First of all, in my debut post I meant to acknowledge the Holiday Shopping Guide put together by Rex and Orange last year. It was a great help when I was starting my ongoing shopping spree.

Speaking of Orange: if anyone reading this does not own her book, what are you waiting for?

How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle: Tips, Tricks and Techniques to Master America’s Favorite Puzzle

By Amy Reynaldo, Introduction by Will Shortz

I confess that by the time I bought this book, I already knew how to conquer the NYT crossword. But I wanted to support my favorite blogstress, even though she apparently doesn’t get royalties. Fortunately, there’s some useful stuff in there even for a Winner of the C Division.

The meat of the book is 68 of Amy’s favorite NYT puzzles, divided into five sections: Easy, Medium, Thursday, Hard, and Sunday. In each section, Amy walks the reader through her solving of a representative puzzle. Interspersed throughout are helpful sidebars, plus lists of the 100 and 300 most common fill words, the “Top Ten Ways Constructors Try To Trick You”, and in the back, “Hints and Tips” for all the puzzles. These Hints are more like liner notes, with useful asides like a rundown of all the famous ARIs, common hip-hop slang, and state mottos that get referenced most often. Without that, I’d never remember that North Carolina = ESSE, Massachusetts = ENSE, and Idaho = ESTO. Just kidding, I still never remember.

The book is a gold mine for anyone looking to improve their speed or just their skills with the NYT crossword. Get it!

The New York Sun Crosswords #15: 72 Puzzles from the Daily Paper (New York Sun Crosswords)

Edited by Peter Gordon

I accidentally left this compilation out of my first post — because unlike the others, it’s finished and on a different bookshelf. The New York Sun crosswords are simply awesome. I often enjoy them more than the Times, maybe because Gordon has freer rein than Shortz to break crossword convention. The Sun publishes some insanely creative themes/gimmicks, uses more colloquial (and saltier) fill, and often expands the grid to 15×16 when the theme answers require it. Gordon is also notorious for creative (some say convoluted) cluing, preferring to dig up a trivia tidbit instead of re-using a clue. I’ve learned so much about OREOs from him!

If you’re not familiar with the Sun puzzle, it’s considered to be slightly harder than the Times on a daily basis. The paper only publishes from Monday through Friday, so there are no Sunday-sized puzzles. Themeless entries generally run once a week, either on Thursday (”Themeless Thursday”) or Friday (”Weekend Warrior”). Book-wise, the numbered compilations comprise the entire archive since the Sun puzzle began in 2002, running the puzzles in order, 72 per book, with the day of the week indicated by asterisks (one star for Monday, five for Friday). There are also Sun collections based on the days they appeared, with names like Easy Monday Crosswords and Killer Thursday Crosswords. All those puzzles also appear in the numbered volumes (and vice versa), so go for those if you only want easier (or harder) puzzles.

Peter Gordon is also the Big Cheese at Sterling Publishing’s Games and Puzzles department, and in that position he’s revolutionized the world of puzzle books. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I’ll take a moment here to talk about why Sterling’s style is head and shoulders above their competitors at St. Martin’s (which publishes the NYT compilations) and Random House (which handles most of the rest).

• Spiral binding. So much easier to fold over!
• Quality paper. Thicker than everyone else’s, smooth and eraser-friendly!
• Scrambled answer keys. Most books have the back-of-the-book answer grids in order, so when you’re checking one puzzle, you might see some answers from the next one if you’re not careful. No more! Each Sterling puzzle has a note at the bottom saying ANSWER, PAGE 88, so you can find it – and the answers on that page are from different places in the book. So if you accidentally spot a word in an upcoming puzzle, you’ll have forgotten it by the time you get there.
• Pretty fonts. Pretty!

In summation, Peter Gordon rules. Word to the wise: Sterling is owned by Barnes & Noble, so you can find most of their lovely books at your local B&N if you don’t want to click through to Amazon and send a few pennies to Ryan and Brian. On the other hand, the Borders I usually visit, at Manhattan’s Time Warner Center, doesn’t have any Sterling books.

The New York Times Super Saturday Crosswords: The Hardest Crossword of the Week

Edited by Will Shortz

Remember how in my last post, I said I wouldn’t be buying any more NY Times compilations because they’re all online? I lied. The other day I ran across this little volume, which contains 75 Saturday crosswords from 1993-1995 — meaning they’re not in the online archive, which starts in late 1996. (Always check the copyright page if you’re wondering whether the puzzles have been previously published, and when.) Since I can always use practice on those fiendish Saturdays, I couldn’t help myself. Another $6.95 down the drain. See you next time!

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.

New York Times – 9:12
Los Angeles Times – 3:19 (I’m beginning to like this better than the New York puzzles…)
New York Sun – 5:16

New York Times
constructed by Will Nediger; edited by Will Shortz

I thought I was going to have it easy in this puzzle, because I worked out the theme (”From A to Z”) very quickly, I knew all the theme answers very quickly, and… well, it still took me a Tuesday eon/era/age to complete the fill. Brains still not smarterer enough.

Earlier today, my wife and Ryan and I were all talking about the film ALL THAT JAZZ, so it was a delight to find it as the first theme entry (located at 17-Across, naturally: Semiautobiographical Bob Fosse film). I will be watching ALEX RODRIGUEZ (38A. A.L. M.V.P. in 2003, 2005 and 2007 — all the abbreviations in the clue, none in the answer, hmm?) tomorrow night, as I attend a Yankee game (weather permitting) with my Yankee-loving mother. As my t-shirt says, I root for two teams: the Red Sox and whoever’s playing the Yankees. I also knew 60A. 1970s joint U.S./Soviet space project (APOLLO-SOYUZ) from a science project I did in the fifth grade. The two downward contributions were 12D. Namesake of a branch of Judaism (ASHKENAZ), which took some time to spell properly (you never know how to transliterate Hebrew) and 38D. The Rock (ALCATRAZ).

The fill was enjoyable enough as well, but a few too many variant forms of words… OSAKAN, JACOBITE, SERUMS (too many SERA in past puzzled had me doubting this answer)… But these were offset by the assortment of fun answers like ALEXEI, SYZYGY (a Will Shortz era first, I believe), WALRUS, KAL KAN, SKI BUM, RETINA and EWOK. My only real struggle came at the crossing of 46A. Certain NCO (I never know these acronyms/abbreviations) and 47D. Punishing rod. With SFC and FERULE nowhere to be found in my own mental index, I needed help on that one square. Damn you, square!

For the first time, I’m trying to do an Amazon Store link. Did it work?

Los Angeles Times
constructed by Andrea Carla Michaels & Michael Blake; edited by Rich Norris

For the second day in a row, I did relatively well on the Los Angeles offering. Are these easier than the New York counterparts? Or am I just living on the wrong coast?

Here we have three titles revised to change gender from male to female: 20A. 1970 Dustina Hoffman saga? is LITTLE BIG WOMAN, 40A. 1939 Roberta Donat film? is GOODBYE, MRS. CHIPS and 57A. 1957 Cindy Poitier film? is TO MA’AM WITH LOVE. The rest of the fill went very quickly, but included a favorite answer: 16A. Munch is (hello, TheDentist) CHOMP!

New York Sun: To The Nth Degree
constructed by Kevin George and Bonnie L. Gentry; edited by Peter Gordon

A cute puzzle with a simple theme — take some basic things, add an N to the end, and poof! you have a new turn of phrase. 17A. Aw-inspiring source of dietary fiber? turns a Wonderbra into WONDER BRAN; 27A. Part of a prison yard? makes criminal law into CRIMINAL LAWN; 49A. Item raised on a Yukon farm? is a KLONDIKE BARN; and 64A. Tailored for prom night wear? is something that FIT TO A TEEN.

And yes, a short blog entry for a night of little respiratory success. Lungs, be less cloggier!

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.

I also want to say, before starting in with the puzzles, that we’re getting lots of positive feedback on our podcast. If you haven’t checked it out, try the links to the right. iTunes has it, and you can also listen straight from this site. We’ve done six episodes so far (the next one will be this coming weekend), and we’re having a blast. Email us your thoughts and comments at rbxblog@gmail.com.

Finally — we have a group on Facebook. I don’t know if this links there successfully, but if not, get on your Facebook, and search the groups for one called “Ryan and Brian do Crosswords.”

Anyway. It’s Tuesday. Yesterday kicked my ass, but today, I’m trying again. Here we go…

New York Times – 6:30
New York Sun – 6:45
Los Angeles Times – 6:40

New York Times
constructed by Nancy Salomon; edited by Will Shortz

I think I’m just struggling to come up with words that might actually exist in the world… The theme answers were cute enough — money-related terms clued with non-monetary concepts:

• 17A. Fishing trawler’s haul? : NET EARNINGS — Incidentally, the first theme answer always (or often, at least) seems to fall at 17-Across. Good spot for themes, I guess.
• 28A. Seat of government’s acquisitions? : CAPITAL GAINS — Never actually got this because of the clue. Had a bunch of crossings and eventually decided that it had to be what it was based on absolutely no concrete evidence.
• 44A. Publisher’s windfall? : PAPER PROFITS
• 59A. Salary for selling insects as food? : GROSS INCOME — Didn’t care for this one… yes, insects as food seem gross to me (although there are cultures where the chocolate-covered grasshopper seems like a reasonable snack), but the clue was far more specific than the answer. It’s like how verbs and nouns have to agree in person and tense, it seems that clues and answers ought to as well.

I think I’m not a fan of the ___ UP type of answers. This puzzle had two of them: 53A. Getting slick during winter (ICING UP) and 39D. Add some meat to the bones (FATTEN UP). Don’t know why it bothers me. I should edit this post tomorrow, and see if it still bothers me then.

New York Sun: I Before E, As In Movie
constructed by Michael Langwald; edited by Peter Gordon

If I had looked at the darned title, I might have shaved a few seconds off this time, but even so, I was stuck on some basic trivia that I just didn’t know. The themes were fun:

• 17A. Movie about an amp-hauler’s African journey? : ROADIE TO MOROCCO
• 38A. Movie about a terrier subplot? : WESTIE SIDE STORY — Apparently, “King of the Hill” did an episode with this title. I don’t watch this show much (except when I’m staying in a hotel and have no TiVo to help me decide what’s good), but the weird thing is that I’ve seen this episode. It’s the one where the Souphanousinphones move in next door, Bobby gets a new friend in Connie, and Hank thinks that these new neighbors made burgers out the Hills’ dog.
• 58A. Movie about a Unification Church member’s Southern flight? : MOONIE OVER MIAMI — Why is “Southern” capitalized? Is that the airline that takes you to Miami? Is that the only airline that takes you to Miami?

This puzzle also featured a crossword favorite in ATARI – the other day, my four-year-old nephew learned how to play Ms. Pac-Man at my house. Every time he would narrowly escape an oncoming ghost, he would turn around to tell everyone how close he came, and then inevitably be eaten immediately.

[NOTE: I know that Atari didn't manufacture Ms. Pac-Man... But video games are video games... Roll with me.]

Los Angeles Times
constructed by Norm Guggenbiller; edited by Rich Norris

The first theme answer is again at 17A. Goings-on at the precinct (POLICE WORK). The other two:

• 10D. Post-9/11 concern : AIR SECURITY
• 25D. Wildcatters’ action : LABOR STRIKE

And they are summarized with 59A. Combine efforts, and puzzle title reflected in 17-Across, 10-Down and 25-Down, which is JOIN FORCES.

I like it just fine, but nothing clever here. Just very blunt. 67A. “Jes’ imagine, Jeb…” makes me think of the Governor of Florida, which makes me want to puke, which makes it difficult to come up with any answers (although that one was SPOSE). I need to look at a map, because I’m seeing a lot of YEMEN lately, which according to 26A is an Oman neighbor. And apparently I’m not up on my Inventory evaluation meth. (56A), because LIFO means nothing to me. Seeing the answer did little clarify what “meth.” was short for (method, I’m guessing?). And 54A. Shrub with pink or white flowers was not a demeaning way to describe the short fat kid at the prom, but rather a SPIREA, which might just as easily have been clued as Label on the first steeple.

After that, I tried to to Wednesday’s puzzles.

New York Times – 12:54 (worst Wednesday for me in what feels like centuries — except I’ve only been doing crosswords since early February)
Los Angeles Times – 8:59
New York Sun – 9:55
The Onion – 8:56

New York Times
constructed by Edward Sessa; edited by Will Shortz

I got off to a hot start here, filling about 80% of the grid in the first three minutes. I got three of the long answers:

• 17A. INK – This is the one I didn’t have at first.
• 25A. IN : SOCIAL ADVANTAGE
• 43A. I : PERSONAL PRONOUN
• 57A. : DISAPPEARING INK

Very clever, lots of fun. (And by the way, I’ve switched to maroon highlights for the answers to go better with Ryan’s re-design for the site!)

I was also flying along brilliantly with lots of words I never thought I’d find: DADA, DECO, KWAI, KAYO, SCAMP, GINSU, MASSE, ITALY (if you asked me to name two countries affiliated with G8, I don’t even think Italy would be one of them, and yet — here it is!), BRAVO, GOP, etc… All great. I had a little trouble in the top of the grid, as I’ve never heard of MARL (pictured at left), and spent too long trying to decide whether I approved of “clayey” as a legitimate word. I got hung up also with the crossing at 39A/39D, as I tried GATE for a tollbooth’s access and GUNK for what gets caught in a trap (correct choices: LANE and LINT, respectively). Further complications arose when I couldn’t understand what kind of hound deserved its own quarry, and what that would even mean (48A). Oddly enough, Merriam-Webster, suggests the “one that is sought or pursued” definition (in the case of 48A, a HARE) before the one about an excavation site. Go figure.

And finally, the top center was my downfall. I doubted everything I thought I knew (5D. FILIAL, 7D. TAPE and 8D. ANOS) in favor of things that seemed less likely (21A. NULLS instead of NIXES) and apparently a bunch of random letters instead of either 5A. FATAL or 15A. INANE. To my own fault, I didn’t know the word ANOXIA, and Merriam-Webster isn’t much help here: “Hypoxia, especially of such severity as to result in permanent damage.” Okay, I’ll look up HYPOXIA: “A deficiency of oxygen reaching the tissues of the body.” Hm. Whatever.

And what ended up putting me into a crossword coma was my complete inability to locate the term CEPHALOPOD despite haveing CEPHAL—DSB-AY staring me in the face. (Yes, I later learned that 10D. was ALPERT not ALBERT, but even that combined with the knowledge of creatures who spew ink in defense was not enough.)

Los Angeles Times
constructed by Alan Olschwang; edited by Rich Norris

Like the New York Times puzzle, I was off to the races at first, and then spent a good four minutes on seven squares, most of which I had to cheat to get. The long answers were easy enough:

• 17A. Space shuttle supply : ROCKET FUEL
• 26A. 80s title sitcom role for Soleil Moon Frye : PUNKY BREWSTER
• 43A. Quick action in an emergency : RAPID RESPONSE
• 57A. Roll toppers : POPPY SEEDS

But then the “theme” clue: 22A. With 48-Across, what 17-, 26-, 43- and 57-Across each begins with. My head is still spinning from trying to understand what they want here… 48A has the oh-so-useful clue of See 22-Across. I have GEN-E, so I’m thinking it’s either GENIE or GENRE. And 22A so far has M—C, which immediately suggests MUSIC, although I’m sure there are other ideas out there. My brain is still swimming in the filth that was Night At The Museum (at least it was in Blu-Ray), and I can’t figure out what the hell they’re looking for. ROCKET, PUNKY, RAPID and POPPY — what are these things? R-P-R-P… I decide that 22A is MUSIC, but fail to understand that while each long answer is a two-word thing, it’s not the first word they’re looking for, its the first syllable: ROCK, PUNK, RAP and POP. Four MUSIC GENREs.

Sigh. Now onto the New York Sun, and I’ll see if I actually can give myself ANOXIA.

New York Sun
constructed by Lee Glickstein; edited by Peter Gordon

I’m getting more exhausted as the night progresses, and my Chinese food is talking back to me. The Sun puzzle was cute, taking normal phrases or titles, and using a homonym-like swap, changed one of the words in said title or phrase to a person’s name:

• 17A. Educator Horace alongside a comic book hero? : MANN AND SUPERMAN
• 35A. Leave the infant of “In Treatment” star Gabriel in the sun too long? : BURN, BABY BYRNE — This clue had too many “in”s in it for me… Infant, In Treatment, in the sun… In in in.
• 53A. Discussion between a former Colorado senator and a ’70s to ’90s rock band? : HART TO HEART TALK

Fun and nice, even if I got stuck for a while with answers I ought to have known (BMOC was in two puzzles today!) but didn’t. I need to go to sleep…

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.

Nope. Can’t do it. Thanks for playing.

New York Sun
by Ogden Porter; edited by Peter Gordon

FIVE MINUTES AND THREE SECONDS.

There is something amiss in the universe. Either today’s New York Sun puzzle is actually a Monday-level puzzle mistakenly run on a Friday, or… I don’t know what else.

Okay, actually it’s because I know more about musical theater than I’d like to admit, and the long clues were gimmes to me:

• 17A. With 21-Across, play that the musical “Kiss Me, Kate” was adapted from : THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
• 26A. Play that the musical “I Do, I Do!” was adapted from : THE FOURPOSTER
• 43A. Movie that the musical “Sugar” was adapted from : SOME LIKE IT HOT
• 49A. Opera that the musical “Rent” was adapted from : LA BOHEME
• 59A. Movie that the musical “Applause” was adapted from : ALL ABOUT EVE

But even the rest of the clues weren’t that difficult — although, granted, I had all the crossings from the “easy” long clues. So to consistent NYS solvers (and not Dan Feyer, who I know also knows a lot about musical theater): How easy was this puzzle, relative to other NYS? Clearly much easier than a Friday, even without a knowledge of musical theater sources. Weigh in, would you?

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 Steve Salmon, edited by Will Shortz

I am very unhappy with my time. I got the left and center of the grid done in about four minutes. While this is no howardb_42 time, it was certainly lovely by my own standards. But then I hit 37D. A key passage? which I decided was AISLE ISLE. It solved the bottom right for me just fine, but of course screwed up everything else. I’m looking at 42A. Exam for a future Atty. and 45A. “Lohengrin” lass, and I’m thinking they have to be LSAT and ELSA. But my second letters are I and S… What have I done wrong? (In case you read too quickly and missed my error — the answer to 37D is ISLE AISLE, not AISLE ISLE.) (Of course, if you’re reading this at all, you have way too much time on your hands, and you have no business reading anything “too quickly.” RELAX.)

I was also baffled by the top right, where for 10A. Tortilla sandwich, I was stubbornly certain it was TACO. And I know it’s not a sandwich, but technically, neither is a WRAP:

	Main Entry: 1sand·wich
	Pronunciation: \?san(d)-?wich, ?sam-; dialect ?sa?-\
	Function: noun
	Etymology: John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich died
		1792 English diplomat
	Date: 1762

	1a:  two or more slices of bread or a split roll
	     having a filling in between;
	b:   one slice of bread covered with food

	2:   something resembling a sandwich; especially:
	     composite structural material consisting of
	     layers often of high-strength facings bonded
	     to a low strength central core

16A. Breezy greeting also tricked me, as I thought it would be WAVE — far more clever than anything else available. Somehow, this led to a plethora of wrong answers and empty spaces, and I really should have just erased everything and started over. Which I did not. Instead I stared at it for a while. And then a while longer. And then suddenly, I was nearing the ten-minute mark (my current Tuesday average is about 8:30), and I was getting pissed off. WAVE was later replaced with HEYA before finally the correct answer, HIYA.

Ryan has given all the good answers, and included fun pictures from a trip he took. I have no photos, and only a cranky insistence that a wrap isn’t a sandwich. Now I have to take my cat to the vet. I’ll do the rest of the Tuesdays (as many as I can stomach) when I return.

Los Angeles Times
by Michael Langwald, edited by Rich Norris

Not that you can tell, but I have returned.

This was all very straightforward until the left section of the grid, which totally baffled me. In part, this was due to my incorrect answer to 48A. Fuss (TO-DO). In the crossing at 26D. *Fall guy in films?, I had –U-T-OUBLE. I wrongly assumed an R in that last blank to make something-TROUBLE. Hence my incorrect TORO (not much of a fuss, unless you’re the matador), and my complete inability to discover STUNT DOUBLE for 26D.

The rest of the theme had to do with 63D. Casino game, and hint to the theme in last words of answers to starred clues. I was hoping the clue could be a little longer. This wasn’t awkward enough for me.

COME ON. Starred clues? Lots of question marks on long answers? Where was this puzzle published, Los Angeles? Oh, right, it was. Hee hee. Anyway, the answer to 63D was BLACK JACK, of course. And the other themed answers were:

• 17A. *Where hacks wait? (TAXI STAND)
• 39A. *Batter’s success (BASE HIT)
• 11D. *Fruity ice cream treat? (BANANA SPLIT)

The theme was painless, but the execution was rough. Asterisks? And using question marks for non-cryptic clues was lame. I had TAXIST–D for a while for 17A, and reluctantly filled in the correct answer, looking for a play on words that didn’t exist.

Maybe I’ll try the Sun puzzle next… Stay tuned.

New York Sun
by Lee Glickstein, edited by Peter Gordon

Nothing like a crossword puzzle to show me that I have a complete lack of knowledge on just about every subject.

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.

This theme was delightful, and extremely helpful in solving. Unfortunately, due to my almost complete lack of intelligence, I spent 25:58 solving this thing, and used almost ten of those minutes on the top left corner.

I saw the puzzle’s title at about the time I got into the mid-40s across clues, specifically at 47A. What drips out of a toppled tub bottle? I am very familiar with this condition, in that my own shower is lined with SHAMPOO OOZE. This led to my discovery of 59A. Hawaiian dressmaking coll. bodysuits? — a clue which still doesn’t seem like actual English — and although I initially thought “coll. bodysuits” might be some awkward term for campus safety officials (I was trying something that ended in GUARDS), I eventually arrived at MUUMUU U. UNITARDS.

[On a side note, I think that "Muumuu U. Unitards" would make a terrific name for a character in a strange play.]

39A. Semidiameters pointed at by me? came quickly as RADII I INDICATED, but the top left was a mystery, and my greatest fear came true — that not knowing the capital of Yemen would lead to my crosswording downfall.

In my mind, I invented an animal called the aardwolf (although it actually exists), but was reluctant to put it in the grid for fear it would become problematic. Little did I know that I was correct with the AARDWOLVES part of 17A. Hyenalike animals from Yemen’s capital?, while accurate in my assessment that I still did not know the capital of Yemen.

The whole top left was filled in and emptied, filled in and emptied. I couldn’t figure 1A. After-dinner orders, maybe, having tried both DRINKS and DISHES before arriving at DECAFS. And I must have ignored the question mark in 14A. Biased writing?, as I never really considered the idea of ITALICS. After Googling the capital of Yemen (that sounds like a euphemism for something), I managed to complete 17A. with SANAA AARDWOLVES. That, combined with using Across Lite’s “reveal” feature to show me what 28A. Sgt., e.g. (NCO – I never remember this one), led me to 3D (CANNONADE), 4D (A LA — my French is tres disastreaux), 5D (FIASCO), which finally helped me with the rest of that section.

Clever and fun, but I’m going to have to keep Googling the capital of Yemen if I want to get any better at this.

I am a huge baseball fan, and never ever have I heard anyone use terms like ALER (69A. Dice-K, for one) to describe any member of an American League team. NEVER. Dice-K is many things: Japanese, slightly red-headed, right-handed, a former member of the Seibu Lions, a current member of the Boston Red Sox, a member of the 2006 World Baseball Classic championship team, a winner of 15 regular season games in 2007, the owner of a rather exciting Major League Baseball World Series Championship ring, the subject of much media scrutiny (both in the United States and Japan) — yes, Daisuke Matsuzaka is a lot of things, but that ridiculous non-word ALER is not one that comes easily to mind.

This puzzle took me nearly eleven minutes, mostly because the fourth of the theme answers eluded me — primarily because I got the other three long answers without understanding the theme. BAGEL HANDLER, HOTEL CHOCOLATE and VOWEL OF SILENCE seemed like awkward phrases, and while I saw the EL in the midst of each, all that led me to believe was that the fourth began with LAPEL (which it did, thank you very much). What I didn’t see was that without the EL, they were far more normal turns of phrase.

A related aside: I am far more accepting of ALL the long clue answers than I am of ALER. Far more.

The bottom right slowed me down, as I knew neither 55A. “Kollege of Musical Knowledge” host Kay (KYSER) nor 59D. “Hercules” spinoff (XENA). I also had 40D. Slaughtered according to Islamic law (HALAL) off to a wrong start (I had LALA-), so my fourth long clue had a lot of empty squares in it. Again, without thinking “lap of luxury,” I was not going to easily see LAPEL OF LUXURY (which I also contend is more appropriate to diamond-studded jackets than ALER is to baseball).

Words ending in -ER I would accept ahead of ALER:

• PITCHER
• RIGHT-HANDER
• WINNER (OF THE WORLD SERIES)
• MEMBER (OF THE BOSTON RED SOX)
• FOREIGNER
• BALLER
• HURLER

Hopefully this post will make non-words like ALER and NLER come morer quicklier to minder.

I didn’t even think to look for a title — yet there was one. I got the gimmick fairly quickly, but then I stared at 56A. Danger signs for a good two minutes trying to think how FLAGS could be an animal before I realized that it wasn’t one of the theme answers (and my initial choice of REDFLAGS was correct).

I was slowed by insisting (to myself) that 51A. Christ follower? was MAS (it was actually INE – I like my answer better), by trying to make 48A. Celebrated author into a COWARDLY LION (when a LITERARY LION makes so much more sense), and by not knowing either of the proper names in 33A. Lanchester of “Blackbeard’s Ghost” or 33D. Running great Zatopek (ELSA and EMIL, pictured at right).

My time of 14:48 is disgusting, and I will treat myself poorly all day as a result of this dreadful performance.

I almost finished this without google but I got stuck in the upper left.  The theme dealt with the speed of light.   The title is “Speed Limit 670,616,629 537/1397 MPH”.  Not sure if that’s the 100% correct title as I don’t know what the significance of 537/1397 is.  So, the trick in this puzzle is the word “light” shows up a lot and gets crammed into one box.  Again, I’m a little in the dark here (pardon the pun), what does this have to do with the speed of light?  I guess since I just had to type in an “L” I was able to complete it faster.  Maybe?  That being said, this was a very enjoyable puzzle.

The theme clues/answers:

•  1A. Ecstatic (DElightED).
• 19A. Nighttime memorial, perhaps (CANDLElightVIGIL).
• 26A. Playground game (REDlightGREENlight).
• 31A. 1944 Best Picture nominee (GASlight).
• 52A. Ionosphere phenomenon (NORTHERNlightS).
• 59A. Hanukkah (or an alternate title for this puzzle) (FESTIVALOFlightS)
• 73A. To a small degree (lightLY)
• 74A. Instruct (ENlightEN)
• 3D. Smoker’s item (lightER)
• 7D. Best-selling beer in the U.S. since 2001 (BUDlight)
• 11A. They’re sometimes found in theaters (AISLElightS)
• 27D. Arrive at by chance (lightON)
• 30D. Show happiness (lightUP)
• 48D. Brushes off (SlightS)
• 56D. Emphasize (HIGHlight)
• 62D. Pub offering (lightALE)
• 66D. Match up again? (reLIGHT)

Good theme.

Favorite clues:

• 20D. What one is done with? (DEE).  Love this one.  Even after I got it filled in, it still took me a little while to figure out what it meant.  Perfectly worded.
•  69A. Ho accessory (LEI).  A necklace of flowers?  Not the first thing that came into my head.

Here’s one I don’t understand:

• 1D. Sign of the times? (DOT).  Is this an acronym for something?

I’ll report on the Sun puzzles on and off.  But I think I will start solving them every day.