Well, joining the NPL has really cut into my random puzzle solving. In addition to the monthly copy of the Enigma full of great puzzles, I spent this July 4th long weekend at the Convention, which was insanely great.

Back in May, however, CISRA was running. I spent part of the week in Las Vegas, solving at 2am after long days of gambling, gourmet dinners, and drinking. Those solves won’t get blogged because I wasn’t at my computer.  However, I got a few solves in before I left, and I’ll blog those now.

The puzzles are available here: http://puzzle.cisra.com.au/puzzles.php (until they get moved to the archive next year) and my solution log is after the cut.

Log:

0:00:00

Opening puzzle

0:00:24

ok, first one looks like it’s missing North and West

0:00:33

second one… I don’t know  [Seems obvious, a month later. How did I not guess Princess Bride?]

0:00:39

3: Drop and Santa?

0:00:53

the last one is Dead Things…

0:01:22

#2 is Diaries and… (googling) Frankenstein, as I thought

0:02:22

is there a movie with those two words? (I know there’s one with Northwest)

0:02:56

The Frankenstein Diaries is a book… let’s see if that continues

0:03:17

Santa Drop would be #3?

0:03:36

Doesn’t seem to be a book for that, maybe it’s not “Santa”

0:04:20

Aha, Fred”, so Drop Dead Fred (with “Dead” missing, I guess. a new pattern.) 

0:05:05

so, we’re missing “by North”, ???, “Dead”… maybe. On to #4 

0:05:23

Searching on Amazon instead of IMDB.. gets more popular movies first, seems to be working.

0:06:01

For, Only … leads to “Your Eyes” it seems. … so if it’s “Diaries of Frankenstein”, we could have BODY…

0:06:50

#5 is “To Kill” and “Bird”, so “A Mocking” is missing. so maybe BODYA

0:07:25

#6, neither half seems to be working, searching for ‘three nights’ or ‘on a pitch’

0:08:20

Could be Fever Pitch… and “Three Nights on the Town”, a Bruce Hornsby video? enh, skipping #6.

0:09:07

Bad Freedom… Cry Freedom… Boys Don’t Cry. Bad Boys… so, “DON’T”… BOYAxD

0:10:00

Solving the title… MAN FIRE? … “MAN ON FIRE”

0:10:18

There’s a Sucker Punch, and that goes with Love to make Punch DRUNK love, so BOYAxDD

0:11:05

Wait… with something Star… searching Star movies

0:11:52

Searching for wait movies… found “wait until dark”, is there a “dark star”?

0:12:11

Yes. so UNTIL… BOYAxDDU

0:12:22

Beautiful with … (had to google “of the south” movie, which is Song. Duh.

0:12:59

hmm, not getting anything.

0:14:39

IMDB failed too. moving on

0:14:46

Things and Dead for the last one?

0:15:14

oh, “To Do In Denver When You’re”.

0:15:28

So, we have BOYAxDDUxT is that BOY AND DUST, maybe…

0:17:02

Hmm, I’m missing one. oh, it’s BODY AND DUST…  [Always make sure you’re putting your answers into the right slots, Eric]

0:19:52

Nothing anywhere.

0:20:52

Maybe it’s not the same pattern again? I don’t know. Trying Dust in onelook.

0:22:05

Going back. We have BxDYAxDDUxT.

0:23:37

Oh duh, #2 is Bride OF Frankenstein.  [Took me long enough]

0:23:48

so BODYAxDDUxT

0:25:58

Ok, by searching for Song movies, I found “Life is Sweet” and Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, so S

0:26:22

BODYAxDDUST

0:26:26

The answer can’t be “BODY DUST” can it?

0:27:43

It’s not. Hmm.

0:28:15

This has to work the same why. Why can’t I get it?

0:30:54

Hmm, going back to the ?… Fever. I’d want Saturday to start with. Is there a “three nights on a saturday”?

0:31:33

There is. Yay.

0:31:37

so, BODY AND DUST

0:31:43

Still no idea what the last step is.

0:32:00

Wait, I need to find two movies, and then link them up, what am I doing?  [It took you long enough to realize to do that obvious thing… oh, but why are you ignoring the “and”?]

0:32:15

Body… Heat? … Red? Dust

0:32:50

Body could be Double, Snatchers, of Evidence (unlikely), Shots, Armour, etc…

0:34:04

Is it RED HEAT? enh. I’ll try it.

0:34:29

No. it isn’t.

0:35:03

Great, Google thinks I’m a bot. Back to amazon for searching.

0:36:03

There’s “HEAT AND DUST”, but that’s no good.

0:38:46

Stewed for two minutes, tried just HEAT, and it was correct.  [Really stumbled around the finish there. Ugh.]