Pun of a Kind

PDF  /  PUZ Hello hello! Cubs' offense is as mercurial as ever, sometimes scoring a bundle of runs and other times squandering a great quality start by the opening pitcher. It's a long season, folks. --- Puzzle #173 answer:  EQUINOX Correct entries: 70 Shortest explanation: Take the word immediately before the animal, concatenating and reparsing with spaces as needed to form a new phrase. Find an alternate for that in the grid and, in animal order, you'll get EQUIN. Append the 2-letter animal "OX" to get EQUINOX , the apropos answer to our meta! --- I really do think this is a Level 2. We will see what happens? We always do, haha. Good luck, and may all your solves be beautiful! Mikey G The answer to the meta is a 4-letter string in alphabetical order.  

PDF  /  PUZ Hello hello! Baseball is back - and PCA and Nico Hoerner just got great extensions for my beloved Cubbies! Play on! (We'll ignore the fact we lost our opener 10-4 to the Nationals.) --- Puzzle #172 answer: IRRATIONAL Correct entries:  65 Shortest explanation: A piece of pi, anyone? My verbose self is unnaturally terse on the across entry with all those 3-word clues - and then note the last clue for WORDS. The title indicates pi is probably involved, and it certainly is! Find the entries whose clues' words' lengths start enumerating pi. For the pi lovers in you, we have 3.14159265358979323846264338327 (to 29 digits), which is what we'll need here. 3.14 = "Not. a clue!" (I even included the point, awww) for IDUNNO, 159 = "A great contender" for RIVAL, 265 = "To sprint ahead" for RUN, and so forth. You'll spell out IRRATIONAL , what I hope neither this puzzle nor the 3rd Winter Solvestice ended up being! --- Hello hello! We fin...

PDF  /  PUZ Hello hello! World Baseball Classic has been fun to see - Dominican Republic has an absolutely stacked lineup, so I foresee them and Japan in the finals, but you never know! --- Puzzle #171 answer:  SLINKY Correct entries: 48 Shortest explanation: Take the six across words starting with the letters in the word "SPRING" and "spring forward" these letters one in the alphabet. SEAL --> TEAL PVC --> QVC ROLO --> SOLO IAMB --> JAMB NAT --> OAT GULL --> HULL Play alternates with these in the grid. In grid order: SOY (Milk type) LOCK (Door component) IKEA (Where to buy home decor) NAVY (Shade of blue) KEEL (Part of a ship) YODA ("Star Wars" character) Get SLINKY , another type of spring! (But now I have to bounce!) --- This is the last puzzle of the Winter Solvestice , so we'll go every other week until the summer, if I still have plenty of ideas in my brain for metas, haha. This one will be, oh, about a Level 3.14.  Thanks to al...

PDF  /  PUZ Hello hello! Spring training has been meh for the Cubs - but they did go 11-19 in 2016, and we all know what happened that year! --- Puzzle #170 answer: UPSET Correct entries:  60 Shortest explanation: The letters in MARCH are scrambled throughout all five entries, surrounding one different letter. These different letters spell UPSET , the answer to the meta. --- I didn't plan to have another challenging one, and this one might not go that way, but we do have a random Level 4  for this week. Check Crosshare for nudges, three instantly given. Good luck, and may all your solves be beautiful! Mikey G The answer to the meta is a 6-letter word.  

PDF  /  PUZ Hello hello! Cubs finally had a solid spring training game yesterday after almost blowing yet another  lead. Of course, March Madness is coming up again soon, which also keeps me plenty busy! --- Puzzle #169 answer:  FAIR AND SQUARE Correct entries: 76 Shortest explanation: There are seven squares of 2-by-2 like letters in the puzzle - the only  instance of any repeat letters anywhere, in fact! They give us FAIR AND and, since they're in a square shape, that gives us FAIR AND SQUARE , the apropos meta answer to #169! --- The antepenultimate puzzle of Summer of Solves! Another Level 2.5  or so, I'm thinking. Good luck, and may all your solves be beautiful! Mikey G The answer to the meta is what you won't be if you solve it.  

PDF  /  PUZ Hello hello! Amazing action at the Winter Olympics, with a wonderful gold-medal performance by Alysa Liu! Baseball also started, and we lost our opening spring training game to the White Sox (season's over). --- Puzzle #168 answer:  SUPERIOR VENA CAVA VEIN Correct entries:  60 Shortest explanation: I didn't have any nudges this week, which did maybe lead us to a solid Level 3. Basically, use the literal DOWNRIGHT and go, alternatingly, down from the "S" in MEANS and right, down, right, one square after the other, until you end up at the "N" in NEXUS. You'll spell SUPERIOR VENA CAVA VEIN (redundant, as I should have left off "vein"!), the answer to the meta. --- I had a Level 2 last week that ended up as a Level 3. I'll see if this one hews more closely to Level 2 . Good luck, and may all your solves be beautiful! Mikey G The 3-word, 13-letter answer to the meta is what I hope you find this puzzle.  

PDF  /  PUZ Hello hello! Watched the Winter Olympics every day, pretty much all day, all week long. And baseball, if only spring training, starts this week! Let's go! --- Puzzle #167 answer:  JOE NAMATH Correct entries: 59 Shortest explanation: I underestimated the difficulty here. Another back-to-back Roman numeral puzzle. Take the four themers and extract Roman numerals, in left-to-right order: LABEQUINOX = LIX AXELORIGIN = XLII EXPERTHIVE = XIV XEROXFIXER = XXIX Take the MVPs of those Super Bowls: Jalen Hurts Eli Manning Terry Bradshaw Steve Young Their initial names spell JETS, signaling the MVP of the only Super Bowl the Jets have won to this day: JOE NAMATH . (Jets, after Super Bowl III: "We're going to be pretty good at this Super Bowl thing!") --- This one should (really) be a Level 2. Trying to make February a bit less chaotic overall. Good luck, and may all your solves be beautiful! Mikey G The 4-word answer to the meta is the way to my heart.