Season 2

<< Previous Season | All Seasons | Next Season >>

Overview

Season 2 concluded with a rather remarkable surprise at the 2010 ACPT when Ryan won first place in the E Division—the same prize Brian had won the previous year. Ryan has named this his favorite moment from the history of Fill Me In.

Highlights

• Includes 48 episodes which started on March 24, 2009, and ended February 23, 2010.
• Fill Me In debuts on Twitter (@bemoresmarter)
• Tournament recaps from Boston, Los Angeles, Lollapuzzoola, Pleasantville, and the ACPT
• Interviews with Elissa Grossman, Doug Peterson, Brendan Emmett Quigley, and Peter Gordon
• The Contest of Now is born
• The Spreadsheet is born
• The correct way to pronounce Xan Vongsathorn's name is learned

Episodes

Num	Date	Title	Synopsis
46	3/24/2009	Season Two “Prem-yah.”	Our fascination with Jai Alai is in full swing. What’s a goykachea?
47	4/1/2009	Nicknames, and their relative deservedness.	We’re trying to begin Twittering. Also, we want new listeners to understand what we do. It’s all schtick, kids.
48	4/7/2009	Aaaaand…	We recap the Boston Crossword Tournament (yes, we competed!) and take a photograph of a huge, dead rodent.
49	4/13/2009	The Contest.	Via Twitter, we offer our first podcast contest.
50	4/20/2009	Thunder vs. Lightning	The beginning of the Thunder Round, as well an interview with Elissa Grossman, coordinator of the Los Angeles Crossword Tournament.
51	4/28/2009	Hooray! It’s our milespone episode!	Discussions of other puzzle features (Wired magazine, the One Day University) and another Fill Me In themed puzzle comes our way.
52	5/5/2009	Would you like to sponsor our lack of sponsorship?	Recap of the L.A. tournament with Doug Peterson. Also Tyler Hinman calls in with a new contest.
53	5/11/2009	Something old, something new, something borrowed… and a buzzer.	The spreadsheet is born. Unbelievable.
54	5/18/2009	Take your lederhosen and get out of here!
55	5/25/2009	We’re on Abe Vigoda time.	Xan Vongsathorn’s name is a vongsathorn in our side.
56	6/2/2009	Numquam uidi iniquius certationem comparatam…	We’re starting to play with sound effects. Uh-oh.
57	6/9/2009	Please find us, Christina Applegate. We think you’re awesome.	It’s Brian’s 36th birthday, and he dreams about a podcast interview with Christina Applegate.
58	6/15/2009	Hey people who don’t listen to us — why aren’t you listening?	Lollapuzzoola 2 is in the developmental stages.
59	6/23/2009	Reduced to a PG-13 rating (now without nudity, foul language, or humor).	We worry about the future of the second Sunday puzzle. We still have a petition up, but it’s looking a little thin.
60	6/30/2009	There’s a bobcat in our bag.	Mostly the standard segments — viewer mail, Xan Vongsathorn, contests.
61	7/7/2009	*Unedited, unplugged, unlistened…	Soup is a little too prevalent, we think. But we offer a rare segment: The Crossword Tip of the Quartermonth.
62	7/14/2009	The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, an anagram thereof.	In honor of Bastille Day, we interview Brendan Emmett Quigley.
63	7/21/2009	If you were a flute, what kind of animal would you be?	For some reason, terrible audio quality (not as bad as early in Season One, but weirdly metallic and outer-spacey). It’s still a good show, though.
64	7/28/2009	The Peter Gordon Show	We’ve got an interview and the World’s Worst Crossword Puzzle courtesy of constructor/editor and sextuple-threat Peter Gordon.
65	8/4/2009	Nom nom nom	We’ve got a picture of a bunny nibbling on something and a bit of music that may or may not be protected by copyright.
66	8/11/2009	Try being nicer.	Brian and Ryan are labeled as “mean.” Sad, not entirely accurate, but not entirely inaccurate either.
67	8/18/2009	Jab rhymes with cab and lons rhymes with Fonz.	The largest Viewer Mail bag to date, we return to the Vongsathorn family, and the Crossword Tip of the Quartermonth discusses quote puzzles.
68	8/25/2009	Breaking news — Lollapuzzoola is finally over!	It’s the Lollapuzzoola Recap episode. If you were there, you know what happened. If you weren’t, you got some ’splainin’ to do.
69	9/1/2009	The Oracle, The Innovator, The Math Teacher of Xan Vongsathorn’s Sister.	We receive some awesome Viewer Mail, and confirm a surprising connection between two of our fans.
70	9/8/2009	Buon Giorno, Gionata Papelbuono!	With 50% of the hosting team overseas, the podcast faces a major obstacle in bringing entertainment to the (minuscule) masses.
71	9/15/2009	I’m in a ukulele band.	Old stories brought back and completed! Old friends discovered in new places!
72	9/22/2009	…and Bingo was his name-o.	We play games with our audience whether they are listening or not.
73	9/29/2009	A small break from daily indoctrination.	Our roving reporter reports on Pleasantville (the tournament-hosting town, not the movie), and Ryan and Brian offer a special musical performance.
74	10/6/2009	And if you also went to Vassar, we’ll say your name next week.	Ryan flies solo for almost two minutes without crashing the plane.
75	10/13/2009	[They may go up in a plane.]	Beef stew and a battle royal between all the Greeks and Romans that Fill Me In has to offer.
76	10/20/2009	The dictionary is the enemy of the podcast.	Brian is censored, Ryan narrates a film trilogy and more complaints run rampant with regards to out-of-the-language French.
77	10/27/2009	The Phillies super cream cheese monkey a*s suck.	All baseball players play baseball, and Ryan loves baseball — but Ryan does not love all baseball players.
78	11/3/2009	A random sort of thing.	Mike Nothnagel has a doppelganger. Happy Halloween!
79	11/10/2009	Go to Connecticut, take a right and just keep going.	Desperate for attention, we beg you to rate us on iTunes. Even if you don’t want to.
80	11/17/2009	This one night, Charlize Theron tickled my stomach.	Really, the title kinda says it all.
81	11/24/2009	Shut that damn bouzouki up!	Ryan knows more than Brian does about music.
82	12/1/2009	It started as a stick, but then I called it a podcast.	A whole bunch of names, and Ryan has very firm opinions about something that no one ever really wanted to argue with him in the first place.
83	12/8/2009	In which you’ll wish Ryan had never started with the whole Thor thing.	The diatribe continues, much to the chagrin of at least one co-host.
84	12/15/2009	I am the music; you are the circus.	The move to Mac may be less than anyone had hoped.
85	12/22/2009	Mohammed and Crosscan, leaders in their own way.	The original Winner of the Contest becomes part of his own legacy.
86	1/5/2010	We call this one “Happy New Year, everyone!”	Welcome to 2010! We offer our 2009 Year In Review, and name several people as Best Of without offering them a single prize. That’s how we do it!
87	1/12/2010	Please forgive us, for we did not know that Venkatasubramanyan rhymes with bunion.	One of our New Year’s resolutions is to actually talk about more puzzles. This episode lives up to that. Will the next one live up to this one?
88	1/19/2010	Platinum limb and addled gain gives the bird (9).	It’s a contest within a contest, plus we solve one more clue in Ryan’s cryptic crossword.
89	1/26/2010	Remember when Episodes 87 and 88 were issued on vinyl?	Welcoming Ryan back from Costa Rica, we immediately begin discussing things he doesn’t understand, like cryptic crosswords. Yes, still.
90	2/2/2010	This episode has been placed in your capable hands.	Interviews are back! We talk about puzzle, chicken and Mad Magazine with Patrick Merrell.
91	2/9/2010	Superbowl Tuesday!	Superbowl predictions, Outsider puzzles and the agenda.
92	2/16/2010	ACPT — Here we come!	Pre-ACPT interviews with Tyler, Trip, Francis, Dan and Howard, 13 minutes with Will Shortz, a double thunder round, and holy crap, the big weekend is moments away!
93	2/23/2010	Season Finale – The 2010 ACPT	It’s our season finale, and ACPT wrap-up. You’ll never guess the twist ending that no one saw coming. Even now that it’s happened, it’s difficult to believe.