Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Last week was a tough week here at the Be More Smarter offices.  We got hacked and thought our entire site might be gone.  I had to suffer through the end of a World Series that involved two teams that were not the Dodgers.  (Although I’m glad that Brian’s mom, XOM, is happy.)  And, finally, Saturday’s puzzle was completely unsolvable.  Let’s hope this week will be a bit easier on us.

Today’s puzzle was constructed by Lynn Lempel and features a downward motion theme.

18A. Throat soother (COUGH DROP).

23A. Time just after sunset (NIGHT FALL).  I thought sunset and nightfall were the same things.  Isn’t the time after sunset just night?

36A. Where dishes may pile up (KITCHEN SINK).  Yum.

51A. Go in without a suit (SKINNY DIP).  Delicious with potato chips.

Nice, solid, easy Monday theme.

Other highlights:

1A. Actor’s representative (AGENT).  I’m meeting with one tonight.  Maybe this is a good sign.

14A. Copy machine powder (TONER).  I don’t know if you’ve ever worked with a professional office copier/printer but I look at them as huge, irritating, dirty, wasteful, annoying, dastardly, loud, uncooperative advertisements for a paperless society.

15A. German king who became an early Holy Roman Emperor (OTTO).  I really need to learn my royalty.  They come up a lot in these puzzles.  There were 4 Ottos who ruled the HRE.  I’m not sure to which one this clue is referring.

35A. Alan who directed and starred in “Betsy’s Wedding” (ALDA).  Alan Alda strikes me as the type of person who does the NYT crossword puzzle.  I wonder what it’s like to see your name pop up almost once a week.

45A. Sneaky types (WEASELS).  Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals… except the weasel.

49A. Latino’s Yankee buddy (ANGLO).  This is a weird clue.  Did anybody besides me put JETER here first?

Nice puzzle today.

Next stop, Tuesday.

Yay!  The New York Times crossword is solvable again.  Yesterday’s was one of the hardest puzzles I’ve ever seen in the paper and I didn’t come close to no-googling it.  I learned from facebook that Dan Feyer, Winner of the C Division, Winner of the B Division almost didn’t finish it.  That’s like saying our cats almost didn’t wake us up at 5am to be fed.  Or Shane Victorino almost didn’t hack our blog and delete all our posts.  In short, it was a difficult puzzle and I was glad to able to no-google Sunday’s offering.

It was constructed by Robert W. Harris and featured a COLONIZATION theme.  In-the-language phrases with ANT added to them.

23A. “O say can you see” or “Thru the perilous fight”?  (antHEM LINE).  Hey, only 147 days until someone sings this at the first Dodger game of next season.

25A. Resident of a military installation? (BASE TENant).

40A. Tropical fruit seller? (PLantAIN DEALER).  Can you eat a plantain like a banana?  I think I’ve only had them dried or fried.  Can you just peel one and go to town?

61A. Place to get drunk in the kitchen? (PantRY BAR).

67A. What overuse of a credit card might result in? (GIant BILL).  We just got one of these from AT&T.  But at least I have a phone that can double as a light saber.

84A. Gentleman’s intransigent reply? (MADAM IM ADAMant).  I think this can be a lesson for everybody: Ants destroy palindromes.

105A. Where nitpickers walk on a street (PEDant XING).  This one took me a while.  I didn’t think a pedant was anything but “a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning”.  Apparently, a pedant can also be “a person who overemphasizes rules or minor details”.

108A. Online beauty contest (WEB PAGEant).

Very nice theme.

Other highlights:

1A. Oriole, e.g. briefly (ALER).  Seriously?  This is how you start off a crossword puzzle?  Did Shakespeare open Hamlet with a discussion of nail fungus?  (Well, possibly, but it’s certainly not in the final version.)  Ok, let’s all get to know John ALER.  We’ve talked about him on the podcast.  He’s a lyric tenor.  He was born in Baltimore in 1949.  He made his debut at Julliard in 1977.  And he’s won 4 Grammys.  C’mon people!  Let’s get this entry reclued.

36A. Architect Saarinen (EERO).  That’s pronounced AIR-O.

37A. Confronting boldly (BEARDING).  Who knew BEARD had so many meanings?

1. The hair on a man’s chin, cheeks, and throat.
2. A hairy or hairlike growth such as that on or near the face of certain mammals.
3. A tuft or group of hairs or bristles on certain plants, such as barley and wheat.
4. One who serves to divert suspicion or attention from another.
5. Printing The raised slope on a piece of type between the shoulder or counter and the face. Also called neck.
6. To furnish with a beard.
7. To confront boldly.

And then, of course, there’s this guy.

49A. Collectible disks (LPS).  Ok, I know it doesn’t fit but who else thought of POGS first?

59A. Hair net (SNOOD).  Learned from crosswords.

96A. &&&& (ANDS).  Is there no other way to clue ANDS?

102A. Redheaded kid of old TV (OPIE).  I’m normally not such a big fan of Ron Howard movies but I just watched the last hour and a half of Apollo 13.  Turns out, it’s a really good movie.

117A. Handy ___ (ANDY).  Is this an actual thing?  Or is it just two words that rhyme?

37D. ___ Motel (BATES).  I put ROACH here first.  That screwed me up for a while.

43D. Bit of fluff (LINT).  Did some laundry yesterday.  Didn’t check the pockets of my pants.  Washed 2 winning lottery tickets (worth $4) and two checks (worth $30).  That’ll teach me to want clean clothes.

69D.  Diner manager/waitress in “Garfield” (IRMA).  So, some minor character from a comic strip everybody hates is ok.  But Julliard trained lyric tenor John ALER is not?

88D. “Night of the Living Dead” director, 1968 (ROMERO).  I watched this for the first time when I was way too young.  The image of the little girl going after her mother with the spade became etched in my brain and prevented a good night’s sleep for at least 3 weeks.

Fun puzzle today.

Next stop, Monday.

Hey, we’ve gone a whole day without some random internet person shutting down our website and deleting all our posts.  I’d call that a victory.  We still haven’t figured out who did it or why on Earth they would do it but, unsurprisingly, we still haven’t seen number one suspect Philadelphia Phillie Centerfielder Shane Victorino since the last out of the World Series.  Show yourself Shane.  Don’t make me get out my Jump to Conclusions mat.

Today’s puzzle was constructed by Bob Klahn and solved by people other than me.  As soon as I saw Klahn’s byline I knew I was in for a rough time and he certainly didn’t disappoint.  I started solving approximately 9 hours ago and I currently have maybe 20% of the puzzle complete.  Frankly, I’m surprised I’ve figured out that much.

What I know (haven’t checked answers so all of this could be wrong):

30A. Well-armed predators (OCTOPI).  What else could this be?  Easiest clue in the puzzle by far.

27A. Local operation? (UNION SHOP).  This one didn’t give me too much trouble.  I figured “local” was referring to unions.

22A. West Coast N.F.L.’er (NINER).  I don’t think I like NFLer anymore than ALer or NLer but I know nothing about football so I won’t rant about it.  What football teams play on the West Coast?  According to my brain the answers are: Chargers, Raiders, Forty-niners and Seahawks.  Are there more?  Maybe.  But NINER fits.

19A. Like some friends (FAST).  Had __S_ and somehow thought of it.

10D. Selfish (ME FIRST). This one needed a lot of crosses.

11D. Not likely to go with the flow (AT ANCHOR).  Leave it to Klahn to sneak in a literal clue when you least expect it.

12D. Despair (LOSE HOPE).  I’m about to lose hope I’ll ever finish a puzzle again.

13D. Doughty (INTREPID).  Doughty is not a word I know.  Got this with crosses and have no idea if it’s right.

22D. “The Bungalow Mystery” solver (NANCY DREW).  So far, this was the big guess of the day.  I had N__C_____ and came up with it.  I’d like to see Ms. Drew try to solve this puzzle.

39A. The Who’s “Live at ___,” 1970 double-platinum album (LEEDS).  This is a guess but I think it’s right.

And I have the bottom right corner.  STORMY for Not at all fair was tricky as heck.  As was SALABLE for Ready to move.

Over on the left side I don’t have much.  I think the author of “Underboss” is Peter MAAS.  I’ve seen that in other puzzles.

Let’s see, what else:

37A. As different as night and day, e.g. Could this be SIMILE?  That seems too easy.

And the last answer I came up with was 29D. Partygoer (GUEST).  That was about 2 hours ago.

Good lord.  Here’s a picture of my unfinished grid.  I started solving on paper last night which is the elapsed time on the applet is less than 5 hours.

And how come I can’t figure out 31D. Hard-hit line drive?  Before I had SIMILE in there I thought it might be SCREAMER.

Well, I’m going to keep working on it.  Did anybody else have as much trouble as I’m having?

Next stop, Sunday.

For those who didn’t hear, we got hacked yesterday.  The site was down yesterday for a few hours and it looked for a little while like all of our posts were gone for good.  Luckily, everything had been backed up on October 22nd and we were able to restore our site to that point.  We have the posts after that date saved offline and we will be restoring them over the weekend.  Until we do, the commenting system may be a little screwy (well, screwier than normal).  All of our comments from the missing posts are still in the system and they appear to be latching on to random entries.  So if this post has a bunch of comments about last Thursday’s puzzle please do not be alarmed.

Why would somebody hack our site?  There’s certainly no money to be gained.  Is it possible that people sit around and write programs simply because they enjoy destroying other people’s work?  Really?  I do not like these people.  These people are bastard people.

Narrowing down a list of possible suspects I’ve come to the conclusion that the person who did this is none other than Philadelphia Phillie centerfielder Shane Victorino.  Mr. Victorino has done everything in his power to make my life miserable for the past 2 years and I find it very suspicious that on the first day he has some free time our site gets hacked.  Mr. Victorino, why do you hate me?

Today’s puzzle?  Ah yes, today’s puzzle was constructed by one of our all-time favorites, Doug Peterson, Crossword Gentleman and Man About Town.  This has got to be one of Doug’s best weeks.  First, his team wins the World Series and now his puzzle holds the coveted Friday slot.

Given Doug’s bad taste in baseball teams the center of the grid sports an unsurprising entry.

31D. Baseball nickname that’s a portmanteau (AROD).  Yankee fans are finally happy with Arod.  Isn’t that just dandy.

The puzzle is great.  Full of fun fill and fun clues.

10A. Page with convictions (OPED).  I couldn’t wrap my head around this one.  I kept thinking it was a person’s name (like Ellen Page) or a verb (as in, call someone’s name over the PA system with convictions).

14A. Dull type (IGNORAMUS).  Ignoramus is great word.

15A. Campus V.I.P. (PREXY).  Doug is so full of beans because the Yankees won that he feels he can just make up words.

17A. Clearly riveted (AGAPE).  I put IN AWE here first.

36A. Subject of the 2005 biography “iCon” (STEVE JOBS).  Have I mentioned that we love our iPhones?

37A. Spotted (LENT).  Oh my, this was tough.  I was sure it was SEEN.  Then I had _ENT and I wrote down all the words it could possibly be.  And about 10 minutes later I figured it out.

56A. Best in shows (EDNA).  Never heard of her.

5D. A tall Roman column is named after him (TRAJAN).  Here I am lost in Rome.  If only I knew the name of that huge column behind me.

8D. “The English Patient” Oscar winner (JULIETTE BINOCHE).  I remember this because everyone thought Lauren Bacall would win.  Hey, remember how The English Patient was 15 hours long?

9D. Comment when following someone (I SEE).  This is my favorite clue in the puzzle.  Very clever.

10D. Source of ballpark pitches (ORGAN).  Well, I knew it wasn’t going to have anything to do with throwing a baseball.  I thought it might be referring to advertising so I had ___ AD for a while.  On a side note, the last two vestiges of the Dodgers’ time as the most stable franchise in baseball are Vin Scully behind the mic for 60 years and Nancy Bea Hefley on the Dodger Stadium organ for 22 years.

35D. Sight-seers at the Prado? (OJOS).  I got this one pretty quickly but really enjoyed it.

Great puzzle today.  Great week for Doug.  And, Shane Victorino, we’ve got our ojos on you.

Next stop, Saturday.

We got super monkey hacked.  Some jerks went in and destroyed everything after Oct. 22nd (which was our last backup).  So, things are a little wonky here.  We are currently working on restoring the posts and the podcasts.  Unfortunately, I think the comments on the destroyed posts are gone forever.

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.]

[This is a reposting.  The original entry got lost when were hacked.  Some pictures may not be here and the comments might be screwy.]

I suppose by now you’ve all heard the big baseball news.  It’s huge news in my neck of the woods and I hear twitter went nuts after it was official.  And let me tell you, no one is more excited about it than me.  That’s right, Los Angeles Dodger Andre Ethier has been named the Pepsi Clutch Performer of the Year.  After a long season of ups and downs it’s wonderful to know that, as a Dodger fan, it was all worth it.  Congratulations Andre, I’ll be hiding under my bed until Spring.

Yesterday, I mentioned Patrick “Kangastavarat Laulu Merkille Vuoden Jalka” Blindauer on the blog and look who shows up today.  Patrick’s theme is, not surprisingly, a lot of fun.

36A. 1897 novel subtitled “A Grotesque Romance” (THE INVISIBLE MAN).  I think I may have seen Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man but that’s about the extent of my experience with this character.

There were further instructions on the Notepad: “When this puzzle is completed, one letter of the alphabet will appear 22 times. Shade in its square everywhere it appears. The result will be an image suggested by 36-Across.”

The letter that appeared 22 times was S and when you shaded all of them in they did indeed suggest a man who, up until that time, was invisible.

The spine of the man is made up of 7 S’s provided by the answer to 25A. 1973 horror flick about a doctor who turns his assistant into a cobra (SSSSSSS).  Has anybody seen this movie?  It looks wonderfully awful.  It stars Dirk Benedict (nee Dirk Niewoehner) who you may remember as Faceman on the A-Team.

Other highlights:

11A. Ryan of “Top Gun” (MEG).  Still haven’t seen this.

27A. Holds (CLASPS).  I had CLAMPS here which screwed me up for a while.

58A. Where the Samoyed dog comes from (SIBERIA).  Good gravy, these guys are cute!

64A. Panties, old-style (STEP INS).  Probably for the best they’re not called this anymore.  I just can’t see Victoria’s Secret models posing in step ins.

10D. Headwear banned by the N.F.L. in 2001 (DO RAG).  Don’t football players wear helmets a lot of the time?  Who would even see the do rag?  Next thing you know they’ll be banning step ins.

40D. Yank (AMERICAN).  I guess this clue is well-timed.

44D. The Rum Tug Tugger, e.g. (TOMCAT).  This sounded like a pirate ship to me.  Instead, it’s a character from Cats.  I have never seen Cats.  I will tell you this though.  Every video I’ve seen and every song I’ve heard makes me want to hurl myself out the window.  And, certainly, without doubt, the worst song of the bunch is Mr. Mistoffelees.  It might very well be the worst song in the history of musical theater.  And here it is.  Enjoy.

Popout

47D. 1987 Suzanne Vega hit (LUKA).  Definitely the catchiest song ever written about domestic violence.

49D. Word of objection (IT ISNT).

Mr Vibrating: No you didn’t, you came here for an argument.
Man: Well, an argument’s not the same as contradiction.
Mr Vibrating: It can be.
Man: No it can’t. An argument is a connected series of statements to establish a definite proposition.
Mr Vibrating: No it isn’t.
Man: Yes it is. It isn’t just contradiction.
Mr Vibrating: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
Man: But it isn’t just saying ‘No it isn’t’.
Mr Vibrating: Yes it is.
Man: No it isn’t, Argument is an intellectual process … contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.
Mr Vibrating: No it isn’t.
Man: Yes it is.
Mr Vibrating: Not at all.
Man: Now look!
Mr Vibrating: That’s it. Good morning.

Great puzzle.

Next stop, Friday.

[This is a reposting.  The original entry got lost when were hacked.  Some pictures may not be here and the comments might be screwy.]

For those of you who don’t know, Patrick “El Blindito” Blindauer has reached his funding goal and his suite of holiday puzzles is a go.  I know we’re all very excited about this here at the Be More Smarter offices.  We’re big fans of Patrick and we’re big fans of interconnected puzzles so this could turn out to be the greatest thing ever.  If you want to get involved you can get all the information here.  It seems like the link to pledge money is inactive but that page tells you how you can get in contact with Patrick and I’m sure he’ll be able to hook you up.

Today’s puzzle was constructed by Ricky Ini Liu and features a Letter Substitution Theme.  This is also the NYT debut for Mr. Liu.  I enjoyed the theme but I did miss that meta entry that usually pulls the whole thing together.

In this theme the letter X is substituted for the letter O.

18A. Three ingredient breakfast serving? (TRIO CEREAL).  I really wanted this to be TRI OMELETS.

24A.  Afraid of wine? (OENOPHOBIC).  Anybody remember the Xenophobe video game?  I remember I thought that Xenophobe was the name of the alien race I was battling.

53A. Foreboding cartoons? (OMEN COMICS).  Here’s what seems to be a combo of Superman and The Omen.

60A. The way of the government? (FEDERAL TAO).  I enjoyed this one.

3D. Film that’s been speechified? (ORATED MOVIE).  I envision that this is an entry Mr. Liu really wanted in the puzzle but he had no idea how to clue it.  It’s a valiant try but doesn’t make much sense.

26D. Shout of disapproval exactly like another? (BOOING MATCH).  This clue is actually quite clever and makes perfect sense when you really think about it.

So, yeah, I enjoyed the theme but, as I said, was missing that final clue.  Something like:

67A. Italian wildebeest and a hint to this puzzle’s theme (OFORX).  You know, something like that.

Other highlights:

5A. Computer that once came in “flavors” (IMAC).  Holy crap, we love our iPhones.

32A. TV character who jumped the shark, with “the” (FONZ).  Well, I think the jump the shark website has jumped the shark.  Apparently, they sold the site to Gemstar publishing and now it redirects you to the TV Guide website with no mention of any shark jumping.  But your address bar still says jumptheshark.com.  I don’t understand.  Isn’t the whole “jump the shark” concept still popular?  Why would you just get rid of the website?  Oh well, you can still enjoy it via the web archive service.  I particularly enjoy the Ted McGinley page.

6D. Mime who created Bip (MARCEAU).  This clue also could have been “Name a mime”.  I mean, can you name another mime?  Are there any other mimes that even have names?

Great puzzle today.  Happy debut, Mr. Liu.

Next stop, Thursday.

NOTE: This is an attempt to restore the blog version of Episode 78 after The Great RBX Hack of 2009. If you encounter any weirdness with this post or this episode (or anything, really), please let us know.

This week’s motto: “Next week’s title will be funnier.”

Below, please find the web-based version of “Fill Me In, a crossword podcast.” You can also get this show on iTunes by clicking the appropriate iTunes button to the right.

In a sadly unsurprising move, this episode contains frighteningly little about crossword puzzles. However, we have learned that our viewers are not dead set on puzzle talk — in fact, several enjoy the banter more than the analysis, the guest stars more than the hosts and in particular, the voices of those other than the people who actually show up at the studio. As a result, here’s what you get this week:

• Pickle tips with Amanda’s voice
• Email from a vacuum cleaner
• A not-really-legitimate use of ARRR
• Brian’s sister

Also — check out these pictures.

The guys on the left is the actor Jack Shea from “Nightmare on Elm Street.” On the right is our dear friend Mike Nothnagel, Pen Pal Extraordinaire and Constructor of the Friday Puzzle and the Oracle. (The photo of Mike was taken during his Serious Era, specifically, while serving as a judge at Lollapuzzoola 2.) Separated at birth? You decide!

That’s what we’ve got to show for it. What have you done lately?

 

 Fill Me In #078: A random sort of thing. [37:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Zambezi and oat.

[This is a reposting.  The original entry got lost when were hacked.  Some pictures may not be here and the comments might be screwy.]

I had a very elaborate dream last night.  I was in a big musical production that was turning out to be a big disaster.  It was written by WP Mozart who in my dream seemed to be the famous Mozart but now I’m thinking maybe it was just some guy with the last name of Mozart.  The musical starred me and Alan Rickman.  The big set piece was a field of quicksand that we all got trapped in during some sort of French Revolution-style battle.  And the name of the show was Three Lamplights in the Fog.  If anybody wants to flesh the show out with some songs please let me know.

Today’s puzzle is by Barry Boone and is a quote puzzle in honor of Election Day.  Today’s Election Day is not getting quite as much press as last year’s but, still, voting is good.

The quote was said by MARIO CUOMO.

YOU CAMPAIGN IN POETRY YOU GOVERN IN PROSE.

You know, quote puzzles just don’t do it for me so I’m not too excited about the theme but the puzzle is well done.

Other highlights:

26A. What Fred Ott did in the first movie to be copyrighted (SNEEZED).  Never heard of this before but here it is.

Popout

41A. “Gimmie ___ ding!” (DAT).  Is this referring to the song?

Popout

51A. Win the World Series in four games, say (SWEEP).  Oy. [sigh]  When does Spring Training start?

59A. ___ McMuffin (EGG).  Big fan.  Very delicious.  I highly recommend adding ketchup.  Really pulls the whole thing together.

65A. Surgeon’s assistant (NURSE).  Very odd.  There was just a big thread about this on the Cruciverb list.  The major point of the thread was this type of cluing lessens the role of the NURSE.  We have a friend who is a nurse and I asked her if being clued as “doctor’s assistant” would offend her.  It might have been the first time I actually saw someone bristle.  In my opinion, I think this is a bad way to clue this word.  Nurses are nurses.  Doctors are doctors.  They play two different roles.  There are so many ways to clue the word NURSE that demeaning the job they do doesn’t make much sense to me.  I’m going to see if I can get our friend to chime in on this.

Good puzzle today.

Next stop, Wednesday.

[This is a reposting.  The original entry got lost when were hacked.  Some pictures may not be here and the comments might be screwy.]

My wife and I watched three 80’s movies this weekend.  Breakin’, Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Stepfather.  Here’s our question.  Did any movie make sense in the 80’s?  They all seem to be ridiculous and full of gaping plot holes and big hair.  Maybe this triptych of movies is not the best sample of the era but it seems the equivalent movies made nowadays are, plotwise at least, built upon much firmer ground.  Breakin’ is totally awesome though.

Speaking of awesome, today’s puzzle is by Andrea Carla Michaels (Brian: Does she have a nickname?  Me: Not yet.) and Kent Clayton (making his NYT debut).  A very nice Monday puzzle.  So nice in fact that I finally broke the 4 minute mark on an NYT puzzle.  My time was 3:50 which means for possibly the first time I’m almost within two minutes of Dan Feyer, Winner of the C Division, Winner of the B Division’s time.  Not too shabby.

51A. Ripley catchphrase that’s apropos to 20-, 34- and 42-Across (BELIEVE IT OR NOT).

20A. Spring egg distributor (THE EASTER BUNNY).  I’m Jewish so my involvement with Easter begins and ends with the Cadbury Creme Egg.

34A. One who leaves money under a pillow (TOOTH FAIRY).  Somehow I missed out on this whole thing.

42A. Head of a major toy outfit (SANTA CLAUS).  Again with the Jewishness.  Santa Claus just wasn’t a big part of my childhood.  One time we did go to visit Santa at the North Pole setup at Knott’s Berry Farm.  I spent the entire time on line crying.  Finally the elves took me behind the big Santa chair and gave me a candy cane to shut me up.  I’m not even sure what I was doing there.  Maybe it wasn’t even me.  Although the crying sure sounds like me.

Certainly not a very difficult theme but I very much enjoyed the clues which added a little pizzazz to familiar entries.

Other highlights:

5A. Crack and Pop’s companion (SNAP).  I don’t think I’ve ever had a bowl of Rice Krispies.  I’ve certainly had my share of Rice Krispie Treats but as a cereal I find them uninteresting.

17A. Jeopardy (RISK).  I think the correct answer is WHAT IS RISK?

26D. Skater Harding (TONYA).  You think Nancy Kerrigan is pissed that she will be forever linked to Harding?

55D. Apple MP3 player (IPOD).  iPhones are cool.

Fun puzzle today.

Next stop, Tuesday.