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CROSSWORD #119 & the results are in!

Posted on by Brendan Quigley




ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ GAME TIME] 
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]


PROGRAM: [Java]

PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ GAME TIME]

PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]


Great photo Liz took of yours truly in the headquarters of BEQ.com. You can tell so much from it. To wit:

  1. I was not a morning person today.
  2. I recently ripped “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…” in anticipation of eventually hearing “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II”
  3. I really do have a shitty cellphone. In fact, its shittiness was probably understated in my podcast with Ryan & Brian.
  4. Yes, that really is an Allen Wales adding machine. And no, I don’t do my bookkeeping on it. It’s a new acquisition for the Boston Typewriter Orchestra.
  5. Nice watch tan-line.
  6. More importantly, 97 souls entered my contest from last Friday as evidenced by the bowl with the names in it. Let’s review.

Solvers of the String Quintet puzzle found the following riddle: WHAT WORD / CONTAINS THE FIVE / LETTERS E, F, G, H AND I / CONSECUTIVELY IN / ANY ORDER? (Hat tip to Francis Heaney for helping me get the phrasing just right.) In the post I had said that there were two answers that were totally legit, but then one of my test solvers, Joon Pahk, discovered there were two more totally legit entries as well. So the moral? Next time I do one of these contests, I have to make the riddle watertight. Or, perhaps, make it so wide open that all you have to do is just send in a word, any word will do.

The answers I was going for were PRIZEFIGHT and/or FIREFIGHT (with all the extenders like -ER, -ING, etc.); Joon brought to my attention REFIGHT and PREFIGHT which I accepted as well. SLEIGHFUL is in no dictionaries I have, nor any of my puzzlemaking colleagues. And CRIME-FIGHTER has a hyphen, so that’s right out too. Any complaints? Bring it up with the management.

Without further ado, the winners of a copy of “Diagramless Crosswords” are: Wally Buch, Brandy Evans Buckingham, Emily O’Neill, Greggo Johnson, and whoever’s behind the What In The Cornbread Hell? blog. (Shoot me an e-mail, Mr. Cornbread Hell, I couldn’t find your name anywhere.)

Oh, and a special copy of “Diagramless” goes out to John Flavin and his fellow students at Washington University in St. Louis. They posted this suck up video on Facebook, and the jury’s out as to efficacy of said video. The one commenter so far has summed it up best: “I’m am so glad I’m not part of that. God damn.”

All told, the contest was a huge success. Look for more in the future.

Okay, here’s an easy and timely one. Share the puzzle! (This one would be great for the uninitiated!) New one on Friday.


26 thoughts on “CROSSWORD #119 & the results are in!”

  3. Wow, I really, really misunderstood the contest directions. My answer was REFREIGHTING. I’ll let you figure out why.
    Easy as pie today, but great in its timeliness. NINETO made me LOL, as that is what I’d call a “Brendan,” i.e. “I can do this bec. I’m Brendan Fucking Quigley but you better not try this at home.”
    rp

  4. SLEIGHFUL is in no dictionaries, and just about anybody can edit something in wiki-world. Sure, the, ahem, Times used it, but it remains dubious. You can put “-ful” to just about anything and get a sketchy word. I mean, in the photo above you can see I have a shelfful of books. Shelfful is not a word.
    -The Management

  8. i was convinced the answer was “piefight” of “knifefight.” wrong tree, right forest.
    great puzzle.

  12. I messed with *efight but couldn’t seem to make anything stick to the front. I always choke on that kind of puzzle. One of the best I’ve heard was on the Beeb’s “My Word”: common English word with the longest number of consecutive consonants. I guess proper names were included b/c the winner was 6 consecutives for “knightsbridge.” Common over there, anyway.
    GREAT them today! And yes, easy but a pure delight. And I still can’t type fast enough to break the 5-min limit.
    BTW, it was rumored that with the new release Apple records and Apple/iTunes might be settling their differences, allowing the Beatles catalog to be available there at last. Wouldn’t that be nice.

  14. Awesome puzzle…I have a similar theme in mind for the first puzzle I construct….due sometime in 2010-2013…
    Oh, and I definitely see Philip Seymour Hoffman playing you in the BEQ biopic….no doubt about it!

  15. Really, really liked the crossing of “Ups” with “Kind of down?”
    Didn’t need much more than “Teamster leader” for HOFFA.
    Glad you asked for the sale on Rex’s blog today. ;o

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