PUZZLE #62 & a near miss

ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ GONE TEABAGGING] 
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]

PROGRAM: [Java]

PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ GONE TEABAGGING]

PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]

You can’t see you didn’t see this one coming. I probably took a little too long with this theme, and I think (unfortunately) it shows. Basically, when it dawned on me that a puzzle on this here blog had to be called “Teabagging,” there was no going back. Thing was, I had no such luck with coming up with a suitable theme. It’s not like I’ve never had an idea for a title for a puzzle before and had difficulty in writing said puzzle. I’ve had themes that I’ve bandied about for years before nailing it. I just imposed somewhat of a deadline with this one in terms of “topicality.” (Which is up for debate in the first place).

At one point I resorted to some true vulgarian friends for help with it. What would be a theme entry for a puzzle called “Teabagging?” And frankly, I had some winners that even I wouldn’t touch and/or entries that were inconsistent or were too damn long to use in a 15x in the first place!

Anyway, I got stuck in the rut of feeling I couldn’t let this one slide, so in effect, consider this one an “unfinished” puzzle. I mean, obviously, it’s finished, but it just seems to be more of a close-but-no-cigar puzzle. (FWIW: two test solvers, both of whom are previous American Crossword Puzzle Tournament winners, found it, and I quote, “hilarious.” Another test solver wanted his life back after solving it. So, I’m comfortable with that range of reactions.)

Course, the comedy is, I just test solved a wonderful “teabagging” puzzle from (who else?) Byron Walden for “The Onion.” Should have gone down that route (it should be published in a couple weeks), and I’m kicking myself for not thinking of that theme. Oh well.

Sidebar: I’m wondering if I really did do a series of “unfinished” puzzles, what would they look like? Would they be these insane looking grids with say, like two or three entries? One amazing clue? Half-filled 9×7 corners? Would that be my way of saying, “that’s it, I’m not going to be able to top that what you’re looking at?” This is what I do for a living folks, I get paid to think of this garbage.

Thanks to all who proposed the penalties. Looks like I’ll be attempting to duplicate Liz Gorski’s rebus-puzzle-that-becomes-art-that-becomes-some-sort-of-self-referential-something-or-other as well as a Trip Payne-esque anything goes themeless. And I guess the poll results are in and you guys want me to break Kevin Der’s 18 square white out. So look for those coming up in the near future (or, in the case of the 18 square gauntlet, sometime in the year 2037). But a more intriguing challenge was proposed that I took the bait, and although I couldn’t quite do satisfactorily enough, I love what came out anyway. So look for that on Friday.