There's a TV commercial for Requip, a drug to treat Restless Leg Syndrome, that features a woman doing a crossword puzzle. Apparently the drug has some weird side effects:
The filled-in answers have nothing to do with the clues. I guess the real answers weren't telegenic enough? But they're not totally random, like Patrick Bateman filling the grid with MEAT and BONE in American Psycho; they're all plausible crossword answers. Weird.
I've suffered from Restless Leg Syndrome, so I know better than to make fun of it (though it's a goofy name). But it hasn't been often enough that I would feel the need to medicate. How often did you get it?
For me it manifests not so much as an urge to move the limbs (I get it in my arms too sometimes) as severe, and rather peculiar, pain that is relieved briefly by movement. Been getting it worse and worse for I dunno how many years, but last year I was getting it basically every night for hours. Spent more than one night not sleeping at all, lying in bed flinging my arms back and forth and crying.
If my former shrink hadn't identified it correctly, I might have killed myself by now.
Not only do the answers not match the clues, but the black squares in the grid have been altered, introducing two-letter words and asymmetry. 1, 5, and 10 across match the spaces at the top of the grid, as well as 14, 15, and 16 across for the next row (and 14A Runner's assignment is LANE). But then the answer to 17 across "I am not a doctor, but I play one on TV" e.g. should be DISCLAIMER running through where they have inserted a black square, and then the next across answer is 19 because 18 is used for a down clue at the L in disclaimer.
Unfortunately this screen capture does not show many down clues, making this nearly impossible to reconstruct. The commercial appears on youtube (alternate version, different magazine name on the screen with the crossword closeup), but I could not get any non-blurred freeze-frames of the crossword from this.
That said, I think some clues have also been altered. It seems too much of a coincidence to have a messed-up crossword like this and have 1A: Relaxed, 20A More relaxed than ever, 35A Relax, and 1D Deep sleep all among the clues. Not to mention that there are two 44 across clues in a row, which put an end to my attempt to reconstruct the grid as if it was a diagramless.
Ha, I didn't even notice the two-letter word and the asymmetry. So they altered both the grid and the clues? WTF? Hm, I wonder if they were trying to avoid copyright issues.
Maybe they modified it for copyright reasons, but then hey, if they're modifying it, why not put in RELAX and RELAXING and DIDWEMENTIONRELAXALREADY while they were in there?
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By the way, the drug is a fucking miracle.
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I've suffered from Restless Leg Syndrome, so I know better than to make fun of it (though it's a goofy name). But it hasn't been often enough that I would feel the need to medicate. How often did you get it?
From:
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If my former shrink hadn't identified it correctly, I might have killed myself by now.
From:
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Unfortunately this screen capture does not show many down clues, making this nearly impossible to reconstruct. The commercial appears on youtube (alternate version, different magazine name on the screen with the crossword closeup), but I could not get any non-blurred freeze-frames of the crossword from this.
That said, I think some clues have also been altered. It seems too much of a coincidence to have a messed-up crossword like this and have 1A: Relaxed, 20A More relaxed than ever, 35A Relax, and 1D Deep sleep all among the clues. Not to mention that there are two 44 across clues in a row, which put an end to my attempt to reconstruct the grid as if it was a diagramless.
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