Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Going to be a short post today.  I had work coming out my Yazoo River last night.  Once I got home, it took me almost 40 minutes to come very close to solving today’s puzzle and another 5 or 6 minutes to search the web for what I had wrong.  In my defense, I’ve been up for a very long time.

Speaking of today’s puzzle, it was constructed by Brendan Emmett Quigley Down Under Starring Tom Selleck and, as is the norm for BEQ, it’s great.

I thought I wouldn’t have too much trouble with it as I got the rebus within the first couple of minutes.  I don’t know how the name DIAMOND JIM BRADY came to me but it did.  There are 5 DIAMONDS hidden throughout the grid.  Is there any significance to the number of diamonds or their placement that I’m not catching onto?

My downfall was 17A. Tending to cut off (ISOLATIVE).  I had ISOLAT___ and just couldn’t come up with the rest.  All I could think of was ISOLATING which I knew didn’t work with the crossings.  I came close when I put in ISOLATINE which I don’t believe is a word unless Apple has a solatine factory I don’t know about.  That screwed up that whole area and I was too beat to figure it out.  Kinda blows as I made my way quite well through the rest of the grid.

20A. Like some fancy soap bubbles (TORIC).  I don’t get this.  I was trying to think of fancy soaps.  I think the only two brands of soap I know are Dove and Lava.

32A. Chapter’s starting point, usually (RECTO).  I’m guessing this has something to do with the Bible?

65A. Marine snail (WHELK).  Not sure where I pulled this one out of.

14D. Some A.L.’ers (DHS).  C’mon!  Totally unnecessary!  This could have been “Some Yanks” or “Some Chi Sox” or something along those lines.

Really good puzzle today.  Whenever I do a BEQ puzzle I feel like I’m way behind him in cleverness, hipness and smartness and it’s always a fun challenge to try and catch up.

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.]

This is going to be a Brendan Emmett Quigley Down Under Starring Tom Selleck-centric blog post.  First off, he’s running a contest on his blog in which you could win a copy of his great, new diagramless book.  (Depending on when you read this post you’ll have to either be speedy or own a time machine as the deadline is Aug 26 at 8:00AM EST.)  Second, on his blog, he goes off on a bit of rant about the 19 Things a Man Should Never Say list from Esquire.  Brendan is right, the list is mostly nonsense and insulting although I strongly agree that “going forward” should never be said by anybody of any gender under any circumstances.  It’s horrible and makes me want to rip my face off.

Third, Brendan has constructed today’s NYT puzzle.  The theme is WISHFUL THINKING and I almost no-googled it but got tripped up by a Nexus of Ryan’s Ignorance.

The theme here is very cool although it took me a little while to get going on it.

112A. NBC football analyst/reporter and longtime writer (PETER KING).  A corollary of knowing nothing about the sport of football is also knowing nothing about those who analyze it.  For myself, I couldn’t analyze a football game my way out of a paper bag.

The bulk of the theme is made up of a quote.  Yes, the dreaded quote puzzle.  Today, though, I found the quote to be a lot of fun and very gettable.

A wish by Peter King on 9/21/09:  MY GOAL IN LIFE IS TO BE A CLUE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD PUZZLE.  I’VE NEVER TOLD ANYONE THAT BUT IT’S TRUE.

I have no idea if Mr. King has known this puzzle was going to appear or if he opened the puzzle today and was surprised to find it was all about him.  I also don’t know how Brendan knew he wished this on 9/21/09.  Maybe it was in one of his articles.  Whatever it is, I enjoy the self-referential entries and I’m sure Mr. King is completely thrilled by this.  Wishes do indeed come true.

As for my nexus of ignorance, up in the top center I had a number of entries that were just slightly wrong.

10D. Noah Webster, for one (DEFINER).  I had REFERER which not only makes no sense but is also misspelled.

12D. Pullover, e.g. (KNIT).  I had UNIT.  As in, a pullover is one unit of clothing.  Also as in, Ryan doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.

9A. Its motto is “Under God, the people rule”: Abbr. (SDAK).  I had SRAU thinking that was maybe some sort of secret society.  Like the Masons or something.  My other thought was that it was something from Bolivia.  SRAU sounds vaguely Bolivian to me.

27A. Nita of silents (NALDI).  I had a number of things here.  I think the closest I got was NEDDE.  I know she shows up in puzzle a lot but I simply can’t remember her name.  Nita Naldi, Nita Naldi, Nita Naldi…I’ve already forgotten it.

34A. Actress Merrill (DINA).  This, I just didn’t know.

24D. Obama’s honorary deg. from Notre Dame (LLD).  Didn’t know this either but  I figured he got some sort of law degree.  LLD stands for Doctor of Law.  I’ll repeat that.  LLD stands for Doctor of Law.  We have a number of lawyers he read this blog.  Matthew Besse, Michael Marcus, explain.

Favorite entry:

61D. Piazza dei Miracoli town (PISA).  Hey, I was there!

Least favorite entry:

75D. Member of the Brew Crew, e.g. (NLER).  Gaaaaaahhhhhh!  Seriously, we’ve talked about this.  It must stop.  Those of you who listen to the podcast will know that we are trying to raise the profile of fictional lyric soprano Rosanna Nler in order to get this entry clued differently.  Please spread the word.

Great puzzle today.

Next stop, Monday.

It’s enough with the hackers already.  What do they want from us?  Do they really think that taking over our podcast feed and screwing with everyone’s subscription will convince people to buy weight loss pills?  Have any of you bought weight loss pills as a result of seeing spam on our site?  If you haven’t, please speak up.  Maybe we can show the hackers they’re wasting their time.  All their attacks serve to do is aggravate Brian and me.  Neither of us know what the hell we’re doing when it comes to technically running this blog so it takes hours and hours to undo what the hackers have done.  Oy.  You heard me.  Oy!!

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.

Today is Xom’s birthday. If you see her, say happy birthday to her. It’s now 3:00 in the morning, and I’m up this late only because I have been constructing a puzzle for my mother as a birthday gift. It’s an odd-shape (23×15), and accommodates both her full maiden name and my father’s full name (both of which are conveniently the same length). It also has, scattered throughout, the names of all of her children, children-in-law and grandchildren. And on the second-to-last row, there is an obvious not-so-secret message.

Just for the hell of it, I’m offering it here as a PUZ and a PDF. Please be warned of the following:

• The 18-letter entries are full names, parts of which are only going to be gettable from crossings.
• The fill, as a whole, runs the awkward gamut from arcane to amateurish. I spent too long manufacturing a working grid, I didn’t have time to really spice up the fill.
• Many of the clues are stolen from clue databases. I prefer to write my own clues, but again, time was not my friend, and I had to cut a few corners. Since this isn’t aimed for publication, I figured it would be okay.

In other news, we are still on the hunt for any means of contacting Christina Applegate. My sister has joined the cause. Thank you, Alison. As of now, if you google Applegate crosswords, we are the first site that pops up. So if you see Christina, ask her to Google that. Also, if you see Ryan, ask him how he did the drop-shadow feature on the Christina photo on his post. I can’t figure it out.

As for the real world, the New York Times published a Brendan Emmett Quigley puzzle for our Sunday enjoyment. In typical BEQ fashion, the grid was full of clever theme entries, some knockout fill, and a spicy starter at 1-Across (1982 best seller subtitled “And Other Discoveries About Human Sexuality,” with “The” : G-SPOT).

The title of the puzzle is D-Plus, and the theme follows the form logically. Add a D sound to a common phrase, and get something new with a quirky clue.

• 23A. Make necklace baubles? : DO PENDANTS. Get it? It’s usually do penance. See, he added a D. Clever.
• 25A. Hip lineages? : COOL BREEDS
• 39 Tonto’s pep? : SIDEKICK ENERGY. This was amazing. PSYCHIC becomes SIDEKICK. I defy any of you to name a brain out there who can think the way BEQ thinks.
• 50A. Gave Grey Poupon to the head of the table? : PASSED MUSTARD. This troubled me. On the one hand, I thought the phrase had a “the” in the middle of it. On the other hand, I thought the phrase actually already was about mustard. It’s about muster. Don’t be stupid like me.
• 66A. Greediest person in a Long Island locality? : AMITYVILLE HOARDER. This one also troubled me, but it was because when I add a D to the word “horror,” it does not sound like “hoarder.” It sounds like “harder.” Maybe it’s regional, but I have more of an ah vowel in the first half of horror, so this one doesn’t sit in my mouth well. Also, I am on the borderline of refusing to believe that Amityville is a real place.
• 85A. Spotted feline’s home? : LEOPARD COLONY
• 94A. Like residential mail? : HOUSE ADDRESSED
• 114A. Certain Colorado headgear? : BOULDER HAT
• 116A. Bamboozle Eisenhower? : SNOW DWIGHT. I wish this was about the character played by Rainn Wilson on The Office instead of about Eisenhower. Rainn Wilson does not get enough accolades. He’s awesome.

I have to say, it’s way late now. I have a huge day tomorrow, and I have to go to bed. Ryan, I encourage you to continue this post tomorrow with more interesting stuff. And commenters, please jump in and talk about anything you want. Doesn’t have to be the puzzle. Just chatter mindlessly. It’ll be like you’re hosting Fill Me In.

See you Monday!

Ok, first off, I have not seen the corresponding episode of Jeopardy.  Because of my godforsaken work schedule I always end up watching everybody’s favorite half hour of answers and questions the day after it airs.  For those who don’t know, 5 answers from this Brendan Emmett Quigley puzzle were used in a New York Times Crossword category on the show with the clues read by Puzzlemaster Will Shortz.  I’m not sure exactly which clues were used as I had heard they would be the theme clues and, from what I can tell, there are 7 theme entries.

Unless I’m completely missing something (which is entirely possible) the theme doesn’t have much to do with Jeopardy.  The answers start with a G and and end with an X.  That’s it, right?  Is there something else I’m not seeing?

17A. Co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons (GARY GYGAX).  I am a nerd and this was a gimmie.  Who wants to get together for a pen and paper session of D&D?  I’m being totally serious.  I haven’t played since high school and it would be a blast.

30A. French auto race (GRAND PRIX).  I’ve never been to a car race.  I have played Milles Bornes though.  I can’t tell you how much of my life I’ve spent waiting on a Spare Tire card.

39A. Trademarked brand of waterproof fabric (GORETEX).  Like most things, GORETEX reminds me of a Seinfeld episode.  In this case it’s the episode where George shows up in a big jacket and utters the immortal line, “It’s Goretex.  You know about Goretex?”  To which Jerry replies, “You like saying Goretex, don’t you?”

47A. Palate-raising response (GAG REFLEX).  What’s the worst thing you ever ate?  For me it was a mexican pizza from some crappy taco joint about 15 years ago.  In my adult life I’ve only barfed twice.  The day after the mexican pizza was time number one.  Another terrible thing I ate that, fortunately, did not result in me barfing was a dish Brian ordered at a Chinese restaurant on the Saturday of the 2008 ACPT.  It was some foul noodle dish that we have since dubbed Rubberbands Sauteed in Gasoline and Misery.

61A. Vaudeville brother born Milton (GUMMO MARX).  As much as I love the Marx Brothers I know sadly little about GUMMO.  As far as I can tell he never appeared in any of the films.  He did start out as part of the team but never liked being on stage.  He was drafted into the army during WWI and afterwards went into the dressmaking business and eventually became a talent agent.  On a side note, you ever notice how nowadays nobody says, “I’m going into the dressmaking business.”

24D. Thirtysomethings (GENERATION X).  Wait, I thought Gen-Xers were born in the 80’s.  You mean, I’ve been a Gen-Xer this whole time and didn’t know it?  Oh my god, I’ve missed out on the whole thing.  I need to start watching MTV and rolling up my pants.  I think I’ve found my special purpose.

11D. Levy at a BP or 69-Across station (GASOLINE TAX).  I do not own a car and I do not pay this tax.

There were also 2 Jeopardy-themed clues.

59A. Weird Al Yankovic’s “___ on Jeopardy” (I LOST).  I’m not a big music guy.  I’ve been to maybe 15 concerts in my life.  6 of those have been Weird Al Yankovic shows.  I’ve been a huge fan since 1985’s Dare to be Stupid which I had on vinyl and played over and over until everyone else in the house wanted to kill me.  Here’s the Lost on Jeopardy video.

56D. “I’ll take ‘The New York Times Crossword Puzzle’ for $200, ___ (ALEX).  I’ve watched Jeopardy for years and years and I’m a fan of Trebek but I have to take exception with something he does.  Why does he have to use the term “signaling device” on every show?  Why can’t he, just once, call them buzzers?  Drives me nuts.

Great puzzle by Brendan.  His puzzles are always a lot of fun and you can do three a week at his site.  Brian and I finally got to meet him at the ACPT and confirmed that he is, indeed, much cooler than either of us.  We’ve been talking about getting him on the show and it looks like that will happen at some point in April.

And, remember, it’s not too late to start following us on Twitter.  We’ll be sending out tweets during the Boston Tournament to give everyone some insight on what’ll be happening.  Plus, we have our live call-in twitter/podcast contest.  It will be the first time a crossword podcast has ever done anything like this.

Next stop, Friday.

Mere hours from the ACPT, and I was all excited by the arrival of this week’s Thursday puzzle. To me, Thursday is the average line for the tournament puzzles. Maybe I got too excited, though, because this Thursday seemed like a practically themeless, not-quite-as-hard-as-a-Friday puzzle. I guess that’s all good, but it left me wanting more. On the other hand, it’s by Brendan Emmett Quigley, who makes some of the most wonderful puzzles. As a long-time fan of his work, I found enough of this grid enjoyable to overcome my early frustration. You should check out his website at www.brendanemmettquigley.com.

Perhaps I’m missing something, but the theme seemed merely to be a bit self-referential, in that four clues contained Q words:

• 20A. Residence : LIVING QUARTERS
• 25A. It has to be asked : BURNING QUESTION
• 43A. Alumni weekend V.I.P. : HOMECOMING QUEEN
• 48A. Many Haydn compositions : STRING QUARTETS

[Revision: I've since checked a couple other sites for thoughts on the theme. Orange thinks it's that they all contain "IN GQ," or perhaps just "GQ." I see that, of course, but I'm not sure what's so notable about GQ. It's a magazine, sure, but why a theme? Seems the Q is just as logical to me.]

A handful of things I didn’t know showed up here:

• 1D. Wandering ___ : JEW. I guess some of them wander. I never heard this term before.
• 3D. ___ Davis, “A Girl Like Me” documentarian : KIRI. Bette, Ossie, Geena, Sammy. All Davises have five letters in their name. Who does this Kiri think he/she is?
• 17A. Delft, e.g. : WARE. Because I didn’t know 1D or 3D, I had a lot of trouble with this. I still don’t quite know what it is.
• 26D. “In ___” (1993 #1 album) : UTERO. I must not have listened to any popular music ever.
• 30D. Old hwy. from Detroit to Seattle : U.S. TEN. I believe that now, U.S. Ten is somewhere much further south than either Detroit or Seattle. This must confuse the hell out of the commuters.
• 36A. Middle year of Nero’s reign : LXI. Sure, but an alternate clue could be “random year sometime with letters instead of numbers.”
• 40A. ___ de couer : CRI. Apparently, this word doesn’t always follow “dernier.”
• 46A. 1961 Top 10 hit “Hello Mary ___” : LOU
• 49D. Lacking depth : TWO-D. Mike Nothnagel, take note. I actually knew this one this time.
• 50D. Opposite of pobre : RICO. I assume this is “rich”?
• 61A. Finnish architect Alvar ___ : AALTO. This crosses with 53D. Certain castrato (ALTO), which is kind of cute.

The tournament is fast upon us. Tomorrow (Friday), there is a panel presentation at 8:00pm. Ryan and I will be talking about something, although we don’t know quite what. Maybe it’s about how much we like blogging. Most likely, Ryan will mumble incoherently about something, and I’ll shake my head is sincere embarrassment. Hopefully, no one in the audience will ask us anything to which we don’t know the answer. If you are there, and want to ask us something, make it easy. Remember — we are the lowliest of bloggers. We know far less than the others. Be kind.

Saturday will begin the puzzles. We may try to get someone like Tyler or Dan to blog for us, since they’ll have tons of free time after they solve the tourney puzzles in about fourteen seconds. Ryan and I are likely to use all the time allotted to break our pencils, leaving little time to blog a freakin’ Saturday puzzle, let alone Day One or Day Two of the tournament. But we’ll see.

See you Friday. And if you’re in Brooklyn this weekend, we might really see you Friday!

I’ve had this Brendan Emmett Quigley puzzle open for almost 6 hours and, to be honest, I don’t have much filled in as yet.  For whatever reason (I’ll leave it to you kind folks to decide) my brain is just not jiving with these clues.

4D. It has made many people lose their heads (HEG_TNE__Y_).  Are any of those letters correct?  They sure don’t look it to me.  I’ve tried to think of every type of head that could reasonably show up in a NYT puzzle.  A person’s head, the head of a beer, the bathroom, etc.  So far nothing is making sense to me.

I don’t have any of the long acrosses in the top right:

5A. City at the foot of Mount Entoto.  I guessing this is somewhere in Japan.

16A. Sludge buildup sites.  Something with oil, maybe?

18A. Brownish orange.  I’m color blind which automatically disqualifies me from attempting to answer this.

I possibly have the long acrosses in the bottom left:

52A. Gardener or landscaper (OUTSIDE MAN).  This actually might not be right.

56A. Some forms are filled out in it (TRIPLICATE).

58A. 1993 Emmy winner for Seinfeld (LARRY DAVID).  I’m pretty sure this is right but this puzzle is making me doubt everything.  I hear they’re working on a new season of Curb.  Love that show.  His character comes closer than anything else in the media to sharing my world view.

There are a few (a very, very few) that I’m sort of (very, very sort of) sure about:

47A. Cry when you don’t think you’ll make (WERE DOOMED).

23A. Journalist with a widely read “Report” (MATT DRUDGE).

You know, that’s about it.  I have some more filled in but I’m iffy about everything else.  So, I feel kind of like a moron here.  I know it’s a Friday but I feel I’ve been doing pretty well with Fridays lately.  Is this one just really super hard or am I regressing back towards a fetal state?  I see the Great Howard Barkin, Knower of All Things took almost 5 minutes to solve it.  I haven’t yet figured out how to extrapolate that information into an accurate measurement of the puzzle’s difficulty but that seems longer than usual for Howard.

I was on BEQ’s site yesterday doing one of his puzzles and I read a blog post of his about how “a puzzlemaker’s biggest fear is that the puzzle will not be solved”.

But for most of us, an unsolved puzzle is an unsuccessful one. It may not seem like it, but we really want you to get that last entry, even if it means scrambling, straining and reaching into the darkest recesses of your mind to pull out the finishing letters. This is entertainment we’re talking about here. And if you just say “screw it” in the middle, we didn’t get the job done. Now that, my friends, is a huge problem.

Well, I’m not about to say “screw it” but I am feeling frustrated.  The puzzle is clearly solvable but is BEQ saying the puzzle is a success for those that can solve it but unsuccessful for those who can’t?  Can a puzzle be successful and unsuccessful at the same time?

Ah well, I will keep at it.  BEQ constructs great puzzles and I’ll do what I can to make this one a winner.

Next stop, Saturday.

Only time for a quick post today.  Holidays, family, food, food coma, etc.  Today’s offering is another great puzzle by Brendan Emmett Quigley.  ( I wonder if he’s ever seen the Tom Selleck movie, Quigley Down Under?)  How does Brendan find the time to write all of these puzzles?  He’s got 3 a week on his blog, plus puzzles for the Onion and where ever else he gets published.  And on top of all that, the puzzles are all very good.  And today’s is no exception.

I just barely no-googled this one.  The cross of ET SEQ with EADIE gave me fits and that first E was the very last letter I entered.

A few of my favorites were a BOX SEAT which is where you might see a hit and run, XOXOXOXO for Love Letters, Dr. Ruth as a SEXPERT and a clue I’ve never seen before for EL AL (Company whose slogan is “Home away from home”).  I could go on and on about the great answers in this puzzle but, unfortunately, I don’t have the time.

I hope everybody is having a great holiday season.

Great puzzle, Brendan.

Next stop, Saturday.

Alrighty then.  I didn’t have a chance to look at the puzzle last night so I figured, when I woke up, I’d give it a quick solve and write my post.  Forty minutes in I have maybe 30% of the grid filled.  I have no part of the theme of this Brendan Emmett Quigley offering.  Okay that’s not entirely true.

109A. Ones in charge of a case…or a literal hint to the eight other longest answers in this puzzle.   I have an A.  The other 13 letters of the answer are very, very blank.  I should at least be able to get the first answer of 111D. Sixth-century year.  God, these are so confusing.  Ok, right now it’s the 21st century, right?  But we’re in the 2000s.  So, the 6th century would be in the 500s.  And the Roman numeral for 500 is D, right?  Right?  Ok, that’s what I’m going with.  So now I have an A and a D and only 12 blank letters.  Take that, Quigley.

Ok, I just got a big one: 66A. Track-and-field event (HAMMERTHROW).  I still maintain you don’t get to see enough of these lesser known events during the Olympic coverage.  Events like the hammer throw are particularly fascinating to me because who wakes up one day and says, “Hammer throw.  Yes.  That’s what I want to do with my life.”  But they dedicate themselves to it and become world class athletes.  It’s great but you only see about 5 seconds of the competition while 3,000 hours are devoted to the gymnasts and their flippy-ass jumps.

I also have 17D. Beloved figure in England (QUEENMOTHER).  Wasn’t Queen Mum in last Saturday’s?

Just got 98A. Pantry array (MASONJARS).  I think that’s also part of the theme.  No idea how it’s related to the other theme answers.

65D. Card game played to 61 (SPADEsomething).  I know there’s a game called SPADES but other than that I’m in the dark.

23A. School in Madison, NJ.  I have a couple of letters for this one.  How come I don’t know this?  I’ve spent time in Madison.  It’s not that far from NYC.  The only New Jersey schools I can think of are Rutgers and Princeton.

11D. “The Da Vinci Code” scholar Sir ___ Teabing.  Not sure how I don’t know this either.  I read the book.  I know Ian McKellen played him in the unbelievably boring movie.  Can’t think of the guy’s name though.  By the way, I thought that book was great.  It’s completely ridiculous and the writing is certainly not great but I couldn’t put the thing down.

Ok, I’m going to keep at this for a while.  I eventually no-googled yesterday’s puzzle so I’ve got a no-google week going here.  This is one of the tougher Sunday puzzles I’ve come across in a while.  Of course, I tend to find Brendan’s puzzles pretty difficult.  I do his Time Out New York puzzles every week and I always have a tough time with them.  Not to mention the paper in that magazine forces me to use a pen which I don’t like because half of what I enter in turns out to be wrong.

Sorry for the lame-o entries this weekend.  Family and friends in town coupled with difficult puzzles has resulted in not enough time to blog.  Hopefully Monday’s puzzle will take me less than an hour.  That should free up some time.

Next stop, Monday.

In the comments for Karen Tracey’s puzzle yesterday, two people mentioned their appreciation for her work. This is not uncommon — her puzzles are delightful. And furthermore, the serious solvers out there actually can recognize the differences in style from one constructor to another.

I cannot. At least, not yet. But five months ago, I couldn’t solve a Monday puzzle in less than twenty minutes, so I’m clearly not so old a dog that I can’t learn a trick or two. Lately, I’ve been practicing puzzles by going more or less chronologically through much of the Will Shortz era of puzzles (courtesy of the New York Times archive, which goes back to 1996), but now I wonder if I should try certain constructors, and see if I can’t learn more about techniques and what personalizes a puzzle. I can do this with music — I  can identify certain choices in composition and associate them with certain composers; I’m sure the same can be done with puzzles, right?

I say all this only because I recognized the name of Sunday’s constructor, Brendan Emmett Quigley, and recalled not only enjoying his “Truthiness” puzzle of a few weeks ago, but that at the time, I read (somewhere) that Mr. Quigley had certain elements to his work that stood out against the general masses.

A note to our readers: Send me an email or a comment about this. I’d love to know what some of you think about specific constructors — not whether you like or dislike them, but about certain characteristics that you can identify with any particular constructor. The phone lines are open. Comment here, or email me at rbxblog@gmail.com.

Anyway — onto Mr. Quigley’s puzzle. The title, What The H?, tells me… well, very little. I assume it has something to do with the letter H, but I don’t know what. And unfortunately for me, my first theme fill taught me the wrong trick. 77A. Iceland? turns out to be ISLE OF WHITE. I incorrectly remembered that the correct spelling was Isle of Wite, and here I figured, oh, we’re going to add an H and then make it mean something new. (HINT: It’s “Isle of Wight,” so my theory, while a fine one in it’s own right, was off the mark.) Instead, we’re using homonyms — Wight becomes White — and the meaning thus shifts. Other theme entries:

• 22A. V.I.P. in a limo? : WHEELED AUTHORITY (wield)
• 36A. Stories about halting horses? : TALES OF WHOA (woe)
• 58A. Causes of meteorological phenomena? : WEATHER WHYS (wise) — I’m not sure of this one. The original (non-homonymed) entry would be “weather-wise,” right? I’m a little foggy on how this makes sense (hee, hee, foggy).
• 98A. Barrier Ahab stands behind? : WHALING WALL (wailing) — I was an idiot here, as my brain decided to tell the rest of me that this clue was about some guy named “Barrier Ahab.” Like that was his super-hero name or something. Not, as it should have been, “We are looking for the name of a barrier, one which Captain Ahab would stand behind.”
• 115A. Cry after writing a particularly fun column? : THE EDITORIAL WHEE! (we) — This was my favorite of the bunch. Just delightful.
• 16D. 45, e.g.? : WHIRLED RECORD (world)
• 57D. Where ax murderers’ weapons are on display? : WHACKS MUSEUMS (wax)

Did I leave any out? Seems like that’s the list.

I’ve got no more detail to detail today, as I must get back to work. Hope you’re having a great long weekend. See you Monday!