Sat., 2/14 Brad Wilbur

[magus]

THEME:   none, but two triples and two doubles
   
GOOD ONES:    
One whose work is at an end?   INDEXER [I did that editing part time when in college, but I didn't think of it as a (dead) end job]   
Bad reception?  CABLE THEFT [I thought football]   
Small magazine inserts   BB'S [I thought zines not guns]   
   
BTW:   
JFK, but not LAX   DEM [I get it, but JFK was more than a Democrat, and it's hard for me to think of him as a mere pol]   
   
Why, aside from rhyme, is it called a NO TELL MOTEL when no motel or hotel "tells"?   
   
ELEVE in English is one N shy of a number, period.   
   
Winnings, eventually   POT [this confused me at first; I read it that the winnings became the POT]     
   
   
RATING:    
Three grins = Loved it; Two grins = Enjoyed it; One grin = A bit bland for my taste; One teardrop = Not much fun   

[Thomps2525]

I agree: the pot becomes the winnings, not the other way around. And "Soloist in Tchaikovsky's Swan's Theme" was OBOE. Really? An oboe can be a soloist? An oboist, certainly---but not an oboe.

How about a crossword where 1-across is the Star Wars character R2D2 and each theme answer contains two Rs and two Ds: DARTBOARD, DAYDREAMER, DEARPRUDENCE, DIRTROAD, DOGBREEDER, DRAFTBOARD, DRAWBRIDGE, DROMEDARY, GERALDFORD, HOTRODDER, REDBREASTED, THERIDDLER and  TRIEDANDTRUE. Such a crossword does not exist.....yet. I just came up with the idea. Who wants to try to construct the puzzle? And if you sell it to the New York Times for $10,000, I won't even ask for a share. I can come up with all kinds of clever ideas but I just can't construct the puzzles.

[magus]

Don't know why you can't make the puzzle yourself as you have a clever theme.

And, if $10,000 were the pay for such a puzzle, I'd do it for you.  I think I got $300 for my last one in the 90's --- bc.

[Thomps2525]

Okay, make the puzzle, sell it for $10,000 and send me $300. I'm okay with that.

I've printed out a lot of grids---some blank and some with the black squares already in---and I've attempted many different crosswords. I can easily come up with 10-to-15-letter theme answers but I've never been able to finish a complete grid. I have no crossword-compiling software so I rely on my brainpower and I seldom can complete more than two-thirds of the grid. I wind up with fill words such as IBXT, EHRDI, TRFF and ORGL. Not good!