Thursday, September 20, 2007

Four letters: Online diary

Sometimes I think childhood is just an accumulation of obsessions. Archer's latest is Merv Griffin's Crosswords, a new game show in a sort of combined Lingo/Scrabble mode. Contestants are given a crossword element with one or no letters filled in, and a clue. They have to provide and spell the word. (Our online acquaintance Tom the Dog got to be a contestant, and writes about it here.)

On our walk tonight, Archer took along his magnadoodle so he could play puzzlemaster for us. He drew the blocks for the number of letters and kept the score in the corner. What amused us were the clues he provided. Here are a few:

8 letters, "Birth for kids" (birthday)
3 letters, "Tall boy" (man)
4 letters, "long street" (road)
3 letters, "Seven plus" (age, referring to the recommended ages on games and toys)

I like watching his mind work as he tries to assemble crossword-style clues for whatever word he's thought up. He also made the "doot-DOOO!" ascending notes of triumph when we got it right, and the "doot-dooooooo" descending notes of failure when we got it wrong. And naturally, he told us how much the questions were worth ($100, $200, etc.) and kept a running total. Just like on TV, we lost the amount when we missed a question. At one point on the walk Noel was up above $1000, but we ended back below $500. We did, however, win the Crosswords Getaway, and we're going to Jamaica!

3 comments:

katie j. said...

Oh, I think I could be addicted to that show too. I'll try not to find out what channel it's on, as my other TV obsessions take up plenty of time.

Congratulations on the trip! I've heard Jamaica is lovely this time of year...

the secret knitter said...

Hmm, this looks like it could be a good game show. I loved watching them on morning network TV during the summers and snow days.

Adam Villani said...

Awesome. I just watched a little of the show, and it's refreshing for there to be another traditional game show on TV, instead of the hem-and-haw for five minutes to answer a simple question type of game show.