BONUS PUZZLE: Ahoy! Or; A Mini to be Read to the Tune of the Theme From "Gilligan's Island"

Over at Crossword Nexus, Alex Boisvert and I made a very cool grid together titled "Hold Them at Bay" - in its honor, here's a little bonus mini to celebrate. It's, erm, ever-so-slightly themed, insofar as any grid of this size can have a theme. Give it a spin, and then try the (even better!) aforementioned Q-and-Alex collab. 

See you again on Sunday!

(EDIT FROM THE FUTURE: I got annoyed at the way this puzzle would force the page to jump to it as the only applet not under a readmore, so I put it under a readmore. It looks like this:)

Monday Mini #13

 

No direct PUZ link right now because Dropbox is being cagey tonight. Anyway, here's a nice little 8x8 for y'all... weirdly I'm much prouder of the short clues than I am the long ones.

Oh, and exciting news for fans of QV content: I have two puzzles dropping this week in Big Name Crossword Outlets, one on Wednesday and one on Saturday. They're my first puzzle in either outlet, and both collaborations with people you might have heard of. VERY cool grids with VERY cool people involved. Keep your eyes on the puzzle substack over the next couple days, is all I'm saying.

Monday Mini #12, and Hey, Check Out My Atlantic Puzzle

 

[PUZ]

Wow, what a month! Boswords was a ton of fun, even if Kevin Der's puzzle singlehandedly knocked me out of the top ten; the ACPT was apparently quite good even in virtual form, and QVXwordz enthusiast Tyler Hinman pulled off a surprise win. But most importantly, last week I published an Earth Day themed puzzle for The Atlantic. You can do it here. This is my second Atlantic puzzle, with another in the pipeline - what can I say, it's a joy working with Caleb.

Anyway, this puzzle is also a joy, probably. It was originally a lot harder until I realized I could just add a cheater and make the puzzle a ton better; glad I did, because the fill is way smoother for it. Enjoy.

Chain of Fools (Monday Mini #11)

 

[PUZ]

I thought this one would be straightforward, but test solvers indicated it was kind of ruthless. Oh well. Applet under the cut. Enjoy!

Cut Cut (Monday Mini #10)

 

 

 [PUZ]

Tenth mini, ten clues, which was neither deliberate nor a sustainable pattern. Maybe I'll do a 50x50 for puzzle 100? Don't count on it. Anyway, according to Ariel this one is "fun mean." Enjoy. Applet under the... wait for it... cut.

Monday Mini #9 - Sponsored by Paramount+

 

 

 

[PUZ]

 

Folks, I'm not much of a streamer. The cultural zeitgeist has left me behind, with its "Queen's Gambits" and its "Ozarks" and its "Oranges Which May or May Not Be the New Black." But do you know what hasn't left me behind? What you can always rely on? That's right. I'm talking about Paramount+, the new streaming service with all your favorite Television Content. I'm talking "Sponge Bob Square Pants: Kamp Koral." I'm talking "Tooning Out The News." I'm talking "Star Trek" - and I mean all the Star Treks, not just the one with the old Asian guy with the perched eyebrows from the memes. What a veritable cornucopia of streaming content, available for a highly affordable $9.99 a month.

Speaking of content you've grown to love and expect week after week, here is today's Monday Mini. Applet under the cut. Enjoy.

Excuse Me Ma'am, Do You Have a Moment to Talk About Our Lord and Savior Michelle Branch? (Monday Mini #8)

 

[PUZ]

No, this is not a bit, The Spirit Room is a brilliant album. Well, it's not as good as the followup, Hotel Paper, which is just perfect from start to finish. Could you imagine if Michelle Branch had struck it big in 2020 instead of 2000, when she could have maybe had more agency and occupied the pop culture niche that, like, Phoebe Bridgers has now? She deserved so much better, you guys.

Applet under the cut.

R2D2-Like (Monday Mini #7)

 

[PUZ]

Doesn't 8-Across look like a godsend of a mini seed? Yeah, that's what I thought back in January, back when its relevance peaked. It's still funny paired with 3-Down though. Shout out to Alex Gold and Norah Sharpe for test driving this one - particularly the latter, with her cool new crossword blog.

Solving applet is (where else?) under the cut. Enjoy.

Venomous Classmate (Monday Mini #6)

 

 

[PUZ]

 

I forgot to mention last Monday that I did a USA Today puzzle with Matthew Stock called "Center Cut." It's got a very pretty grid with mirror symmetry which you can peep in PDF form. Anyway, applet under the cut, just in case.

Rice-A-Roni (Monday Mini #5)

[PUZ]

One of the best crossworld mini-trends of 2020 was the mini-surge in "pangram midis" - Sid Sivakumar kicked it off, and then Nate Cardin and Enrique Henestroza Anguiano tried to one-up him by making progressively tinier puzzles all the way down to 7x7. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Gordon/Longo "petite pangrams" Kickstarter which operated along similar lines. Anyway, this puzzle is a pangram, which you should keep in mind for some of the harder crosses here.

Puzzleme applet under the cut.

Sporty Dos (Monday Mini #4)

 

 

[PUZ]

 

No PDF this week because I can't figure out how to get the grid shape to export cleanly, sorry. I've wanted to fit 12-Across into a puzzle for ages, incidentally. Applet below the cut.

 

Baby Hogs (Monday Mini #3)

 

[PDF] [PUZ] 

The first full week of 2021 is going to be a good one for the #QVhive (please make that trend) - let's kick off this cavalcade of awesome with a perfect 6x6 square. Applet below the cut.

Hankering, Hankering, Wet (Monday Mini #2)

 

Good week for fans of Latin American autocrats here on QVXwordz this Mini Monday. This week's Monday Mini really stretches the definition of "mini," incidentally - is this technically a midi, being a little smaller than a 9x9 and clocking in at 64 white squares? Eh, I dunno. Applet below the cut, per usual. Also, if you're unfamiliar with 7-Down, please acquaint yourself with this work of legitimate the-ay-ter.

(Do people even like these images? They're such a pain in the ass to make, tbh, and I have no way of knowing if anyone even prints them out.)

Monday Mini #1

One unexpected feature of this blog is that, for one day a week, it makes me want to wake up in the morning to see the compliments stream in. I'm hoping to replicate that good vibe by posting mini puzzles here every Monday morning.

Also, I'm trying to see if I can get PDF exports for these puzzles to work, which is important as I have a puzzle or two planned that wouldn't have full functionality in Across Lite.

 

 

If PDFs aren't your bag, then there's a PuzzleMe applet per usual under the cut. Enjoy.