Shana's blog
The Mensa Invitational
Something different... I'm still giggling.
The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
Here are this year's winners. Read them carefully. Each is an artificial word with only one letter altered to form a real word. Some are terrifically innovative:
An Explorer's Journal - The Cleft - The Tree
I’ve searched every inch of the Cleft, so the two remaining Journey cloths must be somewhere above me in the desert. After a moment or two spent blinking in the bright sun at the top of the ladder, I head off to my left to explore the area around the volcano. A barbed wire fence surrounds the rising mass, so I can’t go too far up the slope. Two birds… desert birds… wheel and cry overhead. As I near the outer fence, I see what looks like pieces of junk. Sheets of metal and an odd cone-shaped tank. Further ahead, curved white stakes jut up from the ground.
An Explorer's Journal - The Cleft - Power
I’ve explored the entire Cleft, but now I’m stumped. Nothing works down here. It’s as if someone forgot to pay their electric bill. Wait… electric… power. Maybe I need to find a way to get turn on the power. I didn’t see any generators, but that’s not surprising. I think this place was made long before there were electrical generators. What else would have been used? Water? No… no flowing water in the desert. What else is there? Wind! The windmill!
An Explorer's Journal - The Cleft - Into the Cleft
As I move away from the trailer, I get my first view of the Cleft. A windmill of some sort stands still and silent next to it. Certainly enough wind here to make one useful. Hot wind. My thoughts of windmills and wind fade I climb down the ladder into the cool shadows, happy to be getting out of the broiling sun.
An Explorer's Journal - The Cleft - The Journey Begins
It began as a dream. Desert, blue sky, a shape in the distance. A mass of earth and stone reaching towards the sky in the middle of a flat expanse of hardpan and scrub. A jagged tear in the Earth that whispers of ancient pride and loss. At first, the dreams were just pleasant images, then the feeling that it was a real place. A real place that I needed to find. Something was there. Something was... calling.
An Explorer's Journal - A project, a beginning
Back in October of last year sometime, I got the idea to start a writing project based on the puzzles and general atmosphere in Uru. Part Age walkthrough, part creative storytelling. I have continually been fascinated by the beauty and intricacy of the mental hurdles Uru puts us all through... rather willingly, I might add. In an effort to share my love for Uru, I offer this little diversion to those who care to share in it.
