EARLY POST AGAIN THIS WEEK:

Travel day, so early post. Again please don’t fret if you don’t see your name on the leaderboard until this evening, since I’ll be on planes today.

LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

By the time you read this I’ll be where that X is! Or on the way, at least. 183 solvers figured out that I’m en route to GRAND CAYMAN. 17-across made it clear we were looking for a CARIBBEAN ISLAND; the puzzle came at 58-across, USE ANAGRAM TWICE, clued as [What you must do to figure out which 17-across I'll be on]. Then one other hint: the last across clue was asterisked: [Itinerary for many Acela passengers, briefly*] = DC-NY. So now what?

They key was to use ANAGRAM twice, like so: once as an indicator to anagram something, and the second time using the letters in ANAGRAM itself. So simply anagram ANAGRAM + DCNY and you’ve got my vacation destination, meta answer GRAND CAYMAN.

Tim Harrod asks:

Surely you didn’t plan a vacation around what would make a great meta!

Nah, it’s for a wedding. But that would be a serious level of meta-dedication.

Four solvers reported a curious backsolve to this meta. Tyler Hinman explains:

Maybe my funniest MGWCC solve ever after two days of cluelessness. Monday NYT spoilers below. So I’m solving that puzzle. 18A: “Caribbean resort island”. I have GRAND?A????. Ah, GRAND CAYMAN, of course. …wait a second. …holy crap, that’s it! And the denouement: That was the wrong answer. It was GRAND BAHAMA. I had planned to look for islands that contained all of DCNY, so there’s a good chance I would have succeeded anyway. But still.

This week’s winner, whose name was chosen randomly from the 183 correct entries received, is ant of Gilbert, Ariz. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, ant will also receive a 20-week subscription to Peter Gordon‘s new Fireball Newsweekly Crosswords.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a kind of fabric. Submit your answer in the form on the left sidebar by Tuesday at noon ET. Note: the submissions form disappears from the site promptly at noon on Tuesday.

To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite either solve on the applet below or download the free software here, then join the Google Group (2,040 members now!) here.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.

I’ll be gone all day so I’m posting early (I don’t fully trust WordPress’s autopost). Probably won’t be verifying entries until this evening, so please don’t fret if you don’t see your name on the leaderboard until tonight.

LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

On what website can you UNFOLLOW a thread, UNBLOCK another user, UNLIKE a comment, UNHIDE a post, and UNFRIEND someone altogether? FACEBOOK, of course, which 575 meta-solvers found. 12 incorrect entries also came in, 8 of which were for TWITTER. You can unfollow someone on Twitter, but can’t unfriend or unlike anyone or anything (not sure about unblock or unhide, but I don’t think you can do those, either).

3 guesses also came in for the United Nations’ website, un.org. Close but no cigar, since the un-words weren’t merely random.

Jeremy Lin writes:

Apropos this week’s challenege, and because it’s Eurovision time (my favorite ridiculous time of the year), here is a (slightly off-color, so if you offend easily please don’t click) Facebook-related song, San Marino’s Eurovision entry for 2012. All I have to say is that she clearly uses Facebook very differently from the way I do.

This week’s winner, whose name was chosen randomly from the 575 correct entries received, is Josh Kuritzky of Cleveland, O. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, Josh will also receive a 1-year subscription to Puzzazz’s Year of Puzzles 2013.

SPECIAL PRIZES FOR THE NEXT THREE WEEKS:

In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, weekly winners for the rest of May will also receive a 20-week subscription to Peter Gordon‘s new Fireball Newsweekly Crosswords.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is where I’ll be heading for vacation next week. Submit your answer in the form on the left sidebar by Tuesday at noon ET. Note: the submissions form disappears from the site promptly at noon on Tuesday.

To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite either solve on the applet below or download the free software here, then join the Google Group (2,036 members now!) here.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.

LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Which of New York City’s five boroughs served as the answer to last week’s meta? With theme entries of LARYNX JINX, PHALANX THANX, MANX QUINCUNX and SPHINX LYNX we’re evidently looking for -NX words, meaning it had to be THE BRONX. 593 solvers got it. Naturally I also accepted just “Bronx” — and also “Da Bronx,” which was submitted by four jokesters. Whaddyagonnado?

Paul Coulter writes:

I tried without directions, but there’s nothing that points in that direction!

I had suggested the old Week 1-toughening trick of solving sans instructions, and, while it didn’t keep anyone from getting the answer, how were people supposed to guess the Bronx? Well, the only other usable words were MINX, PHARYNX, SYRINX, MENINX and a few others, unsuitable for a Week 1 meta since they’re somewhat uncommon. Also, meta answers work best when they’re part of a clearly defined and familiar group, like “Boroughs of New York” or “Best Actress Winners” from last month. THE BRONX works for this, while the others don’t.

But Vraal points out:

OK, so the “NX” theme was relatively easy, but what I think made your “instructionless” idea fail (for me, not necessarily everyone) is that I didn’t see any other hook into you wanting a NYC borough. Everything else was two-word NX suffix phrases, my first thought was to try to find a common two-word -NX phrase, but these didn’t seem to exist. So downgrading to a single albeit common -NX word was not readily apparent to me. I guess, thinking about it, “BRONX” is the only common -NX word you did not use. But again I think it was the pairing of the others that threw me into “unsure” enough to read what you wanted.

Point taken. Not the best week for a suggestion of instructionslessness.

Dan Katz asks:

Would you have accepted Manhattanx?

No, but “Brooklynx” sounds so cool I would’ve had to think about it.

Lisa from Queens says:

I really wanted it to be Queens!

Hollie notes:

And the shapeware sold in this borough is: Bronx Spanx

And finally, Jason Shapiro got the right answer, but only after a Homer Simpson moment:

I took your suggestion and planned to guess what the meta answer would be without looking at the instructions. I printed out the puzzle and solved it on a Bronx-bound subway train. The conductor must have said “Bronx” 15 times. My best guess as I exited through the turnstile — Spanx. Doh!

This week’s winner, whose name was chosen randomly from the 593 correct entries received, is William Prevor of Holland, Penna. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, William will also receive a 1-year subscription to Puzzazz’s Year of Puzzles 2013.

MAY MULLER MONTHLY MUSIC META:

Solve it here; deadline is Sunday. I’m stumped so far but don’t plan to let my 3-for-3 streak in 2013 snap so easily.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a familiar website. Submit your answer in the form on the left sidebar by Tuesday at noon ET. Note: the submissions form disappears from the site promptly at noon on Tuesday.

To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite either solve on the applet below or download the free software here, then join the Google Group (2,036 members now!) here.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.

It wasn’t really an Oscar-winning actress we needed last week, it was a left fielder! 147 solvers noticed that symmetrically-placed entries covered eight of the nine positions in baseball:

1-a PELE (P = pitcher)

19-a SUZANNE SOMERS (SS = shortstop)

31-a RICHARD FEYNMAN (RF = right fielder)

45-a COLETTE (C = catcher)

46-a BOB BARR (BB = second baseman)

57-a BIG BILL BROONZY (BBB = third baseman)

73-a CARLOS FUENTES (CF = center fielder)

83-a BONO (B = first baseman)

So we need a left fielder, and the only Best Actress winner who fits the bill is LOUISE FLETCHER, who made her mark as Nurse Ratched in 1975′s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” At 78 I hope she’s still got a powerful arm to make that throw home!

Not as tricky as last month’s Week 5, but again riffing off Peter Gordon‘s recent Fireball meta “Capital Capital”: not clear what was theme and what was fill until you figured out the idea, and it links to a familiar but slightly unusual set (unusual here because the positions of first, second and third base are normally abbreviated 1B, 2B and 3B, but here they just used the letter B as many times as indicated. This made catching the baseball position abbrevs. a little tricky). But the title was more helpful than last month’s and Peter’s, so that softened the meta somewhat.

This week’s winner, whose name was chosen randomly from the 147 correct entries received, is Roger Friedman of Annandale, Va. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, Roger will receive a 1-year subscription to Puzzazz’s Year of Puzzles 2013. Next week’s winner will receive the same.

MONTHLY PRIZES:

118 solvers submitted the correct contest answer to all four of April’s challenges (LITTLE WOMEN, TALKING HEADS, INCONSEQUENTIALLY, LOUISE FLETCHER). The following ten lucky and skillful winners, chosen randomly from that group, will receive a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set:

Louis Ah — Cupertino, Calif.

Jim Silvestro — Hasbrouck Heights, N.J.

Congratulations to our ten winners, and to everyone who went 4-for-4 in April.

HOW TO MAKE A WEEK 1 META TOUGHER:

Solve it without the instructions! Recomnmended this week for meta-veterans. I’ll even put a little spoiler space so you can go to the .puz right now without reading further.

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THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is one of New York City’s five boroughs. Submit your answer in the form on the left sidebar by Tuesday at noon ET. Note: the submissions form disappears from the site promptly at noon on Tuesday.

To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite either solve on the applet below or download the free software here, then join the Google Group (2,036 members now!) here.