Administrivial Puzzle Contest Alert! All the puzzles this week, from Monday to Saturday, have been created by one person, Patrick Blindauer. Keep your solutions handy, because the Saturday puzzle conceals a meta-challenge involving the solution grids of all six. When you have the answer to the meta-challenge, send it to crossword@nytimes.com. (Please do not post them here on the blog; they will not be counted as submissions.) Twenty correct solvers, chosen at random, whose entries are received by 6:00 p.m. E.T. Sunday, Oct. 26, 2014, will win one-year online subscriptions to the New York Times crossword. Only one entry per person, please. The answer and winners’ names will appear on Friday, Oct. 31, at www.nytimes.com/wordplay. Good luck to all who enter!
Administrivial Links Alert! As many of you have noticed, the box that contains the links to the puzzle and the syndicated Wordplay posts is not working. I am removing it from posts until it gets fixed, so until then, please download your copy of the puzzle from the main puzzle page. Thank you for your patience.
TUESDAY PUZZLE – This is the second puzzle of the 2014 New York Times crossword contest, and constructor Patrick Blindauer continues to talk about TIME.
I’ve decided that I’m not going to discuss my thoughts on how this theme does or does not fit into the ultimate meta-challenge that needs to be solved; I’d rather hear your opinions on the puzzle and its place in the contest. Yesterday, though, we spoke about increments of TIME. Today we’ve got three TIMES in the clues. What could that mean? Those theme entries are all 15 letters. Is that even relevant? It’s too early to tell, it would seem.
The theme clue, TIME, has as its answers MARATHONER’S STAT, PARTNER OF WARNER and WHAT PRISONERS DO. In addition to the theme clues, I liked DINOSAUR, NAVY SEAL and RHINOS. In addition, the link between NATL and NPR was cool, as was the one that turned the separate 36- and 44 Down into the fictional prankster TOM SAWYER.
There were a few speedbumps for me in today’s puzzle: I had REFRITOS before FRIJOLES and MAN (for MANdatory) before REQ (for REQuired).
Clue of the day for me was 7 Down’s “Dry country whose name is an anagram of wet weather” for IRAN (and anagram of “rain.”)
Constructor’s Notes:
Tuesday’s puzzle features another simple theme type, one in which different definitions of the same keyword are used as entries. There is a lot of flexibility with a theme like this, so I tried to find the most varied definitions and I only went after 15-letter, grid-spanning phrases. Happy that my ADO/APU clue combo made the cut, and thrilled to get Diane REHM of NPR into the grid as well, even if it meant having the tricky ELIA/ELISA crossing nearby. 36D/44D was a happy accident, and I loved Will & Co.’s addition of the two [palindromic woman's name] clues. Highly original and much more interesting than my submitted clues, believe me.
We’ve now got two puzzles under our collective belts in this week’s contest. Stay tuned and keep solving, because tomorrow’s grid may drop some more hints as to what we’re looking for.
Your thoughts?