ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ BREAKING WIND]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ BREAKING WIND]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
To the mailbag. Janet Anderson of Concord MA had sent me the above action shot of her associate Arthur C. Ellis. Arthur, who if you couldn’t tell from the picture, is a painter, and recently fell off a ladder and broke one of his vertebra. Yikes! Get better, Arthur. Looks like crosswords are part of the recovery process, and apparently, he’s a big fan. Janet writes that Arthur “loves when he conquers one of your puzzles in under 20 minutes. Makes his day/night, but, compliments you all through it. ‘This guy is brilliant.’ ‘I can’t believe he’s using all pot references in this one.’ ‘His band references are nuts!'”
Thanks, Arthur and Janet. You guys are the latest BEQ.com Fans Of the Moment. Christmas comes early as Arthur will receive his choice of anything from the gift shop. Keep those fan pics coming.
Now, normally, I wrap up fan pic posts with that comment. However, this story continues. Janet sent a follow up e-mail yesterday, which reads as follows:
Hold the presses. I do believe the BEQ “Love-Fest” is over, or at least reached some other level! [Themeless Monday] #95 seems to have set off Mr. Ace the Painter. Much head-shaking and cursing coming from the kitchen last night!
“Even though I barely watched it, I know Diff’rent Strokes had Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges, Conrad Bain, Dana Plato, but, I’m supposed to know their TV name?! This guy’s too young for me, all these references – that’s it!”
Mr. Ace the Painter is not a computer guy: no email, no Internet, no interest in joining any computer fun. So, where I, after much frustration and stalemate with a crossword would eventually go to the grand Google and search out one clue, only one to at least jump-start the puzzle, he will not. However, he sometimes “calls a friend.” So he threw the crossword down in disgust and called a fellow cruci-friend in Oregon, Mr. Pond. After the obligatory “hey, how are you doings,” they got down to it. And, soon there were voices in my house – somehow they invoked Mr. Ross Perot, Mr. Eugene Maleska, and Mr. Brendan Emmett Quigley (I’ve heard them do Mr. Perot before, but never the other two!)
There was lambasting and lamenting. “Who does he think he is? He’s got to provide at least a few clues for us old timers!”
“He could throw us an ADIT or ITER every now and then.”
“Now you know, Mr. Pond, that those clues bore me too!”
“Well, Mr. Quigley does not have to be so obscure with just every damn clue!”
And, on and on it went. I went to bed after much side-line chuckling at the angst you’ve caused.
I’d like to say that I woke up this morning and the puzzle was nicely wrapped up and solved, but no. There is, however, a big red marker across the top with the word “fucker!”
Wow. Not only am I humbled/honored/surprised/bewildered that I’d be mentioned in the same breath as Maleska and Perot (?!!?), I’m so completely stunned at Janet’s amazing hearing ability that she was able make out what Mr. Pond was saying in the telephone conversation. Color me impressed. Anyway, just saying: ADIT and ITER are only going to appear in a puzzle of mine if and only if those words are the only thing that’s going to make a corner amazing.
Thanks again, Janet and Arthur. Everybody else, share the puzzle. New guest puzzle tomorrow.
Fun puzzle. Having read a lot about pangrams these past few days at first I thought the trick was that the asterisked clues were a pangram. Then I thought that was an added bonus. Then I realized it wasn’t.
Enjoyed this one, even if I did fall victim to K-TWO again. (Makes mental note for this one later.) First thought for 61A was WOOD CHIPPER.
My cousin, Paul Bostaph, played drums for Slayer for a few years, but not on “Reign in Blood”, unfortunately.
Thanks for the medium puzzle — I finished under ten minutes. Now what do I do with the other 20 minutes I usually devote to BEQ???
whatchoo talkin’ bout mr painter?
Had trouble with the SE, mostly because I couldn’t get 54D until I got 68A. Ironic since, uh, I need to do that myself.
I don’t see how a reference to a show he was familiar with should be that frustrating, though the cumulative effect of a bunch of them could be. Sort of like (for me) when the sports figures get piled on.
I’m up for anything as long as the answers I don’t know don’t check. For that reason, I think it’s poor form to check two names in general (and maybe two of anything in a closely related category). Doesn’t help in all those darn British puzzles that are full of unches though. 🙁
Loved the puzzle. Maybe you could do a “breaking eighty”, or “breaking eggs” or “breaking up” or “breaking down” or “breaking into” puzzle for the NY Times.