On to today’s puzzle by Caleb Madison who we met at the ACPT and is much cooler than the two of us put together. The theme was about different ways to get your teeth knocked out by that guy who hates you.

20A. Slapstick puppet show (PUNCH AND JUDY).

33A. “I’m ready for anything!” (SOCK IT TO ME).

44A. Go get some shuteye (HIT THE SACK).

57A. Yuletide tune (DECK THE HALLS).

So far in my life, I’ve avoided getting punched in the face although I know that could change at any moment. There was a guy in the 7th grade named James who enjoyed punching me in the arm repeatedly until my bicep started to quiver. I would calmly explain to him that his actions were hurting me and that I would prefer that he stopped. I’m not sure if it was the high pitched whine I used to deliver this information or the fact that my Indiana Jones hat was not cocked at the correct angle thus depriving it of its authority but my protestations only served to incite more and more bicep punching. This went on for the first two or three months of junior high school until the fates smiled on me and transferred James and his fists to either another school within our district or, more likely, the bowels of San Quentin. I never found out which but he was never heard from again. James, if you’re reading this, send me a line. I’ve love to catch up.

29A. Kind of tide (LEE). This is kind of a random clue for Tuesday. Shouldn’t it be something like “Popular jeans” or “Fall Guy Majors”?

9D. Co-creator of the Fantastic Four (STAN LEE). For those of you who don’t know, the other co-creator was the great Jack Kirby. It is truly remarkable that such an interesting and ground-breaking series has been given such a crappy movie treatment. This was the book that started the whole Marvel empire and the movies are cheapy, special-effects driven afterthoughts. I vote for a do over.

39D. Worker on a comic book (INKER). INKERs don’t get enough credit and probably will never get enough credit but that’s the way it goes. Here’s Joe Sinnott’s website.

64D. Cup holder? (BRA). Hmm. I don’t get this. Aren’t the cups part of the BRA?

Fun puzzle, Caleb.

Next stop, Wednesday.

This puzzle by Barry C. Silk had me pulling my hair out with the entire northwest territory. He gets off to a very selfish start, offering 1A. Park near Philly’s City Hall, site of the LOVE statue. This is not just one of those run-of-the-mill Stick It To You clues (where the clue makes a very casual reference to something completely unknown, leaving me to feel doubly stupid for knowing neither the clue nor the answer), but a Double Stick It To You clue, what with both the City Hall and the LOVE statue. And I still have no clue. I’ve been to Philadelphia twice. I don’t know anything there. Maybe the Eagles?

So forget the northwest for now. It’s still empty. The rest of the puzzle is full of JBGs — Just Barely Gettables. Things that are like 0.01% over the line of gettable. In fact, one was a complete guess and one I got wrong. So actually not so gettable for me. The total guess was 65A. 1966 hit for the Capitols. The answer is COOL JERK, which I don’t know. The reason it was a guess was the J and the K. 61D. Period in Indian history is RAJ, which only makes sense to me because it’s sort of like RAJA or TAJ or other Indian words like that. The K is my problem. Isn’t the 36D. Passe video store offering a LASERDISC? With a C? The internet shows me over six million Google hits for LASERDISC (with a C), including the Wikipedia entry. With a K at the end (LASERDISK, like in the puzzle), Google shows me 206,000 hits. Barry C. Silk, where’s the proper loyalty to your middle initial? From now on, you are Barry K. Silk to me.

Southwest area, somewhere around El Paso, TX (not to be confused with south-central, where 46D. Texas’s westernmost county [EL PASO] is in the grid), I have never heard of AXILLA (58A. Secret area of the anatomy?). I looked this up, and it’s the armpit. Why is this a secret? I’m confused by the so-called “clever” clue. Is it secret because we don’t talk about them much, the armpits? Let’s do the armpits of the world a service — tomorrow, at some point during the day, please hold a sincere discussion with a friend or co-worker about your armpits. And use the word AXILLA in it.

Oh, which part of AXILLA was your error, Brian? It was the second L. I know nothing about Valentino movies, and 5D/59D. is Rudolph Valentino’s “Blood and Sand” co-star. With blank-E-E (and 5D being four letters), I couldn’t stop thinking about Ruby Dee, and figured that maybe she was in this movie. (HINT: She wasn’t.) Playing the Kevin Bacon game, I can get from Rudolph Valentino to Ruby Dee in two steps — Adolphe Menjou was in “The Sheik” with Valentino and in “The Tall Target” with Dee (picture at left). Who can name another Adolphe Menjou film? Quick, you have until I solve the northwest, or until July (whichever comes first).

At this point, I have no choice but to give you a play-by-play of my inability to completely solve this puzzle. So, at 1:44 a.m., here I go.

1:44 a.m.: Apparently, 28D. They’re the fault of faults isn’t CHASMS or SPASMS, but rather SEISMS, which I certainly would never have gotten since it’s totally made up. Other than LEE in place of DEE, this was the first answer I had to look up. It has not broken open the northwest, though. I’m still looking for that breakthrough. I’ll keep you updated as I work.

1:47 a.m.: POEMs don’t follow convention (although of course, some do). There’s nothing called MUHR, but rather RUHR (53A. Arnsberg is on it). So it’s convention-GOERs. That it’s not MUHR is good, since I have MUIR for 22A. Sierra Club founder, and those two would be awfully similar to appear in the same puzzle.

1:49 a.m.: Along those lines, what’s I’M GONE and I’M DONE doing here in one grid? The first is 16A. “Ciao!”; the second is 45A. Confirmation to a busboy. But wow, those are awfully alike.

1:53 a.m.: Can you have a single SCAD of something? 32D. Lot suggests that yes, you can.

1:59 a.m.: I have it in my head that 2D. Result of a combustion explosion is going to be some kind of —–BURN. This is left over from when I thought SEISMS was CHASMS, and I thought 27A. Picked styles was A, B OR C. Now that all looks ridiculous, but I’m stuck on STEAM BURN. I don’t even know what a combustion engine is. Can you get a steam burn from it?

2:07 a.m.: RYANNNNNN! Come home, and solve the rest of this.

2:08 a.m.: Stupid Ryan.

2:09 a.m.: I have to be up in seven hours and go to work. This is going to end quite badly for me.

2:14 a.m.: A few guesses are confirmed by XWordInfo.com. 25A. Prefix with facsimile (TELE) and 21D. Dartmoor setting (DEVON) (No, I’ve never heard of this at all) suggest that 29A. Prepares with hot seasoning is either ANVILS or CAVILS or DEVILS. None of these things involve spice. Or heat. Except anvils, which are used for pounding hot metal. I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. I think DEVILS, although the two foods I know that have the devil in them (Devil’s food cake and deviled eggs) do not contain hot spices.

2:18 a.m.: 8D. Pair of diamonds? is ARGYLES. Dear lord.

2:23 a.m.: More guessing, confirming, realizing I’m an idiot.

2:25 a.m.: 7D. Totally beat. ME ON THIS PUZZLE.

2:26 a.m.: And appropriately, at this hour, ZONKED.

2:31 a.m.: This is nonsense. I am giving up. Here are the answers I didn’t know, even after Googling:

• 1A. Park near Philly’s City Hall, site of the LOVE statue : JFK PLAZA
• 1D. It was captured by British forces in 1917 : JERUSALEM. I’d love it if someday all the stupid fighting over whether there’s an Israel, whether it’s a country, all of that would just end. This is the lamest war ever. There’s tons of the world out there — leave them alone.
• 2D. Result of a combustion explosion : FLASH FIRE
• 3D. Eponym of a national forest in New Mexico : KIT CARLSON. This seems ridiculous. There’s a forest in New Mexico called Kit Carlson Forest?
• 15A. Drawer : ELICITOR. Really? One who draws = one who elicits. Oy.
• 17A. Fazing : RATTLING
• 31A. Fine threads : LISSLES
• 41A. Head word : MEN. I don’t understand this. Head, like bathroom?

Well, there it is. Current no-Google streak is zero for the second day in a row. Sad to be me. I will be back, blogging for your enjoyment tomorrow and Monday. So until then, just hang onto your hats, ’cause Ryan will return soon.

See you Sunday.

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…

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.

New York Times – 3:21
Los Angeles Times – 4:09
CrosSynergy – 3:24
New York Sun – 6:50
New York Times
constructed by Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke; edited by Will Shortz

I was very pleased with myself here, only coming in a scant thirteen seconds longer than crossword genius, Orange. I got the things that rhymed with -ACKET fairly fast, and I find that when I can whiz through the theme answers right away, I save myself a good thirty seconds (or more) on my time.

Since Ryan has detailed the answers below, I’ll use this space to point out that I have never heard the song for which SAL is famous. What is this song? I will have to get it from the iTunes Store. Speaking of the iTunes Store, you can access our podcast there. It’s quite funny, even if the latest episode has lousy sound quality. We’re still learning.

Los Angeles Times
constructed by Gail Grabowski; edited by Rich Norris

After joyously racing through most of last week’s L.A. Times puzzles at record paces, I found myself floundering somewhat here. Apparently, 60-Across was supposed to clue me into the puzzle’s theme. The answer there is PASTA SHAPES, which four theme answers start with:

• 17A. Like some notebooks : SPIRAL BOUND
• 38A. Sailor’s knot : BOWLINE
• 11D. Athletic hosiery : TUBE SOCKS
• 31D. Sleight-of-hand scam : SHELL GAME

I struggled with 11-Down, because I was sure that 11A. Huck’s raftmate was JIM, not TOM. I couldn’t make any sense of the JUBESO___ I had at 11-Down for the longest time… Grr. Also, I wonder if TUBE is a bit of a cop-out for pasta shapes… Maybe not, but there are so many tubes (penne, ziti, rigatoni, etc.) and only one bowtie (farfalle). I don’t know… Maybe that’s just my four-minute frustration talking.

34A. Yr.-end consultant troubled me, as the answer was CPA – a consultant I don’t ever consider until at least April 12th each year. Maybe I’m late on the game, but what normal people (i.e. Monday-style-clue people) think of anything outside of tax season when it comes to CPAs? And I wonder if I’ll ever retain the differences between NITRO and NITRE, between OCHER and OCHRE, etc. And never ever ever can I recall what D.D.E.’s something-or-other in the war was. It didn’t appear in this puzzle, but I just read it in the New York Times puzzle and have already forgotten it. I am way not smarter enough.

CrosSynergy: End Zone
constructed by Martin Ashwood-Smith

Someday, I’ll also retain the information about what puzzles have what difficulty levels on what days… I really am so clueless about so much.

This puzzle had three long answers that covered the theme of the puzzle — “ending” words:

• 17A. Lawyer’s conclusion : CLOSING ARGUMENT
• 39A. Flying disc sport : ULTIMATE FRISBEE
• 61A. Bruce Willis movie of 1996 : LAST MAN STANDING

The fill was generally fun, although three tricky answers packed together in the center, with 27D. I.D. TAG, 28D. THERM and 29D. SOFT C – not a normal word in the bunch. Plus, they crossed with the center theme answer, a two-word phrase (RED HOT) and an acronym (GMC), so no smooth sailing in that zone.

New York Sun: Fish Sandwich
constructed by Alan Arbesfeld; edited by Peter Gordon

Late in the day, brains running out… Too many wrong choices that I forgot I had made left me useless… Spent three minutes just looking for my errant squares. The theme was hidden fish, which is not a fun game to play in your own kitchen, by the way.

• 20A. The Senate, e.g. : UPPER CHAMBER (perch)
• 28A. Scoop shop option : SWISS ALMONDS (salmon) — Seriously? Swiss almonds? I can’t remember ever seeing any almonds in an ice cream parlor, let alone some specific kind.
• 35A. Panzer battler : SHERMAN TANK (manta)
• 42A. One doing the hustle : DISCO DANCER (cod)
• 53A. Xenon, for example, in the atmosphere : TRACE ELEMENT (eel)

Cute. Got too stuck too often, so am still not smarter. Time for bed.

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.

New York Times: 17- and 64-Across and 11- and 34-Down each conceals an article of clothing.
constructed by Gary Disch; edited by Will Shortz

The longest title in the history of the New York Times crossword puzzle. Thankfully, I didn’t see the title (Monday’s don’t usually have them), so I didn’t spend an extra hour or two trying to figure the theme out.
Instead, I was plenty moronic without cause, unable to find most of the lower left. On a Monday, 49D. À la mode (CHIC) really ought to be about pie. Never heard of PERGOLA (pictured at right), THRALL or LOIRE, so there was really no solving the corner without assistance. Assistance on a Monday. I should be taken out back and shot.

In the meantime, 34D. Daytona 500 enthusiast is not RACER FAN, RACING FAN, RACE CAR FAN… Grr. It’s NASCAR FAN, of course. But I had a bear of time making that come out. And crossing it — conundrums have PUNS in them (32A)? According to Merriam Webster, yes they do. According to me, that’s a couple laundry LOADS short of insane.

Fortunately, I didn’t try to do this puzzle IN PEN, as I was stuck in one too many a TANGLE, barely able to EKE out completion, let alone a decent time. I’d like RELAX about it, but PERGOLA PREVUE NEPALI CAPOS TEA. Yuck.

(On a side note, I just read Orange’s blog on this puzzle, and was relieved to see that she agrees on the Monday-ness of some of these words. Thank you, Orange!)

New York Sun: Punchy Language
constructed by Mark Feldman; edited by Peter Gordon

Who would have thought that the Sun would be my best time of the morning. No one, probably — but that’s because no one’s reading this, or cares much for how quickly I do anything.

Nonetheless, I’m typing away, typing away… Only after I’ve finished the puzzle do I see the theme. HOOKED ON PHONICS, JABBERWOCKY and CROSSWORD SOLVER. Each one contains a kind of punch. At least, I think “cross” is a kind of punch. I don’t know much about… well, I was going to say boxing, but “everything” is a fine end to that sentence, too.

Los Angeles Times
constructed by Dan Naddor; edited by Rich Norris

This was a reasonably fun puzzle (especially on the heels of my New York Times failure), although at a quick glance, I don’t get the theme: 40A. Dewar’s alternative, and this puzzle’s theme (J AND B). What is that? I suppose thematically, it’s that the letters J and B will be used in the grid. But what beverage is J and B? Jim Beam? I’m not very clear on this…

On with the grid, though, I’m still not sure how the theme applies. It seems that there’s much more evidence of high-scoring scrabble tiles, than of anything specific to the letters J and B. I mean — there are five Zs! Two Xs! In fact, it’s not until I finish the whole thing and look back that I realize all the long answers (i.e. the theme answers) are initialed with J and B. But the first two I got were JOY BUZZER (3D. Prankster’s handshake gismo — a tribute to the “var.” spelling, perhaps?) and JAZZ BAND (54A. Swing era ensemble) which gave me much more Z than anything else, and led me down the wrong thematic track. The other theme answers were JUST BECAUSE, JEWEL BOX, JINGLE BELLS and JUNK BOND.

CrosSynergy: “Finger Exercise”
constructed by Bob Klahn

Huh? Ten minutes, very little of this thing filled, and I gave up. I asked Across Lite to show me the answers, and I’m still stumped. What is a “finger exercise,” and how do PRINT JOURNALISM, TIP OF THE ICEBERG, PAINT THE TOWN RED and SANDWICH ISLANDS have that in common?

Full confusion on other clues and answers. 35A. Rice a.k.a. Rampling. What does that mean? ANNE Rice was once named Anne Rampling? 9A. Hot spot in Vermont when it’s cold. STOWE. The town of Stowe. How is Stowe hot when it’s cold? And don’t tell me because there’s a ski lodge there or something. There are ski lodges (and more to the point, indoors) in tons of places. What makes Stowe the specific answer here?

I realize that CrosSynergy doesn’t follow the Monday-Saturday difficulty pattern of the New York Times, but I had been told it was similar. Not so much today, Mr. CrosSynergy. Not so much today.

Podcast: here. Email: here. Facebook: here.

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.

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.

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
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
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!)

Of course 58D killed me. I’ve explained enough how I hate the use of e.g. in a clue. And I’ve been told again and again that it doesn’t imply abbreviations. Of course — I can’t get my mind away from non-abbreviated words in spite of the rest of the clue, which most certainly is an abbreviation. The answer — which I had to stare at for another minute or so before understanding — is VEL (short, I assume, for velocity). Ugly clue, and ugly answer.

56A made me stare at my computer keyboard, working out -I-ER words until my frontal lobe simply overheated and shut down (like my HP laptop does four times a day — but that’s another rant). TILER, MILER, FILER, BIKER, HIKER, DICER, RICER, LIFER… Never did any word beginning with a J come to mind. Never did any word using a V come along. And never did a word that isn’t really much of a word to begin with — JIVER — come along.

64A also gave me no release, since -O-DS didn’t look like it had any options. I kept putting TODDS into it, wondering if a todd was actually anything. The answer, MOLDS, only became clear when I looked at http://www.xwordinfo.com for help, and copied his work.

The theme answers:

• 20A. Desktop publisher’s need (LASER PRINTER)
• 37A. Commuter’s woe (RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC)
• 53A. Def Leppard, for one (HARD ROCK BAND — since BIG HAIR BAND didn’t fit)

all led to my final question mark of the night, clue 56A. I couldn’t see what LASER, RUSH and HARD had to do with one another. Then I thought — maybe they’re all tourist places. The Hard Rock Cafe, for one. Maybe there was a Rush Hour Restaurant and a Laser Lounge or something like that… And even after cheating and putting JIVER and MOLDS in their proper places, and reading the answer (JAM), I wasn’t happy.

Four minutes for four squares. Wednesday, you have beaten me again.

The Onion

Maybe I need to read The Onion to understand why they chose safe sex as the central, uh, concept for this week’s puzzle. The theme answers were:

• 17A & 21A. Family planning success? (TRIUMPH OF THE PILL)
• 29A. Catchphrase of a contraceptive device’s mascot? (MY NAME IS IUD)
• 45A. Personal choice the morning after? (PRIVATE PLAN B)
• 52A & 61A. Vacation filled with safe sex? (SIX DAYS OF THE CONDOM)

I got a bit stumped once again by New Mexico and Arizona (i.e., the Southwest corner). I didn’t see the theme answer yet, and I was guessing on everything I put in. 47D. Reebok competitor was five letters, and try as I might, I can’t make NIKE or ADIDAS fit. Somehow, my brain found ASICS, and so I guessed it. Furthermore, I would not accept that a BIDET is a Fixture near a toilet (48D), since I’ve peed in lots of places and never seen one. And although I like the Rolling Stones, I was unaware they had a 1972 double-album called EXILE On Main St. (49D).

Los Angeles Times
by Robert E. Lee Morris, edited by Rich Norris

Today is my day to die in the South Pacific. Again (and I stress this because it is the third of three puzzles today), I failed to secure anything in the bottom left corner of the grid. The clues I could not wrap my head around were:

• 51D. Rhyme guy with three fiddlers (COLE) — I still have no clue what this means.
• 45D. Mary Hartman portrayer Louise (LASSER) — My lack of knowledge on this subject has left me completely unable to discern if Mary Hartman is the actor or the character.
• 50A. Folk singer Phil (OCHS) and the corresponding 50D. City near Moscow (OREL) — There are approximately 179 million four-letter places or rivers or mountains all over parts of the world that I have never seen that escape my brain on a regular basis. I need to get a list of these and their definitions and read it every night.

And then on the left edge, 27D. Anklebone just stumped me. I tried TARSI and TALON both, and I don’t know what a TALUS is. According to Wikipedia, it’s Latin for ankle bone. LATIN. That means NOT ENGLISH, you stupid clue writers.

There was a theme, I think, although even with a “what is the theme” clue in the puzzle, I still don’t understand it. Herewith:

• 17A. Head honcho (TOP BANANA)
• 61A. Elegant table setting (BONE CHINA)
• 11D. Fair transaction (SQUARE DEAL)
• 29D. Winnebago, for one (MOBILE HOME)

And the piece de resistance:

• 38A. Be the perfect size, and what the first words of 17A, 61A, 11D and 29D can do.

Can you figure it out? The answer is, of course, FIT TO A T. I understand the first part of the 38A clue, but how do TOP, BONE, SQUARE and MOBILE fit anything to a T? I will have to read someone else’s blogs to make sense of it.

EDIT: I have since read someone else’s explanation (thank you, Orange) which is this: Each of the four words can be preceded by a T to form something else we’ve heard of — T-TOP, T-BONE, T-SQUARE and T-MOBILE. [And to that, I say, "What the hell is a T-Top?"]

CrosSynergy
by Mel Rosen

I felt pretty good about this rather non-descript grid from CrosSynergy. Got it in under ten minutes, didn’t need to cheat or guess.

I had a little trouble in the southeast (although I did know that 9A. City northwest of Orlando was OCALA — hello to my friend Amy who is from there [she'll never read this page, never]), as I tried both PIER and PORT for 71A. Berth place (DOCK), leading me to a number of wrong ideas in the whole corner. 68A. Lake where Perry prevailed in 1813 was chock full of things I didn’t know. Ask me about 1813? Not a clue. Ask me who Perry is? Not a clue. Ask me for yet another four-letter geographical thing that’s not in my own backyard? Not a clue. Okay, a bit of a clue. But the list of things I know about Lake ERIE does not include anything about this battle that O.H. Perry fought.

49A. Doctors on the cutting edge? confused me… I had most of the letters in place, and SURGEONS (the right answer) seemed to fit the grid, but why the question mark? What’s clever about this clue? Doctors = surgeons. How are they on the cutting edge? Is it because surgeons physically cut things? That’s not clever, that’s lame.

And now I’m off my soapbox of abbreviations and on my soapbox of foreignerity. Like in the L.A. Times puzzle (Hello, California? TALUS is still Latin!), I didn’t like that 41D. Gathering after hitting the slopes led me to a French answer. This, aside from the fact that I didn’t like the use of two -ing words in the same clue. But really — English clue, French answer? Maybe if the French answer was a colloquialism here in America… Oh, who am I kidding? Maybe it is. I don’t ski. I don’t speak French. The one time I tried skiing, I sprained my talus, and I was enjoying the apres-ski with a bit of cocoa…

New York Sun
by Ogden Porter, edited by Peter Gordon

First of all — is Ogden Porter a pseudonym for Peter Gordon? Or is it merely a magical coincidence that they are anagrammatic of one another?

I’m going to start with the three-letter answer for 37A. It can help you find your balance. For reasons I don’t understand, the first thing I put in was EAR. I thought scientifically, that’s a clever answer. But after I got 30D. 2007 title role for Dustin Hoffman (MR. MAGORIUM), I had an M in the last space. Aha! I thought of SUM — very clever! Add it up, you find your monetary balance! Cute. Then I noticed that the clue didn’t have a question mark. Oops. Can’t be that clever without the question mark — unless we’re talking about surgeons. So I went back to normal concepts of balance, and chose ARM for the answer. And then, of course, 29D. Game-ending announcement seemed to have no options… I went through the whole alphabet with -ARE in place, wondering if anyone ever shouted “YARE!” for the end of a game. Maybe back when Dinka Yare played for the Nets. He was a scrub player who never got off the bench much. At the end of the games, the crowds might be screaming to put him in. “Yare! Yare!” Okay, that was clearly not going to be it. Since I had never heard of a 28A. Device for measuring current (AMMETER — or A.M. METER? or AM-METER?), I was lost as to the initial letter for 29D, which would keep me from ever understanding 37A. I was dismayed to find out (eventually, thanks to Across Lite’s help) that the answers at that crossing were MATE and ATM.

Abbreviations. In the answer. Not in the clue.

Clever answer. No question mark in the clue.

The clue may as well have read: 37A. Three random letters I plucked from a bag of Scrabble tiles.

Meanwhile, 39D. Sea of ___ (setting of the Gulf of Taganrog) could have been in Swahili for all the information I gleaned from it (AZOV – another &!*@# four-letter place). And apparently John Philip SOUSA was not 53D. “You’re A Grand Old Flag” songwriter, George M. COHAN was. Incidentally, I once co-wrote a play (about a baseball team) in which Mr. Cohan walked on stage in the middle of the first act and said, “I’m George M. Cohan, the great song and dance man!” He had maybe two more lines, and then was never seen again.

This puzzle took too long to solve. I was so pleased with my (relatively) quick CrosSynergy time, only to be embarrassed by this poor showing. Thankfully, the weekend puzzles are coming soon, and I have absolutely no hope whatsoever of even completing one of them.

Universal
by Emmet Coffie

This wasn’t so much fun… I even left it alone for a minute to read an email (without stopping the clock), that’s how into it I wasn’t.

I don’t like quotes in crosswords. It makes for a very long paragraph or sentence, and I don’t usually see it at all. Gimmicky turns of phrase are more fun for me. This was worse than a quote — it was a quip, which I believe translates as follows:

• QU, short for “quote”
• I, as in “idiot”
• P, which rhymes with T and that stands for Take this dumb clue and…

The three-part quip, beginning at 13A. Start of a buyer’s quip, and continuing with 37A and 64A is I SHOP LIKE A BULL; I CHARGE EVERYTHING. Not clever. Not funny. Not pertinent to anything. Not of interest to me. Really, it wasn’t much more than an obstacle to me solving the rest of the puzzle.

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

New York Times
by David Pringle, edited by Will Shortz

Pretty simple and enjoyable. And as I play on the New York Times website, this was one of those few times where I clicked “done” and actually had no errors. Yay for me.

The long answers were of fairly basic premise, the homonym set of sent/cent/scent/sense:

• 17A. Providential (HEAVEN SENT)
• 27A. Nary a penny (NOT ONE RED CENT)
• 45A. In close pursuit (HOT ON THE SCENT)
• 60A. Adds up … like this puzzle’s theme? (MAKES SENSE)

No worries. Couldn’t do the super fast times like some people do, but that’s mostly because I’m normal.

Los Angeles Times
by Dan Naddor, edited by Rich Norris

Not too bad, considering I had a major goat rodeo in the northwest. Even knowing that 1D. Actor Cobb was LEE J., I kept mis-reading 14A. Only country whose capital starts with Q: Abbr. as if I was looking for a country name beginning with Q. I know, it says plainly that I’m supposed to abbreviate the country name, but looking for a capital city (and really — I don’t know biscuits about capitals of the world), well, it just addled this simple mind. And even after I stabbed at the random idea that it might be Ecuador (ECUA, for those wondering), I couldn’t make sense of 2D. Height: Pref. (ACRO, despite my apparently brainless efforts for ACIO and AXIO), 3D. Sierra Club Founder (MUIR — and if you’d asked me “True or False: The Sierra Club exists,” I’d have had no idea) or 17A. Emerald Isle (ERIN — Dude, it’s the 18th of March now, so enough with the emeralds).

New York Sun
by Patrick Blindauer, edited by Peter Gordon

Feh. I shouldn’t be trying to do puzzles when I’m already too tired to stay awake for my daily episode of Pardon the Interruption.

Northwest corner seem to be my trouble spot. In this one, I didn’t know my North Carolina geography nor my salad greens:

• 1A. Fort ___, North Carolina (BRAGG)
• 1D. Boston lettuce alternative (BIBB) — And incidentally, I don’t like BIBB and GIBB in the same puzzle, let alone just a few squares from each other. Similarly, DIXIE/MOXIE (39A/32D) was less than pleasing.

Nor did I know

• 14A. Ancient region where Phocaea was (IONIA)

The gimmicky answers were cute — doubling a three-letter word to turn one basic phrase into a cutesy play on words.

• 20A. Journey for a chocolate? (BON BON VOYAGE) — this might have been “Journey for a confection?” as a bon bon is what it is based more on its center filling than its outer shell. Furthermore, Bon Bons are a now obsolete American snack in which the center is ice cream. Pictured here is a Spanish drink called cafe Bon Bon in which a shot of espresso is poured over condensed milk. Sounds vile.
• 36A. Jazz player with a drum? (TOM-TOM CAT) — maybe because I was tracking the Celtics/Spurs game tonight, I had the Utah Jazz (that’s a pro basketball team) on my mind, and didn’t even consider the idea of musicians.
• 41A. Place to dip really big fish sticks? (TARTAR PIT) — …and now I’m hungry.
• 50A. First number of a high-kicking show? (CAN-CAN OPENER)

CrosSynergy
by Thomas W. SchierI had a little trouble with the northern middle section, as I stupidly imagined that Rebekah somehow fathered one of the Israeli tribes (rather than the oh-so-common ESAU). I also didn’t care for the first of the long answers, which made it more difficult for my already stubborn brain to give in to reality.

• 20A. Reserves a single hotel room? (BOOKS FOR THE ONE) — “books for one” would be a more sensible term, even though it doesn’t satisfy the gimmick of the puzzle. The other long answers seemed like more reasonable phrases.
• 25A. Maliciously burn a complimentary ticket? (TORCH THE PASS)
• 42A. Shape an opening pool shot? (MOLD THE BREAK)
• 47A. Enjoy boxercise? (PUNCH TO THE BEAT) — This was my favorite of the themed answers, even if I don’t agree that “boxercise” is a word.

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!)

New York Times
by C.W. Stewart, edited by Will Shortz

Generally easy, with the gimmick answers being exclamations somehow linked to historical figures:

• 17A. What President Washington said upon winning the lottery? (BY GEORGE)
• 23A. What flagmaker Ross said …? (HEAVENS TO BETSY)
• 33A. What Miss Molly said …? (GOOD GOLLY)
• 42A. What Galileo said …? (OH MY STARS)
• 47A. What the Big Bad Wolf said …? (WELL, BLOW ME DOWN)
• 62A. What Noah Webster said …? (OH MY WORD)

First — are we supposed to assume that this is what all of them said upon winning the lottery? Maybe, although I certainly didn’t see that connection between clues when solving. And second, and this is bigger — why do two of the answers start with “Oh my”? In fact, I was only solving in one direction to start, and I had (and was certain of) ON MY WORD for Noah Webster. It ended up being the one square I spent another 90 seconds finding… Seems weak to have two theme answers start with the same two words like that.

New York Sun
by Francis Heaney, edited by Peter Gordon

Fairly straightforward, I suppose. I didn’t get the trick to the long answers (excepting noticing that IRISH SETTER was… uh, Irish), and had to seek out another blog to inform me that the opening words of each of the four long answers complete the phrase KISS ME I’M IRISH. That is precisely what my wife told me this morning, and I plan to continue obeying her wishes throughout the day.

Los Angeles Times
by David W. Cromer, edited by Rich Norris

I was going to keep a spreadsheet of my times and such, and see how I did over the course of this next year, but now I haven’t started. I’m so weirdly OCD about some things that since I started blogging without tracking times, I can’t start tracking times now without revisiting puzzles, and that’s not fair because I already did some of the puzzles, and oh hell, what will I do?

CrosSynergy
by Rich Norris

A stupid math error was my biggest obstacle to this one. Math. Me! MMXX divided by X does not equal CCXX, for those wondering (it’s actually CCII, duh). Therefore, there is no such television show as Dr. Uxidare or Dr. Exodare or anything else like it (enjoy DR. KILDARE reruns, if you can find them). Nor is there a letter of the Arabic alphabet known as alxf (ALIF), as fun as that sounds. Also of note is that chefs do not salt things totally, they salt them TO TASTE.

The theme didn’t really help, as I think I know less about Ireland than I did yesterday. My friend Dan says that CrosSynergy puzzles are similar to New York Times Wednesdays. I will combine that with my time of 13:21, salt it to taste, and eat it for breakfast.

USA Today: Saints For A Day
by John Underwood

I don’t know if USA Today operates on the same difficulty scale as the New York Times, but eighteen minutes is too long for a Monday. If this is a trend, and it gets harder from here, I now question who the USA Today is marketing their paper to.

From the title, I was looking for the names of saints, either in the clues or the answers. There were two “Patrick” clues, but either nothing else, or nothing else I noticed.

Universal: Where?
by Steven L. Zisser

Boring, and generally unsatisfying. If more of the Universal series are like this, I’ll skip them.
I’m tired, and have to go to work. Goodbye.

New York Times: Getting A Little R And R
by Elizabeth C. Gorski, edited by Will Shortz

I understood what the gimmick was going to be just from the title, “Getting A Little R And R” — obviously, we’re adding two Rs to something to complete the theme answers. I’m a slow solver, so while my time of 43:15 is never going to win me any competitions, it seemed fairly steady for me. The long answers came in bits and pieces — I saw parts of them early (…FARCES, CROW…, PRETTY CRASH…), but needed more help in the crossings to finish them off.

It was 89A. A Simpson without access to his volume of the “Odyssey”? (HOME[R] AWAY FROM HOME[R]) that really opened things up for me. I was able to move fairly quickly both up and down from that long answer, and quickly found all but one of the other theme clues:

• 34A. Beautifully illustrated report of a computer failure? (P[R]ETTY C[R]ASH ACCOUNT)
• 61A. French director’s comment about his submission to a film festival? (I GAVE IT MY B[R]EST SHO[R]T) — I actually had I GAVE IT MY BEST SHOT in my head early on, but wasn’t sure where to put the extra Rs to make sense of it. I’m still not sure who Brest is — www.imdb.com tells me that Martin Brest (director of Gigli, Scent of a Woman and everyone’s favorite, Hot Dogs for Gauguin [starring Danny DeVito]) was born in the Bronx; Annette Brest’s only credit, Erotic Day Dream, went straight to video in 2000 (and her homeland is unknown); and the only directorial effort on the otherwise blank resume of Jurgen Brest is 1982’s Tollwut, about which I know nothing except that none of the characters seem to have first names.
• 106A. Former Tennessee senator’s Halloween costumes? (F[R]IST F[R]IGHTS)
• 15D. Opening remarks at a coffee makers’ convention? (D[R]IP INT[R]O) — This one took a bit. I had DRIP in place quickly, but couldn’t think of what phrase I was playing with. I needed to complete 33A. Bookcase lineup (SPINES), 41A. “It’ll ___ you” (COST) and 55A. Not badgering, say (SOFT ON) before I got it.
• 71D. Where a dope unloads a ship? (MO[R]ON PIE[R])

The first of the theme answers was the last one I solved — 23A. Broad comedies involving hogs?. I had FARCES in place, but couldn’t seem to think of what kind of “faces” were at play here. Also, while words like pig, boar, sty and swine were coming to mind, I couldn’t seem to complete the answer. It didn’t help much that I thought 20A. Kia sedan was ULTIMA (instead of OPTIMA), that 1A. Place for bluegrass had more to do with music than terrain (MEADOW) and while I’m a sports fan, I know nothing about hockey or 26A. N.H.L.’s Tikkanen (ESA). On the down side, I didn’t know what an EPOS was (2D. Narrative writing), and mixed up 4D. Cartoonist Browne (DIK) with the other oddly-spelled cartoonist I know, Bil Keane (of The Family Circus), and the most baffling mental block of the day, thinking somehow that 5D. Breakfast menu heading couldn’t possibly be OMELETS because OMELETS is an eight-letter word. (HINT: It is not.)

On a whim, I stuck OPTIMA in place, leading me to 1D. Be down (MOPE) and 6D. Brave words? (WAR CRY). I found my way around to MEADOW, and then racked my brain for other breakfast foods beginning with O — before finally rolling my eyes at myself and writing OMELETS in the perfect number of squares allowed. Finally, the eureka moment, and I saw that 23A was PO[R]KER FA[R]CES. Very cute. I had to guess-submit-reguess-resubmit a couple times before the S in EPOS/ESA, but completed the whole thing with no Googling.

Newsday: First Of All: They’re #1
by Fred Piscop, edited by Stanley Newman

This was my first Newsday puzzle, and it was very easy. The theme was quite clear from the title, First of All: They’re #1 — the long answers were:

• 23A. Home-state candidate (FAVORITE SON)
• 29A. One to hang out with (BEST FRIEND)
• 53A. John Roberts’ title (CHIEF JUSTICE) — Why, for a brief moment, did I think he was the Attorney General?
• 74A. Title shot hopeful (TOP CONTENDER) — I would have preferred a clue indicating a TOP BANANA, but it wouldn’t be long enough, and this puzzle didn’t have anything particularly cute or clever in it.
• 95A. Restaurant honcho (HEAD WAITER)
• 109A. Sort of star (LEADING LADY) — Here, I didn’t like “sort of” in the clue. A leading lady is a star, just not like stars in the sky. Maybe “Kind of star” or “Type of star” would have suited me more than “Sort of star.”
• 36D. Steady date (MAIN SQUEEZE)
• 41D. Trial VIP (STAR WITNESS) — Yes, “VIP” is more common as an acronym than as the words Very Important Person, but I still maintain that if you use an abbreviated form in a clue, you use it in the answer.

CrosSynergy: Sunday Challenge
by Patrick Jordan

This was my first CrosSynergy puzzle, and I’m not sure I liked it that much. No gimmick, no particularly pleasurable answers. 58A. Walter of “Funny Girl” (PIDGEON) was a hang-up for me (as far as the crossword world goes, wasn’t Omar Sharif the only actor in “Funny Girl”?), and I still don’t understand 53D. Leather-lunged (LOUD). The southwest was the challenge spot for me, combining these two question marks with 59D. Fed. Agcy. since 1949 (GSA – I had NSA in there for a while, which blocked me from finding the non-Sharif name) and 52A. Lesage hero (BLAS).

Los Angeles Times: Irish Eyes Are Smiling
by Donna S. Levin, edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

I think this was my first L.A. Times Sunday puzzle, though not my first overall. I don’t know that much about Ireland, so the title made me leery. In the end, I needed Across Lite to help me find a few answers. The theme answers in play (with the Irish-ism underlined) were:

• 23A. Irish weather forecast? (CLARE BLUE SKY)
• 33A. Irish comedian’s audience? (GAELS OF LAUGHTER) — I had various spellings of PEALS in place of GAELS for a while; I’m not sure I know what the standard English answer would be… does laughter come in gales?
• 50A. Section in an Irish guidebook? (KERRY-ON LUGGAGE)
• 69A. Rubik’s Irish toy? (DUBLIN CUBE) — Honestly, I don’t understand this one. Is a Rubik’s cube known as a “doubling” cube or something? The only doubling cube I’m aware of is the one in Backgammon.
• 73A. Ancient Irish kings’ enforcers? (TARA MUSCLE) — I don’t actually know what this means. I looked it up on Wikipedia, and I still don’t understand. Here’s what they said:

The title King of Tara represented a very old ideal of
sacred kingship in Ireland, imbued with mythical aura
stretching back deep into the long-forgotten past, even
from the perspective of its earliest historical holders.

• 93A. Irish course of study? (CORK CURRICULUM)
• 106A. Irishman’s home goods store? (PADDY O’ FURNITURE)
• 123A. Canine-friendly Irish area? (EIRE OF THE DOG)

I didn’t care for the theme’s execution. Four of these are word swaps where an Irish city is used in place of standard English: CLARE, KERRY, DUBLIN and CORK. The last one, EIRE, is technically Irish for Ireland, so it’s kind of related. GAELS refers to a clan of people, and TARA to some ancient hills. The worst of the bunch is, of course, PADDY O’ FURNITURE, which sounds like the punch line to a joke. I’d almost have preferred all the answers to be ___ O’___ (box o’crayons, bucket o’fish, etc.), which would be much more whimsical and fun.

Also, I don’t think that the relationship of the answer to the clue (in original standard English) is consistent. Obviously, “clear blue sky,” “core curriculum” or “carry-on luggage” makes sense as normal answers to their clues, but “tear a muscle” and “hair of the dog” have nothing to do with their clues. It seems the clues should either have led me to the Irish wordplay (e.g. Tara or Eire) or the original English terms, but not a mixture of the two.

Washington Post: Get-Togethers
by Robert A. Doll, edited by Fred Piscop

Maybe because I did this one last (of the five I tried), or maybe because I’m tired, or maybe because I just didn’t know anything — I had to cheat a lot on this one. Forty-two minutes doesn’t really take into account the vast number of squares I let Across Lite show me.

The theme made sense, but my brain decided not to know anything. Herewith, the theme answers:

• 23A. Butchers’ get-together? (MEAT SMOKERS)
• 28A. Physicists’ get-together? (ATOMIC BLASTS)
• 37A. Doctors’ get-together? (MEDICINE BALL) — I don’t know this term. Apparently it’s an exercise toy.
• 63A. Awful get-together? (BAD RECEPTION)
• 79A. Astronomers’ get-together? (METEOR SHOWER)
• 101A. Permissive get-together? (LIBERAL PARTY)
• 114A. Masons’ get-together? (CEMENT MIXER)
• 125A. Tennis players’ get-together? (LOVE AFFAIR)

Of course, this is all well and good if I know all the other clues… which I don’t. I got off to a horrible start, thinking that 1A. “See ya!” was CIAO, which led me to think that 1D. Pyramids, essentially was CONES and 2D. Really bothered was IRATE. (The correct choices would have been TATA, TOMBS and ATEAT, the last one of which I am completely confused by).

My other trouble spot was the southeast, where after looking up the definition of 109A. Cozen in the dictionary, I still had no idea what to put there. Also, the trusty internet failed me, when I turned to Google to find out what a “sniggler” was for 133A. Snigglers’ prey. The first answer Google provides is from the Urban Dictionary. And for anyone reading this who already knows what a sniggler actually is, you’re probably sure that the Urban Dictionary is not the place to go.

I had to use the “reveal” feature in Across Lite for way too many squares to feel at all settled by this puzzle. I’ll try better next week.

I’m working on expanding my daily puzzling from just the New York Times to others available online. I’ve used both Will Johnston’s Puzzle Pointers and Ephraim Vishniac’s very similar (and self-acclaimed rip-off) page.