A. 蛮　B. 独　C. 蝟　D. 虹

E. 掻　F. 蛇　G. 強　H. 蝋

It happened.  I missed the deadline.  Oh, the shame, the shame of it all!

Okay, I’m over it.  And anyway, it looks like one or two of my regular readers may have missed the deadline too.  Oh well.  This way we can set it up as a straight one-on-one showdown, mano-a-mano, Theoman vs. Shirley: which of the two contestants that actually use their real names (sort of) will emerge triumphant?

Round A: Theoman sees a hedgehog with all those points, but he’s thinking too small-scale; A is actually bristling with spears.  Or possibly just some really uncomfortable goat wool.  Shirley’s got the right idea here: we’re looking at a BARBARIAN.  Advantage: her.

Round B: Both contestants were wide of the mark on this one, so we must raise the age-old question: Which is more like GERMANY, snakes or rainbows?  (I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure this question was on my final exam for 8th grade geography class.)  Maybe we’d better stick to this character’s other meaning, “alone.”  Last time I went to the zoo, a lot of the snakes were piled on top of each other to the point where it was difficult to tell how many there were, while we all know that the double rainbow is an occurrence so rare as to make us doubt our own sanity.  Theoman takes this round, and we’re all tied up.

Round C: Is a draw, because both contestants guessed strength.  Both contestants are thus equally . . . wrong.  Though our friend Sonic the HEDGEHOG thanks you for thinking he looks so buff.

Round D: And now we get the reverse of the “Snakes vs. Rainbows” battle (coming to you soon as an iPhone app from PopCap!)  Here, however, the decision requires no judgment call on my part.  The elegant simplicity here is the RAINBOW, though we feel obliged to point out to Shirley that this is not two characters but one character made up of two parts.  But we won’t deduct points for that.  Shirley’s on top again.

Round E: This one would seem to be a foregone conclusion, because Theoman stayed within the boundaries of the challenge and Shirley didn’t.  But does that mean he’s closer?  Not that I’ve encountered many myself, but I would think that when running into a barbarian you would get a lot more than just a SCRATCH.  On the other hand, if you fail to swat those flies, as Shirley suggested, that’s exactly what you’re going to end up doing.  Let it never be said that I don’t encourage thinking outside the box.

Round F: Germany and hedgehogs.  Which is more like a SNAKE?  For the sake of political correctness and animal solidarity, we’re going to have to go with the latter.  Shirley’s on a roll.

Round G: Another tie.  Don’t scratch that character too hard.  You don’t know your own STRENGTH.

Round H: Theoman attempts a comeback by correctly identifying WAX, but it’s too little, too late.  Shirley wins KYPC this week by a score of 4-2-2 (or, if you’re only counting legitimately correct answers, 2-1).  Congrats to the contestants: you’re all winners, though none of you can read much Japanese.  But you’re not bad at making things up on the fly.

Are you cold?  I’m cold.  Time to heat things up with the fire radical.  After all, it’s only two days from the winter solstice, the official end of AUTUMN.  And then only three days after that is Christmas–better hope you don’t get a lump of COAL in your stocking.  That would be a DISASTER!  Christmas would be RUINED!  But there’s no need to turn PALE: you could simply toss it in the fireplace and curl up in a nice cozy RUG.  After all, things could be much worse.  You could be out working the FIELDS, or undergoing MOXIBUSTION.  Or, even worse, you could be trying to figure out what the heck all these characters mean.

A. 秋　B. 炭　C. 災　D. 畑

E. 灸　F. 淡　G. 毯　H. 滅