Welcome to Phil's Crossword Corner (PCC).
I'm an auditor at NYC Dept of Parks and Recreation (it's nothing like the TV show in case you were wondering - OK maybe a little, I have a super cool boss reminiscent of Ron Swanson and I like to think of myself as a constantly cheery overachiever that cares too much about government work)
I make crossword puzzles for fun in my free time. I'll try and post a new meta puzzle once every other week here for y'all to enjoy.
Note for the level designation, I am using the Gaffney scale in which a week 1 puzzle = easy, and a week 4 and 5 puzzle = hard. The level is the intended difficulty I had in mind when I designed the puzzle, but may play differently since every solver has their own area of expertise... what one person may find easy, another may find difficult.
I'm always happy to welcome any feedback, questions, typo-spotting, theme suggestions/requests, or if you just want to chat... You can reach me at pchow13@gmail.com
Hint #1: Ten entries have emojis
Hint #2: The central Across entry 40A is important. Note that the title is an example of one
Hint #3: Combine the nudges from 21A and 38D
Hint #4: You will need to alphabetize the anime titles, not the individual grid…
Hint 1: the three grid spanners have a part of their clue italicized and bold
Hint 2: The italicized/bold clues relate in some way to their respective entries... "numbers" from the title gets us thinking about numbers... can you match each answer to…
hint 1: there are quite a lot of names and books in the puzzle
hint 2: the literary characters and corresponding books (see 46A) share something in common
hint 3: where do all these novels or books take place?
hint 1: the 11 starred clues relate to a familiar group of 12
hint 2: the clue for 51-Down mentions the theme
hint 3: JORDAN is a bull (taurus), NALA is a lion (leo)
hint 4: the missing zodiac sign corresponds to the meta answer
Hint #1: From 20A, 28A, 45A, 54A - the meta answer is a 13-letter word, has 3 syllables, 4 unique letters, and the only vowel is E... from 70A, the four letters in the word are L, E, N, and S
Hint #2: the answer relates to the title... the meta…
cute comic here (by Mark Parisi)
hint 1: the answers to the starred clues are all concealing something...
hint 2: contraband, 69-Across, 27-Down are all related...
hint 3: Fran(co Ke)lly is smuggling coke... nut(crack)er is smuggling crack...
hint 4:…
Hint #1: there are a lot of girl's names in the grid... surely you've heard of some of them to know what media franchise they belong to...
Hint #2: 15-Across and 37-Across don't count
Hint #3: 50-Down is the latest one (at time of this puzzle's…
Hint #1: The TV show associated with the theme song is the theme of the puzzle
Hint #2: "autotrophs" and "Neanderthals" are easter eggs I included because they're in the theme song as well, but alas they are red herrings... focus on the title instead
…Hint 1: the name of five drinks are hidden in the puzzle
Hint 2: take the title literally
Hint 3: broken (across a black square), spirits (as in alcoholic spirits)
Hint 4: the five alcoholic drinks have something in common
Hint 5: what color is…
Hint 1: the four longest entries are thematic
Hint 2: JAB JEB ??? JOB JUB
Hint 3: I originally assigned this meta level 1 but bumped it up to 1.5 because the solution is a not-so-familiar term... so if you've never heard of the term before you…
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