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MGWCC #233 — Friday, November 16th, 2012 —“Mountains of Money”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: Which Best Picture did last week’s metapuzzle point to? The five theme entries each hinted at a Best Picture nominee from a memorable year in film, 1982: 17-a DECISION IN COURT =...
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MGWCC #234 — Friday, November 23rd, 2012 —“Compose Yourself!”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: Solvers were asked to find a well-known American billionaire, and the three theme entries all followed a tight pattern: “___ of ___” phrases, where the second blank is a city and...
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MGWCC #235 — Friday, November 30th, 2012 —“Family Reunion”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: Strange meta last week: a very simple mechanism, but concealed beneath several layers that made tricky work of spotting that mechanism in the first place. Solvers were tasked with...
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MGWCC #236 — Friday, December 7th, 2012 —“Slightly out of Character”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: Is it normal for four times as many people to get Week 5 than got Week 4? No. The two puzzles were “switched at birth,” as one solver quipped, and 236 solvers found PIERRE CURIE as...
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MGWCC #237 — Friday, December 14th, 2012 —“Make It an Even Dozen”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: 454 solvers found ALICE IN WONDERLAND as last week’s contest answer (or ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, if you prefer the book’s official title, though the submissions system had...
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MGWCC #238 — Friday, December 21st, 2012 —“You Don’t Know Jack”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: “Make It an Even Dozen” read last week’s title, and 379 solvers did just that. They noticed that the five two-word theme entries concealed sequential calendar abbreviations for the...
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MGWCC #239 — Friday, December 28th, 2012 —“What’s That Sound?”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: You’ve certainly seen puzzles where a square does different duty across and down, and maybe you’ve seen a puzzle where a square does triple duty (Merl Reagle’s...
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MGWCC #240 — Friday, January 4th, 2013 —“Born That Way”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: Subtle meta last week, although a healthy 149 solvers wound up getting it. The task was to find a period in American history, but it wasn’t clear exactly what the theme entries...
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MGWCC #241 — Friday, January 11th, 2013 —“Network Solutions”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: A record 596 solvers got last week’s meta, crushing the previous high of 553. That was the “Golden Girls” meta from Week #231; oddly, Bea Arthur was a theme answer in both puzzles...
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MGWCC #242 — Friday, January 18th, 2013 —“Company Time”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: With one exception, each of last week’s theme entries spelled out the name of a TV network using three shows on that network: 19-a CSI / BECKER / SURIVIVOR (CBS) 34-a NURSES /...
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MGWCC #243 — Friday, January 25th, 2013 —“Knight Moves”
NOTE: Due to an exporting glitch of some kind, several clues in the top part of today’s puzzle (MGWCC #243) were misnumbered. This has nothing to do with the meta; it was just some technical error. As...
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MGWCC #244 — Friday, February 1st, 2013 —“Thus Solved Zarathustra”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: Rather an intricate meta last week, which didn’t stop 82 solvers from getting it. Lots of nudges: 1) Contest instructions asked for a singer who should be hidden in this puzzle,...
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MGWCC #245 — Friday, February 8th, 2013 —“Initial Public Altering”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: “From A to Z,” the saying goes — but last week it was turned on its head. 1- and 69-across revealed the trick: FROM / Z TO A they read, and indeed the four theme entries started...
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MGWCC #246 — Friday, February 15th, 2013 —“Tag – You’re It!”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: A week two record, as 591 right answers poured into MGWCC world headquarters last week. Only two (!) wrong ones, so not many were fooled by the theme trick. Relevant answers were:...
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MGWCC #247 — Friday, February 22nd, 2013 —“There’s Cash Missing”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: “The butler did it!” last week at MGWCC. That standard result in English mysteries arose because the butler was always present yet never noticed, simultaneously indispensible and...
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MGWCC #248 — Friday, March 1st, 2013 —“Animal Farm”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: 165 correct entries came in on MGWCC #247. High for a Week 4, and I didn’t manage to peel off any of the 13 perfect scores, either. We’ll fix that later on this month, which has...
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MGWCC #249 — Friday, March 8th, 2013 —“Categorically Denied”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: 646 solvers found the PIG for last week’s meta, a new record. And nobody missed it! The last word of each theme entry suggests that delicious creature in some way: 17-a [Beyond...
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MGWCC #250 — Friday, March 15th, 2013 —“First-Quarter Action”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: 531 solvers found PHYSICS as last week’s meta answer. I self-blogged this puzzle at Fiend on Tuesday, so read the review there today instead of here!...
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MGWCC #251 — Friday, March 22nd, 2013 —“Papal Conclave”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: “First-Quarter Action” was last week’s puzzle title, and you had to parse that twice to succeed. First, the four numbers in theme entries had to be quartered (i.e. multiplied by...
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MGWCC #252 — Friday, March 29th, 2013 —“False Start”
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: Which recent pope concealed himself in last week’s puzzle? Nine clues in the grid got stars: 1-a [Gray Jay*] = LENO 19-a [Major "cougar cage"*] = PICK-UP JOINT 49-a [King legend...
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