Rack Up The Points

[DrTom]

Off the couch! Wonderful puzzle, DrTom!

Thanks Ben, strong praise from a fellow constructor is always an ego builder.

[DrTom]

Well slow going for one of mine. I'm afraid this was not the softball I had anticipated, perhaps I'll dial up the difficulty to a 3. Although not near as elegant, this is one of those S.A.D puzzles Joe always talks about. The mechanism is simple once you see it, and it all falls into place. So the "Probably a 2 at best" may be a canard, but the path to discovery well that is a:

Oh, and lest I forget, the solvers board:
1 TMart
2 Mme
3 Carolyn
4 oldjudge
5 Laura M
6 Whimsy
7 Meg
8 Benchen71
9 dudeski
10 Bbaack
11 Beth Tyrpin

[woozy]

Daggnabbit..... Why does it have to be *SOO* easy to accidently post a message to the entire forum...... *sheeesh*.

[HeadinHome]

Grid was smooth and entertaining. Meta not coming… watching for the nudges here.

[Schmeel]

I'm waiting for nudges also. I guess it's just too SAD for me.

[MarkWoychick]

Off the couch - brilliant meta, @DrTom! Thanks for the puzzle.

[HeadinHome]

“So the "Probably a 2 at best" may be a canard, but the path to discovery well that is a: [Cunard photo]”

About that poster:
1) on-board entertainment looks like a lot of lame party games (balloon-forehead thing??)
2) what game is that with the rings and the net?
3) ditto the lanes and the tiny horse race.

However, I do approve of the 3-tiered dessert tray being passed around. If I’m going to put on a cocktail dress to sit in the sun, someone had better be bringing me petit fours.

[SJMcK]

This grid is not making its secrets known to me

[woozy]

How I felt after I got this meta:



Dr. Tom, just what sort of game do you think you are playing?

[KayW]

What could be better than a meta by Dr Tom and a new cactus bloom?

@oldjudge I think I must have 7 siblings of your cactus in my apartment. There is a family resemblance.

This is one of seven grown from one purse-sized purchase in an airport gift shop long ago. The siblings were spawned when the original one started crowding my 8-foot ceiling and I lopped off the top and repotted. Out of all seven plants over at least two decades, this was the only one to ever bloom - and that one only once, for one night, about two years ago! Does yours bloom more frequently?

Oh. And I'm still LAS on the SAD MMM. Waiting for Wednesday nudges or inspiration, whichever comes first.

[oldjudge]

We planted a big cactus garden in the canyon adjacent to our house. The specimen I sent a picture of is different than yours. It has about ten cylindrical arms growing from a central mass. However, despite the difference, the flowers appear very similar. Ours has several flowers on the arms. They last for a few days and then fall off. The plants flower once or twice a year, I don’t keep track that closely. The interesting thing about cacti is that the shape and color of the flower is related to the type of pollinator that they want to attract. Bees are attracted to yellow and blue. Cacti that rely on bees for pollination tend to have flat yellow flowers. A good example of this is the golden barrel. Cacti with long tubular flowers are geared toward hummingbirds, and large white flowering cacti are geared toward bats.

[madhatter5]

We planted a big cactus garden in the canyon adjacent to our house. The specimen I sent a picture of is different than yours. It has about ten cylindrical arms growing from a central mass. However, despite the difference, the flowers appear very similar. Ours has several flowers on the arms. They last for a few days and then fall off. The plants flower once or twice a year, I don’t keep track that closely. The interesting thing about cacti is that the shape and color of the flower is related to the type of pollinator that they want to attract. Bees are attracted to yellow and blue. Cacti that rely on bees for pollination tend to have flat yellow flowers. A good example of this is the golden barrel. Cacti with long tubular flowers are geared toward hummingbirds, and large white flowering cacti are geared toward bats.

Huh, I get why bees are attracted to yellow but I wonder why blue. Because water?

[oldjudge]

They can see those colors. Bees, for example, cannot see red.

[Dplass]

Off the couch. I'd make a pun but REDACTED.

Thanks for the puzzle!

[dot]

Off the couch, probably! Fun Monday meta!

[oldjudge]

Jay--Here is my cactus

[madhatter5]

They can see those colors. Bees, for example, cannot see red.

Interesting - so how do red flowers attract bees then? (The correct answer is of course "You can Google that yourself")

[oldjudge]

The bees can pick up ultraviolet markings if the red flowers have them. Otherwise, I believe, red appears as black to bees.

[KayW]

@oldjudge - a much more distant relative then. And a double bloom - beautiful!

[vandono]

Loved the grid, but I'm still napping comfortably on the couch.

“So the "Probably a 2 at best" may be a canard, but the path to discovery well that is a: [Cunard photo]”

About that poster:
1) on-board entertainment looks like a lot of lame party games (balloon-forehead thing??)
2) what game is that with the rings and the net?
3) ditto the lanes and the tiny horse race.

However, I do approve of the 3-tiered dessert tray being passed around. If I’m going to put on a cocktail dress to sit in the sun, someone had better be bringing me petit fours.

1) This looks like a dance-a-thon where the couple who can keep the balloon between their heads the longest (without using their hands) wins. The couple on the right just lost. Pity.
2) Looks like tennikoit - sort of like playing tennis with a quoits ring. There are leagues and everything for this today, I think.
3) No idea. Best guess is a derby simulation using something to randomize horse movement. Dice?

Man, have times changed.

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