August 29th, 2008 WSJ--Double Dealing By Myles Callum/Edited by Mike Shenk

A relatively easy puzzle for the weekly Wall Street Journal puzzle, and for author Myles Callum. I haven't seen a puzzle by him for a while, but my recollection is that the previous onces I've done by him were much harder. The theme seemed to simply be that them answers would have two words which both start with D. If there was something else there it was too subtle for me to pick out. Theme answers:

• DollarDiplomacy
• DishingDirt
• DearDiary
• DraftDodger
• Demolition Derby
• DimeDefense
• DannyDeVito

The last two of these were downward answers in 35D and 38D. The other five were across answers.

The level of difficulty of the clues varied as I moved through the puzzle. Some were easy, some medium, some hard and some just really obscure. As an example, ENDGAMES for the clue [Board finishes] in 57A, or AWLS for [Punches] in 3D. Because there were a lot of references to proper names which I did not know many of, it took me fifty minutes to complete this 21x21 grid while eating lunch.

MGWCC #012 -- Friday, August 22, 2008 -- "Another Nine-Letter Word for a Stupid Waste of Time"

Matt Gaffney's twelfth weekly crossword contest puzzle was the easiest to solve of any of them but in order to participate in the actual contest part of it one had to create a limerick. The had to make reference to an article written by Ron Rosenbaum which was published in Slate. It was called "Crossword, Sudoku Plague Threatens America! with a subtitle of "The puzzle of puzzle people." After reading it I decided the author must be a prat. He calls puzzle solving a "useless habit" and suggests that their "uselessly filling empty boxes" is a metaphor for emptyness in their lives, and tells us that we could be doing something else involving words and letters--reading. Well, I tell you what, Ron--I read all the time, and everyone I know who is good at doing crosswords does also.

Anyway, back to Matt's puzzle. (Okay, one more snipe. Read what Matt wrote on his blog here.) There was an interesting part in Rosenbaum's article where he pokes fun at a solver who has not filled in the answer to the clue [Mauna ___] by saying, "Whoa, tough one, dude." Of course the answer could be either LOA or KEA and one does not write either in until one has a verifying cross clue. In this weeks puzzle, Matt had KEA in the answer grid twice (that's unusual) and LOA once. All three had the same clue [Mauna ___]. I thought that was hilarious.

The puzzle taught me that I had not read the article carefully. 8A had the clue [Hillbilly ___ (crossword-solving, according to 22-across--] for the answer HEROIN. 22A is, of course, RONROSENBAUM.

One clue which had me stumped for a while was 49A: [The real crime of 22-across's piece] ITWASNTFUNNY. But I only needed a few letters to figure it out after I corrected my mistake on 35D [Heart tube] which I had filled in as aorta but which turned out to be STENT.

There were a few typical misdirecting or vague MG-typical clues just to spice things up a bit:

• 19A One of four: SEASONS ("one of four what?" was my first response)
• 38A Kay follower: ELL
• 42A Compass dir.: ENE
• 1D Sent down: KOD
• 4D Rhyming word in a soft drink brand: Yello (I think this is Mello Yello--a caffeinated, citrus-flavored soft drink from Coca Cola.)
• 6D Brunch's less well-known cousin: LINNER
• 8D Laughter syllables: HOS (really?) Here's another possibility: employees, to a pimp.
• 50D X: TIMES

Oy, that last one killed me. But the one which had me going the most was "brunch's less well-known cousin". I thought LINNER right away, but I then thought, "no, that can't be it!" because I thought my sister and I had made that up years ago and know one would know it (I've never heard of it being used until this puzzle). That's going in my clues file.

So now, the puzzle done, I ended up writing several limericks but will only show the two I liked best here. This is one:

The author who comes from Bay Shore
Disdained puzzlers with words we abhor

He penned with his nib
Tripe that sounded so glib

That we likely will read him no more

I found out he is from Bay Shore, Long Island in his online bio. Kind of hard to fit Rosenbaum in a limerick with the correct meter. I also found out he is an older guy, so that is used in the next limerick:

There once was a man of late years
Who wrote of the "Starbucks of Tears"

With prose he distorts
As he disses Will Shortz

With his head firmly stuck up his rear

Unfortunately, neither of these won. But I did have fun writing them--and learning about them. My first try looked good to me, but when I shared it with a friend who writes limericks he said, "the meter is wrong," and I had to toss this one. Here it is:

A columnist who regards crosswords with fear
Wrote in Slate of the "Starbucks of Tears"

Rosenbaum dissed Will Shortz
And puzzle solvers--of course!

Causing cruciverbalists to jeer ala Lear.

By the way, this "Starbucks of Tears" thing is a Rosenbaum-coined term. Apparently where he was observing people doing these crosswords and sudoku puzzles there were a lot of sad-looking people in there. His presumption--probably correct--is that they were out from visiting a nearby hospital and were depressed. What was he doing in there?

Friday, August 8, 2008 NYS Weekend Warrior

This puzzle was created by Barry C. Silk and edited by Peter Gordon. Themeless. There were a number of difficult clues sprinkled about which slowed solving down, but nothing that would bring you to a grinding stop. One thing which I had no idea of but has a commonplace answer is the clue [Repeated action in a mathematician's random walk] in 23A, and the answer is COINTOSS.

In order to complete the fill CLI needed to be in 23D [One-twentieth of MMMXX] and my friend John wondered if in the old Roman days they had a system for doing math in Roman Numerals. Anybody know? I just convert to cardinal numbers, do the math and convert back again. How did they do it then?

There were two things in this puzzle I thought were really difficult: 8D [Another name for the sugar apple] with the answer SWEETSOP and 55D [Place in a Robert Redford movie] with the answer ETTA.

55D - Place in a Robert Redford movie

It turns out that the role Katharine Ross played in
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" was... Etta Place

About the Sweetsop apple--clued as [Another
name for the sugar apple]: It is a semi-evergreen shrub
which grows six to eight meters tall. It bears edible fruit:

The fruit is usually round, slightly pine cone-like,
6-10 cm diameter and weighing 100-230 g, with a
scaly or lumpy skin. There are variations in shape
and size. The fruit flesh is sweet, white to light
yellow, and resembles and tastes like custard. The
edible portion coats the seeds generously; a bit
like the gooey portion of a tomato seed. Sugar-apple
has a very distinct, sweet-smelling fragrance. The
texture of the flesh that coats the seeds is a bit
like the center of a very ripe guava (excluding the
seeds). It is slightly grainy, a bit slippery, very
sweet and very soft. The seeds are scattered through
the fruit flesh; the seed coats are blackish-brown,
12-18 mm long, and hard and shiny.

It is grown in the tropics and warmer subtropics. I've never heard of it before. The picture at the top of this post is of the fruit of this plant.

Thursday, August 7, 2008 NYS--"Gevalt!"

This Thursday puzzle by Patrick Blindauer and Tony Orbach had as theme answers common phrases or titles which had been altered by inserting an OY in them: CLOYINGWRAP (Cling Wrap); ANNOYINGLANDERS (Ann Landers); TOMBOYRAIDER ("Tomb Raider"); and BUOYSDRIVER (Bus Driver). The theme clues were clever enough that you could not guess much about the answer without getting some part of it done through cross clues but not so obscure that you couldn't begin to guess as the answers began to flesh-out, which made it fun. The one exception is the clue at 61A [Lifts actress Minnie's spirits?], which made me expect to put DRIVER in there somewhere.

There were a number of clues which were pretty tough and as usual I can't tell whether they got there through the efforts of the authors or were peppered-in by the editor, Peter Gordon. Also, there were some things I just did not know.

Did not know: LENTEN [spare]; GIA [1998 Angelina Jolie TV movie]; DUNDER [___ Mifflin (company in "The Office")]--which could have been clued ___ head!; KIX [Band with the 1988 album "Blow My Fuse"]; and UAE [Fed. whose 18-letter full name alternates vowels and consonants]. Actually, I know what UAE is but the clue left me clueless, though I won't forget it now.

Tough clues:

• 24A Painting place: atelier
• 50A Fanta rival: Sunkist
• 54A Binding: final
• 1D Big supplier to Boeing: Alcoa (lots of big suppliers to Boeing)
• 5D Ice cream mix-in: raisins (this could be so many things)
• 7A Cheek by ___: jowl (I had an "aha" moment when this became apparent)
• 35D Playmates?: team
• 40D Noted: OnRecord
• 52D Mount with vigor: steed

My favorite theme clue was 45A [Peppermint Patty's panty thief?] with TOMBOYRAIDER

Good puzzle for a Thursday.