IMPORTANT NOTE: As of January 2015 MGWCC is a subscribers-only crossword. The cost is $26 per year, and you can subscribe (or get a free trial month first) here:
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
We were looking for a 3-letter noun last week. Could it be CAT? Maybe BAT or RAT? Perhaps SKI or SKY or SKA, or JAB or JOB or JIB? Let’s take a look at the puzzle.
Five fill-in-the-blanks were clued in a similarly peculiar way:
17-A [Got in the air quickly, like a ___] = FIGHTER JET
11-D [Tough and gritty, like a ___] = DETECTIVE
55-A [Taken illegally, like a ___] = RHINOCEROS
33-D [Without editing, like ___] TV FOOTAGE
37-A [Useless due to fatigue, like a ___] = BRAIN
What 3-letter noun do these point to? Fighter jets getting airborne ASAP are said to be scrambled; your Philip Marlowe-type detectives are hard-boiled; if you take a rhino illegally you have poached the animal; unedited TV footage is said to be raw; and we’ve all overused our brains to the point where they qualify as fried.
Those are five ways to prepare a contest answer EGG, found by 386 solvers.
mpstable writes:
i wonder how many “over easy” references will you get in the comments this week
18.
DIS found it tough:
Phew — glad that’s ova.
mrbreen says:
Funny. Gonna be in Egg Harbor, WI later today
GabeLuis is a huge MGWCC fan:
I just can’t get an oeuf.
Amy Reynaldo suggests:
Alternate title: “The Shell Game”
Which was in fact my original title.
No prob for drdans:
I feel coddled, for shirr.
Steve Blais hit a milestone:
Ive just cracked my 100th meta!
And finally (there were more egg puns, but I won’t press my luck), FrotzNPL writes:
The world’s only living ex-Pope approves of this puzzle.
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from among the 386 correct entries received is Jack Fidler of Newton, Mass. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil, and notepad set, Jack will also receive a 1-year subscription to Joon Pahk’s Outside the Box Puzzles. Rows Gardens, Marching Bands, other variety puzzles; highly recommended. Next week we return to regular prizes.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
You must figure out this week’s instructions for yourself.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.