Ryan and Brian do Crosswords

A few weeks ago, I completed a Saturday puzzle. I was very pleased with myself. And it seems that ever since then, I have been nothing but a complete failure at this end of the week. And after cheating heartily, I still couldn’t complete it (and get “accepted” by the New York Times applet) — until I discovered that my cheating source had a mistake of its own. Whoops! See what Googling gets you?

This puzzle was pretty much a grid full of Things I Will Never Know, most of which crossed Other Things I Will Never Know (The Sequel). Some examples:

• 31D. Trans-Siberian Railroad stop and 36A. Classic name in copiers : OMSK/MITA. There is only one classic name in copiers, and it is Xerox. Whoever this Mita nonsense is needs to get with the program. And I know about the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which is not the same thing as the Railroad. But here’s a vide of a delightful (if somewhat manipulated) Christmas light display using music of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra as accompaniment.

• 8D. Game played on an 81-square board : SHOGI. Doesn’t matter what this crosses with, what the hello is Shogi? According to Wiklqpedia, it’s also known as Japanese chess, and it’s quite popular with people who are too smart for normal chess. I am not smart enough for normal chess, getting regularly beaten on the “Easy” level against my Palm Pilot years ago, until my inner rage against that particular machine was such that I had to either delete the game from the PDA’s memory, or delete the PDA from my own existence. And to just make me feel really good about myself, here’s a picture of some extremely young children obviously mastering this game that far exceeds my own mental agility.

• 34D. Grp. formed in Bogotá in 1948 : OAS. I wonder if this was just some random social club — you know, like three old ladies got together and said, “Let’s form a club. No boys allowed. Let’s drink tea and eat Madelines and discuss painting and sculpture and our favorite books. We’ll call ourselves the Original Art Society.” And while I know that Wikipedia is not the source of all information, it’s worth pointing out that there are eleven other OAS listings available that aren’t the Organization of American States.
• 1D. City near the Wasatch Mountains : OGDEN. This is the sort of clue that gets under my skin. It makes a very specific reference to a place or thing I’ve never heard of, and then the answer is something else I’ve never heard of. It’s as if the clue is saying, “Okay, we’re looking for the name of a city. And since it would be ridiculous to ask you to just guess the city, we’ll tell you it’s near something else. We won’t tell you what the something else is, but the city we want is near it. Okay? Go.” (And in case you’re wondering, it’s in Utah.)
• 

  31A. Able to stand the heat? : OVEN-PROOF. There’s a term for this?

• 53D. Birthplace of Yves Saint Laurent and 57A. Papal capes : ORAN/ORALES. I was sure it would be OMAN, not ORAN, since OMAN is an actual place that I’ve heard of, and since I’ve also heard of Yves St. Laurent, it stands to reason that he’d have been from an actual place. My knowledge of papal capes is about as deep as my knowledge of four-lettered river names and Asian board games with 81 squares, so the answer could have been anything.

I have about two months before I have to be able to do Saturday-level puzzles at the ACPT. I will make an extremely poor showing, there is no doubt. Maybe the Great Howard Barkin, Knower of All Things, will let me cheat off his paper…

Yes! Finally! For the first time I broke the 5 minute mark on a New York Times Crossword. Hey, Tyler, you hear me knocking?

My time on this Sharon E. Peterson puzzle was 4:29. My record time being the result of a pretty easy puzzle, my dashing good looks and, somehow, going 4 minutes and 29 seconds without making a bonehead mistake. That last one has got to be some sort of record for my day to day life as well.

The theme here was “Two Word Phrases Where the Second Word is Immediately Preceded by the First Word. With the Aforementioned First Word Having an Additional Meaning Than That Which is Used in the Two Word Phrase. With the Aforementioned Additional Meaning Pertaining to a Masculine Four-Legged Beast.”

17A. Completely nude (BUCKNAKED). Also, George Costanza’s porn star name.

66A. All-male gathering (STAGPARTY)

11D. Bygone Dodge S.U.V. (RAMCHARGER)

30D. “Buy buy buy” time on Wall Street (BULLMARKET)

Other highlights:

39A. “Les Misérables” fugitive (VALJEAN). With all apologies to musical-hating Brian, here’s “Who Am I?” from the 10th Anniversary of Les Miz.

47A. Cauliflower ___ (EAR). Bleh.

64A. Catawampus (ASKEW). A quick google search of catawampus turns up a theory of the word’s origin, a future etail site, a band’s myspace page and an audition notice for an upcoming film.

12D. Alps-to-Arles river (RHONE). This must be a typo. Rivers can’t have names longer than 4 letters.

All in all, a fine Monday puzzle. If you were going to put a Monday puzzle in a time capsule to show the people of future what we solved every 7th day this would be a good one to choose. NEE, ARES, ALBA, OPAL, ELL, TARA, UMA, LOCO and on and on.

In other, completely unrelated news I finally saw Tropic Thunder last night. Hilarious. “I don’t read the script. Script reads me.” Good stuff.

Next stop, Tuesday.

I’ve had a difficult time tearing myself away from a new XBox 360 game this weekend, so my blogs are coming about a little late… What can you do.

New York Times - 3:21
Los Angeles Times - 4:09
CrosSynergy - 3:24
New York Sun - 6:50
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My cold is not better. I feel like crap. Over the past week, I managed to twenty-one Monday-level puzzles in a row in under five minutes. I was thrilled with this streak. This morning, I picked one up, and took seven minutes. Now I’m in a bad mood all day. This is not healthy.

And then I took a crack at today’s New York Times puzzle. Five minutes, forty-one seconds. I totally suck.

New York Times - 5:41
New York Sun - 3:40
Los Angeles Times - 3:50
CrosSynergy - gave up after ten minutes with only ten answers filled.

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I don’t like the 01-02-03 format of my date headers anymore, so I’m switching to more word-y ones. Feel free to register your complaints.

New York Times - 4:03 (which might be a personal best, using the applet)
CrosSynergy - 10:23
New York Sun - 4:50

New York Times
by Christina Houlihan Kelly; edited by Will Shortz

I spent a bulk of today working on my insanely insane spreadsheet, but have learned quite a bit about Excel in the process. Hooray, Excel! For example, I now have averaged a sub-5-minute Monday over the past twenty Mondays I’ve done.

Today’s puzzle was quick and easy, and I’m starting to think that maybe Tuesday should become my default level of choice. We’ll see. The theme today was barriers, I suppose:

• 20A. Bidding impediment? : AUCTION BLOCK
• 33A. Outdoor meal deterrent? : PICNIC HAMPER
• 44A. Truth obstruction? : REALITY CHECK
• 58A. Metallic element’s obstacle? : ALUMINUM FOIL

I don’t think I’ve ever referred to my campsite trunk as a hamper, always a basket or cooler. But that’s okay… Of course, I parsed it as PICNIC CHAMPER (giving myself an extra C) for some reason, and wondered for a bit what a “champer” was.

I think Ryan and I are going to do a Saturday-Sunday-Monday podcast sometime Monday night, so keep your iPods peeled for it…

CrosSynergy: Abracadabra!
by Patrick Blindauer

Not only did the central clue (and structural concept behind this puzzle) totally stall me, but once I finally filled it in, I had no idea what it even meant. That, to me, signifies a sadly unsatisfying puzzle. 40A. Magician, and word whose ten letters make up every answer in this puzzle. It seems I’m looking for a five-letter magician’s name and a ten-letter word (which may or may not have anything to do with said magician)… Right?

The answer is PRESTIDIGITATOR. I have no idea how to parse that. Hold on a moment, while I ask Wikipedia…

[time passed: about four minutes]

Okay, I’m back and with the answer. We are not looking for a five-letter magician’s name (who is PREST, I wondered?) and a ten-letter word (IDIGITATOR is not a word). Apparently, PRESTIDIGITATOR is a word in itself that means magician and only contains ten letters [A, D, E, G, I, O, P, R, S, T] which then make up the rest of the grid.

Ah, yes. How wonderful. Presto-chango, and when was I ever to have learned that ridiculous word?

New York Sun: Green-lighting
by Michael Langwald; edited by Peter Gordon

This was cute and fun, and rejuvenated me after my disappointing turn on the CrosSynergy. Here, 69A. Middleman (and a hint to this puzzle’s theme), which is a GO-BETWEEN, serves as the set-up for all the long answers:

• 17A. Word of encouragement : YOU GO, GIRL!
• 21A. 1984 #1 hit for Prince and the Revolution : LET’S GO CRAZY
• 31A. Carousel : MERRY-GO-ROUND
• 48A. Carefree : HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
• 64A. “That subject is off-limits” : DON’T GO THERE

Straightforward and enjoyable. Thank you, as always, New York Sun.

Haven’t started on the 25-foot deal yet… Not sure exactly how to begin. I suppose at the left edge, since it apparently gets harder as it progresses rightward. I have some work to do over the weekend (i.e. taxes), so we’ll see what happens. The wife is still rehabbing her knee, so I’m tending to her needs as well. Late Wednesday night, though, I tackled the Thursday challenges. Or, at least, some of them. (I still think that the Sun puzzles are out of my league.)

Also, I’m trying to use different colors for clue answers… Brown yesterday, purple today. We’ll see what I eventually like.

Scores
New York Times 18:55
Los Angeles Times 9:30
CrosSynergy 8:09
New York Sun 21:56 (with one gimme)
Wall Street Journal 29:52

New York Times
by David J. Kahn; edited by Will Shortz

Loved this. Absolutely loved this. The only bad part is that I took too much time looking for the gimmicks, I think it added minutes to my (already pathetic) time:

• 64A. What you can find in the grid after completing this puzzle, looking up, down, left, right and diagonally, word search-style : A DOZEN ROSES

And lo and behold, there are a dozen “ROSE” sequences hidden throughout the grid. Oh, such joy. The long center answer at 38A. Classic 1911 children’s novel… with a hint to this puzzle’s theme was THE SECRET GARDEN, which sadly I learned as a musical before I learned it as a book.

I had some trouble with a handful of things in the left area… 38D. One way to get to the top is always always something clever, and never something logical. I have probably missed cutesy clues for T-BAR on more occasions than I can count. A life in Maine apparently did not provide me with enough skiing jargon. And I went with the opposite guess on 39D. “Too great a burden to bear”: Martin Luther King, Jr. by trying to make HOPE work when he was talking about HATE. Up in the top right, my errant choices of ANOL, HARDWOOD and INK for 10D, 11D and 12D led me into all kinds of trouble. If only I knew that ALEPPO was a city in Syria, I might have avoided what felt like hours of cluelessness. (Can one suffer from cluelessness in a crossword puzzle, where one is inundated with clues?)

My Excel spreadsheet is getting out of hand. I’ve included a screen shot here. I think you can right-click and View image… to see it at it’s full resolution.

In other news, I’m making flash cards for myself on words I never remember. I’m starting with the list in Amy Reynaldo’s book, and adding to it as I go through archives of New York Times puzzles. To be fair, I’m not actually sure what my goal is here. I think my goal has many facets: 1) to be more smarter, thank you for playing; 2) to finish higher than 563rd at next year’s ACPT; 3) to complete a full week of New York Times puzzles without the aid of Google, Wikipedia or other internet sources (or any sources, for that matter). Perhaps I also need to buy a book of 1,000,001 useless facts.

Los Angeles Times
by Gary Steinmehl; edited by Rich Norris

Did it in half the time as the New York puzzle, but had about half the fun. It got off to a great start as the 1D. Sound of sawing wood was ZZZ. Initially, I hoped that triple letters or grouped consonants or something would be the trick. Alas, no. Instead, the trick was saved for the last of the down clues, 67D. Word that can precede the first word in the answers to starred clues (SKY). A little boring, and with it as the only throughline for the puzzle, left me wanting more. Maybe this was because of the absolute utter joy I had with the New York Times puzzle. I mean — a dozen roses! So cool!Because I’m more interested in the New York Times than the L.A. puzzle, I’ll just list the long answers here and be done with it:

• 18A. Doing the macarena, e.g. : LINE DANCING
• 23A. Stationery : WRITING PAPER
• 53A. Carefree : LIGHT HEARTED
• 61A. Cannonball origination spot : DIVING BOARD

There you have it.

CrosSynergy: “Ster-linguistics”
by Randolph Ross

Cute puzzle, if a little generic. The title was the most confusing part to me. Is the title a play on some long word I don’t know? Or a phrase I don’t know? Or is it just a random made up hyphenated word to explain that the long answers within the grid will get STER added to them somewhere?

• 17A. Physicians who treat unmarried women? : SPIN[STER] DOCTORS
• 25A. Dictionary reader, at times? : WEB[STER] BROWSER — I think this would have been better clued as “Online dictionary reader” or “Electronic dictionary reader.” The “at times” thing is a clue trick I really don’t care for that much.
• 42A. Those with affection for cool cats? : HIP[STER] HUGGERS
• 55A. Rodent in the rye? : HAM[STER] SANDWICH

Otherwise, there was one little gem within the grid: 36D. Pupil in the 70s? (C STUDENT)… Other than that, fairly straightforward. I was distracted in the middle (and paused the clock) while my wife killed a bumblebee in our foyer. I am deathly afraid of flying insects, and this guy was huge. I am still having a mild coronary, and it’s been twenty minutes.

New York Sun: Themeless Thursday
by Doug Peterson; edited by Peter Gordon

I tried. I let Across Lite show me a few mistakes (not answers, just where squares were wrong), and then I asked for one free answer at 8D. Rose’s home (PBS), which I still don’t understand. I assume there’s someone named Rose who has a show on PBS. Or lives at the station. I don’t know.

I think the Sun puzzles are like an insider game… You have to be brilliant to do them, to enjoy them. It’s like a secret society. If you have fun doing the Sun puzzles, you are part of the Crossword Society of the World. I am not a worthy pledge to such an organization. I need to be more smarter. Maybe next year…

New York Times 5:37
Los Angeles Times 4:28
CrosSynergy 5:48

New York Times
by David J. Kahn, edited by Will Shortz

Meh.

I don’t know very much about The King. I don’t know what movies he did, I don’t know where his life took him. I appreciate what he did in music history and American pop culture history, but I’m just not that interested.

That said, it took me too long to do this Monday. It wasn’t that satisfying. I took more time than I should have on both the left and right sides because I did all the across clues instead of the few downs. Plus, I still suck at maneuvering around the grid on the NY Times website (in Across Lite I can TAB from one clue to another; is there a way to do that on the NY Times site? If you know how — please tell me!). Plus I still suck at crosswords in general.

I am not interested enough in Elvis to post any answers here. Use the links to the right to find someone else’s blog of answers today…

Los Angeles Times
by Mike Peluso, edited by Will Shortz

I’m just tired. The long answers here seemed like they could have been from any of the dozens of other puzzles I did today. Nothing standout.

I’m in a bad mood.

Okay, the long answers here were:

• 20A. Graveside service phrase (ASHES TO ASHES)
• 33A. From Maine to California (COAST TO COAST)
• 41A. How a book is usually read (COVER TO COVER)
• 56A. Very sincere, as a conversation (HEART TO HEART)

Fine. Very nicely done, Mike Peluso. I’m just tired and hungry, so nothing is satisfying me. I have to work in the morning, and that annoys me. Grr.

CrosSynergy: Exit Poles
by Sarah Keller

This time, I actually looked at the title. And then saw that it would do nothing to help me fill in the squares.

I’m falling into a bad routine here, with the Across Lite puzzles. I don’t check my answers. I make guesses and leave them there. If I were re-entering the ACPT, I’d lose tons of points for my errors (not to mention that I still suck for times).

Anyway… The theme here was answers that ended with kinds of poles:

• 17A. Vegetable used in a traditional Thanksgiving dinner casserole (GREEN BEANS) — Did the clue need to be this long? Aren’t there smarter ways to clue GREEN BEANS? How about “Jolly Giant’s fare” or even “___ casserole.”
• 37A. “A New Leaf” actress/director (ELAINE MAY)
• 42A. Surrender symbol (WHITE FLAG)
• 62A. Navigator’s director (TRUE NORTH) — I didn’t like this clue either, even though I got it. Something about “navigator” made me dislike it.

A couple of stumpers for me, though:

• 36D. Hindu deity (SHIVA) — Really? This word means more than Jews mourning a death?
• 43D. Asmara’s republic (ERITREA) — Asmara is a… person? City? School? No idea.

Fine, I suppose… I seem to have settled into the 5-6 minute range for most Monday-level puzzles. In terms of the ACPT, that’s already a three-minute improvement over my Puzzle #1 time.

And now, off to work…

New York Times 10:57
The Onion 12:44
Los Angeles Times 10:15 (with cheating)
CrosSynergy 9:25
New York Sun 18:23
Universal 13:45

New York Times
by Gary Whitehead, edited by Will Shortz

I looked at the clock with about four empty squares on my grid. SIX MINUTES AND FOURTEEN SECONDS. Yes, I had all but four squares filled in just over six minutes. That is amazing.

Almost.

What would have been amazing was if I could have taken less than four more minutes to do four more squares.

And without cheating.

The southwest killed me. It’s like San Diego, Phoenix, Albuquerque and something in northern Mexico all teamed up and beat me to a pulp. For the life of me, I had absolutely no idea on 56A. Deceptive talker or 64A. Chocolatier’s gear, and specifically the squares crossing with 58D. M.p.h., e.g. and the explanation-of-the-theme clue, 56D. What 20-, 37- and 53-Across may do.

(more of this and the other puzzles below… click the link for more!)

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New York Times 6:54
Los Angeles Times 7:35
New York Sun 10:03
CrosSynergy 12:27

(my stories come after the link… read on!)

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

New York Times 7:38 (or 6:06 with one square wrong)
New York Sun 6:02
LA Times 4:31
CrosSynergy 13:21
USA Today 18:19
Universal 13:17

(my stories come after the link… read on!)

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