Delving into the world of social puzzle-solving

Happy Friday, DMV! It’s March 6.

I’m all about outings lately — likely because losing my job and then getting sick meant zero social interactions.

With this next free meetup — 7 p.m. Tuesday — I sense that I’m about to delve into a bizarre new world.

It’s a social puzzle-solving event called Puzzled Pint, run by volunteers, and it’s held in bars or pubs every second Tuesday of the month. It began in 2010 in Portland, Oregon. Events are held now in cities across the United States and in more than a dozen other countries, according to their website. There’s one in the D.C./Arlington, and also nearby-ish in Columbia, Maryland, and Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia.

The tricky part is you have to solve a puzzle (not the jigsaw variety) to learn the venue. There are hints and a code sheet to help. I tried. I struggled … and admit I couldn’t figure it out. Even when I saw the answer, I didn’t see it. I’ll think on it to see if I can reverse-solve it.

All that said — give it a try! (And click through to the online page of this newsletter to tell me in the comments section if you do solve it.) They make it so that no matter what, you can get to the game.

Sam Freund, a reader from Brookland whom I met in the summer of 2024 at the Post Local launch party at Nationals Park, is one of the organizers of this event. He told me Puzzled Pint started in D.C. more than 10 years ago.

“We started at Thomas Foolery on Dupont Circle (it no longer exists), which looks like it opened around 2013 sometime. And (probably obviously) there was an extended pause where it was virtual-only during the pandemic,” Sam wrote in an email.

The event is for “the curious-minded, often requiring logic, wordplay, and some out-of-the-box thinking,” he said, and it’s meant for beginners to the puzzling world, though it's fun for people with more experience as well. “… I often pitch it as an alternative to trivia which requires more thought and not just facts, as unlike trivia you can always make progress and you always get the ‘right answer’ in the end if you're persistent.”

His tip for first-timers: Ask for hints.

“If you show up and you like it, there's so much more to do — if this becomes your new hobby, there is a nearly-infinite amount of interesting puzzles to tackle in all sorts of subgenres, from escape rooms to day-long events (https://playdash.org/, last held a few months ago here), to "The Game" (last held in the DC region in 2013).”

I’m going to the one this coming Tuesday in Arlington. As I write this, I need a team. Sam says I can join another group, but could we together form a Daily Dose team (or teams)?

A few of you sent in photos of the dramatic fog yesterday morning.

Ted Haley, 57, of Arlington, Virginia, sent in this photo he took yesterday morning on the grounds of Washington National Cathedral as he arrived to work at St. Albans School.

“I was walking out of the Cathedral garage around 7:15am … and captured this foggy moment. We have a beautiful place to work and often it is spectacular at sunrise or sunset, but this scene was a little spooky,” he wrote.

Bethesda resident Ellen Schwab, 75, snapped this pic from her window and sent it with a brief note: “A neighbor's light is barely visible in the distance.”

Share your recent photos of life in the DMV here.

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