Amateur Sleuth Blog Puzzle #228

If you don't already know, I am a huge fan of the Nancy Drew games series (and the book series). Well, HerInteractive, the company that makes said games, has a blog called the Amateur Sleuth blog which you can find here and every Friday a puzzle is posted for us to solve. I am planning on trying to solve these puzzles to the best of my abilities every Friday (or almost every Friday) and post my results here.

Let's get started!

So, this week's puzzle involves this image:

I realized that these were the symbols for the horoscope signs, so with some careful google research I was able to determine what those were. However, I also realized that there are some planetary symbols as well so I found the names for those too.

I ended up with the left column being Aries, Leo, Pisces, Virgo, Jupiter, Moon and the right column would be Taurus, Cancer, Venus, Earth, Capricorn and Mars. Now, I just had to figure out what the numbers meant. I decided to see if they were the numbers of the letter we were supposed to use (i.e., Aries 4 is E). With this strategy, I ended up with eleven sevens. But, then I was at a loss as to what this meant.

After some perusing of the HerInteractive message boards, I discovered that other people had gotten the same answer as me (Yay!). Also, they were guessing that it might mean eleven weeks. If this is the case, then perhaps this is a hint at the release date of The Shattered Medallion, the next game that is supposed to come out.

Anyway, do you guys have any theories as to what this means?

--B

Fun Facts with Bryce

I have a tendency to spew out useless facts to my friends and family in my daily life. So, I've decided that I would create a sort of series of these fun facts with Bryce segments on my blog.

Fact #1: When an acronym is not pronounceable (e.g., SMH, DFTBA, FBI), it is actually called an initialism.

Fact #2: 100 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute.

Fact #3: There is a man from Portland who sells shares of himself and lets shareholders vote on major decisions in his life.

That's all I have to say for today, but I am planning to do some more of these. There's something to look forward to.

--B

Second is the First to Lose

If you are as big of a fan of Dance Moms as I am, then you probably recognized the title of this post as something that Abby Lee says to her dancers all the time. In a way, this is kind of true.

It should be that the closer you were to first place, the more praise you would receive. However, we view second place as something to look down upon. We view the second placers (is that a term?) as people who weren't good enough to be first. Even though this is technically true, the other places don't get as much flack for losing. Instead, we say that they tried their best and just couldn't cut it. Why is that?

A person who receives second place should be complimented because they were really close to winning. A nice pat on the back for them would be nice every once in a while. With the attitude that we have towards losers, it discourages people from even trying because they are so afraid of failing.

So, in conclusion, be nice to people who receive second place. They are often the middle child of the competitors, pushed to the side and forgotten.

You're probably asking why I all of a sudden decided to rant about second place. It's not like I play sports so what possible way could I benefit from this. Well, I could lie and say that it was entirely for the benefit of the people who are directly affected by this problem and I was influenced whilst watching the Olympics (which I haven't been doing). In actuality, I was one good roll away from winning Settlers of Catan and I am very upset that I lost.

So, this entire blog post was driven by the fact that I am a sore loser...

--B

P.S. If you don't like Dance Moms, you are wrong.

Cue the Angry Mob with Torches and Pitchforks

I know. I suck.

I haven't posted for months and months and months. I was just so busy sorting through all of my Valentines that I didn't have time to blog...

Okay...maybe that's not what happened. I actually have been drowning in schoolwork because I have four AP classes this year along with other classes and things that I'm doing outside of school because, contrary to popular belief, I really do have a life.

So, I don't really have anything to actually talk about today, but I thought I would type out a formal apology and let you know that I am not dead.

I will talk to you soon (hopefully).

--B

If We Were a Movie...

Life is really weird. This is where it's about to get deep and philosophical. Just excuse me for a moment as I form my analogy.

Every person's life is like a movie. While the coffee barista at Starbucks may be an insignificant character in your movie, she's the star in her own movie, which we will most likely never get to see. What's crazy to me is that we see all of these people every day and we have no idea who they are or what their story is. In fact, most of the time we're too caught up in our own lives to care about anybody else's. The people who we do have in our lives are special. When we talk with them about their lives it's like we're watching Netflix so we can get up to date on everything that's happened so far and then, we get involved with their story and the characters in it. We get emotionally attached.

I apologize if this post makes it seem like I was doing some sort of hallucinatory drug. It's just an observation I made.

I guess the point, or moral, of the story is that we should appreciate the people we have in our lives. Everyone has a unique point of view and an interesting story to tell. But will you take the time to see it unfold?

--B

Teenage Dream? It's more like a nightmare, Katy.

Since puberty seems to be occurring earlier and earlier, kids seem to get into relationships much sooner than they should. Luckily, this has given me plenty of time to form some opinions on teenage relationships, most of which are probably controversial. This is mainly because I look at things logically.

Anyway, teenagers are extremely hormonal and immature. This leads to a lot of problems.

One problem is the fact that no one seems to be able to make up their mind. I know one girl who likes three or four guys right now and each one thinks that he is the only one. All I want to do is say, "Pick one already!" Unfortunately, I'm too nice to do that. Instead, I will just complain about my problems on the internet.

Another problem is the fact that every person I know becomes a total douchebag when they get into a relationship. I get that you aren't going to be spending as much time with me, but do you have to be so flaky? Some people just blatantly ignore me when they're in a relationship, others cancel plans last minute because they decided they would do something with their significant (for a week) other instead. Personally, I prefer the former. At least I can make plans with other people then.

What bugs you about teen relationships?

--B

October Daze

It's finally October! (I know I probably should have made this post yesterday, but I'm not very good at thinking ahead.) While there are many things I hate about October, *ahem* Halloween *ahem*, there are also many things that I like. Autumn is a beautiful season and is one of my favorites.

What's so great about fall? Throwing on a cozy sweatshirt and taking a walk. Hearing the crunch of the leaves underneath my feet. Then, looking above to find a forest of red, yellow and orange. It's absolutely spectacular. Not to mention, the next season after fall is winter, which happens to be my favorite!

What do you like about fall?

:)

-- B