Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Today’s is the the second puzzle in less than a week by our good friend Barry C. Silk, Friend and Confidante of Doug Peterson, Crossword Gentleman and Man About Town.  And for those of you have listened to Episode #51 of Fill Me In you’ll notice that the puzzle falls in line with our Tip of the Week: Barry loves baseball and his puzzles almost always include some sort of baseball reference.  Today’s reference (2D. How baseball games rarely end: IN A TIE) is much more obvious than last Friday’s (It has top and bottom parts: INNING) but still, it’s there and for one of the few times in recorded history, Brian and I have been proven correct.  We rest our collective cases.

But today’s puzzle doesn’t just feature that one clue.  Oh no, Barry filled the whole grid with answers and wrote many corresponding clues.  Such as 63A. Crossword maker or editor, at times (CLUER).  That is what Barry is, at times.  He is a CLUER.  Not to be confused with EWER even though they rhyme.  Besides showing up in puzzles from time to time ewers have very little to do with crosswords as they are pitchers.  But not baseball pitchers.  Oh no, these type of pitchers don’t deliver curve balls, they deliver tasty items like water, nectar and very thin yogurt.  Which brings me to my point.  Is anybody watching the new MLB channel?  For those who are, have you noticed that when talking about pitchers the announcers will often say, “So and so is out on the bump today.” or “Let’s see how so and so did on the bump.”  See, they’re using the word “bump” instead of the far more correct word “mound”.  Doesn’t that just make you want to rip your face off?  But, I digress.

Today’s puzzle also features a word ladder.  The hint to the ladder is STANDARD WORKDAY and the ladder goes from NINE to FIVE.  As it is currently 4:49am and I am sitting at work this standard clearly does not apply to me.  I once worked this fabled 9 to 5 shift for almost a year. It was alright though I was often disoriented during my commute by a giant yellow orb in the sky.

The ladder went thusly:

NINE

15A. *Small part of a spork (TINE).  I applaud Barry’s use of “spork” here when “fork” would have been sufficient.  It makes me think of two things near and dear to my heart.

1. Taco Bell – one of the few places you can reliably find sporks.
2. I have a great Star Trek-themed t-shirt that features Mr. Spork.  Brian loves it ever so much and is constantly asking me to wear it. 

Wikipedia tells me that the spork has been manufactured since the 1880s and has also been known as a foon (foons are used exclusively for Sunday leakfast) or a runcible spoon (a term invented by Edward Lear).  There is a similar utensil in Finland called a lusikkahaarukka (lusikka meaning “spoon” and haarukka meaning “I can’t pronounce this”).

18A. *Musical quality (TONE).  See Viewer Mail Theme Song.

22A. *Made tracks (TORE).

35A. *Teed off (SORE).

44A. *Put into piles (SORT).

56A. *Locale in a western (FORT).  Wikipedia also tells me a movie version of F Troop is being developed by one Bobby Logan, director of Meatballs 4.  I predict this will end in disaster.

64A. *It may precede a stroke (FORE).

67A. *Ax (FIRE).

FIVE

Barry also includes two completely made up words.  SESSILE which he has decided means “Permanently attached, in zoology” and HEXOSE, Barry’s terms for a “Simple sugar”.  Used in a sentence: The sessile nose jutting from Mary-Theobalda’s face was magically enchanted and sprayed sweet hexose whenever she sneezed.

While we are so recently removed from the subject of baseball I should mention that the Dodgers are currently 0 and 1 when mentioned in the puzzle during the 2009 season.  I will soon create some sort of widget in the sidebar so everyone can track this highly scientific exploration of the synchronicity of crosswords and baseball.

We do have a very primitive draft of the Rogue’s Gallery up.  We will soon be adding pictures and bios.  If you are not mentioned and want to be please write in or comment.

Speaking of commenting, I want to remind everyone that you can now leave video comments.  All you need is a webcam.  We look forward to hearing from you in an A/V manner.

Great puzzle, Barry.

Next stop, Thursday.