Welcome to Sunday Puzzle -- a weekly opportunity to test your wits and to have some pie-fight-free fun.
I'll be in the middle of a 2-day bus trip back to Tennessee when this diary posts, so I won't be able to take very active part in tonight's party. But I'll be with you in spirit (and possibly in an occasional comment, if the bus has WiFi and if the gremlin-possessed tablet I have with me chooses to cooperate).
On tap tonight, a special treat: the very first JulieCrostic posted here by someone other than Julie.
You'll also find a brand-new shutdown-related cryptogremlin.
And returning for its 4th appearance, the still unsolved puzzles-within-puzzles puzzle from September 15th:
"Arf! Arf! Arf!"
UPDATE: I'm in amarillo an hour before post time. No WiFi on bus so I won't be able to take part tonight (there is WiFi here in station but it won't let me post a comment or tip jarso i'I'm including this note here in diary instead.) Have fun, and I should be back as full participant next week.
The following puzzle was created by OkieByAccident and posted by Julie in the Sunday Puzzle diary for January 27, 2008.
Back in the early days, Julie used to tell us what the word-length pattern for the puzzler was. Okie's puzzle has 12 rows, and the answer lengths are 4-5-6.
And here's Julie's explanation of how these puzzles work:
The rules for an acrostic are simple: for each row, the answer is a word of increasing length, such as a five-letter word, a six-letter word and a seven-letter word. Each next size word is formed by adding a letter to the previous letter word and scrambling.
In the box in-between each word, put the extra letter. I.e., if your answers were:
ITEMS, MISTER and RED MIST
You'd place an "R" in the box between ITEMS and MISTER and a "D" between MISTER and RED MIST.
When you solve the whole puzzle, you will get two related words in the down columns.
Ready to tackle the puzzle? All right, here it is:
1. Bible feature
2. Scores
3. Daily presence?
4. Famous lake
5. Declines
6. This is one
7. Create
8. Stimulant
9. Deed
10. Bedrock element?
11. Released
12. Keeper
13. Create a sockpuppet
14. A real gas, man
15. Puff?
16. Flavor
17. Allow
18. Laser gem
19. Increase
20. Where to find cold ones?
21. #3, archaically
22. Judge
23. Deface
24. Like Shaq or Wilt
25. Extreme
26. Ran
27. Kansas worker?
28. Booth results
29. Position
30. Cows
31. Judge
32. Equine
33. Economists' concern
34. Tear
35. Burdens
36. Dove competitor
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Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party /
SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE /
A new Crypto-Gremlin!
Crypto-gremlins are a special kind of cryptogram -- ones which can't be solved by online programs which run through and test out every possible letter substitution, but which can be solved by reasoning and creative thinking. If you're not familiar with this kind of puzzle you can find a detailed explanation of how they work here.
An bye'ud upnewm js'ts cstsly prbn kner ups Oserus ... jr ujseud-yes pymls vnanimously lrebn upsey ups csloyes frlldnezr tymus ups vnanimously tyusbn vyld ups gnooms upsd jsls vnanimouslnezd.
* Iyiy Fylwslm, Ly-Useed
The words in bold are a quote; the unbolded words tell who said it.
The ellipsis in the quote represents the words where we had, which were removed in most printings of this quote in order to make the quote read better. And strictly speaking, the quote would read better (and be more accurate) if the word isvyls appeared in between cstsly and prbn, but the person saying this neglected to include it so I've also omitted it.)
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Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party /
SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE /
Still unsolved!
Back in the September 15th Sunday Puzzle diary I posted six mystery puzzles. These were all puns on the names of types of puzzles (i.e. puzzles within puzzles).
Five of the puzzles were solved:
1. an angry blood-sucker
ANSWER: a cross tick (acrostic)
2. mother of mother of Paquin, mother of mother of Pavlova, mother of mother of Karenina ...
ANSWER: Anna grams (anagrams)
4. Maggie's husband's astonished admiration
ANSWER: Jigg's awe (jigsaw)
5. concerning public transportation
ANSWER: re: bus (rebus)
6. imitation bird call
ANSWER: pseudo coo (Sudoku)
That leaves this one still to be figured out:
3. "Arf! Arf! Arf!"