It's That Time of Week

Apropos of nothing, let's imagine a famous painter, say da Vinci, had a condition that kept him from holding a brush straight. On the one hand, we'd have today less of an overall idea of what the real-life Mona Lisa looked like. On the other, though, we might have learned what was her most outstanding feature, what lived through the centuries, shone through faded paint, defied Parkinson's disease. We also would have a better idea of what was Leonardo's most essential quality as an artist. Oh well. Anyway....

Manhattan vs. New York:

Last week I explained how I felt it an admission of artistic failure for one to type in explanation of just exactly what it is he just drew or photographed. As an old friend used to say, I hate failure (his own, he meant. But I mean mine). Anyway, I refuse to fail this time. But I am happy to present the jumbles in two different media, neither one, in MY humble opinion*, inherently more artistic than the other.

St. Louis vs. Dallas:

How about that, I have MS Paint on this machine after all (I just found it). Nonetheless, I must share credit this week with the website onemotion.com .

Maybe I'll say more next week. Is there a week off for Thanksgiving? If so, in two weeks then there's a real good chance. But do make sure yourself, especially if you're a member of one of the finalist teams.

* I generally have no aversion to using extremely common internet abbreviations such as "IMHO", and they do save typing and space after all, but here I felt I needed to spell it out to fully get the humility across. Communication comes first.

It's That Time of Year

It seems like just yesterday that the USCL season was nearly over but in fact, a whole year has passed, and the following season is nearly over! Fortunately, the New York Post's Andy Soltis, aside from keeping chess fans informed about the latest chess cheating news and the never-ending ever-increasing humiliation of mankind by chess-playing computers, often picks a league game to feature in his weekly column, and seeing one the other week reminded me that there is something that had always helped pass the time between fall Sundays (by the way, I think the AFC teams have shown they can compete on the same field as the NFC, don't you? They're a lot more than just Joe Namath). I actually had intended to jumble last week but, a year and a half after moving, I have still not managed to reunite my scanner with the cables that go with it, and then I found that my mouse drawing on the free online Paint-like program I found was not up to the professional standard I strive for, and eventually it was just too late.

New Jersey vs. New York:

Ok, this is really unprofessional, but in recognition of the limits of the webcam, here are your scrambled words again: ONEFLY (-000--), JUBJEU (0-000-), BEENAT (-000-0), MENLIB (0000--). "I don't dig these cats. They got no jazz", "--- ---- ---(and now I don't know how to depict this here clearly, but imagine now a dash that indicates the word is completed on the next line)-----!"

Also, I would like to have whited out some misstrokes, but I'd have had to buy more Liquid Paper and the richer Michael Nesmith becomes the less chance of another Monkees reunion.

New England vs. Manhattan

Again, LORDIF (--0000), ICEROT (--000-), NAGLIZ (-000--). "------, -- --!" "No, I didn't. Anyway, it's just your word against mine. I mean...thanks!"

In all these, the scrambled word is unique from its given set of letters according to the anagram server at wordsmith.org. You can check it out yourself, but you may have to answer a survey first. Very brief, though, and nothing too personal, e.g. "do you live with a cat, dog, fish, turtle, other, neither?"

Dallas vs. San Francisco:

I was tempted to write "Frisco", in the hope of provoking something like "real San Franciscans don't say 'Frisco'", to which I'd have replied "I was merely abbreviating for the sake of abbreviation; there was no intent to indicate that I am any sort of San Franciscan, even a fake one". But judging from this (perhaps it's better just to trust me here if you don't have an up-to-date AdBlock installed), I may not have got such a response anyway.

DONYS (0-0-0), GOOGLI* (0-00-0), PETES (00-0-), BELJUM (00---0). "Uyanga Byambaa?" "Not me. ---- ---- -----, I guess."

Also, unless you are familiar with this Facebook page, and I have no reason in the world to expect you would be, this jumble will not make the slightest bit of sense.

* I'm sure there was a more artful scrambling than "googli". But I had just been reminiscing about old times, including the time I went to see "Zoolander", and I remembered the uneducated male model of the movie's title misrendering the word "eulogy" as "eugoogly", and it sort of got stuck in my head.

Las Vegas vs. St. Louis:

ISERVE (00--00), RINKED (0000--), AILRUN (0--000), NYCOOL (0-00-0). "This fine specimen will satisfy --- ---- -----, ----!" "I'll be the judge of that!".

To enhance your chances to solve this, please take a close look at the non-speaking human depicted and the quadruped on the right side.

That's all for this week, freaks! Who knows what the future holds but one can always bluff.

wait

Placeholder. Though I am once more seeding myself directly into the postseason, I don't/didn't have time to get the set of jumbles together what with the lineup announcements coming in the middle of my workweek, plus I am technically challenged plus I'm lazy. Prediction-wise, I pick NJ, Manhattan, Arizona, and SF. To win, not to advance, I'm not touching that because I've forgotten who has draw odds and I just want to post this now, not so that anyone sees it but so that it is on the record as posted at this time.