CROSSWORD SOLVER PUZZLE:
[ THEMLESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Crossword Solver]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
Sixty-two measly words. Hope you enjoy each and every one of them.
Speaking of enjoyment, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a nice book that came in over the transom at BEQ.com: Roger Wolff’s “50 Variety Cryptic Crosswords.” I must admit, I’m not familiar with Roger’s work. Though he’s self-published a book of puzzles; most of which are new, though two are reprints from a Microsoft puzzle hunt, and two are reprints from Games magazine. If he’s selling puzzles to those clients, he must be doing something right. In the intro, Roger claims to be inspired by the masters Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, so right there you have my attention. His puzzles (at least the ones I’ve so far) are entertaining, with more than a handful of the punchlines well-earned. Look, regulars to the site know I’m on a variety-only kick and I’m totally pro-independent puzzling, so you know my totally biased eyes are going to claim this one’s a winner. While the title/cover is a tad meh, you can’t claim false advertising because that’s exactly what you’re getting inside.
If there’s been one nit to pick on it, I’m not exactly thrilled with changing the punctuation of “& lit.” clues from the common “!” to an nontraditional “?” Roger claims this is becoming more common practice, but I sure as heck haven’t seen this, and I solve cryptics by the boatload (ask Liz). Maybe I’m not solving the right crpytics, but I doubt that.
Anyway, Roger’s set himself up for a massive uphill battle by making high quality specialized puzzles and doing it all himself. I think his battle’s an admirable one, though, so if variety cryptics are your sort of thing, please consider picking up a copy will you?
Share the puzzle. New one on Thursday.
This one was rough.
Between misspelling MORISSETTE, creating a fictitious movie called SPY NAKED (which does sound like a perfect Leslie Nielsen vehicle, IMO), and resisting HONEST LOOK since I knew LOOK AWAY was right, the NW was my sticking point…
I see “?” a lot for &lit, which is OK with me, but lately, mostly, I see >nothing<, which is aggravating.
I think you have to revise the rating of ‘Hard’ because I solved this pretty handily…and I somehow doubt I’ve gotten any smarter now that I’m on Medicare.
BTW, loved that picture of you and Tabitha a couple weeks back. Very Cute Baby!
Have to agree with Elaine. This was a lot easier than your other hard puzzles, but maybe that was because I was wearing my “Palindromes are Rasemordnilap” t-shirt from Mental Floss.