ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ BLOCK PARTY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ BLOCK PARTY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
ROCK ME SEXY JESUS was obviously the starting point. Why? Becuase it's 15 letters, it's offensive, and it was really the only funny part of "Hamlet 2." What a complete waste of Steve Coogan's talent. Will somebody please get this guy a proper role in the U.S.? He's only my third-favorite working British actor! (Since you asked: numbers one and two are Bill Nighy and Idris Elba respectively).
By the way, I'll be interested to see how many people who didn't want spoilers chime in all mad as Hell that they saw ROCK ME SEXY JESUS thinking that bogus answer was in there. Okay, enough phony spoiler space and onto the real post.
Nice to see "my boy" (say that like Tony Kornheiser, please) Natan Last in the Times this past Monday. This kid's a talent, a freshman at Brown, the world's his oyster. Natan, if you're reading this, please forgive me for pronouncing your name with a phantom "H" in it. Keep up the good work.
Anyway, the center entry in Natan's puzzle was RICKROLLING, which I'm guessing was also the starting point for the construction. Later on in the day I was talking to Joon Pahk about the puzzle. (Okay, that makes it three JP namechecks in a little over a week, what gives, Quigley? I'll tell you: turns out Joon's not only my neighbor but also one of my test-solvers). Anyway so we were talking about that idiotic prank. Conversation went back to my dumb rickroll puzzle (click the "THIS IS HOW WE ROLL" link under "Most Popular Puzzles"). My concern with that joke was that I was hoping that the phony grid was eye-popping enough.
Turns out it must have been. Joon set up his computer to try and autofill it. Some 48 hours later it still hadn't achieved one fill. FWIW: the master and commander Frank Longo got a fill in 4 minutes, but rejected it as one of the 15s was IRRECONCILABLES. Four fucking minutes? Jesus. Who's jealous?So today's grid was a based on the rickroll spoof grid. I didn't get much further than Joon, but I knew enough to push the ejector seat button sooner. However, I liked the chunks, so I added a couple black squares to close off the areas. After a while and a couple two three revisions, I got the above grid. I think it stands for itself as at the very least a pretty design. SW came first, and normally, I'd immediately do the NE corner right away, but for some reason, I went to the NW next. Initially, I kept the cheater that was part of the rickroll puzzle (square number 8 in this puzzle) and I still had the block above square number 28 down in it's cheater position. I had a couple fills I liked up there, but I couldn't get anything worth a hill of spit in the SW department. An 8-letter partial SOONER OR kept rearing it's ugly head. Why? Yuck. In order to get this corner to work, I adjusted the cheaters to the pattern we have now.
It's been a pretty rough week. I nearly had a nervous breakdown yesterday as I was feeling overwhelmed with all this damnfool work I've taken on. (Work for a freelancer is always a good thing, just why on Earth is it never spread out over the course of a year? Why is it always right on top of each other?) We've already covered my on-going battle with crappy laptop. Oh, and have I mentioned we're closing our condo today? It's been a Hell week. So it's no suprise that there was no way I was going to lose AM I LOSING MY MIND in this grid. Anyway, I've certainly been losing my mind lately, so much so that when I clued this, I must have taken it out on my test solvers. Some comments:
"Jesus Christ, this one was a bastard."
"Seeing it up front didn't spoil my solving, in fact thank God I remembered a few things, or it would've taken way longer!"
"Reminded me of a Saturday Stumper, and (in my opinion) that's not a good thing."
Oof. Hey, but that's why I have test solvers in the first place. Gotta shoot holes into this little fantasy of mine. Anyway, I didn't get a chance to run the (hopefully) eased-up revisions by them. (FWIW: I didn't rewrite all the hard clues, just added a few no-brainers, so hopefully that's enough to make it easy.) So here's where y'all come in. I need feedback as to how difficult this baby really was. I panic when I ocassionally see Dan "Usain Bolt" Feyer chime that the puzzle takes him nearly 5 minutes. On those days I can't imagine how frigging tough that must be for every body else. Tough puzzles are fine, now and again, but I'm hoping to have a decent variety of easy ones now and then.
This one isn't easy, I know that. And I apologize for taking it out on you. So, enjoy this one, you have all weekend, new easy puzzle on Monday.
Brendan Emmett Quigley creates custom-made puzzles for all occasions: birthdays and bar mitzvahs, anniversaries and retirements. You name it. Need a puzzle for your website or your publication? He can do that, too.
Brendan's custom work clients have included The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, BeerAdvocate, Boston Magazine, De Beers, The Decemberists, ESPN, The Improper Bostonian, Lollapuzzoola, McSweeney's, Phish, Reflexive, The Smithsonian Magazine, St. Martin's Press, Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, and Andrew Weil.
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