| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1248 | C'mon, fess up! | Send us a brief "confession" -- there will be categories for true and just-kidding. | H |
| 1141 | Mess with our heads | Reinterpret (or comment wryly on) a headline appearing in the Post (print or online) Sept. 17-28 by writing a bankhead, or subtitle. | H |
| 891 | Mirror, Mirror | Write a word-palindrome sentence, in which the first and last words are the same; the second and next-to-last, etc. | H |
| 878 | Safety in blunders | Tell us a way to make the nation more secure. | H |
| 672 | Just Sign This | Write a funny message for an overhead highway sign. | H 2 |
| 642 | It's Open Season | Come up with a brand-new word and its definition. The words must begin with O, P, Q, R or S. | L |
| 623 | Try to Remember | Give us an original mnemonic for any list that someone might want to remember. | P |
| 592 | We Got Gamy | Offer us a concise idea for a Super Bowl commercial, or some innovative halftime entertainment, or some inappropriate sponsors, or some ideas for improving the game itself. | P |
| 578 | Ask Backwards | You are on "Jeopardy!" Above are the answers. Send us the questions. | H |
| 574 | Boor Us Silly | Come up with some unwise attempts at humor--one either likely to backfire or to create other unpleasant consequences. | H |
| 572 | The Limerixicon | Supply a limerick based on any word in the dictionary (except proper nouns) beginning with ai- through ar-. | H |
| 561 | Deform of a Question | Take any sentence appearing in The Washington Post or washingtonpost.com today through June 14, and make up a question to which the sentence could be an answer. | H |
| 552 | What Kind of Foal Am I? | Breed any two of the horses on a list of those qualifying for this year's Triple Crown races, and tell us a good name for their foal. Maximum 18 characters, including spaces. | H |
| 548 | Inklings | Tell us about certain people's childhood experiences and behaviors that hint at their destinies. | H H |
| 545 | Put It in Reverse | Spell a word backward and define it, with the definition relating in some way to the original word. | 2 |
| 544 | You Gotta Have Heart | Write us some valentine sentiments from one particular person (real or fictional) to another. | H |
| 539 | Dead Letters | Pay tribute in verse to someone who died in 2003. | H |
| 533 | Breed Apart | Mate the clones of any two famous real people, living or dead--a male and a female, please--and hypothesize what traits or skills their offspring might have. | H H |
| 518 | Say, Kids, What Time Is It? | Fill in the blanks in the following sentence: "You know it's time to ------ when ------. | W |
| 514 | Ask Backwards | You are on "Jeopardy!" These are your answers. What are the questions? | H |
| 479 | Invest Case Scenario | Suggest new companies in which it might be unwise to invest. | H |
| 414 | No Rest for the Query | Complete the provided rhetorical question by filling in the blanks. It must be a put-down. | 2 |
| 413 | Bland Ambition | Come up with one or more items from an underachiever's list of midlife resolutions. | H H |
| 272 | PICTURE THIS | What is happening in these cartoons? | H |
| 226 | GOING WITHOUT | Complete some variation of the expression "An A without a B is like a C without a D. | H |
| 221 | SONG SUNG BROWN | Pick any song, pick a well-known line, and give us the discarded first draft. If it is part of a rhyme, you must maintain the rhyme. | 3 |
| 220 | RSVP | Provide an answer to any of the dumb questions from Week 217. | H |
| 217 | NO QUESTION ABOUT IT | Come up with truly stupid questions. | H H |
| 214 | ASK BACKWARDS IX | You are on "Jeopardy!" These are your answers. What are the questions? | H H H |
| 211 | GIVE US THE BACKS OFF YOUR SHIRTS | Design the back of the fourth Style Invitational T-shirt, with anything that captures the transcendent indignity of this contest. | 2 |
| 210 | RANDOM MEMO | Supply embarrassing "While You Were Out" phone messages that might be left for famous people, in plain sight, while they are away from their desks. | L 1 |
| 206 | HYPHEN THE TERRIBLE II | Create a new word by combining the first half of any hyphenated word in today's newspaper with the second half of any other hyphenated word elsewhere in the same story, and supply a definition. | H 3 |
| 187 | RACE TO THE FINISH LINE | In 75 words or fewer, continue in a productive fashion the story line of the provided real first lines of famous literary works. | H |
| 186 | CALLING THE TOON | Who are these people? What are they doing? | H |
| 171 | ON SECOND THOUGHT | Ideas that never got off the drawing board, for good reason. | H |
| 156 | HYPHEN THE TERRIBLE | Create new word by combining the first half of a hyphenated word with the second half of a hyphenated word. Both words must appear in the same story anywhere in today's Washington Post. Each entry must provide a definition for the newly created word. | H |
| 155 | COMPARISON SHOPPING | Explain the difference between any two of the above items. | L |
| 148 | RORSCHACH OF THE CROWD IV | Interpret these ink blots. | H |
| 141 | ASK BACKWARD VII | You are on "Jeopardy!" These are the answers. What are the questions? | H |
| 137 | VELVIS LIVES | Come up with a title and/or art gallery blurb for this velvet Elvis painting. | H |
| 133 | LIKE, WOW. | Come up with funny analogies. | W L H H H H |
| 132 | GIVE US THE BACKS OFF OUR SHIRTS. | What should our loser's T-shirt say on the back? Your goal is to somehow capture the spirit of the contest. | H H |
| 124 | SPOON-FEED US. | Come up with spoonerisms, expressions based on the transposition of the initial sounds of two paired words. | H |
| 108 | NEAR MISSES | Come up with the first drafts of great lines in history, entertainment or literature. | H |