QuillxWords

Time: 29:18 Thursday Average: 25:22 Best Thursday: 10:18 I worked on this Thursday late last night on the flight from Cebu to Bangkok and again this morning over breakfast and, if my time doesn’t make this clear, it gave me quite a scare. Strangely, it wasn’t the Thursday weirdness that got me, as I understood that fairly quickly. Essentially, the tricky clues were puns on the first letter of the answers, which is difficult to explain so I’ll just do my usual bullet points: “ Blue jays: ”  JASMINE AND JEANS . So, we have two words that begin with J (Jays) and often have the word “blue” preceding them. I basically had to guess on the Blue Jasmine part as something that sounded vaguely like it might be a thing, but apparently it’s a 2013 Woody Allen film starring Cate Blanchett. This seems random and not the strongest for your theme material. ” Honey bees: ”  BADGERS AND BEARS . I have heard of honey badgers and honey bears, so I’ll take it. ” Dry eyes: ”  I...

Time:  11:08 Tuesday Average:  13:06 Best Tuesday:  5:05 Maybe it’s been a few long days or it’s the flight from Taipei to Manila, but I struggled to parse quite a few of the answers today. Now, waiting on the tarmac at Manila airport for almost  ONE HOUR and still with a 2 hour drive to Angeles City ahead of me, I suppose I’ll get around to writing up this  JOINT -themed Tuesday. As you can see, the joint shaped shaded answers are joint body parts. That’s the theme. It’s fine. I was mostly upset with where I ended the puzzle, with the highly questionable  ENSHEATHE (which is different from “sheathe” exactly how?) and the River  ELBE , which apparently formed part of the border between East and West Germany. Maybe that reference is easier for some, but I was quite young when the Berlin Wall came down and I don’t remember much about any rivers involved.  OAK LEAVES for “Cluster around an acorn” is perfectly sensible, but was exc...

Time:  11:08 Tuesday Average:  13:06 Best Tuesday:  5:05 Maybe it’s been a few long days or it’s the flight from Taipei to Manila, but I struggled to parse quite a few of the answers today. Now, waiting on the tarmac at Manila airport for almost  ONE HOUR  and still with a 2 hour drive to Angeles City ahead of me, I suppose I’ll get around to writing up this  JOINT -themed Tuesday. As you can see, the joint shaped shaded answers are joint body parts. That’s the theme. It’s fine. I was mostly upset with where I ended the puzzle, with the highly questionable  ENSHEATHE (which is different from “sheathe” exactly how?) and the River  ELBE , which apparently formed part of the border between East and West Germany. Maybe that reference is easier for some, but I was quite young when the Berlin Wall came down and I don’t remember much about any rivers involved.  OAK LEAVES  for “Cluster around an acorn” is perfectly sensible,...

Time: 4:42 Monday Average: 8:21 Best Monday: 4:10 Having failed to work out for the last week of travel, give or take a hike up Penang Hill, I’m feeling particularly lazy now seeing this TRIATHLON themed puzzle. As you can see, we have GOING SWIMMINGLY , RECYCLING CENTER , and OUT OF THE RUNNING . I would say that it’s fairly straightforward, but I’m a big fan of the first and third phrases, so I’ll take it. This is about as easy a puzzle as you’ll ever get from Peter Gordon, so enjoy it. So here’s another late phone entry that I’ve just barely managed to EKE  out on time for you east coasters. My STYLE may not be the best, but I suppose it’ll have to do. I’m currently in a van on my way down a hill in Taipei, still relishing the delicious food that I consumed last night. My CHARM is fading so I’ll call another subpar entry. 

Time: 39:38 Sunday Average: 48:01 Best Sunday: 21:55 After an unimpeachable weekend with Southworth in Penang, I was forced to embark on a VOYAGE back to work life, which I hope I will never call real life. Even if a weekend of all the delicious food and drinks may be a DEVIATION in terms of my regular mad schedule, I remain confident that it's closer to what I should be doing and I certainly won't LOSE SLEEP over it. Although I was up at 4am to catch my flight back to KL and then an onward, stressful connection to Taipei, I still managed today's crossword with, I wouldn't say EASE , but perhaps competence. The theme, based on the title "Everything evens out in the End" and revealed by WHAT ARE THE ODDS , took me a long time to parse, but I eventually grasped that if you take the odd (1st, 3rd, 5th, etc.) letters of the first word or words of the theme answers, you will spell out the last word. Thus, you have S M A L L T O W N SALON , R E I N D E ...

Time: 14:27 Saturday Average: 36:52 Best Saturday: 10:34 I’m sneaking another entry in under the wire because, quite simply, Penang is altogether too much fun to spend a moment doing anything other than eating delicious food. With Southworth, I climbed Penang Hill, got perhaps dangerously dehydrated, feeling anything but like an IRONMAN , but fixed everything with beer and ice cream at the top. Southworth brilliantly came up with ROSARY from “String of churches?” helping me close out that Northeast with minimal difficulty. Now my flight to Taipei is about to take off, so I’ll have to settle for the shortest entry of all time. See you in Taiwan.

Time:14:58 Friday Average: 27:20 Best Friday: 10:21 After precisely missing a train form the hotel the airport, I knocked out this Friday during the exact 20 minute wait between trains. Yesterday was full of NEAR MISSES as our Grab Driver, apparently on his trip ever, missed our turn and decided to back up on the highway and then abruptly cut across two lanes of traffic. Terrifying. It was a shaky flight to Penang with one of the worst landings I’ve ever experienced, akin to being inside a football as it’s spiked, I imagine. Of course, on arriving in Penang, I went straight to 3 sheets to the wind because I met my man in Penang, Southworth. No need for any kind of OVERTURE as the plan was to start drinking beer while making a plan. Not much planning is required here in Penang, where we can happily just eat and drink our way across town. Maybe that won’t be the way to INNER PEACE , but we HALE and hearty, if jet lagged, travelers ignored all DIETARY LAW and ate all. No...

Time: 11:01 Thursday Average: 25:20 Best Thursday: 10:18 I managed another quick solve today, this time coming from Kuala Lumpur. Strangely, I actually went four for four on the actors with no crosses needed, a rarity for me, but they were throwing straight nerd stuff with "X in 'X-Men,'" "M in 'Goldeneye,'" "V in 'V for Vendetta,'" and "J in 'Men in Black'" for PATRICK STEWART , JUDI DENCH , HUGO WEAVING , and WILL SMITH . Since they're all playing roles named after letters, the theme is CHARACTER ACTOR . I'm obliged to mention, as a nerd, that in no universe is Professor X known simply as X, so that's a questionable inclusion at best. I'm not crazy about a random vitamin brand that I've never heard of appearing this puzzle. ESTER-C ? Desperate times, I suppose. I'm traveling with a representative from Chicago and she was happy to help me out with THE BEAN for "Chicago lan...

Time: 6:52 Wednesday Average: 17:06 Best Wednesday: 6:52 I am nothing if not steeped in colleges, so you’re really going to throw a college themed crossword at me? Rather, it’s a dot EDU themed puzzle with the first part of the themed answer being a famous college: BROWN AND SERVE . Oh man, these kinda gross frozen breakfast sausages were a feature of weekend mornings in my childhood home and I will never not have a soft spot for them. DUKE AND DUCHESS .  RICE AND BEANS . Yum. Always.  DRAKE AND JOSH . Never heard of this Nickelodeon show, but I was just not the road with a guy from Drake and they’re apparently very popular in Pakistan.  SMITH AND WESSON . Massachusetts-based company? Who knew? PENN AND TELLER . Ever seen Run-DMC’s “It’s Tricky” video with these guys? Recommend. How appropriate that this puzzle would be my new personal best for Wednesday! Never heard of Mark GOODSON , but shouldn’t this be clued as classic 1993 Elijah Wood and...

Time: 5:43 Tuesday Average: 13:06 Best Friday: 5:05 Is AMBER known as an "Insect-preserving resin" outside of the Jurassic Park context? I suppose it probably is, but I'm sure that the film is the only reason I was able to drop that answer automatically. How about the goofiness of the clue "Producer of the Jacksons?" for ATM ? As in, Andrew Jackson twenty dollar bills are produced from an ATM. Here's hoping that the clue won't make sense for too much longer. Andrew Jackson was probably the central figure of my disillusionment with the US back when I was in grade school. In 2nd grade, I did a book report on some short biography of Jackson, which was mostly all about how badass he was. I gave a bullish presentation, as I recall, and felt that I'd chosen the coolest president for my report. Then, I read another book about Andrew Jackson in 4th grade that presented, shall we say, a more nuanced look at his life and presidency. I was crushed, but...

Time: 5:30 Monday Average: 8:22 Best Monday: 4:10 It’s one of my ever popular phone blog entries in which both quality of writing and my overall cleverness seem to greatly diminish. I’m in a car, stuck in traffic in Faisalabad making my way back to Islamabad to hopefully catch a flight to Bangkok. It’s a PARODY of life that I lead. While I love Pakistan dearly, I am excited for the increased freedom of movement in Thailand. And for some different beers, although I love Murree’s too. It’s actually an exceedingly clever theme for a Monday, even if it took me a moment to grok it. The theme is CAP AND GOWN and the compound entries have first words that match with cap and second words that match with gown. So, you have NIGHT NIGHT (seems a little cheap, but I’ll allow it), WHITE WEDDING (singing Billy Idol all day now so thanks for that), and MUSHROOM BALL (never heard of it but it sounds delicious). The theme is complemented with some absolutely acceptable fill that I c...

Time: 31:14 Sunday Average: 48:06 Best Sunday: 21:55 Since my relatively recent obsession with crosswords began, I've been struck by how largely unrelated the crossword skill is to the trivia skill set. Sure, occasionally happening to know a given factoid or musician will help you get an answer more quickly on occasion, but for the most part there's surprisingly little overlap. I would bet that folks who aren't involved in crosswords or trivia would assume that they're essentially the same. That said, I love trivia even though I'm awful at it and this Trivial Pursuit themed puzzle, titled "Trivial Matters," was just the ticket. The colors representing the various categories were largely given away by the "1966 Donovan hit with a rhyming title," which is obviously MELLOW ( YELLOW ). The colors filled rebus squares and, upon finishing the puzzle, the app niftily revealed those familiar pies. "What kind of tree ALWAYS HAS FOLIAGE ?...

Time: 23:22 Saturday Average: 37:11 Best Saturday: 10:34 Did I know "What Homer used to propose to Marge" with no crosses whatsoever? You better believe I did! Of course, Marge couldn't wear that ONION RING  very long because it was burning her finger, but even so it's an unforgettable moment. Meanwhile, for the clue "Like the characters on 'Lost,'" I could only think "Dead the whole time!' rather than MAROONED . Is that the disappointing ending people talk about? I haven't seen it. There's all kinds of pop culture that I'm digging in this puzzle, especially since I would have gone with Buffy for the ANOINTED One, otherwise known as the most annoying and pointless potential Big Bad. I should have gotten STAR WARS faster for the greatest film score of all time, because of course it is. I'll confess, however, that I didn't know about GOBOTS , but Wikipedia tells me that they preceded then competed with Transformer...

Time: 31:05 Friday Average: 27:28 Best Friday: 10:21 I did finally get around to watching CRAZY RICH ASIANS , on a plane of course, but I was still slow to fill in that central answer, even if  I really should have known that someone would be squeezing it into a puzzle before long. I did not SLEEP EASY last night or barely at all, honestly, but I think I would have struggled with today regardless. Maybe if I was more awake, I would have remembered that METAL is a music genre when I had the last three letters. That's a little embarrassing. I don't think I ever knew how to spell Peabody Prize winner GWEN IFILL 's name before, so that corner was the killer for me. Again, I was flummoxed by "Old British sports cars," which had the critical first letters for those medium acrosses. MGS . OK. MELODIZES is an odd word and I didn't feel great about the semi-redundancy of SALSA DIP . MELEE is a pretty loose synonym for imbroglio, but I suppose it's close ...

Time:28:58 Thursday Average: 25:29 Best Thursday: 10:18 Perhaps it's just that I'm in a country where the street signs are already unreadable to me that caused my slowness on the uptake today. I understood immediately that we were dealing with anagrams again and even got the OUT OF ORDER SIGNS revealer fairly early on, but my over-tired mind just ignored the "signs" part and was trying for arbitrary anagrams instead. Eventually, however, I remembered enough signs and just had to spent several minutes figuring out OYSTERS Rockefeller. "NOTED TENOR:" DO NOT ENTER . "SIMPLE DIET:" SPEED LIMIT . "GET SPEARED:" STEEP GRADE . This is probably the most random of the signs and definitely the last one I could piece together.  "DOOR DECALS:" ROAD CLOSED . Are anagrams fun? Maybe, but I just couldn't get excited about these ones. The revealer is good but the rest seems a bit slapdash.  Clued as "Opera that fa...

Time: 10:49 Wednesday Average: 17:11 Best Wednesday: 7:09 If there was anyone who didn't know who AARON BURR  ("give us a verse, drop some knowledge") was already from the legendary "Got Milk?" commercial (or I suppose from US History class), I can't imagine that in a post-Hamilton world that that nine-letter clue wasn't automatic for anyone doing today's crossword. I'm trying to figure out if this PLANETARY ALIGNMENT themed puzzle really works, but I'm not grounded enough in astronomy to really figure it out. But there are planets (and the sun) lined up (kinda) in the puzzle as follows: GE SUN DHEIT , NO O VEN US E (that looks like more German with those three words mashed together), H EARTH S , MARS UPIUM , and TAKE S A TURN . I like that alien CONTACT is throw in there as well, just to add to the general space theme. I'm surprised I don't see Spiegelman's MAUS appearing in crosswords more often. I'll save my ra...

Time: 7:21 Tuesday Average: 13:09 Best Tuesday 5:05 It's another breeze of a puzzle from the ZIPPY streets of Karachi today and I must say that I giggled a bit when I realized what the theme was. Without the clues, they appear to be just normal answers so I'll have to include them, but it's essentially US State abbreviation puns, which even for someone such as myself who doesn't enjoy puns really worked for me. "Psychedelic stuff from the Evergreen State?:" WA SHROOMS . They started with best and most believable, I'd say.  "Underwear from the First State?:" DE BRIEFS "Gambler's action in the Cornhusker State?:" NE WAGER "Forest animal in the state nicknamed Old Dominion?:" VA MOOSE "Mosquito from the state nicknamed Land of Opportunity?:" AR BITER "Highway divider in the Centennial State?:" CO MEDIAN "Pasta from the Golden State?:" CA NOODLES . And canoodles is just a great ...

Time: 5:04 Monday Average: 8:24 Best Monday: 4:10 The streets of Karachi hosted my crossword solve today, which was about as mindless as a Monday could be, so probably exactly what I needed since I can't seem to kick this jet lag. I'm sleepwalking through the day and can't quite seem to CALM DOWN when it comes time to sleep, but I HOPE I'll get there soon. This puzzle was NEAPOLITAN -themed and it gets the job done with VANILLA SKY , STRAWBERRY BLONDE , and CHOCOLATE THUNDER , which is some impressively fun stuff for a Monday. I'd never heard of former 76er Darryl Dawkins, but Wikipedia tells me that his nickname (Chocolate Thunder) was bestowed upon him by Stevie Wonder, so you know that's legit. Apparently, he was also known for dunking so hard that he shattered the glass, leading the NBA to adopt breakaway rims. Hell of a legacy. Is SO SAD another phrase completely poisoned my Trump at this point? I wasn't overly fond of it, so I won't ...

Time: 28:43 Sunday Average: 48:18 Best Sunday: 21:55 Sunday crossword and coffee on a travel day when I have hours before I have to make my way to the airport. Granted, that can take a long time in Delhi. After wrapping this one up, I noticed the title of "That's a Mouthful," which may have been helpful, but I managed the FIVE TIMES FAST  revealer early on and knew that this was a tongue twister puzzle. The cluing isn't particularly exciting, but the answers are fun enough with THREE FREE THROWS , REAL RARE WHALE , SHOE SECTION , UNIQUE NEW YORK , IRISH WRIST WATCH , and SHE SEES CHEESE (sees? I'll roll my eyes at that one). I think that's all of them. There's not much to say about the theme, but my still over-tired brain enjoyed it well enough. I'm listening to the podcast "The Dream," which is about Multi-Level Marketing (MLM), which some evil genius lawyers will tell you is not a pyramid scheme, but boy is that a terrifying SC...

Time: 26:56 Saturday Average: 37:23 Best Saturday: 10:34 I actually surprised myself when I finished this puzzle cleanly and in reasonable time, because I had no idea what was going on in the NE corner. I've never seen an episode, to my knowledge, of "The Facts of Life," so TOOTIE means nothing to me. I didn't understand NINE for "Small square" until after I'd finished, but I suppose 9 (3x3) is indeed the third smallest square. ENDO is recognizable to me as a common prefix, but I didn't really know it for -spore or -sperm. And I think I've seen a TEA EGG before? Anyway, that was a bevy of words on the edges of my knowledge with a lovely word like DIATRIBE running through the middle. Also, the INDIANS have the longest World Series drought now (at 70 years)? I'd probably knew that if I watched baseball with the sound on. It's hard to believe that early 90s team never won. I'm also embarrassed that I didn't understand FIVE f...

Time: 15:20 Friday Average: 27:26 Best Friday 10:21 I was somewhat nervous attempting a Friday again in a taxi in Delhi, this time after a couple drinks and wildly over-tired after a long day of high school visits. That classic PITFALL , however, didn't get to me as I breezed through this one. I KEYED IN first BFFS then ABE and was beginning to wonder about how easy the puzzle was going to be. I was proud of myself as I remembered EMERIL with just the first letter, just as I promised I would a few puzzles ago. David TENNANT is definitely my favorite Doctor of the new series and maybe of all time. Now I want re-watch those glorious seasons 2-4 before David Moffat took the reins. How appropriate to have excellent portmanteau FUNEMPLOYED right next to FLAT BROKE . Even so, I could send a LOVE LETTER to those times in my life. MYLES Standish was, of course, the military advisor hired on by the pilgrims as they settled Plymouth. Apparently, his CLAIM TO FAME was preemptiv...

Time: 21:31 Thursday Average: 25:27 Best Thursday: 10:18 I woke up around 4am and had to wait until 6:30 to get breakfast and then found that I had another two hours to wait until the crossword would be available. Of course, I took advantage of the opportunity to sip far too much coffee and catch up on some Indie crosswords, which generally speaking are better than the NY Times anyway. Specifically, I caught up on Crossword Nation and the American Values Club. That said, I DARE SAY that this Thursday was worth the wait. I more or less immediately knew the longer theme answers without grokking the theme itself, so all I had to do was wait and see where the extra letters were going. GO OVER THE EDGE revealed that the letters "G O" would be spilling over the sides of the puzzle, which allowed me fill in TAKES TWO TO TAN ( GO ), ( GO ) ODNIGHT IRENE , and CARMEN SANDIE ( GO ). That led to a battle of the earworms inside my head for dominance, with Michelle Shocked sin...

Time: 20:10 Wednesday Average: 17:15 Best Wednesday: 7:09 I'm late to my crosswording and blogging today since I was in the air for the 14 or so hours of this Wednesday's availability. But I got to do my patented taxi ride in India solve while waiting for the jet lag to kick in. Basically, my body is actually too confused to even begin the jet lag process, but maybe tired enough that I'll be able to sleep tonight. Even with my crossword and kitchen only knowledge of ESPANOL , this language class notes theme (I suppose) fell well within my range. I mostly cruised through this puzzle even in my tired and distracted state, except for that NE, mostly because I don't remember when holidays occur. Of course, it is the MOTHER / MADRE that is honored in May. I also thought HALLOO was just a weird, affected way of saying HELLO / HOLA , that you might hear in the voice of Mrs. Featherbottom, say. Instead, it's the cry used to incite dogs to the chase during a hunt, w...

Time: 5:09 Tuesday Average: 13:12 Best Tuesday: 5:05 I'm back at the home of the blog, Indianapolis International Airport (because it flies to Canada and, now, Paris!) waiting for a flight to Newark on my way to Delhi. Here's hoping it goes better than that very itinerary did last time. This Tuesday crossword passed by in a blink, nearly a record time for me, but I think I would have been moderately happier if I still lived in the world where I occasionally ignored themes. The theme answers were READY WHEN YOU ARE , DANNY AINGE , and BREATH MINT , with the revealer of SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN . What on Earth do those have to do with each other, you ask? Well, the clue tells us for the revealer that it's a "comment on the last words of 16-, 26-, and 47- Across, when said together out loud." I said, "are, Ainge, mint" two or three times,at first hearing Orange Mint, which is a nightmare flavor combination as Calvin & Hobbes and anyone who has had or...

Time: 5:32 Monday Average: 8:25 Best Monday: 4:10 I probably have a disproportionate disdain for Martini & ROSSI because whenever (which is to say maybe 3 times?) I went to a club in Bulgaria, I'd feel inspired to order a martini. No matter how many times I explained that I wanted gin and definitely not a Martini & Rossi, the result would be the same and I'd find myself trying to explain myself again in broken Bulgarian in a loud club. Also, clubs are terrible. But I got that crossword really fast, so that's something. Today's theme was INSIDE INFO and it lives up to its name with the word "info" inside all of its theme answers with T IN FO IL HAT , OUT IN FO RCE , YOU'RE IN FO R IT NOW , and BRA IN FO ODS . The theme is fine, but also one I wouldn't have noticed if I weren't blogging about it. How is it that I never remembered that Goldfinger's first name is something equally absurd like AURIC ? Notice how it starts with A...

Time: 34:52 Sunday Average: 48:31 Best Sunday: 21:55 I filled in the majority of the grid this morning while waiting until I could leave for Ultimate winter league but couldn't quite figure out the theme and what ARM CHILI could possibly be. While driving to get my pre-ultimate CAFFEINE FIX , it finally clicked with ONEAL being the "ejected player," if you will, to make One-Alarm Chili. MESSI with AH COMPLEX made Messiah Complex pretty quickly after that, but the next couple were a little trickier since the players weren't ejected quite from the beginning of the phrases. RICE + P OF ADMISSION = Price of Admission and RUTH + THE T WILL SET YOU FREE = The Truth Will Set You Free. Rounding out the theme were the reasons for these players ejections with ILLEGAL SLIDE TACKLE , HELMET HIT , BEAN BALL , and FLAGRANT FOUL . This is everything I want from a Sunday theme. Jean SEBERG sticks in my head more for her appearance in "Breathless" than "Sa...

Time: 42:50 Saturday Average: 37:32 Best Saturday: 10:34 Clearly, I would not be considered ERUDITE as far as Italian alcohol goes. SAMBUCA sounded familiar enough that I could get it when only the U remained and MOSCATA , well, it's close to Muscat, which is a type of wine grape my mom likes. That crossing with OERSTED , which is the unit of the auxiliary magnetic field H, apparently, was the killer for me and probably others. Google tells me that MOC is short for Moccasin and I do not trust this information at all. And I'm drinking coffee and sitting in my dining room wearing "mocs," so I'm not NEW AT this. It's Saturday, so as soon as I finish this blog entry, I can grab a COLD ONE , right? I've always been amused by Hugh Laurie's DR. HOUSE role, which I'll admit I've only seen in episode previews. But it seems that all he does in the role is grimace because he's so much smarter than everyone else and that is a marked cont...

Time: 22:56 Friday Average: 27:34 Best Friday: 10:21 I would argue that every anthology series is inspired by The Twilight Zone, but maybe BLACK MIRROR more than others. I haven't watched Bandersnatch yet because it doesn't work on my AppleTV and I'm just too lazy to watch it on my laptop or something. Maybe when I'm traveling I'll check it out. I've never ordered a KAMIKAZE before but apparently it has vodka, triple sec, and lime juice. I'm sure I've unwittingly created something like that, but you know I believe that there's only one way to drink vodka and that's with a pickle in your left hand, unless it's the third round of shots in which case the pickle should be in your right hand. I stopped by the local ESPRESSO BAR to help me get through this puzzle, which was mostly tricky just because of the SW, for me. UP THE WAZOO is out of nowhere and POLICE RAID for "Event that catches someone by surprise?" is, well, OK. I...