THEMELESS MONDAY: [ ACROSS LITE][ PDF]
PROGRAMS: [Across Lite] [Adobe Reader]
Sam Donaldson (no, not that Sam Donaldson) over at Crossword Fiend did his annual Orcas wherein he gives an exhaustive and comprehensive deep-dive into some noteworthy puzzles of the previous year. Special shoutout to Sam, for you know, actually waiting until the calendar year flipped to drop this science. Lord knows, there’s nothing better than seeing best-of-the-year lists before Thanksgiving. Let’s just write off the last 5 weeks, eh?, so we can all be first with hot takes. But I digress. Sam and his Orcas. Give it a look-see, will ya? The biz Quig got a couple shout outs, and only one of those insinuated that I employ dad jokes. I am, well, not amused. So, Sam, if you’re reading this, I will unleash a thousand fists of fury upon thee at the ACPT in a few weeks. You have been warned. And, while I’m here, thanks for the mentions. Those do mean a lot.
When yr. done with that, you might as well read this, um, highly fanciful write up about how to make it as a freelance puzzle maker. I’ve been doing this since, my God, has it really been since 1996? I’m getting old. Anyway, Yeah, I’ve been doing this for a while now, and let me tell you, pretty much nothing in that page is correct. Still: High Comedy!
Lastly, an amusing bit about today’s puzzle, if you’re into reading how I made this one, rot13’d so as to avoid spoilers: Guvf fgrzzrq sebz na pnapryrq, haernyvmrq gurzrq chmmyr gung V pbhyq arire ernyyl trg gung ynfg ragel gb znxr jbex/pbzcyrgr. Gur erirny jnf tbvat gb or ZL CEBABHAF NER naq gur bgure nafjref jbhyq unir gjb cebabhaf rzorqqrq va gur cuenfr, yvxr gur UR naq UVZ va PURPX GUR EUVZR. FUR naq URE vf rnfl gb jbex jvgu, FURCUREQ nalguvat, ernyyl. GURL naq GURZ, ubjrire, vf avtu-vzcbffvoyr.
Share the puzzle. New one on Thursday.
Not sure about the accuracy of 40A…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refried_beans
the year of the mouse? too long/forced?
47×50 was a Natick for me with the wrong vowel in play.
*This* is the nit you have decided to pick?
A clue like “Charles Lindbergh, in 1927” for “THE Man of THE Year” would… admittedly be backwards but would be exactly 15 letters.
I spent ten minutes trying to figure out if there were any clues for xe/xir but that’s a dead end.
Same!
18A? Can somebody help me out here? What does this mean? Tx
In reply to Matt, nowadays it’s not always clear what pronouns a person wants to be referred to by, usually gender-wise, so people ask and tell about their pronouns of choice.