As the chopper soared away
A ringing CRACK was heard
The detonations had begun
And could not be deterred

Barret bellowed at the sky:
“GOD DAMN THE SHINRA! [expletive deleted]”
Tifa slapped him, shouted, “Help!
In this thing Cloud’s still stuck!”

Barret raised his arm and roared
The bullets blasted through
Cloud muttered, “Thanks for missing me”
Barret said, “Lucky you

“Doesn’t matter,” Barret sighed
He’d used up all his ire
“There’s no way to get out of here
Hey, wait . . . is that a wire?

“We can use this to escape!”
Cloud scoffed. “That little thing?”
“You got a better idea? Nope!
Just hold on tight and SWING!”

AVALANCHE clasped to the wire
They through the air did soar
The pillar snapped, the plate collapsed
Then Seven was no more

This week’s puzzle:

The President of the United States fires a nuclear missile at a target within his own country, but almost no one cares. Then later he gives away the secret to destroying the most powerful weapon on Earth and is lauded as a great hero.

Last week’s puzzle:

A young man who writes letters and dreams of traveling across the sea has his hopes dashed by a man who was trying to help him. A woman who read his last letter thinks there’s more to his story, so she decides to help the people who were directly responsible for making sure he couldn’t leave.

And the answer is . . . ▼

With Apartheid, blacks were kept remote
But it came to end, sure as boats float
They elected a fella
Named Nelson Mandela
The first time that they got to vote

Events: The Group Areas Act (formal institution of segregation) is passed; the first general election in which blacks could vote is held in South Africa
Years: 1950; 1994
Learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_general_election,_1994

And the long-awaited answer is . . . F!  Here are the numbers four through ten in the proper order:

四　五　六　七　八　九　十

We hereby award one (1) MWP (Meaningless Wordsman Point) apiece to A Fan, Shirley, and Gramma F, because this is a game where you get points not for getting the right answer but for justifying your guess.  Thanks to all who participated.

Before we move on from numbers, I’d just like to point out that kanji are always out to get you, even the simplest-looking ones.  The numbers that I am using here, and which anyone would learn in a first-year Japanese class, are in fact simplified forms, meaning that they have more complex versions that are used in formal documents.  One and two may be easy to recognize when they’re just one or two horizontal lines, but how about when they look like this?

壱（１）　弐（２）　参（３）

But now let’s proceed to another basic task: identifying the days of the week.  Just as in English, in Japanese the days of the week follow a simple pattern, varying the beginning but all ending in the same way.  Rather than ending in “-day,” however, they all end with this:

曜日

And let me tell you, as a freshman just starting to learn Japanese, that first character really made me wonder what I was getting myself into.  Fortunately, none of the characters that actually differentiate the days are anywhere near that complicated.  So here’s this week’s challenge: since today is Monday, tell me which of these characters is placed in front of the two shown above to mean “Monday.”  And remember: points for creativity.

A. 火　B. 金　C. 月　D. 水　E. 土　F. 日　G. 木

They got back on the chopper
As Barret woke from his trance
Raised his gun, said, “Hold it there!
I’ll make you bastards dance!”

Tseng reached back into the hold
“You’d not want to hit this”
He placed afront him a bound girl
Tifa looked, cried, “Aeris!”

“Why’d you take her?” Tifa asked
Barret could only glare
“She’s the last Ancient,” Tseng replied
“Beyond that, I don’t care”

Aeris struggled to break free
“Tifa! That girl . . . Charlene!
She’s safe! She’s with my—ugh,” she groaned
As Reno punched her spleen

“How nice to save one little girl”
Tseng said as back he hopped
“That’s all you’ll get today, I fear
This sequence can’t be stopped”

“There you have it,” Reno said
“You cannot beat Shinra
You can blow up all you want
But we’ll always win. Duh”

This week’s puzzle:

A young man who writes letters and dreams of traveling across the sea has his hopes dashed by a man who was trying to help him. A woman who read his last letter thinks there’s more to his story, so she decides to help the people who were directly responsible for making sure he couldn’t leave.

Last week’s puzzle:

Two former warriors, assisted by a drug addict and a woman on the run, work together to save a company from some terrible publicity, among other things. Communication difficulties abound, but they’re hardly the worst of their problems.

And the answer is . . . ▼

What are the oldest ballparks today?
We’ve two winners, both far and away
Will these grounds of the past
A full century last?
Field of Wrigley and Park of Fenway

Events: Fenway Park opens; Chicago Cubs play their first game at Wrigley Field (then Weeghman Park)
Years: 1912; 1916
Learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenway_Park
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrigley_Field
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_stadiums

Since Monday is the official day for experimentation around here, I thought I’d try something new.  This project is a little different than the other ones I’ve done so far, and without reader participation it’s not going to be any fun at all, so I may have to give it up after a few weeks.  Also, I will warn you right up front: it may be mildly educational.  So, with that in mind, let’s proceed.

A true wandering wordsman must wander not only among the words of his native tongue but those of other languages as well.  All languages are connected, and there are few better examples of this fact than the use of kanji characters in Japanese.  These pictographs were originally developed in China, but they found their way across the sea to Japan, and now all Japanese writing consists of either these symbols or other characters that were derived from them (except for things written with the Roman alphabet).

Now, you might think that, while Japanese is obviously linked to Chinese, this oriental language can’t possibly be all that connected to English.  But everyone who’s ever drunk a Kamikaze, and every tycoon who’s ever had a factory destroyed by a typhoon or tsunami, should know better.  And we know about kanji, too.  We see them in martial arts movies, and on countless tattoos.  But let’s see if we can’t learn a thing or two about what they mean.

We’ll start with something easy: counting to ten.

The kanji character for the number one is the simplest there is.  It’s a single horizontal line.  It looks like this:

一

For two, we add a second line, and get this:

二

And I’m guessing no one will be too shocked to discover that three turns out like this:

三

So now you’ve got the pattern.  Unfortunately, this is where they decide to pull the rug out from under your feet.  The number four isn’t four horizontal lines, and none of the other numbers up to ten follow any easily recognizable pattern.

Okay, here’s the audience participation section.  Which of the following characters do you think represents the number four?  Put your guesses in the comments section.  And remember, there’s no prize for getting it right, so don’t bother looking it up.

A. 九　B. 五　C. 十　D. 七　E. 八　F. 四　G. 六

The answer will be revealed next week.

Cloud charged forward, sword on high
To world of Reno rid
Suddenly, he found himself
In golden pyramid

Reno limped back toward the rail
Barret was frozen stiff
“If . . . you live . . . we’ll fight again
But that’s a real big ‘if’”

This week’s puzzle:

Two former warriors, assisted by a drug addict and a woman on the run, work together to save a company from some terrible publicity, among other things. Communication difficulties abound, but they’re hardly the worst of their problems.

Last week’s puzzle:

A not-entirely-unpredictable catastrophe changes two men’s lives, though perhaps not as much as they might have hoped. An uncoordinated man and a woman with a medical condition travel to a precarious place, where she imparts to him some life-changing information.

And the answer is . . . ▼