google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Saturday, Jun 8th, 2013, Peter A. Collins

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Jun 8, 2013

Saturday, Jun 8th, 2013, Peter A. Collins

Theme: None

Words: 70 (missing F,Q,Z)

Blocks: 32

  Alas, I was done in not by the proper names in this one, but by phrases I have never heard before.  For the second week in a row, we have had a "non-Saturday" grid, with the long answers "inside" the edges.  Some 'eye-rolling' fill today, I thought, and some words just don't look right, either.  Eight 10-letter and two 11-letter fills, so we have:

26A. To the max : AS ALL GET OUT - well, it makes sense, I guess, but I have never heard or said this - might be regional

41A. Horseshoes, e.g. : LUCKY CHARMS - I tried "TOSSING GAME", since it fit; there's a horseshoe taped up over the 8line sorting station at UPS

31A. Sleight-of-hand swindle : PIGEON DROP - I "know" of this con, but never its name

38A. Shot protection : GOALIE MASK - mine's on top of my head here


Od Warn~!

ACROSS:

 1. General transportation? : JEEP - ah - I did try "TIRE" first, since there is a General Tire company, and a LOT of transportation rides on tires....

5. Like some whiskey : IRISH - can you get an alcohol "buzz" from smoking an Irish Whiskey cigar~???

10. Accident initials : EMS - Emergency Medical Services

13. __-Free: contact lens solution : OPTI

 

14. Bollywood princess : RANEE - clued as "Indian" in the week; Bollywood is a step further

15. Passes, in a way : LAPS

17. 2000s Korean compact : KIA SPECTRA - I don't know why I put in "Electra" at first

19. Hip to : IN ON

20. Transcendent joy : ECSTASY

21. Focus of a historic New Orleans museum : VOO-DOO - once the ---OO was there, I got it

23. "__ shall live your epitaph to make": Shakespeare's Sonnet 81 : "OR I..."

24. Worrying about : SWEATING - ah, not FRETTING

30. Teachers' degs. : BEs - Bachelor of Education, but it's usually B.Ed.(s)

32. Start to charge? : SUR - surcharge, which strangely means the cost AFTER the initial

33. '70s TV character name whose original Broadway spelling had an "a" instead of an "e" : UNGER - That would be "The Odd Couple"

34. Kenan's TV pal : KEL - all perps, no clue on this show

35. Item under glass, perhaps : RELIC - when I started working at Winn-Dixie in Fla 1n 1995, I was the oldest person on the grocery staff (at 24yrs old) - so the kids called me "Relic" - and I liked it

37. Spot warning : Grr - yeah, "ARF" seemed a bit weak

40. The Tribe, on scoreboards : CLEveland - The Indians, and featured in "Major League", and I still dig the movie

42. 1980 hit with the lyric "It took a long time to know him" : 'HE'S SO SHY' - The Pointer Sisters, and a music link

44. End for Caesar : EAN - CaesarEAN, as in Section

45. Scrub in, say : ASSIST - I watch "House, M.D." in syndication, from my DVR

46. Service providers : PASTORS - ah, that service; and a semi-clecho 8D. Father's talk: Abbr. : SERmon

50. Where to find an expiration date? : OBIT - HA~!  I tried TOMB first, 'cause I was on that wavelength

51. Curator's event : ART EXHIBIT - I had ---BIT, and that seemed wrong, then the light bulb....

54. Put on a thumb drive, say : SAVE

55. Frost bit? : VERSE - Poetry from Robert Frost - didn't fool me, either

56. Name in a footnote : CITE

57. Bench, once : RED - A-ha~!  I got this one, as well - I knew Johnny Bench was a Cincinnati Red
 

58. Splits : EXITS

59. Strike one as being : SEEM

DOWN:

1. Routine element : JOKE - In a stand-up comedy routine

2. Many a miniseries : EPIC

3. DFW postings : ETAs - Dallas/Ft. Worth, the airport

4. Wild Bill Hickok, notably : PISTOLEER - this does not look right

5. Parting words : "I RESIGN"

6. Ribald : RACY - ribald; "vulgar", from the German "riben" to copulate - and  a chance for Splynter to post a gratuitous leg image

7. S&L figure : INTerest - Savings & Loan

9. Lift, as an anchor : HEAVE UP

10. Economist Janeway : ELIOT

11. Lower jaw-related : MANDIBULAR - phew, that's a mouthful~!

12. Hated the book, perhaps : SPOONERISM - Baited the Hook being the "alternate" phrasing

16. Busses in Birmingham : SNOGS - Watch Harry Potter - there's snogging going on there

18. Beauty spot? : PARLOR

22. Bit of fodder : OAT

24. Hot-and-cold : STREAKY

25. Fuzzy : WOOLLY - the two "L"s seem 'wrong' to me - must be the down-ness of the answer

26. Toon shopkeeper voiced by Hank Azaria : APU

27. Where business is always picking up? : SINGLES BAR - I am trying to "pick up" one of the female associates at Home Depot - I don't do the bar anymore

28. Pushy : AGGRESSIVE

29. '90s judge on "The People's Court" : ED KOCH - a WAG - I could not remember the name of the first guy who did the spot; "W-something....ah, "Wapner"; I did not know Ed was a judge there, just the mayor of NYC - the Wiki

32. Linguist's concern : SEMANTICS

35. Belabor : REHASH

36. Most ATM deposits : CKs - Checks, and, meh.

38. Novelist Flaubert : GUSTAVE - I had everything but the "G", since my first "shot protector" was "KEVLAR VEST"

39. Tools for those on the way up : ICE AXES

40. Bedlam : CHAOS

41. __ Altos, California : LOS

43. Positioned : SITED - mostly in terms of where a house sits on its plot, in terms of solar gain, views, etc.

46. Bother : PEST - the Pittsburgh Penguins were SWEPT out of the playoffs by Boston tonight - and they are an NHL pest to me

47. Stage presentation? : OBIE - the award for stage performances

48. Observance : RITE

49. Stalk in the garden : STEM

52. Excitable dinosaur in "Toy Story" : REX - I could not think of his name - but when the perps filled it in, I got a smack upside the head from myself

53. TNT part : TRInitrotoluene - usually we get the TNT part as the answer; I was curious, so I read the Wiki - it was first prepared by a German named Julius Wilbrand - as a dye - now that's what I call "ribald"

Splynter

43 comments:

Dudley said...

Hello Puzzlers -

This one did not yield easily. For one thing, there was a Kia Elantra parked in Space 17A for a long time. Finally the driver pulled away and made room for a Spectra. When perps suggested Ed Koch as a TV judge, I couldn't believe he'd stoop to that - until Google said so. Had Pistolier first, the other way looks wrong.

Grumbled over the clue for Streaky. Never heard "as all get out", hafta take somebody's word for it. And what do snogging and bussing have in common?

All in all, a Saturday misdirection workout!

Cheers All

PK said...

Hi Y'all! Some of these clues made me "mad AS ALL GET OUT" (which is the only way I've heard this used). Saturday lived up to the difficulty reputation this week. Thanks, Peter, for the workout.

WOOLLY & PISTOLEER didn't look right to me either, Splynter. Thanks for once again explaining. But I still don't know what SNOGGING is. Kissing? The clue for SPOONERISM was too much of a stretch.

TNT held me up at first because I was thinking TV channel.

But hey, I got MANDIBULAR at once. I'd hate to tell how much I spent with a chiropractor putting my temperomandibular joint back in place (aka unlocking my jaw). Finally realized crunching ice cubes was causing the dislocation and quit that foolishness.

Splynter: good luck with picking up the Home Depot Doll! Sounds like a good match for you.

Finally heard from my daughter vacationing in Florida at Cocoa Beach, complaining about a bad sunburn. And I was afraid she'd blown away.

Barry G. said...

Morning, all!

Yah, brutal puzzle today. The NE nearly killed me. Had EMT instead of EMS at 10A and DIES instead of LAPS at 15A. Had no idea who Janeway was, and with DIES in place went with EDITH. Tried FRETTING instead of SWEATING at 24A and MAS (and later BAS) at 30A. There is such a thing as Bachelor of Education, but it is abbreviated B.Ed.

Once I finally sorted things out up there, I really liked the clue for SPOONERISM. Except that I misspelled it SPOONARISM because I refused to accept the aforementioned BES as legitimate.

Elsewhere, PIGEON drop was a complete unknown, as was HE'S SO SHY, and I really hated CKS as an abbreviation of checks. Tried SEMICIRCLES for 41A, which messed me up for a bit.

Good clues for VERSE and SINGLES BAR, which kept me from declaring I RESIGN. Lots of "ick" overall, though. PISTOLEER?

[ayakyb]

River Doc said...

Happy Saturday everyone!

Man, oh man, this one was a struggle! But since my posterior was still sore from yesterday’s ass kicking, I resolved to not give in to what I call the Saturday stinkeroo syndrome. Took all of 39 minutes, but finally got a TaDa with no peek-ums….

SEEMS like we got a new clue for OBIT every day this week! (Okay, maybe it’s just me. So I went to the trouble of looking it up. 3 appearances in the last 7 puzzles. To put it in terms Johnny BENCH could relate to, OBIT is batting a healthy .429 this week….)

Did anybody else make their coffee IRISH this a.m….?

LADDERS for ICE AXES, EMT for EMS, ONTO for IN ON, YEE for OR I, BAS for BES, and PISTOLLER for PISTOLEER (until PIDGEON DROP made a whole lot more sense than PIDGLON DROP)….

Used to love LUCKY CHARMS - they’re magically delicious…!

My most memorable Pointer Sisters moment came when I was pulled over for speeding on I-5, mostly because the song I’m So Excited was blasting on the cassette player. (Warning – some may consider some of the scenes in the beginning of this link to be RACY…. Oh, wait, that’s what I was doing…. racing….) Needless to say, I wasn’t quite as excited for the remainder of the drive….

Hands up for keeping ELECTRA in the grid a lot longer than necessary….

Since I hate them so much, it was no SURprise to me that SPOONERISMS was the last to fall…. And as long as we had LOS Altos, couldn’t we have also had Big SUR…?

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

I was DREADING a DNF on this one, until it turned out I was only SWEATING it. Once HOIST changed to HEAVE, PHONETICS to SEMANTICS, and COPY to SAVE, it was a piece of cake. The "K" at center stage was my final WAG; didn't know Kenan, but did know that ED KOCH was an NYC mayor, so I took a stab.

Dudley, PK guessed it right. SNOGS are British kisses. And I agree with you about Pistolier.

Splynter, there were legs in that picture?

TTP said...

Good morning all !

Thank you Peter Collins and thank you Splynter.

Filled in JEEP and took it back out with only ETAS to prove it. ETAS was ruled out if ELATION had been correct for eventual ECSTASY. Got enough of the top middle to start thinking foreign compact was going to be something SENTRA, but couldn't make it fit so moved on. Plus, it wasn't fitting with my beauty spot of DAY SPA so erased all that I wasn't confident about and moved on.

MANDIBULAR was easy and gave me new found confidence. IN ON, BES, SUR and RELIC all gave good purchase to complete the upper east side.

SEMANTICS came easy. I sometimes have to deal with mealy mouthed people at work that are not willing to tell the truth in clear and simple language. Office politics and concern about making waves and challenging the status quo seems to be the drivers for that behavior. Sometimes I restate a little too clearly of directly and get myself in trouble. Maybe I'm getting older and coming across as bitter. Enough of that. It's the weekend.

APU, SINGLES BAR, CLE, CHAOS, SAVE and RED were easy on the West / Southwest side. Then GRR and UNGER gave me AGGRESSIVE. Tackled the NE again and this time read Korean and I know that to be KIA, so JEEP was back in and that area fell.

Still couldn't make sense of the middle and finally turned on Red Letter assist. The only error was that my certain Judge WOPNER at 29D turned red, and after a bit of thought, recalled ED KOCH. The center soon filled and I got the TA DA music, albeit with the help. 1 hr, 46 minutes.

Time to read Splynter.

Dudley said...

D Otto - yes, I remember British use of "snogging" from Vicar of Dibley, Harry Potter, and others. It's "busses" and, by extension, "bussing" that I've never heard of. Is it old?

Husker Gary said...

Hated the book/Baited the hook? Gotta love it! Slow and steady won the race on this one.

Musings
-Great goalie picture, Splynter!
-Horseshoe LUCKY CHARM every Husker touches before taking the field
-Hawkeye stole a General’s JEEP to get BJ back to camp
-When you are timing 6th place at a track meet, you have to remember who got LAPPED
-Never heard of BE degree. How ‘bout 30 Across - Wanna enders? – WannaBES
-Felix Unger is a checkpoint on the way to becoming Sheldon Cooper
-RELIC under glass in Pompeii
-Our PASTORS’ SERmons could replace Sominex
-We were in an old Nebraska cemetery last night and the expiration dates were in Deutsch
-Very embarrassing I RESIGN speech
-Ear bug HEAVE ‘er UP by The Highwaymen. BTW, Spitz, et al, my Navy veteran BIL did not know the word HAWSE.
-The OAT and Wheat crops are beautiful this spring
-Worst example of tortured SEMANTICS ever? (:04).
-What OCD movie character had to watch Wapner every day?

Dudley said...

Husker - That would be Rain Man.

TTP said...

Great stuff Splynter.

AS ALL GET OUT sounds "southern" to me. Perhaps from the Carolinas or Georgia. Somewhere south of the Mason Dixon line ? And on the first pass, I was thinking of another name for the game of horseshoes.

I chuckled at OBIT, thinking ,"Oh no he din't." What a clue.

Yea, PISTOLEER. I was looking for some type of rodeo or wild west showman man. Pistolier, pistolero.

You had Wopner too, but you spelled it correctly.

Black Hawks fans are confident they'll meet the Bruins. Game 5 tonight.

Barry, I questioned BES as well, but left it that way when SPOONERISM fell.

SNOGS for kissing ? That's just weird.

Big SUR ? mmm, great views from Nepenthe !

PK, now that you mention it, I think I have heard my Texan kin say "mad AS ALL GET OUT."

Husker Gary, don't know that one. Here's another... the Star Trek version of wannabes ?

See all y'all later !

Dudley said...

Nautical stuff: first, I wondered whether "weigh" was going to be the answer for "lift, as an anchor", but of course it's too short. Then, as perps filled in, I wondered whether it might become "heave to", but that's not much of a match in meaning. To heave to in a sailboat is to kill forward speed and sort of park it; the anchor is not usually involved. It can be a little tricky to balance the mainsail, jib, and rudder in a heave-to situation, especially if there is some emergency going on.

I assume "heave to" means the same for powered vessels (Spitz?)

Abejo said...

Good morning, folks. Thank you, Peter Colins, for one tough puzzle. Thank you, Splynter, for the fine review.

Yesterday it took me three hours. Today about four. And today I had to look stuff up. Could not get through unassisted. My toughest area was the SE quadrant.

Too many tough answers to list.

I confidently entered UNDERBITER for 11D. Took me forever to straighten that out to MANDIBULAR.

I had US MARSHAL instead of PISTOLEER.

I had ART DISPLAY instead of ART EXHIBIT.

I had FLAK JACKET instead of GOALIE MASK.

And so the puzzle went.

Can't wait for tomorrow's puzzle has to be more fun than this one was.

I credit the constructor with creating a superb and complicated puzzle. Must have been a lot of work. Just too tough for this old boy.

See you tomorrow.

Abejo

(brazedfy)

Yellowrocks said...

This was difficult. Without lookups and red letters I had one wrong cell. Alas! I didn't know Janeway ELIST and so I wrote ERIST and RAP instead of LAP. We give a sharp rap on the table to signal "I pass." So it seemed good.
I knew SNOG for kissing and cuddling. I've heard it on BBC sitcoms and read it in British novels. We have had a discussion of bussed as kissing not long ago.
PISTOLEER and Pistolier are both correct and both archaic.
We used ALL GET OUT quite a bit. I'm as tired as all get out. It's rainng like all get out. I worked like all get out. A similar expression which we used is to beat the band.
I wanted KIA ELECTRA, too.
Splynter, I admire your Saturday blogs, the most difficult of the week.

Spitzboov said...

Good morning everyone.

Dudley - Heave to means to stop for a powered vessel. HEAVE usage can be tricky. I never heard HEAVE UP an anchor, but then I wasn't in the deck department either.

Husker - I don't remember hearing 'hawse' either. I learned it as 'hawsepipe'. But I was in the engineering dept. so I don't remember it coming up.

LMAO - Splynter thought 'arf' was a bit weak. GRR has more emphasis. I thought the puzzle had Friday difficulty without the benefit of getting theme assistance. Some clues were extremely clever such as those for: SPOONERISM, PASTORS, JEEP, and GOALIE MASK. Perhaps a few too many proper names for my taste.
On WOOLLY, I think the 'l' is doubled to preserve the 'short' vowel sound. Dutch does this all the time. We also have woollier woollily, and woolliness; all good fodder for future crosswords.

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

I'll be brief:

A) I finished w/o help but not without hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing, hand-wringing, and mind-bending angst.

B) Kudos to Mr. Collins for his creativity and craftsmanship. And thanks to Splynter for clearing up some of the fuzzier clues. Hated the book, indeed!

C) What Thumper said.

If you haven't been driven over the edge, have a great Saturday.

LaLaLinda said...

Hi Everyone ~~

Wow - this took forever - lots of erasures of my erasable ink! SO many write-overs, bad guesses, etc., etc. I did finish, but it wasn't pretty. Spylnter, your write-up was fantastic! I had a few of the same missteps, i.e. - 'Kevlar vest' before GOALIE MASK (nice pic!) and 'Electra' before SPECTRA.

~ The NE corner was the last to fill. Although I'm familiar with SPOONERISMS, I just wasn't on that wavelength for 'Hated the book, perhaps.' Also - I guess I was thinking of a spoonerism as a nonsensical phrase, such as "sporn and fook" for "fork and spoon." To add to my struggle in this area was BES. I have a BS in education so I tried BSS and even BAS but finally settled on BES when it filled in. Never heard of it.

~ PISTOLEER took a while and my 'Horeshoes' was a game so LUCKY CHARMS didn't come easily.

~ The misdirection of 46A - Service providers and 58A Splits slowed down the SE but they were among my favorite clues! I also liked 'Where to find an expiration date' / OBIT.

All in all, this was a real challenge but I enjoyed it ~ thanks, Peter Collins.

Misty said...

Well, I have to admit I gave up early on this Saturday toughie. I did get bits of the SE, since I was sure about GUSTAVE and ART EXHIBIT came in early. I thought VERSE for FROST BIT was really clever. Figured the Korean car was going to be a KIA but since ours are a 1993 Toyota and a 2003 Subaru we haven't kept up with cars. I too kept thinking of Judge WOPNER or WAPNER, and couldn't believe the answer was ED KOCH when I finally got it. And so it went for much of the rest of the puzzle.

But I did enjoy some moments, like that GRR SPOT WARNING. And it's always nice to be reminded about FELIX UNGER, from one of my favorite oldies.

The posts this morning were a lot of help too, beginning with Splynter's expo. Husker finally helped me understand the SPOONERISM, and Doha Doc made me laugh.

So, all in all, still an enjoyable Saturday morning. Have a great weekend, everybody!

Jayce said...

Hello everybody. I agree this was a difficult puzzle. I could not solve it without looking up who economist Janeway is and what the sleight-of-hand swindle is. Had KIA ELANTRA in there for a long time. Also DREADING. Put in JEEP, then erased it, then wrote it in again. Put in SEEM, then erased it, then wrote it in again. Quite a few erasures obliterated the little numbers, making it even harder.

Didn't understand RED until reading about it here. Wrinkled my nose at BES and CKS. Still don't understand what STREAKY has to do with hot-and-cold.

At least MANDIBULAR and GUSTAVE were gimmes, which gave me a foothold and some pleasure. The rest of the puzzle just made me work like all getout and eventually degenerated into a slog.

Best wishes to you all.

Ol' Man Keith said...

Fairly easy (easily fair?) for a Saturday puz.

For just a moment, it looked tough because on my first quick scan I came up with nothing. But then VOODOO was my first entry--and fairly obvious at that. The NW corner was the last to fall. Nothing, it turned out, was particularly hard. The only slowing factor was the quantity of two word phrases. My mind is usually on the hunt for the three-to-four letter streaks that form part of a single word. When the streaks are split over two words, this doesn't work--as, for instance, when I got IRES before I caught onto I RESIGN.

My favorite clue was "Hated the book" for SPOONERISM!

Spitzboov said...

Jayce @ 1335 - Weatherwise, think hot streak and cold streak. I know, needed perps to even get close.

Here is a Steam Powered Box Factory.. Very interesting, amazing old machines and still working. However, note the lack of safety guards; watch your fingers. Look at what happened to the dog's tail.

desper-otto said...

I find it weird that a bachelor of education is a b.ed., but a doctor of education is an ed.d. Can anybody educate me about that?

Jayce said...

Spitzboov, thanks.

Anonymous said...

I don't believe I have ever done worse on a Saturday puzzle. Case in point: for "Where business is always picking up," I had "Dry Cleaner." To quote comedian Brian Regan, "I was using numbers and stuff..."

61Rampy said...

A doable, but difficult puzzle today. Made lots of mistakes along the way, which really slowed things down. They include: Misspelling ECSTASY with a second C, having MOE for APU, Heave HO for UP, putting in WAPNER for ED KOCH, and having EMT for EMS. Had to look up Kenans pal, and Flaubert.
On the other hand, KIA SPECTRA was the first word entered, and I filled in the NW immediately.
As SPOONERISM started to fill in, I kept thinking "well, if the clue said Baited the Hook, that would make sense", D'OH!!! Where's that V-8 can???
I wasn't real thrilled with PISTOLEER and SNOGS, but I did not mind CKS for checks.
112 here today-OK, it's HOT!

TTP said...

The answer for Star Trek wannabes ? Anyone ?

Jayce, Spitzboov, STREAKY was easy for this baseball fan. A player that that goes hot and cold in the batters box is often described as streaky. "He's on a hot streak, having 14 hits in his last 21 at bats." "He's been slumping all spring. This is the longest cold streak I've seen him have." "yes, I know, he's always been a streaky hitter, but this takes the cake."

Great mill vid Spitz. Thanks !

Desper-otto, I know I don't know. I'm still stuck on DMD.

I'll often solve a puzzle and have no knowledge of the clue or answer. Today, some of those were ORI, ELIOT, KEL, GUSTAVE and REX. But if they fit and the perps look good, I'll leave them. Eventually I'll learn the word with enough repetition and blog discussion.

We all have our different bases of knowledge, and some people are simply smarter than others. I'm at the other end.

Gotta run. Have an 8th grade graduation party to get ready for... :>)

Husker Gary said...

Trekkies!

TTP said...

OOPs, I phrased that wrong the second time. Should have left it the same way it was the first time.

The Star Trek version of wannabes ?

HG, you were so close ! Their arch enemy.

I'm getting in trouble with the frau. The party started at 3 and I guess we were supposed to be there at 3.

Bill G. said...

Boy, Saturdays are hard for me and this was even a little harder than usual. I would never have finished without red letters telling me when a letter that I had entered was wrong. There were some clever clues though; for example, "Busses in Birmingham" = SNOGS. It got me since I was thinging of Alabama, not England. Also, "Hated the book", "Service providers" and "Frost bit." Hard but clever stuff.

Speaking of Frost bit, perhaps because of CA's influence, I have always found poetry by Robert Frost to be insightful, thought-provoking, emotional and accessible. He's my hands-down favorite.

Unlike Splynter, I was familiar with AS ALL GET OUT. (I grew up in NE Virginia.) But PIGEON DROP! Aha! That's what the beginning con in The Sting was called. I loved the movie and have watched it several times.

I always used to think that panty hose were a big loss in the sexiness quotient but leave it to Splynter to find a picture that makes me rethink my position.

TTP, I love Nepenthe!

Lucina said...

Hello, weekend warriors!
Super blogging, Splynter, I salute you!

This was really difficult and I didn't finish thanks to AS ALL GET OUT which I've heard but wouldn't come to me. MANDIBULAR was my first fill and helped the entire east to fill. I love SPOONERISMs so that was fun.

When it comes to strange (to me) names I have no qualms about researching because that is how I learn and hopefully embed it in my brain.

The center gave me a headache. APU is one I've learned here, but just could not grok the phrase. Believe it or not, I erased PISTOLEER three times, but wouldn't accept it. Ah, silly me.

Well thank you, Peter Collins. for a really rigorous challenge.

I'm off to a family party and have a guest all weekend.

Have a super Saturday, everyone!

PK said...

I had another email from my daughter in Florida. She said they'd had rain: "quite a bit, actually" but she didn't know it had anything to do with a hurricane. She said they just did "indoor things". This is a perfect example of "ignorance is bliss". I've got to stop watching the weather channel.

Bill G. said...

I'm really enjoying the brand-new Dodger, Cuban defector Yasiel Puig. In four games, he's added some spark to the moribund Dodgers. From right field, he threw a runner out at first. He's hit four home runs including a grand slam. He went four-for-four, etc. I hope he doesn't get a big head but some of the Latino Dodgers seem to be taking him under their wings.

Montana said...

I enjoy reading your expo, Splynter, even if I struggled with the puzzle.

Thanks,

Montana

CrossEyedDave said...

I was not even going to post, having cheated miserably to get through this Saturday Stumper. Thank you Splynter for all the explanations. But I must read the Blog, as I can always count on someone to post something interesting.

Spitz @ 1:56pm Awesome! I watched all 14 minutes & 26 seconds! (If you didn't watch it, the 1st 11 minutes are what happens, then @ 11:30 they explain what you saw.) But if I were going to build my own steam engine, I just don't understand how the dang thingie works!

Note, even after watching the above link, I had to watch 3 other clips to finally understand the valving mechanism that allows steam to enter the cylinder to push the piston, & then enter the cylinder from the other side to push it back again...

CrossEyedDave said...

Hmm, slow nite, I guess no one will mind if I post a better link I found of how a steam engine works.

Manac said...

Dave, Well I can't bust your chops about today. I failed this one miserably also. Just couldn't a solid foothold anywhere. When I finally went to cheat mode I was looking at a sea of Red! Makes me look forward to Silkies.

61Rampy said...

CED: Maybe checking out Jay Leno's video Here may help. Or not. It IS interesting, however. Jay is into steam things big time, so check it out.

61Rampy said...

If you are interested in Jay Leno's amazing collection of things, This is where you can find it.

Manac said...

Rampy, Uncanny.. I just recently watched a documentary about Jay Leno and all his steam engines. Including two automobiles that were unbelievable once fired up.

Pookie said...

CED:"I was not even going to post, having cheated miserably to get through this Saturday Stumper."
Yeah, me too.
I was NOT going to be defeated today on paper and pencil.
So I went to Mensa site and used red letters and a few peeks at letters to finish in an astounding 29 minutes and something.
C.C., once again I want to thank you for this corner, where one can come and find explanations and answers that would probably drive us crazy.
Sallie! please check in, we are concerned about you.
Even for a "sec"!

Bill G. said...

Spitz, that is a beautiful old steam engine and cleverly designed related equipment. It's old but well-designed and seems to do its intended job perfectly. It would be a day well-spent for me just wandering around, watching and learning how all of that old machinery does what it does. I love how those old guys could put together all the smartness that a steam engine entails.

I also love beautiful old steam locomotives like the one featured in "Murder on the Orient Express."

I am going to look into buying a kit so that Jordan and I can make a working-model steam engine. Anybody have any recommendations?

Pookie said...

Yes, Bill G.
Google "steam engine kits"!
Just kidding. :-)
I'm sure SOMEONE here will be able to guide you to a website.
Guys?

61Rampy said...

BillG: I suppose if you had zillions of $$$, a couple of years of absolutely nothing to do, a lathe, milling machine and untold patience, you could build a miniature V12 . I'm sure you could do a steam engine too....

Moodnuck said...

I hate to digress, but apart from a nasty puzzle that was full of bad spelling, the same J Leno is the guy who single handedly screwed many car collectors by having his agents stop at nothing to obtain classic cars at auction. Cant stand the guy and his deep pockets. So there!! Back to the damn puzzle now!!