WWTBAM Bored

"4-by-4"

Looks like the themes in today's grids are 2-letter words and number-color combinations. This should be interesting. This is the last week in which all 16 answers in a grid will follow a theme. It'll be a mess of random clues in every grid the rest of the way. 2 points for each valid foursome with valid description, blah blah blah, you know the rest.

Answers are due by Thursday 5/1 at 4 PM EDT.

Grid 1:

AS | AT | AX | BE
HO | IN | LA | MA
MI | NO | OH | ON
OR | RA | RE | TI

Grid 2:

0: GREEN | 1: RED | 2: BLUE | 3: RED
4: RED | 5: BLACK | 6: GREEN | 7: ORANGE
8: BLACK | 9: ROYAL BLUE | 10: BLUE AND WHITE | 11: BLACK
12: YELLOW | 13: AQUA | 14: GREEN AND WHITE | 15: TENNESSEE ORANGE

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I get the feeling that you guys really hate these clue grids. A lot of points are getting left on the table. The other questions in this series don't really affect me one way or another because anybody can write connection questions, sequence questions, and trick questions. But I'm proud of all of the hard work that I put into my clue grids.

I'm done whining. Let's move on to the answers.

Grid 1:

AS | AT | AX | BE
HO | IN | LA | MA
MI | NO | OH | ON
OR | RA | RE | TI

Obviously, these were all 2-letter English words, so you had to suggest better categories than that. Frank made a legitimate completion that was totally different from mine. I'll start my solution with the two obvious categories... then reveal my two "Wow... just wow" categories.

1. IN | MI | OH | OR

U.S. postal abbreviations.

2. AS | AT | BE | NO

Symbols of chemical elements.

Now, hold on to your hats for these other two.

3. AX | HO | MA | RA

How about last names of famous musicians? Emanuel Ax, Don Ho, Yo-Yo Ma, and Sun Ra.

4. LA | ON | RE | TI

This one was sly, but completely appropriate for this game. You can rearrange these letter pairs to spell the word "RELATION". This game is all about relations, after all.

Grid 2:

0: GREEN | 1: RED | 2: BLUE | 3: RED
4: RED | 5: BLACK | 6: GREEN | 7: ORANGE
8: BLACK | 9: ROYAL BLUE | 10: BLUE AND WHITE | 11: BLACK
12: YELLOW | 13: AQUA | 14: GREEN AND WHITE | 15: TENNESSEE ORANGE

You had to use both the numbers and colors in your foursomes... but that was too much for everybody to handle. I'll show you how this one could be solved. There was only one valid solution here. Not all of the categories involved visual colors. Two of them just involved the words themselves.

1. 3: RED | 5: BLACK | 9: ROYAL BLUE | 15: TENNESSEE ORANGE

Each color is correctly paired with the number of letters in its name.

2. 0: GREEN | 1: RED | 8: BLACK | 11: BLACK

I asked a roulette question earlier in this contest. Roulette showed up again. I thought that "0: Green" might have hinted at that. Number-color pairs on a U.S. roulette wheel. "3: Red" also could have fit into this category, although it would have prevented a perfect score.

3. 2: BLUE | 6: GREEN | 10: BLUE AND WHITE | 14: GREEN AND WHITE

Number-color pairs of standard pool balls. "3: Red" and "8: Black" were red herrings.

4. 4: RED | 7: ORANGE | 12: YELLOW | 13: AQUA

This was another Scrabble question. Each word is correctly paired with its non-premium Scrabble score. "6: Green" also fits here.

Despite not trying the second grid, Frank came out as the top scorer. Weasel is now the Week 4 leader.

4/28 + 4/29 + 4/30 Scores (8 participants)
ShamelessWeasel - 7 + 12 + 6 = 25
Bob Juch - 8 + 13 + 0 = 21
smilergrogan - 3 + 11 + 6 = 20
franktangredi - 2 + 7 + 10 = 19
themanintheseersuckersuit - 2 + 9 + 0 = 11
Bob78164 - 1 + 6 + 0 = 7
kroxquo - 1 + 6 + 0 = 7
jarnon - 1 + 4 + 0 = 5

FOUL! You said, "all 16 answers in a grid will follow a theme," but only the 4 answers in each row follow a theme.

I gave up because I couldn't come up with a theme all 16 answers fit.