Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Well, well, well, my no-google Friday streak has come to a crashing halt with this John Farmer puzzle. What the heck was up with the top right corner? I absolutely, positively could not figure it out. And even now that I know the answers it still makes no sense. Ok, here’s what I did get in that area:

7D. Rolling Stones hit just before “Honky Tonk Women” (JUMPINJACKFLASH). This was also the title of a bad Whoopi Goldberg film. Whoopi has made more than her share of bad movies. They do have great taglines though. Here are a few of my favorites. See if you can guess what movies they’re from.

• A Dangerously Funny Movie.
• A first rate comedy about a second story woman.
• An earthquake is about to hit L.A. It’s called Detective Rita Rizoli.
• She’s on the line…and off the wall.
• She’s ruthless – He’s witless – They’re on the road together and falling apart at the seams.
• A love that will last forever. (Ok, this is a good movie.)
• Their forbidden friendship changed a nation.
• All that glitter… All that glamour… All that dirt. (This one isn’t bad either.)
• No booze! No sex! No drugs!… No way!
• At the sperm-bank she asked for a tall, intelligent, black man. One out of three ain’t bad.
• A motion picture that celebrates the art of survival, the gift of laughter and the miracle of friendship.
• Virginity, sex, the big cry, and other salty topics.
• What Happens In Antarctica… Stays in Antarctica.

8D. Ill-fated NASA effort (APOLLOONE)

9D. Jazz pianist/composer Williams (MARYLOU)

11D. Landlocked ___ Sea (ARAL). Standard crossword body of water.

18A. How some are offended (MORTALLY)

21A. ___-majesté (LESE). Standard crossword whatever the heck this is.

So that left me with 10 empty boxes and I couldn’t get any of them.

7A. Crams (JAMPACKS). I had JAM_A___ but I was so convinced it was JAMS-something that I never entertained the possibility of the P.

16A. In Dutch (UPACREEK). Wha? In Dutch? I thought this was about a language. Instead it’s some sort of saying that’s completely incomprehensible to me.

10D. Tax fig. (PCT). Should have gotten this but, again, I wasn’t entertaining the P.

25A. Baseball’s Belinsky and Jackson (BOS). Just couldn’t think of it.

12D. One with a high Q score (CELEB). I simply do not know what this means. I thought it might have to do with Q*Bert or Scrabble. It doesn’t, right?

13D. Five-time Horse of the Year, 1960-64 (KELSO). No clue. I tried ANTSY and SAYSO here.

14D. Celtic canines (SKYES). This clue could be in Dutch for all I know.

I got the rest of the puzzle but this corner had quite a concentration of clues that made no sense to me. Another instance of the Nexus of Ryan’s Ignorance.

Here are some clues I did understand:

22A. Turkey’s dewlap (WATTLE). I like both the word wattle and the word dewlap. I shall use them both frequently from now on.

40A. Ones with read faces? (TIMEPIECES). I thought this might have something to do with poker players. Timepieces works well though.

48A. “Calvin and Hobbes” bully (MOE). I’ve read enough Calvin and Hobbes to have this type of trivia crammed into the various nooks and crannies of my brain.

53A. Start of a “Name That Tune” bid (ICAN). This is great. I thought it might be NOTE but this is much better. Here’s a great video from 1977 of a $100,000 win.

1D. Goal of middle management? (TRIMWAIST). It took me longer than it should have to realize this was about dieting.

2D. Quaker Oats product (RICEARONI). I am a lover of all instant foods that come in cardboard boxes. Rice-A-Roni, Hamburger Helper, Taco Dinners. All delicious. I’m not big on that Hamburger Helper mascot though. That creepy white glove who thinks he’s all Pillsbury Doughboy. He wishes.

5D. TV announcer who played himself in “Bananas” (COSELL). Few things are funnier than early Woody. He also has one of the great character names in movie history, Fielding Mellish.

48D. Child prodigy of “Heroes” (MICAH). Pickles and I really enjoyed the first season of this show. We got through maybe the first 4 or 5 episodes of season 2 and absolutely gave up. Honestly, we should have given up after the season 1 finale which was perhaps the most disappointing thing I’ve ever witnessed.

But I’ll tell you what won’t be disappointing, Lollapuzzoola 2008. Paypal is standing by to take your reservations. Sign up early, you don’t want to miss out on those Oreos.

Next stop, Saturday.