star fleet commander and her trusty lego (Photo credit: with an eye)
Visual Description: Kirk and Picard arguing in a hot-air balloon.
FITHS = SHIFT, NOWEM = WOMEN, CARPIY = PIRACY, RELYCE = CELERY — Giving us: SHFTWONRAEE
Clue/Question: The balloon was ascending perfectly, but the squabbling operators were going . . .
Answer: NOWHERE FAST
(What is this? A little misdirection? I don’t get the connection. Two Star Fleet Commanders – from different generations – going nowhere fast . . . in a hat-air balloon??? Is this a new direction? Instead of loading us with little bonus clues, now you’re actually going to purposely make them more challenging? I mean, I get the pun. But, that would have worked with any two operators. What is your old uncle missing here. Can anyone explain to me the Star Trek connection?
By the way, no new clue words. Decent, but not too tough jumblings. Pretty impressive answer letter layout. And, some good likenesses of Stewart and Shatner. Have the guys decided to make things more challenging, or has my nerd quotient dropped a few points? Be well and do good, friends.) — YUR
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Unclerave's Wordy Weblog 
As I’ve mentioned from time to time, sometimes when Jeff and I turn in a puzzle, the editors at Tribune make changes on their own. This is a very good example of what I’ve been talking about. The answer was supposed to be “LIGHT” SPEED and the clue was something like “Even though the hot-air balloon was barely moving, they were moving at…” The editor didn’t like that pun and changed the answer and dialogue to what you saw yesterday. It was a little confusing with the cartoon but still worked well enough but wasn’t what I’d originally intended for the cartoon. That’s ok. We love our editors at Tribune Media and we’re happy to follow their lead. Tribune Media owns Jumble and Jeff and I are just thankful to be in a position to work with them on it.
Well, that explains it then! But, you’d think if they were going to change things, like they did, they could just as easily alter the “operator’s” clothing, so it would be just another bald dude and a dude with hair. Send those ding-dongs to yer Uncle Rave! I’ll straighten out there asses!
— YUR
Any chance I get to draw Picard and Kirk, I’m going to take. Maybe if we use that puzzle for a book or some other purpose we can change it back to the original genius.
UNC- I got your back with the editors, typical bosses they always know better WRONG!!!! Have a great weekend UNC. WIMPY
I thought it was a grand puzzle in that I had to really work at it, but it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. And PIRACY–took a bit. I had to study, study, study all the clue letters. I started making all the words I could with the letters available, hit on faster, studied the captions some more and hit on “nowhere fast” from out of the blue. Still thought that had to be wrong and checked the next days paper…voila, puzzle solved.
I’ve actually thought all the puzzles I’ve been working on to catch up have been pure “genius”!
That’s right, Wimpy! You and me, taking names and kicking asses! Been readin’ up on OUR Bills’ coaching moves?!?! NEW blood . . . BLUE blood, bother! Buffalo Blue! Bleed it and weep! Finally, a coaching staff to get excited about!
— YUR
I finally had to peek at the first two letters of the joke answer in the next day’s paper, which is very rare. I was convinced the first word was “another”, but then the four letters left didn’t work out to anything. Then I correctly conjectured that the second word might be “fast”, but I still never came up with “nowhere”. 😦
Interesting about Tribune Media. That must mean they pick the scrambled words, too…