ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ BARBERSHOP QUARTET]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ BARBERSHOP QUARTET]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
First off, gotta give huge props to all of Twitter followers (and yes, to a lesser extent my Facebook friends as my Twitter feed goes out on that site as well). I had the idea for this puzzle and simply could not get the last entry to make it work. Or so I thought. Normally, I have a slew of other puzzle people I IM with during the day. Call it my virtual water cooler where I talk about good entries and some not-so-good entries, good/bad clues, good/bad ideas, etc. But we had yet another Gmail blackout during the critical stages of making this puzzle, so I was fucked. Cut off entirely from people who I can bounce ideas off of.
Until I fielded calls from you.
All of my brilliant Twitterati bailed my posterior end out of the fire. I called for some seed entries, specifically songs with certain words in their titles. It was my job to manipulate them into the grid you see before you. Y’all stepped it up. In fact you guys gave me so many great ideas I scrapped the original idea entirely and changed it to what we’ve got here. I kept changing my mind and asking for your help and you responded. Boy did you ever. I was overwhelmed with great ideas, so much so that this puzzle blossomed from a 15x to a 17x until it finally settled on a 19x. Whew!
The moral? We’re definitely doing this group construction again. I’ve been looking for the best way to use Twitter in conjunction with this site, and this co-construction seems to be the winner. Perhaps in the future I will ask for some help with cluing as well as theme development. So, to get in on the fun please follow me on Twitter (or, if you prefer Facebook). And since Fridays are Follow Fridays on Twitter, why not follow these folk who were instrumental: Ashley Willard and Amy Watts. Also, thanks to Chris Webb who went berserk with the suggestions on Facebook.
Share the puzzle! New one on Monday.
Update: The Visual Thesaurus puzzle is up today as well. Go do it here.
Wheeee! This makes my day. I hope I can actually finish this puzzle, since I presumably already know some of the answers.
Boo, the java puzzle isn’t working for me today. Guess it’s pencil and paper time (so thanks for providing the PDF version).
(FWIW I’ve tried IE and Firefox on an XP PC and both give the error message “wrong size” when trying to load the java version.)
Ashley I’m related to a lot of Willards, so it freaked me out a little to see Willard and Watts up there.
Amy, please bear with us. We’re working extra hard to get this Java App to work. Normally it runs smoothly because we’ve configured it to run with a 15x. (Dumb 19x!)
Damn … I’m glad you used that song. Probably got suggested a lot. I keep laughing every time I think of someone actually saying that answer aloud. Worst Pickup Line Ever.
Cloud constructing! Nice. Go get ’em.
rp
YAY! It’s working for me now. 🙂
Pretty cool to see the song I threw out there (I among others, I assume) show up in the grid. Didn’t help my time, though. Neither did having AKA for 99A….
Didn’t notice the size change til I finished. Great puzzle! Kicked my ass!!! Really enjoyable since the LAT has gone with the wussy puzzles of late!!
i can’t say i love the theme (and i’ve never heard of the 3-part theme answer), but it’s incredible that you can crank out a 19x with themeless-like 3×8 stacks and no forced fill. TNTS is about the only even slightly awkward entry. oh, and the alaskan mountain. still, though–it’s impressive. i think filling a clean 19x would take me at least a week.
Dang. Had no idea why Goslow is a creep.
As a curler, you’d think I might have stumbled upon a sporting-related clue, but alas had I known I would have tried ‘ALKY(something).
TOTALLYCLIPSOFTHEHEART was the theme-breaker for me, and the best of the quartet IMOO.
Belated theme entry submitted via email.
terrific puzzle. and fun to have an extra-large puzzle early in the week. loved TOTALLYCLIPSOFHEART! only part I didn’t like was the clue for 2-D. “Very occasional puzzle co-author of Brendan’s” would have been MUCH better.
The song puns are perfectly fine. What I found extremely satisfying is the inclusion of what I believe is the first ever cluing of the author of the Heidi books. I had no idea what the answer was until I answered all the across entries. I love learning something new and a word/name with a fun set of letters.