015: Themeless Puzzle 2; Laughs, Cheers, & Celebrations

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Word Count: 72, Mean Word Length: 5.33

What can I say? I've caught the themeless bug! Not only that, but I've caught the word stack bug as well, seen earlier this week with my Teeny Tuesday puzzle. Instead of rambling on about the grid statistics here, I've given them their own section below. Thank you Chris Piuma for the editorial recommendation for 46D!

If you don't know your pop culture, I'm sorry. This puzzle isn't as geeky as last week's 15x15 themeless, but it still has a bit in it. *looks at my grid* Okay, it's still super geeky, but I wanted to embrace my interests more in 2021.

Non NYT Words: 13A, 14A, 24A, 35D, 51A, 62A

Non Shortz-Era Words: 1A, 16A, 40D

Title Words: 12D, 14D, 50A

Music Word: 51A

Cheers,
Jac

Thursday Edit: The attempted insurrection at the US Capitol yesterday was deplorable and disgusting. My US Representative is currently writing up new Articles of Impeachment to hopefully put an end to this nightmare of a US President. I hope that I can be a little glimmer of light in this corner of the internet, for I wish to spread joy and cheer, not bigotry and hate. Everyone, please stay healthy and safe. We'll get through this together. 

Now Playing: Kirby's Adventure Medley by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra

YouTube Link

014: Teeny Tuesday 7

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Word Count: 21, Mean Word Length: 5.14

It's the first Teeny Tuesday crossword of 2021! Why not kick off this series of puzzles with a nice and chunky stack of 12 letter answers to start the year. This grid's seed word (is that a pun this time?) is 14-Across which comes from my uberly geeky word list.

Is uberly a real word? Well, per Thor, all words are made up.

Anywhos, I'm excited to continue the Teeny Tuesday puzzles because in February, I'm one of the 7xwords constructors! Over the course of the year, various awesome people are creating every 7x7 crossword that's possible under the normal rules. Check out the website here!

Cheers,

Jac

Now Playing: Rainbow Road by Helynt & GameChops

Youtube Video

013: Themeless Puzzle 1, Take Flight

 

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Word Count: 72, Mean Word Length: 5.33

Happy New Year! Phewy, we made it through a year we're not going to forget anytime soon. I for one am looking forward to 2021 with a renewed sense of optimism and excitement. I want this year to be bigger, bolder, and better! That being said, why not kick things off with my first published themeless puzzle?

This puzzle contains 8 words that have never shown up in the NY Times crosswords and another 2 words that have not seen the light of day during the Shortz era. Of the 8 new words, 4 of them are from my personal word list and 1 is from my Pokemon word list. Hopefully these will be fun to solve!

UPDATE: 45-Down has been removed from my word list. Thanks for the input from folks.

Cheers,

Jac

Now Playing: Revali, Ace Archer & Aviator by Kumi Tanioka

012: Teeny Tuesday 6

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Word Count: 30, Mean Word Length: 4.60

Happy Tuesday! For those who celebrated the Holidays last week, I hope you had an enjoyable time. I spent the two weeks leading up to Christmas in isolation, so I could spend the day with my mother. She made me an amazing gift, a temperature blanket for my first year living in my house, of course being 2020, (Here's the color guide). The blanket will be finished hopefully in a week or two, since there's still a wee bit of the year remaining.

Okay, okay, enough about Christmas, you're probably here for the crossword puzzle after all. Like all my Teeny Tuesday puzzles, it's another themeless. I enjoy having those two sets of 9s running down each side of the grid. It made it a wee bit more difficult to fill, but I got it to work. The grid does feature a word that likely isn't on most folk's word lists. (Gee golly, it's like it's related to the song below or something 😜).

Anyways, I hope you have fun with this puzzle!

Cheers,

Jac

Currently Playing: Beastars by Satoru Kosaki

010: Teeny Tuesday 5

The fun thing about rules? Breaking them. This week's Teeny Tuesday breaks one of my self-imposed rules I made for this group of crosswords, not exceeding 9x9 in size. Last week, I nudged that a little and made an 8x10 puzzle which technically did have less squares than a 9x9. Well, I decided to throw the size limit completely out the window this week by making this crossword 15 squares wide! There's only 26 words in the puzzle, so I don't expect this to take much longer than usual to solve.

So what's in the crossword? It should come as no surprise that 16-Across, my 15 letter answer is the seed for this puzzle. Once that was in place, I focused on the 8 letter answers at 11-Across and 20-Across. Overall, I'm happy with this fill and this puzzle came together quite easily.

P.S., have you noticed that each piece of music I've included since Puzzle 8 is related to a clue? This puzzle's song is related to 14-Across.

Cheers,
Jac

PUZ | PDF | Mobile | Solution

Currently Playing: The Boy Who Swallowed a Star by Joe Hisaishi

008: Teeny Tuesday 4

Oh boy!  Oh boy!  Oh boy!  Oh boy!  Oh boy! 

Ahem, sorry about my excitement, this is the third iteration of this week's Teeny Tuesday crossword puzzle. I was UBER unhappy with the first one, kinda meh about the second, but this one, oh BOY did this one pop out of my brain and do a little jig.

I continue to enjoy doing weird shapes for the Teeny Tuesdays, so here's an 8x10 with some nice and chunky bits. Two sets of 9 and 10 letter words next to each other as well as two sets of double 8s. I hope you enjoy completing this puzzle as much as I had making it.

Cheers,

Jac

PUZ | PDF | Mobile | Solution

Currently Playing: Take the "A" Train by Chicago

006: Teeny Tuesday 3

There was some discussion lately about the inclusion of non-English words in a crossword puzzle. The consensus was that if most of the world is bilingual or is expected to be so, why shouldn't Americans as well. This discussion led to the inspiration of my seed word for this crossword and I clued it in a way that should hopefully be fun and interesting.

I tossed out roughly half of the original clues of this puzzle since they just weren't clicking with me. I'm glad I did, because I find the replaced clues much more enjoyable than their predecessors. Part of this was caused by feedback I received on last week's Teeny Tuesday. I was presented with the question, "does this clue make me interested in looking up more information about it?" I took that feedback to heart and hopefully it shows in future clue writing.

Enjoy!
Jac

004: Teeny Tuesday 2

Here we are, another Tuesday! Lately, I've been playing Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that my seed word for this themeless Teeny Tuesday crossword is from that game.

I went a bit more unconventional this time and made the grid size 7x8. While I was not originally intending for the grid to look like an eye, that's what ended up happening.

Happy Solving!
Jac

002: Teeny Tuesday 1

What are the Teeny Tuesday puzzles? Well, they are typically going to be themeless puzzles filled with things that I've either heard throughout the week or random stuff that pops in my head. Pulling inspiration from the crossword puzzles of Vox, Atlantic, and the Daily Beast, I aim for smaller puzzles no larger than 9x9 and seeing what I can make.

This week's inspiration comes from talking with my friends about holiday shopping. That led to 8-Across being my seed word which hasn't appeared in any major publications, though a shorter version of it has seven times. For those wondering how I clued 1-Across, feel free to give this recipe a look.

Thank you to JayLow for the feedback on the puzzle!

Cheers,
Jac