Sunday, February 13, 2022

Sunday, February 13, 2022, David Steinberg

CHANGE OF HEART

I squinted at today's grid trying to make the black squares in the middle into a heart, but all I could see was a spider. Not very romantic. But still, the hidden theme today is "VALENTINE," the word formed by following the directions given in the Notes section.

UNLIKABLE - UNLIVABLE
UNINHIBITED - UNINHABITED
INTERFACING - INTERLACING
SHRINKING - SHRIEKING
INVECTIVE - INVENTIVE
IRRIGATED - IRRITATED
COMPLEMENTS - COMPLIMENTS
ALTERCATION - ALTERNATION
COMMANDED - COMMENDED

It's a neat trick, and it reminds me that I've got to go out and buy some roses!

GLINDA

The fill included INLOVE (Smitten), DISARM, and NAKEDLY (!), which seem appropriate, but we also find things like VENDETTA (Literally, "revenge"), UNLIKABLE, ALTERCATION, BADDAY, and DECAY, which aren't all that lovey-dovey.

"Canine coat" (ENAMEL) was tricky, and it was funny to see ZIPDRIVE, because just yesterday (really!) I removed one from an old computer before bringing it to be recycled. You never know when you'll need to access all that stuff you stored on ZIPDRIVEs, right? 

And did you notice that in esse fits in where ASSUCH (In itself) belonged? I sure did. :)

It's been another fun week of puzzles. Frannie takes over tomorrow, and I'll see you in a few. 

Happy Puzzling!

- Horace


2 comments:

  1. Neat! (Roses, or equivalent, already purchased here) Aside from the theme, which was a nice little puzzle to suss out after the fact, I found this quite easy for a Sunday. Came within 4 seconds of breaking the 10 min barrier, which I've never done before..

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  2. Very relaxing and sweet puzzle. Happy Valentine's Day, and thanks for the week, Horace!

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