Zombies for Easter?!?

I see a lot of things when I go to work.  Some of the most interesting things, over the years, have been animal sightings.  Sure, there is the familiar scurrying of squirrels and chipmunks.  A few rabbits.  Of course, there are the domesticated animals--dogs and cats, chickens, goats, cows, horses, the occasional mule or pony.  The best ones are the more unusual ones.  Deer running across the road.  Turkeys by the dozen strutting in fields, with the occasional flyover.  Same goes for heron.  I mostly see the in the creeks and streams, but I have almost hit one as it was walking on the road.  It ultimately flew over my car.  That happens somewhat frequently, heron flying over or even beside my car.  The elk might be the best ones, though.  When I first noticed them starting to congregate in a field not even a third of the way to work, it was thrilling.  It was among the first thing I would take a picture of with my digital camera.  I've seen over two dozen at once there.  Young and old, antlered and without.  Yes, the animals are a magnificent sight.  Flowers and trees aren't as great, but the scenery does provide some variety over the seasons.  Then there are the decorations.  As each holiday rolls around, certain houses would light up and add to each one's particular spirit.  Sometimes a house would stop for awhile, only to start back.  Sometimes, it would be a one-time thing, never to pop up again.  Others are different.  Last summer, a house changed out the regular scarecrow in the garden for a zombie version.  You could tell it was supposed to be a zombie by its face, a grotesque horrifying visage.  Weird, but different.  Then, once October came around, they went all out.  There were zombie tableaus all over the yard.  Each one a scary and disturbing piece of art.  Sure, some were probably meant to be other scary things, but I'll call them zombies to keep things simple.  If one didn't pay close attention, you could think that some of them could be real, which was probably the point.  The zombies stayed up a few weeks after Halloween before they were all taken down.  Then, the next round began.  One morning, close to Thanksgiving or soon after, the house had a zombie Santa set up.  Same figure as before with the same face, just wearing a Santa costume.  Other zombies came to join him, mostly women in long red dresses, I think.  No zombie elves, or anything like that. If you didn't look at the faces, it would have been a lovely Christmas set piece.  The faces gave a strange vibe.  While Santa got taken down in early January, the rest of the zombies stayed out in their red dresses.  Zombie Valentine's Day, I guess.  The zombies even had wigs to add to the effect.  But wait, we have another holiday coming up.  In late February, one of the zombies was dressed up in a white dress with a green jacket.  Soon after, a green hat with a shamrock on it, as well as a long red wig, was added.  Similar get-ups were added to three more zombies.  Fairly appropriate to St. Patrick's Day, if one overlooked the faces.  Now, I'm starting to worry.  The zombies were still wearing green the last time I was out.  However, Easter is coming up.  I am scared of what I'll see the next time I can go out.  I know that adult sized bunny footy pajamas exist.  Bunny ear headpieces.  And so on.  For the life of me, I don't know what to think if that house puts up zombies for Easter.  The two things don't really go well together.  Sure, someone with the right blend of dark humor could  make it work, but it still seems the wrong way to go.  Stay tuned.

I Don't Think Shazam Can Help Out Here

I as mentioned last week, I probably won't be doing my alternative take on song titles this year.  However, I will still be doing a puzzle on them, but I will be using emojis instead.  Below should be a list a emojis, with each item representing a song title from last year.  The titles are taken from among the top songs of the year.  I tried to stick to the more well known ones, but that wasn't entirely possible.  The answers will appear below, after a large gap so there won't be spoilers.  For example, if there was an emoji of the US flag followed by a dessert pastry, your answer would be "American Pie."  Unfortunately, I am unable to list the artist as well.  I used a mix of Blogger and Mac emojis, so the graphics don't always match up.  Enjoy!

1. 🌞🌼
2. 💍💍💍💍💍💍💍
3. 💃 + 👨?
4. 👦→👧←👦
5. 🗣❌
6. 💵
7. 💵↓💀👻
8.  ○○○
9. 👶🦈
10. 🚶🏡






Answers
1. "Sunflower"
2.  "7 Rings"
3.  "Dancing with a Stranger"
4.  "Middle Child"
5. "Speechless"
6.  "Money"
7.  "Money in the Grave"
8.  "Circles"
9.  "Baby Shark"
10.  "Walk Me Home"

The Problems with Puzzlemaking

For the past few weeks, I had been hinting about the return or puzzles to this blog.  In fact, I was ready to have the first in my annual series of identifying title puzzles to start today.  Things didn't turn out that way.  I was going to start out with song titles, based on some of the top one hundred songs from last year.  Just the same as the last two years.  Well, when I started looking over the list of songs, I noticed a plethora of one- and two-word song titles.  Those are the type of titles that are very hard to come up with alternative words for.  How does one come up with alternatives for titles such as "Bad Guy," "Truth Hurts," and "7 Rings?"  "One Less Than a Octad of Finger Jewelry?"  It doesn't have the right sense of humor as what can be achieved with longer titles.  The one-word titles are even worse.  Just look at "Sucker," "Wow." and "Me!" and tell me how am I supposed to come up with anything funny with these titles.  "First Person Singular Objective Case!" really isn't funny.  In fact, it is kind of dull.  Sure, some titles can work, such as "Yo Behold Female Parental Unit, This Child of Yours Has Achieved a Level of Fame and Fortune," for Panic! at the Disco's "Hey, Look Ma, I Made It."  That is funny, but such titles are few and far between this year.  What's worse is that I don't even remember hearing many of the top one hundred songs.  At one point, decades ago, the top ten songs each week had a fairly regular turnover.  So much so, that any songs that reached the top ten wouldn't make the year-end chart.  Last year, less than sixty songs reached the top ten, and many of them didn't chart long enough to make the top hundred for the year.  In fact, there are songs that didn't reach the top twenty that made the year-end char, such as, I kid you not, "Baby Shark."  There are so many songs on the list that I don't recognize, and I doubt I even heard them once.  With the way songs are charted now, this is happening a lot more than it used too.  I am fairly certain I have yet to hear the current number one song, "The Box," anywhere on local radio, and it has been number one for about two months as of today.  I thought about doing one of the other topics first, but I hit into more stags.  I had been getting my lists for movies and television shows from Entertainment Weekly.  However, since it changed formats, it doesn't carry the same amount of information, at least not to the level I would need to come up with the twenty or so titles I would like for my puzzles.  Books will be just as difficult.  Starting late last year, my store no longer qualified to get are last book catalog directly.  I have had to download it and print out copies of the appropriate pages.  This makes it harder to look back over a year to come up with a list of book titles.  Fear not, for I will still come up with some sort of puzzle soon; I just have to find the subject that will work out for the best and a puzzle type that works with it.

Wordplay for Fun and Not Profit, Yet

A few weeks ago, I uploaded my latest video onto YouTube.  I had been doing a series of these videos ever since I got my computer.  I had a filming app, so I thought that I might as well use it.  For the most part, it has been an endeavor to get more attention for my store, Booknotes, as the videos are all of me creating new versions of the logo for the store.  Well, the most recent of these "Making the Logo" movies had the theme of "Ambigrams."  You can catch the video here.  For anyone who doesn't know, an ambigram is word that is written in such a way so that it can be read the same if turned upside-down.  Frequently, this entails using unique formations of the letters and the connections between them.  Many such constructions use barely legible formations to get the point across.  However, some are readily and easily readable.  For instance, take the word "pod."  In many typefaces, the word will look the same way upside-down.  Just look at the following examples:

        pod         pod       pod          pod

Note that the effect is better in some fonts than others.  Also, I am sorry if you cannot easily turn your screen to see the effect.  Well, I cross-post a link to my videos on my Facebook page, so I can get more people to see them.  I also post the videos directly onto my store's business page.  It makes sense since that is what I am trying to promote.  Anyway, I got an unexpected message from an ambigram fan a few days after I posted the vid on the page.  This is more than I have gotten from YouTube.  Sure, I had a follower (!), but that was months ago.  I don't even think I've had any comments either.  Here, I had a message encouraging me to create more of these ambigrams.  I have yet to respond, especially since this person just debuted their own page full of such wordplay.  I just posted a video to have fun and promote the store, not start a fanbase.  I don't think.  I first learned of ambigrams decades ago from an article in GAMES World of Puzzles magazine, back when it was just GAMES.  I never thought I would ever make one.  Well, I have made more than that, as I have tried to create one based on my name.  It does work.  Technically, it is a form of wordplay even if it is not a real puzzle.  Puzzle and game creation is somewhere between a hobby and a possible profession.  I use possible, since I don't think there is that much money that I could directly make from such a venture.  I don't even have ads set up on any of my sites yet.  I am not even sure how I could set such a thing up, even if I wanted to, which I might.  I could, maybe.  It is obvious there is some type of market for such things.