The Shakespeare Teacher has returned. We now return you to the blog, already in progress.

Thanks to DeLisa, Annalisa, Claudia, Ro, and Kimi for helping keep the ball in the air while I was away. Contest results will be posted in a few days. But first, we have some business.

This blog just reached 30,000 hits, and that means that it’s time to break out the cake and SiteMeter counter.

For the record, I was the 30,000th hit. I checked the blog last night when I got home from work at 6:22pm. I was checking to see how close we were to 30,000.

At this point in time, the blog’s Technorati ranking is 228,034 with an authority of 26.

Once again, many thanks to all who have visited, and continue to visit.

The Shakespeare Teacher is out. It’s your move.

Today’s challenge is based on the Googleplex feature.  Normally, I provide search terms that lead to this site.  Now, you will.

The challenge is to find a search term that returns this site as the first hit on Google.

You may use quotations marks to narrow the search.  For example, “Thursday Morning Riddle” returns this site in the top two spots and most of what follows.  But in a search for Thursday Morning Riddle (without the quotes) this site doesn’t even make the top ten.

The results can be surprising.  This site is first in a quoteless search for Shakespeare Teacher.  And I’m not even in the top twenty for Shakespeare Anagram, quotes or no!

Entries are due by March 10.  I will return and choose the most creative or surprising entry.

The Shakespeare Teacher is out. It’s your move.

Today’s challenge is based on the Shakespeare Lipogram experiment.

I will give you a speech. Choose two vowels (A, E, I, O, or U) and rewrite the speech without using those vowels. Try to come as close to the original meaning as possible.

From Romeo and Juliet:

’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O! be some other name:
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

Entries are due by March 10, and a winner will be chosen.

The Shakespeare Teacher is out. It’s your move.

Today’s challenge is based on the most recent Conundrum, which was a logic problem called Poker Game 2.

The answer is the Queen of Spades and the Six of Spades.

Your challenge is to select the five cards on the board to make that answer correct. Everything else about the problem will stay the same.

First person to post a correct entry (by March 10) is the winner.

UPDATE: I’ll leave this challenge active a little longer if anyone wants to try it.

The Shakespeare Teacher is out. It’s your move.

Today’s challenge is the Thursday Morning Riddle. The answer is:

KEY is correct. Way to go, Bill!

Now, you write the riddle.

Entries should follow the same format as earlier riddles: four lines of anapestic tetrameter with rhyme scheme AAAA (all four lines rhyme). Riddles are written in the first person (i.e., from the point of view of “Key”). Semicolons are used to mark a change in word meaning. The word “Key” should not be in the riddle.

Entries are due by March 10, and a winner will be chosen after that time.

UPDATE: Contest won by Annalisa. See comments for all entries.

The Shakespeare Teacher is out. It’s your move.

For the anagram challenge, I’ve chosen a passage from Henry IV, Part Two. The dying King Henry IV is giving advice to his son Hal, who will soon become King Henry V. He suggests that Hal take his nation to war in a foreign country to distract them from the illegitimacy of his rule.

From Henry IV, Part Two:

Therefore, my Harry,
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,
May waste the memory of the former days.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes…?

Entries should use all of the letters in the original quote without adding any. Punctuation may be changed freely, but you may not add numerals or use any punctuation that needs to be pronounced (such as & or @). The best anagrams have some thematic resonance with the original quote. See earlier anagrams for samples.  You may find this a useful tool along the way, and you can check your final anagram here before posting.

Entries are due by March 10, and a winner will be chosen after that time.

You may have noticed that posting has been light lately. Now, I’m going to need to step away from the blog for about a month. I would like to call upon my readers to help keep the ball in the air until I return.

I used to read a magazine called Games, which had a regular feature called “Your Move” that featured puzzles submitted by readers. Building on that idea, I now turn this blog over to you.

Every five days, I will post a challenge or prompt related to one of my regular features. (Actually, I’ve already written them and they are scheduled to appear every five days. Even this post was written days ago.) I’ll post a Shakespeare passage; you make the anagram. I’ll post the answer; you write the riddle. And so on.

I will return on March 11 and will select the best entry for each challenge. As always, winner gets a name check in the post.

I may stop in from time to time to make comments and/or delete spam, but the next live post will likely be on or after March 11.

Today being Monday, I’d like to begin with the Question of the Week. There’s no challenge here, but I’d like to invite you to peruse past questions and revive an interesting discussion that has petered out. You can also keep an eye on the comments, either in the right-hand side bar or the RSS feed, and join in a conversation revived by someone else.

It’s your move. Have a good month!

I’m perception with eyes, the result of a gaze;
I’m to meet for a date; or attendance at plays;
I am calling a bet with a possible raise;
And the main jurisdiction a bishop surveys.

Who am I?

UPDATE: Riddle solved by Sara. See comments for answer.

I’m a game played on horseback with mallet in hand;
An explorer who sailed to a far away land;
I’m a shirt for the golf course; or Ralph Lauren’s brand;
And a team water sport you can watch On Demand.

Who am I?

UPDATE: Riddle solved by Little Fish. See comments for answer.

I’m an average of terms, to a math statistician;
When you’re using a word to convey definition;
I am nasty and spiteful in my disposition;
But a term of respect for a skillful musician.

Who am I?

UPDATE: Riddle solved by Annalisa. See comments for answer.