Poll Clerking 2024: The Paper Jam
November 5, 2024, I once again volunteered as a poll clerk for a San Francisco election. I clerked at the same garage as 2022, and it was still swanky: building owner Jay served up espresso drinks, I...
Permalink
My most recent grocery delivery came with free samples. Among those samples lurked a couple of packets of ground coffee. The supermarket chose a bold strategy. Avoiding swapping air during the pandem...
Permalink
The postal service hasn't been delivering my mail. (Some of y'all with amazing memories might think, "This has happened to Larry before." Yep, it's happening again.) If you sent me a birthday card/n...
Permalink
Puzzled Pint @ Zeitgeist
Puzzled Pint has been around for years, but until tonight I hadn't been. It was always far away. It was a monthly puzzling get-together. Folks would gather at a bar to solve puzzles. A few days ahead...
Permalink
Zine Report: Giant Robot #60
There's a photo of Ryohei Tanaka's equipment. Tanaka makes art by cutting paper. His equipment--an assortment of scissors and... dyes? An article by a guy who photographed some film locations from...
Permalink
Puzzle Hunts are Everywhere, Even in the News
Alert reader Mahlen spotted this article at SFGate, an essay by Dave Blum of Dr Clue: ..."The Amazing Race" definitely has boosted interest in treasure hunts, but that sort of competition and dysfu...
Permalink
Information Architecture: There Oughtta be a Law
I recently read an article by London Times writer Alan Brien in which he wrote "I used to think that I was the first reader, enraged by the difficulty of tracking down a passage in a long work of r...
Permalink
Book Report: Gaudy Century
I'm taking the day off work today. It's the day after a Bay Area Night Game (a rather-fun instance thereof). It was one of those Bay Area Night Games that actually happens at night, and thus I was ...
Permalink
Book Report: the Castaway Pirates
Last night, I played Modern Art with some folks. It was a high-stakes game. One of us (not me) had revealed that he was one of the top five players of Caylus (a geeky German boardgame) on Brettspie...
Permalink
Follow-up: SFZero Suggestion Box
You may recall that last month, I stumbled onto a suggestion box on Waller and Steiner streets. This suggestion box, as it turned out, was part of a game. This game, SF0, is a sort of mutual-dare c...
Permalink
Not-Puzzle Hunts are Everywhere, but especiially at Waller and Steiner
On my way back home from the library, I encountered a nicely-made suggestion box at the Northeast corner of Waller and Steiner. Signage encouraged passers-by to write suggestions on index cards and ...
Permalink
Link: Nina Katchadourian's Sorted Books Project
Unlike books juxtaposed = laughs. Sorted Books Project. Also: Sorted Books ProjectLabels: art, books, paper...
Permalink
Puzzle Hunts are Everywhere, even Agile Programming
I haven't memorized the Braille alphabet nor the Morse alphabet. I even set up a little Morse training drill web program dealie, learned a little more Morse that way. But it doesn't stick. When I'...
Permalink
