QUOTE (metacomet @ Mar 9 2008, 02:53 AM)

Aldebaran! How did you do this? I could not read a single word (not even with a magnifying glass). Thank you
Thanks, Alex and Meta! Last time, with the "Goes to Germany" cover, I think it was, someone (I think it was our wonderful fan4sure) took a try at it and got about three fourths of it done, and I had that to work from to make a guess at the rest. So I was curious this time how much of it I could get myself before someone else gave me a head start. I looked at the image and made it larger, using the zoom feature on the computer, but it is still very, very fuzzy and indecipherable. But, two advantages...I have very bad eyesight and I have had bad eyesight my whole life, and I am a native English speaker. Having bad eyesight, I have gotten used to having to often times "guess" at words, since they may or may not be clear to me. Not that I am walking around with a disability or anything, it is mostly just that my money has been tight the last several years and I have had to let my eyeglasses get more worn and scratched than I would like before I can afford to replace them. Got new ones just before I did the "Germany" cover or I would probably never have tried it! And, I have never had nor ever will have the distance vision of someone without eyeglasses, for several (boringly detailed) reasons. So, while driving and having to puzzle out road signs, I have gotten used to often guessing based on length of word and general shapes of letters. Although, frankly, I would get a lot less lost if North and South were different length words that both did not end in TH, the same with East and West...four letters each, both ending in ST...
And, being a native English speaker, a real familiarity with English helps in the word guessing game, as common expressions or idioms can be pretty easy to fill in once you determine one word. That is why the descriptive words are so hard to figure out, because some of them are used in unusual ways...."germ free" tea is one of the last phrases I got, as "germ free" is NOT a descriptor often used with tea....at least outside of Monkland. It was fun to put this little puzzle together, although the two or three missing pieces are still bothering me!
And Crystal, Randy in France...the mind boggles at the comedic possibilities!