MON 7-16-12

We're baaack! In case you're new here, we are Liz and Jenny, aka Rex's BFF's. And today, we are grinning from ear-to-ear-to-ear-to-ear because we both received postcards from our bestie Rex, all the way from New Zealand! Where he is still living in the future, keeping busy by drinking lattes at Starbucks (and having the world's greatest adventure ever). Hey Rex, take your BFF's with you next time! We'll buy your Frappuccinos!
Constructor: Randall J. Hartman

Relative difficulty: EASY. Which is the opposite of trying to figure out what the heck Rex meant when he described us as "Strangely Different." What does this mean? Should one of us be offended or flattered? And if so, which one? There's no EASY answer. If you correctly solve this puzzle, you'll win a trophy.

THEME: — AWARDS. Since we grew up back in the day where to get one you had to actually earn one, we only have a few, and now feel gypped.

Word of the Day: sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia

An ice-cream headache, also known as brain freeze, cold-stimulus headache,^[1] or its given scientific name sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia (meaning "nerve pain of the sphenopalatine ganglion"), is a form of brief cranial pain or headache commonly associated with consumption (particularly quick consumption) of cold beverages or foods such as ice cream and ice pops. It is caused by having something cold touch the roof of the mouth (palate), and is believed to result from a nerve response causing rapid constriction and swelling of blood vessels^[2] or a "referring" of pain from the roof of the mouth to the head.^[3][4] The rate of intake for cold foods has been studied as a contributing factor.^[5][6]

• • •

You all know us well enough by now to know that this word did not appear anywhere in the puzzle. It is the scientific term for "Ice Cream Headache," which we are suffering from as we write this blog (on Sunday evening) because Sunday was "National Ice Cream Day"! Liz had coconut chip in a pointy cone (we can never remember if that's the sugar kind or the cake kind). Jenny had mint-chocolate chip (not chocolate chip mint or chocolate mint chip) in the flat-kind of yellowish cone, which when you think about it, isn't coned-shaped, and really shouldn't be called a cone at all. Liz's dog Rosie even had a small bowl of vanilla with a doggie treat on top.

This was an easy, and kind of boring puzzle. I mean, two Huck Finn clues? Really? And so weird, because we're both reading a fantastic thriller called "Gone Girl," written by Gillian Flynn, which takes place in the Missouri hometown of Mark Twain. The protagonist, Nick, used to work at a Tom Sawyer historical site, and there are many many references to Tom and Huck in the book. Perhaps, the constructor is reading it too, and quickly whipped out this easy puzzle so he could get back to the book, because it is so good!! In fact, we were glad it was easy, and are whipping through this blog post as well, so we can get back to the book too!

Theme answers:

• 17A [Husband's status symbol, possibly] TROPHY WIFE
• 26A [General Mills baking product] GOLD MEDAL FLOUR
• 42A [Panel for a complex legal case] BLUE RIBBON JURY
• 57A [Popular Canadian Whiskey] CROWN ROYAL

No one's getting any awards for figuring out these easy theme answers. Except for 42A-never heard of it. But the crosses were simple enough to work it out in no time. Our favorite was 31D "Hurts So Good" Singer, 1982 [JOHN COUGAR]-pre Mellencamp.

Bullets:

• 10A Cracked open, as a door [AJAR] — hahahahahahahahah! We can't stop laughing at this one!!! (inside joke...you had to be there)
• 40D Quartet minus one [TRIO] — Just like we're a trio of besties

We'll be back next week for our final installment. Now, back to our books.

Signed, Liz and Jenny, Rex's BFF's (and now, pen pals too!!)

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Arabian Nights bird / MON 7-9-12 / Birthstone name of a Hitchcock film / Chris who won six U.S. Opens / Hits in dodgem cars

Hello again from Rex Parker's BFFs Jenny and Liz! Rex is still enjoying his vacation in New Zealand, which from his pictures and descriptions, sounds amazing. For example, did you know that they have Starbucks in New Zealand? Rex has visited more than one! He is also enjoying working on a jigsaw puzzle because who wouldn't want to sit on a plane for what, 24 hours, and then sit down to do a jigsaw puzzle?!  


Okay, on to the puzzle:


Constructor: C.W. Stewart (who we hear is "super cool," just like we are now that the power has been restored after last week's derecho (that we talked about last time), left many of us without power for up to 8 days, in 100+ degree temperatures. But we digress...)


Relative difficulty: Easy as pie, as in "Pie in July," one of our favorite things about this month (along with guest blogging for our bestie) when our favorite food store features reduced prices on pie for the whole month (we don't want to throw in any free plugs here, so let's just say that the pies at this store are usually so expensive it can feel like you're spending your "Whole Paycheck")

Anyway, on to the puzzle:

THEME: "intermission" —  all of the theme answers contain words that can be preceded by the word "break". (As in what happened to the utility lines after the derecho hit...  sorry it was quite traumatic)

Word of the Day: Schmo -
schmo, shmo [ʃməʊ]

n pl schmoes, shmoes

US slang a dull, stupid, or boring person

Once again, we've chosen a word that appears nowhere in the puzzle.  But, since Rex referred to us as schmoes in one of his comments on last week's blog (where he described that he first met us "back when I accepted any old schmo as my FB friend"), we deduced that despite the definition above, in New Zealand-ese schmo obviously means BFF. Thanks Rex, we <3 you too!
 

Theme answers:

• 17A. [Attorney-to-be] - Law Student
• 24A. [Transaction at Chase or Wells Fargo] - Bank Deposit
• 38A. [Rachel Maddow or Rush Limbaugh] - News Commentator
• 46A. [Def Jam or EMI] - Record Label
• 59A.  [You might carry a bucket to one at a hotel] - Ice Machine

We don't have much to say about the theme of the puzzle, but personally the theme of the week for us has been the fact that Rex is living in the future in New Zealand, yet has not given us any hints into what's to come each day. And he calls himself our BFF??

Bullets:

• 32A.  SAME [Identical] — yes, we are, and yes sometimes we know what the other one is thinking but no, if you hit one of us the other one can't feel it
• 46D.  RAVES [All-night party] — of note only because this was an answer in last week's puzzle too. Neither of us have ever attended one, but perhaps something in the universe is suggesting that we do...?
• 54D.  CHAR [Blacken on the grill] — it was so freaking hot here all last week that you didn't need a grill to blacken your steak, the sidewalk would have easily done it. In fact, it was so hot that the chickens that live in Liz's backyard were laying hard-boiled eggs! (ba dum dum)

Thanks, we'll be here all month!

Signed, Jenny and Liz, Rex Parker's schmoes, er BFFs

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Ovid's book of love poetry / MON 7-2-12 / 1970s TV's Ramsey / Actor John of Sands of Iwo Jima / Small lab container

Hi Rex Parker fans...we are Rex's BFF's (Liz and Jenny), and we will be blogging to you for the next 4 Mondays, because, let's face it, Monday is all we can manage without Rex's help.  Rex is flying to New Zealand as we speak.  He won't even see this blog, because he left on Sunday, arrives on Tuesday, and flies right through Monday, July 2.  So let's get started.  Disclaimer: we have never blogged before and are amateur solvers, so please go easy on us with your comments.

Constructor: Bernice Gordon (she's 98 years old!!)

Relative difficulty: Easy Peasy

THEME: ANAGRAMS — Anagrams...at least we think that's what they're called. It's the kind of puzzle where the letters of one word of are rearranged to spell a different word.

Word of the Day: DERECHO —

derecho (Spanish: derecho "straight", pronounced [de̞ˈɾe̞tʃo̞]^[1]), is a widespread and long-lived, violent convectively induced straight-line windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms in the form of a squall lineusually taking the form of a bow echo. Derechos blow in the direction of movement of their associated storms, similar to a gust front, except that the wind is sustained and generally increases in strength behind the "gust" front. A warm weather phenomenon, derechos occur mostly in summer, especially June and July in the Northern Hemisphere. They can occur at any time of the year and occur as frequently at night as in the daylight hours.

This word appears nowhere in the puzzle. And as far as Rex knows, has never appeared in a puzzle ever. But get this, WE TAUGHT THIS WORD TO REX PARKER!!! THE 31ST GREATEST CROSSWORD PUZZLE SOLVER IN THE UNIVERSE!!! You may be wondering why we taught him this word??? Well, we experienced a DERECHO in the mid-Atlantic region on Friday evening. One of us (Jenny, not Liz), is still without power as a result of the DERECHO, as are hundreds of thousand of hot and sweaty and miserable people throughout the Baltimore/Washington Metropolitan area.

If you don't have power, we highly suggest margarita popsicles. They're cool, refreshing, and if you eat enough, you'll forget how miserable you are!!

• • •

Theme answers:

• 20A. [French writer's apprehension by the police?] - Sartre's Arrest
• 26A. [French writer's state of drunkenness?] - Proust's Stupor
• 43A. [French writer's two-under-par holes?] - Lesage's Eagles
• 49A. [French writer's boardwalk booth operator?] - Racine's Carnies

We tried to embed the theme song from the 1986 movie "Legal Eagles" here, because 43A made us think of that, but, we didn't know how. Anyway, the song is "Love Touch," by Rod Stewart, and it's a total 1980's synthesizer classic. Hopefully we'll get this figured out by next monday, or maybe PuzzleGirl or Doug can fix this for us!

Bullets:

• 60A. EARL [___ of Sandwich?] - (our 1st grade librarian Mrs. Rowles read us a book about the Earl of Sandwich, and we've never forgotten it)
• 58A. ANTI [Prefix with disestablishmentarianism?] - (a vocabulary word in Mrs. Fogg's 4th grade)
• 41D. [What WAS I thinking?!?] - This about sums up how we were feeling when it was time to write the blog.

See ya next week!!

Signed, Liz and Jenny, Rex Parker's BFF's

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