Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Did you ever have so much to do that you simply can’t imagine accomplishing all of it, which means you can’t imagine accomplishing any of it, which means there seems to be no way to actually begin, so therefore you just stare at it, thinking, “What other career could a guy in his thirties with a useless music degree do for a living?”

No? Just me? Hm.

As some of you know, I’m trying to poorly host and poorly produce a weekly podcast nowadays, but the salary from that has been a little slim. I’m currently also trying to eat Wint-O-Green Life Savers for a living, but no one seems to be hiring.

So in the meantime, I took a look at Sunday’s puzzle, designed by Alan Arbesfeld. I may not have been able to cut it out and turn it into a paper airplane, but at least I was able to stare at it blankly for a while before determining that I have definitely gotten less smarter in the past week alone. My initial struggle came from the fact that seven of the first eight clues have multi-word answers. Forgive my ignorance with the jargon, but are these what you call “partials”? I’m not sure what that word means or how to use it, except to say “I don’t know what ‘partials’ means.” But this puzzle seemed to have a lot of those multi-word answers. To wit:

• 1A. Pep rally shout: GO TEAM
• 7A. Sics on : LETS AT — It wasn’t SETS AT, which is a popular crosswordese thing. I don’t know that I like this answer much. LETS AT implies (to me) that the dog’s owner (the sic-ing dog, that is) was passive in his decision to allow the dog to attack. But to sic — isn’t that more active? Don’t you have to tell the dog to sic? And what kind of a word is “sic” anyway? Etymology, anyone?
• 13A. More than a favorite : SURE BET
  
• 21A. Digs : IS INTO
• 22A. Single advancement : ONE BASE — Oh, you know how much I love baseball clues that I don’t figure out quickly enough. That was fun.
• 25A. Holding one’s own : NO WORSE – Another clue/answer pair that doesn’t sit right with me. Although I see how “holding one’s own” suggests getting nowhere, but doing it alone, I feel like NO WORSE is another passive answer to an active clue.
• 32A. ___ hole in (corrodes) : EATS A
  
• 70A. Have no accomplices : ACT ALONE
• 71A. Done : AT AN END – AT THE END makes more sense to me.
• 103A. Belong : FIT IN
• 120A. “Hmmm…” : LET’S SEE – LETS and LET’S in the same puzzle. Hmmm indeed. Another reason why I thought SETS AT was better at the top.
• 122A. Manages : GETS BY
• 11D. Yours, in Nemours : A TOI – French, but still two words.
• 49D. Showed hospitality at the door : ASKED IN
  
• 66D. Makes an assertion : SAYS SO
• 90D. What turned-out pants pockets may signify : I’M BROKE

That seems to be quite a lot, if you ask me. And that doesn’t include the theme answers, which were all multi-word phrases. The title of the puzzle, by the way, was “Extra Play,” and the theme was adding OT (overtime) to an existing phrase to make something new. And as I like to say, the clue became clever:

• 23A. Plea made to a chimney sweep? : SAY IT AIN’T SOOT – Did a little boy actually say this to Shoeless Joe Jackson after the Black Sox scandal of 1919? I prefer the reports that label this an urban legend. And although I understand there are plenty of support groups to get people like Tim Raines into the Hall of Fame, Joe Jackson deserves it more. What an amazing player he was. And such a shame that either he was victim to someone else’s shenanigans or he was so desperate for money/fame/something else that he participated in the fix. What a mess. It’s a good thing that sports are clean and wholesome now. This book I’ve linked to is sort of about the story of that scandal, but from the perspective of Sport Sullivan, one of the gamblers in charge of the whole thing. It’s a so-so book, but if you like sports-related historical fiction, this is an interesting read.
• 38A. Distribute equal amounts? : ALLOT THE SAME
• 56A. Vote involved in a 15th wedding anniversary? : CRYSTAL BALLOT
• 76A. Narrow-minded affairs? : BIGOT BUSINESS
• 95A. Teacher’s pet? : SCHOOL MARMOT – Anyone else think that marmots were something else entirely? I first thought it was a kind of monkey. Then maybe like a cat of some sort. Apparently, they’re more like big gophers. Or so they seem.
• 112A. Stop to admire one’s pillaging? : LOOT AND BEHOLD
• 17D. Sexiest bell ringer? : BARDOT OF AVON — I’m confused here. Bell ringer? Brigitte Bardot rang bells? I must have let that one escape my YouTube viewings. I was also stumped here for a while because I read part of the clue as “sexist,” which led me to think that BIGOT was going to be part of this answer instead of the one it was actually part of.
• 62D. Part of a Beckett play? : AN ACT OF GODOT – This is a great play. Samuel Beckett deserves more attention. I know he’s relatively famous, but he should be more so. His plays were weird and cool and he was just marvelous with language. I have actually been working on an orchestral composition for some time now that is loosely based on Beckett’s work. Someday, when I’ve made my millions from this blog, I’ll devote more time to completing that symphony.

And here, a short list (with no clues) of words I don’t know and won’t remember:BESAME, OPA, LINEAL, LIAISE, AESIR, INHUME (opposite of EXHUME, I assume). Perhaps someday, the puzzle will be full of words I know and think of quickly, and I’ll solve the whole thing in about 12 seconds. Until then… See you Monday!

I’m typing this from our brand new computer. It’s splendid. Nice and fast. I just checked the receipt for our old computer. We bought it almost exactly 7 years ago. I can’t believe it lasted as long as it did and without any major problems. And I’m not sure why so may people complain about Windows Vista. So far it seems just like XP but slightly snazzier. Unfortunately, our old speakers don’t work so I’ll be writing the rest of this post in silence.

On to the Michael Shteyman puzzle. Brian and I tackled this one together. It took us about 17 minutes and we had two errors.

49A. It’s barely noticeable (BLIP). We put SLIP here which seemed correct. That gave us FTLS for 38D. Work unit abbr. (FTLB). Turns out that FTLB is an abbreviation for Foot-pound which is a unit of work equal to the work done by a force of one pound acting through a distance of one foot in the direction of the force. While FTLS is a made up abbreviation for Footles which means to waste time; trifle. The reason I know the abbreviation is made up is why would a footler (one who footles) bother with an abbreviation when their main goal in life is to waste time? Food for thought.

21A. Cartoon cat with an exclamation mark in his name (EEK). We put EIK thinking maybe the cat’s name was E¡K. Actually, it’s EEK! I have no idea who this cat is or why his name must be shouted. Perhaps he has some hearing loss from a previous accident or it’s possible he’s a notorious woolgatherer, perpetually staring into space and ignoring the pleas of his loved ones. Who’s to say? Food for thought.

This puzzle was full of terms neither of us knew:

7A. Florist’s container (CACHEPOT). An ornamental container for a flowerpot. I don’t understand this. Aren’t the flowers the ornaments?

26A. 2004 N.B.A. All-Star Michael (REDD). Ok, Brian knew this one. I thought it was Michael KIDD. In fact, Michael Kidd was a Tony award-winning choreographer who was never voted onto the NBA All-Star Team despite a monster 1950 season in which he choreographed Guys and Dolls, lead the league in rebounds and had a .343 batting average.

7D. 1965 hit parodied by the Beatles’ “Back in the U.S.S.R.” (CALIFORNIAGIRLS). I don’t understand, how is it a parody?

28D. Hamlet (DORP). A DORP is a small town. We, as I’m sure many others did, put DANE here first.

45D. Mutated gene (ALLELE). Did you know that paired alleles that are the same are called homozygous and those pairs that are different are called heterozygous? I sure didn’t.

The puzzle was also filled with lots of fun long answers:

17A. Carrier of fatty acids (GOODCHOLESTEROL).

38A. Common restaurant offering that was Julia Child’s last meal (FRENCHONIONSOUP).

59A. Name associated with spirits (EBENEZERSCROOGE).

3D. Unenthusiastic response to an offer (IDONTFEELLIKEIT).

12D. Bakery item folded in half (PARKERHOUSEROLL).

And, of course, my favorite:

19D. “That’s enough out of you!” (PUTASOCKINIT). Another great one.

Next stop, Sunday.

After you listen to all 41 minutes of this episode, you won’t feel like it was a shortened week! Yes, a surprise Friday launch must mean one of the following:

• Brian is going out of town! (Again!)
• Ryan is going out of town! (For what?)
• Ryan and Brian have no idea what day of the week it is! (Again!)
• You have no idea what day of the week it is! (Not likely.)

In addition, we cover the puzzles from Monday, August 25 to Friday, August 29. Also: viewer mail (and more arguments over snapping within), and Ryan doesn’t understand symmetry.

All that and more in Episode 24!

 

 Fill Me In #024: Put a sock in it. (2x) [41:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Zambezi and oat.

It took me an hour and 14 minutes but I did no-google this Friday puzzle constructed by Mike Nothnagel, Penpal Extraordinaire and Constructor of the Friday Puzzle.  I got everything but the bottom left in about a half-hour but that last corner took another 45 minutes of staring.

Here’s what I did have in that corner:

19D. “That’s enough out of you!” (PUTASOCKINIT).  This was one of several “in-the-language” phrases appearing in the puzzle.  It’s beyond me how Mike fits these phrases into his grids.

45D. Pass (ENACT).  This one came after a struggle with variations of ELIDE and THROW.

43D. Rice product (NOVEL).  Another clever clue.  Sure looked like it was going to be PILAF.  Does anybody out there Geocache?  I’d love to get together with people to do some really nerdy geocaching.  The reason I bring it up is last time I was in Philly there was a city-sponsored geocaching event that coincided with the King Tut exhibit.  One of the caches was hidden inside an Anne Rice book in the library.  Which was about the coolest thing ever.

That’s all I had in the bottom left corner so for the 3 big acrosses I was left with:

51A. “No way, no how” (_ _ _ _N_ _A_E)

55A. Like some nonvoters (_ _ _ _I_ _C_L)

57A. Sorry souls (_ _ _ _ T_ _T_)

And that’s why it took me 45 minutes.  Luckily, for the crosses I did have, I was almost positive they were correct.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have any idea what the other downs in that area could possibly be.  The clue that finally cracked it was 51D. Go out for a bit? (NAP).  Don’t know how that suddenly came to me but after I typed it in I got the rest of the grid solved in about 2 minutes.  I did have to go back to correct two errors:

26D. Protest music pioneer (PETESEEGER).  I had PETESEEGAR which gave me MADE for 56A. Ancient dweller in present-day Kurdistan (MEDE).  PETE SEEGER is one of those answers that comes from a sorely neglected part of my brain.  I don’t know who he is, couldn’t tell you one song he sings and definitely couldn’t pick him out of a crowd.  Yet his name jumped up and it was right.  I want to know what else I’m storing in that part of my head.  Witty remarks to use at parties?  Locations of lost treasure?  Snappy answers to stupid questions?  I must figure out how to tap into this underused resource.

5A. Way around in comic books (BATMOBILE).  Inexplicably, I had CATMOBILE here.  Catmobile?  Seriously?  Who drives a catmobile?  Ok, here is a batmobile (although I don’t know who the heck is driving it as it sure isn’t Adam West or Burt Ward):

And here is a catmobile:

That is truly horrific.  Let’s never speak of it again.

As usual, this Nothnagel puzzle was filled with great clues and answers.

15A. Succumbs to interrogation, perhaps (NAMESNAMES)

34A. Looking forward to being docked? (SEASICK). Viewers of our podcast will know that I am prone to nausea.

36A. Nail holder (TOE).  This one grosses me out.

44A. Providers of many openings? (SKELETONKEYS).  Good stuff.

50A. One whose motto is “The only easy day was yesterday” (NAVYSEAL).  For some reason I had ARMY SEAL at first which, more or less, makes no sense.

1D. Component of morning dress (ASCOT).  For who?  My morning dress consists of a t-shirt, lounging pants and my slippys.

2D. They’re blown up and thrown up (BEACHBALLS).  This is my favorite clue in the puzzle.  Lots of fun and could have been anything.

10D. Contents of some arms (BABES).  Wait, maybe this is my favorite.  This is one of the goofiest clues I’ve seen in a while.

15D. “Mulholland Falls” actor, 1996 (NOLTE).  I recall this movie not being very good although it does have a couple of almost Whoopi-worthy taglines:

• This isn’t America, this is Los Angeles
• The power of love vs. the love of power

19D. “That’s enough out of you!” (PUTASOCKINIT).  Another great one.

Once again, a superb offering from Mike Nothnagel.

Next stop, Saturday.

I can’t believe it but our computer has already been shipped.  I just ordered it Monday night.  According to the tracking info it’ll arrive either today or Friday.  Very excited.  Along those lines, does anybody have experience with Dell customer service?  I’m just wondering how easy it will be to get the computer fixed when it inevitably goes kerflooey.

The mystery of Senior Orange Pants has been solved.  I have confirmation of his identity from no less than 3 separate sources.  But since SOP has not personally revealed himself to me I will keep his alter ego secret…for now.

Did anybody catch Will Shortz on the Colbert Report?  I was hoping it would be an actual interview rather than just a one-liner but it was still cool to see him there.

On to today’s Sheldon Benardo puzzle.  I made a mistake, couldn’t find it and eventually had too look at the answer on xwordinfo.  

38D. Liquid fat (OLEIN).  I put OLEAN.  You know, the fake fat that gives you GI distress.  I’ve never heard of olein before but apparently it’s a naturally occurring oily yellow liquid.  I guess that’s where Olean got its name.  Personally, if I invented a product that I wanted to people to ingest I probably wouldn’t name it after a naturally occurring oily yellow liquid.  Anyway, that crossed with 49A. ___ light: Var. (KLEIG) and KLEAG looked just as correct to me.  Oh well, I was able to get the rest of this enjoyable puzzle.

The theme:

53A. Punny hint to answering 20-Across, 11-Down and 29-Down (ANEYEFORANI).

20A. Historical 1976 miniseries (EYECLAUDIUS).  I may be remembering this incorrectly but my brother watched this when we were kids and I seem to recall some type of narrator who stood at a podium and introduced the different episodes.  And he looked like Harvey Korman.  So I thought the show was a comedy.  But it wasn’t funny.  Does anybody know what I’m talking about?

11D. Classic 1947 detective novel (EYETHEJURY)

29D. Bygone political slogan (EYELIKEIKE)

Other clues that caught my eye:

24A. Toy at the beach (KITE).  I was sure this was PAIL.

61A. After-lunch bite (OREO).  Hey, look, a fun new way to clue everybody’s favorite cookie.  Had me fooled.  I put NOSH.  The Great Howard Barkin, Knower of All Things and reigning Lollapuzzoola Champion brought Banana Split Creme Oreos to our puzzlefest.  We were all kind of grossed out by the description on the box which included the word “cremey” and my wife was grossed out by the actual flavor of the Oreos but, I have to say, I really liked them.  And a rather sizeable box was completely emptied by the time Lollapuzzoola was over so I’d have to say they were a hit.  The Onion AV Club did a taste test on them earlier this month.  Along the same lines, does anybody have a favorite Oreo variation: Cakesters, Strawberry Milkshake, Double Stuf Peanut Butter Creme, Reduced Fat?

I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut this post a little short.  I spent all night at work printing out useless documents and now it’s just about time to go.  I did want to make a quick shout out to Barry C. Silk, Friend and Confidante of Doug Peterson, Crossword Gentleman and Man About Town for his Wednesday LA Times puzzle.  It had a great JOE MONTANA (BIG SKY COUNTRY) theme and somehow he managed to work in the word BUXOM.  Nice job, Barry.

Next stop, Friday.

So far I’ve seen two online reviews of Lollapuzzoola.  One by PhillySolver who posted it on JimH’s xwordblog.  And the other one by someone I know only as Señor Orange Pants who talked about his experience on his Live Journal page.  Luckily, both seemed to have a good time although Señor Orange Pants was irritated by a few aspects of the competition.  I did get a chance to chat with PhillySolver and it was great to have him there.  It was great to have Señor Orange Pants there as well although I have no idea who he was.  I don’t remember anyone wearing orange pants.  Thanks for the write ups and thanks for attending.

On to Donna Hoke Kahwaty’s puzzle.  The theme for this was “Normal Phrases But Then You Repeat the First Part of the Normal Phrase to Get a Phrase That’s Not Normal”.

20A. Some fruit still lifes? (PAWPAWPRINTS).  A pawpaw is a fruit related to a custard apple.  You may also know the custard apple as a bullock’s heart.  Although you’re probably more familiar with the tree that bears the bullock heart fruit, the Annona Reticulata.  Or you may be like me and gone your whole life without hearing of any of these.

26A. Showy dance intro? (CANCANOPENER).  Can you dance the Can Can to any other piece of music besides the one that immediately jumps into my head any time someone mentions the Can Can?

41A. Gobbler in a powwow musical group? (TOMTOMTURKEY)

47A. Chocolate’s journey? (BONBONVOYAGE).   Move over Bon Bons.  Hello Dibs.  They are delicious.  I don’t believe there’s any possible way I could stop eating them until there aren’t any left.  Perhaps we can get a picture of Brian eating some Dibs this week.

You know what else is delicious?  36A. Chocolate-caramel candies (ROLOS).  Check out Episode #2 of Fill Me In: A Crosspod Wordbag to hear me eating rolos.

39A. Actor Rutger ___ (HAUER).  You’ve got to hand it to Rutger Hauer.  He’s never been a big star but he’s worked like crazy since the 70s and been in some pretty good movies over the years including, of course, Blade Runner.

9D. 7-Eleven cooler (SLURPEE).  I love Slurpees and I love 7-Eleven.  When my friend Max and I drove across the country we stopped there first and I got a gigantic refillable mug.  It held something like 143 ounces and cost maybe 83¢ to refill.  Brilliant.  A few years later I lost the mug somewhere in Oregon while on vacation with my wife.  I can only hope some other thirsty traveler picked it up and was quenched not only in body but in spirit as well.

36D. Japanese bowlful (RAMEN).  Remember when you found out a bowl of instant ramen had more fat than a Big Mac?  Remember how that didn’t stop you from eating it?

48D. Penthouse asset (VIEW).  This answer kind of works even for those who thought of the magazine and the various assets that can be viewed within its pages.  (Wasn’t me though.  I only thought of apartments.  Really.)

Next stop, Thursday

Very excited. I just bought us a new computer. We’ve had our computer for 6 or 7 years now and it’s a chore to get anything done. Even as I write this, the letters appear at some point well after I’ve typed them. The new one should be shipping out early next week and should make podcasting and blogging much easier.

On to this enjoyable Nancy Salomon puzzle. The theme answers were clued only as Rose. Last week there was similar puzzle where the theme answers were clued as Jack. Hmm, Jack and Rose, the two lead characters from Titanic. This leads me to wonder if there’s ever been a theme that’s stretched across multiple puzzles.

20A. Rose (AMERICANBEAUTY)

36A. Rose (CHARLIEHUSTLE). Will Pete Rose ever be in the Hall of Fame? Does he deserve to be? Certainly on stats alone he does. But the rules clearly state that if you bet on baseball you’re going to be banned from the game. I think I’d have more sympathy for him if he wasn’t such a jerk.

57A. Rose (TOOKTOONESFEET)

Lots of fun fill including:

15A. The New Yorker cartoonist Peter (ARNO). Hey, I learned this from crossword puzzles!

69A. Runs, hits or errors (STAT). Another baseball clue. I’ll take this opportunity to mention two things. One, Joe Torre was mentioned in last Friday’s puzzle and the Dodgers lost. So they are now 4-2 since May 19th when referenced in the puzzle. That loss leads me to my second item. Last week I taunted Phillies fan Barry C. Silk, Friend and Confidante to Doug Peterson, Crossword Gentleman and Man About Town after the Dodgers swept the Phillies in a 4 game series. Well, the Phils returned the favor and swept LA right out of the state of Pennsylvania. So congrats to Barry and that should teach me to keep my mouth shut.

2D. Monopoly avenue (ATLANTIC). A few years ago I became aware of a Monopoly championship. I don’t know how the heck you can be better than someone else at Monopoly but clearly I don’t understand the nuances of the game. Anyway, the championship was held at a city full of casinos. Las Vegas. That doesn’t make a bit of sense to me. All the streets in the game are named after Atlantic City streets. Why would you hold a Monopoly event in Vegas? (At this point I was going to write, “That’s like holding a ____ event in ____” but I can’t for the life of me think of another board game or city that would satisfy those blanks.)

6D. Some spears (BROCCOLI). Great clue. Had me stumped until the very last. According to xwordinfo this is only the second appearance of BROCCOLI in the Shortz era.

9D. Symptom of hypothermia (BLUELIPS). Had NUMBNESS (which is a word) and BLUENESS (which very well might not be a word) here first.

45D. They’re relayed in relays (BATONS). I was not a fan of the Olympic commentators. They all seemed to be way too excited and happy any time an athlete (or relay team) screwed up. On another Olympic note I wish we could have heard stories of the athletes that come to the games knowing they have no chance of winning. They train hard, they’re elite athletes but come to the games just to compete and represent their countries. I find that fascinating.

I also find it fascinating that somehow the weekend is over and I have to go to work tonight. Ah, well.

Next stop, Wednesday.

With all of our Lollapuzzoola hoopla plus a podcast today I had forgotten to blog about Kevin G. Der’s Sunday puzzle.  This certainly was Kevin’s weekend.  First, he broke the black square record on Friday and on Sunday he created a very enjoyable puzzle that involved post-solving arts and crafts.

The theme of Come Fly With Me had instructions embedded in the grid:

30A. Start of instructions for what to do when this puzzle is done (CUTALONGTHEDOTTEDLINE)

48A. With 67- and 97-Across, second part of the instructions (FOLDTHROUGHEACH)

67A. See 48-Across (PAIROFNUMBERS)

97A. See 48-Across (INTHEGRIDSEQUENTIALLY)

138A. Final part of instructions (GOTHROWTHEPAPERAIRPLANE)

And somehow Kevin had placed pairs of numbers throughout the grid in such a way that when you follow the instructions you’re left with a paper airplane.  To me this is almost as mind-boggling as the 18 black square feat.  And much like Friday’s puzzle there was some questionable fill like AT1 for In accord (with) but for the most part is was all very nice.

A few of my favorites:

28A. Leaves in the kitchen (CILANTRO).  I love cilantro.  I know a lot of people who think it tastes like soap but I’ll put it in just about anything.

43A. Something to go in … or on (AUTO).  Very clever cluing.

13D. Structure of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” (4ACTS).  Hey, I’m going to be in a production of The Cherry Orchard in November.  I’ll post all the details as opening night approaches.

Sorry to give Sunday’s such short shrift but it’s late and I’ve got to move on to Monday’s offering by Andrea Carla Michaels and Michael Blake.  I almost broke 5 minutes on this one but had one error at 44D. Ripening agent (AGER).  I put in AGAR which is a thickener not a ripener and it was 20 seconds past the 5 minute mark before I spotted it.

The puzzle had a great theme which wasn’t clear to me until I checked JimH’s blog.  There are 5 theme answers each beginning with P_CK and each answer substitutes a different vowel.  Reading from top to bottom the vowels are in alphabetical order.  Have I explained that well?  Probably not.  So here are the theme entries:

16A. Be very potent (PACKAPUNCH)

22A. Social hierarchy (PECKINGORDER)

35A. Very best puppy or kitten (PICKOFTHELITTER)

45A. Miscellaneous coins (POCKETCHANGE)

57A. Got ready to kiss (PUCKEREDUP)

This is proof that a complicated, clever theme can fit nicely in a Monday-level puzzle.

64A. Ed with the 1967 hit “My Cup Runneth Over” (AMES).  The problem with this answer is I only know Ed Ames from the tomahawk incident on the Carson show.  This makes me go to youtube to find the video which in turn makes me spend 45 minutes looking at old Carson clips.  Which I love.  But now it’s late.  Anyway, I couldn’t find a good clip of the tomahawk incident.  But, if you haven’t seen it, trust me, it’s hilarious.

17D. Baldwin of “30 Rock” (ALEC).  Ok, now I’ve spent 20 minutes looking at 30 Rock clips.  And it’s even later.  This show is great and Baldwin is out of control funny.  Highly recommended.

It’s been a fun, crossword-filled weekend but now it’s time to go to sleep.  Thanks again to all who attended and/or helped out with Lollapuzzoola.  Brian and I will be back tomorrow with regular-sized posts.

Next stop, Tuesday.

Episode 23 of the award-distributing podcast show dedicated to no more than nine percent substance… is here!

In this episode:

• Lollapuzzoola 2008 aftermath
• Lollapuzzoola 2009 pre-math
• New York Times puzzles for the week of August 18-24
• Brian eats
• Ryan gets cast in a play
• And 91% water

We have listened to all 23 episodes now. Have you?

 

 Fill Me In #023: Want some snacks? [45:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Zambezi and oat.

We did it! Lollapuzzoola 2008 was a great success. We had a perfect turnout of wonderful solvers, a marvelous array of puzzles, way too many snacks (which means we’ve still got enough Oreos to feed all of Queens for the rest of the summer).

The six puzzles used in the tournament are available here for download at the end of this post. They are all in .PUZ format, which means they can be loaded up with Across Lite. The answers should be in there too, with no scramble codes. The themes should be obvious for all the puzzles except Puzzle Four (”Compromising Positions,” designed by Mike Nothnagel). So as not to give anything away here on the blog, we invite you to email us at rbxblog@gmail.com if you want to know more about how that puzzle ended up playing out.

We invented a strange but workable scoring system, but no sensible system could do much to keep Howard Barkin from taking the title. He will forever be known as The Great Howard Barkin, Knower of All Things (Except “Ushpizin”), and First Ever Champion of Lollapuzzoola. The runners-up included Will Irving (2nd place), Patty Buethe (3rd), Mike Nothnagel (4th) and Janet Siefert (5th). The full scoreboard is below (click on it to see it in full-size):

The scores are listed in three columns per puzzle. The first column is the rank of finishing the puzzle. The second is the total points, which is partially based on the third column, which is the number of wrong squares. Email us if you want to know exactly what you got wrong on any given puzzle.

(A note to any of the participants: The five finalists each got a bonus of 1000 points for being a finalist. This was simply so that even if any of them did terribly on the final puzzle [they did not], they could not finish lower in the overall standings than anyone who finished 6th or higher. That 5th place and 6th place seem separated by a huge margin is simply a result of this 1000-point bonus.)

(Another note: in our scoring system, the lowest score [from the first five puzzles] was dropped from the final tally. That is the score indicated with white text on a black background.)

And some photos (here’s a link to the full Flickr set):

Brian, Lollapuzzoola 2008 Champion Howard Barkin, Ryan

Brian, 1st runner-up Will Irving (holding photo of Frank Stallone), Ryan

Some of the constructors: Ashish Vengsarkar, Amanda Yesnowitz, Mike Nothnagel, Ryan, Brian

Yes, Twister. Pictured are Will Irving, Janet Siefert and Howard Barkin. Patty Buethe was the fourth contestant in this mini-game.

A special guest stopped by for a visit! Here we are with Puzzlemaster Will Shortz. Thanks for joining us, Will!

As promised, here are the links to the puzzles of the day:

• Puzzle #1: A Simple Trio by Brian Cimmet
• Puzzle #2: Bite Me! by Doug Peterson
• Puzzle #3: Reverse, Look Up by Ashish Vengsarkar
• Puzzle #4: Compromising Positions by Mike Nothnagel
• Puzzle #5: Name That Tune by Dan Feyer
• Puzzle #6: Criss-Crosswords by Barry C. Silk [Click here for Criss-Crosswords with the harder clues we used for the championship.]
• Puzzle #7 (bonus puzzle): Fill Me In by Amanda Yesnowitz (answers are not given on this one; email us if you get stumped and want help)

Our thanks to the constructors, to Ellen Ripstein for her test-solving and puzzle-scoring, to Angela Halsted, Howard Barkin and Mike Nothnagel for their extensive scoring help, to Kathryn Hecht and Toni Carrington for their wonderful assistance in making everything run smoothly while Ryan and I were going a little batty. All in all, it was a lot of fun, and we may very well try and pull off another event sometime in early 2009. In the meantime, enjoy the blog, listen to our podcast (Episode 23 should air late Sunday night), and we’ll see you all soon!