Archive for Games
Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos is a book, published around 1825, containing a paragraph for each letter of the alphabet; each entry adds something new at the start and then repeats everything that came before. The book described itself as a game, in which players were to quickly read entries aloud, without stumbling. Some of the entries included long […]
I was playing a word game (Capitals, an iOS app that’s apparently no longer available), and I got to wondering how one would go about using a computer to find all the words that you can make with a given set of letters. I wouldn’t use such a program for playing a game. But I […]
Facebook notifications often show an abbreviated version of some of the text that they’re about. In particular, notifications about shared links show an abbreviated version of the linked-to piece’s headline/title, with an ellipsis at the end. Which sometimes makes me want to complete the truncated title. Which can have entertaining results. I’ve been meaning for […]
I just accidentally turned two pages at once in a book, and read what appeared to be the following line: …swindle a Texan balcony of her mansion… (Hustlers & Con Men, by Jay Robert Nash, pages 311 and 314. The page break is after the word Texan.) I was going to call this accidentally-turn-an-extra-page-but-it-still-sorta-makes-sense phenomenon […]
Looking for some advice on an internet word game.
Mousing over the links reveals answers; mousing over the images should not.
I recently read Tom Holt’s 1987 fantasy novel Expecting Someone Taller. On the front cover is this blurb: “RECALLS BOTH TOLKIEN’S LORD OF THE RINGS AND TWAIN’S CONNECTICUT YANKEE … AN ENTERTAINING ROMP!” —Publisher’s Weekly I’ve never been terribly fond of the style of review where you describe a work as a cross between two […]
For a long time, I’ve been intermittently collecting fortune-cookie fortunes that I find entertaining with phrases like in bed or between the sheets added. The other day, Kam came up with a new-to-us variation: adding between the sheets after lines of dialogue in Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes. I didn’t write down any examples […]
A recent xkcd strip introduced the game of name dominoes (see also large version of image). I’m a little surprised to see that I haven’t posted before about making chains of names; I’ve been doing it now and then for a long time. But usually I only get linear chains of three or four names […]
I'm guessing most Americans know by now that the US Postal Service sells “Forever Stamps”; you buy a Forever Stamp at today's first-class one-ounce stamp price, and it will be...