Ryan solves the NYT, Mon 6-30-8
Solid Monday puzzle by Lynn Lempel. The theme was:
61A. Unexpected wallet fattener … and what the circled words are (FOUNDMONEY)
The circled words were found in:
17A. British pop group with a repetitive name (DUrandURAN). RAND.
25A. Kurdistan city on the Tigris (MOSUliraQ). LIRA.
35A. On-ramp (HIGHWAyenTRANCE). YEN.
51A. Welch’s soft drink (GRApesoDA). PESO.
Well done theme. I especially like the two meanings for “found money”. The in-the-language meaning and the actual finding of money words in the puzzle.
1A. Like students in the Head Start program (PREK). This one confused me for a good, long while. I finally parsed it correctly once I was done.
16A. Double Stuf cookie (OREO). Definitely need some pictures of Brian eating the official crossword cookie.
43A. Nipper the dog’s company (RCA). Interesting story behind this famous advertisement. The first Nipper lived in the 189os.
59A. Spanish artist Joan (MIRO). I know of her completely from crosswords.
68A. Tale (STORY). Speaking of stories, I want you all to hear this from me before you hear it on the street. Brian and I saw Wall-E yesterday and it looks like I’m the only one in the universe who doesn’t like it. I’m a big Pixar fan but this one didn’t do it for me. I thought it was boring, over-complicated, and relied too much on the audience thinking this robot was the cutest character in the history of cinema. For those of you who do like it (which I’m assuming is everybody) please write in to let me know why. I’m very curious.
22D. In worse health (ILLER). I’ve only heard this term when it refers to a rapper or someone who thinks they’re a rapper.
34D. Rebounds or assists (STAT). A bit of misdirection here with the plurals in the clue and the non-plural answer.
50D. Mexican state bordering Arizona (SONORA). I had an error here which took me a while to catch. I put in SENORA as if the clue was referring to a Mexican woman standing next to Arizona.
Good puzzle to start the week. And for you podcast fans, episode #17 of Fill Me In: The Podcast has been recorded and should be up by Tuesday morning.
Next stop, Tuesday.
