Welcome to Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up, a weekly series for people who enjoy light mental exercise spiced with politics, humor, and odd bits of trivia. As usual these days I'm running a little late (but only 4 minutes late on posting tonight's diary, and I'll try to have tomorrow's Sunday Puzzle on time).
Last week's puzzle featured references to Mythbusters' Adam Savage, The Guild's Felicia Day, noted feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Peter Yarrow's song "Weave Me the Sunshine" (featured above), and conservative PM David Cameron's denunciation of the Fox News idiot who claimed Birmingham, England, was a city only muslims dared to venture. More political and cultural references tonight.
The theme for the puzzles this month is good quotes, and tonight's diary features two of them for your reading pleasure:
Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up Quote # 1:
Stop Apolzkiig cmocf yuk imzeg, Umekztamot nkmckzik zkipndkct yumyf yuk Bmzp lphf Stockrkockoak bpfncg jk apocfaykct btyup om zkirkayk hpzf ufemop ztluyig, ukdkom lphf yuk skokeg. Yutif etckm lzkb iyzpolkzt cfztolk yuk amermtlop lphf ikdkoykkog ikdkoyg-itvk yp ikdkoyg-ikdkom, opyp bkmskzt ymik ytik apeepong yuk amik itop bmzp.
Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up Quote # 2:
Atop Stidbystor fgmysr agog fbyugodbut adidbcdhg wtledbp end ateemd ugly Ebdoegor. Ktunyocegot cgbhdbdhg entey Nduuytor stfeyjdud kgpmhd ad ebdtedhr ftug npitop adyocug kyent end utid bycneug ugly npitoyer lgbr knysnd Stidbystout kdbd
uebyjyocg.
For anyone new to Sunday Puzzle, please note that these two code messages are
not regular cryptograms; they're Crypto-Gremlins.
Crypto-Gremlins are a special kind of cryptogram -- ones which can't be solved by online programs which run through and test out every possible letter substitution, but which can be solved by reasoning and creative thinking. If you're not familiar with Crypto-Gremlins you can find a detailed explanation of how they work here. (And you can find a handy tool to help you with letter substitutions here.
Ah, but what about those of you who don't like, or aren't good at, deciphering code messages? Well, you can still find out the source of tonight's quotes. All you need to do is solve tonight's other puzzle, down below...
Here's tonight's JulieCrostic puzzle (so named in honor of Julie Waters, who founded the Sunday Puzzle series 7 years ago). Tonight's puzzle has 6 rows, with 3 answers per row.
If you're familiar with how JulieCrostics work, you can jump right in; if you're new and don't yet know how JulieCrostics work, you can find complete instructions in the bottom part of the diary.
(Also if you're new, a request: please don't post any answers or other spoilers in comment subject lines. Instead, please put any guesses at possible answers into the comment itself. Thanks!)
Okay, I think that covers the basics. Here are the clues for tonight's puzzle. Have fun, and I hope to see you in comments!
1. appear
2. considers
3. death
4. humanistic Rogers
5. Nicolas' wife
6. scamp
7. routine
8. collection
9. surreptitious
10. nap
11. attempts
12. hers and his
13. filled with sound
14. impressive
15. grow plants
16. equal
17. skew a poll
18. like better
For the benefit of anyone new to Sunday Puzzle, here are
instructions for solving JulieCrostics.
In JulieCrostics you are given a set of clues, such as these:
To solve the puzzle, figure out the answers to the clues and enter them into a grid of rows and columns, like so:
All the rows in the grid will be the same length (i.e. have the same number of answers). All the answers in a column will be the same length (i.e. have the same number of letters). And the words in each column are one letter longer than the words in the column to its left. That's because each word in a row has all the letters of the word before it plus one new letter.
For instance, if the clues for a row were
1. say what's not so
2. resting
3. concede
then the answers might be LIE, IDLE (= LIE + D), and YIELD (= IDLE + Y)
Write the added letter in the space between the word which doesn't have it and the word which does. For the row in the example you'd write:
1. LIE D 2. IDLE Y 3. YIELD
When you have solved all the clues and written down all the added letters, the added letters will form columns that spell out a message of some sort. It might be a person's name, it might be the title of a book, it might be a familiar phrase, or it might be a series of related words. Your challenge is to solve all the clues, fill in the vertical columns, and figure out what the vertical columns mean.
In the example given, the verticals read DAIL YKOS. With proper spacing and capitalization that spells out Daily Kos!