August Round-up: Tiebreak Puzzle, Notepad Winners, & Sundry Antics

What fun for the inaugural month of Anagrams Around Eve to culminate in a tiebreaker for the TOP POT! The one-on-one match-up saw AlyssaAnn and MISS SORTED — both with an impressive 64 of 68 possible wine jugs claimed in August — square off in a race to solve one puzzle. (If you would like to have a gander yourself at the tiebreak puzzle, click here. To see its solution, click here.) Both solvers submitted correct answers in short order, but it was MISS SORTED whose solution was sent first. A hearty congratulations to our winner, and to both solvers for their astounding anagramming. Both will receive Anagrams Around Eve notepads, and MISS SORTED will in addition receive a fresh pack of Triunes, anagram puzzles whose solutions consist of three lines rather than the usual two. The Triunes pack will be one of several special puzzle sets that will be available at a small cost on the site soon. (The regularly posted puzzle series remains free.)

On to the additional notepads. After our first-place finishers were removed from the pool, I drew five solvers in a random lottery in which each person had as many figurative bouncing balls in the cylinder as he or she had wine jugs in the cellar. The complete list of notepad winners:

inasensebacon, Chicago IL

Kegaunt, Potomac MD

Jamie, Montgomery AL

metria

Loving Solving, Brooklyn NY

And of course our first-place finishers:

MISS SORTED, Delran NJ

AlyssaAnn, Haddonfield NJ

Kudos to all of these deft solvers, the BEST BETS of August.

SPOILERS AHEAD for anyone still wanting to solve the closed puzzles (1-25). It’s essentially NOTHING BUT SPOILERS. The SPOILERS are like the raison d’être of the whole thing. It’s not even a minefield of SPOILERS — it’s closer to an avalanche of SPOILERS, or one of those synchronized arrow attacks that rain down on medieval battlefields, but the arrows are SPOILERS and your shields are made of cheesecloth.

 

As for the puzzles themselves, there were amusing responses in moments of both glory and agony. One high-ranking solver going by Exit Lava, having “almost died” on one puzzle, shortly thereafter instantaneously cracked BIG BANG GABBING in explosive fashion (“I felt like Rain Man with the toothpicks”). Another first-rate solver, Kegaunt, needed some serious R&R after a comically rough journey with [Two weeks in August, for Augustus], which indeed lasted two weeks and made stops in VATICANO VACATION, CAVATION VACATION, NAVICATO VACATION, and CATAVINO VACATION (uncannily, a real vacation company) before finally calling to port in OCTAVIAN VACATION.

SCHMEAR MARCHES solicited a number of entirely-called-for “Oy Vey”s, and one solver enthusiastically tackled [Fan page about New Zealand] by declaring “It’s Business Time,” a song that would certainly be on any KIWI WIKI.

I did accept one unintended but defendable solution. Frisbees are frequently enough skidded along the ground that as an alternate to DISK KIDS I did take SKID KIDS, even though that phrase still suggests to me an image somewhat less sanitary than that of some children playing frisbee in the park. It is also worth mentioning that there were two equally legitimate solutions to [One who is wickedly funny?]: DEMONIAC / DAEMONIC COMEDIANS.

MISS SORTED finds that there is something “adorably simple” about SQUAREST T-SQUARES, and I couldn’t agree more. I think something similar but perhaps more phonetic is happening with CARMELA’S CARAMELS, another phrase that appeared to be a crowd favorite.

I was especially curious to see how [Is taut] would land, as the clue itself LACKS SLACK and has so few threads on which to pull. Certainly gave a lot of folks fits, but a solid number found a way in there somehow.

There will be a new puzzle on Saturday, but for now enjoy the tiebreaker puzzle if you please, and feel free to turn the comments section below into a friendly conversation about anything regarding the August puzzles. With this group I hardly feel the need to say this, but keep it kind, keep it clean (well, at least as clean as the puzzles have been), and keep it community-minded. Please no commentary whatsoever on any of the open puzzles.

Thank you for an awesome August . . . Looking forward to a splendid September.  —D