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:
Title: “Go On In!”
Instructions: One letter in this grid must change to another letter to complete the puzzle’s theme. Which letter is it, and what letter does it change to?
Answer: O changes to I at 29-A/25-D
First thing we notice is those five clues ending with double parentheticals. They are:
19-A: [Sending out signals, as a radio station (3) (9)] = BROADCASTING
79-A: [At no cost (5) (7)] = FREE
80-A: [Like red states and National Review magazine (5) (7)] = CONSERVATIVE
34-D: [Perfectly accurate (5) (4)] = PRECISE
44-D: [Soon to arrive (3) (9)] = COMING
First insight, probably the toughest one: each of these clues/answers is synonymous with a three-word phrase starting with “on the.”
So if you’re broadcasting you’re on the air
If something’s free it’s on the house
A politically conservative person is on the right
A perfectly accurate prediction is on the dot/nose/money. Which one to choose? Note that the first parenthetical number in each clue is also the length of the last word in the “on the…” phrase. So let’s take “on the money” here for that and see if that theory holds up for the last one:
If you’re soon to arrive you’re on the way, and way is three letters, so that is indeed what the first parenthetical number indicates.
What about the second number, though? Two of them are 9s, and there are only two 9-letter entries in the grid, so let’s see if we can connect them in some way: HINDERING doesn’t mean “on the way,” but it does mean “in the way,” and changing the ON’s to IN’s seems logical given the title, so let’s keep going with the other 9: PREVALENT, which is synonymous not with “on the air” but rather with “in the air.” We’re going ON-IN, get it??
The others, which also match in length with the second parenthetical, are:
in the house = PRESENT
in the right = CORRECT
And then in the money = …? The phrase means “wealthy,” but there’s no 4-letter word meaning wealthy in the grid. But there is ROCH at 25-D, crossing STROKE, and if we change that O to an I, we must have our contest answer since that gives us RICH, completing the theme. Note the additional flourish of the final O –> I shift there, echoing the thematic ON–>IN shift.
After all that….I forgot to pick a winner for #603! Will do so next week, along with monthly prizes. Advanced warning that yearly prizes for 2019 are going to take me a while to calculate, so hopefully by next week but more likely the week after that.
PATREON SITE IS READY:
Alrighty, here we go! My Patreon site is up here, and as of the February 7th puzzle you’ll need to be a Patreon supporter to receive MGWCC, i.e. we are ending the subscription format we’ve used for the past five years and are switching that function over to Patreon.
I’d like to thank everyone who subscribed over these past five years, and I hope to see you all over at the new place. We did an annual tip jar for six years (you old-timers remember that?), then we did subscription for five years, and now we’re on to something that I cautiously hope will be even bigger and better.
A few notes on the switchover, many of which I’ve made before but will say again here:
1) As you can see when you click over, there are four support levels at my Patreon page. Support is done monthly at Patreon, so a $3/month payment gets you MGWCC delivery every Friday as usual. There are also higher levels ($5/$10/$20) that increase the amount of swag/good feeling/etc.
2) Any years/months left on your current MGWCC subscription will carry over to Patreon, but even if you have time left on your current subscription, please sign up at Patreon anyway and pay for your first month. It’s much easier this way for me to transfer your credits over to the new system if you’re already in it.
So let’s say you have 5 months left on your MGWCC subscription. Please sign up at Patreon, and then you’ll pay for January. But January is free for everyone, so we’d credit you for February for that, and you’d still have five months left (March, April, May, June, July).
Again, January will wind up being a free month for everyone, though you’ll pay for it at first when you sign up.
3) I don’t want anyone to miss a puzzle in what may be a logistically turbulent month, so I’m going fully redundant on delivery, as follows:
Today’s puzzle (MGWCC #604) and next week’s (MGWCC #605) will be e-mailed out to current MGWCC subscribers as usual. Starting with #606, the puzzle will no longer be e-mailed out to MGWCC subscribers who have not signed up at Patreon.
However, starting next week and continuing all through January, I will be posting puzzle files directing on xwordcontest.com, as well as e-mailing them to Patreon supporters. So no one should miss a puzzle at all in January — even if you don’t sign up for Patreon until mid-January, or if there’s some technical issue, you can always download the puzzles right at the site during January.
Then, beginning with the February 7th puzzle, MGWCC wil only be available to Patreon backers.
I think I explained that right! TLDR — we’ve got five weeks to get all this ironed out, and we’ll do it, so bear with me. And a big thanks again to all of you who’ve solved and supported and subscribed over these 11.5 years — MGWCC has been a great adventure for me, and I’m excited for it to be entering this new stage of its existence!
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is a six-letter word.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.