I've handled a MAHJONGTILE or two in my time. I played the game quite often for a short time one summer back in the day with my friend Julie but I haven't played again since, sadly. I really enjoyed the smooth tiles and their interesting designs. I looked up the ones in the puzzle and noticed that, according to the Wikipedia, two of the tiles belong to the Honors category (NORTHWIND and REDDRAGON) and one falls into the Bonus category of Flowers (PLUMBLOSSOM). I'm drawn back in and think I'll give the game another go.
And speaking of back in the day, I loved seeing HIDEY-hole in the puzzle, not to mention GEE whiz. PANTRY has a nice old timey ring to it as well. And OUTTASIGHT, according to Wiktionary, is a dated and colloquial expression for for 'superb, excellent.' If you are interested in things from AGES AGO, there's also AMULET, ETTU, and Lindsay LOHAN.
Another interesting feature of this puzzle is its double nature. In it we find two one-named singers (CHER and ENYA), two hairstyle options (TWISTS and WEAVE), and two neighboring "Close"s (or is that too close?) NIGH and NEAR, not to mention "Take this!" (HERE) and "Take that!" (BOOYAH).
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| "Clustering Chinese Plum Blossoms" by Ming painter Chen Lu |
This puzzle seemed a little harder than usual for a Monday and took me longer than my self-imposed time limit of six minutes. I like to picture my esteemed co-bloggers patting me on the back consolingly and saying GOODFORYOU. :) Maybe tomorrow, I'll be ONATEAR.
~Frannie.
6:57
ReplyDeleteYou're correct as far as I'm concerned, Frannie; this was tougher than a usual Monday. I'm not too sure which AREAS gave me the most CRAP (!). Sadly, I remember when OUTTASIGHT was said in regular conversation. I've never played Mah Jong using a physical MAHJONGTILE, having first played the game using Shareware that I had (maybe "have") on a 5-1/4" floppy, and now using the Microsoft version. I'd love to try a physical game some time. I saw George's mother playing it with some of her friends on the "Seinfeld" in one episode. Anyway, looking at the puzzle more closely now, I see AMULET, FROTHS, the director Dee REES (of two movies I've never seen), BEEFS and perhaps TRAITS all being a little un-Monday-ish. It wasn't an UDDER slog, though.