Do you like puzzles?
Do you like a little light socializing on a Saturday evening?
Do you like pictures of adorable kitties?
Sorry, no kitty pictures tonight. :(
But we do have puzzles and socializing on tap... (And pucklady recently added two new kittens to her household, so perhaps she'll have some pictures to share soon.)
Sunday Puzzle Warm-up is a companion to the regular Sunday Puzzle series. Every Sunday evening we have a puzzle party featuring puzzles suitable for group solving. And this Sunday is the first Sunday of the month, when we have our monthly potluck puzzle party! If you haven't attended one of these parties yet, here's your invitation!
On Saturday evenings (i.e. tonight) we have a warm-up party. The aim is to introduce people to the kind of puzzles featured in the weekly Sunday Puzzle party and to provide introductory-level puzzles for folks to practice on.
On tap tonight:
1. a new 21-clue JulieCrostic
2. a second chance to solve last week's unsolved mystery puzzle
Let's start with the mystery puzzle. I previewed this puzzle last week here in Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up before posting it in last week's regular Sunday Puzzle diary. Here it is again:
Mitt Romney was out campaigning when he came across a set of large alphabet blocks. To show I am qualified to be president, he told the reporters accompanying him, I will stack these up into a tower and then stand at the pinnacle, above them all (and above you all).
So he put the B block on top of the A, the C block on top of the B, the D block on top of the C, paused briefly to smile at the cameras, and continued to stack the blocks.
What Romney didn't know was that there were only 25 blocks in the set; The Z block was missing. What will happen when Romney finishes stacking the blocks and climbs up to the pinnacle?
Last week pucklady
guessed
He will come up short of his goal
Science had two guesses. His
first was
matrimony
and his
second was
testimony
These are all good guesses, but none of these is correct. Here are a couple of hints:
Hint # 1: the answer consists of 9 letters and can be read either as a 4-word phrase or a 3-word phrase.
Hint # 2: there's a reason why I previewed this puzzle here last week (and why I am posting it here again this week).
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Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party /
SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE /
While you're pondering on that puzzle, here's one you can play with right now: tonight's JulieCrostic.
(If you're not familiar with JulieCrostics, don't panic! An explanation of how they work, and an example of a solved puzzle, are provided directly below tonight's puzzle.)
Tonight's puzzle has 7 rows with 3 answers in each. Here are your clues:
1. distributed
2. postponed
3. overdue
4. key group
5. holy
6. wrinkled
4. wheelbarrows
5. boxes
6. Angelina Jolie, for instance
7. big bird
8. juice
9. half-human creature
10. Kelley
11. turmoil
12. Bachmann, Beck, Taitz and Trump
13. averages
14. kind of person Romney likes to work with?
15. forgiveness
16. lying down
17. Eva and Juan
18. person who allegedly spoke of a blushing crow and a nosy little cook
19. highest Quaker position
20. make creases on a smooth surface
21. vertical is definitely not this -- but vertical helped people who had this get rid of it
NOTE: the original clues for row 2 had the vertical letters reversed. I have crossed these out and edited in new clues which yield the verticals in the correct order.
NOTE: a few of tonight's clues are a little more difficult than the usual Saturday evening fare.
In particular, the answer to clue # 20 is a very obscure word; I didn't know what it meant until I looked it up and most of you probably won't, either.
But using that answer for 20 allows me to use the answer and clue I came up with for 21. That's such a great clue for the final clue of the puzzle that I felt it was worth making you folks work a little harder finding the answer to 20.
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Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party /
SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE /
How to solve JulieCrostics
For those of you unfamiliar with this kind of puzzle, what you do is solve the clues and write the answers in rows. In tonight's puzzle there are 4 answers per row.
Each word in a row contains all the letters of the previous word, plus one new letter. Write the added letters in the space between the word which doesn't have it and the word which does. The vertical columns created by the added letters will spell out a word or phrase. (In the case of the series of these puzzles appearing during my blueberry-season absence, the verticals spell out titles of noteworthy current comic books.)
As an example of how it works, here are the clues, grid and answers to last week's puzzle:
THE CLUES TO LAST WEEK'S PUZZLE
1. in a certain spot
2. according to Mark Twain, the only creature which cannot be enslaved
3. actors in a show
4. east, west, or left
5. Mad publisher
6. champion
7. feel pain
8. arrive at
9. in the direction of
10. deteriorate
11. ripped
12. weasel relative which many people enjoy watching
13. medical title
14. cane
15. path
16. like a lot
17. old-fashioned you
18. corrosive substance
19. writer/illustrator of classic Robin Hood book
20. answer
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Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party /
SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE /
THE GRID FOR LAST WEEK'S PUZZLE
1. -- [ ] 2. --- [ ] 3. ---- [ ] 4. -----
5. -- [ ] 6. --- [ ] 7. ---- [ ] 8. -----
9. -- [ ] 10. --- [ ] 11. ---- [ ] 12. -----
13. -- [ ] 14. --- [ ] 15. ---- [ ] 16. -----
17. -- [ ] 18. --- [ ] 19. ---- [ ] 20. -----
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Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party /
SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE /
THE ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK'S PUZZLE
at C cat S cast O coast
EC A ace H ache R reach
to R rot E tore T otter
Dr O rod A road E adore
ye L lye P Pyle R reply
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Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party /
SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE /
The verticals read CAROL SHEAP ORTER -- which, properly spaced, spell out Carol Shea-Porter.
NOTE: Carol Shea-Porter is one of the Dean Dozen.