ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ FIGHTING WORDS]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ FIGHTING WORDS]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
UPDATE: I forgot to post that the Visual Thesaurus posted my puzzle today. So let’s rectify that problem by putting up a link.
So the zinger in the puzzle above is from the first outed celebrity fan of this here blog. Sarah Haskins, for those not in the know, is a comedienne who has carved out a niche for herself through videos for the website Current TV about her wry observations of how women are depicted in advertising and media (click here and enjoy). Sarah’s a huge crossworder (as evidenced time and again in her Twitter feed). She’s definitely an avid New York Times puzzle solver, and well, like I said, a huge champion of my work. So please consider this a belated “thank you” note, Ms. Haskins.
BTW, I’m terrible at writing thank you notes. I think it took like five months after Liz and I got back from our honeymoon before I got around to the thank yous. If you came to my wedding and still haven’t got a thank you yet, what can I say but it’s coming.
Oh, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the prognostication prowess of crossword blogger Amy Reynaldo. In her post about my Wednesday puzzle, she posited that the answer to 7-Down, INFOMANIA, had to be a tip of the hat to Sarah (infoMania is the name of her show on Current). Amy, you were right that there was a tip of the hat coming, just you were a puzzle too early.
Share the puzzle. New one on Monday.
I was really impressed by how smooth this puzzle ended up being. Usually when I see I’m dealing with a quote theme, I groan like my calc professor is assigning homework. However, the decision to go with the non-rotational symmetry made this one really nice. Theme entries were nicely distributed and you were able to fit in some nice 6+s in the fill. I am a big Van Morrison fan so I nailed 3-down, I especially enjoyed the clue for 45-across, and we get another man-cave reference. Overall, I surprisingly enjoyed a quote puzzle. That’s 5-stars on the big board. Thundercats ho!
P.S. Belated “I really liked the theme” on your cool Onion puzzle from Wednesday. Also, say it ain’t so Big Papi, say it ain’t so. I’m sure Bud Selig is now praying that Jeter’s name never pops up (although I don’t think he’s juicing) to help the league keep some shred of dignity. At least I still have Tim Tebow here in Gainesville.
Thanks, brah. FWIW: I’d be shocked if Jeter juiced.
Fun puzzle. I managed to solve it, except for a couple of letters in the AKRONOH / PANTHRO crossing.
Until the last few seconds I thought the final piece of the quote was: PENALCODE.
Not usually huge on quotes but this one was a fun solve. Having LIFE twice in the puzzle was a bit of a snag, but I’ll let it slide 🙂
BTW, as a huge Twins fan, all I ask of David Ortiz is this: why the hell weren’t you juicing when you were with the Twins? Or were you proud of being a 260-lb. opposite-field slap hitter?
That might be a tough crossing for some.
Sheesh, didn’t even catch that. Oh well, I’ve done worse: AQUATIC crossing AQUARIUM for a puzzle in the Times has to be the worst offense.
Pop culture was my downfall once again. Certainly I know Van Morrison, but Real Real Gone I didn’t; don’t get HBO, so don’t know The Wire, so no OMAR; PANTHRO was tough; had IDA for IDY; Rosalyn Tureck unknown (presumably not actually pop culture). But I did get BIF Naked.
Then again, having SECURE IN LIFE for SET UP FOR LIFE and SLOTS for SPOTS didn’t help either. A tough workout for me.
kind of tough for me, too, but i probably stiffed you a star on the board. it’s a ****, i guess. the quip didn’t really resonate with me (very few quips do, so this is nothing against sarah haskins), and the fill had its moments but nothing to make me jump out of my chair. still, it was pretty smooth overall, so that’s a four-star.
yay for a super bowl i remember (fondly). not sure we’ll ever see a team score 35 points in one quarter again!
i didn’t know REAL REAL GONE, IDY, BIF, or ROSALYN either. i also have never seen the wire, but this is like the fourth time i’ve seen OMAR clued in relation to it (i think thrice by brendan and once by matt gaffney), so i’m slowly catching on.
only three stars. would have been four if the north weren’t such a clusterf*ck: too many (six!) proper-name crossings w/ the quote intro up there. i was like “IMAGE something? “IM A GEMINI?” and i’d rather ESPO be clued as the graffiti artist than some hockey guy, but that’s just me!
http://cloutonline.com/files/espo_ny_times.JPG
rest of the puzzle was great.
It was a game of inches today. No mistakes, but it was close (“Im an eminist” had me wondering what an “eminist” is. The answer is it’s nothing.)
I’ve entered that stage of life–well, I’m well into it actually–in which the grasp on pop culture is tenuous at best and probably illusory. Anything after about 1993 just sounds to my ears like Woodstock talking in those little squiggles. It’s clear to me that if I want to keep a seat in the game at all I’m going to have to break down and watch The Wire.
Am I the only one who never realized that ESPNEWS drops a letter (like DIRECTV)??
These puzzles are proving to me the obvious value of checking my work…even when I think I’m done.
I checked every crossing of PANTHRO (since I’d never heard of it) and only then caught that I had HAH/REAL HEAL GONE instead of HAR/REAL REAL GONE.
I hate to say it, but this is pretty flat by BEQ standards.
Nothing wrong with the quote, and most of it was pretty much inferrable if you know who Sarah is, but usually I finish one of your crosswords with a couple of “wow, awesome” moments. None of those today. And no “wow, clever” clues — I liked the zip code clue and the “Manhattan sch.” clue, but have seen both in other puzzles in the last month.
All in all, an okay solve, but I don’t see your signature on it.
Big name in taps, ok, I’m thinking Gregory Hines, Sammy Davis Jr., Blind Mellow Jello, even Shirley Temple. Then trying to think of mfr of threading taps. Went to the kitchen to get a drink of water out of my (Oh No) Moen FAUCET, and still didn’t get it. If it was a snake it would have hissed at me, I guess!
I went to that record label’s museum when I visited Memphis. On the tour you get to walk through the recording studio which has been kept in the conditions it was in back in the day. The whole tour you’ve got all these great soul tunes blasting on speakers… until you get into the studio, which is dead silent.
This might be hyperbole, or it might be my subtle form of provocation, but walking into that quiet room had a similar gravity to it as standing outside the (similarly preserved) Lorraine Motel.
BIF? I see. I spent half the puzzle thinking Ms. Haskins was a GEMINI.
Cool puzzle.
RP
Nice new clue.
Dude, best sixty hours of (non sports) television.
Always check your work.
You don’t think some of the fill is BEQ? PANTHRO, SET UP FOR LIFE? C’mon. Cut me some slack.
Love the name Blind Mellow Jello.
Almost put Big Star in that STAX clue, but thought otherwise.
BIG NAKED would be a great band name, just sayin’.
AMEZE MINISTITIS had to do with pantyhose, it sounded like some weird disease. And I was hoping that Van Morrison was into fishing with their hit REEL REEL GONE…Medium? Really?
PS I’ve been meaning to say I hate the Captcha tech here. It’s more awkward than other sites (and I’ve lost some scintillating posts).
At times I think you’re trying too hard to be cool in a nerdy way. Always wanting to be the first kid on the block to do something…makes you too predictable as in Wednesday’s puzzle with the Gates clue. Saw that coming from miles and miles away. Decent puzzle, but made more enjoyable because of the theme.
Now if you had clued ‘Skip’ I would have been impressed. Not now since I just mentioned it, so I expect to see it in the next few weeks here or elsewhere.
Sorry about the Captcha problems. I don’t have anything to do with it. Might it be easier to just make an account?
Well, I guess I’m going to have to try harder to stump you then.
Good one, and I just barely managed to finish it (fun when that happens).
Absolutely love Big Star, but I don’t think they recorded at Stax.
I don’t know if they recorded at Stax, but Stax certainly had a hand in the Big Star records:
http://is.gd/1XJoO
Cool… thanks for the link.
LOVE the Akron zip code since that’s where I live (my zip is 44320 but it’s close enough for horseshoes)- so NYU had to be KSU, good psych there! and always thrilled when STAX gets its props. Can’t recall doing a puzzle where Charley Weaver’s fictional mountain was the answer, but good thing I watched Hollywood Squares all those years! 😉 Didn’t know Haskins before now but was able to get most of the “quip” despite my lack of affinity for them. Liked having to correctly parse PREK. Also XXII and GUESSSO were fun gets.
Stax = great label = fun clue
Sorry I didn’t mean that to come off as a negative. I’ve been solving your online puzzles for about 6 months, so I have a feel for what you may or may not use as fill. But if you had used the Gates clue or some sort of variation, in say 3 weeks, it would have had much more of a ‘wow’ factor. At least to me.
Finally, Cal Hagan!
Anyone who tweets is narcissistic….just give me your next puzzle dammit !
Finally finished, with three empty squares and two wrong ones, but for me that’s pretty good. Top was a lot tougher than the bottom.
I feel like AKRON, OH broke some kind of rule in the cluing, as I spent too long thinking the city’s name would take up the whole answer, but I can’t at the moment think of anything else I’d have preferred there.
Keep up the great work!
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