The Thinks I Think

If I'm learning anything from this experience, it's that it's much easier to throw together a puzzle if you don't terribly care to make sure it's solvable. Here's hoping.

KITCHEN Counter

The thing about cooking is that you throw in whatever you've got, and measuring is for chumps. Whereas in baking, if you don't measure things really, really exactly, your oven will explode and your cats will abandon you. Anyway, this recipe involves baking, I guess.

Gramma Jaqua's Oozy Goo
2 c cocoa, dutch processed
1 c chocolate chips
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs, lightly whipped
4 tbsp oil, divided
2 c skim milk, simmered
dash artificial vanilla
1/2 c light maple syrup
1 c creme de cacao
1 tub chocolate icing

Mix in a bowl. Garnish. Avoid (so gross).

Preheat answer checker to 350°. While waiting, reconsider the life choices that led you to try to make this.

OK, I'm back. Things get hard sometimes. (In this case, I had a mental block that I just had to get....)

"Commencing first training mission of the newly-formed NATO Defense Time Travel Unit. Everyone sound off in turn with an item from your provided lists. Indicate comprehension with a simple 'Yankee' for yes and 'November' for no."

"Uh, squadron leader, detecting an answer checker on your six."

Not my best clue phrase (and honestly there was a better choice available for the prompt), but here we are.

Arroyos

The answer is four letters.

1. Pierre is so rich, it seems like he owns a houvery city in France. (1)
2. Niasony often helps out at her church when the deaes on vacation. (3)
3. Ekaterin keeps bees that polte the flowers she grows. (2)
4. Paulo declared his home a "No Dre" after one too many screaming fights. (1)
5. Sarah is such a prude that when she saw Michelangelo's David, she tried to cover hidness. (4)
6. Marlon hates how the oil srs everywhere when he fries chicken. (6)
7. Marie likes to be frank, but finds people often take hesty as rudeness. (1)
8. Rajesh hopes to disrupt the music try with his self-playing guitar. (5)
9. Whenever Jean-Claude travels to Dublin, he murmurs "Helland" when the plane lands. (4)
10. Francesca bought a tramline to see if she could do backflips. (2)
11. Ahmed invested in NFTs and was left penss when the bubble burst. (3)
12. Nigel arrived at Parliament wisage from the King. (5)

An earlier version of this puzzle misspelled "Helland". The error has been corrected.

Take me to the answer checker, dip me in the water, washing me down, washing me down

Getting slightly ahead of the every-two-days pace, here's...it seemed like a good idea when I started, and by the eighth or ninth clue I started really, really hating it. Here's hoping it's better than I think.

It seemed like for the entire first half of my cross-country drive, I couldn't get anything on the radio except very staticky station identification. At least I got some recommendations for the second half?

• "You're listening to...you're tuned in, you must think everyone should tune in! And if you're ever in Indiana, listen to our sister sta...at 101.1: music you crave, music you desire, musi..."
• "...top of the hour here a...the hits you want to hold onto! Whole lot more upbeat than my last j...ern Ohio...100.3, Sad Songs All Day. Real tearj..."
• "You're bringing it up a notch here on...rom the West Coast, while in Missouri, wh..."The Candle", 97.2, lighting up your ni..."
• "...your friendly DJ playing the gentle music you lo...mething gentle for your friends in Rhode Island on 97.2 "The Breeze"..."
• "Let's get a big ol' moooooo for your friends here in the stu...nnsylvania, where th...101.2, "The Vineyard", whic..."
• "Reignin' supreme here on...adio, just like our friends flying high at 89.3, Maine's favo..."
• "...keepin' it weird here o...ton's home for whatever you're into. And let's shout ou...100.1 in West Virginia, who're keeping one eye open at all times, if you know what I mean...."
• "When you're liste...s, you're as dear to us as our own kin! And spea...riends at 103.3...accompanying Illinois folks on their drive home, right by their sid..."
• "You know us, sly as little foxes here a...just like those funny g...101.3 in New Jersey, your station for 24-hour comed..."
• "....love 70s funk, which is why I'm thrilled to join The Gang here o...back home in Connecticut, where I...106.1, "like a warm blanket of music," we'd ca..."

We're giving away tickets to the first five callers, so get your answers ready and call 'em in!

Yup, averaging about a puzzle every two days. Sounds right.

Welcome, new hire! We're starting you out with an easy little cleanup job. Building's over there--just gather up the letters at the start, feel free to drop anything in the recycling bin before you enter, and just go through and clean up all of the stray letters in the rooms There's a bin in each one, where you can drop any letter you don't need, and it'll get upcycled into a brand-new letter.

Of course, you'll want to make sure when you enter a room that the word you're carrying fits that room's category. So don't try just running straight through and shoving everything into bins willy-nilly; you'll need to plot out a path.

I'll see you when you come out in the southeast corner, where you can drop whatever word you've got onto the blanks there. And keep it friendly; no room for negative emotions in this company.

(Click through for a larger image. Full text description: a grid of rooms, 5 across by 3 down, with openings connecting all adjacent rooms, and openings in the outer walls in the northwest and southeast. Outside the northeast room is the word START and a blank recycling bin; outside the southeast room are four blanks. In each room is a recycling bin with a number; a large letter; and a smaller word or phrase. Reading from left to right, top to bottom, they are in order: +1/C/Dessert; -5/K/Skill; -8/J/Fastener; +7/T/Hair; +11/A/Salt Source; -6/I/Security; +5/L/Athlete; +13/O/Card; -2/M/Chess Term; +12/E/Dynasty; -11/N/Salt Source; -7/K/Connector; +10/G/Quirk; +6/P/Drink; +0/H/Appetizer.)

When you're done with your answer, be sure to drop it in the answer checker for proper disposal.

I wanted to avoid just having lots of lists of clues. Need to get out of my comfort zone, right? Well, not today.

The center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. How can we fix it?

1. Springtime joint


2. Taxi sheep


3. Policeman twitch


4. Pro sawbuck


5. Inmate dined


6. Updated apiece


7. Average lady


8. Specific mineral

Some centers: alternatives, container, drink, judge, orientation, saw, spring, support

Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the answer cannot hear the answer checker.

1. A serious enthusiast, sometimes verging on extremist [1]


2. Digestive liquid (or humour) found in the gallbladder [6]


3. D&D spellcaster, though only in the second edition [1]


4. Online invitation website [3]


5. Trig function used to measure vector similarity [2]


6. Apiece [7]


7. Sulked [6]


8. Structural part of a boat [3]


9. Hills of sand [8]


10. TV series with Billy Porter as an emcee in the New York ball culture [4]

• Arabic-derived name for Ptolemy's "Mathematical Treatise" (8)


• Assumed something to be true as a starting point (10)


• Band whose lead singer, Dan Smith, was born on July 14 (8)


• "Canvas" for a fresco (7)


• Colombia has two, separated by Panama (in contrast to Ecuador's one and Bolivia's zero) (10)


• Group in which Matthias replaced a missing member in the fifth book (8)


• Hovers without means of support (9)


• Like literature with elves and magic (or, per Jacques, like a musician's melancholy) (11)


• Showing no fear, like a Divergent faction (9)


• With nothing but bones remaining (8)

Mosaic 7,325,142 (Go here to solve online)

Hitori 3,536,106 (Go here to solve online)

Slant 1,602,243 (Go here to solve online)

Tapa 4,338,385 (Go here to solve online)

Kakurasu 3,004,550 (Go here to solve online)

Shakashaka 9,033,544 (Go here to solve online)

Heyawake 10,045,921 (Go here to solve online)

Renzoku 8,381,330 (Go here to solve online)

• Think of a bird, eight letters long. If you add a letter you get a word meaning "unexpected"; if instead you remove a letter, you get a word that might describe someone reacting to something unexpected. What is the bird?
• Think of a colonial-era American author, enumeration (4 7). Add a space to his first name and you could read the resulting three words a spider might use to explain that he's not from Boston. (Look, they can't all be gems.) Who is the author?
• Think of a compass with eight points. Number them clockwise from the top, and then use the numbers as indexes. What is the word?
• Think of a movie of the last twenty years that was nominated for Best Picture (and won three other Oscars), eight letters long. If you remove the first letter and add a space, you get two words for two different body parts. What is the movie?
• Think of a number, spelled out. Remove two palindromic sequences from the start and you'll be left with a letter. What number is it?
• Think of a piece of jewelry, enumeration (4 7). The first word can be anagrammed to make something that might be an annoyance, and the second can be anagrammed to make a word meaning "more annoyed". What is the jewelry?
• Think of a piece of sporting equipment, enumeration (4 5). Move the space to get two sequences of letters. If you swap the first and last letters of the first sequence, you get a word naming some magical items; the second sequence is the second word in the name of a village you might find those items. What is the sporting equipment?
• Think of a region that many people call home, enumeration (4 4). Ignoring the space, remove a word meaning "region"; you'll be left with a word meaning "home". What is the region?
• Think of a word meaning "component". Remove every component that's a vowel, and add new vowels in every other position to get a new word meaning "remove". What is the original word?

1. ...a word that's also a concept in mathematics.
2. Add a comparative suffix (even though it's not a comparative adjective) to get a time-loop movie.
3. Take the second half and add an E to the end to get a French word.
4. Translate that word into English. (Make a note of the third letter.)
5. Take the second half of this word, and put the word's second letter after it, to get a female figure from Greek mythology.
6. Write down their male counterpart.
7. Think of a bird that rhymes with him. (This is not your final anser.)
8. This bird was the nickname of a MLB pitcher who started his career with the Chicago White Sox. Take his first (given) name. (Make a note of the second letter.)
9. That name is also the first name in the possessive in the title of a BBC show (i.e., the first name in "[1] [2]'s ..."). Take the second word in the name.
10. Pick three letters from that name, rearranging them as necessary, to get a word that follows "tin" in a compound word.
11. Add a letter to that name to get a prominent feature of a great cat....
12. ...and take the name of that cat. (Starts with an L, but note its second and fourth letters.)
13. Take the collective noun for that cat. (Note the second letter, which will appear at the start of the final answer.)
14. Change a sound in that noun to get...