Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Wow, I still haven’t finished Friday’s puzzle and hot on the heels of that failure I’m in the middle of having not have finished Saturday’s Karen M. Tracey puzzle.  The grid is chock full of pop culture, most of which I don’t know.

Here’s what I do know (this shouldn’t take long):

5A. Captor of Han Solo (JABBA).  What else could this be?  Boba Fett doesn’t fit.

28A. Park in Ranger Smith’s charge (JELLYSTONE).  A guess but, again, what else could it be?  Was Yogi Bear named after Yogi Berra?  Is there any connection there?

32D. “Six Feet Under” star Peter (KRAUSE).  Not a fan of the show.  So ultra depressing.

41A. “Guerilla Warfare” author, 1961 (CHE GUEVARA).  The ulimate guess of all guesses.  But it fits.

50D. First name in Hollywood gossip (RONA).  Could be her, could be someone else.

35D. One may play at a ballpark (ORGANIST).  One of the few “figure it out” clues that I figured out.  Seems like since the Dodgers got knocked out, the baseball clues have come fast and furious.

23D. Professional shooter, briefly (SLR).  Look at me, I figured something else out.

32A. Decks (KOS).  This is probably right.

9D. They may be patronized (ARTS).  Eh, could be right, could be wrong.

And that is absolutely it.  The rest of the grid lies empty, mocking me in its unfilledness.  There are lots of other fun references to, among others, Sherlock Holmes (2 of them), He-Man, Scrubs, the Matrix and Brunswick stew.  The commonality of all those clues is I don’t have any idea what the answers are.  

I’m sorry I don’t have more to add today but it looks like the NYT has found a new day that is in between Saturday and Sunday where they can stick more difficult puzzles.  Trucial States?  Really?  I’m going to step away from the puzzle for a bit.  Eat some of last night’s lasagna, do some couch sitting and perhaps when I come back all will be clear.  If somehow that happens I will update this post with tales of my derring-do and smarteriness.  But, if not, then:

Next stop, Sunday.