Search
10 results for “lahosken”
-
#Book Report: Matching Minds with Sondheim
It's a book about Stephen Sondheim, focusing on his puzzles and games rather than on the stuff he's most famous for, theater. Of course, it's the puzzle-y and game-y parts that I'm interested in, because I played The Game, a variety of puzzle hunt in which teams drive around from #puzzle to puzzle over the course of a weekend. Thanks to Scott "Puzzalot" Royer, I'd learned a bit about The Game's history—and Stephen Sondheim's name kept popping up. I even buckled down and used a microfiche reader at the library to read (and transcribe) a 1969 London Times article about Sondheim's puzzle hunts and games.
Matching Minds with Sondheim sums it up:
An exploration of all the vastly different, creative offshoots of Sondheim's Murder Game can seem to go on forever. … the Los Angeles moviegoer who watched [The Last of] Sheila in 1973, was inspired to design his own multicity scavenger hunt, which inspired Disney's 1980 film Midnight Madness, which inspired one of its moviegoers to create a similar game, which he eventually took to Microsoft, …
Everything I found out hinted that there was plenty more to know: Sondheim ran puzzly treasure hunts at friends' parties; he ran public treasure hunts for charities, he brought british-style cryptic crosswords to the US, he… Anyhow, this book gets into a lot of that. I'm glad I read it.It was slow going for me. I think this book expected to be the second Sondheim bio read by a Sondheim fan, not necessarily knowledgable about games or puzzl… https://lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/new/2026/05/28/matching-minds-with-sondheim-its-book-about-step/
-
It is March and the lovely @enigmarch people have challenged puzzle designers to write a puzzle inspired by today's word: "combine", as in "consolidate."
Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) wants to consolidate federal procurement for goods and services used by many departments. Why is he doing this? I have a theory, but he says it's for the taxpaer. Yes, the taxpaer. (H/t to Elizabeth Aer^H^H^H Ayer for spotting this.)
On the one hand, we have the DOGE hyenas promising to streamline government by harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence. On the other hand, we see they haven't yet learned to harness the power of looking for the wiggly red line under a typo. Bad news: Clowns armed with hatchets prowl the halls of government. Good news: At least I know what puzzle I can write today.
Can you figure out what letter is missing from each hypothetical WhiteHouse dot gov headline blow? Rite them in the banks provided on the eft. We already filled in the K missing from One Monkey Don't Stop no Show. Hen you ill in the others, you should see my theory on hat Trump hoes to consolidate ere.
Full puzzle text, hints, and solution at: https://lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/new/2025/03/21/enigmarch-combine/
-
@shadychars @lahosken aaah, #freshrss complains the xml is invalid:
```
https://shadycharacters.co.uk/feed/ is invalid XML, likely due to invalid characters. XML error: Mismatched tag at line 19, column 11 [https://shadycharacters.co.uk/feed/]
```I think your link tags are not properly closed:
<link href="https://shadycharacters.co.uk/feed/" rel="self" />
<link href="https://shadycharacters.co.uk" /> -
@shadychars @lahosken aaah, #freshrss complains the xml is invalid:
```
https://shadycharacters.co.uk/feed/ is invalid XML, likely due to invalid characters. XML error: Mismatched tag at line 19, column 11 [https://shadycharacters.co.uk/feed/]
```I think your link tags are not properly closed:
<link href="https://shadycharacters.co.uk/feed/" rel="self" />
<link href="https://shadycharacters.co.uk" /> -
I saw some chalk art on Irving St in #SanFrancisco on Sunday:
Demon hunter on a roller skates (accompanied by pet on skateboard) by Kal Zakzouk at 20th Ave.
Various pieces by Hazel, Noah, and perhaps others at 8th Ave.
-
Yet more #SanFrancisco sights:
Sidewalk chalk said "Fun this way" with an arrow pointing at the SF Muni Metro light rail Sunset Tunnel. Please don't seek fun in the Sunset Tunnel; dodging trains isn't fun for you or for Muni drivers. (A few steps further on, I saw that the "fun" had been actually behind the old weather station(?) shed on the other side of the tracks, probably much more obvious while it was happening than, say, the next morning.)
New ped xing signs+lights going in on Parnassus Ave. Several weeks back, I noted that more than a year after a truck hit a pedestrian at Parnassus+Stanyan, we were finally getting some speed humps, albeit shallow. Now I see that we're also getting some new signs with flashing lights… at a different intersection nearby, Hillway. Maybe those speed humps weren't meant to slow down trucks at Stanyan, but rather to help folks cross at Hillway? Anyhow, both of those intersections are pretty iffy; I don't like trying to cross at either of them. Kinda lookin' like SFMTA gave up on any safety improvements for Stanyan tho.
Families who park on Waller St. before walking to high school graduation ceremonies at Kezar Stadium next week might encounter this front porch goose in appropriate attire.
-
Happy birthday, @AssociatedPress
-
It is March and the lovely #EnigMarch people have challenged puzzle designers to write a puzzle inspired by today's word: "together".
Oh no! The USA clown President Trump got so mad at his vice president for refusing to overturn the results of a lawful election that he incited an insurrection and called upon his followers to punish his vice president! And those followers set up a gallows with a noose and chanted that they wanted to hang the vice president! And then a few years later, some politician thought "Nevertheless, I want to be that clown's next vice president." I think about that sometimes. I thought about it more since they got elected.
Anyhow, if you enjoy cryptic crosswords, I hope you like this one. https://crosshare.org/crosswords/bwJfWfxbC2MsCa4VGpUe/together It includes some two-letter entries to anger the purists.
-
Things I noticed on my mid-day outing in #SanFrancisco:
The Krakenwagen art car ambulance was parked across the street from the DMV. It was spewing soap bubbles, though there didn't seem to be anyone inside and this didn't seem to have anything to do with anything else going on in the area at the time.
A ⨂ chalk mark by the #HashHouseHarriers, who play elaborate games of follow the leader involving many such sidewalk marks.
A big rubber duck mural by street artist fnnch, which had nothing to do with anything else going on in the area at the time, but which you may recall is visible from the little parking garage across the street.
-
🍝 Spaghetti 2023 is happening https://www.ericberlin.com/2023/01/05/a-serving-of-spaghetti/ 🍝
"A #puzzle by its nature is something purposefully constructed, often with painstaking effort so as to have the right difficulty for its intended audience. When I was part of the Mystery Hunt constructing team last year, many of the puzzles took weeks or longer to put together. As opposed to a round of Spaghetti, which I construct by choosing five words at random from a pocket dictionary."