Good afternoon, crossword fans — welcome to Week 219 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:
Feels good to be back! 401 solvers found OCEAN as the relevant geographical term in last week’s puzzle. The five theme entries were:
18-a [Cold wind] = ARCTIC BLAST
23-a [Where you’ll find Baltic Avenue, St. James Place and Boardwalk] = ATLANTIC CITY
37-a [“The Love Boat” boat] = PACIFIC PRINCESS
50-a [Shortfall cause, as it were?] = INDIAN SUMMER
58-a [1970 Neil Young song in response to which Lynyrd Skynyrd wrote “Sweet Home Alabama”] = SOUTHERN MAN
The first word of each theme entry are the world’s five OCEANs, making that our contest answer. Variations were also accepted (OCEANS, WORLD OCEAN, OCEANFRONT, etc).
Cindy Follick writes:
There was no Southern Ocean when I was in school…
Me neither, but it’s gained recognition for some reason. Read all about it here; my favorite line is: “Geographers disagree on the Southern Ocean’s northern boundary or even its existence…”
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from the 401 correct entries received, is Myron M. Meyer of Sioux Falls, S.D.
LOLLAPUZZOOLA LAST WEEKEND, PITTSBURGH TOMORROW:
I had a blast at Lollapuzzoola 5 last Saturday in Manhattan! You can buy all six puzzles from the tournament (including one I wrote) here, but only until this Sunday.
And though I won’t be at the 3rd Annual Pittsburgh Crossword Tournament tomorrow, I did write a meta-crossword for it — so drop by if you’re in the area!
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is the four letters in the grid that you must circle to highlight the puzzle’s theme. E-mail these four letters to me (just the letters themselves; I don’t need their location in the grid) 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 either solve on the applet below or download the free software here, then join the Google Group (1,835 members now!) here.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.