FreeRice.com is awesome. I have wasted far too much time there today.

What is it? I hear you clamor to know. Well, Dear Readers, it is a site where you answer vocabulary questions, and for each one you get right, advertisers at the bottom of the page will pay for 10 grains of rice to be donated to hungry people around the world through the World Food Programme.

The site was recently started by John Breen, who also started The Hunger Site back in 1999 -- that's right, the company I now work for. We have no association with John Breen; he sold The Hunger Site years and years ago, to the predecessor of the people I work for now. But whenever I see his name in the news, I smile because of the connection.

Anyway, 10 grains of rice is quite miniscule. If I had to guess,  I would guess that it's about 1/25th of a cent. If you want to actually make a difference in hunger, this might not be the best way to do it.

But for me, the draw is the vocabulary game.



In summary: FreeRice.com is way too much fun for a total word geek like me. Until  they institute personalized accounts, at which point the advertisers might start paying only by unique eyeballs instead of by the word. And at that point it might no longer make money.

But in the meantime, let's just see how long I can stay up at level 50. :-)

Here's a cool maze that look me a little while to solve.

http://www.gamesmagazine-online.com/starry/index.html

When you solve it, the star designs twinkle a little bit. Kinda cute.

Tonight's Tanga puzzle gave me a really hard time, but I have conquered it!

And better yet, I did not need hints from my fellow puzzle-solvers!

I tried a ton of different things on this one...

( I tried... )

* * * * * * * * * *
THE SOLUTION -- Do Not Read if you are actually trying to figure it out yourself!

( Read more... )

Ha, a Greek mythology-based Tanga puzzle today (for the hard one). Hooray!

It took me over half an hour to solve, but I was also wiping someone's nose and reading board books at the same time. ;-)

Hospital report: As I knew would happen, the doctors all oohed and aahed over how well and how quickly Vivian has healed from her surgery. The surgeon said he'd never seen incision scars that small.

For the next two years, we need to put sunscreen on them whenever her stomach is exposed to sun, even if she's wearing a bathing suit, otherwise the scars could burn. That would be bad.

Oh, and the surgeon said that if Vivian ever has a baby of her own someday, she won't experience the "round ligament pain" that I'm having late in this pregnancy... because they removed her "round ligaments." Huh.


Still crazy-busy at work; more projects and meetings than I can shake a stick at, plus all our usual workload cannot be compromised in any way, of course. :-P  Right now it's 10:10 PM. In theory, I could log on and do some more work tonight. But instead I'm going to finish my cup of tea and go to bed.

I already solved the Tanga puzzle for the evening -- 18 minutes, ha! Average solve time is 38 minutes! (OK, OK, I got some help, as usual, over at BoardGameGeek.com. Yes, I think this is a new definition of geekiness -- relying on online message boards to help me solve online puzzles. Hey, it keeps me off the streets.)

OK, so this puzzle was much, much easier than the previous two days' puzzles were...

• It took you 4 minutes and 31 seconds to solve this puzzle.
• You were the 286th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
• Average solve time: 39 minutes and 52 seconds.
• Median solve time: 6 minutes and 16 seconds.
• 77.717% of Tanga members that have attempted this puzzle have solved it.

I think I'm getting better at these.

Tanga puzzle for 03-15-07

• It took you 1 hour, 6 minutes and 18 seconds to solve this puzzle.
• You were the 30th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
• Average solve time: 57 minutes and 25 seconds.
• Median solve time: 1 hour, 5 minutes and 15 seconds.
• 19.481% of Tanga members that have attempted this puzzle have solved it.

Now, off for dessert, and a niiiiiiiiiiice looooooooooong hooooooooooot bath. With bath salts. And a book.

It's been that kind of day.

But even after a day like today, I can kick a puzzle's butt back to the crossword gridiron!

WOW --

I recently found a game-a-day site that also has a puzzle-a-day. Today's puzzle was extremely difficult, at least for me, and it took me over two and a half hours to solve it -- but I finally did!

• It took you 2 hours, 35 minutes and 34 seconds to solve this puzzle.
• You were the 126th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
• Average solve time: 43 minutes and 35 seconds.
• Median solve time: 33 minutes and 50 seconds.
• 51.837% of Tanga members that have attempted this puzzle have solved it.

Tough, tough, tough.

Here's a word game that's taking way too much of my time recently.

www.lexicant.org

You and the computer take turns adding a single letter to either the front or the end of a word, trying to NOT be the one to end the word. If you accidentally spell a word, you lose.

I'm not very good at it, but it's fun.

My record was 133 points for "lyceum." That, and I just got 124 points for "litigious." But the longer you take, the fewer points you score, so I have dozens and dozens of game where I scored 0 points, or where I lost.

(later) Ooooh, I just got 155 points for pinning the computer into having to spell "tariff"! 19 seconds! Take that, computer!