Good afternoon, crossword fans — welcome to Week 125 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:
Pattern Recognition Month continues here at MGWCC, and solvers continue to experience little trouble spotting those patterns. 328 entrants correctly submitted ABABA at 5-across as their contest answer last week, noticing that the puzzle’s six theme entries begin with that letter pattern:
NON-ONEROUS
I DID IT AGAIN
PUPU PLATTER
POP OPEN
MAMA MIA
COCO CHANEL
Big miss on my part: three solvers (Tim Tebbe was first) pointed out NO-NONSENSE, a far superior theme entry to my NON-ONEROUS (and the same number of letters, critically). I was so focused on NON-ON… words that I didn’t even take into consideration the unusual NO-NON… beginning of NO-NONSENSE. Excellent find — I certainly would have used it had I seen it, and I’m kicking myself for missing it.
While submitting his correct answer ABABA, Andrew Ries writes:
Addis all, my friend.
Aaron Riccio is 3-for-3 so far this month:
Though the dodo died, I’m not yet extinct for October.
While Eric LeVasseur wrote a poem using the relevant rhyme scheme:
If you had wanted solvers to explain
The rhyme scheme that you’d ultimately see
By taking all the letters you obtain
From spelling out the meta, they would be
responding with “SICILIAN QUINTAIN”.
I didn’t know it had a name, but he’s right:
http://www.thepoetsgarret.com/2007Challenge/oneten.html
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from the 328 correct entries received, is Ben Guderian of Boulder, Colo. Ben will receive as his prize an autographed copy of The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Brain Games.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is something you might see at a macabrely-decorated Halloween party. E-mail it to me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com by Tuesday at noon ET. Please put the contest answer 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 (1,341 members now!) here.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.