ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ WHIPPING POSTS]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ WHIPPING POSTS]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
Inaugural blog post today. Everybody please get out your bottles of champagne and smash them against the side of your computer. (May I recommend Perrier-Jouet Fleur de Champagne 1999?) The maiden voyage is under way.
My promise to all of you out there: You can expect three free puzzles a week from me (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays), thoroughly modern, thoroughly enjoyable. Now we’re all in this together here, so I expect each and every one of you who solve it to hit me back. All right, let’s do this.
Since we’re on the topic of starting off, you may ask me where do I start whilst making my puzzles? The theme, of course, which is the gimmick shared by all the long entries the grid. It’s the distinguishing factor in the puzzle.
Now if you were to ask me where I get my theme ideas, that would be a much trickier question to answer.
Now I could say I have this moleskine notebook full of half-baked, fully-baked, and never-going-to-be-made ideas to develop later.
Or I could say I meet up with a group similar to The Algonquin Round Table where I can share witty bon mots and steal their best ideas into my work.
I could even say that by using sheer concentration and an unhealthy amount of peyote, I can stare at a blank grid and ideas just burst forth in a hallucinogenic nightmare.
The truth is it’s really a combination of all those things and then some. Themes come from the complicated jumble we call “everyday life.” Themes pop out at me at the strangest and most unexpected times. They might come while I’m working out at the gym, or mishearing something someone said, or stumbling upon a piece of too-good-to-pass-up trivia. The basis for the theme for the puzzle posted above should be pretty obvious when you do it.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a vision quest to go on.
Bravo, BEQ! Changing your link on my site to refer back to this one.
The world will tremble before us; imprimaturs will crumble beneath our feet.
Good stuff.
Welcome to the world of free on-line puzzle providing!
TANSTAAFCP, Trip!
So uh… this is the hottest site ever. Whipping posts is the first themed puzzled I’ve enjoyed in the last 5 years. Some of the entries are outrageously, scaldingly hot. Three consecutive i’s. Bravo. Bravo. Why subscribe to the Times anymore?
Mmmm, peyote.
Working out at the gym… Whoa. It’s been a long time, friend. I hardly know thee. Me likey the site and the tag line!
It is most badass that you are doing this. Are you planning to have any sort of difficulty progression throughout the week?
Most badass indeed. Way to work it!
Nice Pabst Blue Ribbon pic, btw.
BEQ – cool site, cooler idea of free, quality online puzzles. Will you accept submissions if they meet your standards? 🙂
Also, the clue for 17A needs to shed “yours”.
Ashish << your first critic/online editor.
bugger. i’ve been meaning to sneak WIIITIS into a puzzle, but it looks like i won’t be the first.
good stuff.
Cool puzzle. I get the other 2 but is “getaway widget” supposed to be a pun on “getaway ticket”? Seems a little a clunky (but maybe I’m missing something).
Good, challenging corker!
I don’t get GETAWAYWIDGET either, but that’s probably just me. Thanks for the site!
What I was going for with GET AWAY WIDGET was a spoof on GET AWAY WITH IT. Maybe I was too drunk when I made this one?
Nicely done.
Ooo! If we’re the Algonquin Round Table, can I be Dorothy Parker?
Who would that make me? George Kaufman?
Well slap my ass and called me super stoked.
awesome puzzle. WIIITIS is the best entry of the year…
Very cool, dude. Love the blog header graphic. Did I just say “dude”?
It may be the case that you start making the daily puzzles in other publications look very tired, very stale, very quickly.
I thought “Twitter” was the new alternative to blogging. That’s what “Wired” is trying to convince me of, at any rate. Weirdly, I had a conversation with people in my Tai Chi class last night about KOMODO dragons, and I just (I mean JUST) finished watching “The Money Trap,” a 1966 crime movie starring Rita Hayworth, Joseph Cotton, Elke Sommer, and … Ricardo Montalban! He is a very sexy man, which you would never know from KHAN / Mr. Roarke.
I hope you have huge success with this site.
rp
Twitter appears to be a “micro-blogging service,” whatever that means. I went that way with cluing to get the alliteration. I think the clue still works, or at least, hope it works.
Iii loved it!
My Facebook status updates come from my Twitter feed. You gotta get your point across in 140 characters or less.
Point taken. Dropping the verbosity.
Excellent. Took a little while to get the hang of the entry system, and needed the “check” on the first one. Got faster and more accurate on the others.
Terrific service! Challenging and interesting. Thank you!