Ryan and Brian do Crosswords

Brian solves Wednesday, 1-7-08

Brian — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:18:14 +0000

So much for my no-Google week. Had to look up one stupid square. 1A. Garden bloom, informally is a GLAD. A what? I don’t know this term, and knowing me, I’m not likely to remember it. What bothered me more was that I couldn’t see -RAHAM being anything at all. My brain kept telling me it was a B or a D, and as I went through the alphabet guessing, I just told myself — you’re guessing. You have no idea. Turns out I actually have heard of the word graham. In fact, in a previous podcast, Ryan and I discussed graham crackers, and our friend Adam wrote in to tell us his take on the history of the graham cracker. What? You don’t remember that episode? Get ye back to your iTunes, and downloadde. Now.

The theme to this William Frank Macreery offering is what I could call Sets. Simple term, yes, but what I mean is that we’re looking at a set of, in this case, four things that are all similar in their clever way. In this case, it’s names better known as foreign cities, but here there are in America.

18A. Host city of golf’s Memorial Tournament : DUBLIN, OHIO. Sports I know nothing about. New York Times 1, Brian 0.
30A. Hometown to college football’s Vandals : MOSCOW, IDAHO. More sports I know nothing about. NYT 2, Brian 0.
36A. Where rock’s R.E.M. was formed : ATHENS, GEORGIA. I know about R.E.M., but where they’re from? NYT 3, Brian 0.
44A. Paul Revere founded a brass and copper works here : ROME, NEW YORK. 4-0.
59A. Birthplace of Vice President Hannibal Hamlin : PARIS, MAINE. Seriously. Could we have come up with five less well-known facts? Dan Feyer, you write to me this instant and tell me which of these five you knew, if any. And also, how you manage to slow down time and do a freakin’ Wednesday puzzle in two minutes and change. I used 6:15 to solve, and another 45 seconds to figure out the G in graham.

Lots of same letters near each other in strange combinations of words. BAHRAINI (11D. Native of one of the Gulf States) next to ANIMALIA (12D. Lion’s kingdom — very clever clue); OLIVIA (47D. “Twelfth Night” countess) next to RIVERA (48D. Muralist Diego); and FALANA (8D. Lola of “Golden Boy”) and SHILOH (9D. Name we all know now that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are the two most important people in America) gave us two sets of AH — not including 29A. Sound from a masseur’s client (AAH).

I’m not sure about having both ENE and ESE in the same grid on the same line, but one of them wasn’t clued directionally (52A. Language suffix; the other was one of those almost completely useless clues: 51A. St. Louis-to-Indianapolis direction). I know a decent amount about geography, but these clues never quite work for me.

And now, the things I didn’t know (other than GLAD):

6D. Tulsa sch. : ORU. I think this was in a puzzle I did recently, and I didn’t know it then either. Why isn’t it OSU? Because this clue is about Oral Roberts.
19D. “Quo Vadis” role : NERO
35A. Geraint’s lady : ENID. Okay. Now, as I’m writing this blog, I realize that this clue asks for a woman’s name. Why, then, while I was solving the puzzle, did I wonder aloud (yes) how ENID could be the name of a man?
43A. ___-rock (music genre) : EMO. Haha! Just kidding! It’s ALT, although Emo was what I thought of first.
46D. Growl at, say : MENACE. As a verb? Okay.

Seemed pretty standard and decent for a Wednesday. I give William Frank Macreery a big thumbs up.

See you Thursday!

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Brian solves the NYT puzzle for Tuesday, 1-6-08

Brian — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:19:26 +0000

One of these days, I will have to assemble a List Of Theme Types. It’s probably out there, but don’t stop me — I’m going to do it anyway. This theme falls into the category I will call “What This Start With.” That’s a mildly clumsy name, but I sometimes find it a mildly clumsy experience figuring out the theme. At least, it is for me. Yesterday’s theme had only three entries, but I saw them as they came together — meet, meat, mete. Today’s theme had a similar structure (essentially three entries, explained by a fourth), but what are they?

17A. They’re hard to believe : TALL STORIES. Right off, I’m a little cranky. Tall tales, right? Do we use “tall” to describe other outlandish things? I thought it was a specific adjective for tales only.
28A. 1939 Bette Davis drama : DARK VICTORY. I’ve never seen this, although people used to tell my sister that her eyes were similar to Bette Davis’s. I don’t know if anyone ever told Bette that someday, there would be a young actress whose brother did crossword puzzles poorly, and that actress would have similar eyes. If someone were to tell me that they had done such a thing, I would consider that recount to be a rather tall story. (No, I don’t think it works, either.)
45A. Big pile of cash : HANDSOME SUM

and then 60A. Figure described by the first words of 17-, 28- and 45-Across is, of course, a MATINEE IDOL. You know, before earning my living writing three paragraphs a day about crossword puzzles, I was on the fast track to becoming a matinee idol. Okay, okay. Which story seems taller, the one about someone telling Bette Davis that someday my sister would look like her, or that I could ever earn a living writing about crossword puzzles?

(I will give demerits to anyone who thinks that me being a matinee idol is taller than either of those. I’m tall. And that’s 33% more than Bette Davis had going for her.)

The clumsy aspect of this sort of theme (to me) is that as it’s going along, I don’t catch on to the point. As a result, the solving process (until I discover the explaining clue — which is always late on the list) feels more like solving a themeless puzzle. Maybe it’s Pavlovian, and that since themeless puzzles (for the Times, anyway) are on Fridays and Saturdays, and I generally suck at doing Fridays and Saturdays, then I get frustrated when a Tuesday (which has a theme) has me wondering what I’m doing wrong… And I have rambled myself into an ellipsis.

Anyway, some entries I didn’t know:

23. Source of orange-red light : NEON LAMP. Very specific clue for what appears to be a very generic answer. That’s like saying “place to find 18-year old balsamic vinegar from the southern regions of Italy” and the answer is “a store.” Neon comes in lots of colors, doesn’t it? Or is the light always orange-red, but the glass is tinted? I’ll be the first (and probably the third, sixth and eleventh) to admit that I don’t know anything.
29D. Swedish currency : KRONOR. Why, in my head, does this always get scrambled up with KRONE or KRONA, either of which might not even be a word? Also, KRONON. I think that one is definitely not a word. I need to learn money. And four-letter geography (see below).
30D. Black mamba’s secretion: VENOM. I figured venom, and I think a black mamba is some kind of spider, perhaps. But I wanted to bring up the candy Mambas. My friend Jason likes them an awful lot. I think they’re like eating expired wax blocks that once were waved in the general vicinity of a fruity aroma.
57D. Sicilian city : ENNA. I had E-N-, and the only thing I know about Sicily is the volcano, Etna. There’s a city called Enna, too?

No pictures today, because I’m on my way to feed Ryan’s cats. That’s not a euphemism for anything. He’s away, and I’m nice.

See you Wednesday!

Current no-Google streak: 2.

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Brian solves the NYT puzzle for Monday, 1-5-08

Brian — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:21:47 +0000

I love looking at puzzle bylines now, and not only recognizing the constructor’s name, but feeling a personal connection! Ryan and I did a podcast interview with today’s constructor, Andrea Carla Michaels, and it remains one of my favorite interviews. She is a delight, and her expertise in crafting a Monday style puzzle remains unmatched.

Today’s grid features exactly a Monday theme. Three long answers with words that sound alike but are spelled differently. We call those types of words “something-o-phones,” or “words we misspell all the time because other words sound just like them and our brains just don’t work that well all the time.”

23A. 2000 De Niro/Stiller comedy : MEET THE PARENTS. I didn’t love this movie. A lot of the humor in it seems to work around making someone feel like a jackass for no good reason other than because the opportunity arises. This is bullying, and while I do it to Ryan all the time on the podcast, that doesn’t count, because I actually like him in real life. Okay, maybe it counts, and Not Bullying Ryan on the show should be a New Year’s resolution. Anyway — this movie also featured actress Teri POLO whose name is clued this time as 25D. Explorer Marco, despite crossing with the film’s title. I think the movie would have been less successful had Marco Polo played the role of Ben Stiller’s fiancee. Or maybe it would have been a very different film.
35A. Basic, as issues : MEAT AND POTATOES. This answer simply makes me hungry.
47A. What judges do in court : METE OUT JUSTICE. I have to admit, I’ve never heard this term used before. Sure, I understand that it’s what they do, but is this an “in the language” phrase? Maybe if Andrea reads this, she can enlighten us as to the origins of this phrase.

Some other points of interest:

47D. Spouses is MATES, and it sits near a potential pair of mates, which would make for a strange story. We have 48D. Singer EDITH Piaf crossing with 52A. First name in W.W. II infamy (ADOLF Hitler — I presume; I suppose it could have been Adolf Jones, but his story isn’t as well known). What would a Piaf/Hitler relationship have been like? Seems destined for disaster, what with his incessant drive toward hating everyone through strains of xenophobia and her warbling vibrato. Plus they didn’t speak the same language. But who knows. Maybe she could have brought music into his life, and calmed him down some. Also crossing in this area is 49D. The Lone Ranger’s faithful friend TONTO. He could have been paired up with Edith, too. Or maybe with Adolf. Or perhaps all three could have a little fun together.

39D. Actress TORI Spelling crosses with “potatoes” of the central theme clue, which I find appropriate, since she is a bit of a potato face. I’m not a fan. My father calls certain actresses “potato faces.” I think it’s a combination of when they have very little talent, a great deal of exposure, and their greatest asset seems to be a rather fleshy visage that looks relatively cute at 19, a bit sad at 29, and unusable at 39.

Speaking of my father, there are just seven shopping days left until his birthday. He’s not a big fan of acknowledging his birthday, so I’ll do it for him. It’s seven days away. Wish him well!

And see you Tuesday!

Current no-Google streak: 1.

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Brian solves Sunday, 1-4-09

Brian — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 15:14:34 +0000

You’d think that with half the title of this blog in my name I wouldn’t be a “fill-in” host, but that’s the case. Ryan is away on a vacation with his wife, so I’m left to do the puzzles — and write about them! — for a whole week. If you’re lucky, Ryan will check in and add his own commentary to these posts… Otherwise, I’m afraid I will lead to a steady decline in our viewership. Oh, dear.

I was hoping to kick off my Ryanless week with a no-Google Sunday, but that’s just not my thing. I’m far more likely to take an hour less to complete the puzzle and get five things wrong. And that’s more or less what happened here — five wrong squares. But first, our very cute theme by Daniel A. Finan. With the title “When In Rome,” we take phrases we all know (sort of), and replace the numbers in the phrase with their Roman numeral equivalents:

23A. Many a fish story : THE I THAT GOT AWAY. I = one, of course. I have absolutely no fish stories, except stories involving me eating fish. And those aren’t all that interesting. Ryan and I are both hooked on a Facebook game called Fish Wrangler, though. I have no idea what the allure is about it. You just click a thing once every fifteen minutes. It’s sort of like entering the numbers on the hatch computer in “Lost.” Meaningless and addictive. Maybe I should move to an island.
30A. Stubble : V O’CLOCK SHADOW (V=5). I have never had this. My beard doesn’t grow in very thick, and it takes me about three days of not shaving before anyone would even notice. Ryan, on the other hand, somehow lives in a perpetual state of V o’clock shadow. Here’s a picture of him and his wife doing “Who’s On First?” in Spanish at my wedding. This was at about 12:30 in the afternoon — and the shadow was already present.
47A. Last film directed by Cecil B. DeMille : THE X COMMANDMENTS (X=10). If only DeMille lasted long enough to direct THE X FILES as well.
63A. 1976 #1 hit whose title follows the words “There must be…” : L WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER (L=50). Although most people associate the song with Paul Simon, I’d rather share with you the illegally on-the-web video of one of my favorite bands, The Electric Mayhem, doing their take on it:

84A. Gabriel Garcia Marquez best seller : C YEARS OF SOLITUDE (C=100). I didn’t know this one. So far, it’s been XXXV years of not reading this book for me.
98A. Event first won by a Marmon Wasp : INDIANAPOLIS D (D=500). I had INDIAN in place, and was trying to sort out Cleveland baseball and Utah-based religions in my mind. Yes, I thought it said “Mormon Wasp,” and I had no idea what that was. But crosswords are full of things I’ve never heard of, so why not this? (I haven’t heard of a “Marmon” anything before, but here’s a picture.)
111A. Salad bar option : M ISLAND DRESSING (M=1000). Does anyone else ever make fake 1,000 Island at home by mixing ketchup and mayonnaise? Why would we have done this at my house when I was a kid?

The things I didn’t know:

1A. Emmy-winning actor Powers ___ : BOOTHE
7D. Renaissance family name : ESTE. This word has been used 130 times in the New York Times puzzles, and I usually know it when it’s clued as “Villa d’___.”
9D. Music genre derived from punk rock : EMO. On September 13, 2008, I wondered (blog-style) what Emo was. I now quote my own post:

45A. Genre of rock’s Fall Out Boy : EMO. Apparently, the genre of ROCK’s Fall Out Boy isn’t ROCK. What is EMO? Apparently, it’s derivitave of punk, and originated in Washington, D.C. Since my web browser’s fonts are set very small, I don’t have the patience to read the whole Wiklqpedia page, but the two pictures they offer demonstrate the importance of horrible haircuts.

44A. Nickelodeon’s “Kenan & ___” and 44D. Russian ballet company : KEL and KIROV. That first letter could have been anything.
69D. University of Missouri campus site : ROLLA
78D. Latin 101 verb : ESSE. I was sure it was ECCE. I don’t know why. This led to complications with the Marquez theme answer (I figured “colitude” must be something I don’t know about) and 90A. Wisconsin city on Lake Michigan (KENOSHA), which I didn’t know either.
106A. Clear brandy : EAU DE VIE. Water of life? I don’t know. Sure.

Favorite answer of the day, as it honors (silently) our friend the Unparalleled Parallel Verse Engineer:

73A. ___ Blake, player of Miss Kitty on “Gunsmoke” : AMANDA

That’s it for today. I’ll be around all week. Sorry about that. See you Monday.

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Ryan solves the NYT, Sat 1-3-4

ryan — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 13:06:10 +0000

Very enjoyable puzzle by Peter Wentz. And MUCH easier than last week’s as I was able to no-google it in about an hour and a half. I pretty much went in a clockwise direction. The first answer I put in was ABC NEWS (8A. “America This Morning” outfit) in the top right and the last was HEY MR DJ (3D. 1993 hit for the R&B duo Zhané) in the top left. This was one of those puzzles that had the perfect combination of gettable and ridiculously ungettable clues. For instance:

7D. “Butterfly” star, 1981 (ZADORA). Completely unknown to me. I have no idea if Butterfly is a movie, a play, a dance performance or something else entirely. But I was able to come up with SCHLITZ (1A. Brewer Joseph) which gave me the Z, AKA (29A. Record letters) for the A and ERODE (25A. Dwindle, as support) for the R. And with Z___RA the answer looked for all the world like frequent crossword inhabitant ZADORA. (By the way, I’m still not really sure who Pia ZADORA is. She’s different from Charo, right? Ooh, what if Charo is on our cruise? She was on the Love Boat 8 times. Cuchi-cuchi! This may be a gag but wikipedia says her actual name is María Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Moquiere de les Esperades Santa Ana Romanguera y de la Najosa Rasten. But I digress.)

Other clues on which I had no clue:

16A. Region south of Silesia (MORAVIA). Both Silesia and MORAVIA are regions in or around the Czech Republic.

26A. Greek goddess of youth (HEBE). HEBE is proof that even as a god you can still get stuck with a crap job. She served nectar and ambrosia to the other gods, drew baths for Ares and helped Hera into her chariot. Mark my words, if I ever become a god (I think I mentioned in an earlier post I’d like to become God of the Medium Level of Rock Band 2) I’m not serving nothing to nobody. Ares, you’re a big boy, you’re the God of War for crying out loud, draw your own bath.

35A. Mistress of Charles II (NELL). This is NELL Gwyn, one of his seven mistresses. I think Charles II might be the King of the Triple Stacks.

55A. Language of Central Mexico (NAHUATL). The following sentence is not in NAHUATL but may as well be for all the sense it makes to me: Nahuatl is a language with a complex morphology characterized by polysynthesis and agglutination.

63A. Singer of the 1974 hit “I’ve Got the Music in Me” (KIKI DEE). As I know nothing about music it should come as no surprise that I’ve never heard of the singer or the song. Here she is in youtube:

1D. It rejects the caste system and idolatry (SIKHISM). Well, I figured it would end with ISM but outside of that I had no idea.

6D. David who caught a key pass in the 2008 Super Bowl (TYREE). More proof I know nothing about football. I couldn’t even tell you what teams were in the 2008 Super Bowl.

45D. “Honey, I just forgot to duck” speaker (DEMPSEY). I thought Reagan said this. Didn’t he say this after he was shot?

The puzzle was full of great stuff. YOU MIND is a curt comment to an ogler. A HEM is a border line although I put SEA there first. To move stealthily is to SIDLE which is one of the many words that reminds me of Seinfeld. Passed pleasantly is WHILED which is a word I learned from If I Only Had a Brain. An ALLEY is no place for a big rig. COUSINS are people who may be removed. I love the OLESTRA and FAT FREE answers. LOW TIDE is when some sea creatures are exposed. Hey, maybe I can snorkel from the shore.

However, there is one glaringly horrible answer. I think we all know what it is.

55A. Giant, e.g., briefly (NLER). I may have to make it my life’s work to eradicate both NLER and ALER. I’ll definitely have to get some t-shirts made up.

Other than that, a wonderful puzzle.

Brian will be taking over the blog for the next 7 days. Pickles and I are flying down to Miami tomorrow to catch our cruise to the Western Caribbean. I’m not sure if it would be possible to be more excited than we are right now. Not only is it our 5-year wedding anniversary today but we are about to embark on our first real vacation in a couple of years. I will be more or less out of touch although I think I’ll be able to check my email every now and again.

Next stop, the Southern Hemisphere.

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Ryan solves the NYT, Fri 1-2-9

ryan — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:10:24 +0000

First, I need to take care of some old business. Apparently Lori Petty has appeared in at least two things I’ve seen. Pat tells me she was in Head of the Class. And Matt says she was Geena Davis’s younger sister in A League of Their Own. So now I can at least vaguely picture who she is although I don’t think I could pick her out in a crowd. Is she, by any chance, related to Tom Petty? Or any of the Heartbreakers? And Doug Peterson, Crossword Gentleman and Man About Town says that Yakutsk appeared on the Risk game board. Surprisingly, I’ve never played even one game of Risk or Stratego in my life. I’m not sure how I missed that boat. Maybe they weren’t geeky enough for my D&D-playing childhood self.

On to today’s Martin Ashwood-Smith puzzle. Didn’t Dave Macleod mention on a recent podcast that Martin is The King of the Triple Stacks? A quick search for “King of the Triple Stacks” brings up nothing but Burger King fan sites so it’s hard to be sure. Whether or not he’s the King, Martin employs two great sets of 15-letter triple stacks in the puzzle.

1A. Problem in closing? (SALES RESISTANCE). This sounds like a pun to me but I can’t think of what it’s punning. (The preceding sentence may or may not make sense.)

16A. Just before it’s too late (THE ELEVENTH HOUR). I put IN THE NICK OF TIME which, oddly, also has 15 letters and thought I was brilliant. Not so much with the brilliance.

17A. 1984 JoBeth Williams comedy/adventure film (AMERICAN DREAMER). JoBeth Williams is another actress who could be in a crowd with no fear of me picking her out. I think I know of her name from Poltergeist. I have certainly never heard of American Dreamer. From what I can tell, it seems Romancing the Stone-ish and has a horrible VHS cover illustration. JoBeth needs to call her publicist.

59A. Pressure points? (WEATHER STATION). This one had me stumped for a while. I thought “pressure” was being used as a verb so I was going with TEACH something. I’m still not sure I totally understand the answer.

62A. Who said “A hungry man is not a free man” (ADLAI E STEVENSON). Tricky with the middle initial thrown in there.

63A. One who’d like to put you in your place (REAL ESTATE AGENT). I was going with some type of usher here. The actual answer is much better.

Great triple stacks. Makes me want a burger.

There were two other 15-letter answers towards the center of the grid. And I certainly surprised the heck out of myself by figuring out both with minimal crosses.

34A. One way to kick a bad habit (AVERSION THERAPY). Is this where you get a guy to stop smoking by sticking cigarettes in all of his orifices?

40A. Preview crowd (INVITED AUDIENCE).

Other highlights:

20A. Seventeen people, briefly (EDS). No clue what this means. Does it have to do with Seventeen, the magazine? (Figured it out, EDITORS.)

21A. One whose deposits are often collected (HEN). This made me laugh when I figured it out.

3D. Refuse (LEES). Again with the not understanding. What does this mean?

23D. Rodeo trio (BARRELS). Someone enlighten me please. Do all rodeos have exactly three barrels?

Great Friday puzzle. Great Triple Stacks. It’s good to be the King.

Next stop, Saturday.

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Ryan solves the NYT, Thu 1-1-9

ryan — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 10:18:02 +0000

I think I solved this Alan Arbesfeld puzzle purely by accident. I hardly knew anything in the bottom left. NATES? (Rear end, anatomically). IDENT (Birth cert., e.g.). Ok, I get now that it’s short for identification but I had the first two letters and was parsing it as I.D. ___. LENA? (Yakutsk’s river) I don’t know what a Yakutsk is. I’m guessing it’s either a meat-filled pastry, a horned mammal or an offensive karate move. I can’t imagine what any of those three things would need with its own river. I also didn’t know FLOR, ATOI or LOEW. Somehow I typed in all the right letters in all the right places and solved the puzzle.

The theme was in-the-language phrases with a Z added to the end. Kind of an odd choice for the first day of the year but a good theme nonetheless.

20A. Do a marathon in Egypt? (RUN AROUND SUEZ).

37A. Goes all out at an audition for a sax great? (PLAYS HARD TO GETZ).

55A. Top-secret carpentry tool? (CLASSIFIED ADZ). This is a weird answer as CLASSIFIED ADS is an actual phrase and sounds homophononically just like CLASSIFIED ADZ. Neither of the other two answers sound homopholonologistically like anything.

Other highlights:

1A. Brisk pace (TROT). While doing some research on just how fast a TROT is I came across this sentence, “It is always best to learn to sit the trot while on a longe line and with a good instructor.” This could actually make sense to some people or it could be a random arrangement of words and sounds presented to confuse the non-equestrian. Who can tell?

61A. Add up (HOLD WATER). This one was a struggle but I can see how it makes sense. If you’re questioning some theory you can say, “This doesn’t add up.” or “This doesn’t hold water.” Whatever it means, it still reminds me of My Cousin Vinny. “Does the defense’s case hold water?” Unfortunately, no good clip of it on the net.

66A. Dermatologist’s concern (WART). I had a wart on my thumb in high school. The dermatologist burned it off with some acid concoction. Oddly, none of this made me more popular with the ladies.

8D. Carter who played Wonder Woman (LYNDA). I list this clue solely for the opportunity to post a video of LYNDA Carter.

11D. Band whose 1994 song “I’ll Make Love to You” was #1 for 14 weeks (BOYSIIMEN). I really thought this was BOYZ TO MEN and that really had me screwed up for a while.

29D. TV’s “Fawlty Towers”, for one (FARCE). “Don’t mention the war, I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it.”

Great puzzle by Alan.

I want to thank everyone for a wonderful 2008. Last year at this time I knew nobody in the crossword world. And, now, because of this goofy project, Brian and I have met and become friends with a whole lot of you. I’ve really never been involved with a nicer or more generous group of people. Thanks for all your support. And on to 2009.

Next stop, Friday.

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Brian solves the NYT puzzle for Wednesday, 12-31-08

Brian — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:21:47 +0000

A SHOT (1D. Give ___ in the arm)
TE AMO (2D. “I love you” in Spanish)
REVET (3D. Support with stone, as an embankment)
AN ERA (4D. “It’s the end of ___”)
AT LAST (18D. “Finally!”)
ABBACY (5D. Monastic jurisdiction)

What do these six words have in common? Well, these four partials (one of which is Spanish), along with two words that my spell checker doesn’t know all cross through the word OMERTA (20A. Gangster’s code of silence). Not a normal word in the bunch — and this made up the northwest corner of today’s grid by Tim Wescott.

As it turns out, this corner is not what we’re supposed to wow over. Rather, it’s the circled letters in the grid, which asymmetrically spell out HTTP, COM, NET, EDU and GOV — and there’s a WWW (40A. Letters after two slashes) in the middle. I tried to find more depth to this theme, but the closest I could do was that some of the black squares vaguely make up some very pixellated slashes.

No offense, Mr. Wescott, but as themes go, this one left me a little empty. Maybe that’s because it’s 2:15 in the morning, and my last meal was eight hours ago. But I want there to be more. This theme isn’t clued, and it isn’t clever. I suppose it’s clever-ish, in that the long answers have the domain name endings hidden within them, but that doesn’t excite me. Yes, I see that the long answers also start with the letters H, T, T and P. Still, I’m not delighted by it, and there was really no aha! moment in this grid. Perhaps including EXPLORER, NETSCAPE, FIREFOX or SAFARI would have livened it up. Perhaps more circled letters that spelled out N-Y-T-I-M-E-S-D-O-T-C-O-M or something.

Or, quite possibly, perhaps there’s more going on here, but I can’t find it. If someone else sees a deeper theme here, please share it in the comments. We’d love to hear from you.

It’s late, so I have no energy to go hunting for pictures. Let’s make it through tomorrow (yikes, I have to be near Times Square at about 5pm), and I’m going to start of 2009 with a No-Google Thursday.

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Ryan solves the NYT, Tue 12-30-8

ryan — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:06:40 +0000

Today’s puzzle is by our good friend Doug Peterson, Crossword Gentleman and Man About Town. And thank god it was much easier than his Newsday Saturday Stumper from a couple of weeks ago.

The theme was:

52A. Ivan Turgenev novel … and a hint to 20-, 31- and 40-Across (FATHERS AND SONS).

20A. Incentive aimed at golden agers (SENIOR DISCOUNT).

31A. Chocolate-coated candy (JUNIOR MINTS). Well, obviously, I can’t let this one go without posting something from Seinfeld. “How could they not notice it?” “Because it’s a little mint, it’s a junior mint.”

40A. 1949 Orson Welles film (THE THIRD MAN). I feel like maybe I’ve seen this but I may be thinking of Touch of Evil.

Other highlights:

14A. Actress Petty (LORI). Why do I know who this person is? I know she was in Tank Girl but I’ve never seen Tank Girl. Come to think of it, why do I know she was in Tank Girl?

17A. Slugger Rodriguez (ALEX). Doug’s Yankee bias is quite blatant in this clue. He could very easily have gone with “Slugger Asencio” and the answer would have worked just fine. (For the few of you who don’t know, Alex Asencio played in the Dodgers minor leauge system from 1994-1996 and blasted 10 home runs in 269 games.)

63A. Marathon handout (WATER). I like this clue. It must be difficult to clue such a commonplace item in a new and interesting way.

48D. Jack of “Twin Peak” (NANCE). Ok, seriously, was this a good show or was it just weird?

Really nice, solid puzzle by Doug. And who knew you could put a Russian novel, an early bird special, a chocolate treat and a classic film noir all in one theme?

Next stop, Wednesday.

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Fill Me In #036: Rhymes with puzzle.

Brian — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:46:11 +0000

Welcome to the glory of Episode 36. This is Fill Me In, your favorite crossword blurbhouse. Today’s thirty-one minutes of fun includes:

Viewer mail
Two (2) downloads: Barry C. Silk (FACODPCGAMAT)’s puzzle about us and Dan Feyer (WOTCD)’s musical masterpiece.
Puzzle of the week: December 23 (Joe Krozel)
Ryan begs Brian to play music. Brian refuses.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all four of you for being loyal listeners throughout 2008. We hope to increase our viewership by around 20% in 2009, so if each of you tells five friends, and most of your friends are completely disinterested, we have an outside chance.

Zambezi and oatcake.

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Brian solves Monday’s New York Times puzzle, 12-29-08

Brian — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:33:50 +0000

I had to go to two other blogs before I was able to locate the theme to this Monday puzzle. What on earth do a RUMMY HAND (18A. It might include a 10, jack, queen and king of hearts), a BASEBALL GAME (26A. Yankees/Red Sox matchup, e.g.), a BROADWAY PLAY (42A. Candidate for a Tony) and PANTY HOSE (51A. L’eggs product) have in common?

Apparently, there’s a clue at 54D. Something 18-, 26-, 42- and 51-Across might have which I never saw. The answer is, of course, a RUN.

I was pleased to see that my score of 3:20 (applet clock be damned) was only marginally higher than that of the Amazing Amy Reynaldo. If only there were a junior version of the ACPT where they only did Monday puzzles! And if such a thing existed, I’d have to make sure that Amy Reynaldo and Dan Feyer (winner of the C Division) were banned for steroids or something like that.

It’s funny that Ryan should have mentioned UHURA yesterday, as she appears here at 48A. “Star Trek” lieutenant. Do we need a picture? Sure. I saw a trailer for the new Star Trek movie, and wow does it look terrible. It occurred to me that there is absolutely no need to re-create the original Star Trek series — especially not with a weird combination of updated technology and outdated fashion. And if you need pre-existing characters as a vehicle for your sci-fi story, then your sci-fi story simply isn’t interesting enough.

This puzzle went very quickly for me, in spite of having no clue on the theme. I’m behind on the week though, having not even glanced at Saturday’s. Apparently it’s very difficult (says Ryan). Since even the easiest of Saturdays confound the hell out of me lately, I think I’ll skip it.

Coming tomorrow, Fill Me In #36. Who knows what those 30 minutes have in store? Or even if it’ll be 30? Maybe 32… 37… 49…? You’ll just have to tune in and see.

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