ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
Collaboration time again on the ole’ BEQ.com, this time from The Mike Nothnagel. Definite article, please and thank you. That’s me clinking glassware with The Mike over The Nancy Schuster, one of the test solvers for the site. And yes, she gets a definite article as well.
Few people know this but The Mike and yours truly are both Class of ’96 at the occasional crossword entry/school: UNH. People ask me what that stands for all the time, and I tell them the “University of No Hope.” Anyway, Mike manned up and studied mathematics, whilst I took the path of least resistance and got a liberal arts degree. That meant we took a grand total of zero classes together. But Mike lived in this hippie-dippy commune/dorm thing with one of my closest friends, so I knew The Mike thataway. I had no idea that he was a puzzlehead until he just started showing up at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, oh, five or so years ago. The shock continued when he started selling them to the Times shortly thereafter. And now he’s right up there with the best. I mean hell, he had a Saturday run with essentially zero clue rewrites. That’s crazy stuff.
Coincidentally, The Mike joins Byron Walden and Joon Pahk as friends of mine who owe me money my mother curses their names whenever she sees their bylines. She simply cannot solve one of their puzzles. I think you’re in good company, fellas.
Anyway. Enjoy/share the puzzle. New one on Thursday.
hey, that is pretty good company! i’ll take it.
loved this puzzle. 1a is great stuff, although i couldn’t come up with the name of it for a long time (“how a bill becomes a law” obviously wouldn’t fit).
Please. Every college hockey fan knows that UNH stands for University of No Hardware.
1A was my first entry in the grid. If you haven’t heard the cover by Deluxx Folk Implosion, you should.
I cranked out the entire NW corner very quickly, then nearly the did the same for the SE. After that – NOTHING. Good stuff, but outside my wheelhouse.
Great Monday workout. But I had to cheat. Had a sparsely filled south and hit reveal for GQTYPE, which I’d never have solved anyway. From there, relatively clear sailing. Amazing how one answer can open the grid.
Very nice puzzle. I managed to finish despite the grid being full of WTFs (1A; 15A; 26A; 31A; 39D). Needed some inspired guesses for the SE: after getting GQTYPE the only plausible name I could come up with was ERIQ, and I settled on the C of ARCARO after deciding there probably isn’t a Disney song about wanting to be a BAT, a RAT, a HAT, a MAT, and certainly not a GAT…
It started so promisingly… IMJUSTABILL… Boom. NW corner fell easily. Bang!
Then the bottom dropped out. I won’t recall the ugliness, but this one kicked my butt.
You couldn’t have at least given us ERIQ Lasalle to make GQTYPE a little easier?? Sheesh!
26-A is still a question mark here (I have to look it up, I’m stumped and glazed), and that one crossing the new-to-me 21-D and also new 21A made the whole top-right a total beatdown, taking about 1/2 my solve.
Wow, that’s a hell of a puzzle that “The Mike” would be proud of. This one’s cranked to habañero level. Gonna soak my brain now.
Nailed this baby to the floor after working it on and off during the last…oh… seven hours.
Writeovers: Camaro for IMPALA, Enzo for DINO, snobs for DIORS, table for TARRY, exits for ENTRY, and lenience for SENTENCE. I had always associated DROPSY with a limper and 21 square was the last to fall. I do wonder whether different types of donuts are “rivals”; “Bismarck’s comrade” would have worked just as well!
Your clue for “rte” was the best ever!
Aagh…HOSIERS are the type A businessmen who…hose people?…sell pantyhose! Brain disconnected. Like many above, everything seemed so neat with an easy 1A (I didn’t even need to see the whole clue). My favorite clue was Small snapper. (Fishing? Nope.) My writeovers included gowns for DIORS, and sweeter for MOISTER. And I convinced myself that the lev from earlier this week was related to the krona.
1A came immediately to me. I remember that Schoolhouse Rock cartoon quite well – as well as its parody that appeared on “The Simpsons”.
Loved that Schoolhouse Rock answer. Man, was that a help. A few flashbacks strewn throughout the puzzle, if you’re a child of the 80s, left like a trail of Mr.T cereal for us to find.
Yes, a very quick NW and somewhat quick SE followed by a half a day of struggle with the rest. Excellent challenge. 32d Pantyhose??
I thought of “graph theory” and “Hamiltonian cycle problem” but not the right answer for 16a.
Wow, this kicked my butt! Usually I will do BEQ without a Google, but here I Googled everything I could and still had to “reveal” some answers. I still don’t understand GLAZEDDONUT (is a Bismarck some kind of pastry?) or Hosiers. BTW Google for “Bismarck’s rival” reveals some interesting Prussian history.
WTF DINO Ferrari?