ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
This coming weekend marks the second time I’ll be participating in the M.I.T. puzzle hunt. That’s the all-weekend, round-the-clock, marathon puzzle-solving/scavenger hunt tournament. Literally, it’s no sleep until all the puzzles are solved kind of thing. And to think they choose the weekend that just happens to be the NFL’s Divisional weekend! Those brutes! How’m I going to geek out with football and compete in this thing? The horror! The horror!
Although my team is ably helmed by puzzlemaker/children’s book author Eric Berlin, and certainly brimming with some of the greatest minds in puzzles, I don’t think we’re going to win the whole thing. For starters, we don’t have either Tyler Hinman or Francis Heaney, two people whose teams lately seem to win the thing in alternating years. And since the previous year’s winning team gets to write all the puzzles for this year, we can eliminate Francis’s team. So Tyler, it’s all up to you, buddy.
But, then again, as the Seattle Seahawks proved this weekend, competitions aren’t played on paper. So maybe, just maybe we’ll pull off the upset. (Dammit! I can’t stop thinking about football!)
Just sayin’: part of me wishes I was on Trip Payne’s team, if only for their heavily-enforced rule that a beer must be consumed after a successful completion of a puzzle. Then again, with my meager contributions, we’d be talking about a measly 2 or so beers, max. Trip, if you’re reading this: I’d be a cheap contributor to your team. I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’.
I have been training, a little. I’ve been looking at one of the Crossword Jesuses’ (Patrick Berry) latest books: “Adventures in Puzzling.” Like the M.I.T. hunt, the book is split into sections, or “metas.” Metas are groups of puzzles whose final answers are to be used in some way for the final puzzle in that section. Whew. Anyway, it’s got all the Berry trademarks, which are too numerous to mention here, so two will suffice: cuckoo-bananas grids and loopy reinterpretations of standard puzzles. The breadth of each meta is impressive as you’ll be required to draw from just about every genre of puzzledom to solve them: be that logic or word games or trivia. The best part is that this book, unlike the M.I.T hunt, is not murderously difficult. In fact, I’d say it’s downright “gentle,” as more than a handful of metas can be backsolved (that is to say, you can solve the final puzzle with just a few pieces in place).
For those who can’t make the hunt, but would be interested in what it’s all about, I’d recommend doing Patrick’s book, but starting the whole thing at 3:30 in the morning.
More on the hunt later. Share the puzzle. New one on Thursday.
Weird. Easy, and then DNF. That SW corner was impossible for me. Never heard of ERMA so had ETTA. That pretty much sealed it. Also never heard of TEMPEST (had TETRIS-T!) or DINO. Vague clue on weird word UPRAISE. New clue on TEMPEST or DINO or ERMA (something more in the realm of gen. knowledge) would have helped.
rp
my time was impacted by my contemporaneous work as baby whisperer for 6 day old graddaughter, annabel.
i didn’t think i could do this puzzle — first time through, just a handful of fills, but i did it. thanks.
Butt dial?
Also known as “pocket dial”. When your cell is in your pocket and the keyboard isn’t locked and you accidentally call someone because a speed dial button got pushed.
Got it all OK in something of my usual but untimed time. Last to fall was the SE where I had WAffLE instead of WAGGLE and I couldn’t figure out what about Tupac and Ice would start with “Femin..” I see BUTTDIAL is in the slang dictionary but a slightly different meaning than the clue. Butt thanks for another enjoyable Monday workout.
I didn’t actually help write, even though I was on the team that won last year. Was too busy writing “Sudoku in Space” (among other books, but that was the main time sink).
the football gods obviously want me to concentrate on the mystery hunt, because all four teams i was cheering for lost this weekend. brutal. man, how is it that out of 8 remaining teams, the packers are the only remotely likable one?
And my hardest area was the NW, where I had RATATAT screwing me up. And I still confuse Cerberus with Cerebus.
I still haven’t been on an MIT hunt, but I think I’m past my days of staying up insane hours.
Ice Cube and Tupac Shakur do not make me think of astrology. Putting in WAFFLE for WAGGLE didn’t help. When bees waggle dance they are not vacillating, just the opposite.
Took me a long time to do the SW, even with getting Tempest (used to have one at the house) quickly. Biggest stumble was not recognizing Lee J. Cobb until very last. Kept trying to put a name in there and didn’t make the connection until it was the last thing. Also didn’t help that I had had GAIA originally.
Don’t Prince and Eminem both have Oscars too? Pretty sure, but didn’t see how that could fit. Ironically, maybe, neither Ice Cube nor Tupac do despite making strides as actors. 🙂
Another fine puzzle. Top half on the easy side bottom half ARRGH! Finally got SW when I realized I spelled ASSENT wrong and changed RAISINS (currents?) to RAPIDS. WAIVER, WAFFLE, WIGGLE then WAGGLE made SE pretty slow.