CROSSWORD SOLVER PUZZLE:
[ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Crossword Solver]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
To the mailbag. Sam Orme of Eugene, Oregon, chimed in, waxing poetic on solving a crossword using the “Swiss Cheese” approach I talked about in last Monday’s post. Sam’s efforts are something. Behold the photographic proof of his mighty struggle up above. No seriously, check it out in greater detail here. One third of the clues don’t exist, including almost all the Downs, where all the theme entries are. And then you throw in the unches for this strange puzzle, I gotta say, this was impressive.
Sam writes on his blog:
I found the page smeared like that when I opened up the paper. I thought for a second about finding a fresh copy, but then realized that such a challenge must not go unmet.
It took me an hour and a half to solve, which is pretty sad for someone who has been solving as long as I have. I managed to solve that week’s Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday puzzles COMBINED in less time than that.
Thanks for sharing, Sam.
Share the puzzle. New one on Thursday.
Well, that took 11+ minutes to get everything but the northwest, and 31-ish to get the northwest… which included a reveal on 3-Down.
Are you sure the clue for 4-Down is right, [Court decision]?
Love the photo. Brings me back to my 20 years of running printing presses and the ol’ ink-up/wash-out double whammy.
Hey BEQ, have to say that this one was really really difficult to get thru. Made it with one mistake at 42 min. Still worth it when your’re thinking about the XWP where you get less than 3/4 of the answers/boxes. I came up with this idea about 7 or 8 years ago. No refs or help from anyone. Time limit ended when the next XWP came out (!). An average of 7 wrongs/misses. You can get 1/4 wrong on a really difficult XWP, but only once in a while. A lot of us have stds. like this. The prob with me was too many sports and slang. Bears repeating that my MISTLETOE were sports, rap music, and electronic media terms. All I say is this XWP was like a really bad game of WW2BAMILLIONAIRE.
18A is great! The only poem that I know by heart from my days as an English major.
“. . . glazed with rain water, beside the white chickens.”
Like Tuning Spork, I was thrown by 4D.
Ditto for 4D, and ditto for slowness in the NW corner (entering “BREAKPEDAL” didn’t help…doh!) – some tough crossings up there. Keep up the good work!
For all the good that the clue for 4D did me it might as well have been blurred out. Should it have been “Count decision?”.
Loved the clue for FENWAY. The seat was painted red because that is where a 509 foot home run by Ted Williams ended up on June 9, 1946.