September 8th, 2014

Today's Question – A man buys two cigars for a total of $1.10. One cigar costs one dollar more than the other. What is the price of each cigar?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - $1.05 and $0.05

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September 5th, 2014

Today's Question - Back in the old neighborhood, Bobby, Timmy and Tony would occasionally let girls hang out. One of the girls, Sallie, fancied herself a word wizard and would often annoy the boys with them. Her favorite was - "Do you know a 14 letter word that starts with "A" and ends with "Y" and is often associated with arrangements." Can you solve this so the boys can get back to handicapping?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - The 14 letter word that is often associated with arrangements is: "Alphabetically".

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September 4th, 2014

Today's Question - This never happened at the A&P. Lizzie decided to show the boys her domestic side (watch out Martha Stewart). She went to the Farmer's Market. A big plastic bag of Mozzarella balls caught her eye. To see if it was a bargain, Lizzie asked how much the bag weighed. The farmer said it weighed 32 lbs. divided by half its actual weight. Lizzie is not so good with numbers. Can you tell her how much the bag weighed?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - Even though Lizzie couldn't figure it out, we're sure you did. The weight of the unmarked mozzarella has to be a factor of the number 32. Given the other conditions we discover that the weight is 8 pounds.

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September 3rd, 2014

Today's Question - Al and Tom are amateur speechwriters. Together they can write a decent speech in 24 hours. If Al can only create two thirds as fast as Tom, how long would it take each to write a speech alone?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - Tom can knock off the speech in 40 hours while Al would take 60 hours.

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September 2nd, 2014

Today’s Question - Assume a trazazoa reproduces every day by splitting in two - so that on day one (D1) there is one and day two (D2) there are 2 and D3 = 4 and D4 = 8 etc. So....in 30 days, if you started with one, they would fill up a box. How many days quicker could you fill the box if you started with two trazazoa?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - If you started with two trazazoa, you would save one day (since you were in that situation on Day two).

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August 29th, 2014

Today's Question - Rustling along –Silky Sullivan heard Roy Rogers pose this problem - Some rustlers raided the Double D ranch one summer night. The first group drove off 1/3 of the herd plus 1/3 of a cow. The second group stole 1/4 of the remaining herd plus 1/4 of a cow. A third group rustled 1/5th of what was left plus 1/5th of a cow. When the rancher arrived, there were 409 cattle left. How large was the original herd??

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - The rustlers arrived to find a herd of 1025 cattle. This allowed them to rustle bloodlessly.

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August 27th, 2014

Today's Question - Those malcontent intellectuals are arguing about the number of packages they've been assigned to carry. Bob, the older, says "Timmy, if I took one of your packages I'd have twice as many as you. But if you took one of my packages we'd both be even.” How many does each have now?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - The only letter that we couldn\'t find a silent use for was - "V".

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August 26th, 2014

Today's Question - All the President's men - Do you know this piece of presidential trivia - of the three branches of government, U.S. Presidents have come from the House and the Senate. What U.S. President sat on the Supreme Court?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - William Howard Taft who was U.S. President from 1909-1913 served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1921-1930).

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August 20th, 2014

Today’s Question - Rhymin' Simon - If an "ardent employee" is a "fervent servant", what might be the rhyming parallels for: "a distressed choral group"; "an obstreperous cactus"; "a loud Congressional group"; "a cranky hack driver", and harking back to Halloween, "Dracula and Freddy Kreuger"? There will be No Comments Thursday and Friday As Wonder Woman on a Special Mission

Reveal Answer Corner Answer to cats and dogs - The thing that made this tricky is that in cartoons and before political correctness - felines were portrayed as females and canines as currish males. But....to make this question work....the little girl dog weighed a svelte 9 pounds while the fat Tom cat weighed 18.

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August 19th, 2014

Today’s Question - A man, a woman and a child got off a plane and were interviewed by customs. The man said he was three times as old as the child and twice as old as the woman. If their combined ages totaled 88, how old was each? Sacramento, Salem, Salt Lake City, Santa Fe, Early Warning There will be No Comments Thursday and Friday As Wonder Woman on a Special Mission

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - The age of the man would be 48 the woman was 24 and the "child" would be 16. The man\'s age had to be divisible by 2 and by 3. It also had to be above the average of total ages (88 \xef\x82\xb8 2 = 44).

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August 18th, 2014

Today’s Question - There are six state capitals that start with the letter "S". What are they?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - The six state capitals that start with the letter "S" are - Springfield and St. Paul.

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August 14th, 2014

Today's Question - Whose pants are these anyway? As you get ready to go to work you realize you have no money. You raid the coin jar and find $17.00. Bizarrely, there are the same number of dimes, quarters and halves (no pennies, no nickels). How much of each coin do you have??

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - He would need 27 letters (AABCDEEEFGHIJLMNOOPRRSTUUVY).

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August 13th, 2014

Today’s Question – Elwood had gone to his favorite organic fruit store and come back with exactly 100 items having spent exactly $100. There were only three kinds of fruit. There were hand melons at $5 per and cantaloupes at $2 per and grapes at a dime each. How many of each item in the 100 items that cost exactly $100? Algebra does not help. You need a large dollop of logic and them some trial and error. 5) __ W R W R 6) W __ R W R 7) W W R __ R 8) W W __ R R R R __ W W R __ R W W R W R __ W R W R W __ R W __ W R 0) 1) 2) 3) 4)

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - The large dollop of logic we suggested was that the grapes had to come in lots of 10 in order for the total to be in dollars and not odd cents. So the possible number of grapes could only be 10, 20, 30, etc. for a maximum of 10 possibilities. You then knew you need some combination of melons and cantaloupes to provide correct number of items and correct amount to complement the grapes. Obviously that rules out any grape total below 50 or over 80. So with a little tinkering we get 70 grapes, 19 cantaloupes and 11 melons.

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August 12th, 2014

Today’s Question – Bob was waiting for a friend to arrive. To kill time he puzzled over a game between checkers and tic, tac, toe. It had two red checkers and two white checkers on five squares. It looked like this: R R __ W W. You can slide a checker and/or jump a checker. Can you help Bob reverse the checkers in eight moves?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer \xe2\x80\x93 Here\xe2\x80\x99s one solution:

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August 11th, 2014

Today's Question - In the old caution, "mind your P's and Q's", what are P's and what are Q's? Also what is the assumed origin?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - The adage "mind your P\'s and Q\'s" are thought to have sprung from the wifely admonition to husbands sent on errands near taverns to - "Mind your Pints and Quarts!" (As in - I only ordered two pints, dear, but he must have served me quarts.)

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August 8th, 2014

Today's Question – (For those who say we give them "Child's Play) – Fill in the blank – 1, 5, 14, 30, 55, __, 140

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - 1, 5, 14, 30, 55, ____, 140 / Ans. 91 - Starting with "0" it is the previous number plus a progressive "square." Thus (0 + 12 = 1); (1 + 22 = 5); (5 + 32 = 14); etc.

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August 7th, 2014

Today's Question - How many time zones are there in North America?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - There are 8 time zones in North America: Newfoundland, Atlantic, Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Yukon, Alaskan.

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August 6th, 2014

Today’s Question - The annual mid-summer clambake is always a neighborhood event. The Smiths brought 4 apiece, the Jones family 6 apiece, the Devlins 8 apiece and the Heywards 12 apiece. Assuming each family had an equal number of members and the total number of clams is 5130, how many members of each family were there?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - Each family brought 171 members (whom, we assume, ended up quite hungry).

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August 5th, 2014

Today's Question - If a guy wears a clean blue shirt every day but can only get to the cleaners once a week to drop off his week's laundry and pick up last week's laundry, how many shirts must he own?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - The gent in question would need 15 shirts (7 to drop off, 7 to pick up - and one to wear to the cleaners). Several folks thought they could get by with 14 but they never got the third week.

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August 4th, 2014

Today's Question - If a crab and a half weigh a pound and a half, but the half crab weighs half as much again as the whole crab, what do half the whole crab and the whole of the half crab weigh?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - First let\'s repeat the question - If a crab and a half weighs a pound and a half, but the half crab weighs half as much again as the whole crab, what do half the whole crab and the whole of the half crab weigh? Okay - so - The "whole crab" must weigh 0.6 pounds, and the "half crab" 0.9 pounds, totaling 1 1/2 pounds. If the former were halved and the latter doubled, the weights would then be 0.3 and 1.8 pounds, totaling 2.1 pounds.

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July 31st, 2014

Today's Question - How many squares on a chessboard? How many holes on Chinese Checkerboard? Cashin’s Comments July 31, 2014 Page 3 of 3

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - "Next Register Please" - If Al paid $3.10 for 3 cans of soup and 4 cans of sauce - and paid 10 cents more to swap 1 sauce for 1 soup - a can of soup cost 50\xc2\xa2 and 1 sauce = 40\xc2\xa2 (and yes I do think supper sounds dreadful!!)

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July 30th, 2014

Today's Question - You have exactly $1.00 in a total of 50 coins. You accidentally drop all the coins on the ground and one rolls into the sewer. What are the odds that the one coin that rolled into the sewer was a quarter?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - There are two separate combinations of 50 coins that add up to $1.00 (Set A - 40 pennies; 8 nickels; 2 dimes or Set B - 45 pennies; 2 nickels; 2 dimes; 1 quarter.) Since we don\'t know for sure which set you carried and dropped the universe is 100 coins. (If you dropped "Set A", the chances were 0 in 50 and for "Set B", the chances are 1 in 50.) So....given the universe, chances are 1 in 100 it was a quarter.

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July 29th, 2014

Today's Question - Backwards/Forwards - Palindromes read the same way backwards & forwards "OTTO", "NOON", "RADAR". Can you figure these: A couple of Bart Simpsons (2 words, 4, 5) / Admission of a pastry pusher (three words, 8, 1, 8)

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - The palindromic riddles were: A) Star Brats - B) Desserts I stressed.

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July 28th, 2014

Today's Question - Number series - based on a logical progressive relationship; which number is next in this series: 10, 5, 3, 11, 15, ___? Is it 12; 1; 17; or 14?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - the next number would be 14. It was logical and progressive but not arithmetical. Ten, Five, Three, Eleven, Fifteen, Fourteen (each word is one letter longer than the prior).

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July 25th, 2014

Today's Question - A monk named Sandy - In teaching his class in Medieval thinking, Brother Eric begins class at 9:00 a.m. by setting a 5 hour hourglass on the window sill. Later when no one is looking, impish novice Sean turns the hourglass over. At 11:30 Abbot Art notices the hourglass looks off and returns it to its original posture. Finally, at 3:00 p.m. the sand runs out and amid student grumbles, the class ends. What time did novice Sean turn the glass?

Reveal Answer Corner Answer - The class ran an hour longer than it would have if novice Sean had left things alone (9 + 5 hours = 2:00). Therefore, half of that hour it was going the wrong way and the other half hour correcting. Since the Abbot returned it at 11:30, then Sean must have pulled his prank at 11:00 - one half hour earlier.

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