puzzle 22: "there's no place like our house for the holidays"

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puzzle one of what will pretty much be a month of puzzles about christmas, music, or christmas music. enjoy!

puzzle 21: "gobble gobble gobble (freestyle 4)"

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happy thanksgiving, everybody. here's a slightly oversized (17x17) freestyle for y'all to enjoy while you recover from a food coma. it has nothing to do with food (i think).

if that's not enough for you, rex parker has a nice and easy baseball puzzle, also 17x17, called fan duel, that came out yesterday. puz here, pdf here.

(more text after the jump)



so as you can probably tell from the fact that it's a freestyle, i did not in fact finish the thanksgiving themed puzzle. part of this is because i left my constructing computer at home. but even if i hadn't, not sure it would've been done: i still haven't figured out any good way to implement the theme idea. maybe i'll figure it out by next thanksgiving.

that being said, even though i don't have my computer, it's been a very productive break. i've been coming up with a long list of theme ideas instead, and honestly i've come up with a lot more than i thought i would. in some ways, it's like constructing puzzles for this site: started off a bit slow and hesitant, and then i got into the swing of things, and now things are easier and faster than before.

anyhow, there's an excellent chance that december will be entirely themed around christmas / winter stuff. at the very least, three or four puzzles next month will be. there's also a pretty good chance that i'll have a month of metas somewhere in the next few months, perhaps even with an overarching mega-meta for the month. and there's a decent chance that you'll see my name more in coming months. first up: an identical twins puzzle for joon pahk's outside the box puzzles, coming december 4th.

so thank you for solving these puzzles, and for providing impetus to keep constructing and keep improving. it's much appreciated, and i'm very thankful for that--not just now, but all through the year.

puzzle 20: "pow pow"

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since it's almost thanksgiving, thanks to all of you who solve these puzzles and offer feedback and support and all that jazz. really appreciated.

as for thanksgiving--might have a semi-holiday themed puzzle ready by then, although it's not cooperated so far, and i don't know how much time i'll have to try to make it work between now and then. so, uh, this is just to say that you shouldn't be surprised when a thanksgiving themed puzzle drops in middle march or something.

puzzle 19: "happy interdependence day (freestyle 8)"

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first of all, happy interdependence day.

second, yes, i'm aware that the previous freestyles have been actually numbered in order. but currently, freestyle four is nearly done with revision, five is just a mess, six is a collection of seed entries in search of an accommodating grid, and seven was actually accepted for publication. and this one is eight, and renaming my files would honestly just lead to too much confusion on my end at this point. so numbers are gonna be out of order. apologies in advance, and know this much: it bothers me, too.

puzzle 18: "speaking in tongues"

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meta puzzle this week, shouldn't be too difficult. the meta answer is a country.

in related news, good things have been happening on the puzzle front: people (mostly) liked the fireball from last week, and i've been fortunate enough to get three puzzles accepted recently, including one i'd forgot i'd submitted (or, for that matter, constructed). one thing i've noticed since starting this blog is that it's become a lot easier to come up with ideas and construct puzzles, and that means more submissions than i've had in the past. i'm hoping this continues, and that i can continue to share good puzzles with y'all--not only here, but through other sources as well.