Cryptoquote Solved – 12/20/22

“You can tell a lot about a person by the way (s)he handles three things:  a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.”   —   Maya Angelou

(Rainy says never bothered me.  I did my share of untangling Christmas tree lights growing up.  Not sure if I have the patience for that anymore.  But lost luggage could really irk me, depending on the contents.  And depending on whether it was the trip’s onset, or the return trip.  If there was something valuable in the luggage, or even just souvenirs, I’d be pretty pissed.  But if it’s just dirty laundry I could probably handle that much better.  I’d hate to lose a favorite shirt though!  These Crypto people need to do a better job of disguising Maya Angelou’s name.  It became my code, and made the solve very easy.  Be well and do good, friends.)   —   YUR

Image courtesy of Google

Jumble Solved – 12/20/22

Visual Description:  Mouthy motorbikes.

HONMT  =  MONTH,  NISYH  =  SHINY,  NCAASV  =  CANVAS,  WNYYAA  =  ANYWAY   —   Giving us:  MHHYAAAA

Clue/Question:  The motorcycle that could tell jokes was a – – –

Answer:  YAMAHAHA

(This one had to have been submitted by a ten year old . . . because I think it is funny as heck!  But I’m a little surprised that David didn’t place a dash/hyphen between the HAs.  Growing up, I can only remember the American Harley-Davidsons, the British Triumphs, and then the Japanese Hondas, Kawasakis, Suzukis and Yamahas.  I never heard of a Ducati until I was an adult.  And I didn’t even know about the Indian – an American company – motorcycle until the 2005 movie:  “The World’s Fastest Indian”, starring Anthony Hopkins.  A very entertaining movie.  I guess you can tell I’m not a motor-head.  Indian is actually the older U.S. motorcycle company, and were bigger in the beginning, but lost market-share to Harley when Indian supplied the U.S. Army with all its bikes during World War I.  The dealers back home had to switch to Harley – and other companies at the time – because there were no Indian motorcycles available.  They never regained their former market-share, but they are still known for their quality bikes.

All of today’s clue words are on the ralis95 clue word database.  Three of the jumbles did come up as new, for me.  However, we have definitely seen “wnyyaa” in earlier Jumbles.  No stumpers today, for me.  The answer letter layout was a well-engineered eight letter jumble.  But I did not hesitate with the final answer.

Cute cartoon of the talking motorcycles.  Jeff always does a fine job with the anthropomorphic animals, plants and other objects.  I know very little about motorcycles, but the one in the middle looks like a “chopper”.  They’re all the same to me, but Bruce Willis’ Butch makes a big deal of correcting his girlfriend, Fabienne, In “Pulp Fiction”, one of my all-time favorite movies.  There are a bunch of great memorable lines from that movie, but my favorite exchange is when Fabienne asks:  “Who’s Zed?” And Butch replies:  “Zed’s dead, baby.  Zed’s dead.”  Classic!  Be well and do good, friends.)   —   YUR

Images courtesy of Google