Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Both Brian and I have our Facebook accounts set up so the opening blurb of each entry of the blog gets posted to our FB profile page.  I’ve talked about my trip to Italy quite a bit lately and, because it’s not always immediately clear who wrote the post, these musing about my vacation have had the decidedly humorous effect of Brian receiving numerous messages from his friends wishing him a good trip, giving advice about Italy and wondering when he is going to be back in the country.  I’m not sure if Brian finds this funny or if it’s just one more annoyance he has to deal with on a daily basis.  It certainly continues to make me laugh.

Today’s puzzle is my Kevin G. Der – “Hyphen” – Youkilis and features a literary geographical theme. The notepad states:

When the puzzle is done, the circled letters will spell, from top to bottom, the name of the town where all the people in this puzzle’s theme once lived.

The mystery location is CONCORD MA.  I thought for a moment the circled letters were arranged to suggest the shape of Massachusetts but now I don’t think so.  Clearly, Kevin is slacking.

And what people lived in Concord, MA?

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

I feel quite lame in that, besides reading part of The Scarlett Letter in high school and part of Walden in college, I have not experienced the works of these authors.  I haven’t even seen the lousy movies they inspired.  Ah, the mid-nineties, when Demi Moore was at her most popular and her movies were at their most unenjoyable.

Ok, so have you guys read these?  Am I missing out?  I try to read 2 or 3 classics a year.  This year it’s been Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice (admittedly, the latter was to prepare for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies).  Should I put any works by these authors on my list?

Other highlights:

15A. It beats nothing (A PAIR).  This is an odd clue.  I’m assuming it means if Tex McGintey has A PAIR and Buffalo Bingus has NOTHING then Tex beats him.  But doesn’t that go for any poker hand?  A full house beats nothing also.

43A. Mushy snowball sound (SPLAT).  Hmmm, I disagree.  A mushy snowball definitely makes some sort of sound but I don’t think SPLAT is it.  How about SMUSH-MA-HUSH?

44A. Tre + tre (SEI).  This is Italian.  I learned my numbers.

50A. Little hooter (OWLET).  Funny clue.

62A. 2008 Pixar robot (WALL E).  Kevin, what do you do at Pixar?  And can you get me a job?

68A. iPhone function (EMAIL).  Along with anything else you can think of.  I wish there was an app that would turn my phone into an iPhone.

Today’s post has to be on the short side because work is way too busy tonight.  Hopefully, I can make up for it with this Daily Show clip about the iPhone.

Next stop, Thursday.

We’re kinda hoping that not much happens in the world of puzzles over this upcoming week, because we had such a huge show today that we had to save two segments for next time. What did we decide to actually leave in Episode 73? Check it out:

• a Viewer Mail bag with people who have either never written in or have only rarely written in
• suggestions for how to make Bingo worse next time
• a surprise musical performance from Ryan and Brian
• an even more surprise musical performance from Sammy the Dentist
• and the piece de resistance: our roving reporter Amanda talks to us about the Pleasantville tournament

Last week, as you all know, we played Bingo during the show. Andrea Carla Michaels won, and as requested, sent us a picture of herself demonstrating her glee:

Also, we received a few images from non-winners (that’s the nicer term). First, from David Stein and his son; then, from Xan Vongsathorn’s name.

All in all, a successful voyage. And now — on with Episode 73!

 

 Fill Me In #073: A small break from daily indoctrination. [35:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Zambezi and oat

Those of you who listen to the podcast know that while I was in Rome I stunningly ran into Stephen “Grimaldi” Grant outside of the Pantheon.  I rarely run into people here in New York where I live and know people.  To run into somebody half way around the world was extremely bizarre.  Stephen is now back home from what seemed like an absolutely amazing trip and now I have the equally odd experience of being in someone else’s vacation photos.

Today’s puzzle was by Paula Gamache (her 41st NYT puzzle in the Will Shortz era) and featured a nautical theme.

71A. Clueless…or where the answers to this puzzle’s starred clues all were first used (AT SEA).

And the starred answers were:

17A. *Dangerously unpredictable sort (LOOSE CANNON).  From Wikipedia: When a storm began, all cannon had to be securely fastened and lashed in place. A gun that broke free of its lashings would roll uncontrollably around the deck with the motion of the ship, causing havoc.

39A. *Junk (DEEP SIX).  From the Urban Dictionary: Nautical in origin, it comes from a call indicating a depth of six fathoms (over ten meters), a depth from which recovery of an item tossed overboard would be very difficult.

61A. *Inviolable, as rules (HARD AND FAST).  It’s amazing what you can find when you google this phrase.  From the Phrase Finder: This is a nautical term. A ship that was hard and fast was simply one that was firmly beached on land.

11D. *Likely to happen (IN THE OFFING).  From the Phrase Finder: It is quite simple to understand once you know that ‘the offing’ is the part of the sea that can be seen from land, excluding those parts that are near the shore.  Someone who was watching out for a ship to arrive would first see it approaching when it was ‘in the offing’ and expected to dock before the next tide. Something that is ‘in the offing’ isn’t happening now or even in a minute or two, but will inevitably happen before too long.

25D. *Jammed (CHOCK A BLOCK).  From Morte Arthur, circa 1400: Charottez chokkefulle charegyde with golde.

Other highlights:

35A. “___ first you don’t succeed…” (IFAT).  Also, the name of Apple’s new vegetable shortening.

38A. Sleuth, slangily (TEC).  Who remembers the old SNL skit with Kevin Nealon, the Politically Incorrect Private Investigator (P.I.P.I.)?  If you do remember it do you have a video of it?

22A. Collette of “The Sixth Sense” (TONI).  Why are people still giving M. Night Shyamalan money to make movies?  The Crappening wasn’t enough?

44D. Bide-___ (WEE).  Um, ok, what the heck does this mean?

Fun puzzle, as always, from Paula.

Next stop, Wednesday.

I am back in town after a fun weekend of Dodger baseball.  My friend Max and I visited DC and Pittsburgh to watch the Boys in Blue play.  They won one and lost one.  Even though they didn’t go 2-0 we still had a great time.  Our seats were great, just a few rows behind the Dodger dugout for both games.  And the food was great.  Nationals Park has the best ballpark nachos I’ve experienced.  A huge mountain of chips topped with chili, sour cream, jalapenos and real shredded cheese.  None of that cheese sauce nonsense.

Here I am with my nachos before:

And after:

Delicious.  In other Dodger news they were mentioned in the puzzle on Saturday and won (and clinched a playoff spot).  Their 2009 NYT Crossword puzzle record is now 2 wins and 2 losses.

Today’s puzzle is by Lynn Lempel and I’m just realizing I have no idea what the theme is.  Hold on…Ok, wow, I still have no idea.  I’m going to have to cheat and look at Orange’s blog…ah, well, it’s fitting that the theme is FAILURE because that’s what I feel like right now.  The theme answers each end with a word that can mean FAILURE.

17A. Abrupt way to quit (COLD TURKEY).  The jury seems to be out as to the exact origin of this phrase.  My favorite hypothesis is a withdrawing addict looks like a cold turkey carcass.

40A. Chocolaty morsel munched at movies (MILK DUD).  Love the alliteration.  And I love MILK DUDs.  Here’s a recipe for milk dud cookies.

63A. Round, red firecracker (CHERRY BOMB).  Has anybody ever lit one and flushed it down the toilet?  How did that work out?

11D. Narcs’ raid (DRUG BUST).

39D. Beach footwear (FLIP FLOP).  On the beach, I’m all about the Crocs.  I’m not a big FLIP FLOP fan.  I don’t like that thingie in between my toes.

Fun theme even if I didn’t notice what it was.

Other highlights:

4A. Nog ingredient (RAW EGG).  Man, I really thought this was NUTMEG.

42A. N.F.L. six-pointers (TDS).  Walking past bars in the city today it is apparent that people really like football.

70A. Annual tennis championship in Queens, N.Y. (US OPEN).  Nice to see my boro mentioned by name in the puzzle.

29D. Fives and ___ (TENS).  Is this a phrase?

31D. Africa’s fourth-longest river and site of Victoria Falls (ZAMBEZI).  Hey, it’s the first half of our podcast signoff.  If only 32A was OAT instead of OAR.

51D. Tarzan and kin (APE MEN).  There are other APE MEN?

Great Monday puzzle.

Next stop, Tuesday.

Can’t do it. I’ve been staring at this thing, about 85% done for the better part of an hour, and I give up. Fair warning: this is going to be an angry post. The combination of answers I don’t like in the grid plus the fact that I can’t complete it makes Brian a cranky boy. So if you don’t like this sort of thing, call Ryan. He’s always cheerful.

It’s a Patrick Berry puzzle, which in my opinion has come to mean two things. One, it’s masterfully crafted, and usually contains very clever wordplay, a fun gimmick, and a buttload of trivia, much of which I don’t know. The other thing it means is that Patrick Berry has written a zillion puzzles, and I wonder if he gets a bit of a free pass based on his reputation as a master puzzle crafter. Maybe the more seasoned constructors, like Mr. Berry, get certain puzzles accepted, puzzles which would likely be rejected had they been delivered by rookies. Maybe? Maybe. I’m thinking specifically of the very frustrating puzzle from August 2, 2009, which contained, essentially, unchecked squares with Greek letters spelled out in them. Today’s puzzle has another multiple-letters-in-a-box gimmick, but its inconsistency leaves me dissatisfied and annoyed.

The gimmick is hinted at by the title: “That Is Two Say.” Okay, this title doesn’t actually make any sense, except that the word “two” probably means that there will be, duh, two of something. Fine. In this case, it’s that some squares (randomly scattered around the grid) will get two letters in them. And these squares, when read in one direction, will sound like the two letters as syllables, and in the other direction, the letters will just be part of the bigger word.

Did that make sense? No? Good.

The first one I got was 60A. Music compilation marketer and 60D. “Married… With Children” actress. In this case, it’s K-TEL Records and KT (Katey) SAGAL. Get it? See, across, it’s the normal spelling of… wait, not really. I guess not really, because K-TEL isn’t a normal word. So in this instance, the K is a letter, and the T is part of TEL. But the down version seems to follow the vague formula, in that the name Katey and the letters KT both sound the same, when spoken aloud.

Okay, let me try to find one that works better.

108A. It’s not to be touched and 96D. Flu symptom, with “the” : POISON IV and SHIVERS. So this one works a little bit better. Except I’m not 100% sold since IV looks so much like the word it sounds like, ivy. I mean, the I isn’t even representative of a longer-spelled-out syllable. It’s just I.

Fine. One more try. Let’s see if there’s one instance of the theme actually working. How about 103A. American everyman and 104D. Carny booth prize : JOHN Q. PUBLIC and QP (Cupie) DOLL. Nope. Same kind of problem as with K-TEL.

Seriously? So this so-called theme doesn’t really follow a terribly consistent pattern, unless that pattern is to kind of work and kind of not.

Now, there are sections of the grid I haven’t even finished yet. I gave up, because I found solving this puzzle to be so frustrating and un-fun that two hours was more than enough. Below is my grid. The circled letters are the “theme,” and the grayed out boxes are the things I had to cheat on.

Oops. I already see a mistake I only partially corrected. 77A. Driving surface is TEEPAD, not TEEWAD. What’s a TEEPAD? I guess it’s some kind of golf thing. I had previously tried FREEWAY here, with the FR in one box, and then attempted to come up with the name of a Pointer sister that had an FR in it. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Here’s the rest of the theme entries:

• 14A. Club and 14D. Casual farewell : CUDGEL and CU (see you) LATER
• 24D. Post decorations on four-posters and 31A. Dental problem : BEDKNOBS and TOOTH DK (decay)
• 40A. Praiseworthy and 13D. Latin catchphrase sometimes seen on sundials : ADMIRABLE and CARPE DM (diem). First of all – Latin has catchphrases? Is that why the language has lasted the test of time so well? And second of all, the sundial thing – is that just there so that when you think of the one Latin phrase you know (carpe diem) you second-guess yourself because there were no sundials in “Dead Poet’s Society”?
• 47A. Chianti and Beaujolais and 48D. Singer who player herself in “Ocean’s Eleven” : REDS and ED (Edie, or maybe Eydie) GORME
• 67D. How drunks drink and 74A. “Fer-de-Lance” mystery novelist : TO XS (excess) and REX STOUT. Yes, use this one horrible time to not talk about Nero Wolfe, which is the only way anyone knows who Rex Stout was.
• 70A. 1873 adventure novel that begins and ends in London and 55D. Units of fineness : AROUND THE WORLD IN AT (80) DAYS and KARATS.
• 83D. Chisel face and 87A. Stop worrying : BEZEL and REST EZ (easy)
• 93A. Dipstick housing and 94D. Driver of the Cannonball Special : CRANKCASE and KC (KC? Or Casey?) JONES
• 116A. Jealous and 107D. Sneaker material : GREEN WITH NV (envy) and CANVAS. This may have been the one theme crossing that actually seemed to a) work, and b) be solvable by the idiots in my office (me).

My last series of gripes is with the entries that just don’t make sense for me:

• 56A. Authors’ aids: Abbr. : AGTS. How does this work? If the agent is helping the author, is he not an aidE? Or does the mere fact that he’s aiding the author make him an aid? And what agents aren’t really just in it for themselves anyway? The author is merely a vehicle to bring income to the agent.
• 78D. One end of a digression, for short? : PAREN. What is this, for parenthesis? Who says “paren”? And why does this clue get a question mark? It’s not clever, and it’s not wordplay. In fact, it’s not even a word.
• 83A. Republic once known as Dahomey : BENIN. Joon, don’t even bother. I’m in a bad mood already.
• 89D. Mug with a mug : TOBY. What on earth is this?
• 97A. Masters piece : POEM. Who is Masters? Someone famous? I’m sure. I’ve never heard of the Bard Masters.
• the crossing of 106A. Unaccented syllable and 100D. “Peer Gynt” princess : ATONIC and ANITRA. First of all, ANITRA and ANITA in the same grid? Feh. See also: SMIT/SMUT and TEATS/YEATS. Second of all, stop crossing two things that aren’t words.
• the crossing of a whole bunch of names and a theme entry made the middle of the grid a big-time goat rodeo. REX STOUT crossing with TO XS, TROLLOPE and DUANE.
• 101D. Bad connection, say : MISHIT. I had all but the first two letters in place, thanks to crossings. And thanks to that, my crossword puzzle had a naughty word in it, and all the letters were right. Ha ha ha.

You know – I’m going to stop here. I just didn’t like this puzzle. I didn’t like that the theme squares were randomly placed, that they had no consistency with across and down, that they had no consistency with whether the letters were parts of words or initials or letters or whatever.

I admire Patrick Berry’s puzzles a great deal – most of the time. I admit, I didn’t care for the one with the Greek letters. And I don’t care for this one very much. It’s clever, but I wanted it to be done thoroughly, not arbitrarily.

I look forward to the rest of the world singing Mr. Berry’s praises in the comments below.

The last two days, I’ve gotten out of work fairly late. So I don’t waste quality social time with my wife once I get home with both solving and blogging the puzzle, I’ve tried to take care of the puzzle part on the subway. To this end, I have been getting the puzzle on my iPhone via Magmic Games’s crossword software (courtesy of Stephen “I Recognized Ryan By The Back Of His Head” Grant – and that’s just a one-time nickname, so don’t get used to it). One feature I’ve been enjoying about this software is the ability to see the clues in a list form, each one with a set of boxes for entering that single answer. It’s sort of like doing an acrostic. And to make it cooler, if you put letters into an across answer, the corresponding boxes in the down clue section gets the letters put in automatically. I will gripe minorly, and say that I think my fingers are too large to maneuver my cursor around the grid accurately. Oh well. I have fat fingers. What can I do?

The first thing that shows up when you launch a new puzzle with this software is the puzzle constructor’s name. I had just finished watching tonight’s Red Sox/Yankees game when I downloaded the puzzle, and was pleased to see our good friend Joon Pahk (Squirrel of Discord) show up on my screen. Pleased, and then somewhat scared. Joon, I think, has a personal agenda to get me to learn more nonsense geography. So I figured this puzzle would have about forty clues worth of random places in Iceland or something.

I got off to a typical Saturday start by entering exactly nothing upon my first read-through of the clues. The second time around, I started plugging in things that seemed right, even if I wasn’t 100% sure. The so-called gimmes:

• 23A. ___ Beach (former home of Dodgertown) : VERO
• 25A. Team known as the Americans until 1907 : RED SOX

Okay, hang on a second. Joon – is it a coincidence that there is a Dodger reference and a Red Sox reference side by side in this puzzle? Or because you know Ryan and me, and you know that we’ll do your puzzle, and you know that we’ll write about it and talk about it – you did this on purpose, didn’t you. Just to get accolades from BeMoreSmarter? Well…

…it worked! This is awesome. This is the most awesome puzzle of the week, of the month, and of the – well, we’ll stop at month. Dodgers and Red Sox, side by side. Let’s hope the postseason works out better than tonight (Dodgers lost 3-1 to the Pirates, and I watched the hapless Americans fall to the Yankees 9-5). Okay – more answers I may have almost known:

• 1D. In relation to : VIS A VIS
• 9D. “According to some…” : IT IS SAID
• 12D. Provides with a seat : VOTES IN
• 22D. His #14 was retired by the Mets : HODGES
• 40D. Cousin of catnip : OREGANO
• 43A. Author of the controversial kids’ book “In the Night Kitchen” : SENDAK. I read this book when I was younger. I don’t remember now what was controversial about it, but I remember that I liked it. I have a vague recollection of there being a drawing in it that included the little boy naked, perhaps dancing amidst some ingredients or something. I thought it was all quite fantastic. [Upon further review, I have discovered that it was the little boy’s nudity that caused much of the uproar. How is it that we delight over family photos of our young children or nieces or nephews dancing naked in the front yard – delight to the point of even using them later in life as awkward, embarrassing moments in front of first-girlfriends or the like – and yet when there is a cartoon about a little boy who appears naked in a drawing, it makes the book ban-worthy? What in the world is wrong with the world?]
• 50A. 1971-97 nation name : ZAIRE. I did need one crossing to trigger this answer in my brain – the Z from BAEZ (35D. “And a Voice to Sing With” memoirist)

This got me started, and before long, I had knocked out the northeast (stumbling briefly on 10D. Base of a number system, which I thought was CODEX for no particular reason. This lead incorrectly to COVET instead of RIVET, which lead to OMAN instead of IRAN, and it wasn’t until OMOMA (16A. Cooking product was actually AROMA) that I decided there was a problem. By the way, 10D is RADIX.

The southeast was more troublesome, since 44D. Game involving spinning a top on a string seemed like something I should know (when I wasn’t reading Maurice Sendak’s horribly inappropriate fiction, I was probably amusing myself with scientifically fascinating toys), but I had DI-B-L-, and couldn’t get EL DIABLO (which didn’t fit and didn’t make sense) out of my head. No combination of letters seemed to work, and even now, seeing DIABOLO there, I realize that I never knew this word, and maybe that’s not the scientifically fascinating toy I played with as a boy. Those vowels all crossed things I didn’t have – BASAL BODY for 67A. Cell organelle with microtubules. Seriously, Joon? The clue has two words I’ve never heard of before. Organelle sounds like a miniature pipe organ for girls, and microtubules are maybe parts of a circulatory system, piping freshly aerated blood into my fingertips.

Since I’m in the southeast, let’s give a huge high five for JUXTAPOSE. Awesome word, and that whole corner is pretty fantastic. JUXTAPOSE/OVERRULED/BASALBODY. Even if that third one doesn’t mean anything to me, the trip-nines looks wonderful. XERXES? Sweet. EARL “The Pearl” Monroe? Brilliant. (Lots of sports today, which I was quite pleased with. Thank you, Joon.)

The northwest was next, but I was in a bad bad way. Lots of blank squares meant lots of guessing, and in my case, wrong guessing. 1A. Momentous 1960s convention was merely V—-A—I, and I was trying to think of important things from the 1960s. The first thing to pop into my head was the Vietnam war, so into the grid went VIETNAM-I (two letters at the end were probably some kind of code, and who knows what it could be). This led to the certainty that 4D. Contacts 21st century-style was TMS (text messages) instead of IMS (instant messages). Then I tried AN S for 8D. Business end?, which was more disaster. Seeing a few letters in place for FOOTLOOSE (17A. Carefree – should have been SANS SOUCI, which is probably not English… grr…), and I had a whole bunch of disaster going here. It took the recognition that 28A. Axiom producer meant some other version of axiom… a car. Duh. Okay, ISUZU. This means that 24D. Location of the Boston Mountains and Buffalo River is not OREGON but OZARKS. 32A. Patron of barristers and notaries is not some British version of the person who hires a lawyer over there, but the patron saint, in this case ST. MARK. Whew. Exhausting, but the corner finally fell. And that damn convention? VATICAN II.

Now to the southwest. Got going okay when I discovered that 39A. Domain of Paul Bunyan didn’t have to be the city he was from, but rather the genre – FOLKLORE. 37D. Worker’s ideal came next, and it’s DREAM JOB. My mother and I were saying just tonight that no one’s job is ever always fantastic. Can you think of a job that might be? I can’t.

My final struggles came with the bottom three across answers in the southwest corner. 60A. [Vatican II] topic (referencing 1A) could be anything. Turns out it was LATIN. 64A. Hard to get a reaction out of made me go for STOIC, STONY, STONE… but no, it was science here, and the entry is INERT. Clever. Finally, 66A. Where the owl and the pussycat went, in a poem. I never read it. A country? A state? A place? I finally go TO-EA. I’m thinking it’s KOREA, and my 39D was wrong. TOBEA. TOFEA. TOREA – is that a place? The answer was TO SEA. Makes much more sense.

Joon, I applaud you. This was just about the perfect kind of puzzle for me. I really like themeless. I like a handful of answers I can get, a handful more than need some mental wriggling, and a final handful that just keep not making sense over and over until finally they click, and that click leads to a cascade of dominoes in my head, and suddenly it’s ISUZU-OZARKS-FOLKLORE-FIRELIT-IRIS-OREGANO-EGOTISM-PINTA-PLANES-XERXES-JUXTAPOSE-DREAMJOB-LEOX-KNOLLS, and the puzzle is done.

It’s way late, and I have to work in the morning, so no pictures. Sorry. Plus you’re stuck with me for one more day until Ryan gets back from his top secret mission. So… See you Sunday!

I’m still playing around with different things, so here’s my latest effort. It’s two miniature puzzles, both 7×7. I used bars instead of black squares to separate words — although there aren’t that many words to work with. For cluing, I checked up on old clues that had been used for many of the entries here (yes, the fill is nothing out of the ordinary), and tried to keep things a little more consistent than I had in my last puzzle. They’re both probably rather easy, considering that if you get one answer, you’ve got most of many other answers, too.

I’d love your opinions on them, so please feel free to say anything and everything in the comments. I use this blog as a place to try out first drafts, so it’s not like I’m pretending that these are polished, finished products. Heck, there might even still be wrong clues or misspelled entries.

Also, what do you think of the 7×7 form? Is it too small to be worth it? Too easy to be challenging? Maybe I should really go for far more complicated fill? Really, any opinions are welcome.

Oh — and if you know anything about PDFs, maybe you can tell me how to make both of these into a one-page PDF. Don’t they look silly, with all the huge white margin?

• Puzzle Snack 1 (PDF, sorry no PUZ available)
• Puzzle Snack 2 (PDF)

Ryan is off on a top secret assignment in Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. this weekend. He told me that it’s just a coincidence that the Dodgers are playing against the Pirates and Nationals, and that he’s actually travelling for BeMoreSmarter business, so I guess I’ll take his word for it. I don’t know. What do you think?

Today’s puzzle is from Robert Doll, and it surprised me by being a combination of easy-for-a-Friday (I got about 75% of the grid very quickly) and also at the same time, impossible. I stared at the southwest forever, having decided that if Ryan can no-Google all these Saturdays on which he doesn’t know anything, I can at least no-Google a Friday. I’m the reigning E Division champion, for crying out loud. What the hell is wrong with me?

But alas, it was not to be. For there was an impossible series of crossings. Two GCIs and one 50/50, and no matter what I did, the throughline made no sense to me. 34D. Gull’s cry is apparently I BEEN HAD. I assumed that “gull” meant something other than the bird, but I certainly have never heard the word used in any other way. And I had I—E-HA- going down, with some major question marks going across. To wit:

• 38A. Nigerian native : IBO
• 41A. ___ Correo : AEREO
• 51A. Province between Palermo and Catania : ENNA
• and 61A. Things often passed on : Abbr. : RDS

Well, the last one I knew was either RDS (roads) or RTS (routes). That was my 50/50. I thought of IBO for 38A, thinking that maybe I knew it from somewhere. Then I decided that I knew it because IBO was an abbreviation for something stock market-related. (I never got around to deciding that I was thinking of IPO [initial public offering] and that IBO isn’t a stock market acronym, but whatever.) So I abandoned IBO, and was still waffling on RDS/RTS. All this time, of course, I’m trying to figure out what a gull is when it’s not a bird.

In the meantime, I had E-NA for 51A, and deciding that Palermo and Catania were either Italian or Spanish, the only thing that seemed to make sense to me was ETNA. It’s a mountain, maybe it’s a province as well. Here’s what I know about provinces. If you tell me how many are in Canada, I can name all but one. If you tell me how many are in any European country, I can say, “I’m sorry – what do you take me for, some kind of person who knows anything?”

And as for 41A, I knew it was something in another language, and that it could be any letter at all, but that it was probably a consonant. Good thinking, moron.

So I was back to square one, with three foreign words crossing a kind of noise a bird makes, because in 30 minutes of staring, “gull” was still a bird. I decided on IBO (yes), ARREO (no), ETNA (no) and RDS (yes), leaving me with IBRETHAD. And so I decided that an ibrethad was the scientific name a seagull made when squawking on the beach. Voila, I’m done, hooray.

I’m looking back on when I get particularly stuck in crosswords, and without doing the specific math, it sure seems like most of the time, it’s with foreign words or names. In this puzzle, it was IBO, AEREO and ENNA. Joon Pahk, Squirrel of Discord, has reminded me on numerous occasions how much I don’t know about world capitals. My mother and I lamented the other day (while solving some old puzzles together) that neither of us know much about four-letter rivers of the world (now including the Nile, which I have come to learn I know nothing about).

So I need to learn more about the world. What should I do? Buy an atlas? Buy a globe? Take sporcle.com quizzes? I would love advice from the brilliant masses who read this blog on what might be the best way to educate myself in the ways of the world – or at least in the ways of words and names in other languages.

I learned two written languages as a kid – English and music. I’m now barely above average at both, and possess zero knowledge of anything else. Is this the end of the road for me, or is there hope?

Well, no matter what, it’s the end of the post for me. See you Saturday.

P.S. Are there any good collections of themeless puzzles out there, moderately challenging (Friday-ish) that are all in English?

P.P.S. I did a Google search for “i been had” +gull and discovered that there were 23 hits. Twenty-three. That’s how many kids were at recess in Maura Jacobson’s puzzle last week. And the first six hits were other people’s blogs for today’s puzzle. Yet this is still a well-known-enough concept for a crossword puzzle? Hm…

It’s enough with the hackers already.  What do they want from us?  Do they really think that taking over our podcast feed and screwing with everyone’s subscription will convince people to buy weight loss pills?  Have any of you bought weight loss pills as a result of seeing spam on our site?  If you haven’t, please speak up.  Maybe we can show the hackers they’re wasting their time.  All their attacks serve to do is aggravate Brian and me.  Neither of us know what the hell we’re doing when it comes to technically running this blog so it takes hours and hours to undo what the hackers have done.  Oy.  You heard me.  Oy!!

Today’s puzzle is by one of our favorites, Brendan Emmett Quigley Down Under Starring Tom Selleck.  As usual he provided us with a fun theme and a tricky yet fun puzzle.  As many of you know, we here at the Be More Smarter offices think Brendan is the coolest guy in crosswords and today’s puzzle only helped to confirm our feelings.

The theme appended an extra S onto in-the-language phrases.

17A. Band without a drummer? (THE BEATLESS).  Brian is a musician and plays in bands.  My dream is that he will play in a band that doesn’t have a bass.  And he will call his band the Baseless Accusations.  So far, this hasn’t happened.  I continue to hold out hope.

24A. “See ya, idiot!”? (SO LONG ASS).  Both the clue and entry made me laugh.  Both are wonderful ways to say goodbye to someone.

35A. Mission of an Army officers’ school (TRAINING BRASS).  Can someone please explain the concept of the training bra to me?

47A. Nice touch from Roger Daltry and Pete Townshend (WHO CARESS).  Considering Townshend’s legal troubles, this entry takes on another ickier dimension.

54A. Playful kiss on the Discovery (SHUTTLE BUSS).  This one doesn’t seem to fit with the rest.  All the other entries are pronounced differently than their in-the-language counterparts.  This one is pronounced the same.  It doesn’t mean it’s bad, it’s just different.

Very fun theme.

Other highlights:

5A. ___ Thule, distant unknown land (ULTIMA).  I don’t know anything about Ultima Thule but I did play a lot of Ultima on the computer in high school.  Good times.

16A. Musician who started the Obscure Records label (ENO).  Much like you almost always see a baseball clue in puzzles constructed by Barry C. Silk, Friend and Confidante to Doug Peterson, Crossword Gentleman and Man About Town, you can bet there’ll be references in Brendan’s puzzles to bands and labels of which I’ve never heard.

63A. Like this puzzle…not! (EASY).  I can’t tell if this is a pun about the theme or if Brendan is using the last clue in the puzzle to warn us about the difficulty level.

5D. Home of Arches National Park (UTAH).  I’ve been there.  It’s great and makes you feel like you’re walking on another planet.  I have video of me there.  Unfortunately, it’s on a HI8 cassette which means it’s a pain in the ass to watch it.

9D. Rapid, to Rossini (MOSSO).  Dude, c’mon, seriously.

57D. One to one, for one (TIE).  Great clue.

Another great puzzle by Brendan and, shockingly, my 25th no-google in a row.

Next stop, Friday.

Will Shortz is putting on a crossword tournament. No, not that one. Another one. Here’s all the details:

This Friday, Sept. 25, will be the 13th annual Westchester (N.Y.) Crossword Puzzle Tournament, hosted by Will Shortz. The event goes from 7:30 to about 9:45 p.m. The contest will be held at the St. John’s Episcopal Church, 8 Sunnyside Ave. (corner of Bedford Road), in Pleasantville. The atmosphere is relaxed and friendly. The puzzles will consist of the Monday through Thursday crosswords from next New York Times. Two of the four constructors are expected to be on hand as officials. Prizes are awarded in many categories. Regular Times crossword constructors can’t compete, but are welcome to help judge. The cost to enter is $30 (or $45 for a doubles team), which includes coffee and dessert, with all the proceeds going to the Pleasantville Fund for Learning. Registration can be done at the door. The site is convenient from MetroNorth or by car. For more information, call 914-773-7794 or visit <www.pleasantville-fund-for-learning.com>.

Unfortunately, neither Brian nor I will be able to attend. Brian has family obligations and I’ll be on a mini baseball road trip. My friend Max and I will be seeing the Dodgers in DC and Pittsburgh. Rain is threatening in DC and the G20 conference will be going on in Pitt so it should be an interesting weekend.

Today’s puzzle was constructed by Jonathan Gersch and has a HENRY HUDSON theme. Did Henry Hudson do something special on September 23? Or is there no significance to the puzzle showing up today? As far as I can tell he was on a TRANSATLANTIC voyage and backed by SPICE TRADErs when he sailed through the ARCTIC OCEAN and into NEW YORK HARBOR aboard the HALF MOON on September 11, 1609. And on September 12 he sailed up the extremely coincidentally named Hudson river before returning to AMSTERDAM. As for September 23, I have no idea what he was doing. Perhaps he was being a YENTA or applying GEL or looking through his ETUI for a pin or a needle. It’s hard to say. Perhaps he was dreaming of outfitting his future ship DISCOVERY with furnishings from IKEA.

Other highlights:

49D. “24” agent Jack (BAUER).  Pickles and I love this show.  I don’t know how the writers are going to work themselves out of last season’s ending.  Jack was on his death bed after being exposed to a deadly biological weapon.  I do know next season will take place in New York and will possibly be the final season.

53D. “You don’t need to wake me” (IM UP).  I used this entry in a puzzle I recently constructed.  The clue I came up with was “Insomniac’s usual answer to ‘Are you asleep?’”  I think I like Mr. Gersch’s better.

Short post today.  I’m home from a long shift, falling asleep and having trouble typing.

Fun puzzle.  Is there a connection to September 23?

Next stop, Thursday.