:: Eric Shamblen’s Puzzle Blog ::

Not so much, according to a current non-scientific poll by About.com.  On Dave Fisher’s puzzle blog, he asks the simple question:  have you ever bought puzzles online?   As of this writing, only 31% of respondents said yes.  A whopping 68% said no.  Given that these results were obtained from a self-selected pool of people who are interested in puzzles or they wouldn’t be on the page to begin with, I find these highly depressing numbers.

But not shocking. As PuzzleMonster.com enters its fifth year of existence, I can count the number of puzzle-related items I’ve sold through the site on two hands. A few copies of the e-book of original logic puzzles Spot the Alien here, a copy or two of Puzzle Monster Presents: Chained Melodies there. Original Puzzle Monster t-shirts? Zero.

So what’s up, people? You clearly like puzzles; puzzle sites like AFunZone.com generate over 37,000 page views every day. You might even be willing to pay for them; dozens of puzzle-oriented magazines can be found at any supermarket or drugstore. But buy puzzles online? Na ga da, as Dany Carvey used to say.

Anyone have an explanation? I’d love to hear it!

 Looking for the perfect gift for an elderly relative, or someone with visual or hearing impairments? 

Maxi-Aids, a “supplier of products for independent living,” recently released their list of the top 10 gift ideas for Christmas.  Along with such practical gifts as talking atomic watches and bed-shaking alarm clocks, the list includes two items just for puzzle-lovers.  Large Print Crosswords #7 and Large Print Crosswords #8 are said to be “challenging for the mind, not the eyes,”  and their Sudoku Braille Game brings the pleasure of Sudoku to the visually impaired. 

 A quick search through Amazon finds a couple of other suitable puzzles: 

•  Audacious Audiopuzzles Book #1 by Donna Auguste contains 40 brainteasers and logic puzzles in audio format on 2 CDs. 
• American Sign Language Puzzle Book by Justin Segal has a variety of crossword puzzles, word searches and more that help you brush up on your sign language.

Do you know other great puzzle-related gifts for a special-needs individual? Leave a comment and share!

In the pre-missionary days, when their language was purely an oral tradition, the Hawaiians loved puns, jokes and riddles.   They took their riddles very seriously; they had competitions known as ho’opa’apa’a, in which riddling was a sport on par with wrestling or spear-throwing in determining the prowess of a chief.  Such contests had high stakes.   One famous riddling champion on Kauai was known as Halepa’iwi, or “House surrounded by bones” - the bones being ones of those who had lost to him in the ho’opa’apa’a.

Want to test yourself and see if your fibia would have become a fencepost for the riddling champion?  Try these resources:

He Mau Nane Hawaii: Hawaiian Riddles A slim paperback in both Hawaiian and English by Kimo Armitage, who has written several other children’s books as well as a Hawaiian language primer.

Treasury of Hawaiian Words in One Hundred and One Categories: Conundrums of Ancient Hawaii A searchable version presented by Google Books of the original text by Harold Winfield Kent, this section contains a list of riddles compiled by Dr. Charles M. Hyde in 1886. What is “my bird with two beaks”? How about “my bundles of red sugar cane in the ocean”?

Hawaiian Riddles: Na Nane “My fresh water spring hung up in the air.” This and several other riddles appear on this site.

Hawaiian Mythology: Section XXXII. Riddling Contests In 1940, Martha Beckwith wrote a comprehensive study of Hawaiian folklore, comparing its legends with those of other Pacific islands. In this chapter, reproduced online, she presents the legend of Kalapana, a boy who entered a ho’opa’apa’a to avenge the death of his father in a previous contest.