Good afternoon, crossword fans — welcome to Week 98 of my contest. If you’re new to the contest and would like to enter, please see the site FAQ on the left sidebar for instructions.
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Ten pieces of fruit populated last week’s grid; who was the odd piece out? 226 solvers realized it was the KIWI, the only fruit that couldn’t combine with another grid entry to form an alliterative two-word phrase. They were:
LEMON LAWS
PEACH PITS
GILBERT GRAPE
FLYING FIG (as in “I don’t give a flying fig about…”)
PRICKLY PEAR
BANANA BOAT
DREAM DATE
ADAM’S APPLE
PLUM POSITION
Quite a few solvers — perhaps a quarter — didn’t notice the alliteration in these phrases, which made nailing them down much tougher. Some thought APPLE IPAD was the intended phrase for that fruit, or APPLE APPS (both are a little awkward, and the first one is non-alliterative, but most of these solvers still wound up at KIWI).
By far the most popular incorrect answer was BANANA (40 entries), the rationale being that it’s the only fruit on the list without seeds (contest instructions had stated that one piece of fruit was “missing something”). But Google tells me that bananas do indeed have seeds, they’re just tiny.
Anyway, super-cool color-coded solution that took me 10 minutes to make at left.
Cheryl Faba phrases this meta answer thusly:
Kiwi needs a kompanion
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from the 226 correct entries received, is Bill Cascadden of High River, Alta. Bill has selected as his prize an autographed copy of Sip & Solve Hard Crosswords.
MATT GAFFNEY’S DAILY CROSSWORD FOR iPHONES (MGDCi):
OK, this is pretty cool: Monday through Friday each week I’m writing a daily mini-crossword for iPhones (also works on iPads). The size of the puzzles varies but usually they’re somewhere around 9×5 squares. I write each one the night before it’s posted, which makes it easy to include one or two extremely up-to-date entries — like who won the Masters the previous day, or which country’s volcano has just covered Europe in ash. Puzzles are available at 6 AM each weekday.
Is there a mini-metapuzzle to these mini-crosswords? Why, of course there is: once the puzzle’s correctly solved, circled letters will form a member of whatever that month’s meta category is. April is major world cities, for example, while May is going to be TV shows.
MGDCi ain’t free — but it’s cheap. Subscriptions are $1.99 for one month or $4.99 for three months. You also need to have Stand Alone’s Crosswords for iPhone app ($9.99) in order to solve my puzzles.
You can sign up for MGDCi directly on Stand Alone’s Crosswords for iPhone app (click on the gear icon in the lower right, then click “Select Puzzle Providers,” then click on my name) or go here:
https://www.standalone.com/crosswords/matt_gaffney/subscribe
We’ve been beta-testing MGDCi for the past two weeks now and having a good time with them. Here’s a sample from April 6th — I feel especially badass about the long central entry, of course. Across Lite version is in the MGWCC archives, plus you should have received it in the Google Group mailing earlier today.
E-mail me if you have any questions/comments about MGDCi or are having trouble
subscribing. We’re still getting a couple of minor cosmetic details nailed down, so your feedback is important.
SPECIAL PRIZES FOR THE NEXT THREE WEEKS:
Instead of a book written by me, weekly contest winners for the rest of April will receive a copy of Crosswords for iPhone and a three-month subscription to MGDCi. Plus, of course, a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This puzzle’s contest answer is one of the 52 playing cards in a standard deck. E-mail it to me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com by Tuesday at noon ET. Please put the contest answer card in the subject line of your e-mail.
To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite download the free software here, then join the Google Group (1,173 members now!) here.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.