PUZZLE #389: Family Reunions 5

PUZZLE #389

FAMILY REUNIONS 5

For this puzzle, just change the group of 10 words below into a "family" of different words (that is, words or proper names that all have something in common) by dropping one letter from each word and then rearranging the remaining letters. For example, if three of the initial entries are SMEAR, HATRED, and TURBANS, you could drop the E from SMEAR to get MARS, drop the D from HATRED to get EARTH, and drop the B from TURBANS to get SATURN, all in the category "Planets". As an additional help, the category for the new words will also be listed on top.

Once you're done, the letters that have been deleted from each word will unscramble to spell out this week's FINAL ANSWER: a ten-letter word that also fits the category

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 even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) 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 8

It's been close to two weeks since "Compound Crosswords 8" was posted on this blog, so it's time for me to reveal the thirteen people who have solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Chris Kochmanski
• Kevin Orfield
• Tyler Hinman
• Tamara Brenner
• Sam Levitin
• Michael Lebowitz
• Mike Armstrong
• Wendy Walker
• Mom
• Lynn Sweeney
• Peter Abide

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #388: The Spiral Squared 6

PUZZLE #388

THE SPIRAL SQUARED 6

This puzzle turns in two directions. The Spiral's "Inward" clues yield a sequence of words to be entered clockwise in the spaces from 1 to 100. The "Outward" clues yield a different set of words to be entered counterclockwise from 100 to 1. Fill in the answers, one letter per space, according to the numbers beside each clue. Make sure to keep track of which way you're going!

Once you've filled out the grid, read out the highlighted squares diagonally to get this week's FINAL ANSWER: a ten-letter word.

INWARD

1-6: Pester persistently

7-10: Dutch cheese with a red rind

11-15: In the aforementioned work: 2 wd. abbr.

16-20: Yellow-and-white flower also known as a "dog daisy"

21-27: Speech-synthesizing instrument used in many Daft Punk songs

28-32: Laboratory vessel that widens near the bottom

33-40: King Lear's youngest daughter

41-47: Candelabra seen in the Rugrats special "Chanukah"

48-53: Deep red hue named after a red Bordeaux wine

54-57: German-based grocery chain with over 2,000 U.S. locations

58-65: Lack of pollution that lets environmentalists breathe easy?: 2 wds.

66-73: Capital of South Australia

74-79: Workout that (hopefully) gets the heart pumping, informally

80-84: _____ the beans (blab)

85-90: Without any struggle

91-94: Pointy tip of a trident

95-100: Finally reached the big time: 2 wds.

OUTWARD

100-97: Like a baseball game at the top of the 10th inning

96-90: Bonus convenience during one's hotel stay

89-86: _____ Marie Presley (Elvis' daughter)

85-77: Stretched sphere, in geometry

76-73: A quick game of Super Mario Kart, perhaps

72-67: Used a touch-tone phone pad, say

66-61: Pop star Grande who has a tattoo of the Pokémon Eevee

60-56: Spanish folk hero whose real name is Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar: 2 wds.

55-49: Outside-the-box thinking needed to play MindTrap

48-43: Largest moon of Pluto

42-36: Sent a message to an address that includes "@"

35-31: Shale, slate, and sandstone, to name a few

30-24: Fettuccine _____

23-19: Cluster of quails

18-13: Tiger King subject Joe

12-6: Hair gels once called "greasy kid stuff"

5-1: Silverman who voices Vanellope in Wreck-It Ralph

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 even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) 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: Mixed Doubles 9

It's been thirteen days since "Mixed Doubles 9" was posted on this blog, and just like in last week's Answers post, fourteen people have correctly solved it:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Chris Kochmanski
• Joe Bernard
• Kevin Orfield
• Sam Levitin
• Mike Armstrong
• Wendy Walker
• Michael Lebowitz
• CromsFury
• Mom
• Tamara Brenner
• Lynn Sweeney
• Tyler Hinman

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #387: Compound Crosswords 8

PUZZLE #387

COMPOUND CROSSWORDS 8

Fit the words hinted at by the clues into the nine grids below so that the two words in each grid combine to create a two-word phrase or compound word. There may be multiple possibilities for these phrases, but there's only one way that all the words will fit in all of the grids.

Once each grid is filled out, the pink letters in each grid will spell out the FINAL ANSWER: a compound word

CLUES

• All Quiet on the Western _____ (Best Picture Oscar winner from 1930)

• Awful auditory agony

• Caucasian

• Crimson, coral, cobalt, chartreuse, and cyan, to name a few

• Enter key's replacement for some computers (like the Commodore 64)

• Gene Autry played a singing one on film and television

• George who once said "I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli"

• Hardy's partner in comedy

• Hockey puck hitter

• "Infantile" Justin Bieber song whose title is sung about 56 times

• Leafy ring seen around Christmastime

• Not false

• Part of "PIN" or "SSN"

• 63 ÷ 7

• Starts up, as a Macintosh or Windows PC

• Tumble over due to bad footing

• Use a rod and reel at a river, perhaps

• _____ Video (Amazon's streaming service)

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 even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) 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: Eat Your Words 7

It's been about two weeks since "Eat Your Words 7" was posted on this blog, and fourteen people since then have successfully solved it, and they're all listed below:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Chris Kochmanski
• Kevin Orfield
• Tyler Hinman
• Sam Levitin
• Mom
• Wendy Walker
• CromsFury
• Mike Armstrong
• Michael Lebowitz
• Tamara Brenner
• Peter Abide
• Lynn Sweeney

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #386: Mixed Doubles 9

PUZZLE #386

MIXED DOUBLES 9

This puzzle contains a word suggested by Patron M. Sean Molley. Support me on Patreon at $15 or more per month to suggest one word or phrase for me to put into a puzzle every month!

Each answer word in this crossword variation has two clues leading to it, using different meanings of the word. The clues are separated into Across and Down, but are otherwise ordered randomly. When you find two Across clues or two Down clues that seem to have the same answer, add up their clue numbers to determine the place in the grid where the answer should be entered. For example, if the clue for 1-Across and the clue for 14-Across both have the same answer, the answer would go in the box labeled 15 (1+14). To make things harder, tags such as "Hyph." and "2 wds." have been omitted.

There is one extra clue in both lists of Across and Down clues. This week's FINAL ANSWER is the answer to both of the extra clues, which you can get by rearranging the letters in the grid's pink squares.

ACROSS

1) Skier Picabo who won a gold medal in the 1998 Winter Olympics

2) Evil changeling queen from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

3) Nestlé chocolate bar with rice (or the sound it makes when eaten)

4) Video game designer Bleszinski who created Gears of War

5) Lends a helping hand

6) Member of an MLB team with a halo in its logo

7) Swap tires

8) With "Suites," chain of upscale hotels by Hilton

9) So shiny as to cause someone to squint

10) Intelligent

11) Stressful mandatory overtime period in video game development

12) Melt into a fluid

13) Remote solitude

14) Company that created underwear briefs in the 1930s

15) Like Simon who met a pieman

16) Butterfly's pupal stage

17) Steep rocky ledge that Wile E. Coyote often falls off of

18) No-frills

19) Basketball plays that involve two people

20) Turn like a turnstile

21) Diplomat's building

22) Gold-certified Toto album with the song "Stranger in Town"

23) Horse rider at the Belmont Stakes

24) Word following "Easy" or "Sesame"

25) Spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer about a vampire detective

DOWN

1) Side stories within stories

2) Musical genre for Harry Belafonte

3) Beaver's family in Leave It to Beaver

4) Gradual film transition

5) 2003 movie where Luke Wilson and Will Ferrell start a fraternity

6) Annual spring festival whose traditions include spinning around a pole

7) Canadian impressionist Rich

8) Adjusted an engine's speed

9) Covered with iron oxide

10) Style of hip-hop from the early '80s

11) In need of a refresher after so long

12) Jolly old saint

13) Plastic card carried by the President that contains nuclear launch codes

14) Canine species of the Sheriff of Nottingham in Disney's Robin Hood

15) Have a cigar

16) Smaller sections of agricultural acres

17) Nickname of Sam Malone from Cheers

18) Gobble (down)

19) Pint-sized

20) Nymph who imprisoned Odysseus for seven years in Homer's Odyssey

21) Small flaky bread included in KFC meals

22) Strangled

23) Gray-clad ninja who debuted in Mortal Kombat II as a secret opponent

24) The Loud House network, for short

25) Butcher's blades

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 even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) 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: Vanishing Act 2

Happy Mother's Day! I'll be busy being with my own mother for most of today, so I'll make this quick and list the eighteen people who solved "Vanishing Act 2" from two weeks ago:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Chris Kochmanski
• Joe Bernard
• Kevin Orfield
• Tyler Hinman
• Sam Levitin
• Brittany Trofimovich
• Tamara Brenner
• Michael Lebowitz
• Steven McKinney
• Lynn Sweeney
• Mom
• Charles Flaster
• Wendy Walker
• Mike Armstrong
• CromsFury
• Peter Abide

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #385: Eat Your Words 7

PUZZLE #385

EAT YOUR WORDS 7

In this puzzle, the words hinted at by the numbered clues (The "Numbered Words") can "eat" a word hinted at by a different set of clues (The "Eaten Words") without rearranging any of the letters. For example, the word BIT can eat the word AND to form BANDIT. All of the new words are entered into the grid in the order of the Numbered Words, and the Eaten Words are in no particular order.

Once all of the new words have been placed, the letters in the highlighted third column will spell out two more words. Insert one of the column's new words into the other to get the FINAL ANSWER: The name of a literary character

NUMBERED WORDS

1) Unhinged "asthma-hound chihuahua" from Nickelodeon

2) WWE Hall of Fame wrestler with the same name as a wasp's attack

3) Actress Blanchett who played Hela in Thor: Ragnarok

4) Chrisley Knows _____ (reality show on the USA Network)

5) Spoon's jogging partner?

6) Gave grub to

7) When doubled, song by Tommy James and the Shondells that was covered by Billy Idol

8) Unwanted crabgrass, say

EATEN WORDS

• Either one of Ursula's pets in Disney's The Little Mermaid

• Foot's inner curve

• Not the former

• Prefix for "series" or "skirt"

• Ryu's blond-haired rival in the Street Fighter games (or actor Jeong)

• "The _____ Stuff" (hit single by New Kids on the Block)

• Tie game, say

• "Well-balanced" zodiac sign

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 even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) 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: Puzzle in the Round 5

Roughly two weeks have passed by since "Puzzle in the Round 5" was posted on this blog, and fourteen people since then have correctly figured it out, all of whom are listed below:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Chris Kochmanski
• Joe Bernard
• Tyler Hinman
• Kevin Orfield
• Meg Duvall
• Sam Levitin
• Tamara Brenner
• Mom
• Al Sisti
• Wendy Walker
• Lynn Sweeney
• Michael Lebowitz

Now head below the break for the answers!