Well, it’s Wednesday again, and like that rubber tree, we’re bouncing back with another free crossword puzzle. Our team of ace reviewers has rated this one as having a Tuesday/Wednesday difficulty level, so it should be accessible to most casual solvers as well as the seasoned veterans in the audience.
Hopefully we'll be able to implement this on this site, and start sharing and trading your original printable crosswords!
This UNIX Perl console application generates crossword puzzles from a list of words and clues. It's intended to serve as a backend to programs which gather input data from users, then format the resulting puzzle into a human-readable format.
I'm a crossword puzzle junkie, descended from a long line of family members with the same addiction. My parents would spend Sunday mornings, doing ones in various newspapers and my dad bought me my first crossword puzzle book when I was in the first grade.
Recently, some buddies and I decided to take a trip to Miami, Florida. Our intentions were to get some sun and hopefully attract the attention of beautiful women lying on the beach. As we boarded the plane, some of my companions had bought their laptops, while others had bought music to listen to. I was armed with a bunch of crossword puzzle books. As we settled into our seats, one of my friends started looking decidedly nervous. I asked him what was wrong and he confessed that he had a fear of flying. Naturally some of our friends suggested drinking heavily. I told him that this was a bad idea, since a nervous attitude can equal a nervous stomach. The last thing he needed to worsen the situation was lots of alcohol.
To take his mind off of worrying, I handed him one of my crossword puzzle books. Our buddies sitting across from us laughed at that idea, but I told them that the only reason they were chuckling is because they lacked the vocabulary to do them. I then issued a challenge that I would give $20 to whoever could complete the most crossword puzzles by the time we landed. I also included the requirement that they had to pay for all of my drinks, if I was the winner. Few men can resist a challenge and since I didn't have enough books to hand out, I divided them in half and gave one to each of my friends.
We all began working on our crossword puzzles and my friends began asking each other for advice on word choices. I started to protest, but decided that since they were beginners, I would let it slide. By the time we landed, they were still desperately scrawling out their answers.
We got out of the plane and went to retrieve our bags. Two of my friends kept working on the puzzles while they were walking. I had completed my half and used the time to take in the surroundings and admire the ladies who had dressed for warm weather. I was asked to extend the contest to the end of the trip to the hotel. I agreed and we piled into the shuttle. They kept working while I took in the palm trees and colorful buildings. When we reached the hotel, I was surprised at how many puzzles they had completed. Still, I was the winner and would now be able to spend my money on souvenirs instead of the drinks they were forced to pay for.
Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Florida. Find more about this as well as puzzle gifts at www.puzzleandgamegifts.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gregg_Hall
Here's a printable crosswords to take with you over the holidays. This week, The BeeKeeper brings us "Stop. Pay Troll."
“And what”, you might ask, “do you have for us this week?” Well, we’re glad that you asked. What we’ve got is 36 black squares, 189 white squares, and 76 clues — all artfully arranged in such a way as to maximize your solving pleasure. “But you just described an ordinary crossword puzzle, right?” Well, perhaps, but I could just as easily be describing a most excellent crossword puzzle. You get to decide for yourself which one this is. Once you figure it out, feel free to let us know. The comment section is always open.
I hadn't had a chance to work on this one yet, but I'm sure it will be good as all the rest of them are!
My wife just sent me this link to this great Christmas Crosswords Ornament! Think I should take that as a hint??
The ornament features a woman sitting in a chair, crosswords puzzle in her lap, pondering what her next answer is going to be. Behind the chair is a white placard with a crossword puzzle on it, off to the left side. The right side, however, can be custom tailored with you loved-one's name, or other message that will fit in the given space.
I just ordered three of them for the three crossword addicted females in my family. Hopefully they'll love their Christmas crosswords ornaments!
I guess it's true: Anything you could possible imagine is on the Internet, somewhere! It's estimated that more than 70% of the Internet's traffic is either porn or spam e-mails, or a combination of the two. So there is obviously a high demand for adult-related material, and why should printable crosswords be any different?
Back in 2006, Jorge Stafford who writes over at Nerve.com, had published a series of naughty printable crosswords. Maybe you could print out one of these to pack in your husband's lunch to get him ready for a night of passion. Or maybe your just a pervert who likes printable crosswords. Whatever your reason or desire, Mr. Stafford has some fun for you!
You can see the list of all ten naughty crosswords here. Clicking on each one will take you to a page where you can play online. You can, however, find printable versions by clicking on the little printer icon on the puzzles upper right corner. But to simplify things for you, here are direct links to the naughty printable crosswords:
So go grab a copy of these, you never know when they might come in handy! Bachelorette parties, getting your crosswords addict spouse in the mood, or maybe to do together over a dimly light dinner one night. I'm sure you can find a way to put some naughty printable crosswords to good use!
The BBC has a television show called How Clean Is Your House? This seems similar to TLC's Clean Sweep shown here in America. The idea behind the show is simple: Find some of the raunchiest places you can find where people are knee-deep in filth, and help them clean it. For some reason, there is an audience for this, so people are willing to sit and watch these shows, which makes advertisers happy. Voila! You have a hit TV show.
Recently How Clean Is Your House? featured The Crosswords Lady. Rosie Lovelady is a printable crosswords fanatic. Her flat hasn't been cleaned in twenty-four years. Yes, you read that right, twenty-four years! The show is posted up on YouTube in three parts. It is truly amazing to me how people can let some things become such an obsession that they let everything else in their life go. Watch these videos, and maybe you won't feel so bad the next time you let the dirty dishes stack up on Sunday while you work on your printable crosswords for that day!
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
One of my favorite web sites is Lifehacker, a web site dedicated to personal productivity and making your life a little bit easier. I ran across an article called "Mind Hacks: Ten Ways to Defeat Brain Drain", and was surprised to find that one of the ten ways is to do printable crosswords!
Play a game Halo 3 players rejoice! Playing a game that gets you away from your draining thoughts is an excellent way to get past the sluggishness. You might prefer crossword puzzles or sudokus if you don't like video games. Either way, playing a game lets you know life doesn't always have to be so serious and focused. Make time for play too!
So there you have it! Not only are you making yourself smarter, increasing your vocabulary, and getting personal satisfaction, you're also helping to keep you mind alert and focused. Another good reason to be addicted to printable crosswords!
LiveJournal user heroes_geek has created a Hero's themed printable crosswords for us all to enjoy! If you are not only a crossword addict but also a Hero's fan, here's a good one for you!
I found an interesting blurb in the entertainment section of the Wisconsin State Journal this morning that I thought some of you might find humorous (or sweet, for the females):
" In Boston, a 29-year-old convinced the creators of the Boston Globe Sunday crossword to include a wedding proposal in it so that when his crossword-infatuated girlfriend did the day's puzzle and got to 111 across ("Generic proposal" (Jen, Eric proposal), she suddenly discovered the puzzle read, "Will you marry me?"
The good thing is, Eric knows up front of her crossword addiction. When he's left to mill around the house looking for something to do while she's curled up on the couch with her favorite printable crossword, he'll have no one to blame but himself! :)
Last night I had some free time and sat down to watch the movie Wordplay by Patrick Creadon and Christine O'Malley. If you're a hardcore printable crosswords enthusiast, you will enjoy this documentary on the crosswords cult that exists in our society.
Witness the inner workings of Will Shortz, NY Times Editor and NPR Puzzle Master, and his brilliant, entertaining and often hilarious contributors as well as surprising celebrity fans. Wordplay takes us through the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament where almost five hundred competitors battled it out for the title "Crossword Champ" and showed their true colors along the way.
This documentary is not about the casual crosswords puzzler who occasionally does one while waiting in the doctor's waiting room. Oh no. This is about the hard-core, die-hard, live-to-solve puzzlers. There are individual interviews with different people from across America who share an obsession with printable crosswords. Some of the people interviewed include Jon Stewart, Bill Clinton, Ken Burns, and The Indigo Girls.
You also learn a bit of history behind the NYT puzzles, how they come up with ideas, how they construct them, how puzzles are made to be more difficult, the rules of puzzle making, and the effects of certain types of puzzles on it's solvers.
They also cover the World Crossword Puzzle Championship that takes place each March in Stamford, Connecticut. The viewer is taken through how the tournament is organized and operates, how players are ranked and scored, and finally taken to the final, where the top three finalists all compete against time and each other to solve their crosswords on large easels setup on a stage, while the crowd stares on.
Even if you only have a light interest in printable crosswords as a hobby, this documentary will be well received and will open your eyes to an entire almost underground-cult that exists around printable crosswords.
So check out the documentary Wordplay, I promise you won't be disappointed! If you enjoy the documentary, there is also the Wordplay Official Companion Book by renowned crosswords maker Will Shortz. I haven't had a chance to checkout the companion book yet, but from some of the reviews I've read, it's a great extension to what's covered in the movie. And a little secret, you can save a few bucks by buying them both together. Check out this page on Amazon.com, scroll down to the "Better Together" section to get your discount.
I just stumbled across the SDSU Geological Science Department's blog and noticed they had posted a printable crosswords for November with the theme being seismology. Upon further digging, they have an entire set of printable crosswords in their puzzles section! Topics include Mineralogy, Geologic Time, Volcanology, and Paleontology.
The other great thing about their site is the fact that you can either play the crosswords online, or if you choose, you an download the printable crosswords in PDF format and play them on-the-go! The printable crosswords also sport a stylish grid with graphics, instead of just your standard black and white squares. Check it out!
I found a new blog you all will surely be interested in. It's called Beekeeper Crosswords, and has a great selection of free printable crosswords for you to do! Every Wednesday, the BeeKeeper posts up a new original crosswords for you to do, on a variety of topics.
This week's puzzle, The Work of the Weavers, was built to honor the BeeKeeper's local knitting shop, Natural Stitches. What a great, and unique I might add, way to honor and promote a new business!
There are currently 19 free printable crosswords over at Beekeepers, with new crosswords added each week. This is surely one site you'll want to keep tabs on!
Still holding on to that crossword puzzle that you've kept coming back to for days, but just can't figure out the last few words you need? I found an online site called More Words that can help!
Here's how it works. Say you have a three-letter word ending in 'r', but for the life of you can't come up with the answer. Enter '--r' in to More Words, and it will return a list of words all containing three letters ending in 'r'. Or maybe you have 'pu--le'; You'll get back puddle, pungle, purfle, purple, and puzzle! Or maybe you want to know every word that contains the letters 'sswo' in the middle. You would enter '*sswo*', and get back that list of words. There are even more complex searches you can do, outlined on their examples page.
The only problem with this solution is that you'll have to have a computer, or access to one, and it will have to have Internet access. This probably isn't going to be a viable solution as you sit on the train during your morning commute. There is always the Franklin CWP-206 Pocket Crossword Solver. Twenty-five dollars might be a small investment in your sanity!
Pretty cool, huh? Of course you could use this site for a lot more than just solving printable crosswords, but it sure does come in handy! Cheating? Maybe! Satisfaction of finally finishing that damn puzzle, definitely!
In addition to being a printable crosswords fan, I'm also an Amateur Radio operator. For those of you who might be fellow hams, you should check out the ARRL's Amateur Radio Crossword Puzzler! New puzzles are constantly being added, and are of course, amateur radio themed. They provide a PDF copy that you can easily print out, and best of all, they're free. At this point in our solar cycle and the way the HF bands have been behaving lately, it's nice to have some printable crosswords to do, and still keep it hobby related. 73!
Here is a list of my top five favorite crossword and crossword-related books out right now that I would personally recommend. All of these are inexpensive and easily available from Amazon.com. If you are a crossword-fiend like I am, you'll definitely want to check each of these out! But if nothing else, take a look at the last one in the list: One Man's Journey into America's Crossword Obsession.
The New York Times Monday Through Friday Easy to Tough Crossword Puzzles - The New York Times are known for their crossword puzzles. Any any serious NYT crossword solver knows that the puzzles get harder as the week goes on. By the time you get to the end of this puzzle book, you'll be pulling your hair out, and enjoying every minute of it!
New York Times Crosswords for Your Coffee Break: Light and Easy Puzzles - The same great quality New York Times crossword puzzles that your used to, but shorter and easier. This is a small paperback book that will make it easy to have on hand when you're waiting at the doctors office or in-line at the grocery store.
The People Puzzler - People Magazine is also well known for their crossword searches. In fact, by reading a few of the reviews on Amazon.com, that's the sole reason a few people even buy their magazine! Here you can get an entire book of their world-famous crossword puzzles for less than ten bucks. You can't go wrong with this one.
Simon and Schuster Super Crossword Puzzle Book #13 - If you'll recall back to our recent post on the history of printable crosswords, you'll remember that Simon and Schuster were the first publisher to start off the crossword puzzle book craze. Their latest edition builds on their known success for producing quality and challenging puzzles.
Crossworld: One Man's Journey into America's Crossword Obsession - We covered this book in our recent post Printable Crosswords Drama in World War II, and should be noted that this is NOT a puzzle book. The book's author, Marc Romano, looks in to the world of the crossword addict, covering the history of printable crosswords, and even claims puzzle solving can make you into a better, more informed, fairer, and more tolerant person." If you're a true crossword junkie, this is one to have on your shelf.
So there you have it - my personal list of my top five favorite printable crosswords books at the moment. The good thing with this hobby is, the material istypically inexpensive, and these five are no different. But keep in mind, even though they are in inexpensive, they are still in extremely high demand. It amazes me that I'm already making money selling my own printable crosswords that I've come up with myself!
I just stumbled across the Instant Online Crossword Puzzle Maker, which allows you to generate your own printable crosswords, and boy is it cool! You simply feed it in a list of words and clues, and it does all the rest for you! After clicking the 'Create Puzzle' button once your done filling in your criteria, you have the option to bring up a page of the printable crosswords it generated, and off you go! Now that you have used this easy tool to create your own unique printable crosswords, there's no reason you shouldn't be selling them and making some extra money on the side!
If in addition to being a printable crosswords junkie you're also a technology geek, then I have two extremely cool, inexpensive gadgets that you won't be able to live without.
The first is the Franklin CWP-206 Crossword Puzzle Solver. It comes in at less than $30, and amazon has a few used up for around $25 or so. It's pre-programmed with over 250,000 words and phrases taken directly from Merriam-Webster. In addition to crosswords, it can also easily and quickly solve Scrabble and Jumble puzzles too! It's best feature is that it's built with a typical clam shell design, meaning you can close the lid to protect the screen and keyboard while storing it in your pocket or purse. The instructions were printed on the inside of the top case, so every time you open it the directions are readily available.
Next is The NY Times Electronic Crossword Puzzle. This is a small and compact handheld crossword game platform, pre-programmed with The New York Times' best crossword puzzles. Complete with a full QWERTY keyboard, it sports automatic power-off to save the batteries, which are only 2 tiny AAAs. It also allows you to save unfinished puzzles for later play! There is also a convenient check key that will highlight incorrect answers.
While these two devices wont allow you to make printable crosswords, they are two handy gadgets no crossword geek should be without!
In 1944, The Daily Telegraph used a printable crosswords in several of their editions that Allied security officers didn't like. Some of the answers to the puzzle were in fact secret code names for an upcoming military campaign which was known as Operation Overlord! The word "Utah" first appeared in the May 2nd edition. "Utah" was the code name for a particular landing site. The next few puzzles also contained "Mulberry" and "Omaha", which were harbors.
Four days before the invasion on June 2nd, the puzzle answers consisted of two critical worlds: "Neptune" and "Overlord". The creator of the printable crosswords was Leonard Dawe, a school teacher. He was immediately arrested and spent hours being questioned. It was ultimately decided that it was purely a coincidence, and Mr. Dawe was released and no charges were filed. It is interesting to note that this exact story has been used time and time again to show that pure coincidence and assumptions can often lead to tragic end results!
In 1984, one of Dawe's former students claimed that he had been eavesdropping on the soldiers' conversations, and had suggested to Mr. Dawe that he use them in his puzzles. This of course has never been verified, and the book Crossworld: One Man's Journey into America's Crossword Obsession (which is a very good book, I might add) sites several reason as to why this story is false.
It's amazing that a printable crosswords would stir up such a controversy!
