of them. Finally, the used-car dealer says, "Oh, how could I have forgotten this one? I have just the car for you. I know you are going to love it." He takes them over to a late model Japanese car. "You're not going to believe this. This car belonged to my fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Johnson. It's a wonderful car, and she treated it very well, and had all the service done here. Interestingly, she never left town with the car. All she ever did with the car was drive from home to school and back, and on Sundays she went to church. She never used the car on Saturdays." They look over the car and it looks magnificent. So the woman asks the obvious question: "Why did Ms. Johnson sell the car?" "Well, as luck would have it,' he says, 'She was called out of town on very short notice to care for a sick relative in the Midwest so she came in here last week and sold us the car, and of course, it's your good fortune that it's here." The woman gets in behind the wheel, and starts up the engine. It sounds fine. The husband sits in the passenger seat and they fiddle with the controls. She fiddles with the controls on the dashboard, tries the wipers, blows the horn, and looks around the car. "Geez, honey," her husband says, "It's a great color, too. I think we ought to get it." "I don't think so," she says, as she turns off the key. "He's lying to us." The question is, how did she know? (The answer is not that the salesman was moving his lips.) Here's the answer: RAY: The woman got in the car and fiddled with all the controls. She blew the horn, she turned on the heater, ran the wipers. She also turned on the radio. And when she turned on the radio, she noticed that it was not set to a local station. In fact, there was noise coming across. So she tried another station, and another, and another. And in every case, the presets were set to stations that were not local stations, so this car clearly was from out of town. And if the story were absolutely true that Miss Johnson never left town then how could she have listened to these stations? And the new Puzzler: RAY: This was sent in by Melvin Anderson. Melvin had been briefing the boss at a staff meeting since he arrived at the office, too busy, in fact, even for a cup of coffee. Worse than that, he was hungry. He'd skipped breakfast that morning because he got up late, got dressed in a hurry and sped off to the office in his '65 Mustang convertible. The top was up, of course, because it was cold. It was January. When he finally finished his meeting, he glanced at his brand-new digital wristwatch, which he got for Christmas. “It’s 12:01,” he thought. “Lunch time!” Melvin hurriedly donned his coat, hat and gloves and raced out the rear entrance of the building heading for the lunch counter across the street. He darted between traffic lanes and parked cars and almost fell into the doorway of the lunch counter. The door was locked. A sign on the door read, “CLOSED. We Open at 11:00 A.M.” He rechecked his watch, which was working just fine, and realized why the lunch counter was closed. What did Melvin discover? |
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Post by Rob Allen on Jan 16, 2017 12:46:20 GMT -5
RAY: This was sent in by Melvin Anderson. Melvin had been briefing the boss at a staff meeting since he arrived at the office, too busy, in fact, even for a cup of coffee. Worse than that, he was hungry. He'd skipped breakfast that morning because he got up late, got dressed in a hurry and sped off to the office in his '65 Mustang convertible. The top was up, of course, because it was cold. It was January. When he finally finished his meeting, he glanced at his brand-new digital wristwatch, which he got for Christmas. “It’s 12:01,” he thought. “Lunch time!” Melvin hurriedly donned his coat, hat and gloves and raced out the rear entrance of the building heading for the lunch counter across the street. He darted between traffic lanes and parked cars and almost fell into the doorway of the lunch counter. The door was locked. A sign on the door read, “CLOSED. We Open at 11:00 A.M.” He rechecked his watch, which was working just fine, and realized why the lunch counter was closed. What did Melvin discover? I didn't post my guess on this one, but it turned out to be correct: RAY: He put his watch on upside down. So when it read 12:01, and he dashed out of the building it was really 10:21. And the new Puzzler for this week: RAY: This puzzler was sent in by Jerry Galloway. My friend had purchased a piece of slate to put into the floor in the hearth in front of his fireplace. The slate was 3/4 of an inch thick, by 10 inches wide, by 48 inches long, and weighed on the order of 175 pounds. He had cut a hole in the oak floor that was the same size as the piece of slate. The depth of the hole was exactly 3/4 of an inch, the same as the slate. And, of course, there was the sub-floor underneath. When he put one end of the slate into the hole in the floor, he realized that he would have to drop the other end to get the slate into the hole. He realized that if he dropped the brittle slate, even half an inch, it would break. Not only that, but it wouldn't go in the hole, anyway. There was so little clearance that he couldn't even use thin fishing line to lower the end of the slate. So he sat there for the longest time, drinking beers and pondering this dilemma. After his 5th or 6th trip to the kitchen he returned with something that solved the problem in elegant fashion. What did he find there that allowed him to lower the slate into the hole without risk of breaking it? |
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 16, 2017 14:47:13 GMT -5
Personally I would make small supports of dry ice, put them in the hole and put the slate on it, letting the dry ice slowly evaporate. But I have access to dry ice and most people don't.
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Post by berkley on Jan 16, 2017 15:00:21 GMT -5
A plunger?
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Post by Rob Allen on Jan 16, 2017 15:24:41 GMT -5
Personally I would make small supports of dry ice, put them in the hole and put the slate on it, letting the dry ice slowly evaporate. But I have access to dry ice and most people don't. I think he just used regular ice. |
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 17, 2017 4:19:29 GMT -5
Depends on the floor beneath it, in case of regular ice, you'd keep water between slate and hole, which is asking for fungi. (I'm thinking too much about this, am I?)
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 19, 2017 12:09:05 GMT -5
Depends on the floor beneath it, in case of regular ice, you'd keep water between slate and hole, which is asking for fungi. (I'm thinking too much about this, am I?) This made me giggle. Thank you. These days, I need all the giggles I can get . |
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Post by berkley on Jan 19, 2017 20:34:58 GMT -5
Depends on the floor beneath it, in case of regular ice, you'd keep water between slate and hole, which is asking for fungi. (I'm thinking too much about this, am I?) This made me giggle. Thank you. These days, I need all the giggles I can get . You'll be laughing on the other side of your face, young man, if they turn out to be Fungi from Yuggoth! |
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Post by Rob Allen on Jan 19, 2017 21:26:04 GMT -5
This made me giggle. Thank you. These days, I need all the giggles I can get . You'll be laughing on the other side of your face, young man, if they turn out to be Fungi from Yuggoth! I think I read that story in a Skywald magazine - "The Fungi from Yuggoth". |
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Post by berkley on Jan 19, 2017 22:56:23 GMT -5
You'll be laughing on the other side of your face, young man, if they turn out to be Fungi from Yuggoth! I think I read that story in a Skywald magazine - "The Fungi from Yuggoth". I was thinking of HP Lovecraft's poem (which I haven't actually read), but maybe Skywald adapted them to comic form? Dan Bailey can probably tell us all about it, if he sees this. |
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Post by Rob Allen on Jan 19, 2017 23:26:30 GMT -5
I think I read that story in a Skywald magazine - "The Fungi from Yuggoth". I was thinking of HP Lovecraft's poem (which I haven't actually read), but maybe Skywald adapted them to comic form? Dan Bailey can probably tell us all about it, if he sees this. Holy crap, I had no idea that "Fungi from Yuggoth" was a real thing! I was kidding about the Skywald story; I thought you just made up a funny Lovecraftesque name. |
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Post by Rob Allen on Jan 23, 2017 20:50:43 GMT -5
My friend had purchased a piece of slate to put into the floor in the hearth in front of his fireplace. The slate was 3/4 of an inch thick, by 10 inches wide, by 48 inches long, and weighed on the order of 175 pounds. He had cut a hole in the oak floor that was the same size as the piece of slate. The depth of the hole was exactly 3/4 of an inch, the same as the slate. And, of course, there was the sub-floor underneath. When he put one end of the slate into the hole in the floor, he realized that he would have to drop the other end to get the slate into the hole. He realized that if he dropped the brittle slate, even half an inch, it would break. Not only that, but it wouldn't go in the hole, anyway. There was so little clearance that he couldn't even use thin fishing line to lower the end of the slate. So he sat there for the longest time, drinking beers and pondering this dilemma. After his 5th or 6th trip to the kitchen he returned with something that solved the problem in elegant fashion. What did he find there that allowed him to lower the slate into the hole without risk of breaking it? I was right: RAY: He returned with the ice cube tray from the freezer. He simply placed a few strategic ice cubes on the subfloor and put the slate on it. As the ice cubes melted, the slate lowered itself into the hole. And this week's Puzzler: RAY: This puzzler was sent in by Frank Juskolka. Frank writes: You have a four-ounce glass and a nine-ounce glass. You have an endless supply of water. You can fill or dump either glass. TOM: Do you have a plastic bag in your pocket? No. Okay. Just checking. RAY: It turns out, you can measure six ounces of water using these two glasses. The question is: 1. How many steps are involved; and B. What's the smallest number of steps in which you can measure six ounces? |
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 25, 2017 5:18:38 GMT -5
Fill Glass4, empty it into Glass 9. > Glass4: 0, Glass9: 4
Fill Glass4, empty it into Glass 9. > Glass4: 0, Glass9: 8
Fill Glass4, empty it into Glass 9. > Glass4: 3. Glass9: 9
Empty Glass9 in sink > Glass4: 3, Glass9: 0
Empty Glass4 in Glass 9 > Glass4:0, Glass9: 3
Fill Glass4, empty it into Glass 9. > Glass4: 0, Glass9: 7
Fill Glass4, empty it into Glass 9. > Glass4: 2, Glass9: 9
Empty Glass9 in sink > Glass4: 2, Glass9: 0
Empty Glass4 in Glass 9 > Glass4:0, Glass9: 2
Fill Glass4, empty it into Glass 9. > Glass4: 0, Glass9: 6
10 steps, but it probably can be done quicker/easier.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 25, 2017 10:26:48 GMT -5
Fill 4-oz. glass.
Pour into 9-oz. glass.
Fill 4-oz. glass halfway.
Pour into 9-oz. glass.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 25, 2017 11:39:44 GMT -5
I'm assuming these are beakers and you can only accurately judge them when they are filled till the mark.
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