Good afternoon, crossword fans — welcome to Week 54 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:
Last week’s five theme entries had two things in common: they’re all songs, and each contains no other vowel besides I:
BILLS, BILLS, BILLS
IF THIS IS IT
LIVING IN SIN
NIGHTSHIFT
MISSISSIPPI GIRL
The contest instructions asked solvers for the grid entry that best describes these five, and 191 people spotted it at 47-across: ITUNES, which was last week’s contest answer word. Solution at top left.
A popular incorrect answer was ISIS, submitted by 18 solvers. I believe the idea here was to parse it as “I’s is,” but this answer doesn’t speak to the five iTunes being songs, so I was unable to count it as correct.
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from the 191 correct entries received, is John L. Wilson of Shoreview, Minn. John has selected as his prize an autographed copy of the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Spanish-English Crossword Puzzles, which I wrote with Gail Stein.
E-MAIL OF THE WEEK:
Submitting his correct entry just 31 minutes before the contest deadline on Tuesday, Keith Oppenheim writes:
Whew, I got married last weekend and did not get to look at the puzzle till about 20 minutes ago. Thank goodness it was the first one of the month. I really did not want to miss one right off the bat!
The honeymoon is at the end of the month though…
TWO THINGS:
1) TIP JAR RESULTS:
Thanks to the 94 people who hit the MGWCC Tip Jar with cash money last week. Still some checks coming in so I don’t have a precise figure, but it’s about 2K. Greatly appreciated!
On another MGWCC Tip Jar angle: I’m becoming one of those people who loathes PayPal. I still haven’t been able to accept all of your tips because PayPal and SunTrust can’t agree that I have a bank account there (since 1998, baby!). So bear with me, they’ll all be accepted as soon as I can untangle the process.
Fortunately, though, I have a productive outlet in which to channel my growing anti-PayPal wrath. This guy is a regular opponent of mine in 3-minute games on the Internet Chess Club. After demolishing him in the next game we play I’ll tack on the message: “that’s for delaying my Tip Jar access because you want me to sign up for a PayPal credit card.”
Man, chess revenge. I can’t wait!
2) YOUR PRIZES ARE EN ROUTE:
Sorry, monstrous week of work here and I had a guest in from out of town. This affects you how? Well, if you’ve won a MGWCC prize in the past couple of weeks it hasn’t shown up at your mailbox yet. But they’re all going out this afternoon.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
It may look like this crossword has only five theme entries, but there’s a sixth one hidden somewhere in the grid. This sixth theme entry is this week’s contest answer. 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), join the burgeoning Google Group (655 members!) here:
http://groups.google.com/group/mgwcc
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.