Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.57
Welcome, one and all! I’ll save the intros; you can read all you care to know (and some stuff you don’t care to know) about me and about my puzzles on the links up there in the upper right (right there? no, higher… little bit to the right… no, you’re too high now… yup, you found ’em).
I’m hoping for my personality to come out in my puzzles, and what better way to do that in my first one on this site than with this 15-letter spanner? I just couldn’t wait to put that one in the puzzle from the moment I realized it was 15 letters long. The seeds were that one (35-Across) and 64-Across… not to say there weren’t some other happy entries that came along in the process. And no… the adjacency of 30-Across and 33-Across was not planned; I didn’t even realize it until well after the whole thing was completed and I clued that area.
I honestly didn’t need all four corner black squares in building the puzzle; I only really needed the ones in the NE and SW, and then decided that it didn’t look quite right without the other pair. I consider crossword building an art in and of itself; that kinda gives it that nice “framed” look. My favorite thing that I learned from making this puzzle (I hope to have at least one of these things I can share with you in every puzzle) was the factoid I used for the clue at 26-Across. Nonhuman animals think of the darnedest things.
As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better? What’s your favorite breakfast cereal? Why did God invent hashtags?
As always, share this link! Pass it around!
Club 72 
I had BOOZE at 23D, which resulted in my putting BUTEO at 26A, but I got it all hashed out. Great starter puzzle!
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Welcome to the indie-verse, Tim; glad to have you on board! Stoked to see what you turn out; love me some crunchy freestyles and I’ve enjoyed your work in the NYT. Clue for 14A was outstanding, btw.
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Thanks for the good word and thanks for the follow!
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That was awesome.
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Liked it. Thanks.
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My sad story is here
http://puzzlecrowd.com:8080/CrowdSource/GetSolution?id=81
But I learned some stuff. I will be back for more.
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This app is…spectacular. Tell me more.
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Can’t say I liked it. All the propers just made it harder than it already was in spots. While not as difficult as this one, I found your NYT puzzle more or less a slog as well. No doubt I’m not the intended audience so those smarter and more educated will surely feel differently. Appreciate your work however and I’ll be back to check out your upcoming stuff.
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