ANSWERS: Lucky Sevens 13

It's my last post of 2023, but I don't have anything special to provide you all other than the list of sixteen people who have solved "Lucky Sevens 13" from two weeks ago:

• Cindy Heisler
• Grant Fikes
• Joe Bernard
• Kevin Orfield
• Michael Lebowitz
• Mike Armstrong
• Sam Levitin
• Chris Kochmanski
• KeoFam
• Tamara Brenner
• Wendy Walker
• Mom
• Squishmallows United
• Patrick Jordan
• Steve Gunter
• Lynn Sweeney

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #471: Christmas Presents

PUZZLE #471

CHRISTMAS PRESENTS

Merry Christmas, everyone! To celebrate the occasion, I've got a Christmas present for all of you guys: a puzzle format that's brand-new to this blog! It's sort of a cross between those "One-Two-Three" crosswords and gift-wrapped boxes, and you'll see what I mean when you get to the directions:

For each of these colorful presents, you’re given clues for four words reading across and down the sides of each gift, using all of the letters in the sections of ribbon that each word crosses, like with WRAP and MINER reading across as well as WHAM and PER reading down in the provided example. After you’ve filled in these words, complete the wrapping by adding a letter that acts as a bow where the strands of ribbon cross, so that two more words are formed reading along the ribbons, as with HAVE and RAVINE in the example.

Once all of the presents have been filled out, read all of the bow letters in order to get the FINAL ANSWER: something that people who give Christmas presents may have

PRESENT #1

• Brand whose products include "3D White" toothpaste

• It calls the kettle black in a well-known idiom

• "Unskinny _____" (#3 hit song by Poison)

• Voting coalition

PRESENT #2

• Hang out on a clothesline

• Magician's word similar to "Ta-da!" or "Presto!"

• Not yet expired, like a coupon

• Press _____ key to continue

PRESENT #3

• Cenozoic and Mesozoic, for two

• Fall Out Boy singer Patrick (or a chopped-down tree's remnant)

• Math symbol that's also the name of an artificial sweetener

• Place to apply ChapStick

PRESENT #4

• African snake that's one letter off from a Latin dance

• Referee in a chess match

• "To _____ is human" (quote from Alexander Pope)

• Turn while playing checkers

PRESENT #5

• Camila Cabello song named after Cuba's capital

• Crusty covering on a wound

• Ruler of ancient Persia

• She played Dorothy on The Golden Girls

PRESENT #6

• "Black sand" on a nail file

• Predator prequel named after a predator's quarry

• Retired basketballer Dwyane who hosts The Cube on TBS

• Will-o'-the-_____

PRESENT #7

• Kilroy was _____ (WWII-era graffiti)

• Like Tonto's masked ranger friend

• Shylock asked for a pound of this in The Merchant of Venice

• Untamed

PRESENT #8

• Fights with a foil or épée, say

• Like showy, yet garish, costumes

• Rory McIlroy's sport

• _____ Saint Laurent

PRESENT #9

• Bang one's toe

• Big blast of wind

• Muppet with a unibrow on Sesame Street

• Season when May Day is celebrated

PRESENT #10

• Exclamation in Germany

• Japanese car company that manufactures the Pilot and Passport

• Saturday Night Live veteran Carvey

• Sleeping under sheets (or a Community character)

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: Slot Machine 5

It's been almost two weeks since "Slot Machine 5" was posted on this blog, which means that it's time for me to reveal the list of everyone who has solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• M. Sean Molley
• Joe Bernard
• Kevin Orfield
• Michael Lebowitz
• Mike Armstrong
• Chris Kochmanski
• Wendy Walker
• Sam Levitin
• Tamara Brenner
• Patrick Jordan
• Lynn Sweeney
• Steve Gunter
• Mom
• Squishmallows United

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #470: Lucky Sevens 13

PUZZLE #470

LUCKY SEVENS 13

Stacked together below are seven Sevens made up of 7 squares each. The answers to each Seven start in their respectively numbered squares and continue along its path surrounded by a bold outline, going right and then down. Meanwhile, the answers to the Rows go straight across the grid, including those with only one or two letters in them.

Once you've filled in the grid, the letters in the colored squares (in the order of the Sevens that they appear in, starting with the Seven marked with a 1) will spell out this week's FINAL ANSWER: A seven-letter word

ROWS

i) Clorox bottle

ii) Area in Microsoft Word with options like "File", "Edit", and "View"

iii) Boring and blah

iv) Coca-Cola soda that comes in "Grapefruit Citrus" and "Peach Citrus" flavors

v) Cootie _____ (paper fortune teller)

vi) New shoots for a failed film scene

vii) Last name of Phil and Lil from Rugrats

viii) Soap ingredient from a spiny plant

ix) Segment of The Amazing Race (or any long race in general)

x) Jordan Peele movie with doppelgängers in red clothes called "the Tethered"

xi) Letter that consists of a single dot in Morse code

SEVENS

1) Make an item's worth worse

2) Repairs ceramic squares

3) Sears' Christmas-themed "Wish Book", for one

4) _____ Juice (Judy Blume book about a kid who wants sun spots on his face)

5) Screaming spirit from Irish folklore

6) Threatens

7) Type of vein that moves blood from the head to the heart

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: Eat Your Words 9

It's been about two weeks since "Eat Your Words 9" was posted on this blog, so now it's time for me to list the names of all eighteen people who have solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Joe Bernard
• Pavel Curtis
• Kevin Orfield
• Mike Armstrong
• Tamara Brenner
• Chris Kochmanski
• Michael Lebowitz
• Wendy Walker
• Sam Levitin
• KeoFam
• Patrick Jordan
• Lynn Sweeney
• Mom
• Perry Groot
• SquishmallowsUnited
• Steve Gunter

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #469: Slot Machine 5

PUZZLE #469

SLOT MACHINE 5

This puzzle contains a word or phrase 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!

 

In this Slot Machine, the Row answers are entered normally, from left to right in the order of the clues given. The Tumbler answers going down are entered in the same way, but all of the Tumblers have been "spun", meaning that the Tumblers' answers can start in any row and continue downwards. When a set of Tumbler answers hit the bottom of the grid, it continues at the start of the same column that it started in. There's also a "Jackpot Answer" that consists of the first letters of the first answer of each Tumbler. In the example above, the Rows spell out INN, TIE, and WOW, while the Tumblers spell out WIT, ION, and NEW, and the first letter of each Tumbler spell out WIN.

This week's FINAL ANSWER is the answer to the Jackpot.

JACKPOT
• One of the games included in Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration: ? wds.

ROWS

1) Window curtain

    Wealthy political backer (or a way to describe Garfield): 2 wds.

2) Dirty Vegas' biggest, and only, hit song in America: 3 wds.

    "_____ bin ein Berliner" (quote from John F. Kennedy)

3) Set up software

    Nick and Nora's pet dog in the Thin Man films

4) Piece of hair or DNA

    Eel at a sushi restaurant

5) A&E reality show where people with way too much stuff get help

    Kenan’s pal in a ‘90s Nickelodeon sitcom

6) _____ at the Opera (Marx Brothers movie): 2 wds.

    “Lovergirl” singer Marie

7) Initials of LBJ's successor

    Albert who was named Time's "Person of the Century" in 1999

8) 1/50th of a half-dollar

    Tangled or untangled

9) Synonym for "cache" that rhymes with "cache"

    Very long (and very angry) rant

10) Color of Woodstock's feathers in Peanuts

      _____ Majesty's Service (royal correspondence's marking as of King Charles III's coronation): 2 wds.

11) Cedar Rapids resident

      Historic city on Brazil's northeastern coast (alright, just add a vowel in front of Ms. Ronstadt's name)

TUMBLERS

1) Language where the exclamation "Oy vey!" originated from

    Parentheses' shapes

2) Corbijn who directed many Depeche Mode music videos (answer hidden in CANTONESE)

    What a shooting star actually is

3) The Office actor Wilson who voiced Gallaxhar in Monsters vs. Aliens

    It's _____ Sunny in Philadelphia (the longest-running live-action American sitcom)

4) Smacks like Moe from the Three Stooges

    _____ practice (exercise for improving one's aim)

5) Swiss-French river that flows into the Mediterranean Sea

    1980s Best Picture Oscar winner with Ben Kingsley in the title role

6) Active volcano on Sicily

    Doubly

7) Actress Davis who is the most recent person to win an EGOT

    Utters impulsively

8) It’s literally timeless

    Part of Q&A: Abbr.

9) Long-running CBS crime drama with recent spinoffs set in Hawaii and Sydney

    _____ and the Bee (2006 film whose title refers to a spelling bee)

10) Barbara Eden played one in a '60s NBC show

      Overly moralizing person (anagram of ADDICT)

11) That, in Spanish (be sure to use the feminine variant)

      Bangkok's country

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: Anagram Magic Square 8

It's been nearly two weeks since "Anagram Magic Square 8" was posted on this blog, and nineteen people have correctly solved it, all of whom are listed below:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Joe Bernard
• Pavel Curtis
• Kevin Orfield
• Bart Gold
• Mike Armstrong
• Sam Levitin
• KeoFam
• Tamara Brenner
• Chris Kochmanski
• Michael Lebowitz
• Wendy Walker
• Steve Gunter
• Patrick Jordan
• Lynn Sweeney
• SquishmallowsUnited
• Perry Groot
• Mom

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #468: Eat Your Words 9

PUZZLE #468

EAT YOUR WORDS 9

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: A common surname

NUMBERED WORDS

1) _____-time strategy (computer game genre)

2) Cough up some cash

3) Parts of the hydra which regrow after getting chopped off

4) What the Wicked Witch of the West did after getting splashed with water

5) With "The", goth rock band that did "Just Like Heaven"

6) Large-scale saga

7) Comedian Caesar who passed away in 2014

8) Lola Loud's twin in The Loud House (answer hidden in EXPLANATORY)

EATEN WORDS

• America's second-largest hardware store chain (after Home Depot)

• Communication device in Maxwell Smart's shoe in Get Smart

• Droop like the middle of an old mattress

• Horton _____ a Who! (book by Dr. Seuss)

• Living quarters managed by a landlord: Abbr.

• Moore who co-starred in 1990's Ghost

• Speck of land in the ocean

• Word preceding "service" or "sync"

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: Fronts Off 7

Roughly two weeks have gone by since "Fronts Off 7" was posted on this blog, and seventeen people have solved it since then, as you can see in the list below:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Joe Bernard
• Kevin Orfield
• Mike Armstrong
• Michael Lebowitz
• Tamara Brenner
• Patrick Jordan
• KeoFam
• Chris Kochmanski
• Sam Levitin
• SquishmallowsUnited
• Perry Groot
• Lynn Sweeney
• Wendy Walker
• Steve Gunter
• Mom

Now head below the break for the answers!