BFFs, Mon 3/11/13, Champion, Bugs, Fleas, Tomfoolery, Bussing

Happy Monday!!!  The BFFs are back because Rex is bussing it back to Binghamton after a glamorous weekend in New York City at the ACPT (Annual Crossword Puzzle Tournament?  American Crossword Puzzle Tournament?  Something like that).  So when Rex asked for our help, we were thrilled as always to stand-in for the 31st fastest crossword puzzle solver in the universe.  Or for the 40th fastest.  Or the fastest in Westchester/Upstate New York.  Whatever his rank, he'll always be number one to us.




Constructor:Robert Fisher

Relative difficulty: Monday = Easy (that's why Rex lets us blog)



THEME: ANIMALS - all of the theme answers begin with the name of a male animal

Word of the Day:BREVITY 

brev·i·ty

 noun \ˈbre-və-tē\

plural brev·i·ties

Definition of BREVITY

: shortness of duration; especially : shortness or conciseness of expression

Of course this word wasn't in the puzzle, but, we're tired and cranky because of the stupid time change (it's daylight SAVING time, not SAVINGS!!!).  Also, the blog website was acting really buggy, (maybe it has FLEAS?), so we really need to get this done before it crashes (again) and we lose everything (again!)


Theme answers:

• 17A Prankish activity - TOMfoolery
• 23A Double-whammy economic condition - STAGflation
• 35A Without a stitch on - BUCKnaked
• 50A Impromptu, wide-ranging conversation - BULLsession
• 58A Shoddy and unsturdy - RAMshackle

The clue answers were pretty good, although we're not really sure that "TOM" fits as an animal.  But we'll let it slide because we imagine that our BFF Rex managed to engage in some TOMFOOLERY while hanging with his puzzle friends in New York.

Clues we liked:

• 16A Rest ____ (roadside stop) - AREA — Rex took a bus from Binghamton to Brooklyn.  
• 21A Attic accumulation  - DUST — Whoever has dust in their attic is luckier than Liz.  She has raccoons.
• 25D One nipping Nipper, maybe - FLEA— We loved this one.  Even though in addition to the raccoons, Liz also had a flea infestation 2 years ago (I blame the "pet friendly" hotel in West Virginia, but, that's a story for another day).

How's that for brevity?

Signed, your favorite BFFs