THE PUZZLE CORNER: NOVEMBER 30, 2013

Despite the fact that this week marked both Thanksgiving, as well as the start of Hanukkah and the 2013 Christmas shopping season, we are proud to present our regularly scheduled Puzzle Corner.

BEFORE AND AFTER
Two separate things have at least one word in common, so can be combined to form a new item.
Based upon the clue below, do you know what the new thing is?

A team up between Jan Eliot and Rick Stromoski might be interesting, but would not create an edible menu choice.

THE LETTER SHUFFLE
How many new words can you spell out of the letters in the word THANKSGIVING?

We'll reveal all next weekend. But for now, let's peek inside THE ANSWERS BOX and discover the results from the November 23, 2013 Puzzle Corner.

TRIVIA TIME: JOHN F. KENNEDY
November 22nd marked the 50th anniversary of the former President being taken from the world prematurely.
01. What was the most famous posting during Kennedy's World War 2 service? Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109.
02. Kennedy held what major public offices before running for the Presidency? He was both a Senator and a member of the House of Representatives in Congress, representing the state of Massachusetts.
03. Who did Kennedy run against for the Presidency in 1960? Richard Nixon, who was then the Vice-President for and hoping to succeed the outgoing Dwight David Eisenhower.
04. What was Jacqueline Kennedy's full name before marriage? Jacqueline Lee Bouvier
05. Fill-in the blank: Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States.

TRIVIA TIME: DOCTOR WHO
November 23rd marked the 50th anniversary of the BBC science fiction series.
01. Fill-in the blanks: The Doctor is a Time Lord, originally from the planet Gallifrey.
02. He travels through time and space in a TARDIS, which is an acronym for what?

Image (c) BBC

Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.
03. Why does the TARDIS always look like a blue police call box? Because the Chameleon Circuit broke after arriving on Earth and assuming the first disguise/shape it took.
04. Fill-in the blank: Many actors have been able to play the title role over the five decades (thus far) because the title character is able to regenerate.
05. The original broadcast of the very first episode (part 1 of An Unearthly Child) was delayed for over an hour for what reason? Extended news coverage of the John F. Kennedy assassination the day before. But part 1 was reran the following week in its regular time slot, and the rest is history.

BLACK FRIDAY 2013

THE FOLLOWING IS AN EDITORIAL.

As I post this, it is still about two hours from midnight (Eastern Time in the United States of America) Friday and what was the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season: the day after Thanksgiving, and the wee hours known as "Black Friday". 

The term is not politically incorrect but, depending upon which theory you believe, refers to either the retailers' hope that their profit margins go from the redness of debt to the blackness of profit; or the more modern theory that the name is derived from the fact that a lot of stores would open long before sunrise that day!

BUT NO MORE!

Thanksgiving is fast becoming just another business day for many retailers, provided they even bothered to close Wednesday night! There are now overnight ads and sales extended well beyond the original pre-dawn frenzy of years past.

Whether or not this strategy is actually successful, after you figure in such costs as employee salaries, security, advertising expenses, etc; remains to be seen.

Folks, I don't know about you, but I seriously think this concept is getting a bit out of hand!

Whatever happened to staying home on a holiday and enjoying the simpler things in life, like family and friends?

I personally have yet to shop any Black Friday event, regardless of when it actually started. Having worked in the retail industry for over twenty years until heart problems took me out of "the game", my sympathies go towards the employees who have to work those long, weird schedules instead of being with their loved ones.

So, while it still has some appropriateness, I'd like to close this missive with the poem I ran this time last year.

SOME DARE BRAVE THE GLOOM OF BLACKEST NIGHT
QUESTING FOR BARGAINS UPON THEIR TREK
HITTING EVERY SALE BEFORE DAYLIGHT

ME? I PLANNED WELL AHEAD
NO NERVES, CREDIT, OR CAR SUFFERED WRECK
JUST RESTFUL SLUMBER WITHIN MY OWN BED.

Sincerely,
Lee Houston, Junior
Editor-In-Chief: The Free Choice E-zine.

THE ABOVE WAS AN EDITORIAL.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING AND HAPPY HANUKKAH TOO! (2013)

DEAR FREE CHOICE E-ZINE READERS:

We are within an unique calendar arrangement this year.

On one hand, we are in the midst of Thanksgiving, that time of year when one should pause to count their blessings for all the good things they have in life.

Yet on the other hand, at sunset last night, Hanukkah began. The annual festival of light where what was supposed to be just enough oil for one lone night actually lasted eight!

Some are calling this event Thanksgivukkah. The last time this happened was in 1888! While there will be several more occurrences of the two holidays sharing a weekend, the next occurrence of the events sharing one 24 hour period will not be for over another 77,000 years, on Thursday November 28, in the year 79811!

So, regardless of which (or both) you observe, take care of yourselves and try to enjoy life to the fullest!

(signed) The staff and management of The Free Choice E-zine.

SUNDAY FUNNIES: UNDERSTANDING ENGLISH

Eye before Eve, except after Sea?

Hello everybody. Autumn the puppy here.
Now through my various studies and digs through the Internet, I have come to one staggering conclusion.
There are times when the English language is hard to comprehend!
Shocking, right?
But seriously, whoever assigns names to things doesn't always get it right.
Quicksand isn't fast. Boxing rings are square.
Guinea Pigs are neither swine or from Guinea.
Neither English Muffins nor French Fries originated where their names imply.

Yet English was invented by people, and not machines, and truly shows off Human creativity.
Some examples:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound. 
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

See what I mean? Spelling can be weird at times too.
I before E except after C.
Q is usually followed by U, but not always. (Guess that restraining order was finally issued.)
PH is pronounced as if you were saying the letter F.

But I guess it's just a question of how you look at everything.
Now, before we go, a special treat for everyone courtesy of YouTube. From their 1938 short "Violent is the Word for Curly", here are The Three Stooges Swinging The Alphabet.

And on that note, take care folks. Have a great Thanksgiving and please be back here next weekend for more Sunday Funnies!--AtP.

DOCTOR WHO (AT 50) AND ME

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the British Broadcasting Company's science fiction programme Doctor Who, but while the show may be produced in England, it is far from just an United Kingdom phenomenon.

It all began with the very first episode: part 1 of An Unearthly Child, which first aired over an hour late because of the extended news coverage of the John F. Kennedy assassination that occurred the day before.

A Dalek

Thankfully, someone at the BBC had the foresight to reair part 1 in its regular time slot the following week instead of continuing on with part 2, thus giving the series a chance.

But while the adventures of a friendly, yet mysterious man who traveled through time and space in what looked like a blue police call box was interesting unto itself, the show really took flight with the second adventure, The Daleks, which introduced an arch-enemy that would challenge the Doctor throughout the years to come.

Yet while the series was gaining momentum, it may have lost everything when ill health forced William Hartnell, the initial actor in the title role, to bow out.

However, the concept of regeneration (first called a rejuvenation process) was introduced to explain the exchange of a second actor (Patrick Troughton) for Hartnell.

The title cast, to date: Hartnell (far left) to Smith (far right)

As the series grew, much was added to the lore, including the fact that the Doctor is actually a Time Lord from the planet Gallfrey, who disagreed with his people's policies and decided to see the universe on his own.

Thanks to the regeneration process, to date, there have been 11 Doctors: Hartnell, Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker (no relation to the other Baker), Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, and Matt Smith, who will soon step down for actor Peter Capaldi to take over. The mystery of where the character John Hurt is portraying in the 50th anniversary episode The Day of the Doctor, may alter this count.

Yet I was blissfully unaware of the series' past history when I first encountered the Doctor on a weekday afternoon, when a local NBC station was airing the half hour segments featuring the fourth Doctor Tom Baker and Leela, his travelling companion of the time, portrayed by actress Louise Jameson.

But for whatever reason(s), the station soon moved the show to the weekends, showing complete adventures after Saturday Night Live and Monty Python. After finishing their first encore (reruns), the station dropped the series entirely.

That might have been the end of it, except the local PBS station not only picked up the series, but backtracked to show what was available of Hartnell and Troughton's adventures (there is still a world wide search for the missing episodes featuring these actors), before continuing on to Pertwee before starting the Tom Baker adventures from the very beginning.

Thanks to PBS, I continued watching the show to the end of the Sylvester McCoy episodes.

Meanwhile, because of internal politics at the BBC, the show was first cancelled during Colin Baker's tenure because a studio executive thought the money used to produce the series could be better spent making game shows!
But loyal fans rallied to bring Doctor Who back, abet in a smaller format (less episodes in shorter seasons) until the end of the McCoy era.

Yet that wasn't the end of the story either.

The series continued having loyal fans around the world and many factors, including the advent of the Internet to help people rally around the TARDIS better than they ever had before, eventually brought the Doctor back for a 1996 TV movie featuring Paul McGann, and returned (hopefully for good) the show to world wide broadcasts in 2005.
It has even had two spin-off series, The Sarah Jane Adventures (featuring one of the more popular traveling companions of years past) and Torchwood, an adventure series geared towards more mature audiences.

So here's to you Doctor, and while I will be surprised if I'm actually around for them (I'm 51 as I post this article), here's to your 75th, 100th, and future anniversaries.

Long may you continue to save the universe and entertain fans throughout the stars!

All images (c) BBC and acquired either through Google or Wikipedia.

THE WEEK IN REVIEW: NOVEMBER 17-23, 2013

The BBC science fiction programme  Doctor Who celebrates its 50th anniversary today.

For those interested, Thanksgiving is November 28 while Hanukkah begins at sundown the night before.

Amongst events that have happened around the world this past week...

*Cyclone Cleopatra struck the Italian island of Sardinia, causing heavy flooding and at least 18 deaths.
`*Recovery efforts from Typhoon Haiyan are under way, with over 2 million displaced people and uncertain counts in regards to the dead and wounded.
*A host site for the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons is being sought.
*Abdulla Yameen has been elected President of the Maldives.
*Mangus Carlsen defeated Viswanathan Anand to win the World Chess Championship.
*Author Doris Lessing (2007 Nobel Prize winner for Literature) has passed away.
*Former Nobel Prize winning biochemist Frederick Sanger has passed away.
*Civil unrest continues in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, and Afghanistan.

WITHIN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA...
*November 19 marked the 150th anniversary of former US President Abraham Lincoln's historic
Gettysburg Address.
*Banking giant J.P. Morgan-Chase has agreed to pay $13 billion US dollars in fines for seriously misrepresenting mortgage-backed securities.
*United States House of Representative member Trey Radel (a Republican from Florida) was arrested on cocaine charges, ironic considering he suggested drug screening for food stamp recipients. He has since plead guilty and faces 1 year supervised probation.
*NASA has launched the MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) probe to explore the red planet. Estimated arrival time is early 2015.
*Sony claims to have sold over 1 million Play Station 4's on the first day of its release.
*With a victor at the 2013 United States Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel has won his eighth consecutive Formula 1 race.
*Jimmie Johnson won the 2013 NASCAR Sprint Cup.

THE FREE CHOICE E-ZINE WOULD LIKE TO THANK ITS READERSHIP FOR GRANTING US THREE STRAIGHT MONTHS OF OVER 2000 PAGE VIEWS.

For more news at any time, either scroll down to our IN OTHER NEWS feature at the bottom of your screen or visit any other reputable news source.

THE PUZZLE CORNER: NOVEMBER 23, 2013

Today, the Puzzle Corner pauses to commemorate two 50th anniversaries, so let's get to it.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

TRIVIA TIME: JOHN F. KENNEDY
Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the former President being taken from the world prematurely.
01. What was the most famous posting during Kennedy's World War 2 service?
02. Kennedy held what major public offices before running for the Presidency?
03. Who did Kennedy run against for the Presidency in 1960?
04. What was Jacqueline Kennedy's full name before marriage?
05. Fill-in the blank: Kennedy was the ___ President of the United States.


TRIVIA TIME: DOCTOR WHO
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the BBC science fiction series.
01. Fill-in the blanks: The Doctor is a ____, originally from the planet _____.

Image (c) BBC

02. He travels through time and space in a TARDIS, which is an acronym for what?
03. Why does the TARDIS always look like a blue police call box?
04. Fill-in the blank: Many actors have been able to play the title role over the five decades (thus far) because the title character is able to ____.
05. The original broadcast of the very first episode (part 1 of An Unearthly Child) was delayed for over an hour for what reason?

We'll reveal all next weekend. But for now, let's peek inside THE ANSWERS BOX and reveal the results from the November 16, 2013 Puzzle Corner.

COMMON BONDS
The items in each subset below have something in common.
Do you know what it is?

01. {Moses, Samuel, and Jerome Horwitz} We know them better as Moe, Shemp, and "Curly" Howard, members of The Three Stooges.
02. {Al, Jimmy, and Harry Joachim}  They are more famously known as the Ritz Brothers.

TRIVIA TIME
By what famous surname do we know Julius, Arthur, Leonard, Milton, and Herbert? MARX, for the brothers are more commonly known as Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Gummo, and Zeppo.