:: Eric Shamblen’s Puzzle Blog ::

Tuesday, January 29 was National Puzzle Day. Did you know about it? Did your boss give you the day off, or at least clip out the daily crossword from the newspaper for you to solve on your coffee break? Didn’t think so.

The problem is, even though it is celebrated every January 29, it is not an “official” holiday, which would require an act of Congress. So please, write your Congressman or Senator, and let’s get them doing something useful for a change!

Want some ideas on how you can celebrate next year? Here’s how various places across the country marked this clearly sacred, but mostly unrecognized day:

• At the St. Cloud, Minnesota Public Library, children drew pictures and the staff turned them into jigsaw puzzles. 
• In the Inman Mills Activity Room at the Headquarters Library in Spartanburg, South Carolina, children and their families were invited for an evening of brainteasers, puzzles and games.
• At the Monon Center in Noblesville, Indiana, there was a special exhibit just for National Puzzle Day.
• At the Southwest Branch of the Brown County Library in Green Bay, Wisconsin, not only did some undisclosed event happen at 9:45 AM, but it happened again at 10:30 AM. They celebrated twice in a 45-minute period, people!

So next year, put on your puzzle t-shirt, and settle in with a couple of good collections of word searches and Sudokus. When your boss asks you the next day why you missed work, just say, “National Puzzle Day, man. National Puzzle Day.”

Attention readers in the New York area:  a new interactive exhibit at the Staten Island Children’s Museum opened this past weekend, and will be on display until May 4.  Entitled “Brain Teasers,” the exhibit includes 20 different riddles, puzzles and rope tricks, including a puzzle called “The Five Room House” that, according to the New York Daily News website, ”has never been solved.”

Puzzle aficionados will recognize that this is a bit of an understatement; the Five Room House is actually a classic example of an impossible puzzle — one that bears no solution. But don’t tell the kiddies!

For more on the Five Room House puzzle, why it is insolvable and how to cheat and solve it anyway, click here.

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!