Friday, March 12, 2010

How old are you ...?

Puzzlaria recently performed the ten-year census. They found the countries three oldest inhabitants.

1. Jin Aged is not the oldest of the trio.
2. Knightmare, who was 97 years old last month, does not come from the community of Fleamarket.
3. The oldest inhabitant of Center City isn't surnamed Ancient.
4. Curtis has lived in Littleworth all his life.
5. The surname of one of the elders is Oldone.
6. One of the oldest resident is 94 and one is 100.


Can you match first names, last names, ages, and places of residence for the three eldest people in Puzzlaria?

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Nesting Ravens

Four Ravens have built nests, in a tree, in the back yard of Zaux's Tavern and Billiards. Chris, the head of the Puzzlarian Ornithology Association has assigned an ornithologist to each nest ... they are to photograph and keep notes on the Raven's activities. Each person has given his particular Raven a name. Each nest is on the same limb ... each was asssigned a letter with A being closest to the tree trunk, followed by B, C, and D.

1. The raven named "Allen" has four eggs in her nest, which is immediately adjacent to the one for which Cam Hawk has responsibility.
2. Nest C has five eggs.
3. Michael Dove is keeping an eye on nest B, which isn't "Nevermore's" nest; there are fewer eggs in nest B than in nest A.
4. John Coot is caring for the raven whose nest is two places left of the one where "Poe" is sitting on her eggs.
5. It's not nest D that contains only 3 eggs.

Additional info:
* One of the ravens is named "Edgar".
* One nest has 6 eggs.
* One of the ornothologists is Jin Wren.


Can you tell which raven is in which nest? ... how many eggs are in the nests? ... and which ornithologist is assigned to which nest?

Who knows the answer ... ?

Once a month in Puzzlaria, there is Quiz Night held at Zaux's Tavern and Billiards Parlor. Teams of puzzlers converge on the tavern for a night of questions, answers, foamy beverage, and comradery. Last night, the competition ended with five teams scoring more than 185 out of a possible 200 points, including a maximum score on their double points "joker round" ... although each of the five teams failed to identify one of the personalities in the Picture quiz round. From the clues below, can you determine on which round each team played their joker, which famous person the team failed to identify, and how many points the team had at the end of the competition.

1. Knightmare's Kings played their joker during "Far Away Places", the geography round, and Chris's Dark Horses incorrectly identified Dame Nellie Melba as Queen Alexadra.

2. Ross's Jokers scored two fewer ponts than the team who played their joker during "All Kinds of Music" and mistook Elizabethan hero Sir Francis Drake for Sir Walter Raleigh.

3. The team who mixed up Charles Dickens with Alfred, Lord Tennyson scored more points than the group who played their joker on the round "Around Northtown".

4. The team that came in fifth was the one whose members couldn't tell Fidel Castro from Terry Waite.

5. The team who scored 190 ponts played their joker on the "Sporting Chance" round.

6. Cam's Highbrows were a little disappointed that they only scored 189 points.

7. Curtis's Bright Ideas team had one of the five best scores, and John Wayne was not identified correctly by one of the teams.

8. Other team scores were: 188, 191, and 192. One of the question rounds was "Times Past".

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

TV Plant Show

Gardening is one of the favorite pastimes of Puzzlarians, when they are not scratching their heads over a new logic problem. The television plant show Puzzlarian Gardens has become quite popular. On this weeks program, 5 master gardeners visit some of the most beautiful gardens in the whole country. Not only do they show the viewers some of the best gardens in Puzzlaria, but they each select a particular plant and show the viewers how to best use certain garden tools.

1. Chris Montague showed a new range of terracotta pots, but didn't present the feature on peonies; the peony-loving presenter didn't demonstrate the pruning knife or plant support system, and didn't visit Hidcote Manor gardens.
2. The presenter who visited Scotney Castle Garden demonstrated a novel plant support system but didn't do the piece on fuchsias, while Solianar Digmud didn't visit either Stourhead gardens or Hidcote Manor.
3. The presenter who went to Stourhead didn't present the features on either the clematis or the lawn aerator; the clematis was the favorite plant of the presenter who showed the weeding tool.
4. The presenter of the Nymans gardens loves camelias.
5. Knightmare Dimple narrated the piece on Bodnant gardens.
6. The lily is Karl Stubbleshaw's favorite flower.
7. Ross Littlefen was one of the presenters.


On this weeks tv show, can you sort out the following?:
Which master gardener visited which garden? ... what is their favorite plant, and which garden tool did they demonstrate?

Walk the Dogs

To raise money for the entry fee into the upcoming Tiddlywinks Tournament, four of Puzzlaria's residents got parttime jobs walking dogs at the kennel.

Residents:
Jin
Solianar
DualA
Curtis

Dog Breeds:
chihuahua
dachshund
Scottie
Yorkshire terrier

Dog's Names:
Bertie
Jock
Max
Rex

1. Jin is somewhat behind the girl walking Jock, the Scottie.
2. Curtis is farther back in the line than the dachshund, but somewhere ahead of Max.
3. Rex and his walker are immediately behind Solianar, but immediately in front of the Yorkshire terrier.
4. DualA's dog is the chihuahua, who is somewhere to the rear of Bertie in the lineup.

The walkers and dogs are moving in a single file line along the sidewalk ...


Can you name which person is walking which dog (by breed and name) ... and what place they are in the line as it moves along the sidewalk?

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Puzzlaria explores space ...

Puzzlarian scientists Cam and Chris have finally realized their dream of a manned space mission. To make the best use of available quarters on the spacecraft, beds are arranged in bunk-bed fashion:

bottom bunk - A
second bunk - B
third bunk --- C
fourth bunk -- D

Crew member names:
Knightmare Carter
Karl Dare
Ross Flandry
Boris Kinnison

Crew expertise:
tiddlywink expert
crossword expert
sudoku expert
kenken puzzle expert

Although the craft is automatic and requires little invovlement by the crew, each has assigned roles:
photographer
diary keeper
first aid provider
dietician

1. The diary keeper's bunk is immediately above that of Karl Dare, who is the sudoku expert, and graduated from Puzzlarian State University.
2. The first aid provider is the kenken puzzle expert; the dietician has not been assigned bunk A.
3. Bunk B is Knightmare Carter's.
4. Photographer Ross Flandry is not the crossword expert.

From the given, can you list which person is assigned to which bunk? ... and what is each crew member's expertise and role on the flight?

Monday, March 8, 2010

Tiddlywink Meetings

Since Ross was elected president of the Tiddlywink Association, his days seem to be filled with meetings. And to make matters worse, his new assisitant is a scatter-brain who can't keep anything organized. I asked the assistant for a meeting with Ross and she said, "Jeez! I don't think he has any free time today. I'm trying to sort it all out now."

I glanced at the assistant's work area ... there were scraps of paper with notes all over her desk.

The notes:
1. Ross's first meeting is at 9:30AM, but that isn't the 'tournament' meeting, which will take place on the 4th floor.
2. He will not be meeting Curtis Paulson on the 3rd floor or at 10AM, but he'll be on the 5th floor for his 11AM meeting.
3. The meeting with Cam Stephens about 'tournament registration' is the one immediately before that on the 3rd floor.
4. Knightmare Johnson's office is on the 2nd floor, where Ross will be immediately before his meeting on the 6th floor.
5. The last name of the person he is meeting at 2PM to discuss 'violators of tournament rules' is longer than that of the person with whom he'll be discussing the new 'tournament judge'.
6. Ross's meeting with Chris Smith is not about 'complaints'.
7. Karl Sprighton is one of the people Ross will meet with today.
8. The last meeting of the day will be at 4PM.

It is now 8:30AM ...


Will you help Ross's assistant organize his itenerary for the day ... so he will be at the right meeting at the correct time? His itenerary should include:
Meeting time
Which floor of the building the meeting is on
The person who requested the meeting
and
The topic to be discussed

My puzzle#1

My puzzle#1
Series : 4,1,?,3,7
Find “?”

Thanx!!
Borris

(Boris sent me this to post for him.)

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Dad, look at my grades ...

Ragknot's son came home from school with his report card ... he was excited about his grades. Rather than showing his report card, he wrote all the info on a sheet of paper and handed it to his dad ... oh yeah, knowing that his dad loves puzzles, he scrambled the information. Here's the info Ragknot received from his son:

1. In history, a class taught by Mr. Wright, my numerical grade was more than 7 points higher than the class in which my teacher commented "Excellent progress".

2. In one class, my grade was only 65, and the teacher said it was "disappointing"; it was not science and not Miss Cramm, who is not the science teacher.

3. My French teacher described it as "another good year", and French is not the class where I scored 70.

4. Mr. Masters commented "sound work".

5. In Mrs. Caine's class, I scored 76.

6. I got an 80 in Math.

One of my grades not mentioned above is an 89.

My teacher not mentioned above is Mrs. Markham.

One teacher commented "good effort".

The class not mentioned above was English.

Dad, considering how bad my grades were, this is quite an improvement. I know you love a puzzle ...



Can you help Ragknot decide which teacher teaches which subject, the score in each class, and which teacher made which comment?

The Game of Cards UPDATE

When posting puzzles, I change wording to avoid direct copy, and as all of you know, I usually attmept to personalize the puzzles using names of frequent visitors to ToM. I try to avoid error, but when re-wording and personalizing, it is quite easy to make a mistake. Sometimes, one or two words in a sentence can alter the logic of the entire scenario.

Those of you who attempted the puzzle "The Game of Cards" were dealing with an error. I checked the wording before posting, and twice after posting ... still I missed it. With Knightmare's and Cam's persistence in suggesting maybe an error was made, I checked once again .... this time it slapped me in the face. An ammendent has been added to hopefully make the problem solve-able. Here's a link to the puzzle: The Game of Cards

Sometimes, the author of the puzzle makes a mistake ... but this time, it was the poster ... ME. I apologize for the frustration. The problems and puzzles are difficult enough without an error in the statement.