Welcome to Sunday Puzzle, a weekly series for people who enjoy mental exercise spiced with politics, humor, and odd bits of trivia.
On Saturday nights, in our companion series Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up, we feature puzzles suitable for individual solving; On Sunday nights, in this regular Sunday Puzzle series, we feature puzzles intended to be challenging enough to call for a team effort to solve.
I'm away this weekend, so won't be able to take part in tonight's puzzle party. But I've posted a puzzle to celebrate one of my favorite times of the year (and one of your favorite times of year, too, I imagine), when the bowl games begin.
So: which is your favorite? I guess my favorite is whichever one it's time for. Tonight's puzzle provides a few I watch closely and will be enjoying soon!
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 seven and a half 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.
The clues in the Saturday night warm-up puzzles are pretty straightforward. But 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. continent for 29
2. spade
3. damages
4. lots and lots
5. players
6. legendary state for 29
7. ask for payment
8. No ending? This means I don't have a clue!
9. top five producer
10. DC, mu?
11. take too much for 29
12. kind of hat
13. Viagra pitcher
14. wiser companion
15. more boisterous
16. well
17. roll
18. ignore
19. bring numbers of people to an event
20. aura
21. publicity for 29
22. good name for 29
23. pain reliever for 29
24. Nixon supporters
25. Franklin or Jefferson [hint: the clue refers to two famous people, one of whom was a US president]
26. not the subject
27. privacy provider
28. female superhero
29. funny Martin
30. cheap beer or regional ice cream