puzzle 115: "colorful characters (freestyle 114)"

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apologies for being late on this; have been busy sleeping at incredibly odd hours, debating what exactly a martini is, and finishing up a bunch of time-sensitive revisions for custom puzzles (and non-time-sensitive revisions for deadtree media). next weekend's puzzle should, however, actually be on the weekend.

also: many thanks to brian herrick for testing this and providing some nice cluing suggestions; brian also makes puzzles for current, including one that dropped today, and is worth solving. speaking of puzzles that dropped today, i wrote today's universal puzzle, which is themed. i also wrote this saturday's la times puzzle, which is a freestyle.

puzzle 114: "us open"

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absolutely no points for guessing what i've been watching all weekend as i've been making this puzzle. thought i'd have some fun by opening it up; turns out that's like preparing a course for the us open, in that that makes it a lot harder. still, a lot of good long answers, and i hope you enjoy this.

finally got around to figuring out the winner of the meta from last month; amusingly, there were 36 correct entries for a meta titled "squarefree". of those, christopher sparks was the lucky recipient of a copy of the squarefree suite, which can still be purchased at the preceding link. many thanks to everybody who's already purchased, as well as those who submitted an answer (right or wrong) for the meta. (in case you're curious, the solution is now posted on the original puzzle's page; commentary is included with the solution, but suffice it to say that the next meta will be a little nicer and will have a better "click" at the end.)

puzzle 113: "will they or won't they (freestyle 113)"

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freestyle this week; it should be absolutely no surprise what the seed entry was, though finding the other fifteen was a bit serendipitous. still, i like how all of these corners turned out; there's a good number of entries that i was pleased to work in without sacrificing fill quality. some pretty good clues too, i think.

also, still one day left to solve the meta and enter the contest for a free copy of the squarefree suite. and, again, many thanks to everybody who's already submitted a meta answer and/or purchased the suite.

puzzle 112: "mini marching bands 1-4"

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i've recently started making mini marching bands by hand in my spare time. they're usually not too hard to finish, and i'm sure this will be good practice for when i start making full-size marching bands.

if you haven't solved them before, instructions are at the bottom of the pdf. for those of you who like to solve on your computer, you can solve the jpz files via this site.

finally, one week left to solve the meta and enter the contest for a free copy of the squarefree suite. and, again, many thanks to everybody who's already submitted a meta answer and/or purchased the suite.

 

puzzle 111: "squarefree 1"

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good luck to everybody at the indie 500 this weekend! may your solves be fast and your grids be clean! (chris king: if you're reading this, disregard that advice and make your grid messy and hard to read; i have money on you winning worst handwriting again.)

this puzzle is the first of the squarefree suite, announced yesterday; i guess it's the equivalent of the lead single from an album. in any case, there's still two weeks to solve the meta and enter the contest for a free copy of the suite. and thanks to everybody who's already submitted a meta answer and/or purchased the suite; it's greatly appreciated.

puzzle 110: "squarefree (meta)"

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major announcement: i am very pleased to announce squarefree, a suit of eight freestyle puzzles, most of which have been under construction for the last year, and none of which are square. more information, as well as a link to purchase, can be found at the above link; a sample puzzle from the suite will be posted shortly. both the sample puzzle and today's puzzle will be available at the indie 500 next weekend as well.

as for this week's meta, it's appropriately not square, and the meta answer is a composite squarefree integer; that is, it has no repeated prime factors. send in your answers via email before june 9th for a chance to win the meta prize, which is, unsurprisingly, one copy of squarefree. if you happen to have already purchased it before winning, i'll refund your cost and/or work something else out with you. otherwise, the deadline should give plenty of time to solve, even with travel to washington dc and such.

puzzle 109: "circulating air"

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many thanks to brendan for both the title and the clue for 18-across; otherwise, apologies for this being a bit late. also, some good and bad news. the bad: i've decided to join carla sacramento for a life of crime and thus won't be at the indie 500 in two weeks, though my puzzles will be. the good: next week's puzzle will be a meta, accompanied with an announcement that may or may not be related to the meta.