Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Seriously, Toots Shor twice in three days? I hope I’ll remember him now…

Charles Barasch gave us a very challenging Saturday puzzle, and like most Saturdays, was full of multi-word answers — many of which had several letters in common with other multi-word answers that meant the same thing:

• 18A. Like a family man : MARRIED WITH KIDS – Also HUSBAND WITH KIDS would fit, and would have supported other options for some of the downs (for example, 1D. One taking a shot could have been ARCHER, providing the H, instead of GUNMAN [or as I first tried, HITMAN]).
• 53A. Got ready to pounce: CLOSED IN – Not, as it were, COILED UP.
• 54A. Went (off) : VEERED – REELED was my first try, and although I’m a musician, I don’t know the score to Wonderful Town (35D. Song from Bernstein’s “Wonderful Town”), so that down clue could have been anything… like IT’S LORE. Maybe Lore is a character in the show? Yes, I see that IT’S LOVE makes much more sense, but apparently I know nothing about my own career.
• 26D. In a daze : ASTOUNDED is the choice here, but why not ENTRANCED? At least, so I said as I deleted that first effort.

I had a few quick answers early on, including:

• 17A. Second in court?: Abbr. : ASST. D.A. — Not sure why this merited a question mark… A second is an assistant, and District Attorneys work in court. There’s no pun here. Is it because we’re supposed to think that “court” refers to a sports venue?
• 32A. Cy Young had a record 815 : STARTS – I’m a baseball nut and a Red Sox fan… Someone give me a Saturday full of this kind of trivia, and I’ll set records myself.
• 34A. One of the Blues Brothers : ELWOOD
• 10D. Repeated musical phrase : OSTINATO – If Ryan and I get a podcast together this weekend, I’ll have to explain this to him…
• 12D. Horror movie character : SLASHER – Ha ha, Saturday, you will not trick me into thinking I’m supposed to come up with a name. I recognized this generic clue! Slash this!
• 32D. Beer brand since 1842 : SCHAEFER – Just kidding. I’ve never heard of this. And my choices of SCHNAPPS, SCHWEPPS and SCHLITZZ were apparently unacceptable.

Many answers were completely meaningless to me:

• 2D. Certain Christian : UNIATE
• 5D. Coll. entrance hurdle : SATI – Is this an imaginary plural for SAT? Or is the I a Roman numeral, and this is the first try at the SAT (I took it twice, lowering my math by 50 and raising my verbal by 40… Go figure).
• 27D. Zoologist’s foot : PES – I guessed this early on, but have no idea what it means.
• 45A. 60’s theater : NAM – Is this about the Vietnam war?
• 57A. Girl with a future? : SEERESS – In a recent blog (elsewhere), someone (maybe Orange?) mentioned his/her disdain toward forced word alternatives. This fits that mold, in my opinion. A seer is already non-gender-specific, so the -ess is unnecessary. I liked my initial answer of HEIRESS much better.

My favorite clue was 25D. Area of interest to Archimedes (PI R SQUARED). That made up for a few clunkers (I repeat — “Seriously? Toots Shor?”). And while my New York Times applet says 43:29 for my time, it’s a bit misleading as I had to look up a few things.

I need to get into a new routine, though, when it comes to looking things up. Sometimes I use Google to do searches, and actually read up on the subject matter. Sometimes, though, I look up my attempts in word databases like at www.xwordinfo.com or on cruciverb.com (which gave us a wonderful shout-out yesterday! Thank you!) to confirm/deny my guess. I think the former method is better. It leads to education (my education on the subject at hand). The other method doesn’t teach me anything beyond whether or not my guess is right. I’m certain that one step toward being more smarter is actually learning the things I don’t already know. On the other hand, one step toward going to bed sooner is just filling in the damn grid in a timely fashion.

I will try try try to be more smarter (at the expense of being less awaker).

And as Ryan would say, “Next stop, Sunday.”

John Williams is awesome.

I’m not going to do anything to spoil the new Indiana Jones movie, especially because I doubt Ryan has seen it yet, and he might melt into a small puddle if he found out I saw it before he did. So no one tell him. Got it??

I pulled off a no-Google Friday for the second week in a row. This one had me moving in spurts — I’d get a little, then stall, rinse and repeat. Although it took me nearly a half hour (more than twice my record time of last week’s puzzle), I was thoroughly delighted by the genius fill in this grid by Patrick John Duggan. It was a wonderful assortment of words, terms, titles, languages, and just about all of it was well within my very limited mental capabilities.

As most Fridays go, it was themeless. But some of my favorites:

• 1D. It was shipwrecked in 1964 somewhere in the south Pacific : S.S. MINNOW — I love it when the first clue brings a smile to my face.
• 7A. Dr. Seuss story setting : WHOVILLE – I have not seen the Jim Carrey/Steve Carell movie (has it even come out yet?), and I won’t. I was so sorely disappointed by the Broadway musical Seussical that I have decided to keep the rest of my Dr. Seuss imagination as just that — imagination.
• 17A. Fop in “The Wind In The Willows” : MR. TOAD — I have no recollection of reading this book, only that I did once read it. Mr. Toad is known now by many for his Wild Ride, although to tell you the truth, I couldn’t say with any certainty what theme park houses it.
• 20A. One of a French literary trio : PORTHOS – I have never read The Three Musketeers, but it is my wife’s favorite book. Only through her do I know these characters’ names, but when a clue like this comes up, my first instinct is to see if 1) I can remember the names, 2) will any of them fit, and 3) once they do fit, have I spelled them right?
• 11D. “Grey’s Anatomy” hookups : IVS – Fantastic way to turn what could have been an annoying pop culture reference into something clever. Bravo.
• 30D. Three-time Emmy-winning game show host : SAJAK – I’m wracking my brain through Dawson, Barker, Trebek… And even when I tried Sajak, the J and K stymied me for quite a while.
• 35A. Literally, “art of softness” : JUJITSU – This took a while to get (I had a lot of errors crossing this word initially), but once it was there, it was a wonderful clue and answer pair.
• 40A. Popular teen hangout, once : SODA SHOP — I had this in my head (along with MALT SHOP) for a while, but due to an incorrect 38D. Popular boxing venue (UPS STORE — very clever, and I originally had LAS VEGAS, going in totally the wrong direction), I couldn’t seem to get most of this area.
• 56A. Cheese type : ROMANO – Again, because of the errant LAS VEGAS, I was stuck with -OM–G for too long. I know my cheeses, though. I have frequently won bar wagers by being able to name more unique cheeses in one minute than anyone around me. And I usually do it alphabetically, too.
• 58A. Like some airport purchases : DUTY FREE — This was the first gimme on the grid for me. I had PORTHOS from earlier, but didn’t trust it. This, for some reason, was automatic. I’ve never bought a duty free item in my life, and don’t really see the allure. You’re in an airport. You’re only buying this because you’re bored and your flight was delayed. Stop. Wait until you get home. Think about whether you really need another sweatshirt.

I didn’t care for two mafia clues in one puzzle, especially when one is singular and one is plural (despite different clues). I know nothing about the mafia (fictional or actual), and although I’ve heard of both the CORLEONEs and the SOPRANOS, neither came quickly to mind. But that aside, I found the puzzle enjoyable and doable. Now, since I actually completed it in a reasonable amount of time, I’m sure I’ll read that someone out there thinks it was a Wednesday-level or something like that. Just don’t tell me. Let me enjoy having finished a Friday.

I’m rather tied up tomorrow, so who knows whether I’ll get to the impossible puzzle of the week, but I’ll try.

I’m back again, after a few days away from puzzles. I’ve been swamped in work (temporarily relocated to Maine for five weeks), and haven’t had a chance to do much of anything outside of work. I’ve fallen off my game (what little game there ever was) by scoring a below-average time for Wednesday (15:16, when my average had been 9:17). Thursday proved similar, clocking in at 20:43, above my 18:40 Thursday average. Last week, I did Friday in 12:35, and felt very smarter. Today, not so smarter at all. (And also, the internet here is too slow to come up with cute pictures to go with this post…)

[NOTE: This post contains one R-rated word. To some, that word would not pass the standard crossword "Sunday Morning Breakfast" test, but I am not a fan of censorship, and I think words and words. If you are responsible for shielding someone from a single F-bomb... well, you've been warned.]

Now some comments on Richard Silvestri’s offering. Everything came together regularly, if not quickly, with the exception of the left section of the grid. The theme consisted of a fleet of six starred clues, each of which was defined by 38D. Sign (OMEN, or to describe the theme, O-MEN).

• 3D. Famed restauranteur : TOOTS SHOR — Famed, to whom? Not to me, that’s for sure. Apparently, he ran a restaurant in New York City. It closed in 1971, two years before I was born and 26 years before I moved to New York. He also died in 1977. Reading the Wikipedia page about his restaurant suggests that his famous clientele are all dead now, too. Except Yogi Berra, who is about 2,000 years old. I’m going to ask my mother about Toots Shor. Then we’ll see how famous he is. Otherwise, I vote that this clue be filed under Maleska-comma-Eugene.
• 24A. Numb3rs star : ROB MORROW – My only beef here is that I hate titles that swap numbers in for letters. I hated it when there was a movie called Se7en, I hated it when there was a musical called 3hree, and I hate it here. It’s a cute trick for the typography of the poster or the web graphic, but when you type it out in a normal font (or in a crossword puzzle), it just looks weird. Now, on the flip side, one of my favorite moments from a Tom Lehrer routine (on one of his albums; I never saw him live) was when he referenced someone named Henry, who he claimed spelled his name “H-E-N-3-R-Y… The ‘three’ was silent, of course.” Tom Lehrer was a genius. And if he’s not a dead former frequenter of Toots Shor’s backyard barbecue, then he’s still a genius.
• 51A. Harpers Ferry raider : JOHN BROWN — I don’t know this. I know that there is some poetry out there about John Brown. There’s a song, too. And I knew a few people actually named John Brown. I tried to check Wikipedia, but the font was too small (my fault) and the page was too boring (someone else’s fault). My knowledge of John Brown will remain nonexistent for the time being.
• 64A. “Newhart” actor : TOM POSTON — I knew this, at one point. I had since forgotten, and it took too many other letters (like, all but one) before I was able to recall the man’s name. Newhart was a brilliant show. And the title had no numbers in it.
• 36D. Co-star of “The Andy Griffith” show : DON KNOTTS – Not RON HOWARD, which also fit (and had two Os in it). Don Knotts was such a great icon of television culture. Strangely, my favorite Don Knotts moment is actually in a movie in which he does not make a live appearance. I don’t remember the movie (perhaps someone smarterer than I can tell me — Howard Barkin, Knower of All Things, do you know what movie this is?), but there’s some scene in which the camera begins on a close-up of a velvet painting of Don Knotts. We pan back, and recognize the scene as some sort of yard sale or flea market. Someone picks up the painting, and says, “I can’t believe it! It’s fuck-in’ Don Knotts!” The man and painting both exit the shot and are never seen again.

The rest of the fill required much guessing, and sadly, a little Google. Ryan is far superior to me in that he will fight, fight, fight until he solves the whole grid. I cannot do it. I am impatient, and I am quickly and easily dissatisfied. Dissatisfied with everything — myself, my smarterness, my inability to think of just about anything — and all this only gets compounded when I’m stuck in a puzzle. Suddenly, I am wracked with the feeling that I should never be allowed out of the house, because clearly I don’t know one single fact about anything, and I’m ready to pack up my college diploma and mail it back to the dean, and quit my job as a piano player because if I don’t know who in the hell Toots Shor was, I clearly have no business having a job in America, and while at one point I may have been considered to be a bright young kid (by my parents, perhaps, and occasionally by others who weren’t completely alienated by my obnoxious, self-aggrandizing attitude about everything), those days are long since past, and I am now a fizzled out light bulb of an almost mid-life adult… Sigh.

So the grid. I decided to be stubborn today, and declare with gusto that things I was guessing at were cold, hard facts. For example, I would have written in pen (if I was not on the applet) that 2D. Red, as Spanish wine, was ROJO. But I also knew for certain that 20A. “Socrate” composer was Erik SATIE. These answers could not co-exist. But even though I maybe had 10% security on either of them, I opted for the idea that there was a typo in the grid. I yelled at the screen.

Also, 1D. Priests’ garb was ARBS. I was sure. I have never heard of ARBS, mostly because it’s not a word. (Oops — update: ARBS is actually a word, according to http://www.xwordinfo.com. It’s been used in a Monday, a Wednesday, two Fridays and six Sundays over the past 15 years. It apparently means “Wall St. figures.” I still don’t understand.) And also, 13A. Spoils had to be referencing what remains after everything else is gone… as in what the victor gets after a battle. With the R in ARBS and the T in 4D. Perfect pitch (STRIKE — ha, a baseball answer disguised as a musical clue — this is both my specialties in one!), “spoils” was REST

Clearly not. (Actual answers: ALBS and LOOT.)
Now the left section of the grid that completely baffled me included 43A. Winston Churchill, e.g., which I decided with 11% certainty was TORY. But I had even more certainty that Gardermoen was in Germany (27D. Orly : Paris :: Gardermoen :: ___), and that the only city I knew in Germany with a four-letter name was either BERN or BONN. At this point, I have no idea if either of those is a city anywhere, and I’m convinced that Gardermoen must have relocated from Bern-Bonn to OSLO, its current location.

26A. Stumpers was self-descriptive. The answer, POSERS, does not sit right with me. The three meaning of “poser” in my head are 1. A person who sits for a portrait or photograph; 2. One who asks a question; and 3. Equivalent to dork, as in “you’re such a poser, Brian.” Merriam-Webster’s second definition is the same as my first one. Merriam-Webster goes on to tell me that I have no business looking anything up in the dictionary because I invent definitions for words and can’t solve a Thursday, thank you very much, go get more smarter.

Other clues that made no sense to me:

• 69A. Catfish Row denizen : BESS – As far as I can see, anyone is allowed to live at this imaginary place, Catfish Row, so the answer could also just as easily been anyone’s name in the entire world.
• 56D. Yclept : NAMED – “Yclept”? Seriously… Yclept?
• 26D. War ender : PACT – Okay, this makes sense, but I’ve finally got my head into thinking about suffixes when I see clues like this. My brain was tuned into war-TIME and war-HEAD and war-ZONE. Thank you for being a normal clue for once, and not warning me first! (Heh, war-NING works, too!)
• 32D. In the capacity of : QUA – I can’t even figure out how to use this clue in a sentence. You know, the trick where you say a sentence out loud that has the clue in it, and then try to imagine replacing the clue part of the sentence with another word. The only sentence I can come up with is this: “Really, Will Shortz, I have no idea what you mean when you say ‘in the capacity of.’”
• 8D. Region of Israel (var.) : NEGEB – Sure, because the “normal” spellings of Israel regions aren’t obscure and random enough. Let’s invent a new one.

I suppose that, with a brain full of music and work, I have no business trying to do anything like a Thursday. But I haven’t blogged in a few days, and Ryan is out of town for a bit, so I might be on my own over the weekend… I’ll see if I can take a few smarterer vitamins and get through anything in the next few days.

Also, for that small demographic of people who a) have read this far, and b) listen to our podcast, there may be a delay in getting Episode #12 out to the world. What with me in Maine and Ryan currently out in California… well, we haven’t solved this one yet.

This puzzle by Dave Mackey was a toughie. Took me 37:02 and there were a few times when I thought there was no way I’d complete it on my own. I had no idea what the theme was. Even after I finished none of the theme answers seemed to have any connection to each other. I went over to Orange’s site to see what she had to say. Turns out the theme is makeup.

Theme answers:

17A. Solitaire card game (ROUGEETNOIR). By the way, has anybody played this game? I’ve never heard of it.

24A. Pugs in gyms, at times (SHADOWBOXERS)

37A. Good thing to build on (SOLIDFOUNDATION)

50A. Initially (ATFIRSTBLUSH)

59A. Cunard fleet member (LUXURYLINER)

Seems pretty obvious now but I didn’t see it at all while solving. Complicating matters was my thought that 11D. Item from a registry, perhaps (SHOWERGIFT) and 30D. They show altitude (RELIEFMAPS) were also theme answers. They weren’t. I least I think they weren’t. For all the trouble that I had with this puzzle, I thought it was very well done although I’d rank this as a Thursday difficulty.

I had trouble with virtually every section of the grid. As I always do, I started with the top left and was quite dismayed when I had to leave most of it unfilled until the very end. I did get 4D. Go nuts, with “out” (WIG) but I erased it because it looked wrong. The reason it looked wrong was because it was correct but placed next to something that was wrong. Does that make sense? It was right to the left (could I write in a more confusing manner, please?) of:

5D. It’s never in a neat order (ICE). This was my favorite clue in the puzzle. The “I” was the last letter I filled in. Even after I submitted and knew it was correct I still didn’t understand it. Then the whole neat vs. on the rocks drink order thing came to me. Really clever clue. It’s tricky but when you get the answer it makes perfect sense. I put STY in here early on which didn’t work at all with WIG. So I erased the correct answer and stuck with the wrong one. I should patent that move.

15A. Norse epic (EDDA). I know this only because I do crosswords.

7D. Slowly, on a score (LENTO) and 28A. Forcefully, in music (FURIOSO). Two of these? In the same puzzle? Maybe I haven’t made this clear but I know nothing about music.

6D. Certain sorority members (THETAS). Wanted this to be DELTAS. I love Revenge of the Nerds. Remember when Louis and Gilbert are just moving in and they’re carrying that big trunk? And Ogre sees them and shouts, “Nerds!” as he drops somebody off the roof of his frat house? And then Louis and Gilbert look around to see where the nerds are? Remember? Love that movie.

10D. “American Graffiti” extra (CARHOP). This is also a good movie. Harrison Ford’s first juicy role and his first collaboration with Lucas which will continue this week as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens up. Do you understand what’s happening here? There is going to be a 4th Indiana Jones movie. I am going to sit and watch an Indiana Jones movie and not know what’s going to happen next. It still hasn’t sunk in. I went with my parents in 1989 to see Last Crusade. I was in the 10th grade and right in the middle of my incredibly awkward stage (my whole life has been kind of an awkward stage but that era was the ever-living lulu of them all). We’re waiting in line to get in and who’s in line a few people ahead of me? This girl from school who I had a total crush on. And I was so embarrassed to be seeing a movie on a Friday night with my parents. I couldn’t look at them, I couldn’t look at her. So I just stared out onto a distant, nonexistent point. Later on, my parents were upset because they thought I was ignoring them. And the girl? Well, I’m pretty sure she never noticed me. Not just that night, but the entire 4 years of high school.

32A. 1972 Bill Withers hit (USEME). Keeping in line with my musical ignorance, I had never heard this song. I checked it out on youtube. It’s great.

41D. Peter of reggae (TOSH). Also known by me only because of crosswords.

49D. “Guys and Dolls” is based on his writing (RUNYON). Even though Brian and I had a conversation about this guy on the podcast a few weeks ago, I could not think of his name. So something in my brain is going. It’s not long-term memory because it happened recently. It’s not my short-term memory because it didn’t just happen. Is there mid-term memory? Could that be going?

35D. Off-Broadway’s “___ Baltimore” (HOTL). Ok, theater, a subject I know something about.

36D. “A Loss of Roses” playwright (INGE). Nevermind, I didn’t know this one.

57D. A.A. and A.A.A., for two (ORGS). Thought this one was going to be about minor league baseball.

53A. 1983 Keaton comedy (MRMOM). Is there anyone more deserving of a comeback than Michael Keaton? Maybe with all that Batman money he doesn’t care about a comeback but I want to see him headlining movies again.

66A. Poster stock (OAKTAG). Seriously, has anybody ever heard of this?

Really fun puzzle. Drove me nuts for a while but I had a good time.

Next stop, Thursday.

I love puns and this Billie Truitt puzzle is full of them. The theme is all animal puns.

20A. Antlered salon employee? (STYLINGMOOSE)

31A. Lost bobcat? (MISSINGLYNX)

45A. Wildebeest who doesn’t spare the rod? (SPANKINGGNU). Ok, this one I have a slight problem with. Isn’t the phrase “brand spanking new”?

52A. Unwelcome porcine party attendee? (CRASHINGBOAR)

Other non-theme clues I enjoyed:

25A. Curly poker (MOE). This one I couldn’t figure out. It eventually got filled in by the first letters of MYNAH, ONAPAR and EXPATS. And as I big as a Three Stooges fan as I am, I still didn’t make the connection until I read JimH’s blog. I don’t know if this really counts as a pun because I don’t think a “curly poker” is actually anything. But, still, it’s a great clue. And it brings up an entertainment phenomenon I’ve always thought was odd. In many comedic groups or shows there is one that member that gets replace numerous times while the other members remain the same. In the Stooges it was always Moe and Larry with the third member being Curly, Shemp, Curly Joe or Joey Besser. It also happened in Three’s Company with Jack and Janet playing against first Chrissy Snow, then Cindy Snow and then Terri Alden. Hmmm, when I started writing this I thought I had a bunch of examples but those are the only two that come to mind. Do two instances qualify it as a phenomenon? Maybe? Wait, wait, wasn’t Flo replaced a few times on Alice? Would it be a phenomenon then?

23A. Woodworker’s groove (DADO). I always want to put DIDO in for this answer. And every time I do it makes me think of Fido Dido. Remember Fido Dido? What the heck was up with that guy? Who’s with me?

62A. Continental divide? (OCEAN). I was really hoping there would be a pirate clue or answer in the puzzle today so I could complain about Pirates of the Caribbean 3. There wasn’t, so OCEAN will have to do. Hey, has anybody seen Pirates of the Caribbean 3? Well, don’t, because it’s garbage. They could have taken all the scenes in the movie, rearranged them in a completely random order, put it back together and it would have made exactly as much sense. Three hours of complete nonsense with no redeeming qualities. And the Keith Richards appearance was a total let down. And, yet, I sat through the whole thing. As did Pickles. Could someone please, in 25 words or less, sum up what happened in this movie? I will be forever grateful.

As I mentioned yesterday, I will now be keeping track of how the Dodgers do when they are referenced in the puzzle.  Yesterday they were referenced and they won.  So that would make them 1-0.  Follow this developing story right here all summer long.

Next stop, Wednesday.

I started this Monday puzzle by Mike Nothnagel, Pen Pal Extraordinaire, Constructor of the Friday Puzzle at a fast and furious pace.  Every time that happens I think today’s the day I crack 4 minutes or even, good heavens, 3.  I went through the rest of the puzzle at a nice pace, never being too stumped at anything.  I got it finished, clicked done, got the thank you for playing message and checked out my time.  7:11!  What?  How did that take me 7 minutes?  Clearly, I entered into some sort of puzzle-ish, time-warpy, nothnagelly, vortex.  I think I’m going to hire an independent auditing firm to start keeping time for me.  Something fishy is going on.

As for the puzzle.  A good one.  The theme answers all included a term meaning “containing nothing”.  We had VACANTAPARTMENT, EMPTYPROMISES, HOLLOWVICTORY, BLANKCARTIDGES and JOEPISCOPO.

Actually, I’ve always enjoyed Joe Piscopo. He was funny on SNL (”I’m from Jersey, are you from Jersey?”) and I’m always quoting Danny Vermin from Johnny Dangerously (”Never hang me on a hook.  My mother hung me on a hook once.  Once.”)  But, by far, my favorite Joe Piscopo vehicle was an old DOS video game called Multimedia Celebrity Poker.  In this game you played poker against video clips of Piscopo, Jonathan Frakes and Morgan Fairchild.  It was awesome and random.  I still have no idea how they picked those three but I’m glad they did.  If only Adrian Zmed was in it, it would have been perfect.

50D. Slip ___ (blunder) (ACOG).  Slip a cog?  Is that really a saying?

26D. 1998 Robin Williams title role (PATCHADAMS).  I auditioned for the role of Truman Schiff.  Haven’t heard anything yet.  I should make sure my phone’s on.

14A. Inventor Elias (HOWE).  This guy seems to show up in every puzzle and yet I can never remember his name.

36D. Baseball great Hodges (GIL).  I’m going to keep a record to see how the Dodgers do when the team or former/current players are mentioned in the puzzle.  Tonight they play the Reds.

Really nice Monday puzzle by MNPECOTFP who is quickly becoming one of my favorite constructors.

Next stop, Tuesday.

Sigh, I was close but ultimately I needed the slightest bit of help with this Brendan Emmett Quigley puzzle. It really came down to one clue. 6A. Ancient pueblo dwellers (ANASAZI). I have never, ever heard of this particular group of dwellers. The clue was positioned at the top of the grid so all the letters of Anasazi were the first letters of 7 down clues. Unfortunately, those 7 down clues were not much help.

6. Electrolysis particle (ANION). This I got and figured was right as I’ve seen ANION many times in puzzles.

7D. Match ___ (tie game, in France) (NUL). This is French, I don’t speak French. I had the UL and tried a number of different letters in the top spot. “N” sounded the best to me because NUL reminds me of null. And null match vaguely conjures up the image of a tie game.

8D. Aardvark (ANTBEAR). This one I was pretty sure of although I’ve never heard that term before.

9D. ___ Phillips, who played Livia in “I, Claudius” (SIAN). No idea. I had IAN and any number of letters made sense to me here. PIAN, LIAN, RIAN, MIAN, NIAN, etc.

10D. Old film pooch (ASTA). This one I knew.

11D. “Fan-tastic!” (ZOWIE). This one could have been ZOWIE or YOWIE.

12D. Suffix in some pasta names (INI). This one could have been INI or ONI.

So, basically, I tried all types of different combinations for ANASAZI but never hit on the right one. And as I was unsure of numerous other letters in the grid (all of which turned out to be correct) I just broke down and got some help. So my no-google-week is no more. I came extremely close though.

As for the rest of the puzzle, I enjoyed it. The theme was Pinball Wizard and all the theme answers began with pinball terms. An unusual Sunday theme as it involved no puns or wordplay. All the answers were real phrases/names that just happened to include a pinball term. When I was 19 I got really, really into pinball for about a year. My two favorites were The Addams Family and Star Wars. They were great. I eventually stopped playing as I could never really get the hang of being good at it and my laundry was suffering from an extreme lack of quarters.

One problem I did have with the theme is some of the pinball terms aren’t really pinball-specific. For instance 5D. Test extras (BONUSQUESTIONS). When I hear the word “bonus” I don’t think of pinball. The same goes for the “rollover” in 15D. Opening track of “The Beatles’ Second Album” (ROLLOVERBEETHOVEN) and the “special” in 30D. Einstein subject (SPECIALRELATIVITY). Honestly, I don’t know what “special” has to do with pinball at all. Maybe it’s not a theme answer.

Terms that conjure up pinball for me are flipper, tilt and bumper which were found in 115A. Former L.A. Ram who holds the N.F.L. record for most receiving yards in a game (336) (FLIPPERANDERSON), 22A. Fight imaginary foes (TILTATWINDMILLS) and 46D. Good farming results (BUMPERCROPS).

As for the rest of the puzzle, it was a good, solid Sunday. I really, really wish I could have finished it without help but those darn ANASAZI did me in.

Next stop, Monday.

I was out absolutely all day today. My adventures will be chronicled on my other blog. I’ll post a link a once it’s up. I brought a print out of the puzzle with me and did most of my solving at Burger King while trying rather unsuccessfully to eat an Indy Double Whopper. Do yourself a favor and stay away from that bad boy. Anyway, I still have about 15-20 empty boxes. They are the only thing standing in the way of me and my first-ever no-google week. So, I’m going to give it one more day. If I can’t figure it out my midday tomorrow (Monday), I’ll solve it with google and blog about it.

So that and my report on Monday’s puzzle by Mike Nothnagel, Pen Pal Extraordinaire, Constructor of the Friday Puzzle, will be up soon.

In the meantime, enjoy our latest podcast.

Brian’s crabby. Ryan’s tired. But we tried anyway…

Episode Eleven includes Brian’s mom (in concept), ground beef (never received) and Indiana Jones (not yet seen).

…we’ll try to be better next week. (sigh)

 

 Episode #011 [32:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Zambezi and oat.

I happened to get back from the laundry room at exactly 5:59, so as I logged into the New York Times web page, the leaderboards were empty. I jumped right in, thinking — today, I will be one of the first ten to solve the puzzle. And when I saw the grid, I saw that it was by our friend Mike Nothnagel, Pen-Pal Extraordinaire, Constructor of the Friday Puzzle! What a joy!

Well, sort of a joy. The New York times applet didn’t bother to show me the grid or any clues until nineteen seconds had already appeared on the clock.

I finished the grid in a relatively average time — four minutes and thirty-two seconds. I enjoyed the fill. I enjoyed the long answers. I did not enjoy that the applet wouldn’t accept my solution. I went over it again. At 5:19, I submitted again (having made no corrections) and still, not a proper solution. I proofed it a second time. 6:24, still no acceptance. No wrong answers, as far as I could see, either. [Side note: I just went back to the site, and entered the entire grid in a second time, and it still will not give me a correct solution. This is very frustrating. Also, this is not the first web page to give me trouble in the last two days -- several other sites are claiming my stored passwords are incorrect, and that my account doesn't exist. I'm beginning to think that there's something wrong with my browser...]

Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable puzzle, and I was pleased to see MNPPECFP on a Monday. Thanks, Mike. We hope to see more of your puzzles in the future.