Polar Plunge

 

Happy weekend-after-Pi-Day, everyone! Hope you all are recovering from a week of (no doubt) partying hard in celebration of our favorite irrational number.

For this week, I'm extending the party another day with a pi-themed puzzle! I don't know why I keep doing this to myself, but it's PDF only.

In other news...

I'm chopping my way through the Boswords spring themeless league! It's certainly an assault on the solving ego, but I know I'm competing against the best in the world. (Or, the best in the world who didn't want to compete in the Stormy division.)

New recommendation alert! Malaika Handa's March 2 NYT debut was a great puzzle with a STEM theme (in more ways than one...)

Doing this puzzle reminded me that I'm subscribed to Malaika's google group, Girlbosswords, and I found a couple more STEM puzzles in the google group archives. Coincidentally, both are collaborations with Brooke Husic. I enjoyed them both very much!

I will be at ACPT in two weeks-- maybe I'll put a puzzle up that weekend, maybe I won't, I'll have to see. Very much looking forward to it :))

PDF; solution

To Infinity And Beyond

via GIPHY

This puzzle is just about the closest thing to a themeless you'll ever get from me-- which is to say, it has a theme, but the theme is just "here's a cool grid!" Everything is explained in the PDF file, but basically all you need to know is that two grids interlock to create an infinite loop.

Is this what constructors see while on 71-Down, I wonder?

PDF; solution 1 (grid 1 first); solution 2 (grid 2 first)

Looking forward to the next Dune movie?

 

Science fiction falls under the umbrella of this blog, right? I think it does. This puzzle was my tribute to the new Dune franchise (you've probably seen the 2021 movie, and as I alluded to in the cryptic-ish post title, part 2 is being released late this year), but I'll always accept the 6 original Frank Herbert books as the authority on Dune things. In other words, after doing this puzzle, you should read the books.

In other news, make sure to do the NYT puzzle this Thursday! Very excited to see my name in print...

(Note: this puzzle is solvable online, but you do need to look at the PDF version for the final across and down clues.)

The Itsy-Bitsy Meta

 

After a break for the holidays, here's a brand-new New Year's puzzle (first time typing "2023" for the copyright!) It's also my first meta, though the answer is fairly straightforward. If you think you know the answer, send a message or a comment if you don't mind other people seeing your thought process. I'll post the solution in two weeks with the next puzzle!

Side note: I was really excited to use 4-Down, especially this week :D

The Full Spectrum

 

This puzzle has a visual trick that's central to the theme. The solution below explains what's going on, but if you'd like a hint while you're solving, consider this: what changes about the grid and the entries as you move down?