Wednesday, June 25 is no match for (Brian + air conditioning).
Rob Cook’s offering in the New York Times had just the right kind of theme for both a Wednesday and for my solving style. It wasn’t blatantly obvious, and it wasn’t an after-the-fact theme (the kind you only figure out once you’re done with the puzzle). In this grid, he took words that are standard RE- prefix words, but gave them new definitions for two word phrases:
- 17A. Talk in one’s sleep? : REST ORATION
- 24A. Building the Berlin Wall? : RED ACTION
- 34A. Equestrian addiciton? : REIN HABIT
- 46A. Back burner? : REAR RANGE
- 54A. Literacy campaign? : READ MISSION
Additionally, there was a nice combination of things I knew with things I didn’t know. 
8D. Nymphs of myth are apparently NAIADS (and Wikipedia, Knower Of Half The Things Howard Barkin Knows, tells me that there are 26 individual Naiads). Here’s a picture of one of them. But it crossed with AVIARY (15A. Building with a lot of wings), which I liked (even though I’ve only ever been to outdoor aviaries, which are not really buildings).
We had a reference to ALIENS (20A. 1986 Sci-fi sequel), which is a slight departure from the overused ALIEN. I didn’t like the sequel as much as the original. I really didn’t like the third one. Was there a fourth? Or a fifth? I gave up.
39A. Long-horned goat. This is an IBEX. I like the word “ibex,” and I 
just like goats in general. I have nothing really to say here. Apparently, there is an album somewhere called “Ibex Throne.” There’s also some YouTube stuff about them. Here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4RLrLCzOCQ — I still don’t know how to imbed video, even though Ryan explained it to me.
I’m supposed to be up to date on eating puzzle food, but I haven’t done much of this since the HoHos. I will try to have some COGNAC or MADEIRA or a couple of OMELETS if I get a chance…
In other news, my wife is having her long-awaited ACL reconstruction surgery today. If you come by this blog, take a moment to wish her well. Doing so will accomplish two things. One, it will cheer up my wife. Two, it will validate (to her) what I do here. And a third surprise thing it will do: It will let me and Ryan know if you’re out there. So stop by, and say hi. Either a comment here, or an email to us at rbxblog@gmail.com.
In case you missed our latest podcast, you can check it out here: CLICK ME! I’M A PODCAST!
And in other news, Ryan and I are going to try joint-blogging. One of us will post something about a puzzle, and the other may add to it as time goes by, instead of writing a whole separate post on the same puzzle. We’ll see how it works. If you have a strong opinion about this either way, let us know. We like to know what you’re thinking, even if it might hurt Ryan’s feelings. Heck, we like to know what you’re thinking even if it has nothing to do with puzzles. Or us. Just write. We like mail.
See you Thursday…
Hey, Ryan here. So we’re doing this combined blogging thing. Is this confusing? Do you like it? Or has everybody who’s going to look at this already looked at it?
I think there were at least a couple more Alien movies after Aliens. I only saw the third one which I think was called Alien3which doesn’t make any sense. How do you cube an Alien? Hmm, that sounds like a chapter title of an intergalactic cookbook.
Ok, work is done so I’m going home. I’m glad I was able to append such weighty topics to Brian’s entry. We’d love some feedback on this new feature.
Next stop, Thursday.
