KinDzaDza - Lost Masterpiece

No one outside of the former Soviet Union has ever seen this. More's the pity. If you find a way to see the rest of it, let us all know.

Capitalism...its crazy! - Google Video

Tiger

Tiger mutters.

Tiger's not really his name because most cats in New York Chinatown don't have names. When we asked the wizened owner of the Mott Street pharmacy what the cat's name was he stared at us blankly for a moment then said, "Tiger." Tiger catches rats, so his name might as well be "Tiger" even if it's not.

"He catches lots of rats in the alley," the pharmacist says barely in English. Tiger is a lanky cat. His legs and body are too long and so is his nose. If you look down from above, his head seems almost as long as a puppy's, not flatish like most cats.

Tiger likes to sleep on an old, metal-frame restaurant chair that sits on the floor surrounded by lucky bamboo plants in front of the pharamacy counter, but he looks up when we walk in and meows a "hello" in proper 'cat.' After a stretch and a good chin scratch (chin held up agreeably for convenient scratch access), he will begin to mutter the day's business.

"Mwow. Mwow. Mewp. Mmmowp. Mmmowp." he says. "Those tourists walk in here looking for Lord knows what and nearly step on me. Mewp. Mmmowp. Mmmowp. Mowww. Who do they think they are anyway?"

We think that the Chinese don't feed their cats. They expect them to eat all the rodents they can catch. Mouse buffet or something. Tiger doesn't show the well-fed tummy of apartment cats.

"Mewp. Mmmowp. Mmmowp. And that little girl... . She bumped into me! Can you imagine? And giggling to her friends the whole time. Mooowwwwpppp!"

He's like an old vegetable stand attendant cursing to himself about those crazy "gwai lo" who don't really know what a water chestnut looks like before it's peeled.

Tiger rubs against my left leg and looks up expectantly.

"How's hunting? I ask him.

"Mewwwwwwwwwwwwwp. Moww. Mmmmmppp! I've eaten all the rats in the back already."

He has a long half-healed cut on his ear.

"The rat was bigger than him!" The pharmacist offers. "Real big! He's brave!"

Tiger washes his ear and rubs against my leg again.

"We've got to go," I say.

"MMmmmmowwwp. Grmmmowp. Mewwwwp."

One more well-placed chin scratch and Tiger jumps back onto his chair. He purrs in Chinese and mutters to himself about the tourists as he finds a proper spot on the worn plastic. In two blinks he is asleep. His tail hangs off one side of the chair, his too-long head and too-long neck dangle awkwardly off the other side of the chair as though the empty air was a pillow. He mutters in his sleep and dreams proudly about the vanquished rats.

Cool Clock Confluences

No mathematical activity is more fun than when numbers seem to line up in a mystical way. Watching a car's odometer turn over from 299,999.9 miles to 300,000 miles is a major numeric event.

So it was that on June 6, 2006 (ummm... that's 6/6/06 in case you weren't paying attention) I noticed several significant times of the day:

1:11
2:22
3:33
4:44
5:55
and last, but not least, the longest one: 11:11.

I wasn't around for both the AM and PM version of these, but that does double the list.

What does this all mean?

Not a thing that I can see, but it is sort of cool to watch these times appear on a digital clock and stare at them for 59 seconds until your eyes water and they pass into eternity.

Summer Dot: Sudoku System

Having watched dozens of friends and acquaintances scribbling gazillions of jumbled numbers all over their Sudoku puzzles, I've decided to reveal my hitherto "secret" Summer Dot Sudoku system.

I haven't figured out how to either make or post a diagram, so you'll have to use your imagination a little bit, but it's not hard.

What is this all about?

It's a simple, neat way to keep track of which number could/should go in each empty Sudoku square without writing numbers all over the place: It uses dots instead.

First, draw an empty 3 x 3 square with 9 empty boxes. It should look just like any of the 9 square units that make up a 9x9 Sudoku puzzles.

For reference, fill the squares with numbers from 1 to 9
Minus the lines, it will look something like this:

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

Now draw another empty 3 x 3 square. Imagine that the _ is really an enclosed box

_ _ _
_ _ _
_ _ _

Suppose you want to represent the number 5 with a DOT instead of the number 5. Where would you put it?
Did you answer "the middle square?" Yep!

_ _ _
_ * _
_ _ _

How about 8?

_ _ _
_ _ _
_ * _

So any number can be represented by a DOT (represented by *) in the appropriate square.

Instead of trying to write down all the actual numbers that can go into a square, just put a DOT in the appropriate spot within the empty square. This works best with large Sudoku puzzles with large squares or with a very fine point pen that lets you make little tiny dots.

It takes a little practice to become accustomed to reading the dots as numbers:

*_ _
_ _ _
_ _ _

= 1

_ * _
_ _ _
_ _ _

= 2

and so on.

Patterns of missing numbers emerge very quickly.

If a given square can hold 1, 5, 7, 8 it would look like:

* _ _
_ * _
* * _

with the four dots in the appropriate spaces.


2, 6, 8, 9 would look like:

_ * _
_ _ *
_ * *

As you fill in other squares and use up a "missing" number, simply erase the DOT (if you are using pencil) or draw a thin line through it if you are brave and do Sudoku with a pen.

Any questions?

Happy solving!