Welcome to Sunday Puzzle, a weekly series for people who enjoy light mental exercise spiced with politics, humor, and odd bits of trivia.
I've been running quite a bit behind on a lot of things this year, and I'm running even farther behind this week due to something that came up earlier this week which I've had to spend a good bit of time on. The verticals tonight will tell you what that was.
But just reading the verticals will still leave you confused about what I'm referring to, so I'll post a link after the puzzle is solved for any of you interested in more of the details. Unfortunately you won't be able to read the details there unless you're a registered member of the site...
Yes -- tonight's puzzle is a shameless attempt to obtain more registered members for the International Skeptics forum (formerly the James Randi Educational Foundation forum.) It's a good site, worthy of your support, so I encourage you to visit and consider joining.
One thing I like to do with these Sunday Puzzle diaries is spotlight noteworthy politicians, social change activists, quotes, songs, and books. Last week in Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up, for instance, I spotlighted the letter congressional representatives Jan Schakowsky, Lloyd Doggett, and David Price wrote to president Obama regarding negotiations with Iran (which FCNL and other groups were urging people to call their legislators about and encourage them to sign on to the letter).
Earlier today I realized there is something I should have used tonight's puzzle to spotlight. Next week pucklady will be providing the JulieCrostic (for the monthly potluck puzzle party, yay!) so it will be two weeks before I'll be able to use it and by then it may be too late. Unfortunately I had already constructed the puzzle I am using tonight, and there wasn't time to construct and come up with clues for a new puzzle. But here are the verticals I wish I'd thought of in time to use for tonight's diary:
KS
IR
CE
KA
SD
TW
AH
RA
TT
ET
RH
LE
EY
TW
KA
IN
DT
Here's a link to the KickStarter page in case any of you would like to support a worthy project. (I see there are still 17 days left on the effort, so I may work a reminder of some sort into a future puzzle diary...)
All right, that's what I should have used tonight. To find out more about why I didn't, head below the orange squiggle to learn what's been distracting me the past few days.
Here's tonight's JulieCrostic. If you're familiar with what JulieCrostics are and how they work, jump right in. If you're not familiar with JulieCrostics here are some NOTES FOR NEWCOMERS:
JulieCrostics are a special kind of acrostic puzzle, named in honor of Julie Waters who started the Sunday Puzzle series here a little over 7 years ago. If you're not familiar with how JulieCrostics work you can find a detailed explanation in last night's Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up. (You'll also find some words from God there, so it's worth checking out even if you know how JulieCrostics work).
If you're new you should be warned that we have some mischievous gremlins who like to tamper with the Sunday night puzzle clues. In particular you should keep in mind:
* you can't trust the clue capitalization;
* you can't trust the clue punctuation;
* sometimes you can't even trust the word spacing.
Because of this, some of the clues may be hard to crack, and you may not understand the answer at first after it has been cracked. But the answers actually do make sense, once you look at them the right way. If you have any trouble understanding how an answer fits the clue, please leave a comment asking for an explanation.
The gremlins also like bundling the clues into tidy little groups of 3, regardless of how many answers there actually are per row. If the number of clues doesn't divide evenly by 3, they add a space-filler clue or two at the end to fill out the final bundle. If you see a clue at the end such as nothing to see, that could well be such a clue.
A small request: please don't put any any spoilers in the comment subject lines. Use the subject line of comments to identify what your comment will be about but keep any guesses as to clue answers or the verticals confined to the comment itself. That way folks who are still trying to crack a clue for themselves won't inadvertently see the answer before they're ready to see it. Thanks!
Okay, I think that covers all the basics. Here are the clues for tonight's puzzle. Have fun!
1. die next! [HINT: the future is uncertain, and still needs to be determined]
2. because
3. point often follows (when it's relevant)
4. not continuing
5. maintain
6. unwind
7. spring
8. local group most of us would rather not have [HINT: refer to question at top of diary]
9. family
10. device which shoots charged particles along a straight path
11. tying
12. very sweet and well-behaved
13. cutting tools
14. black trumpeter
15. replacement for Rush Limbaugh?
16. replies
17. sub follower
18. kind of physics
19. mission came before this in 2000
20. arrangements
21. 50-45-04
22. 41, 42
23. things to watch
24. clues to watch out for
25. kind of cake that's very high in fat
26. fine signature
27. waiting to be mailed
28. most enjoyable
29. shock
30. place
31. sampled
32. GOP candidates seem to be competing to see which one is
33. cape
34. feeling
35. stiffens
36. lacking access to the web
37. comes before life and is closely associated with life
38. official head dress
39. Turkish inn [HINT: the next to last letter is a vowel. Change it to a different vowel and you get what a drunken Dick Cheney might admit]
40. insect you'd rather not see on your cat
41. slightly deranged Roman poet
42. second to last island in the Ionian Islands
PS: Science said he wouldn't be here tonight for the puzzle party tonight, since he'll be in Palo Alto visiting his son Fordian Analyst, so I've included several hints in the puzzle. Here are a couple more:
HINT: four of tonight's answers are 2-word phrases
HINT: two of tonight's answers are uncommon words which I got definitions for by looking them up at Dictionary.com and Wikipedia.
I should be hanging around comments in case any additional help is needed, or in case the gremlins sabotaged some of the answers while I wasn't looking.