BeaCon - 10 car pile-up
Final answer: solve for the numbered letters, then shift back seventeen. MRTLLD KLSV becomes vacuum tube
1. Y, car, cot, sikak; kakistocracy
2. pronoun cementation
3. spiral, sarsaparilla
4. mame" are checks vole ties
5. macabre, macaw
6. four-seamer, sore femur
7. callipygian; calla, pigeon
8. Most Interesting Man in the World
9. Barack Obama, Morocco baba
10. Ming Leda shims, witch
11. wiki, Kiwi
12. Blu-ray, Luray; cavern, craven; Blu-ray, blurry
13. consolidates, disconsolate
14. Asa's leu thins Erie Swit Hall "oy"d
15. pr(o/e)position
16. quote, cat
17. morepork; more, pork
18. not, naught; not, gnaw
19. put one's feet on a table
20. conservation, conversation
21. pickable, pickle, pice
22. wallaby, wannabe
23. al(eur)one
24. Bannon, ban on
25. red ribbons, snob birder
26. interrogatives, tergiversation
27. fur, furious
28. we set a date. "Sew
29. noticed, neonicotinoid
30. go-no-go, bonobo
31. mixed metaphors
32. polyps, sloppy
33. runcinate, uncertain
34. (m)urine
35. ligaments, animal magnetism
36. Hi! So nap peal (H, is on, appeal)
37. OURS
38. The Big Bang Theory, beggar-thy-neighbor
39. Kansan sensed
40. de(c/g)rease
41. cart before the horse, heart before the course
42. dockside, oxide
43. master, mattress, seamstress
44. lepton, leapt on
45. promenade; prime, N, a de
46. decedent, cent; decedent, decent
47. derails, Diels-Alder
48. d(u)ress
49. OURS
50. hinted, hiddenite
51. possum, awesome
52. Banbury Cross, cranberry boss; bells on her toes, tells on her beaus
53. differences separate
54. certainly, rectilinearity, internal iliac artery
55. a(pop)ha(sis)
56. OURS
57. LEarn, AFter; leaf
58. accu(r)sed
59. dirty thought, thirty dot
60. visile, Levi's, isle, lei
61. endeavor; end, ever
62. tuatara, Ur
63. aureus, uraeus
64. poop on, Poupon
65. (irri)gate
66. Fidel Castro, led a cloistered life, electrostatic field
67. app lessen; orang, Essen
68. OURS
69. iron while the strike is hot
70. for mice, Formica
71. #DrainTheSwamp
72. Hamilton
73. the death of Fidel Castro
74. Las Vegas Golden Knights
75. athletics
76. Angkor Wat
77. Alfred Matthew Yankovic
78. ...I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
F-1. VVVVVV
VIEIRA
VERGIL
VIGILS
VRILLE
VALSES
F-2. OURS
F-3. SALAAM
TRAUMA
RINGER
ADDERS
PLEACH
SYDNEY
F-4. MELBOURNE
ORIENTEER
NONREADER
ASSESSORS
F-5. B
STP
SQTTR
DGRLLNP
RTHRCNNDL
SMLTLRCLRDG
F-6. OURS
F-7. R
CEL
DAVIS
BIRETTA
WATERHOLE
SUPERBOWLLI
F-8. PINNATE
IMBORED
NBATEAM
NOTTOBE
AREOLAE
TEABAGS
EDMEESE
F-9. N
HER
RAWER
GARAGED
NETPRICES
WINTERSTALE
TERRITORY
SALVERS
PEARY
ELS
S
F-10. SCARECROW
MONOTREME
INTONATES
TESTAMENT
F-11. PC
WRRN
CNJCTR
MLDCKNSN
CHRLTTBRNT
RBRTLSSTVNSN
X-1. When the struggling Hogwarts students failed their final exam, Gandalf exclaimed, "You shall not pass!"
X-2. The fact is that our lives are largely spent in solving puzzles; for what is a puzzle but a perplexing question? Henry Dudeney
X-3. Words are like tofu: their tastes come from the emotions that drench them. Deborah Moggach
X-4. Old rockers dig gardening if they watch Robert Plant while Roger Waters.
X-5. Rains washed the city cleaner than the kneeling stone in a prison confessional. G. D. Roberts
X-6. I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.
X-7. A N T H E R S L A N D E R
K O A N S U I M N O R M A HOCKEY PUCK
O M R A C I D A G L E A M
P O I S O N E R E O C I P NHL Players
E R N E R T I S R A E L I P-ANTHER
K E E P T H E H E A D U P I-SLANDER
C O R N C O B Y A N A N A B-RUIN
O M T L A R H E T O R I C R-ANGER
P A N A M A A V E R A Q E S-HARK
A N I M E X R I R E C U R S-TAR
L I V E O A K L Y C E E S D-EVIL
F-LAME
C-1. Quark walks into a bar, asks bartender is he's seen neutron. Bartender says "I wouldn't know him from atom."
C-2. Adult ducks are mostly brown, black, white, gray, or a mix, but they are usually drawn the color of juveniles.
C-3. Good grief! It's really true what they told us in school: anybody born here can become president.
C-4. OURS
C-5. Restaurateur serves eggs Benedict on hubcap, realizing there's no plate like chrome for the hollandaise.
C-6. OURS
C-7. Math prof, when asked by naive frosh what they would be covering after matrices, told them, "maitre d's, of course."