Sleeping in (Sunday brunch: August 5, 2012)

A good weekend to stay in bed a little longer: puzzling is lighter than usual.  Not only is there no new issue of The Nation this week, Willz at the New York Times gave us a missing letters word game that Deb Amlen didn't care for.

So did Hex do an Olympic theme?  Nope, they're still at the beach.

Thankfully, Patrick Berry saves our weekend.  He has a new free variety cryptic at his site: "A-Frame Games."  Also, the Wall Street Journal has a new Rows Garden.  If you haven't tried one of these before, do so.  They're a delight to solve because of Berry's skill in 100% checked construction, and if you're a cryptic solver, this will give you practice in fitting answers into an unnumbered grid.

See you Thursday for a new puzzle from Hot and Trazom.

--Braze