Wednesday, October 1, 2008

New Word Sudoku Puzzles (Qudoku!) for Wednesday, 10/1/2008

New Word Sudoku Puzzles (Qudoku!) for Wednesday, 10/1/2008

I thought I might start out the new month in a different way—taking a break from the normal pattern I’ve followed for months now: a daily Classic 9x9 Word Sudoku puzzle with a few variants thrown in for spice once or twice a week. How ‘bout LOTS of spice, for the next week or so?

I work in government public affairs, so I often come across slogans, quips and quotes, as well as those ubiquitous talking points, which sometimes make pretty good Word Sudoku puzzles themselves. I thought I’d share some of those with you over the next week or so. This blog isn’t the place for politics, obviously. But like crosswords containing quips and quotes, Sudoku, without taking sides, can help you remember and perhaps better understand positions, policies and yes, even politics. Let’s illustrate the point with, of all things, free parking.

Dr. Donald Shoup, an urban economist at UCLA (http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/), is world-renowned for his perhaps counter-intuitive stand on downtown parking. For years, urban planners have required developers to supply ‘enough’ off-street parking with new buildings, where ‘enough’ is a contract-specific number that may change from time to time, but usually means ‘so that people visiting the new building won’t park in surrounding areas.’ If I understand Dr. Shoup, such parking policies do more harm than good. He argues less is more: that free downtown parking is anything but. The cost in terms of land use, and to developers (and therefore to all of us who pay the hidden pass-through costs), is much larger than we know. Prof. Shoup argues that, much like the price/value of gold or apples is set by more-or-less free market dynamics, so should be that curbside parking space most of us spend time and gasoline searching for. If we had to pay more for street parking when it’s in high demand, and less when there’s little demand, then we would have proper incentive to find real alternatives—or pay, if that’s our choice. But today we subsidize the hidden costs of parking while fooling ourselves that it’s ‘free.’

I’m not here to argue for or against the good professor’s point; this blog is all about word puzzles. So, without taking sides, but merely to introduce you to his interesting perspective, I present you two “Qudoku” © puzzles built from quotes of Dr. Donald Shoup.

Yes, I created that term. A Qudoku Word Puzzle uses a Word Sudoku puzzle to supply letters for a quote. Particular cells in the Sudoku grid are circled and numbered; the numbers match numbered cells in the quote grid. You don’t need to use your crypto-grammatical intuition on the quote to figure out the Word Sudoku puzzle, although you certainly should if you have such skills! The puzzle is designed to be solved without any need to know the quote.

So far, we have what I hope you’ll agree is an interesting puzzle variation or combination. But these particular puzzles I’m sharing with you today have one more added twist: Each of the two quotes I present you uses enough different letters of the alphabet that one 9x9 Classic Word Sudoku won’t provide all the letters you need! So each quote has two Word Sudoku puzzles feeding you letters. So should I call this puzzle variation a “Two Qudoku” Word puzzle?

The first Qudoku puzzle set has a shorter quote than the second; the two Classic 9x9 Word Sudoku puzzles in the first set are based on the words MOP BRAKED and UNSIGHTLY, respectively. All these letters are used one or more times in the quote.

MOP BRAKED
9x9 Qudoku Word Puzzle
Solve each Word Sudoku puzzle using the letters in the respective anagrams
In each Word Sudoku puzzle, each row, column, 3x3 square and group of circled squares contain the letters in the anagram exactly once
Copy letters in circled cells to the matching numbered cell in the quote

UNSIGHTLY
9x9 Qudoku Word Puzzle
Solve each Word Sudoku puzzle using the letters in the respective anagrams
In each Word Sudoku puzzle, each row, column, 3x3 square and group of circled squares contain the letters in the anagram exactly once
Copy letters in circled cells to the matching numbered cell in the quote


The two Classic 9x9 Word Sudoku puzzles in the second Qudoku set are based on the words BALK DINGS and PROVE MYTH, respectively.

BALK DINGS
9x9 Qudoku Word Puzzle
Solve each Word Sudoku puzzle using the letters in the respective anagrams
In each Word Sudoku puzzle, each row, column, 3x3 square and group of circled squares contain the letters in the anagram exactly once
Copy letters in circled cells to the matching numbered cell in the quote

PROVE MYTH
9x9 Qudoku Word Puzzle
Solve each Word Sudoku puzzle using the letters in the respective anagrams
In each Word Sudoku puzzle, each row, column, 3x3 square and group of circled squares contain the letters in the anagram exactly once
Copy letters in circled cells to the matching numbered cell in the quote

Solutions first thing in the morning. And tomorrow I’ll provide you two more Qudoku puzzles from the world of public relations and writing, from a nationally-recognized (and fabulous!) writing coach.

Thanks,
--Dave

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