Electrify chess pieces so that voltage steadily increases until somebody makes a move.
If you take more than 60 seconds to take your turn in Scrabble, your opponent gets to whack your knuckles with his tile rack.
In a 4G world, who has the patience for 1G sports? When the two-minute warning means that the game should be over in a half-hour or so, you might as well compensate with some other pastimes that we could speed up to fit our ever more frantically ticking clocks. Loser Mike Gips suggests: Suggest ways to make sports and other leisure activities more time-efficient or exciting, as in Mike’s examples above.
The Style Invitational
The Style Invitational is The Post’s weekly humor/wordplay contest, serving up since 1993 an irreverent mix of highbrow and lowbrow -- haughty and potty -- in genres ranging from neologisms to cartoon captions to elaborate song parodies. A new contest appears at washingtonpost.com/styleinvitational every Friday.
Archive
Winner gets the Inkin’ Memorial, the bobblehead that is the official Style Invitational trophy. Second place receives — speaking of novel pastimes — a pair of actual three-sided dice, intended for those who lack the dexterity to play Rock-Paper-Scissors in the usual manner. “Loser logic at its finest,” notes donor Jeff Contompasis, since this method requires a suitable dice-rolling surface. Jeff also includes a bonus prize of official USDA instructions on “Obliterating Animal Carcasses With Explosives” (e.g., “Horseshoes should be removed to minimize dangerous flying debris”).
Other runners-up win their choice of a yearned-for Loser Mug or the ardently desired Grossery Bag. Honorable mentions get a lusted-after Loser magnet. First Offenders receive a smelly, tree-shaped air “freshener” (FirStink for their first ink). E-mail entries to
losers@washpost.com
or fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, Sept. 24; results published Oct. 14 (online Oct. 12). No more than 25 entries per entrant per week. Include “Week 988” in your e-mail subject line or it might be ignored as spam. Include your real name, postal address and phone number with your entry. See contest rules and guidelines at wapo.st/inviterules. The subhead for this week’s honorable mentions is by Beverley Sharp; the alternative headline in the “Next week’s results” line is by Jeff Contompasis. Join the lively Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook at
on.fb.me/invdev.
Report from Week 984
in which we asked you to write something in which each successive word started with the next letter of the alphabet — in either direction. And you could even turn around and switch directions, or head from Z on to A or vice versa (“A,” “and” and “the” could be added anywhere). This contest prompted a number of entrants to force the Empress to slog through 26-word and longer sentences (Judge to E: “For giving ink to that atrocious pun, you will hereby serve a 26-word sentence, and surrender your tiara immediately”) that all seemed to be about xanthippic yaks or yapping zebras. She will spare you further, and instead show how it’s done right:
The winner of the Inkin’ Memorial
Z on to A, to Y: Zeroes, athletes, braniacs, cheerleaders, dorks . . . Everybody faking grins . . . (Hey, it’s just kissing!) . . . “Look, Ma, no —” . . . Oops! photos. . . Quotes (really shallow, though) . . . Upperclassmen . . .Varsity winners . . . XOXOXO. Yearbook. (Christopher Lamora, Guatemala City)
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