ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ BARBERSHOP QUARTET]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ BARBERSHOP QUARTET]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
First off, gotta give huge props to all of Twitter followers (and yes, to a lesser extent my Facebook friends as my Twitter feed goes out on that site as well). I had the idea for this puzzle and simply could not get the last entry to make it work. Or so I thought. Normally, I have a slew of other puzzle people I IM with during the day. Call it my virtual water cooler where I talk about good entries and some not-so-good entries, good/bad clues, good/bad ideas, etc. But we had yet another Gmail blackout during the critical stages of making this puzzle, so I was fucked. Cut off entirely from people who I can bounce ideas off of.
Until I fielded calls from you.
All of my brilliant Twitterati bailed my posterior end out of the fire. I called for some seed entries, specifically songs with certain words in their titles. It was my job to manipulate them into the grid you see before you. Y’all stepped it up. In fact you guys gave me so many great ideas I scrapped the original idea entirely and changed it to what we’ve got here. I kept changing my mind and asking for your help and you responded. Boy did you ever. I was overwhelmed with great ideas, so much so that this puzzle blossomed from a 15x to a 17x until it finally settled on a 19x. Whew!
The moral? We’re definitely doing this group construction again. I’ve been looking for the best way to use Twitter in conjunction with this site, and this co-construction seems to be the winner. Perhaps in the future I will ask for some help with cluing as well as theme development. So, to get in on the fun please follow me on Twitter (or, if you prefer Facebook). And since Fridays are Follow Fridays on Twitter, why not follow these folk who were instrumental: Ashley Willard and Amy Watts. Also, thanks to Chris Webb who went berserk with the suggestions on Facebook.
Share the puzzle! New one on Monday.
Update: The Visual Thesaurus puzzle is up today as well. Go do it here.
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