Wordy Wednesday 140: Pent Words 28

WORDY WEDNESDAY #138
HEX PATHFINDER 7 (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Anthony Bailey **
Edderiofer He **
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
James Sinnett *
M. Sean Molley *
Adam Weaver *
Bryce Herdt **
Chris Hendricks **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #139
FILL-IN CROSSWORD 4 (hint)
As of this writing, 10 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #140
PENT WORDS 28
In this puzzle, you must divide the grid into pentominoes (regions containing five cells each), and write a letter in each cell. The rows, reading from left to right, will contain the words hinted at by the ACROSS clues. The letters in the pentominoes, in reading order (left to right starting with the top row), will form the words hinted at by the PENTOMINOES clues; these clues are presented in no particular order. (In the example, the rows spell PLANT, SHARE, and BITES, and the pentominoes spell the words PLANS, TREES, and HABIT.) Use the ACROSS answers to determine where the pentominoes are.
ACROSS (two answers per row):
1 Ray of stand-up / 4 years, for Obama
2 Shorten, as a dictionary / Kerfuffle
3 Loose rope / The Atlantic, for one
4 ____ depravity / Peter of Casablanca
5 Antagonistic / "I ____ with my little eye. . ."
6 Singer with the albums 19, 21, and 25 / Sicko director Michael
7 It might be transmitted via a snake bite / Pleasant sight to a desert traveler
8 Jamaican music genre / Claw-like appendages
9 Item for a football player, but not a soccer player / Barbara of I Dream of Jeannie
10 Disinclined, as to risk / Replete (with)

PENTOMINOES:
* HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER
* THE OTHER HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER
* Feature of some fonts
* Striped giraffe relative
* Played a role
* ____ icebox pie
* Gantry of a Sinclair Lewis novel
* "Duly ____"
* Word following "crown" or "pot"
* Instrument played while sitting
* Safe place
* "____ the rainbow" (Skittles slogan)
* Madagascar day ____
* Upsets
* Big Bird's teddy bear
* Song from The Sound of Music
* Use a razor
* Papas of Zorba the Greek
* Bullwinkle, for one
* ____ Your Luck (game show on which Michael Larson gained infamy)

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .
* Another installment of Foxgeryptics!
* Patron Puzzle #20, which will be delivered exclusively to Patreon supporters ($5 or more per month), is Faley Fun Pack. This trio of small puzzles inspired by Ryan Faley (Word Sandwiches, Sudokurossword, and Chain Reaction: Missing Links) will give you many minutes of fun!

Until next time, yappy solving!

Logicsmith Exhibition 6: Shipping Pearls (UPDATE!)

Five days ago, I posted the results of my Shipping Pearls contest. Since then, I have found another entry in my Gmail spam folder, shown below, which arrived in time to be included but which wasn't, for obvious reasons. It has been posted now. Fortunately, the outcome of the contest was not affected.

Wordy Wednesday 138 easy version update

As originally published, the easy version of WW138 had a mistake in clue 13E, which has now been fixed. My apologies.

Wordy Wednesday 139: Fill-In Crossword 4

WORDY WEDNESDAY #137
MISSING LINKS (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Anthony Bailey **
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
Adam Weaver **
Bryce Herdt **
Eitan Cher **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #138
HEX PATHFINDER 7 (hint)
As of this writing, 9 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #139
FILL-IN CROSSWORD 4
The answers in the crossword below are clued alphabetically by length; you must figure out where they belong. The unclued shaded entries will spell a clue to the final answer.
3 LETTERS
Mathematician Lovelace
Pale ____
Da ____ G Show (2000-2004 Sacha Baron Cohen series)
An energy drink brand
Common bank fixture: abbr.
Champing at the ____
Animal which the Pokémon Persian resembles
A member of a Disney septet
Electric ____
Living planet in Marvel comics
What clocks in Panama are set to: abbr.
Receive
George Gershwin’s brother
Stick in the ____
The loneliest number, as per Three Dog Night
Tear
Used a sofa, perhaps
Stereotypically British drink
“. . . ___ will be done. . .”
Card

4 LETTERS
Not light
____ and every
Key ____ (film crew member)
Azerbaijan neighbor
Frigg’s husband in Norse mythology
Give a movie five stars, for example
”Note to ____. . .”
Civil wrong which doesn’t involve a contract

5 LETTERS
Bowling place
Hawaiian word for "love"

6 LETTERS
Cure-all
____ warming
“Empress of Soul” Gladys
Loll
____ Space (1999 comedy)
Commands

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .
* What singer has the albums 19, 21, and 25?

Until next time, yappy solving!

Logicsmith Exhibition 6: Shipping Pearls (RESULTS!)

Four weeks ago, I challenged my readers to an optimization task involving writing a Masyu whose unused cells form a Battleships solution. 12 people have entered this contest; their entries are collated here.
Two entries tied for the lowest score of 807; the winner, as decided by random.org, is Robert Vollmert! He will receive a copy of my upcoming Grandmaster Puzzles e-book when it is released. In the meanwhile, I will also give him a copy of both issues of Fox & Badger Magazine so far, previously only available to Patreon supporters!

[Edited on 2016-12-23 to add an entry from Philipp Weiß, which was received before the deadline, but ended up in my spam folder and went unnoticed. Since Philipp did not get a winning score, the outcome of the competition was not affected.]

Wordy Wednesday 138: Hex Pathfinder 7

WORDY WEDNESDAY #135
PENT WORDS 27 (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Anthony Bailey **
Edderiofer He **
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
Bo Green **
Bryce Herdt **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #136
SECTION SIX 13 (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Anthony Bailey **
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
M. Sean Molley *
Bo Green **
Bryce Herdt **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #137
MISSING LINKS (hint)
As of this writing, a number of people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #138
HEX PATHFINDER 7
This puzzle contains a word suggested by patron Jack Bross.
In this puzzle, each answer starts in the correspondingly numbered hexagon and winds through the grid, starting in the indicated direction. When you have finished, every letter will be used in exactly two entries. Rearrange the letters in the shaded spaces to get the final answer, a 7-letter word.
1E Zealous (6)
2NW Male red deer (4)
3W Capital of Sudan (8)
4SW Post-apocalyptic 2007 Will Smith film (9, 3 wds.)
5W Phrase in many Jeff Foxworthy jokes (18, 5 wds.)
6NW Poet Ogden (4)
7E She married Kanye West in 2014 (13, 2 wds.)
8NW Wabbit Twouble character (9, 2 wds.)
9NE ____ road (popular ice cream flavor) (5)
10SW Like a man with an unshaven chest (7)
11NE Green viscous substance seen in many Nickelodeon shows (5)
12NW Departed (4)
12NW Dog of the Cardigan or Pembroke variety (10, 2 wds.)
13E Therefore (4)
14E Common ADHD medication (7)
15SW Like a difficult battle, perhaps (6)
16W Complain (4)
17NW Exit (6)
18SE Dandy (4)
19SE Morris of tobacco fame (6)
20W Made like a football team, perhaps (7)
20SE Austrian composer Franz Joseph ____ (5)
21NE Former namesake of Volgograd (6)
22W ____ chest (4)
23NE Walrus feature (4)
24SE Trinket (5)
25NE Certain hotel employee (7)
26NW Heap (4)
27NE Postpone (5)
28NE Cereal-stealing Barney (6)
29SW Little curly-haired dog (11, 2 wds.)
30NW Sense via touch (4)
31SE 2016 movie with the tagline, “Witness the manhunt that changed the course of human history” (5)
32SW Witty comeback (9)
33E Old Testament battle site (7)

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .
* What animal does the Pokémon Persian resemble?

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 137: Missing Links

WORDY WEDNESDAY #134
THE INNOCUOUS TWINS (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Anthony Bailey *
Edderiofer He **
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
Adam Weaver **
Bryce Herdt **
Chris Hendricks **
Ryan Faley **
Walker Anderson **
Yossi Fendel **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #135
PENT WORDS 27 (hint)
As of this writing, 9 people have solved this puzzle from last week. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #136
SECTION SIX 13 (hint)
As of this writing, 8 people have solved this puzzle from last week. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #137
MISSING LINKS
This puzzle contains a word suggested by patron Giovanni Pagano.
Write words in the blanks, one letter per square, so that every pair of consecutive words, reading from left to right, forms a compound word or a phrase. The highlighted squares will spell two more words; the final answer is the two-word phrase that goes between those words.

Uncomfortable and embarrassing __ __ __ __ __ __ __
                               15 59 53 58 42 29 33
Political commentator Glenn __ __ __ __
                            56 46 41 24
Hotel employee who carries luggage __ __ __ __ __ __ __
                                   36 48 52 04 11 19 30
Inhale and exhale __ __ __ __ __ __ __
                  01 60 09 51 38 18 32
The Wii Remote, for one __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
                        20 57 13 06 16 02 31 43 37 49
A Harley, for example __ __ __ __ __
                      14 40 10 08 22
“. . . or so ____ me God. . .” __ __ __ __
                               64 25 55 27
Like a freshly sharpened pencil __ __ __ __ __ __
                                45 34 12 62 39 23
Short message sent on a cell phone __ __ __ __
                                   07 61 03 47
Unpleasant to look at __ __ __ __
                      28 35 44 26
Musical subtitled The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz __ __ __ __ __ __
                                                        50 05 63 21 54 17

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .
* What 2016 movie has the tagline, “Witness the manhunt that changed the course of human history”?

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 135: Pent Words 27 & Wordy Wednesday 136: Section Six 13

WORDY WEDNESDAY #133
FOXGERYPTICS 5 (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Edderiofer He **
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt **
Chris Hendricks **
Eitan Cher **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
Yossi Fendel **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #134
THE INNOCUOUS TWINS (hint)
As of this writing, 10 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's a hint. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

GUEST PUZZLE ON RYAN FALEY'S BLOG!
I recently wrote a guest puzzle for Ryan Faley, who went through a bout of extreme depression and ended up missing a week on his blog. If you enjoy puzzles, do check it out!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #135
PENT WORDS 27
In this puzzle, you must divide the grid into pentominoes (regions containing five cells each), and write a letter in each cell. The rows, reading from left to right, will contain the words hinted at by the ACROSS clues. The letters in the pentominoes, in reading order (left to right starting with the top row), will form the words hinted at by the PENTOMINOES clues; these clues are presented in no particular order. (In the example, the rows spell PLANT, SHARE, and BITES, and the pentominoes spell the words PLANS, TREES, and HABIT.) Use the ACROSS answers to determine where the pentominoes are.
ACROSS (two answers per row):
1 A men's deodorant brand / Endless
2 Brown songbird / Dismay
3 Many Sousa works / Barack Obama, astrologically
4 "Catch a Falling Star" singer Perry / James Doohan role
5 Expresses boredom, perhaps / Falcon-headed Egyptian god
6 Sure / Gordon Shumway, familiarly
7 Three-____ race / Protagonist
8 Total number of B's in the English names of the first 999,999,999 positive integers / They have fulcra
9 "If it ain't ____. . ." / South American mountain range
10 "Electric ____" (Eddy Grant song) / Anywhere but Here novelist Simpson

PENTOMINOES:
* HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER
* THE OTHER HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER
* Mongoose relative with a long tail
* Common clock feature
* ____ Hunter (Christian metal band)
* Wild dog native to Asia
* Game featured in the Pixar short Geri's Game
* ____ crossing (British crosswalk)
* A noble gas
* One in possession
* Game of chance resembling bingo
* Measuring aid
* Tenth Greek letter
* "All the world's a ____. . ." (As You Like It)
* It may be vicious
* Pleasant smell
* Reeves of The Matrix
* Jules Brown's brother in Back to the Future: Part III
* Lifted
* Stratagems

WORDY WEDNESDAY #136
SECTION SIX 13
This puzzle's grid has six rings and six sections. Each ring contains a series of words placed end to end, reading either clockwise or counterclockwise; all the words in a given ring will read in the same direction. Ring 1 (the outer ring) contains six answers that read clockwise; the starting spaces are numbered in the grid. Clues for the answers in the remaining rings are given in order, but their starting points and direction are for you to determine. The sections (separated by the heavy lines radiating from the center) will help you place the inner rings: in a given section, each ring segment contains all but one of the letters in the next segment outward. In other words, a section's outermost segment contains six letters; the next segment inward contains five of those six letters in some order; and so on, until only one of the original six letters remains.

Arrange the letters in the six starred spaces to form the final answer, a 6-letter word.
Ring 1
1 Tony of Taxi and Who's the Boss?
2 "____ Jean" (1982 Michael Jackson song)
3 Landscape alternative
4 Slumps
5 Naval clerk
6 Charles who founded a large pharmaceutical corporation

Ring 2
* Press
* Severe snowstorm
* Notorious
* Piano-like instrument with a neck
* Column of a chessboard

Ring 3
* "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" animals
* Tuck of the Robin Hood legends, for one
* German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm ____
* Animated MTV series set in Lawndale High School

Ring 4
* Unsafe
* A small orange
* Short

Ring 5
* Willie of baseball
* With The, Stravinsky ballet

Ring 6
* ____ the 13th (1980 horror flick)

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .
* A puzzle with a seed word from patron Giovanni Pagano!
* Patron Puzzle #19, which will be delivered exclusively to Patreon supporters ($5 or more per month), is a Words Without Friends. Do you like Scrabble, but lack friends? Play this solitaire version instead. You're told where to place the letters; the challenge is finding the right words!

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 134: The Innocuous Twins

WORDY WEDNESDAY #132
HEX PATHFINDER 6 (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Jack Bross **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #133
FOXGERYPTICS 5 (hint)
As of this writing, 12 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #134
THE INNOCUOUS TWINS
Remember that haunted hotel you visited a while back? You’ve been called for a return visit; it turns out that the second floor is haunted by two twin brothers, who appear to you in a dream as you sleep. “We had lots of intelligent things we wanted to talk about,” one of them explains to you, “but nobody ever listened to us. It drove us to depression when we were alive. Will you help us rest in peace? Give us the correct 7-letter answer to this puzzle to show us that you want to listen.”

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .
* What's a 5-letter word for "Jules Brown's brother in Back to the Future: Part III"?
* What's a 6-letter word for "Charles who founded a large pharmaceutical corporation"?

Until next time, yappy solving!

Logicsmith Exhibition 6: Shipping Pearls

I have not had a contest on my blog in a long, long time. Some of my Wordy Wednesday puzzles in the past have been contests (in fact, the system where you get 1 or 2 stars next to your name on the solvers list is a carryover from the contest format, where you could get 1 or 2 contest entries depending on whether you solved the puzzle before or after the easy version went up). However, since I created my Patreon, where people who pledge $3 or more per month get an early look at my Wordy Wednesday puzzles, it doesn't feel right to basically give an advantage to people who pay to see my puzzles earlier. The solution? This contest doesn't involve word puzzles! In fact, it involves logic puzzles, also known as those things this blog used to be focused on before I jumped the shark. However, I won't be writing the puzzles; that is your job.

You are to write a valid Masyu puzzle on a 10x10 grid. The puzzle must have exactly one valid solution. In this solution, there must be exactly 20 cells which are not entered by the loop; within those unused cells, it must be possible to fit a standard Battleships fleet (one ship of length 4, two of length 3, three of length 2, four of length 1) in accordance with the standard Battleships rules.

IMPORTANT: You are not writing a Masyu Battleships puzzle. The puzzle must be solvable as a normal Masyu puzzle, without knowledge that the unused cells will form a Battleships solution.

Count the number of black circles and the number of white circles in your puzzle. Let M be the number of occurrences of the more frequent color, and L be the number of occurrences of the less frequent color. (M and L will be equal if there is an equal number of black circles and white circles.) Your goal is to minimize the value 100M+L. (For example, if your puzzle has 8 black circles and 14 white circles, your score is 1408.)

Submit your puzzle to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next 4 weeks (before December 18, 2016). You may enter multiple times; only your lowest score counts. Whoever submits a valid puzzle with the lowest score wins. I will feature the lowest-scoring valid entry from every entrant on this blog, so even if you don't win, your puzzle-writing abilities will be showcased on my blog. Ties will be broken by random.org.

The winner will receive a copy of an upcoming Grandmaster Puzzles e-book featuring my puzzles, which is scheduled to be released some time before the end of the year. If, for some unforeseen reason, the e-book isn't released by then, the winner will be offered a replacement prize.

Good luck!

Wordy Wednesday 133: Foxgeryptics 5

WORDY WEDNESDAY #131
ANACROSSWORD 9 (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt **
Eitan Cher *
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #132
HEX PATHFINDER 6 (hint)
As of this writing, 7 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #133
FOXGERYPTICS 5
These puzzles are based on Gryptics. Gryptics seem like a neat concept to me; however, they are sullied by the main difference between the difficulty levels being how many randomly-placed letters are given at the start. (They're not even symmetrical ones, and even the hardest puzzles have them.) Apparently, Les Foeldessy didn't succeed in getting his puzzles to the large audience he wanted to, because the website gryptics.com no longer exists.

Insert a single letter in each space of each grid so that each grid's five rows and five columns spells a word from left to right or top to bottom (including the letters outside the grid).

Arrange the letters in the shaded spaces to form the final answer, an eight-letter word.


COMING NEXT WEEK. . .
* A very innocuous puzzle with no words in it. . . .

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 132: Hex Pathfinder 6

WORDY WEDNESDAY #130
PENT WORDS 26 (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt **
Chris Hendricks *
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #131
ANACROSSWORD 9 (hint)
As of this writing, 8 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

REDHEAD64'S OBSCURE PUZZLE BLOG!
Reader Ryan Faley would like to direct your attention to his blog, where he has now posted his 100th puzzle! His blog is inspired by my own, and quite personally, I enjoy his offerings. I hope you do, too. :)

WORDY WEDNESDAY #132
HEX PATHFINDER 6
This puzzle contains a word suggested by patron M. Sean Molley.
In this puzzle, each answer starts in the correspondingly numbered hexagon and winds through the grid, starting in the indicated direction. When you have finished, every letter will be used in exactly two entries. Rearrange the letters in the shaded spaces to get the final answer, a 7-letter word.
1SW Incorrect relative positioning, as of vertebrae (12)
2SE Its first user was William Howard Taft (10, 2 wds.)
3SW Haley Joel of The Sixth Sense (6)
4NW Picked (5)
5SW Author of a 1970 guide to Shakespeare (11, 2 wds.)
6NW Actress Dickinson of Police Woman (5)
7SE Craft a plan, as a chess player might (10)
8E Grounds keeper? (12, 2 wds.)
9NE Ted Cassidy role (5)
10NE Clarify with an example (10)
11SW Probable eternal bachelorette (8)
12SW Young child (6)
13W House-building material, perhaps (11)
14W Its flag has five stars (5)
15NW Loss (6)
16NW Only animated Disney film with a running time in excess of two hours (8)
17W Surname of the family from The Incredibles (4)
18W Great Sphinx’s city (4)
19E ____ calculator (the TI-80, for example) (8)
20SW Follow the ____ (6)
21SE Emblem depicting Christ as a lamb (8, 2 wds.)
22W Ploy (4)
23NE Younger brother of Christopher Hitchens (5)
23W White carrot relatives (8)
24SW Character associated with forty thieves (7, 2 wds.)
25W ____ tiger (6)
26SE Midnight rider Paul (6)
27SW Infuriate (5)
28SE Photographer’s need (6)
29SE ____ Las Vegas (1964 Elvis film) (4)
30W Gruesome (7)
31E “Terrible” figure of 16th century Russia (4)
32E Popular pet rodent (6)

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .
* Another batch of Foxgeryptics!

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 131: Anacrossword 9

WORDY WEDNESDAY #129
FRAMELINKS 5 (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Giovanni Pagano *
Edderiofer He **
Jack Bross **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #130
PENT WORDS 26 (hint)
As of this writing, 8 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

LOGICAL LEAPS AND LANDINGS
One of my patrons, Pavel Curtis, is running a Kickstarter campaign to get the first two years of his Adalogical Ænigmas series published as a book. As of this writing, he has raised over $6,000, reaching his stretch goal to commission fellow puzzle writers to create a bonus series called the Ænigmatic Addenda. I was one of the puzzle writers approached for this purpose, and have been assigned to the $7,000 stretch goal. If you like logic puzzles (and obviously you do, because you're browsing this blog, of all places), consider supporting this project!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #131
ANACROSSWORD 9
This puzzle contains a word suggested by patron Jack Bross.
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ 
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ 
36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ ___ ___ ___ ___ 
71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103
___ ___ ___
104 105 106
Hundred ____ Wood (A. A. Milne setting)
Immature
Certain symbol on a music staff
City of the Cowboys
When supper is served
Repeat
Body parts looked at by podiatrists
Certain honkers
Richard of Pretty Woman
Skinny
Cause of annoying physical discomfort
Portly's father in The Wind in the Willows
Having to do with the matter at hand
Piece of paper
Xiaolin ____ (cartoon whose Shen Gong Wu include the Orb of Tornami)
Prepare for a test
Digital offering of many newspapers?
Advocate of voting rights for women
Lacking slack
Yukon or Nunavut, for example
Prong
____: Legacy (2010 sci-fi sequel)
With The, 2016 video game where the player interacts with mazes on an island

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .
* What's an 8-letter word for "Only animated Disney film with a running time in excess of two hours"?

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 130: Pent Words 26

WORDY WEDNESDAY #128
CHESS WORDS 3 (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Edderiofer He **
Jack Bross **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Brian Chen **
Bryce Herdt **
Chris Hendricks **
Jack Lance **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
Yossi Fendel **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #129
FRAMELINKS 5 (hint)
As of this writing, 7 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #130
PENT WORDS 26
In this puzzle, you must divide the grid into pentominoes (regions containing five cells each), and write a letter in each cell. The rows, reading from left to right, will contain the words hinted at by the ACROSS clues. The letters in the pentominoes, in reading order (left to right starting with the top row), will form the words hinted at by the PENTOMINOES clues; these clues are presented in no particular order. (In the example, the rows spell PLANT, SHARE, and BITES, and the pentominoes spell the words PLANS, TREES, and HABIT.) Use the ACROSS answers to determine where the pentominoes are.

ACROSS (two answers per row):
1 ____ home the bacon / Circular
2 Word following "empty" or "universal" in mathematics / Final course of a meal, often
3 Father of Moab / One who sells meat
4 90 degrees on a compass / Real ____
5 Dutch ____ disease / Capital on the island of Java
6 Unpolluted / ____: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002 movie)
7 Artificial / Like some love
8 Crazy person / Comfortably warm
9 Blue / I, for example
10 Forge / Move while holding the mouse button

PENTOMINOES:
* HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER
* THE OTHER HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER
* Pickling need
* Painting on a wall
* The Lone Ranger's companion
* Reward for a good dog, perhaps
* Reverent
* Disgusting
* Former Green Bay quarterback Bart
* Premiere
* Confess
* ____ Armour (sports apparel brand name)
* The ____ and the Restless
* Item worn by a chef
* Play poker with marked cards, for example
* Outback offering
* ____-headed (many-faceted)
* ____ Recall (1990 film)
* Fictional detective Stone portrayed by Tom Selleck
* Cord that's inserted between teeth

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .
* In what 2016 video game does the player interacts with mazes on an island?
* Patron Puzzle #18, which will be delivered exclusively to Patreon supporters ($5 or more per month), is a Snake Crisscross. 97 entries await your solving, 62 of which read across and down in typical crossword fashion, and 35 of which snake around the grid.

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 129: Framelinks 5

WORDY WEDNESDAY #127
ANACROSSWORD 8 (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt **
Chris Hendricks **
Ryan Faley ** (Note: this is the version of the puzzle Ryan had to solve)
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #128
CHESS WORD 3 (hint)
As of this writing, 12 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #129
FRAMELINKS 5
Fill in the empty squares in the diagram with the given letters to form words.
Arrange the letters in the shaded squares to form the final answer, a 7-letter word.

AAAAAAAAA BBBBB CC DDD EEEEEEEEEEE GGG HHH IIII LLLL M NNN OOO PP RRRR SSS TTTTTTT UU V W X YY

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .
* What's a 5-letter word for "Fictional detective Stone portrayed by Tom Selleck"?

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 128: Chess Words 3

WORDY WEDNESDAY #126
SECTION SIX 12 (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
M. Sean Molley **
Adam Weaver *
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #127
ANACROSSWORD 8 (hint)
As of this writing, 9 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #128
CHESS WORDS 3
Eight 8-letter words are scrambled on the chessboard. Each chess piece starts on the first letter of one of the words, and can be moved across the board via standard chess moves to spell the rest of the word. Every square is used exactly once. The chess pieces move as follows:
King: one space in any of the eight directions
Rook: any number of spaces in a horizontal or vertical direction
Bishop: any number of spaces in a diagonal direction
Queen: any number of spaces in any of the eight directions
Knight: two spaces in a horizontal or vertical direction and then one space in a perpendicular direction
Arrange the letters in the starred blanks to form the final answer, an 8-letter word.

         Queen: D  __ __ __ __ __ __ __          King: T  __ __ __ __ __ __ __
                d1          **                         e1             **      
Queen's Bishop: P  __ __ __ __ __ __ __ King's Bishop: C  __ __ __ __ __ __ __
                c1                **                   f1             **      
Queen's Knight: S  __ __ __ __ __ __ __ King's Knight: B  __ __ __ __ __ __ __
                b1                **                   g1             **      
  Queen's Rook: I  __ __ __ __ __ __ __   King's Rook: V  __ __ __ __ __ __ __
                a1                   **                h1                **   

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .
* A Framelinks guaranteed to make you cross!

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 127: Anacrossword 8

WORDY WEDNESDAY #125
PENT WORDS 25 (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
M. Sean Molley **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt **
Joel Martin **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #126
SECTION SIX 12 (hint)
As of this writing, 7 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #127
ANACROSSWORD 8
This puzzle was co-authored with Ryan Faley. He gave me the clue for the final answer, and I turned it into the puzzle. Have fun!
This puzzle was also written for patron M. Sean Molley, who supports me at the $20+ level on Patreon and is therefore entitled to suggest one word or phrase every month for me to incorporate into a puzzle. His August 2016 suggestion is used here.
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ 
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ 
36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96
Nation immediately east of Togo
The Golden Girls actress: 2 wds.
Repetitively-named candy
Place where beer is made
A fabric softener brand
Spanish dance accompanied by guitar and castanets
Recess in which a statue might be found
Head, colloquially
Common prize at a county fair
Key for making capital letters
“Out of ____, out of mind”
Members of a deadly group of seven
PlayStation manufacturer
Sharply sloped
“Those bones in my jaw”, as per Chip Skylark
Squid appendage
Engine part that controls the flow of fuel
____ in the towel (give up)
Source of the phrase “[citation needed]”
Clever

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .
* An 8x8 grid to solve with your mates. . .

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 126: Section Six 12

WORDY WEDNESDAY #124
THE OMINOUS PENTHOUSE (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Edderiofer He **
Giovanni Pagano **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Brian Chen **
Bryce Herdt **
Chris Hendricks *
Ryan Faley *
Yossi Fendel *
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #125
PENT WORDS 25 (hint)
As of this writing, 9 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #126
SECTION SIX 12
This puzzle was written for patron M. Sean Molley, who supports me at the $20+ level on Patreon and is therefore entitled to suggest one word or phrase every month for me to incorporate into a puzzle. His September 2016 suggestion is used here.

This puzzle's grid has six rings and six sections. Each ring contains a series of words placed end to end, reading either clockwise or counterclockwise; all the words in a given ring will read in the same direction. Ring 1 (the outer ring) contains six answers that read clockwise; the starting spaces are numbered in the grid. Clues for the answers in the remaining rings are given in order, but their starting points and direction are for you to determine. The sections (separated by the heavy lines radiating from the center) will help you place the inner rings: in a given section, each ring segment contains all but one of the letters in the next segment outward. In other words, a section's outermost segment contains six letters; the next segment inward contains five of those six letters in some order; and so on, until only one of the original six letters remains.

Arrange the letters in the six starred spaces to form the final answer, a 6-letter word.
Ring 1
1 Hasbro board game in the same family as pachisi
2 Olympic winner, for example
3 Increase in pay
4 Certain dental concern
5 Made a selection
6 The Truth About Uri Geller author James

Ring 2
* ____ and seizure
* Company behind the arcade game Centipede
* Game whose L-Block won Character Battle VI on GameFAQs
* "Rolling in the Deep" singer
* Near death

Ring 3
* Singer Lovato
* Having the most width
* Abolitionist Tubman
* Lag behind

Ring 4
* Actor John of Three's Company
* A Spool of Blue ____ (Anne Tyler novel)
* Equine headgear

Ring 5
* Worn out
* 1999 Faith Hill song

Ring 6
* Name of a "Big" tunnel boring machine in Seattle or a "Big" fish in Super Mario Bros. 3

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .
* What engine part controls the flow of fuel?
* Patron Puzzle #17, which will be delivered exclusively to Patreon supporters ($5 or more per month), is Letter-Changing Appetizers. In this quartet of bite-sized puzzles (a Pent Words, a Word Sandwiches, a Hex Pathfinder, and a crossword), two entries can't seem to agree, and a letter in each such entry needs to be changed to make them fit together. This variety pack will give you minutes upon minutes of fun!

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 125: Pent Words 25

WORDY WEDNESDAY #123
HEX PATHFINDER 5 (answer)
It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Edderiofer He **
Giovanni Pagano *
Sam Levitin **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt *
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #124
THE OMINOUS PENTHOUSE (hint)
As of this writing, 7 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version (by which I mean a version with blatant instructions). If you would like some advice or assistance in solving my Wordy Wednesday, I pray you will not hesitate to contact me for immediate relief. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #NUMBER
PENT WORDS 25
In this puzzle, you must divide the grid into pentominoes (regions containing five cells each), and write a letter in each cell. The rows, reading from left to right, will contain the words hinted at by the ACROSS clues. The letters in the pentominoes, in reading order (left to right starting with the top row), will form the words hinted at by the PENTOMINOES clues; these clues are presented in no particular order. (In the example, the rows spell PLANT, SHARE, and BITES, and the pentominoes spell the words PLANS, TREES, and HABIT.) Use the ACROSS answers to determine where the pentominoes are.

ACROSS (two answers per row):
1 Nash played by Eddie Murphy / Grid of multiplication results
2 Bring upon oneself / Soup-eating utensil
3 Lindsay of InAPPropriate Comedy (2013) / Singer-songwriter Bowie
4 City in which S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders is set / "____ my soul!"
5 16th century council site / They're spent in Spain
6 Land area / Victoria's Secret offering
7 Microsoft Edge, for one / The ____ Bully (2006 film)
8 Common salad dressing / "White & ____" (Weird Al song)
9 Fairy tale shoemaker's assistants/ ____ Mario Run (upcoming smartphone game)
10 Similar / Irish or English bird dog

PENTOMINOES:
* HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER
* THE OTHER HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER
* Party game where you have to describe a word without saying five other words
* ____ legend
* Weasel relative with dark brown fur
* Game of which bughouse is a variation
* Launchpad McQuack, for one
* Enthusiastic
* A city in France (hint: it isn't Paris)
* Go in
* Gives temporarily
* Greek half-man half-goat
* Movable part of a helmet
* The Sixth ____ (1999 Bruce Willis flick)
* Dentist's offering, perhaps
* Black and white Chinese mammal
* Philosopher Plantinga
* Ne plus ____
* Discourage
* Have a violent outburst

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .
* Which game's L-Block won Character Battle VI on GameFAQs?

Until next time, yappy solving!

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