PUZZLE #311: 5-Star Stumper 5

PUZZLE #311

5-STAR STUMPER 5

The answer to each numbered pair of clues goes in the 10 spaces surrounding each correspondingly numbered star in the grid. The first answer of each set starts in the appropriately numbered space (with the arrow in the same space telling you which direction to go), and the second answer follows immediately after. Meanwhile, the answers that go in the red stripe surrounding the grid are clued in order, and even though it's up to you to determine where the chain of answers begins, we can tell you that the red stripe's answers go clockwise.

Once the entire grid has been filled in, reading the white spaces from left to right and top to bottom will reveal this week's FINAL ANSWER: A former Supreme Court justice

STARS
1) Horatio known for his "rags-to-riches" stories

    "_____ Right Along" (song from The Muppet Movie)

2) Angry argument

    R&B singer whose 2000 album Fear of Flying went platinum

3) The Loud House character who often has sunglasses on her head (anagram of NEIL)

    Tilex target

4) Oysters' outputs

    Use a scythe in a wheat field, say

5) Only zodiac sign depicting an inanimate object

    Setting for much of The Shining

RED STRIPE

• "Useless goddess" from KonoSuba (EASIER CLUE: Blue-green color)

• Pop up again

• Sent an invoice to

• Situated at a sensory threshold

• Like hands in desperate need of hand sanitizer, perhaps

Once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star", more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Headless Words 2

Thirteen days have gone by since I've posted my second "Headless Words" puzzle on this blog, and an impressive twelve people have successfully solved it since then, and you can see them all in the list below:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Cindy Heisler ****
• Joe Bernard ****
• Giovanni Pagano ****
• Kevin Orfield ****
• Patrick Jordan ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Mom ****
• Per Lundberg ****
• Stephen Potter ****
• Lynn Sweeney ****

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #310: All Four One

PUZZLE #310

ALL FOUR ONE

There are four mostly-empty 4x4 crossword grids, as well as four sets of eight clues. Arrange the answers from each set of clues into a grid where they can all properly fit, so that every grid has four words reading down and four words reading across. After that, transfer the completed grids into the four sections of the larger diagram beneath them so that four 8-letter words are formed reading across the top and bottom, and down the left and right sides.

Once everything is correctly filled in, take two of the newly-formed 8-letter words to get the FINAL ANSWER: the name of a movie from the early 1980s

SET #1

• Annoying emails with often questionable grammar

• Between "half" and "all"

• Country directly beneath Ecuador

• Dynamic prefix

• Miffs

• Pixie powder

• "That's what she _____!" (repeated line in NBC's The Office)

• Torah scrolls are kept in them

SET #2

• Annual 500-mile race, for short

• Berlin Airlift photographer Henry (Anagram of SIRE)

• Easter egg colorer

• Felt repentant

• German "a"

• Ms. Krabappel who used to teach Bart Simpson

• One of 120 stellar collectibles in Super Mario 64

• The last letter in "CPU"

SET #3

• Brief note from the boss

• Growth in a gross fish tank

• Imprint on glass

• Measures of resistance represented by omegas

• Only US state with a three-word capital

• Pretty much has to

• What "U Can't Touch", according to MC Hammer

• _____ Wowee (rhyming "Match-3" game with Hawaiian imagery)

SET #4

• Car's scar

• _____Enders (long-running BBC soap)

• Like ripened cheddar

• Need some Advil or Aleve, perhaps

• "Rock of Ages," e.g. (the Christian one, not the one by Def Leppard)

• The Clothed Maja painter

• They make up over half of all trees in NYC's Central Park

• Tom Cruise's role in Days of Thunder

Once you believe you've figured out the FINAL ANSWER, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star"; more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Zigzagnut 6

It's been roughly two weeks since "Zigzagnut 6" was posted onto this blog, and twelve people have correctly solved it since then, all of whom are listed below:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Giovanni Pagano ****
• Cindy Heisler ****
• Joe Bernard ****
• Kevin Orfield ****
• Stephen Potter ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Mom ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Patrick Jordan ****
• Lynn Sweeney ****
• Elliott Frankfother ****

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #309: Headless Words 2

PUZZLE #309

HEADLESS WORDS 2

Uh-oh! All of these words have lost their heads, and it's up to you to reattach them! First, write down the answers to the "Headless Clues" (listed in no particular order) into each white right-hand box. Then, write down one OR two letters into each gray left-hand box so that these letters, when added in front of each word, form the answer to one of the "Whole Clues" below (also listed in random order).

Once you've filled everything in, rearrange the completed words so that the letters in the gray boxes, reading down, spell out the FINAL ANSWER: a type of person

HEADLESS CLUES

• Before the due date

• Caracal or cougar, e.g.

• Insult comedian Don who voiced Mr. Potato Head

• Perfume's pleasant aroma

• _____ the Woods (Tony-winning musical)

• Yelled "De-fense! De-fense!" repeatedly, say

WHOLE CLUES

• "50:50" on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, for one

• Actor Zachary who played Sylar on Heroes (2006-10)

• Disney film about an animated princess transported to live-action New York

• Not quite, but almost

• Slowly drips down

• The first computer game that lets you fly with "six degrees of freedom" (EASIER CLUE: Downward path)

Once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star", more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Anagram Chambers 8

It's been almost two weeks since "Anagram Chambers 8" was posted onto this blog, and nine people since then have successfully solved it, as you can see in the list below:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Giovanni Pagano ****
• Joe Bernard ****
• Kevin Orfield ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Stephen Potter ****
• Lynn Sweeney ****
• Mom ****

Now head below the break for the answers as well as a solver's comment!

PUZZLE #308: Zigzagnut 6

PUZZLE #308

ZIGZAGNUT 6

The numbered clues are for the zigzags, which work their way down through the diagram in the outlined areas. The "Rows" clues are for the answers, two per row, to be entered straight across each row in the diagram, but to make things harder, you don't know which specific rows the answers will go into! (Though the answers in the rows themselves are in the correct order)

This week's FINAL ANSWER consists of the two numbered answers with no clues (#5 & #17) that combine to make up a two-word phrase

ROWS (in random order; each contains two answers)

• Saw an entire season of Stranger Things all at once, say

  Join the Navy

• Summer month when National S'more Day is celebrated

  Word following "camp" and "web"

• International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee Arthur

  "_____ Day" (Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men song that spent 16 weeks at #1): 2 wds.

• Lacking illumination

  Modern religion also known as Pagan Witchcraft

• Good witch from Oz who travels via bubble

  1989-2020 reality show with a reggae theme song

• Military leader of feudal Japan

  Very, in Paris

• Round and pink Nintendo character

  _____ Yello (soft drink)

• Star Trek: The Next Generation alien race with big ears and bigger greediness

  FaceTime alternative from Microsoft

• Matches a poker bet

  Requests in restaurants

• Butcher's chopper

  Actress Mila who was in Aerosmith's music video for "Jaded"

• Act like a magnet

  [This misspelling was in the original text]

ZIGZAGS

1) Actively avoid

2) Eyeballing rudely

3) Removes a tie closing a bread bag, say

4) Like an intricate puzzle

5) THE FIRST HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER

6) Type of mattress stuffed with goose plumage

7) "Brick-and-mortar store" or "broadcast television", e.g.

8) WNBA team from Las Vegas

9) O.G. Original Gangster rapper: Hyph.

10) Posing a question

11) "Our team got beat, badly": 2 wds.

12) What "..." is known as

13) Not the Minors, in baseball: 2 wds.

14) Unexpected meetings, like those of the Third Kind

15) Any shark on Shark Tank who agrees to help a company out, perhaps

16) Tales from the _____ ('80s anthology series created by George A. Romero)

17) THE SECOND HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER

Once you believe you've figured out the FINAL ANSWER, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star"; more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Squeezed in the Middle 16

It's been thirteen days since the final puzzle for Halloween Month II (which was my second attempt at a Double Decker-ified "Squeezed in the Middle" puzzle) was posted on this blog, and ten people have successfully solved it since then, as you can see in the list below:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Cindy Heisler ****
• Joe Bernard ****
• Giovanni Pagano ****
• Kevin Orfield ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Stephen Potter ****
• Lynn Sweeney ****
• Mom ****

Now head below the break for the answers and a solver's comment!

PUZZLE #307: Anagram Chambers 8

PUZZLE #307

ANAGRAM CHAMBERS 8

This next puzzle is one that should be familiar to long-time solvers, as I've been making these since the number of puzzles I've made was only in the single digits. However, I think this particular puzzle type has just set the record for the most revisions I've made to it. First, the clues were inside the yellow rectangles, then I moved the clues to their own separate areas and labelled each now-empty chamber (first with numbers, then with lowercase letters), and finally, I've gotten rid of these labels altogether after my test-solver pointed out "why are the chambers labeled a-g if we are going to rearrange them?" So now that the chambers' labels are gone, the directions have been altered to reflect this, so go ahead and read 'em:

For this puzzle, there are several dark-green "chambers" with yellow rectangles and light green squares in them. For each chamber, you take a word in the first yellow rectangle as hinted at by the clue, add a letter from the light green square, and scramble them to get a word in the second yellow rectangle, then you repeat the process to get the word in the third yellow rectangle. Unfortunately, none of the chambers are labeled, and all seven sets of clues are in no particular order, so you have to figure out which set of answers go to which proper chamber so the columns of light green squares will both spell out words reading vertically.

Once all of the chambers are in the correct order, the light green squares will spell out the FINAL ANSWER: a two-word phrase

• ["For _____ About to Rock (We Salute You)" (AC/DC song)] + _ = [Red Monopoly pieces] + _ = [Despises entirely]

• [Light beam used in some welding] + _ = [Birth country of KISS bassist Gene Simmons] + _ = [Makes a comeback after trailing in touchdowns]

• [Dead or _____ (fighting video game series)] + _ = [Practical, as a plan] + _ = [Cockle, clam, or scallop]

• [Jada Pinkett Smith's role in The Matrix Reloaded] + _ = [Plane manufacturer whose 737 MAX model was grounded in 2019] + _ = [Following orders]

• [It can cause the loss of a cur's fur] + _ = [Cypher machine that Alan Turing helped decode] + _ = [Picture in one's mind]

• [Dawson's Creek actress Holmes] + _ = [Quantity of food consumed] + _ = [What rhino horns are made up of]

• [Someone who hasn't quite hit puberty yet] + _ = [Most recent] + _ = [Rawhide genre]

Once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star", more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Compound Crosswords 6

It's been close to two weeks since "Compound Crosswords 6" was posted on this blog, and twelve people have solved it since then, as you can see in the list below:

• Cindy Heisler ****
• Grant Fikes ****
• Giovanni Pagano *
• Joe Bernard ****
• Kevin Orfield ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Stephen Potter ****
• Mom ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Lynn Sweeney ****
• Debbie Benford ****
• Elliott Frankfother ****

Now head below the break for the answers!