Ryan solves the NYT, 11-6-9
For those who didn’t hear, we got hacked yesterday. The site was down yesterday for a few hours and it looked for a little while like all of our posts were gone for good. Luckily, everything had been backed up on October 22nd and we were able to restore our site to that point. We have the posts after that date saved offline and we will be restoring them over the weekend. Until we do, the commenting system may be a little screwy (well, screwier than normal). All of our comments from the missing posts are still in the system and they appear to be latching on to random entries. So if this post has a bunch of comments about last Thursday’s puzzle please do not be alarmed.
Why would somebody hack our site? There’s certainly no money to be gained. Is it possible that people sit around and write programs simply because they enjoy destroying other people’s work? Really? I do not like these people. These people are bastard people.
Narrowing down a list of possible suspects I’ve come to the conclusion that the person who did this is none other than Philadelphia Phillie centerfielder Shane Victorino. Mr. Victorino has done everything in his power to make my life miserable for the past 2 years and I find it very suspicious that on the first day he has some free time our site gets hacked. Mr. Victorino, why do you hate me?
Today’s puzzle? Ah yes, today’s puzzle was constructed by one of our all-time favorites, Doug Peterson, Crossword Gentleman and Man About Town. This has got to be one of Doug’s best weeks. First, his team wins the World Series and now his puzzle holds the coveted Friday slot.
Given Doug’s bad taste in baseball teams the center of the grid sports an unsurprising entry.
31D. Baseball nickname that’s a portmanteau (AROD). Yankee fans are finally happy with Arod. Isn’t that just dandy.
The puzzle is great. Full of fun fill and fun clues.
10A. Page with convictions (OPED). I couldn’t wrap my head around this one. I kept thinking it was a person’s name (like Ellen Page) or a verb (as in, call someone’s name over the PA system with convictions).
14A. Dull type (IGNORAMUS). Ignoramus is great word.
15A. Campus V.I.P. (PREXY). Doug is so full of beans because the Yankees won that he feels he can just make up words.
17A. Clearly riveted (AGAPE). I put IN AWE here first.
36A. Subject of the 2005 biography “iCon” (STEVE JOBS). Have I mentioned that we love our iPhones?
37A. Spotted (LENT). Oh my, this was tough. I was sure it was SEEN. Then I had _ENT and I wrote down all the words it could possibly be. And about 10 minutes later I figured it out.
56A. Best in shows (EDNA). Never heard of her.
5D. A tall Roman column is named after him (TRAJAN). Here I am lost in Rome. If only I knew the name of that huge column behind me.
8D. “The English Patient” Oscar winner (JULIETTE BINOCHE). I remember this because everyone thought Lauren Bacall would win. Hey, remember how The English Patient was 15 hours long?
9D. Comment when following someone (I SEE). This is my favorite clue in the puzzle. Very clever.
10D. Source of ballpark pitches (ORGAN). Well, I knew it wasn’t going to have anything to do with throwing a baseball. I thought it might be referring to advertising so I had ___ AD for a while. On a side note, the last two vestiges of the Dodgers’ time as the most stable franchise in baseball are Vin Scully behind the mic for 60 years and Nancy Bea Hefley on the Dodger Stadium organ for 22 years.
35D. Sight-seers at the Prado? (OJOS). I got this one pretty quickly but really enjoyed it.
Great puzzle today. Great week for Doug. And, Shane Victorino, we’ve got our ojos on you.
Next stop, Saturday.
