Like Cyrillic Hebrew alphabets / MON 4-1-13 / NJ city on west side of GW Bridge

We're back!  And good news - we're here to stay!  Rex is on an "extended hiatus" due to all the stress of doing puzzles, blogging about puzzles, writing puzzles, and competing at puzzles.  So while he enjoys some R&R at the "spa" for who knows how long, we, Jenny and Liz aka Rex's BFFs, are your new Kings (ok Queens) of CrossWorld! 

Constructor: Gary Whitehead

Relative difficulty: Impossible!

THEME: None — You'd think that on Easter Monday there would be some kind of theme but there must be some kind of a trick because we couldn't figure it out!

Word of the Day: None!  Our first act as Queens of CrossWorld is to nix the word of the day.  You may know that we've never been fans of this part of the blog.

• • •

Typically theme answers would go here, but we sure couldn't find a theme on this April 1st puzzle.  Is this some kind of a scam?  We felt like dunderheads and nincompoops trying to piece this puzzle together.



Bullets:

• 16A.  The "A" in Thomas A. Edison:  ALVA.  We don't know about you, but we can't hear the name Thomas Edison without automatically singing one of our favorite School House Rock Tunes!

• 46A. NJ city on the west side of the GW Bridge:  FORT LEE — You'd have to be a boob to miss this one.  Everyone knows that's where Rosanna Arquette's character lived in Desperately Seeking Susan (only one of the dopest movies in 1985!)

• 50A. Like the Cyrillic and Hebrew alphabets:  NONROMAN — Really?  On a Monday?  Are we the only ones who felt like asses trying to figure this one out?

• 44D.  Throat lozenge:  TROCHE — We almost got duped by this one too!  Ever hear of a Sucret??

In summary, this puzzle was no joke, but, this write-up is!  April Fools!  Rexy will be back tomorrow, and we will settle for being his BFFs and the laughing stocks of CrossWorld 

Signed,
Jenny and Liz

PS Hey it's me, Rex. I'll be back tomorrow, so the "extended hiatus" thing is "extended" only til tomorrow. In the mean time, here is a radio show I was on this morning w/ crossword legend Merl Reagle: "Life Elsewhere." Enjoy!

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Hi again from Rex's BFFs Jenny and Liz, coming to you from the hometown of the greatest Olympian of all time, the one and only Michael Phelps!  That's right, in just one short week we dropped that other guy like he was hot (which, let's face it, he totally is), and jumped right back on the Phelps bandwagon!  

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: If they awarded Olympic medals for being easy, this puzzle would get the gold!

THEME: London Olympics — the end of the six starred clues are all different events in the summer Olympics.  We love this theme, because we love the Olympics and can spend hour after hour watching just about any Olympic sport (except for Rex's favorite, ping pong.  "Sport?"  Really?).

Some of our favs besides the obvious (gymnastics, swimming, tennis, track and field), are equestrian (because even old people - we're looking at you Rex Parker - can make the equestrian team) and trampoline (go Dong Dong!)

Word of the Day: VACATION  

A vacation or holiday is a specific trip or journey, usually for the purpose of recreation or tourism. People often take a vacation during specific holiday observances, or for specific festivals or celebrations. Vacations are often spent with friends or family.

Not in the puzzle (duh), but, once again, Rex has filled his AVEO (28A, former Chevy subcompact) with ESSO (59A, petrol brand), and is away on vacation!  Who can blame him?  How else does one GET OVER (16D, recover from) a three week vacation to New Zealand?!  Rex, this is becoming an enviable TREND (57D, general way things are going).

Theme answers:

• 16A.  [Big gamble] - crap SHOOT  
• 24A.  [Election Day receptacle] - ballot BOX 
• 37A.  [Result of a financial panic] - bank RUN
• 40A. [Tight braid] - corn ROW
• 51A. [Series of changes from birth to death] - life CYCLE
• 63A. [Precipitous drop in cost] - price DIVE

Bullets:

• 19A. [Good-looker]  HOTTIE  — (see last week's blog re: Ryan Lochte)

• 66A. [Verdi's opera slave girl] AIDA — only our favorite Broadway musical of all time!  As for Opera...not a fan!  (except of course the opera scenes in Moonstruck and Pretty Woman.  So dreamy...)

• 1D. [Like he-men] MACHO -  (see 9D below)

• 9D. [Baseball's record-setting Ripken] CAL — Another hometown boy!  (also see 19A above).  We turn 'em out good in Baltimore!

(Speaking of Cal Ripken, you may have heard that his mother was abducted from her home last week, and thankfully was found unharmed, but again, too soon Shortz!)  (calm down everyone, we're just kidding about it being too soon!)

Ok, all this blogging is cutting into our Olympics viewing time, so we're out of here!

Signed, Jenny and Liz, Rex's BFFs 

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MON 7-23-12

A bittersweet hello from Jenny and Liz, on this, our last blog post for our BFF Rex. Why bittersweet? Because while we are so sad to say goodbye, we are also so happy that Rex is on his way home from the future (aka New Zealand), and will be back to take over here.








Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Easy-ish 

THEME: The Invisible Man — synonyms for "man" are found in the circled squares

Word of the Day: Anticipation

an·tic·i·pa·tion n. 1. The act of anticipating. 2. An expectation. 3. Foreknowledge, intuition, and presentiment.

• • •

Of course this word does not appear in today's puzzle, but as we said above, our BFF Rex is currently on his way home from New Zealand, and he promised to bring us presents!  And one thing we love almost as much as we love our bestie is getting presents, so the anticipation is at an all time high as we await his safe return.  (And speaking of presents, over the past four weeks we have learned that writing this blog is a whole lot more work than we had anticipated when we begged agreed to do it, and we've only written once a week.  We already knew that Rex was amazing but now that we know what it takes to keep this blog going day after day, we would like to take a moment to make a small pitch to all of you who enjoy  reading or ripping on this blog to please consider giving a gift to Rex by making a donation; see instructions on the right side of this page).

And of course, we can't see or hear the word anticipation without thinking of the this classic:

Theme answers:

• 17A.  [Equipment to help a patient breathe]  OXYGEN TANK (gent)
• 25A.  ["Sorry to hear that"]  SUCH A PITY (chap)
• 49A.  [Went to pieces]  FELL APART (fella)
• 61A.  [Vishnu or Shiva] HINDU DEITY (dude)

Bullets:

• 21A.  ["___ I care"] AS IF — This makes us think of the movie Clueless, but sadly we couldn't find the clip where Cher is walking along outside of school and some guy comes up and puts his arm around her and she immediately shrugs him off and says "eww, AS IF!"  It's really funny.  Trust us.
• 45A. [Trees that sway in a hurricane] PALMS  — Of course, trees also sway in a derecho...  (see our blog entry dated 7/2/12)
• 5D. ["Cluck, cluck" makers] HENS  — This one was a gimmee for us because Liz is the proud owner of two hens, who live in her backyard.  Chickens are pretty low maintenance, except for when they get eaten (true story) or when one gets sick and has to be rushed to the chicken hospital in a cat carrier on a Saturday afternoon, and then needs to take chicken antibiotics twice a day for 10 days even though she was probably faking the whole thing.  Anyway, here's a picture of them (Little Jerry Seinfeld on the left, Chicken Little on the right) stopping by the back door to say good morning:

• 39D.  [Rick's beloved in "Casablanca"] ILSA— For some reason, neither of us can ever remember if this common answer starts with an I or an E.  It gets us every time.  And, once again, we can't find the clip that we wanted to use for this clue, which is from one of our all time favorite movies, When Harry Met Sally, but for our Italian-speaking friends, we were able to find this:     

For those who don't speak Italian, Harry and Sally were discussing how Casablanca has the best ending ever.  And speaking of endings, this brings us to the end of today's blog.  We are really grateful for all of the support you have given us in your comments, and we're grateful to Doug and Puzzle-Girl for all their technical support.  We have had so much fun these past four weeks, because everything we do with our BFF Rex is always fun.  So, before we sign off for the last time, click on the video below to check us out, just hanging with our bestie, having fun as always.

Click here:  (the video might not be available on your iPad, so hopefully you can access it from your computer!) 

Signed, Jenny and Liz, Rex's BFFs

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