PUZZLE #524: New Year's Presents

PUZZLE #524

NEW YEAR'S PRESENTS

It's the final puzzle of 2024, so to ring out this year, I've decided to take last year's "Christmas Presents" puzzle and change the involved holiday so that it'd be more fitting for the season (even though I have no idea if "giving presents at New Year's" is even a thing). In case you need a reminder on how to solve this puzzle type, the directions are right here:

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 seen at a New Year's Day celebration

PRESENT #1

• Math symbol seen in streaming services from Disney, Paramount, AMC, etc.

• Royal rank higher than viscount, but lower than marquess

• Toaster _____ (Pillsbury's version of Pop-Tarts)

• Word following "pecan", "pork", and "pizza"

PRESENT #2

• Chide and chastise

• Power of 10 and The Price is Right host Carey

• Resort with mud baths and masseurs

• Spiro who was the most recent vice president to resign

PRESENT #3

• _____-jerk reaction

• Keep tabs on

• Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles network

• Top or bottom bed

PRESENT #4

• Not quite closed, as a door

• Sleep study abbr.

• _____ vera

• White rapper whose latest album is called The Death of Slim Shady

PRESENT #5

• Antlered animal on Michigan's state flag

• Greek letter that looks like an "H" (despite not being spelled with an "H")

• Its two biggest cities are Nairobi and Mombasa

• Meeting schedule

PRESENT #6

• Corn core

• Freshwater fish that becomes a synonym for "fat" if you add "by" at the end

• Got underway

• "There's a sucker _____ every minute" (quote supposedly from P. T. Barnum)

PRESENT #7

• Cars such as the Bronco and Mustang

• Group of sheep to shepherd over

• "Some _____ of Wonderful" (Grand Funk Railroad song)

• What Rosebud was in Citizen Kane

PRESENT #8

• Bill _____ the Science Guy ('90s PBS series)

• Faint trace of color

• Pledged to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

• Uncompromising, like a short time limit

PRESENT #9

• Avant-garde rocker Frank with children named Moon Unit, Dweezil, and Ahmet

• Like a pretentious painting, perhaps

• "Mighty" Mudville batter who struck out

• Second-to-last chemical element alphabetically, just before zirconium

PRESENT #10

• Clumsy dummy

• Latte foam that some baristas make art out of

• Rarity's pet cat in My Little Pony, for short (or October's birthstone)

• Rottweiler's restraint

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: Back-Oops 3

It's been nearly two weeks since "Back-Oops 3" was posted on this blog, and nineteen people have solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Cathy Bowen
• Joe Bernard
• Pavel Curtis
• Marie desJardins
• Mike Armstrong
• Kevin Orfield
• Sam Levitin
• Derek Allen
• Michael Lebowitz
• Stasi Gustafson
• Chris Kochmanski
• Wendy Walker
• KeoFam
• Josie Giles
• Steve Gunter
• Mom
• Tamara Brenner

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #523: Puzzle in the Round 8

PUZZLE #523

PUZZLE IN THE ROUND 8

This puzzle type was suggested by Patron Grant Fikes. Normally, you can suggest a puzzle type of your own choice over on my Patreon page, but both slots are still full, so you might have to resort to PayPal if you still want to make a request of your own.

To solve this tough puzzle, fill in as many of the 5-letter answers next to their clues as you can. Next, look for shared letters, and then enter each letter into its correct place in the diagram (though you'll most likely need to scramble the order of the letters to make them fit). The letter in the grid's center will be shared by all of the answer words. As a little hint, look for unshared letters to help you determine the letters that will go in the outer ring to form the FINAL ANSWER, reading from 1 to 24.

The FINAL ANSWER is the name of a comic book series from the mid-20th century

1) "_____ Burr, Sir" (song from Hamilton)

     _ _ _ _ _

2) Heaviest (and most radioactive) noble gas

     _ _ _ _ _

3) Mist or steam, say

     _ _ _ _ _

4) Pagliacci or The Pirates of Penzance, e.g.

     _ _ _ _ _

5) Condor's claw

     _ _ _ _ _

6) _____ Recall (1990 film where Arnold Schwarzenegger gets his butt to Mars)

     _ _ _ _ _

7) For everyone to hear

     _ _ _ _ _

8) Dahl who wrote The Witches (1983)

     _ _ _ _ _

9) Anyone strutting her stuff at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

     _ _ _ _ _

10) Forms for making die-cast toys

     _ _ _ _ _

11) Hatred, like the kind that Garfield feels about the dog he lives with?

     _ _ _ _ _

12) Baseball pitcher's place

     _ _ _ _ _

13) X-Men member who can control the weather

     _ _ _ _ _

14) Kitchen, library, and seven others in Clue

     _ _ _ _ _

15) _____-Goldwyn-Mayer (movie studio that turned 100 in 2024)

     _ _ _ _ _

16) The Simpsons dad who once asked a phone operator for "the number for 911"

     _ _ _ _ _

17) Centers of apples and pineapples

     _ _ _ _ _

18) Use steel wool on

     _ _ _ _ _

19) Future oak tree, assuming it's buried properly

     _ _ _ _ _

20) Die like a frog?

     _ _ _ _ _

21) Remote-controlled aircraft with its own racing league

     _ _ _ _ _

22) _____ Drive (short-lived game show named after a street in Beverly Hills)

     _ _ _ _ _

23) Not nearly as good

     _ _ _ _ _

24) Mister, in Mexico

     _ _ _ _ _

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 Chambers 12

Roughly two weeks have gone by since "Anagram Chambers 12" was posted on this blog, and twenty people have solved it since then:

• Cathy Bowen
• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Joe Bernard
• Marie desJardins
• Kevin Orfield
• Mike Armstrong
• Stasi Gustafson
• Chris Kochmanski
• Sam Levitin
• Derek Allen
• Mom
• Michael Lebowitz
• Wendy Walker
• Steve Gunter
• Patrick Jordan
• KeoFam
• Lynn Sweeney
• Tamara Brenner
• Josie Giles

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #522: Back-Oops 3

PUZZLE #522

BACK-OOPS 3

Some words become different words when flipped around, such as PART and TRAP. The answers to this puzzle almost fit that description, but are a little off. To figure out what they are, fill in each space in the direction of the blue arrow with the answer to each corresponding numbered clue. Where a box is divided by a horizontal line, fill in a different letter below so that a new word is formed when read backwards through the pink arrow which matches one of the clues in the "Backward Words" section (listed in no particular order).

Once everything's filled out, the changed letters on the pink arrow, when read backwards, will spell out the FINAL ANSWER: a term used in video games

FORWARD WORDS (blue arrow)

1) Large amount of soup or stew

2) Cut-and-_____ (simple and straightforward)

3) Winter sport for Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn

4) With "The", classic rock band that did "We Gotta Get Out of This Place"

5) Completely immerse

6) Lighthearted parody

7) Famous vampire Count whom Batman fought in a non-canonical comic book

BACKWARD WORDS (pink arrow)

• April _____ Day ('80s slasher film where, as a prank on the audience, nobody dies)

• Compact computer also known as a "notebook"

• Endurance that runs out when Lara Croft sprints for too long in Tomb Raider III

• Handicapped permit hung off of a car's front view mirror, for one

• Metamorphic rock that sounds pleasant?

• Quirky and quite odd

• Well-versed in a language

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: Loopy Links 2

It's been almost two weeks since "Loopy Links 2" was posted on this blog, and twenty people have solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Cathy Bowen
• Joe Bernard
• Pavel Curtis
• Kevin Orfield
• Josie Giles
• Michael Lebowitz
• Mike Armstrong
• Sam Levitin
• KeoFam
• Tamara Brenner
• Chris Kochmanski
• Mom
• Derek Allen
• Marie desJardins
• Steve Gunter
• Lynn Sweeney
• Wendy Walker
• Stasi Gustafson

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #521: Anagram Chambers 12

PUZZLE #521

ANAGRAM CHAMBERS 12

One of the clues in 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!

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

• [Body lacking limbs and a head] + _ = [Groups of Girl Scouts] + _ = [Atom parts other than electrons and neutrons]

• [Pass into law] + _ = ["Hypnotic" subgenre of electronic dance music] + _ = [Human-horse hybrid seen in the "Pastoral Symphony" segment of Fantasia]

• [Angela's _____ (Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir)] + _ = [Stock market units] + _ = [Strapped device that can hold your horses]

• [What's left of a chopped-down tree] + _ = [It separates the nostrils in a human nose] + _ = [Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, and so on]

• [Word preceding "piano" or "prix"] + _ = [Fire-breathing creature such as Spyro] + _ = [Doting or devoted]

• [Narrator and protagonist of To Kill a Mockingbird] + _ = [Specially made] + _ = [Any outfit worn by contestants on Let's Make a Deal]

• [My Dinner with _____ (minimalist movie from 1981)] + _ = [Made money] + _ = [#1 Bruno Mars song named after a throwable explosive]

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: Logicrossword

It's been almost two weeks since my first "Logicrossword" puzzle was posted on this blog. I correctly predicted that it would be tougher than usual, as a total of thirteen people have solved it since then, but some of them did tell me that they successfully solved the normal version of this puzzle (as opposed to the easy one), so perhaps it wasn't too difficult after all.

• Grant Fikes
• Marie desJardins
• Kevin Orfield
• Mike Armstrong
• Stasi Gustafson
• Sam Levitin
• Steve Gunter
• Tamara Brenner
• Michael Lebowitz
• Josie Giles
• Mom
• Lynn Sweeney
• Chris Kochmanski

Now head below the break for the answers as well as some solvers' comments!

PUZZLE #520: Loopy Links 2

PUZZLE #520

LOOPY LINKS 2

All of the answers in this puzzle weave through the grid in a single long chain via a series of straight lines and right-angled turns. Each square is used once except where the answers link together in squares with circles in them, each serving as the last letter of one answer and the first letter of the next. The letters in these circled squares are blank and for you to fill in. The chain begins and ends in squares that have letters already filled in.

Once you've solved this puzzle, the circled letters (when read left to right starting at the topmost row) will spell out a clue that will lead you to the FINAL ANSWER: a proper name

1) Reptilian movie monster with an atomic breath attack

2) Pop rock duo that sang "Potential Breakup Song": 3 wds.

3) Girl Scout gathering

4) Clint _____ (actor who played Dirty Harry five times)

5) Philadelphia university that The Gong Show host Chuck Barris graduated from

6) Like an elaborate banquet with food galore

7) Sophisticated, like some arthouse fare

8) Tootsie Roll's covering

9) _____ & Isles (2010s crime drama that aired on TNT)

10) Asthmatic's aid

11) Judy Hopps from Zootopia, e.g.

12) Perforated reward for getting a high score on Skee-Ball, perhaps

13) Robberies

14) _____ to change (may be different later on)

15) Stretchy, sleeveless shirt: 2 wds.

16) Face-covering game for babies: Hyph.

17) The Three Tenors tune whose name is Italian for "My Sunshine": 3 wds.

18) With "The", Homeric epic that O Brother, Where Art Thou? was loosely based on

19) Japan's second-most populated city (after Tokyo)

20) Flight display by the Blue Angels, for one: 2 wds.

21) A _____ in Time (Madeleine L'Engle book)

22) Shouts something like "Holy smokes!"

23) Illegible doodle

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 10

It's been about two weeks since "Eat Your Words 10" was posted on this blog, and twenty people have successfully solved it since then, as you an see in the list below:

• Grant Fikes
• Cathy Bowen
• Cindy Heisler
• Joe Bernard
• Pavel Curtis
• Kevin Orfield
• Mike Armstrong
• Sam Levitin
• Stasi Gustafson
• Derek Allen
• Steve Gunter
• Wendy Walker
• Michael Lebowitz
• KeoFam
• Tamara Brenner
• Chris Kochmanski
• Marie desJardins
• Mom
• Lynn Sweeney
• Josie Giles

Now head below the break for the answers!