This would be today's Sunday crossword. Miss Bee and I completed it in about one hour, with exactly one wrong letter. The offending cross was "NHLer Tikkanen" or something (ESA), and "Narrative Writing" which was EPOS. We finally filled in ENA/EPON after much hand-wringing. I think of EPOS as "electronic point of sale", which I imagine a Google search would vindicate. Oh well. (I also notice that I mistyped the letter next to it; ATRA is the shaver brand. Again, oh well. I actually knew that one though.) I don't believe that I've ever gone faster than one hour on a Sunday, today may very well be the fastest at 61 minutes.

From Emily Jo Cureton. This is one of my favorites. The link is to her website with all of her projects, including the Daily Crossword picture.

I am leaving the crossword blogging to Rex Parker. Check out his website at rexwordpuzzle.com.
There you will find, often by midnight the day before, a completed NYT grid along with a rating difficult and commentary on the puzzle. He's just so much better than me. For less specifics but more variety (as in, other puzzles), check out Diary of a Crossword Fiend here.

Difficult Thursday puzzle by Joe Krozel and Victor Fleming. I didn't finish it; the theme was legalese. I.e., CAPITAL OFFENSES, THE DEFENSE RESTS. Good cluing, I just ran into a block in the SE corner.

John Farmer
28 Minutes
Themeless Friday was tough but rewarding. Without a couple of gimme clues regarding some of my favorite rock acts, I would have been in a world of hurt. "Brian ___, known for his 33-Across music" was a lifesaver (ENO, AMBIENT), while "Talking Heads' hit "Take __ the River" opened up the right side for me. Other gimmes were Canadian P.M. John TURNER and MALTA conference.

Things I learned or are new to me:
Sopor (without the -ific) for "Lethargy"
How to spell VERKLEMPT
The word "enroll" has the exact same meaning without the second L
Weighty word QUIXOTIC was clued "Starry eyed"
Apparently the Arabic word for King is spelled with an extra S in Syria ("Damascus V.I.P." = ASSAD)
One theme clue I didn't like: "Doesn't support conspiracy theories" was ACTS ALONE. I might have clued it differently.
Dizzy Gillespie wore a soul patch. Fortunately I knew about Frank Zappa's.

Finally, Friday's NY Sun was. just. dirty. Incredible construction; the middle five rows circles all the way down and UNCLUED. It was a nasty word ladder, starting with "Transformation beginning" = "BLACK" and each subsequent row replaced just one letter until the final clue of "Ending" = WHITE. I couldn't get all the fill, some Scrabbly stuff and two many specific nouns for me, but the theme was amazing. Thanks, Patrick Berry, for another mind-blowing Friday.

Since they were so explicitly mentioned:
Talking Heads, "Take Me To The River" from More Songs About Buildings and Food
Brian Eno, "Zawinul/Lava" from Another Green World

FYI, Joe Zawinul just passed away last week, the reason for the elegiac second song.

Nothing particularly special about these, other than Eminem is clued in both of them...






In other news, Blogger needs more keyboard shortcuts for adding pictures and such.

Also, Google Reader now features a search function. Yet another reason to Read.

Speaking of reading, if you're new in town, check out my post on Daily Lit: here. By book list is on the right sidebar, beneath the Shared Google Reader links. Just finished Tristram Shandy, moving on...

Notes of the Scale
Edward Sessa
Time: 5:52
The circled grid entries spell out DO RE MI FA SO LA TI DO; the rest of the answers had nothing to do with the theme. Despite having "SOLAR" instead of "LUNAR" eclipse, this was a fast one for me, and I didn't even get to read all the clues. Mistyping on "TWEET" and cross "EST".

Song that came to mind: "Born and Raised in the County of Dade" won out over "Lose Yourself", part of an actual clue.

Also, it's good to see John von Neumann in the puzzle. [Link]

Ingredients:
-Bag of vegetables labeled broccoli slaw; including broccoli florets and shredded vegetables, like carrots and cabbage. The Costco variety included some dried fruits and nuts. Some bags may not have full broccoli, you can add them or not.
-Two bags of uncooked "Oriental flavor" Ramen noodles
-1/3rd C oil, 3 tbsp. balsamic vinegar, 3 tbsp. sugar for the dressing, mixed in with the Ramen seasoning packets. (You can choose your own flavor if you so desire.)

Even without a pre-mixed bag this would be an easy salad to whip up. We eschewed the Bacon Bits and mayo-esque sauce included with the broccoli slaw for a somewhat healthier alternative.

We also worked a few crosswords together this weekend. Saturday's New York Times was a singular construction, with almost all of the words being 4-, 7-, or 15-letter entries. Maybe slightly easier than the average Saturday, but we still didn't finish it without Internet help.

And today's Sunday puzzle was an impressive theme, where each themed entry repeated all its letters twice, except for a single, single letter. E.g., HARDHEARTED has only one T, but all other letters are used twice. The theme answers spell out LEFTOVERS by taking away all the double letters, but it's really anticlimactic, as it doesn't help at all in solving the puzzle. After about an hour's work, we finished the Patrick Berry puzzle by turning to the Internet for a few clues, such as the name of the dog in "The Thin Man", "Sketches of ___", 1836 [Boz], and the name of a Jordanian king from the 60's [Hussein].

Some teachers from Leslie's old school had a little get-together last night, and the lady who hosted it happened to live in the neighboring apartment complex. So on Thursday, we whipped up some enchiladas to bring over. We were the only people that brought anything; the hostess made some dips and things, but we wanted to and it was fun.

Potato and black bean enchiladas with salsa:
Leslie's salsa involves a can of diced tomatoes, whizzed with green onion, cilantro, and jalapeno peppers. We made a large batch, big enough to warrant using an empty ice cream bucket. After we got done making the enchiladas (and having tacos for lunch), we brought the rest of the salsa for dipping.

To make the enchiladas, we boiled potatoes until soft, strained, and added black beans. These were mashed together to make the filling. Then we formed a production line of
1: Putting salsa on a tortilla
2: Adding some filling, sprinkling on grated cheese
3: Wrapping it up, placing it crease-side down in the pan.

When that was done, we covered the whole pan with more salsa, and topped with a layer of cheese. Baked for about 12 minutes at 350. They were a big hit; comments included "tastes like a restaurant" and "you should try these, I'm not sure who brought them but they're great." We've still got some leftover so I'll try to remember to take a picture of a finished product.

This was also a BYOB affair. With all the best beer stores being rather closer to Arizona State, I went back to a small wine and spirits shop nearer our place that's really ritzy. The beer fridge is rather meager compared to the racks upon racks of vintage wines and dusty Scotch shelves, but I found a couple of bombers to bring, both West Coast micros which are fairly abundant in these parts.

The first was Stone's Vertical Epic 07.07.07, the sixth in a series that are brewed one year, one month, and one day apart, and are meant to be aged for quite a while. Mine was all of two months old...it's a cross between a triple and a saison, and it's pulled off reasonably well. I suppose it would be obnoxious for me to pan it given that it's meant to be aged, but I thought it was just fine right now, though I'm not sure what would happen in the aging process. Clearly it's bottle-conditioned, and the yeast would continue to act in some fashion, but I'm sure they're all rolled over and napping at the bottom of the bottle already. Anyways, it was floral and full-bodied in the mouth, with a dry, slightly tart finish; quite spicy all around with a peppery kick at the end. Decent, and very unusual.

The second bottle is an old stand-by: Rogue's Brutal Bitter. Nice and hoppy, but mostly mild, it was indeed a nice brew to follow up the rather challenging Stone. Technically an Extra Special Bitter, Rogue's brewmaster John "More Hops" Maier lives up the nickname with the Brutal.

I'll post pictures sometime, like this afternoon. Also, I forgot to post two of the most amazing crossword grids I've ever worked. Friday's Times was a doozy, just about the right difficulty for a Friday where I went through and got perhaps one or two answers on the first reading, but I still finished in about 22 minutes.

Lots of z's and x's and other Scrabble-y answers.

And the NY Sun's Weekend Warrior puzzle, the first of three planned for this fall, was both themeless and asymmetrical; featuring six 15-word answers it was some of the most intense crossword construction I've ever seen. I couldn't solve the middle parts, but I loved the exterior so much. How cool is this!?:

Looking over it, there's actually 8 full-length answers, three across and five down. The Sun is nice because they're way more open to interesting construction than the Times and others. I've seen a lot more themeless puzzles, asymmetrical puzzles, and "artistic" grids in the Sun than anywhere else, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the weekend warriors.

That's the theme of Thursday's Daniel Bryant puzzle. It took me a while, but there were a lot of distractions as well as a difficult theme. Answers: Untied Front (Wardrobe Malfunction); Martial Bliss (Mood After Military Victory); Landing Sties (Where Porcine Pilots Arrive?). Did you know that "moil" means to work hard? Obviously I had 'toil' for a long time. "A-Rod" and "Maris" both make the puzzle, but so does "BOS" for A.L. City on the Scoreboard. Equal opportunity A.L. East today:

Cool music video for Aesop Rock's new single "None Shall Pass". I've had this song for several months; it was included on Stones Throw's White Label mix. I never loved the song, but revisiting it was nice. Check out the stop-motion animation, and maybe Aesop's new rekkid, produced by him and longtime collaborator Blockhead (also with a new album out "Uncle Tony's Coloring Book") and El-P. What up Def Jux?

I saw Aesop rock it live (sup Ollie); I didn't realize he was white just from his music. I loved his forearm tattoos, very Yorkeian: "Must Not Sleep" says one. "Must Warn Others" replies, well, the other.

First off, thanks to the Beer Pirate for the love! I commented about Wee Heavy Scotch ales, check out the post and my response here.

The Greenest Soup You Ever Saw, and Likely Ever Will See:

Garlic, onion, and chickpeas roasting in oil; heavily seasoned with oregano, basil, cilantro, salt and pepper
+
One boiled potato
+
Vegetable stock
+
Quartered cucumber
+
Stir-fried broccoli, green pepper, and sliced cucumber
+
A late hand full of spinach, just enough time to wilt
+
Grated cheese
=
One very green soup:


It was all well and good, not special. Also had some whole grain cracker sandwiches again. They are Milton's brand crackers, really tasty. Hummus and sun dried tomatoes really play off each other, while the cucumber slices and Swiss are nicely subdued. It's quite the nice interplay. (See Sunday's post for pictures of these little guys.)

Wednesday NYT
Appr. 9 Minutes
Richard Silvestri
Quip Theme: "If Vegetarians Eat Vegetables, What Do Humanitarians Eat"

Typo alert: "Canasta plays" should be 'melds'.

Fun puzzles in the NY Sun, LA Times, and CrosSynergy today. Check the archives at cruciverb.com, where every day there are a few downloadable puzzles, as well as web-based Java puzzles.

Not going to make a habit of this, but I love this line:

"Sometimes I think we are alone, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the idea is quite staggering." - Stanley Kubrick

Also, lest those out there think my crossword skills are diminishing, the reason I haven't been posting them is that they are annoying and of very little value. I will start posting a picture of the finished grid which shows the time I took. I will leave off commentary, and for those of you who do it in syndication, sorry once again for the time lapse.

Hint: if you go to www.cruciverb.com, that day's NYT puzzle is available for free, along with a few other selected puzzles that seem somewhat random (I've seen the NY Sun, Wash. Post, CrosSynergy, Philly Enquirer, LA Times, the Onion, and Ben Tausig crosswords at various times). Just a little heads up if you don't pay for the Times, don't have access to it at school or wherever, and get the five week old version in your local paper. Registration is free, and I believe offers some extra benefits, though I'm not sure what those are.


Tuesday September 4
Manny Nosowski
Difficult for a Tuesday
Theme: Annoying (not officially, I just found it clunky)
Time: N/A as I forgot to stop the clock


I'll also try to post something nice to listen to that the puzzle made me think of - if I had a digital copy of 112's "Peaches and Cream" you KNOW that would be here...since it was a food-themed puzzle that included "tenderloin steak" for breakfast, here goes some Lonnie Youngblood with Soul Food: here

Also, Ben Tausig's weekly puzzle, often available on Cruciverb and also in the Onion's A.V. Club forum:

I'm attempting to build a crossword puzzle. It's going very poorly. It's not that I didn't know that it would be tough, but I may have underestimated how difficult it is to just do. But if I ever get it going, I'll post it here.

I was hardly inspired by today's snoozer. Seven minutes, including one full minute of the Across Lite app being hung, and another minute where I was just talking to the leasing manager at the complex. The theme was trios: Three Men in a Tub, Three French Hens, Billy Goats Gruff, etc. I learned nothing and liked only a couple of answers: Lake TITICACA, MALARKEY, ROCS, RESPITES. I'm also no closer to making my own.

Looking into the clues for song ideas, I searched 'Emma' in my iTunes library and noticed Emmanuel Jal. Which reminded me that I had meant to post a song of his, off a collab album with Abdel Gadir Salim. Gadir Salim is a Sudanese Muslim, a classical oud player, and highly venerated in the North of Sudan. "Ceasefire" is Jal's first album; he is from the South, is Christian, and his music is urban contemporary. From allmusic.com:

At approximately the age of seven (he doesn't know his exact date of birth) Emmanuel Jal was pressed into service with the Sudan People's Liberation Army. He fought with them for several years before leaving to join a rival rebel group closer to his home in the Upper Nile region. There he met and was eventually adopted by British aid worker Emma McCune, who smuggled him into Kenya with her. McCune died shortly thereafter, and Jal eventually returned to school, studying in both London and Kenya. A religious conversion led him to take up music as his vocation, and he now serves as the spokesman for the Campaign to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. On this album he is joined by singer, composer, and oud player Abdel Gadir Salim, a venerated master of northern Sudanese music and a prominent figure on the other side of the Christian/Muslim divide that has contributed in large part to the civil strife in Sudan. Their collaboration is symbolically moving, but is also musically fascinating; Salim's songs are steeped in both the urban and folk music of his region, whereas Jal is a rapper with roots in American and British hip-hop.

Jal's story mirrors much of the plot of Blood Diamond; while his is set in Sudan and Kenya in the east, Edward Zwick's film takes place in Sierra Leone, West Africa. I missed it during the film, but this cut off of "Ceasefire" is credited in the closing credits:

Baai

And this was my favorite song on the album:
Aiwa

To start: Divshare was annoying yesterday, so I held off posting a birthday song for Mom. Here's Smokey Robinson with My Soul Responding, which opens with a dreamy rendition of Happy Birthday.

Some very interesting news stories today.

Nobel laureate Joe Stiglitz takes on His Ex-Holiness Alan Greenspan in the Shanghai Daily.
For more on tax cuts and the sub-prime, click here.

Greg Mankiw (author of two of my college textbooks) takes a question from a reader. In part:

I'm a resident at one of the Harvard hospitals. In the past couple of years I've had the chance to attend a number of inter-disciplinary seminars where you have statisticians, physicians, sociologists, anthropologists, epidemiologists and economists present. I've been impressed with what your discipline has to say: in virtually every seminar the economists are able to say something useful. Without inflating your ego, I've also noticed that the economists present better papers and are less likely to be caught off-guard in a seminar. They are also more likely to discover problems in the work of others. I've been trying to educate myself on the economic way of thinking by reading your blog, Freakonomics, and now, by slowly reading your textbook.

For the rest of the question, asking why economists are so aggressive, etc. go to Dr. Mankiw's blog here.

Harvard's Political Economy chair Dani Rodrik looks at why economists disagree so often. His response is that most disagreements break down at a fundamental level: how the economist feels about The Fundamental Theorum of Welfare Economics. For Dr. Rodrik's discussion of "first-best" and "second-best" economists, look here.

And in the crossword today, I got stumped late by a Tuesday. Boo.

Theme answers (Clue: Doofus):

* 4D: NUMSKULL - I would have spelled this NUMBSKULL...
* 18A: NINCOMPOOP
* 27A: BIRD BRAIN
* 39D: DUMBBELL
* 48A: DING-A-LING
* 55A: NOODLEHEAD - Noodlehead??

It took me ten minutes, plus a minute or so for a typo, which turned out to be just a mistake. I was unfamiliar with ARETES, and not quite getting Chicken TENDERS. A major part of the problem was that I had ETA instead of "Airline stat" ETD. So arbitrary. Also, Hebrew months are cheap.

Oh, I forgot the most annoying part. After six theme "doofus" answers, 63D, the final clue, says "Not a doofus". And the answer is "YOU". Please.

First things first: Happy Birthday Mom!!

In sports news, Hank Aaron proves that it's very important to Listen Closely. Apparently in his JumboTron speech after Bonds' 756th, he pokes a deliberate yet subtle jab at the new record (and by extension it's holder). Check out more here.

Art de Vany reviews Bonds vs. Aaron vs... well, everyone else. Here. Lots of math, but sort of interesting.

Tiger = 13. Wow.

Cousin Jay's Scotland pictures up.

Crosswording this weekend: tough Sunday puzzle with some obscure clues. No screenshot, as I didn't finish it myself. Here's the Friday though, easy for one of those:



I finished in under 20 minutes, which is good for me. And today's was a beefy Monday, but it didn't take me very long at all. I finished in 6 minutes:



Not particularly impressed with any of the clues. A typo: the Montgomery Clift film theme (Daily Papers: Star, Sun, Times, Post) answer should be A Place In The Sun. My mistake. One clue that interested me was the Latin for "and all others". I've always seen it spelled "et alia" but this puzzle's answer is "et alii". I guess I should look into that.

Also, my dad summited Long's Peak in Colorado, near Estes Park, which was a crossword answer. Here's Pops on top.


Also, here's a link to some fuzzy economics by Democratic presidential candidates. I have some issues with the parser's critiques in some cases (like 30 million American jobs since NAFTA: many trade economists would argue that more would have been created without, etc.) but anyways, he's not on the ballot to run the country.

Finally, Undercover Economist Tim Harford reviews Marginal Revolution hero Tyler Cowen's new book. Check it out at the Financial Times.

I think I promised new Common in the header. So here goes "Play Your Cards Right" off the new album Finding Forever.

The New York Times reports today that high schoolers did reasonably well on a government-mandated economics exam.

I think econ is a very important high school class. It was required in the Des Moines district, although my teacher was perhaps not so great. (I recall learning as much from Sam as old Westy..)

One point of contention for me with the exam, is that one of the reported questions was (and I'm paraphrasing):
"If the wages for babysitting go up, how will teenagers respond?"

The desired, and graded "correct", answer was that teenagers would spend more time babysitting and less time on other activities, all else equal.

Two points to raise about this: one is the Income Effect. If teenagers feel that they need, for example, $50 a week spending money, won't they cut back on the number of hours spent babysitting once they've reached $50? That is, where it used to take 10 hours at $5/hour, now it takes 5 hours at $10 per. My guess is that most would spend seven or eight hours (if they had a choice, obviously): they make more money than their requirement, and spend less time doing a "chore". The second factor to consider would be that more parents might take their time off the market; that is, if wages rise enough such that parents would rather rent a movie and watch their own child, the hours available for teenagers to babysit will be reduced.

And that's how an equilibrium is reached, kiddies.

Seriously, I think this shows how difficult it is to teach and learn even basic economics. You might try to show your point with what you consider a banal example, but counterexamples abound even in the simplest of real world situations.

And now for something completely different:

Crossword madness this morning, as I started I think 5 puzzles. Today's Times was irritating me so I took a break to work on one of the supplemental August "bonus" puzzles. The theme was Dog Days, perfect for a hot Phoenix morning.

I loved the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest questions, interestingly both this puzzle and today's Times has gentleman named Chestnut[t] as clues: Contest winner Joey here, and songwriter Vic in the Wednesday.

I began work on a diagram-less puzzle this morning, in addition to one written by Lee Iacocca. If I finish them, I'll post 'em.

More fun with crosswords:

Tuesday's NY Sun was awesome: the theme was related to King Arthur, and as you can see from the photo, the grid was arranged so that the black spaces show 'the sword in the stone'. Merlin, Arthur, Pendragon, and Excalibur are all theme answers. It was actually tough for me to finish, taking about 12 minutes.

I also had some trouble with the Times, although 11 minutes is about par for my Tuesday course. 'Sopranos' theme today, although I thought the theme answers were a bit ham-handed: 'Fuhgedaboutit' is really tough to spell; 'You talkin' to me?' is from "Taxi Driver"; and 'Mob Scene' is kind of a poor play on words. Bit of trouble with the NE; I thought the Army barber clue would be Crew Cut, not 'Buzz Cut', which made EZ Pass nearly impossible, blah blah. Whoops. Also, huge rookie mistake in the Casablanca reference: Rick's love is 'Ilsa', not Elsa. Dammit.

Well, I was determined to make these crossword entries more fun by including thematic music. Since "1975 Pink Floyd album" was really easy for me but I don't have my CD with me in Phoenix, here's a cut off "Meddle" that I really enjoy: One Of These Days. The title comes from the growled lyric before the song takes off; "One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces." Yikes.

Finally, does anyone else do these things? I haven't really found any other free daily puzzles that are worth my time. The L.A. Times website offers the last 30 days free, so I'm going to look into that, but the Chicago Trib and all the D.C. papers gate their puzzles. If anyone tells me about a good free puzzle, or hooks me up with a password, I'd be happy to share my NYT username and pw. You'd have access to 100 free archived articles, all the TimesSelect content including columnists and gated blogs, etc., along with ALL past and present crosswords. Comments are open.

Put this under the heading of: Things I Like, Especially Together.

Monday crosswords = Easy. I finished the Times in under 9 minutes and the Sun in about 10:30.

Not much to say about the Sun, most of the clues were fairly straightforward. The grid was in a 15x16 pattern today, which is unusual. The theme was "Look! Up In the Sky!", a reference to the Bird..Plane..Superman; theme answers are The Painted Bird, Snakes on a Plane, and Man and Superman. Astute observers may notice that the grid isn't filled, I guess I didn't bother finishing Male Duck = Drake and Travel Mag Recommendation = B and B.

Similarly quick work with the Times today, the theme was... oh, wait, there was no theme given. Seven answers point to the sport of bowling however. The only clue that stuck out in my mind was the answer Boatel for Seashore accommodations, which through me for a loop, especially when I put ASK instead of AOL for Yahoo! competitor. Also, I notice that I entered Octave in place of Octavo. Even though I didn't know what the heck an Octavo was, the On Notice cross made it an easy fill-in, I must have mistyped.

So that's that. Sometimes I get a case of the Mondays just doing the boring crossword puzzles. But there's always the work of getting the time down.

Purpose:

Well, I graduated this spring, and I just moved to Phoenix. I have lots of interests, and I want to remember some things about them. To preview a few things that I'll be returning to:

1. Music. I'll post mp3s on a reasonably regular basis here, using DivShare. If anyone has a request or wants more off an album, hit me up at waynebretski@gmail.com and we'll work something out.

2. Technology, the Internet, and Apple. I read a lot of things on the intertubes, and some I think are both arcane, and worth sharing. So I'll let you know. Also, I got a Mac this spring and it has revolutionized my life. I'll spotlight a few of my favorite applications, processes, etc. If there is demand for Windows alternatives or I run across something cool for PC users, I'll post those too.

3. Food. I cook. I like to do it, and I want to improve. I'm going to start posting recipes/processes (I'm pretty bad at following a "recipe"), and trying to be a little more
organized about the whole thing.

4. Crosswords. When I have time, I do the New York Times crossword every day. I'll also attempt the New York Sun a lot (cause it's free online). I'll probably post the answers occasionally, maybe comment a bit, and note my time. This is mostly for me to look back on.

5. Economics. My degree, particular interest, and the subject of a lot of my online reading. I'll post some things I think others might enjoy relating to this most versatile of subjects. I'm going to avoid politics, though.

6. Education. I'm going into the teaching profession this fall, and I'm starting to accrue news and notes about teaching, etc. Something strikes my fancy...

7. Beer. Goes along with the food, I enjoy so-called Micro-brews along with a bevy of international styles. At some point I'll drop some knowledge. I worked with an awesome group at Beertopia the last six months I lived in Omaha, including Beer Specialist Brent Udron, who I think will get a special guest post at some point.

8. Art, Photography, Film. Everybody likes these right? If I find cool jpegs or video clips, I'll post or embed them. I'll make every effort not to use copyrighted images, so feel free to use it if you see it here.

9. If any of you, dear readers, are involved in anything that I can point my internet browser (Camino, by the way!) to, let me know and I'll be sure to pimp it immediately.

Comments are open, I'd love to hear from you. Also, Blogger uses Atom feeds, so if you use an RSS feeder like Google Reader, NetNewsWire, BlogLines, etc., it should work fine. I get all the photos, text, and mp3 links in my GReader.

And if you don't know about Google Reader or why it can help those of you with Internet addictions, peep this.

"Peace and love in this house."