Tuesday  25 Apr 2023           comment?

Sunday  23 Apr 2023           comment?

NPR's Sunday puzzle challenge from a week ago:

Think of a common 8‑letter word, in which the first three letters spell a word, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh letters also spell a word. These two little words mean the same thing. The fourth letter, when rotated 180°, becomes the eighth letter. What word is this?

I downloaded a Scrabble dictionary and wrote a program to find therein the eight‑letter words with three letter words in the desired positions and with the fourth and eighth letters being {b,q} or {d,p}. The list wasn't that long and in it I saw the word they were looking for: shepherd.

I broadened the criteria a bit and looked at words with fourth and eighth letters both being i, l, o, or s. In that list was hotshots, a solution (albeit a degenerate one) that I couldn't resist submitting.

NPR revealed their answer today and said there was another they hadn't anticipated: not hotshots but rather Peruvian. I hadn't seen that one because I failed to consider n being u rotated and because proper nouns/adjectives aren't in Scrabble dictionaries.

I don't see anything in the description of the challenge that disqualifies hotshots. Hot means the same as hot (more so, I would say, than she means the same as her) and s rotated is s.

Friday  21 Apr 2023           comment?

I have three wall clocks, enough to cover the rooms in which I spend most of my waking hours. Two have synchronous AC motors and one has a mechanical pendulum movement. I enjoy the weekly ritual of winding the mechanical clock.

A medicine that I take in the morning requires not eating for an hour afterwards. A friend gave me an hourglass last year and it's just the ticket for letting me know when I can have breakfast.

I quit wearing a watch around when I started carrying a cell phone. Just recently I thought it might be fun to start wearing one again and got my watch out. I hated the way it felt on my wrist, in particular the coldness of metal against skin. That took me by surprise as I can't remember objecting to the feeling back when I used to wear a watch. I suppose I could get used to it again but I don't want to wear a watch that badly.

Saturday  15 Apr 2023           comment?

My Joshua tree's first pup, which I introduced last year, is growing at a decent clip. Pups can be transplanted once they're large enough. I'll be tempted to move this one, as I prefer the look of solitary J‑trees. On the other hand, there's something to be said for honoring the natural course of a plant's growth. A dilemma—but not one I have to resolve any time soon. It's admittedly incongruous for me to talk about honoring the natural growth of this J‑tree, given how I dug it up 25 years ago and moved it here. I like that my plants probably have no idea that I think about them.

Thursday  13 Apr 2023           comment?

Monday  10 Apr 2023           comment?

Recent email from Amazon: "Here's a new product we think you'll like". The product was a cat litter box.

In 25 years of being an Amazon customer I have never bought pet supplies from them.

Monday  03 Apr 2023           comment?

You-know-who en route to New York for a court date. I would've rather seen his first indictment be for one of the more serious crimes being investigated—but we can look forward to him being held accountable for those too.

Saturday  01 Apr 2023           comment?