Pun of a Kind

PDF  /  PUZ Hello hello! The Cubbies have one month left of baseball. They played incredibly in April, July, and August, but will an abysmal May and June affect their playoff chances? Stay tuned! Oh, that's right, you're just here for the puzzles, haha. Last grid for the Summer of Solves  today, and we'll go back to biweekly after that for a bit. --- 1.  Puzzle #107 answer: LUNCH BOX (also accepted LUNCH BAG). Correct entries:  71  (initially, this was playing like a Level 3+, but that was likely the grid/rebus aspect of it; the revised prompt probably helped!) Shortest explanation: Four boxes contain a word that can precede LUNCH in a common phrase - hence LUNCH BOX , the answer to the meta! Note my contrived attempt at grid art to match the meta. Mailbag: "Not familiar with 'sack lunch,' so wasn't quite sure!" This was also another factor that may have thrown some initially! Possibly could be a generational or regional thing, but I was always taking

Update : This puzzle has been updated to a Level 3 about 2.5 hours after publication, and I've fiddled around with a few of the clues, none of which affect the mechanism. Note the new prompt below! PDF  /  PUZ Hello hello! On the Cubs front, our newest upstart of a player Pete Crow-Armstrong (PCA) hit an inside-the-park home run last night, and it was incredible to see. On the coffee front, I'm drinking it. And on the crossword front, we've got two more puzzles in this Summer of Solves ! We'll go back to biweekly after that in the autumn months, at least. --- 1.  Puzzle #106 answer:  BALLOON Correct entries: 42  (I thought a Level 3, perhaps, but this played like a Level 4, for sure; I'd reckon only about 20  or so of these were solos.) Shortest explanation: The main component of air useful to us humans is oxygen, whose chemical formula is the diatomic O2 (in retrospect, for this to be a Level 3, there should have been a nudge to that in the grid). Seven symmetrical

PDF  /  PUZ Hello hello! School is back in session, and I'm still solving puzzles. That's about it! --- 1.  Puzzle #105 answer:  KOOL-105 Correct entries: 73  (I didn't even realize it got above 70 - a Level 1 indeed!) Shortest explanation: Each of the four spanners clues to a letter of the alphabet, as seen in the graphic. These are the call letters of KXKL, and a quick Google search confirms this is the Denver radio station whose nickname is KOOL-105 , a numeric tie-in and the answer to the meta. This was my childhood radio station! It was '60s and '70s then, so it's wild that it's into the '80s and '90s now as a classic hits station. Could classic hits be from the time I was actually alive? I guess so! --- 2. This is a solid Level 2.5/3 . That's all I have to say, haha. Good luck, and may all your solves be beautiful! Mikey G The answer to the meta is a 7-letter word.  

PDF  /  PUZ Hello hello! Olympics have basically been my entire personality for the past two gymnastics, and it was so cool to see the Swedish pole vaulter set a new world record! He took the sport to new heights! (I had to.) --- 1.  Puzzle #104 answer: V8 Correct entries:  39 (a Level 4 , at least) Shortest explanation: There are 8 Vs in the grid. They occur in the 8 squares with an "8" in it, from 8 to 78 (which is why the grid had to be longer to have the 8 Vs in it). Hence, V8  is our answer. There was also some shenanigans going on in the clues as well. In the across and down clue that intersected at the "V", per the above graphic, one of the eight vegetables in V8 was "split" across the two clues. This led to some awkward wording on some, which could have also be an in. (I also attempted to make the middle third of the grid look like an elongated "8," but that was decidedly harder to see than I anticipated.) --- 2.  In any case, this Week 4

PDF  /  PUZ Hello hello! Olympics have been incredible so far with Team USA rocking gymnastics, along with Pommel Horse Man living his best life. Great to see some of the emotion in events like fencing, swimming, and trampoline as well. And we got another week to go! Cubs also made it through the trade deadline relatively unscathed, though we did lose fan favorite Christopher Morel. The Cubs aren't really expected to do much now, so it almost seems like they've been playing a bit lighter as a result, like they've got nothing to lose. Will they squeak into the playoffs after an August and a September surge? We shall see! This is the last month of the Summer of Solves , which will conclude with the final puzzle on August 31 . Let's get to it! --- 1.  Puzzle #103 answer:  TRIATHLON Correct entries: 70 Shortest explanation: Nine references to the Olympic medals are in the clues: three gold, three silver, three bronze. The initial letters of these clues spell "trickster