******* The Car Talk Puzzler Psychic Friends Network******* >From The Desk Of
Maury Maille Puzzler Tower Car Talk Plaza Hahvahd Squayah Our Fair City This Week's Puzzler: SUV or Hybrid? A Familial, MPG Conundrum Ray: This puzzler came to us from Rabbi Jeff Glickman. Here it is: You drive a gas-guzzling SUV that gets a whopping 10 miles per gallon. Your sleek and efficient spouse drives a sleek and efficient hybrid that gets 100 miles per gallon. Now, let's assume that both of you drive the same distance each year. Your spouse sees an ad for a new, super-duper hybrid that gets 200 miles per gallon. She is lobbying to trade in her old, wasteful 100-mile per gallon hybrid for the new 200-mpg model; her thinking being that getting this new hybrid to replace the old one will really improve the average miles per gallon of your household. On the horns of a dilemma, you seek out the one person you trust with questions automotive: your mechanic, Crusty! "What can I do," you ask, "to improve our household's miles per gallon without buying this new hybrid?" Crusty says, "Well, if we tune up your old SUV, and inflate the tires correctly, and remove that four inches of accumulated bird poop on the roof, I'm pretty sure we can get you all the way up to 11 miles per gallon." Your heart sinks. What should you do? That's the question. Under which scenario would your household see the biggest improvement in miles per gallon: by getting the new hybrid, or by tuning up the old SUV? Think you know the answer? Drop us a note via http://www.cartalk.com/email/email.html If you're right and we select your answer, we'll ship you a $26 Shameless Commerce gift certificate. Want to listen to Raymond obfuscate the puzzler in person? Listen anytime, at http://www.cartalk.com/content/puzzler/ ************ Remember last week's puzzler? Whole Lotta Handshakin' Going OnŠ RAY: John and Mary are married. They agree to go out to dinner with four other married couples. So, there are five couples, or ten people altogether. They arrive at the restaurant and because there are some people who don't know other people, there are some handshakes that take place, and introductions. Anyone who doesn't know somebody will shake hands with that person. People will not shake hands with anyone they already know and, of course, you don't shake hands with your own spouse. TOM: Unless you're meeting her for the first time. RAY: Right. At the end of the dinner, John asks all the people there, including his own wife, how many hands each of them shook. He gets the following answers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. There are nine other people there, and they give him nine different answers. Here's the question: How many hands did John's wife Mary shake? Now it may seem that you don't have anywhere near enough information to solve this problem. But you do. Here's the answer-a special, illustrated answer this week! http://www.cartalk.com/content/puzzler/handshake/ So, did you figure it out? Yours in weekly puzzler torment, Maury Maille Puzzler Dissemination Specialist Car Talk Plaza ******************* USEFUL INFORMATION ALERT: Tired of paying auto club dues to an outfit that lobbies against environmental causes? Check out Better World Club-and in the process get a Car Talk booklet for free! Better World is an auto club with genuinely decent values (unlike some others we could name... whose initials happen to be AAA). Better World Club cares about... *Your environmental interests -- it gives 1% of its revenue to environmental clean up and advocacy. *Your consumer interests -- it even offers discounts on hybrid rental cars. *And it has the nation's only bicycle roadside assistance program. Dump your AAA membership and join Better World! If you join via the Car Talk web site now, you'll get a copy of our booklet, 10 Ways You May Be Ruining Your Car without Even Knowing It. Check out Better World Club now at http://www.cartalk.com *********************************** Got more time to kill? This past weekend's new, lousy Car Talk show is now on the web site, at http://www.cartalk.com/Radio/Show/ ******************** Help Ray lose the night sweats he's been getting, trying to come up with a decent puzzler each week. E-mail him your suggestion any time, via http://www.cartalk.com/email/email.html ******************** Puzzled out? You can unsubscribe to the Car Talk Puzzler Psychic Friends Network anytime at http://www.cartalk.com/ct/maillist.jsp?puzzler_list=subscribe#psychic We'll forgive you.
