Solving (I hope) & blogging on the weekly WSJ Crossword Puzzle

Inaugural blog
With gratitude to Rex Parker for getting me hooked on blogs in addition to the puzzles themselves. Thank you, I think.

Right Here, Right Now
September 04, 2009
by Colin Gale, edited by Mike Shenk

The completed puzzle grid awaits an increase in my blogging ability.

Theme: ASAP embedded in seven phrases across plus ASAP as a stand-alone answer down.
HAS A PENCHANT FOR [22A Likes]
MONTANA SAPPHIRES [31A Output of Yogo Gulch's mines]
NASA PATHFINDER [46A Unmanned solar-powered aircraft tested in the 1980s and 1990s]
WAS APPARENT [68A Couldn't be missed]
LA CASA PACFICIA [80A Nixon's “Western White House”]
MONICA'S APPARTMENT [100A Setting of many “Friends” scenes]
PROUD AS A PEACOCK [112A Oozing hubris]
ASAP [81D Right now, as hidden in this puzzle's longest answers]

Cool crosses:
SATE/I ATE [44A “Must've been something __”/34D Quench]
ROAN/HORSE [58A Chestnut with white mixed in, e.g./50D Groom's Charge]
CANA/DANA [92A “Two Years Before the Mast” writer/82D Water-to-wine miracle site]

Number of words: 238
Number of words requiring The Opportunity to Learn New Things: 3

1)IOWAN [36D Tom Harkin, for one]. Tom Harkin is from Iowa and therefore is an IOWAN. I had MONTANA'SAPPle REd [31A Output of Yogo Gulch's mines]. Who knows, I was happy it had ASAP in it. ENCodE made some sense although ENCASE is correct [18D Protect, in a way]. eO was not leading me toward Iowa nor was lE leading me toward HEAVEN [35D Kingdom come].

2)LA CASA PACFICIA [80A Nixon's “Western White House”]. mA CASA works as long as one's knowledge of rap [80D “Stand Up” rapper LUDACRIS] is even less than one's knowledge of politics.

3)PACHISI [54D Sorry! inspiration]. This a personal record for the saddest use of Google. I work from the printed version of the puzzle. The exclamation point was beyond the event horizon of my current reading glasses. I read the clue as Sorryl (final L rather than !) and assumed a poet unknown to me (one of multitudes) who was inspired by a particular person or place. The worst part is that my grandmother and I played endless games of Parcheesi.


Commentary: On starting a blog on the WSJ puzzle

Yes, the New York Times puzzle is the gold standard. Yes, it comes out daily. However, the weekly WSJ puzzle has a snarkiness that calls to my soul. I do both and read Rex Parker religiously. Sometimes I even finish the puzzle first.

In describing his creation of Discworld, Terry Pratchett says, "The world rides through space on the back of a turtle. This is one of the great ancient world myths, found wherever men and turtles are gathered together; the four elephants were an Indo-European sophistication. The idea has been lying in the lumber room of legend for centuries. All I had to do was grab it and run away before the alarms went off." That's what I did. Grabbed the WSJ blog and ran away before anyone could stop me.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan