Good afternoon, crossword fans — welcome to Week 147 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:
Easy meta for Week 3, and 288 solvers were all over it. Six normal phrases were given a bizarre second life with the St. Patrick’s Day insertion of an Mc- name prefix. They were:
17-a SPARE MCRIB
20-a PAST MCMASTER
28-a INSIDE MCJOB
40-a PLAY IT MCCOY
52-a WHITE MCQUEEN
55-a EAU DE MCVIE
Scouring the list of ACPT champs, only 1984 winner JOHN McNEILL has the relevant prefix on his surname making him last week’s contest answer.
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from the 288 correct entries received, is Adam Rosenfield of Cambridge, Mass. Adam has selected as his prize an autographed copy of Sip & Solve Hard Crosswords.
ACPT NOTES:
*** Congratulations to Dan Feyer, Tyler Hinman and Anne Erdmann for their 1-2-3 finish in the A finals. Dan has now won two in a row; can he duplicate Tyler’s fivepeat, or will Tyler strike back in 2012 (as the Mayan calendar has prophesied)? Anne made her second finals in a row, a fine achievement as well.
*** Congratulations also to tournament director Will Shortz and tournament coordinator Helene Hovanec for yet another successful event.
*** I hadn’t been a judge since 2007 and the scoring has changed dramatically for the better since then. Matt Ginsberg deserves special mention for devising the computerized scanning system we use now (and that saves us lots of time). Doug Heller and Nancy Parsons also deserve recognition as the duo in charge of scanning logistics — they didn’t get out of the Judges’ Room until midnight on Saturday, even with the new scanning technology!
*** And finally: what a kick to meet so many MGWCC solvers in Brooklyn, so thanks to all of you who found me and introduced yourselves. Whether we had a quick hello or an entire conversation, it adds enormously to my enjoyment of the blog to put people to the names I see in my mailbox each week. Hope to meet many more of you in 2012!
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is a familiar six-letter surname. E-mail it to me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com by Tuesday at noon ET. Please put the contest answer surname 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 (1,473 members now!) here. To solve with friends at Team Crossword, click here.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.