Insurance Claims
by Marie Kelley
edited by Mike Shenk
May14, 2010
Marie Kelly is "Really Mike"

As of this posting, full answers not yet available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page. Therefore, take these answers with a condiment of sensibility.

Theme: HMO inserted to make the clued phrase.
SINGH MOLE SPACING {23A Distance between golfer Vijay's blemishes?}
CASH MOTOR OIL {29A Singer Johnny's auto care product?}
DISH MONEY LAND {41A Area where chefs get paid?}
SLIDING SCHMO ALE {63A Brew whose mascot is a jerk coming home lying down?}
RAHM ON THE SHOW {87A Barack's chief of staff making a TV appearance?}
SHAH MOVED ICE {101A Ousted Iranian monarch got a job hawking sorbet?}
MATH MORON OF HONOR {109A Title awarded to the student who does worst in algebra?}
I was hoping for a common and therefore comment-able root between the five MO__ words. No luck: Middle Low German, Classical Latin, Anglo-Norman (2), & ancient Greek. I guess "mo" is an easy noise to make in English & we use it for all manner of adaptions.


Admissions of Defeat: 1 square
ETHELS {119A Waters and others}/ALFRE {100D Emmy winner Woodard}. I guessed A at the intersection ?THELS/ALFR?. Drat. I can't seem to get that last square for a perfect score.


Commentary: Book Recommendation
Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs by Ken Jennings (Villard 2006). Jennings was the fellow with the 75-game Jeopardy! run in 2003. He writes about that interspersed with the history of trivia. Answer: buzzer management, nerves, and knowledge. Question: What are the important factors for playing on Jeopardy! in order?

Naturally, every person wants their particular patch of turf to be greenest and bestest. "And, unlike a game of pinochle or an issue of Easy Crosswords magazine, trivia often delivers content that's far from trivial." [p152] Ok, I'll give him easy but what about hard crosswords? What position could be less trivial that the White House Chief of Staff? Plus we have to manipulate words from from Disney to DISH MONEY. Ack! Thppt! Our patch is better. Furthermore, he has the nerve ! to call Stamford, "an elite national tournament for even the geekiest of endeavors."[p236] OTOH, coming from someone who calls himself a "nerd folk icon," [p235] this might be a compliment. But really, it's a distinction without a difference. What could be a better audience for a Jeopardy! book than a hardcore crossword puzzle crowd?

Wordplay got me doing crosswords regularly. Brainac got me watching Jeopardy! again. Is it life-changing if the change is small?


Commentary: Shortness excuse
The paying word pile that delayed last week's blog took the rest of this week to wrestle to the ground. I find my desire to wiggle my fingers over the keyboard severely limited at the moment. (Except for talking about books. I could do that from a coma.)


ACPT Countdown Clock: 307 days
Friday, May 14, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.


Constructor's Corner: Marie Kelly
"I realized going into this puzzle that the resulting theme answers would be pretty peculiar, which means that they're more challenging to clue in a way that makes them sound sensible. I hope I succeeded with at least a couple of them.

"My favorite answer that didn't fit into the finished puzzle because I had no answer of the same length to balance it: ELECTRIC SHAH MOVER. (I imagine some kind of golf cart-like vehicle with a Peacock Throne mounted on it.) So the SHAH had to settle for a shorter answer.

"I also had BRING HOME THE BACH MOON on my list. That would have been funny after last week's Capitalist Pig puzzle."

Thank you Ms. Kelly.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan