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Final puzzle for 2022 is another tournament rerun: the infamous number 5 from this past year’s ACPT. Probably one of my all-time favorite puzzles I’ve made, of this, or any year. Enjoy it one more time. Or for the first time, if you haven’t seen it already. Thanks to Will Shortz for letting me rerun this.
Thanks to each and every one of you who were able to chip in to this year’s end of the year drive. If you threw me some coin and didn’t receive the two bonus puzzles, email me and I’ll take care of that. As promised, the one randomly selected donor who receives the puzzle book is Rebecca Webber from Parts Unkown! Congrats, Rebecca.
Looking for more puzzles for 2023? The Hub Crossword (Sunday puzzles by me and Joon Pahk) and Marching Bands year eight has begun. So if that To Do list needs even more puzzles, you know what to do.
Share the puzzle. New one on Monday.
OK, so I solved this puzzle. It was very enjoyable, but I am completely stumped on how the theme clues (xx-xx-xx) relate to the answers. Would someone care to fill me in? I’ve Googled to no avail. I know I’m going to have a great big head slap when I see it, but I haven’t a clue.
Same here.
I was stumped too, but then… for example: 39 across + 44 across + 42 down, pronounced as syllables , gives the name of 24 across. Very tough.
Thank you! Without your help, I’m not sure I’d ever have gotten it. Excellent puzzle.
Finally got it, but really hurt my head!
Insanely hard. DNF. Very clever though upon reading the comments above!
Wow, wow, wow! What a concept. I tried so many ways to figure out the way the numbers worked until suddenly having the visual help of seeing two words next to each other and finally it clicked.
Thanks! I would not have figured that out by myself. (It seems a lot like a meta, and I am not good at metas.)
Great Puzzle. I never saw it before. And I did figure out the number clues, but it took a while because the puzzle was pretty hard even for the short clues. I loved Chi Burp Ass as a clue.
Thanks! I also was clueless about the numbers even after solving.