Solution for PATSP Crossword #3

PATSP Crossword #3

I haven't posted one of these in forever, because they're very time-consuming to do, and I wasn't sure if people were really bothering to solve them, and if they did solve them I wasn't sure they, you know, enjoyed solving them. But it's been over a year and a half (the last one was in January 2009), which I think is enough elapsed time for the people who hate crosswords to feel like I'm looking out for their interests and concerns, plus I went to all the trouble of making one so here you go.

I have three more half-finished puzzles somewhere; it may surprise you to learn that actually putting the puzzle together, getting all the words to fit, is actually not the time-consuming part; writing the clues is. So the others will be posted when/if I manage to finish writing the clues. Here's puzzle #3:


As with the first one, a fair amount of this is site-specific, obscure, or whatever, and may or may not be of interest to you.

I recommend printing out a copy of the puzzle image, and then working on the paper. Sharpie on your computer monitor will also work, but will be more trouble. Googling should prove useful if you're stuck on one, though you know Googling makes you a cheater, right?

Feedback about difficulty is welcome. I will post the solution next Sunday afternoon.

Made with the demo version of Crossword Compiler, as was the first puzzle.

ACROSS
1 Military officer trainee
7 Where baby corn sleeps, or, a place for storing and drying corn
12 The military's favorite green
13 The part of most cacti where photosynthesis happens
14 The longest river in France
17 First and middle initials of Wilson, the creator of sociobiology
18 Women without direction
21 Hillary Rodham Clinton (abbrev.)
23 Popular material for flowerpots
24 Ordinary term for 32 across
25 The country code top-level domain for Spain (analogous to Canada's .ca or Sweden's .se)
26 Boringly stupid, or stupidly boring
28 He around whom the universe revolves
29 Cycas revoluta, for example
31 Fluffy/thorny filler plant
32 Mostly-obsolete, female-specific slang for 24 across
33 Sansevierias are sometimes called _________ plants
34 More than one peen
36 Was television about music
37 A plant adapted for conditions of little or infrequent rainfall, as e.g. Lithops or Crassula
38 LOLCat greeting
40 Outlook Express (abbrev.)
41 Untied, negated
43 They bring good things to life. Or maybe they don't anymore. It's been a while since I saw an ad.
44 Urban slang term meaning disrespect
46 ___________ of endearment
48 Or you can call it Fraxinus
49 They get hot when the sun is out, due to some kind of effect
51 Iowa (postal abbreviation)
52 Secret ______ Man
53 Bryophyllum daigremontianum's profile calls it an ___________ Genius
57 Transparent-topped enclosure for protecting young or small plants in cold climates (Hint: it sounds like it should be a new CBS crime drama)
60 Person who repots
61 Japanese plant torture

DOWN
1 Not sin or tan, but ____
2 Joyweed genus
3 What Gardenias mostly do indoors
4 Electronic voting machine (abbrev.)
5 Tellurium (chemical symbol)
6 South Dakota (postal abbrev.)
7 Annoying but deceased "Battlestar Galactica" character (as of season 4)
8 Woodwind instrument
9 Medical professional
10 Prescription (abbrev.)
11 Poetic flowers, or multiple Mayim Bialik shows [shudder]
15 Music group ______ & Glaciers (they're "post-hardcore," whatever the fuck that is)
16 Even if you kill all the adult pests with one pesticide application, you still have to repeat a few days later to catch any new pests that hatched from these
17 Dizygotheca _______________
18 Plant family names all end in these five letters
19 Interlibrary loan (abbrev.)
20 A kind of monkey
21 Howdy
22 The starchy root of Manihot esculenta (minor spelling variant), or, "house is going" in broken Spanish
27 The three numbers on fertilizer packages in the U.S. stand for the percentages of these elements (chemical symbols)
28 For example, shredded leaves, grass clippings, pieces of bark, newspapers, recycled tires, cocoa hulls, and the others
30 The gay one includes a break for brunch
33 Having worse air quality due to smoke and/or car exhaust
34 Fruits of Prunus domestica
35 Hallow___
37 Denise wanted to know how to care for her plant, ________ (2 words) looked it up on PATSP
39 Concept
42 Measure of water hardness
45 Block of metal
46 S/He's supposed to help you learn
47 _____: Your Brains (HINT: Google "Jonathan Coulton")
50 All at _______ it happened
53 Really short for "Ernest"
54 _______ deferens
55 You could get one made of Plumeria flowers in Honolulu
56 Windows before Vista
58 Initials of actor Woodside, played Principal Woods in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
59 ________ shizzle

Crossword puzzle solution for #2

This is the solution for the puzzle posted on January 8th.

PATSP Crossword #2

Hi again. Another crossword.


As with the first one, a fair amount of this is site-specific, obscure, or whatever, and may or may not be of interest to you. But then, what else were you planning on getting done today, right? You can always stop if it's not going well.

I recommend printing out a copy of the puzzle image, and then working on the paper. Googling is likely to prove useful.

Made with the demo version of Crossword Compiler, as was the first puzzle.

ACROSS:
1 One way to spell a cat noise
7 You're as cold ____ ice
9 A treeful would be very wise indeed
12 Tithymaloides genus
15 Plants probably worship this sun god
17 Zero, none, nada, zip
18 Mayhem, chaos
20 11th Century Spaniard, national hero of Spain (2 words)
22 The best part of a Gardenia jasminoides, or an Oncidium 'Sharry Baby'
24 Ergot-based psychedelic drug
26 Things that make you go ____
27 Non-permanent worker
28 Actinidia deliciosa fruit
29 Icy troll is _____
30 White-spots tropical fish disease
32 Consonant-free river in Spain
33 Six, in Roman numerals
34 In ____ of flowers, contributions may be made to . . .
36 Woodwind player
40 First (demo) album by Christianish band Jars of Clay
43 Dracaena deremensis variety
45 The main thing you do with an eraser
46 The least crazy
48 Cyrtomium falcatum is one
50 Iridium-enriched geological boundary at 65.5 million years ago
51 Disemvowelled affirmative
53 Sanskrit for "rule," or "dominion," especially as referring to the British Empire in India
54 Internet Relay Chat (abbrev.)
55 One of the biblical kings of Israel (not one of the particularly popular ones, though)
56 Loud lion noise
58 _____ B. Davis, better known as Alice
60 Ames university with a horticulture program
61 Cactus x 2
62 Interference pattern
63 Like a greenhouse, but darker and with more nudity
65 Parisian yes
67 Krypton (chemical symbol)
69 Puppies that try to fly up your nose (2 words)
72 Esther's washing machines are in hers
73 Oh ___ of little faith
74 Monomania responsible for pursuit of the white whale

DOWN:
2 Internet provider (abbrev.)
3 Lipstick vine genus
4 Overdose (abbrev.)
5 They do not work that way
6 Femme fatale plant
7 Where the plants that aren't at work are located (2 words)
8 May contain imidazolidinyl urea
9 Spanish bear
10 Lawrencium (symbol)
11 A popular Arabia
13 Lithium (symbol)
14 One kind of ultraviolet light
16 Assumptions about the way the world works
19 A friend of a friend (2 words)
21 Instant message (abbrev.)
23 A drop of golden sun
25 Believers in plant dignity
31 Unit of radioactive decay, named for Marie (abbrev.)
35 Underground research facility (abbrev.)
37 Ficus species
38 And, but, ___, nor, yet, so, for
39 Sansevieria trifasciata occupation
41 Often found with hoes
42 That is (abbrev.)
44 "Vote for a _____ Obama"
47 James Madison: "If ________ and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
49 Radium (chemical symbol)
52 I'll just give you this one. It's "socage."
55 Quick evasive turns
57 Astatine (chemical symbol)
59 Nitric oxide
61 Chihuahua, Mexico airport (abbrev.)
64 Article for deletion (Wikipedia abbrev.)
66 Internet top-level domain for Uganda
68 Rhesus factor (blood type abbrev.)
70 Sigh sound
71 Antimony (chemical symbol)

Crossword puzzle solution

(Solution for the crossword posted on 3 Nov. 2008. Is there anybody at all out there who bothered to attempt it? 'Cause if not, I'm not going to waste any time trying to write another.)

PATSP Crossword #1

There may not be a PATSP Crossword #2, but I thought I should plan for one anyway, just in case.


This is an actual, honest-to-God functioning crossword, solvable and everything. A number of the clues are kind of specific to PATSP, in that they refer to plant / "person" pairs or running jokes, so it helps if you're a regular reader.

For best results, open the puzzle as an image in its own window, and print it out. I have no idea how difficult this is really; I've never been a big doer of crosswords. (I tend to get frustrated too easily when I run into a block of stuff I can't figure out.) You, at least, have the advantage of being at a computer, where you can Google for a lot of this if you get stuck.

Feedback as to difficulty, comments about composition, etc. is heartily encouraged.

This puzzle was made with the demo version of Crossword Compiler, which takes the otherwise prohibitively annoying process of making a crossword puzzle and makes it only very extremely annoying.

-

ACROSS
1 Where there's a pimp, there's a ____
4 In the reimagined "Battlestar Galactica," he was President of the Twelve Colonies when the Cylon attack began
7 Evil, evil evil houseplant pest
11 Inflammation of the bone
14 Ficus religiosa common name
15 Homer Simpson exclamation
16 guatemalensis, filamentosa, recurvifolia, filifera, etc.
17 Writer of essays
19 Pier
20 Noon to midnight
21 Common name of Cordyline fruticosa
24 Milliliter (abbrev.)
25 ____CDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
26 Some Aglaonemas come from this Southeast Asian country
28 Popular genus of succulents
30 Hebrew name for girls; means "God is good."
32 Evil genius plant genus
35 This insurance company's executives went on a $444,000 retreat in California following its bailout by U.S. taxpayers
37 Spanish second-person pronoun
39 Gay slang: younger effeminate guy, or younger masculine woman
40 One of two elements involved in table salt (chemical symbol) (see 23 down)
41 English, Algerian, devil's, Swedish, grape, oakleaf, etc.
43 What one finds in the Everglades
47 Ted Lange's bartender, on "The Love Boat"
49 ______ cap mushrooms turn black and disintegrate when older
51 Erigeron spp. common name: flea_____
53 What Saddam Hussein and Sherlock Holmes have in common
54 Agriculture (abbrev.)
55 Stephanie Vanderkellen exclamation
56 Spielberg science-fiction film
57 If more plants came with these, there would be fewer NOIDs
60 Neoregelia '_________'
64 To leave out some sounds
66 Drinking and driving charge
67 Extremely famous princess, died in 1997
68 Butterfly bush genus
70 Kathy Griffin's "My Life on the ________"
71 For _______ With Love and Squalor
72 Associated Press

DOWN
1 Romance novel heroine plant genus
2 Ohio State University
3 Landlord plant genus
4 Where my homies ___?
5 Sadistic plant genus
6 Don't make one of yourself
7 Alternate milk
8 Some blogs sell space for ______ on their pages, though few make any real money at it
9 Means, and is derived from, "lottery"
10 Mr_Subjunctive has been practicing adding this to the ends of his sentences, just in case the U.S. election goes badly
12 Twin Cities and Western Railroad (abbrev.)
13 The opposite of IANAL (internet slang)
14 Common name for Bambusa, Phyllostachys
18 Celebrity plant genus
22 The situation of having equal-sized gametes
23 The other of two elements involved in table salt (chemical symbol) (see 40 across)
26 Where movies come from
27 Take on them
28 False goats' beard genus
29 Oklahoma (postal abbrev.)
31 Variety of medicinal Aloe, or Vladimir Nabokov's wife
33 ________ Rinna, Taylor McBride on "Melrose Place" (a friend of mine used to call her "crazy lips")
34 http://www.blotanical.___/
36 ___ and out
38 Ultraviolet (abbrev.)
42 ____ and yang
44 Japanese horseradish
45 Love in a mist genus
46 Domain name (abbrev.)
48 Selenium (chemical symbol)
50 Singer lang
52 Website something______.com (Tagline: "The internet makes you stupid.")
54 Lying down at night (archaic?)
58 For example, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."
59 You _____ as you sow, in the garden. Except for the weeds.
61 Three, to a Roman
62 Eastern Daylight Time (abbrev.)
63 Pounds (abbrev.)
65 Day, in Spanish
66 Double density floppy disks are/were coded ____
69 Delaware (postal abbrev.)