5. Happy New Year!

For those of you who loved my first attempt at a meta, you're out of luck for this one, haha. First 17-by-17, though, which I haven't made since last year (har har - or ever).

A few things of note as we start 2021:

1. I thank all of you for the kind feedback and constructive remarks you've given me on my puzzles so far. Unbeknownst to me, a thread here developed over my first attempt at a meta, including perhaps the unfair misdirect I gave in the title.

The premise was that the four words in the middle - SAVERS, SHARES, SHEETS, and STAMPS - could all be preceded by the word "TIME" to make a valid word or phrase (time saver, timeshare, time sheet, and timestamp). And since they all form a square, it's a TIMES SQUARE (groan), the answer to the meta (note that the title was a reference to the famed ball at Times Square quite literally moving downward for the end-of-the-year countdown). If I ever do another one again, I'll make sure to have test-solvers...or perhaps just make it a bit easier to start!

At least 2 people got it, which is more than 0, so a special shout-out to both Hector and Bob and all the others who did get it or gave feedback at the forum!

2. Nam Jin Yoon has done an amazing job building off a PUZ-to-PDF creator here, which I'll probably be using for here on out for the PDF files!

3. A couple more shout-outs: 

• I just recently found out about Matt Gritzmacher's set of crossword and puzzle links here. It might be the only place right now I'm right in-between Frank Longo and Ross Trudeau, so I'll take it!
• A special shout-out to Will Eisenberg, who gave some fantastic feedback on the newest puzzle below.

May all of you have a very puzzly start to 2021!

Mikey G 

PUZ / PDF