If you’re experiencing any weirdness with the podcast (particularly episodes 77 and 78) or the blog please let us know.

Neither of us really know what we’re doing but we’ll try to get over this hump as smoothly as possible.

Thanks.

[Somehow comments from last week's Friday puzzle have attached themselves to this post.  I haven't asked Brian yet but I'm going to guess neither of us know how that happened.]

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

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

Did that make sense? No? Good.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s the rest of the theme entries:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Very fun theme.

Other highlights:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next stop, Friday.

Anybody who reads this blog is probably there so I think writing anything is probably pointless.  So, I’ll just say I’m almost done with this Karen M. Tracey puzzle.  I just figured out 4D. Swinger’s get-together? (JAZZ SESSIONS).  For quite a while I thought it was ORGY SESSIONS.  Hee hee.

Anyway, I just need that top left and I’ll be done.

But, hey, we’ll see you at Lollapuzzoola!

Next stop, Sunday.

Due to some technical difficulties, the next episode of Fill Me In is going to be arriving a little bit late today. Those difficulties may or may not include my ability to stay awake for enough hours to get the program done. Let the record show that Ryan completed his portion of the podcast preparation in a timely manner, and all the delay is solely my fault. Sad, but true.

Watch this space for the next episode of Fill Me In, a little bit later today. Thanks for your patience.

- Brian

Oh, yeah — no-Google, baby. No-Google.

The big obstacle for me, and the last part to fall, was the top left. I had four clues (three downs and one across) that all collaborated at keeping me at bay:

• 1D. Hindu musician’s source material for improvisation : RAGAS
• 2D. Methyl orange or Congo red : AZODYE
• 3D. Woman’s name meaning “peace” : ZULEMA. Okay, this is ridiculous. Who the hello is Zulema? I have 978 friends on Facebook (most of whom I haven’t spoken to in years), and none of them is named Zulema, as far as I know. Perhaps I would know more if I spoke to my friends occasionally.
• 17A. “Haw” : GO LEFT. I’m going to use this on Ryan. Just wait.

The big standout feature of this grid is that it does not have crossword’s standard 180-degree rotational symmetry. Instead, it has a self-referential design, mildly clued as follows:

• 5D. They may be seen on a lake’s surface : REFLECTED IMAGES
• 23A. Rectangular array that’s identical when its rows and columns are transposed, as this puzzle’s grid : SYMMETRIC MATRIX

This only confirms for us that Mike Nothnagel knows everything about all levels of math, pie-thagorean squares be damned.

It’s late, and I’m tired. But I finished the damn thing. And my no-Google streak is now back at one. Hooray.

Go register for the ACPT. Come see me and Ryan on a panel. We’ll say something witty. Just for you. Also, even sooner than that, episode 42 of Fill Me In will happen in the next couple days, featuring an interview with four-time ACPT champion, Tyler Hinman [insert kickass nickname here].

See you Sunday!

In the meantime, I was unable to solve this puzzle. What a surprise. Here is a lengthy list of things that either I don’t know or don’t actually exist.

• 1A. Aids in artful deception : WEASELWORDS. Also acceptable : HOME DEPOT, since they tricked me into thinking that my brand new dishwasher would actually wash dishes.
• 3D. Part if 16-Across: Abbr. : AGCY. Yucky abbreviation.
• 6D. Square, in 1950s slang, indicated visually by a two-hand gesture : LSEVEN. Is this one word? Hyphenated? Honestly, I thought the two-hand gesture was to indicate SQUARE. Must be a different two-hand gesture.
• 12D. Pet with short legs and a hard coat, informally : SCOTTIE DOG. Is this for a Scottish Terrier? Scotty, Scottie, Scotch — so many ways to randomly shorten a name. And really, those little dogs? Those are for people who are embarrassed to be cat lovers. Just get a cat.
• 14D. Reviews repeatedly : HASHES OVER. Doesn’t this just mean “reviews”? I mean, to do it repeatedly would be RE-hashing. So one hash = one review. I disagree with this clue/answer team.
• 19A. “The Daughter of Time” novelist : TEY
• 20A. Big Daddy player on 1950s Broadway : IVES
• 21A. Gabfest : KLATCH. I feel like both clue and answer here are imaginary words.
• 24A. Sink : SCUTTLE. All my dirty dishes are now in the scuttle.
• 25D. Measure of a newborn’s health, named for its developer : APGAR’S CORE or APGAR SCORE (I don’t know). Clearly I either have never had a child or I have never paid attention. I’ll let you figure out which it is.
• 26D. Extension of the terms of a marine insurance policy : SHORE COVER
• 29A. ___ of Galadriel (gift to Frodo Baggins) : PHIAL. Is this another word for VIAL? I have watched all the Lord of the Rings movies twice, and I still can not tell you more about what happens than “a bunch of short people with big feet wander for about a hundred years to throw away a piece of jewelry that everyone hates.”
• 33A. Antigen attacker : TCELL
• 33D. Wealthy Cayman Islands resident, maybe : TAX EXILE. I don’t know what this is at all.
• 34A. Year of the last blah blah blah who cares, it’s a Roman numeral : CDIV
• 36A. Street show : RAREE
• 37A. 2003 memoir of a TV executive : ROONE
• 40D. Private detective Mike of Brett Halliday novels : SHAYNE
• 44A. Switch : BEAT. I don’t understand this at all.
• 45D. ___ Rivera, Calif. : PICO
• 48A. Duct opening? : OVI. Not VIA.
• 49A. 1970s-’80s sitcom putdown/catchphrase : KISS MY GRITS. I have never heard this before. I’m sure it was very popular. But I never watched much television until the 1990s, and I’ve never had that many friends (Facebook notwithstanding), so I clearly missed this very important element of our culture. Is this grits like food?
• 52A. Loch ___, on the River Shannon : REE. What am I calling it when the clue is an arcane mystery that just makes me feel stupid? I need a name for this kind of clue. The River Shannon? Whatever.

So the difference between Thursday and Friday is that Thursday had one square I didn’t know (which, to be fair, was pointed out on all of the other blogs as a trouble square), and Friday had 1,762,991 squares I didn’t know. Thanks for playing. I’ll see you in last place at the ACPT.

Current no-Google streak: DEAD.

I’ll be back this evening.

Oh my god, Frank Longo, why are you torturing me? You alone scare the living something out of me when I see your name in a byline. This has been the case in Games Magazine, this has been the case with your 25-foot-long puzzle (that still remains about 53% finished in a box on a shelf in my office).

And I got mad mad mad when I saw that Dan Feyer (who I know is a million times smarter than I’ll ever be) did it in 3:41. THREE FORTY-ONE? I had about six answers in place at 6:41, and after looking some up, realized that four of them were wrong. How on earth do you know everything?

I knew 62A. Killer of Greedo in a sci-fi film (HAN SOLO). And yes, he shot first.

So here’s my list of things I don’t understand:

17A. Payback factor : ACCRUED INTEREST. I don’t understand. I see that the clue is about paying a debt, and the answer seems related, but I don’t get it.

29A. Between green and black, say : RIPE. This is a major stretch, and I’m torn between thinking it’s incredibly clever and completely horrible. I *do* understand this one, though, so no need to smack me in the face with a green banana.

40A. Fort Worth’s ___ Carter Museum : AMON. Sometimes, when the grid is just full of random letters, I guess one can just Google an entry and then later figure out if there’s a clue to go with it. This idiot blogger has no clue about this museum.

42A. Jack : LONG GREEN. Is this about golf?

52A. Pulsar, e.g. : RADIO SOURCE. Is Pulsar a brand name? Or is this something in outer space? Or both?

59A. Explosive measure : KILOTON. As in “a kiloton of explosive stuff.” But then, couldn’t BAGGIEFUL also be an explosive measure?

2D. Crackpots : LOCOS. Aren’t crackpots people who are experts at things? For example: “Dan Feyer is a crackpot at crosswords.”

13D. Certain twin : SIS. Who’s twin is this? It’s apparently someone certain.

18D. Nigerian native : IBO. That’s a word?

28D. Hokey jokes : CORN. Right.

30D. Like correctional facilities : PENAL. Yes, when I’m trying to describe one of the other million things that are penal, I usually struggle to find the word, and say, “Well, it’s like… it’s… it’s like a correctional facility.”

31D. ___ Bowl : ALAMO. Might as well have been “Five-letter word” for the clue. Super Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Aloha Bowl… Really? There’s an Alamo Bowl? I challenge anyone reading this to tell me anyone who has ever played in the Alamo Bowl without looking it up.

34D. Year in which Middle English began, by tradition : MCL. It could be anything. And “by tradition”? Isn’t a tradition something that we do year after year? Like we all tease my father for using an electric knife on the frozen meringue-sorbet cake. That’s a tradition. What year a dead language may or may not have started is not a tradition.

44D. 1990s President of the Philippines : RAMOS. President + Philippines = Imelda Marcos’ shoe collection. That’s all I have.

46D. German magazine article : EIN. Why “magazine”? And for what it’s worth, the list of six German articles I know does not include this one (das, der, die, sie, ich, ach — and I’m sure at least one of those isn’t actually an article).

53D. Marsh bird : SORA. Sora, Amon, corn… these could be rivers I haven’t yet learned.

55D. Boot attachment : SKI. I always thought we attached the boots to the skis, not the other way around. Or is “attachment” a mutual experience?

56D. 1961 hit song for the Angels : TIL. In 1961, the Angels were a brand new expansion team in the American League. Their best player was leftfielder Leon Wagner, who hit 28 homers and batted .280. They went 70-91 and finished in eighth place. I know a lot about baseball, but I had no idea that the Angels ever released an album.

57D. Each, in scores : ALL. What scores use this? Is this supposed to be like “all the violins play here” as in “each and every violin”? Every score I’ve read, when they want all the instruments to play, use TUTTI.

Ryan, I am pleading with you. Don’t ever make me do a Saturday puzzle again.

Before I forget, here’s a link to our latest podcast. The weekly interview was with constructors Dave McLeod and Barbara Olson. Take a listen.

As to today’s puzzle, this had just the right kind of theme for a Wednesday — something that didn’t make sense at first, continued to not make sense, and actually required me reading one of the entries out loud before I knew what the hello was going on. Granted, Ryan reminded me at 2am that I had to live up to my half of the title billing on this blog, so I was a bit bleary. Forgive any typos that stray into this post.

We remember constructor Michael Blake most recently from his last puzzle collaboration with our podcast friend, Andrea Carla Michaels. Mr. Blake previously appeared only one other time on a solo effort, but if he constructs puzzles like this one, he should be back again soon.

The theme appeared in these entries:

• 17A. Elegance in road construction? : PAVING GRACE
• 23A. Desirable guy to rent from? : PLUM LANDLORD
• 40A. Hit “snooze” with force? : POUNDED THE ALARM
• 50A. Council of Guinness drinkers? : PUB COMMITTEE

And everything was explained with:

• 63A. Feature of some intersections … or a five-word hint to 17-, 23-, 40- and 50-Across : FOUR-WAY STOP, or FOUR-WAY S TO P

It wasn’t until I said the last part out loud that I saw what was going on. This is awfully clever, and the sort of theme that makes me wonder if I actually have any brains in my head at all. How does he come up with this? (In case, in my bleary state, I’m not being clear — he has taken a normal phrase, like “saving grace” and made the S into a P [S-to-P], thus resulting in “paving grace.”)

Pia Zadora appears for the 44th time overall — 41 times for her first name (although not always clued in reference to her), but this is only the third ZADORA sighting in the Will Shortz era. Another DORA is here as well at 26D. TV explorer. I’m surprised that made it through the censors. I thought that sort of repetitive answer thing was a no-no. But what do I know-know?

President-elect Barack OBAMA makes his seventh appearance in the puzzle, this time as 8D. Winner of 2008. If I can take a mild political stance here, I’d like to believe that the whole country is a winner in 2008 thanks to this election. Even if Mr. Obama does not make the world 100% perfect by the time his term(s) is/are finished, he’s an awfully smart guy with a whole lot of positive, progressive passion about the world. That’s a good recipe, and I hope we all begin to feel like winners soon.

I’d like to end this post with a wish of good health to my friend Adam, who’s under the weather. Adam is another awfully smart guy with a whole lot of passion. Perhaps my belief in the good future ahead under the leadership of Mr. Obama is a result of seeing such good things come from people closer to me, people like Adam. So let’s wish him well, wish him a speedy recovery.

See you Thursday!

• 17A. Gardener’s gift : GREEN THUMB
• 24A. Measure of national economic health : MISERY INDEX
• 39A. Come to a compromise : MEET IN THE MIDDLE – Not to be confused with “Malcolm in the Middle,” which is only a compromise if the two initial offers are “torture me with terrible television” and “make me never want to have children.”
• 51A. “Call sometime” : GIVE ME A RING – After this answer made its way into the grid, I was sure I was on the wrong track because all I had in my head was my wife singing that Beyonce song over and over, the one with “if you like it, you better put a ring on it…” (forgive any inaccuracies in my lyrical recollection).
• 64A. Rhyming word game : HINKY PINKY – As if. There is no such rhyming word game.

The theme, now, is of course Five Things That Seem To Mean Nothing. But secretly, it’s the five fingers. Ha! Very clever! Wonderful work, Ms. Truitt!

Delightful and clever for a Monday, a little trickier (to this pathetic solver) than usual. Thanks for a great puzzle.

See you Tuesday!

One thing I did get:

56A. Sticks you need to break (POOL CUES).

I can’t believe I got that much.

More later…

Hello there — Brian here. I managed to find some time over lunch to work on this demanding Byron Walden grid. I needed a little help here and there, but I eventually managed to find my way. That people like Dan and Amy just happen to know absolutely everything in the entire universe in five minutes is beyond me. It would take me five millennia to learn everything in the universe, and even then, I forget most of what I learn about five minutes after learning it. Truly amazing how different “five minutes” can be to different people.

The scariest commitment I made to this grid was deciding that TECH SAVVY was going to be right for 14D. Like computer programmers. Aside from my recent comment on the frequency of double-V words, this word was placed in a last column position — meaning that there were going to be two across entries ending in V! Insane! Unheard of! Those across entires turned out to be:

• 34A. Predecessor of Gregory XI : URBAN V
• 36A. Feeding tube? : CLOSED CIRCUIT TV

In all honesty, I don’t understand that last one. I know that the signal to the television is called the feed and that the television itself is called the tube, but who is the closed-circuit television feeding?

Good ol’ Urban wasn’t our only numerically designated entry, as we also had EDWARD II (59A. Christopher Marlowe play). I only know three people personally who have Roman numerals after their names. One is a II and two are IIIs. Did the fashion of last names lead to the demise of the IVs, VIIIs and XIIIs of the world?

A handful of very Saturdayish clues with normal answers:

• 1A. Saw in the dark? : DREAMT OF
• 54A. Relative of a chuckwalla : IGUANA
• 56A. Sticks you need to break : POOL CUES
• 1D. Soap, for example : DRAMA
• 7D. Standards, e.g. : OLD MUSIC
• 9D. Presenter of bills : ATM
• 48D. Spring break? : OASIS

But also a collection of words that don’t actually exist, words that Byron Walden, Orange and Dan Feyer all collectively made up just to make people like me have no earthly idea what to do:

• 5D. Like a cob : MALE

Great puzzle and I think may have broke some sort of personal record for spotting a rebus.  I spotted it even before I saw:

52A. Mischief-makers (you’ll find seven of them in the answer grid) (LITTLEDEVILS).

I figured out the rebus on:

66A. Spontaneous skits (impROV).

And there were 6 additional IMPs hidden throughout the grid.  Some came easily:

2D. Curious George, for one (CHimp).

37A. TV series that’s now a film franchise (MISSIONimpOSSIBLE).  I think I’ve ranted about these movies before.  Yes, I totally have but here’s an update.  I just rented and watched the Brian DePalma-directed The Untouchables and it’s just not a very good movie.  It’s got some good moments but, on the whole, it doesn’t do it for me.  Are there any DePalma movies that people really love?  I’ll tell you what though, that Untouchables’ score by Ennio Morricone is amazing.  The score makes the movie seem much, much better than it actually is.

45A. Call into question (impEACH).  This can still be done to presidents, right?

46D. See for a second (GLimpSE).

And others were a struggle:

15D. Sights at many football games (BLimpS).  This whole corner took me a long time. 12D. Deliver a stemwinder (ORATE).  I thought a stemwinder was a type of snake which made me think there was some special word for a snake giving birth.  However, snakes do not give birth, they lay eggs.  I remembered this later on.  I enjoy when my ignorance has depth and texture. 18A. Constellation with a music-related name (LYRA).  Yes, LYRA is a constellation.  LYRA is also a Turkish bowed instrument.  Never heard of either one.

22A. Be stingy with (SKimpON).  I had SCRIMPS and was positive it was correct.

Other highlights:

36D. Green and Rogen of comedies (SETHS).  Seth Green created Robot Chicken. 46A. Sought-after object (GRAIL).  King Arthur went after the Holy Grail.  Put them together and you get:

43A. Peak performance? (YODEL).  Here is a video of Taylor Ware who, apparently, is America’s yodeling sweetheart.

You may have noticed The Hoff looking somewhat incredulous.  I think anybody who once appeared in public like this

gives up all future rights to incredulity.

33D. Seafood cocktail ingredient (TIGERSHRimp).  Tiger Shrimp are quite large.  I wonder how many Brian could eat in one sitting.

All around great puzzle by Doug.  I like a Thursday challenge.  Keeps me from getting too cocky.  And Thursdays are usually my cockiest days.  So much so that I’ve taken to calling it Cockursday.

Next stop, Fricockyday.

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.