google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Monday, August 9, 2010 Jeff Chen

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Aug 9, 2010

Monday, August 9, 2010 Jeff Chen

Theme: *ULUS - Two-word phrases with ULUS as the ending of the first word. If there is more than that to it, I can't see it. Disambiguation page.

17A. Economy-boosting government program : STIMULUS PACKAGE Perhaps this was the seed entry.

28A. Exam with derivatives and integrals : CALCULUS TEST

49A. Puffy sky feature : CUMULUS CLOUD

64A. Rome's twin founders, traditionally : ROMULUS AND REMUS. Total 13 letter Us in this grid. Hard to pull it off, as U is harder to place than E, or A or other vowels.

Argyle here.

I hope Jeff may show up to enlighten us on his thought process on this ambitious Monday puzzle. Now if it seemed easy to many of you; it may be because we've seen many entries before, recently (not the theme entries, which are all very fresh.)

Across:

1. Sound near an ineffective scarecrow : CAW

4. Electrical pioneer Nikola : TESLA

9. Scandinavian inlet : FJORD

14. Chef's phrase : À LA

15. Healing plants : ALOES

16. Apple pie maker's device : CORER

20. Ex-UN chief Annan : KOFI. This
man.

21. GPS suggestions : RTES

22. Greek vowels : ETAS

23. Apt name for a herding dog : SHEP As in shepherd.

26. Wedgelike tools : CHISELS

32. __ Miss : OLE. The University of Mississippi

33. Game originally named "The Conquest of the World" : "RISK" A game that takes forever to get going but ends in a hurry.

34. Gold or silver, e.g. : MEDAL. I was stuck on METAL for a long time

38. Baldwin of "30 Rock" : ALEC

40. Line spoken to the audience : ASIDE

43. Actor's assignment : ROLE

44. Big name in chicken : TYSON

46. She gets what she wants : LOLA

48. Wall Street index, with "the" : DOW. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA).

53. Hall of Fame Celtic whose initials are his given name : KC JONES. Basketball player and coach.

56. Spanish cat : GATO

57. Pakistan neighbor : IRAN

58. Benelux country: Abbr. : NETH. The Benelux is an economic union in Western Europe that comprises three neighbouring countries, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

60. Strong-jawed device : VISE

68. Makes a scarf, say : KNITS

69. One-eighty : U-TURN

70. Dot on a die : PIP

71. Dost lay one's eyes on : SEEST. It's in the book, the Good Book.

72. "For __ sake!" : PETE'S

73. Messy place : STY

Down:

1. Sherry container : CASK. Sherry is a fortified wine made from white grapes that are grown near the town of Jerez, Spain. The word "sherry" is an anglicization of Jerez. It is stored in 600-litre casks that are made of North American oak, which is slightly more porous than French or Spanish oak.

2. Choir part : ALTO

3. Homeless child : WAIF

4. Cross shape : TAU

5. Bent pipe shape : ELL

6. One with a grumpy scowl : SOURPUSS

7. "__ we forget" : LEST

8. Appearance : ASPECT

9. TV monitoring gp. : FCC. Federal Communications Commission

10. Wisecrack maker : JOKESTER

11. Give a speech : ORATE

12. Fit for a king : REGAL

13. Word with sun or evening : DRESS

18. Catchall abbr. : MISC

19. Tennis legend Arthur : ASHE

24. "Ben-__" : HUR

25. "East of Eden" director Kazan : ELIA. "East of Eden" is a 1955 film, directed by Elia Kazan, and loosely based on the second half of the novel East of Eden by author John Steinbeck. It had James Dean in his first major screen role.

27. Belief: Suff. : ISM

28. __ of arms : COAT

29. Comrade in arms : ALLY

30. Wranglers alternative : LEES

31. Proficiency : SKILL

35. Knucklehead : DODO

36. Baseball's Felipe or Moises : ALOU

37. Ribald : LEWD

39. Hard-shelled palm fruits : COCONUTS

41. Dunked morning snack : DOUGHNUT

42. Film lioness : ELSA. Nice
kitty.

45. Sister : NUN

47. "Sister __": Whoopi Goldberg film : ACT

50. List of choices : MENU

51. Runs out of : USES UP

52. Score before 15, in tennis : LOVE

53. Actor Douglas and baseballer Gibson : KIRKS. Gibson was an outfielder who batted and threw left-handed. He spent most of his career with the Detroit Tigers but also played for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Kansas City Royals, and Pittsburgh Pirates.

54. Witch : CRONE

55. Farr or Foxx : JAMIE. Corporal (later Sergeant) Maxwell Q. Klinger(Farr) or actor, stand-up comedian, and singer(Foxx)

59. London's __ Britain art gallery : TATE

61. Rascals : IMPS

62. Three-piece attire, maybe : SUIT

63. Glimpse : ESPY

65. WWII transport : LST. Landing Ship, Tank

66. Dr. of rap : DRE

67. Dr.'s co-workers : RNS. NOT Dr. Dre's.

Answer grid.

Argyle

51 comments:

Hahtoolah said...

Good Morning, CC, Argyle and all. Not much to add to your commentary, Argyle. It was a pretty easy Monday puzzle. I caught on that the theme was ULUS, and wondered how you could title this theme.

Since Nikola TESLA has become our crossword companion, we might as well get a look at him.

I initially thought of Levi instead of LEES for Wranglers alternative. The first 2 letters fit, but Alec Baldwin corrected that.

Funny how MEDAL and Metal are both apt responses for Gold or Silver. The word is often "misspoken" in conversation.

QOD: The chief barrier to happiness is envy. ~ Frank Tyger

HeartRx said...

Good Morning Argyle et al.

Easy Monday puzzle, since we have seen several of the clues recently.

Argyle and Hahtool, I also had “METAL” for 34a, but “TODO” for 35d “Knucklehead”? Huh? OH – “T” ! DUH !!

I loved the clue for 46A “LOLA”. She certainly does get what she wants in the 1955 song by that name, sung by Gwen Verdon in Damn Yankees. But my first thought was a very different Lola who lost her love, lost her Tony, Lost her youth and lost her mind in this song sung by
Barry Manilow?

Also loved 69a “One-Eighty” for UTURN. Clever clues, and a great start for the week!

Lemonade714 said...

Morning Argyle and troops, this was a pretty simple Monday. The theme was new, with many long words, but nothing too tricky.

KIRK GIBSON in addition to being a past Worlds Series hero, is now manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Thanks for the info on Sherry; who knew?

Tinbeni said...

Great write-up Argyle.

Maybe Jeff gave us the theme at 69-A with UTURN.
Seems like today it was 'U's turn to shine.
Just curious is this the most 'U's' ever in a LAT?

Hahtool, thanks for the pic of TESLA. Rather see him all the time than that atra razor.

Other than FJORD, KOFI & SEEST everything else was a pretty straight-forward Monday fare.

Spitzboov said...

Good morning fellow solvers. Nice write-up, Argyle.

Agree with previous comments. Easy solve, today. One pass and it was done. Didn't know KCJONES but was easily gotten from the perps.

GATO - One of our favorite inexpensive wines is 'Gato Negro' from Chile.

LST - We seem to get this one often. Here is a picture of the USS Greer County LST-799, on which I served for 4 days in 1958, as part of a training cruise. It was based at Long Beach, CA, then. LST's are named after counties or parishes. (Greer County is in Oklahoma.)

Have a good day.

Mainiac said...

Morning Argyle, CC and All,

Pretty much the same experience on this rainy, humid morning. Aside and Elsa needed perp help. Wrote in Chisel but thought I spelled it wrong and immediately erased it. Felt dumb when the perps filled that in!

Raided the garden this weekend. Cukes, peppers (jalapenos and Bells), beans and peas. Cherry tomatoes are starting to come. Made more bread and butter pickles and we'll be canning tomatoes and making salsa in a couple weeks. Feels good to sit down at work!

Have a great Monday.

Barry G. said...

Morning, all!

I got back from London late Friday night (we had a great time), only to discover my home computer was kaput. The shop says it's the motherboard and they are looking for a replacement that won't require the OS to be re-installed. So I had to wait until I got back into the office to access the internet. And speaking of the office, I will be making the transition sometime this week to working at home full time, since the office is closing for good this Friday. It certainly beats being unemployed, but I'm honestly not looking all that forward to it...

Oh, yes -- there was a puzzle! A very fine puzzle, actually. I had a few missteps (SOREHEAD instead of SOURPUSS at 6D, DOPE for DODO at 35D and SEXY for LEWD at 37D), but everything smoothed itself out pretty quickly.

And no, we didn't get a chance to visit the TATE while in London. We did see the Natural History Museum (Joshua loved the dinosaur wing), the London Zoo, the London Aquarium and the London Science Museum, however, so I don't feel too culturally deprived... ^_^

Dennis said...

Good morning, C.C. and gang - a pretty typical Monday puzzle, but boy, what a lulu of a theme! Very ingenious, and I'm sure, very tough to pull off. And I agree with Tinbeni, I think 'U-turn' was Jeff's tip-off.

Fell into the same trap as Argyle and HeartRx with 'metal', but other than that, a pretty straight shot.

Speaking of straight shots, my speed run, wasn't. Who knew that the entire population of Baltimore would be returning home yesterday afternoon? Bumper-to-bumper, or stopped, for a good two hours leading into B'more, and then I met up with the entire population of D.C., who must've spent the weekend in Baltimore. Bottom line, I'm in Quantico VA, and after an hour or two at the new Marine Corps Museum here, I'll see if I can't put several more states behind me.

Spitzboov, I was on LST-1157, the Terrell County, for Operation Backpack, a (training) beach assault in Taiwan with the Chinese Marines, back in '63 or '64. Caught the periphery of a typhoon on the trip back and on a boat like that, it was an interesting ride.

BarryG, welcome back - sounds like you had a great time.

Hope it's a great day for everyone.

Lemonade714 said...

Tinman, I like how you think; U turn it is! Manny Nosowsky used 19 "U"s in his February 16, 1996 puzzle in the NY Times.

HeartRx said...

@Spitzboov,

Thanks for the picture of your LST. It turns up in puzzles quite often, and I always (briefly) wondered what they were, but never took the time to actually look it up! So today I learned not only are they named for parishes or counties, but "LST" stands for "Landing Ship, Tank".

Tinbeni and Dennis, you guys are way sharper than I this morning. Whizzed right by the "U-TURN" connection to the theme, even though I mentioned that I loved the clue :-P

@Lemonade,
Did you pull that info about the number of "U"s in a LAT xword from your memory bank??? Or is there a way to access the archives to check these little gems? Just curious !!

John Lampkin said...

Good morning all,

@ Heart Rx: Not to speak for Lemonade for sure, but
here is the NYT record database maintained by Jim Horne.

As I said a few weeks ago when we had a record number of H's, what we need is a volunteer to do something similar for the LAT. The idea has the strong support of Rich and many others, so if you are interested in helping out in any way shape or form, drop me a line at JohnLampkin@JohnLampkin.com

Congrats to Jeff! Loved the echoes peppered around.

For any newbies here, C.C. did a great interview with Jeff. Check it out on the sidebar of page one.

Happy solving while we pray for rain here in the Hudson Valley.

Grumpy 1 said...

Good morning all ye puzzling people. I started off quite well, getting a chuckle out of the cute clue for CAW. I Filled the first two rows and then hit a dead end. Tried "ill intentioned" but that didn't fit. "Well intentioned" fit but left some strange looking perps to fill. Tried to work in "non existent" but that didn't work either. Finally skipped it until the next row and the perps filled it in.

Clever theme but also pretty easy. Just the way a Monday should be. Have to engage the brain cells slowly...

Another hand up for METAL and the Doh! response (with an appropriate smack to the forehead). Sort of felt like a DODO for not seeing it until the crosscheck.

We had a great weekend, but now have to start thinking about all of the things that need to be taken care of before we head to London at the end of the month.

Have a great day, everyone.

Vidwan said...

Good morning err.. midday everyone.

Argyle, your blog was fantastic ( ... greta blog ) and nice linkup and explanations. Too bad, no scotch ... but I'll take some sherry this evening, in your honor.

Some Math terms : Calculus and 180o turns. Mr. Chen may be a math aficionado. I used to know a calculus joke ... but can't remember the punch line ...

The puzzle was relatively easy ... boosted my self esteem. I wish it was Monday, every day !

For Silver and Gold, I had Noble ( metal) for medal ... but self corrected. Did you know that one ounce of Gold or silver can be manually hammered into a film atleast 640 square feet ? ... mechanically it can be made 2000 times as large.

Silver foil is very commonly pasted on Indian sweets ( ...sweetmeats) to make them look 'pretty'. The foil is so thin,that it is easily ingested, no taste,( and no turning 'blue' either ... ) and will pass through your system with nary a look, and then out into the world ... to be lost forever. There are over 60,000 people employed in the silver beating industry , the silver is beaten between sheets/ leaves of calf vellum, probably thousands of times, with heavy steel mallets.


HeartRx: thanks for the Copacabana linkup ... set my heart rocking ... aah, those were the days ... now my Monday, and my week is starting out on the right foot !

Have a great week guys !

Tinbeni said...

Barry G
Welcome back, glad you had a great trip.
Working from home isn't so bad, my commute is ... 20 feet? Rush hour, 10 seconds?
What you'll miss the most is the human interaction with your co-workers. It's why I check in here quite a few times during the day.

John
Thanks for the X-Word info link. I added it to my favorites for future reference and fun reading.

DODO
How could I forget?
This had a "shout-out" to you.

Also liked its tribute to LOLA.
The DRESS LEWD stack.

creature said...

good morning c.c.,argyle and everyone... this was almost a breeze,with one small 'metal' block. really enjoyed the 'ulus'es..like a monday morning kiss..perps and all. our paper only shows the theme and author on sundays. i'm really enjoying your interviews,c.c.,with the constructors[i never knew that's what they were called],and i am learning so much from all the brainy,funny bloggers. my crossword experience has growen by leaps and bounds,since i bumped into your blog. thanks so much to everyone.

Dudley said...

Hello Puzzlers -

Another paw in the air for METAL. Impressive accomplishment, squeezing all those U's in the grid.

I don't use Cruciverb enough to know all its secrets, but yesterday I was Jonesin' for another puzzle and went looking. CV offered up a clever construction by Merle Reagle titled "Octopuzz", my first one ever to combine numerals (all eights) in the solution. The 21x21 grid was cleverly arranged so that the black squares formed the outline of an "8". A grand piece of work!

Husker Gary said...

Happy 8/9/10 (eight,nine, ten)

Easy Monday but was on the DODO/TODO - MEDAL/METAL band wagon.

Only calculus joke I know:

Alcohol and calculus don't mix. Never drink and derive.

JD said...

Good morning Argyle, C.C. et al,

We're back from our excursion up the foggy coast to Oregon.Oregon = coast was in the c/w the day we arrived, but none of us sat around doing a puzzle.Had a great 2 days with Carol and Dick. It was like we were old friends.All of us, when planning this trip, got odd remarks from friends who thought we were crazy.Dick or Carol will send pictures.

This was a nice puzzle to get back into the groove.Noticed the ulus when finished and thought it was a strange theme.WAG for the T in neth/Tate, as they were both unknowns.I never think of sherry as wine, so it didn't jump out at me(not much does). I only use sherry for cooking- can't stand the smell.Think I had one too many playing Canasta one night with my parents when I was 18.

Does anyone else sing along when watching Sister Act? Great arrangements, but very silly movie.

Elsa (Born Free) reminded me of another lion, Christian, who was released in Africa, after living in London.At the end of this clip, the lion has a reunion with his "owners" after being separated for 2 yrs, a tear jerker.The story was on TV a few wks ago.

Barry, welcome back.

Dodo, why do they keep picking on you in these puzzles? Your pictures with Lucina were fun to see.

MJ, what a beautiful family you have.

Melissa B, happy belated birthday!

Lois, I'm thinkin' good thoughts for you. You are 1 in 100,000!

Bob said...

Hello again to everyone. Just returned from a couple of weeks in London, so it was interesting to find a reference to the Tate Britain gallery in today's puzzle. I spent an afternoon there during my first weekend in London. Started with a nice walk across the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern and then took the ferry down the Thames to the Tate Britain. The next day I spent the afternoon at Farnborough for the last day of the Air Show. We did lots of other interesting things also, but now I'm glad to be home. I particularly won't miss the enormous crowds of people in central London every day.

Today's puzzle was pretty easy, although I managed to overlook 35D and put METAL instead of MEDAL at 34A. 11 minutes.

bestbird said...

JD, thank you for that clip of Christian the lion. As a gato person who is in love with all the ones I've shared life with over the years, I teared up so bad I couldn't see my computer screen.

My husband and I are in the metal/medal club. Did anyone else put in Ben-Gay before correcting to Ben-Hur? Or Royal instead of Regal? (Fer Pete's sake.)

Good Monday to you all!

Jazzbumpa said...

Hi gang -

Fun puzzle today. Seems like an odd idea for a theme. Does anyone remember something similar?

Up to my elbows in grandkiddies.

Adios for now.

Cheers!
JzB

Lucina said...

Good morning fellow puzzlers!

Good work, Argyle. I have learned more about alcohol and its consumption from this blog than from any other source.

Jerez is a lovely old city with a prominent castle which was converted to a hotel. It was fun to stay there.

What a nice puzzle from Jeff Chen; one pass and it was done with many smiles along the way. But hands up for METAL and our dear DODO although i had TODO for the longest time.

And it was clear that SEEST belonged at 71A but it took me a while to reconcile myself to it.

TESLA, KOFI and KIRKS were familiar, but not KCJONES. I learn something every day.

Bill G.:
Welcome back. It's great that you enjoyed London with your family.

Grumpy 1:
Late last night I read your post; thank you for the reply. I thought I had heard that iguanas lived in Florida, but wasn't sure.

Have a special Monday everyone!

Lucina said...

We love the movie Sister Act, I and II. My granddaughter and I wathced it over the weekend while she was here. It's a good singalong as has been mentioned.

Widwan:
Fascinating about the silver and gold sheeting. Thank you.

Vidwan said...

Here is the Calculus joke:

An optimist and a pessimist are sitting in a diner, and the pessimist is sounding off on the poor math skills of 'average' Americans. But the optimist keeps disputing the point.

When the pessimist gets up and goes to the restroom, the optimist hurriedly beckons the waitress over.

He tells her, 'I need you to remember one phrase ... one third X cubed ...ok ? ... can you do it ?'

The waitress says ' One third what ?'
OPT:...'one third X cubed '...
Waitress: .. one third X whaat ? '
OPT : ... ' One third X cubed ...'

So, the waitress walks away, repeating ' ... one third x cubed. one third x cubed ...'

When the pessimist returns to the table, the optimist says ...' I'll bet you a dollar, that that waitress, out there, knows calculus ...'.

When the pessimist scoffs at that, the optimist calls the waitress over, and asks her ...' what is the integral of x squared dx ?'

The waitress says ' ... one third x cubed ...'

As the waitress turns to walk away, the optimist points his finger, and tells the pessimist ..."...Aha, I told you so ...'

Then the waitress, partially turns around and says ' ... Ofcourse, technically, you have to add a constant of integration ...'.



To those who don't get the joke ,

.... have no fear, savants here ...

In the spirit of inclusiveness, I would like to offer the next person, to parse the joke for all of us ....

Gunghy said...

Hand up for metal, and to add to the confusion, I couldn't remember Dow's NAME. Or Tyson's, or Lola's or KC's. Got Tesla, but even put in LANDS for 72A. It took a second pass to cure my errors.

A stroke for myself... I'm a Kirk.

Vidwan, hope I'm not next, I barely passed Calculus. I like to claim that I hit the wall, but in reality, I was majoring in social life that year. But you don't need to understand calculus to realize that that is a funny joke.

Too bad Jeff couldn't have worked in LULU as a clue.

Gunghy said...

AW, I forgot:
Barry, Bob and JD... Welcome home. Glad all went well.

Don't believe I've greeted Creature or HuskerGary, either. Always glad to see positive additions.

Jerome said...

Upon further reflection, it's a Star Trek theme.

Jayce said...

Hi everybody.

Man oh man I got caught in the same "d'oh" situation with METAL and TODO also. Interesting how my brain would not even think of MEDAL even though I just knew the down entry had to be DODO, not TODO.

And yes, I pencilled in ROYAL and had to change it to REGAL.

As a youth I was very, perhaps overly, impressed with the Edgar Allen Poe story "The Cask of Amontillado" so CASK came easily.

I really liked this puzzle a lot, even though it was Monday easy-squeezy. I love long fills, and even though this puzzle has plenty of three-letter entries and abbreviations/acronyms, which I usually don't care for, I never once got that "Meh" feeling that some three-letter give me. Thank you, Jeff Chen.

Tesla is getting to be a familiar character on these pages.

Barry G, welcome back. Sorry that your computer died; I hope you can get it fixed as good as new. About working from home, it is indeed far better than being unemployed. I also work mostly from home, and I trust that after a while you'll get settled inot your home "office" and grow to enjoy it as much as I do. Good luck to you!

Dennis, sorry your speed run wasn't. Ah, the frustration of being stalled in heavy traffic for hours on end.

Good jokes, Husker Harry and Vidwan :)

Glad you had a good time, JD. I love the Oregon coast!

Lois, glad you are getting more or less mobile, and I hope you "knit" well, thoroughly, and soon.

Well, I'm off to the Apple store to get a "bumper" for my new iPhone. Best wishes to you all.

Splynter said...

Good afternoon all ~

Vidwan, that "C" was the reason why I gave up on calculus - it seemed like you could "fudge" all the answers to fit in calc.

Did anyone else spend WAY too much time playing RISK? I would race to a friend's house in high school to get in a few rounds of this or the newer, faster version, Castle Risk, during lunch and 'study hall'. And yes, it did take forever to get the game started, but once a player fell out, that pretty much sealed up the game for the overtaker.

Ditto for METAL MEDAL.

Splynter

Jeannie said...

This was a fun and easy puzzle this morning. It couldn’t have been easy cluing all of those “u’s”. My hand’s up for metal instead of medal too. I did need some perp help with KC Jones, Neth, Seest, and Alou. Tyson was a gimmee as that is where I buy all the chicken products for Burger King. Here’s a shout out to my customer service rep Dianne. (She’s a lurker). Cross shape – tau is a new one for me today. It’s still unbearable hot here in MN. I hope we don’t jump from summer to winter. Fall is my favorite season.

Barry it sounds like you had an enjoyable trip. Too bad you didn’t know Bob was going to be there at the same time. I

Dennis, I hope the chili dogs were worth your traffic woes.

John Lampkin said...

Ah, yes, Gunghy! LULUS BACK IN TOWN with 15 letters could have been a center entry. Of course 5 entries like like that would have been a suicide mission for Jeff in terms of fill.

"LULUS Back in Town" here performed by Fats Waller:

LULUS

Widwan, great joke. My father had calculus on his teeth, btw.

windhover said...

Spitzboov and Dennis,
My Dad spent his entire government sponsored Pacific vacation aboard LSD-3, the USS Carter Hall. I can't link on iPhone (hell, or anywhere else), but if you Google LSD-3, the first item is a picture of the ship during the invasion of Guam. He was onboard at the time the pic was taken. I have heard of that period many times.

lois said...

Good afternoon Argyle, CC, et al., This was a very enjoyable speed run - so fast that I missed a lot of the clues. Fell for 'metal' first too but went right to our favorite 'dodo' to fix the 'medal' error. Loved seeing 'cask' and risk together w/our ever vigilant popo's around here anxious to award DUI's. Also loved seeing dress and lewd in the same puzzle w/Lola...no 'sour puss' in that scenario...maybe sour grapes for some. I hope to see more of Jeff Chen.

Welcome home to all the travelers. London is one busy place for us here.

JD, Dodo, Jeannie, Jayce, thanks for the well wishes. I'm getting the hang of walking w/a cane and should be w/out that in a couple of days. Then I will be kicking some 'ashe'! I've been 'dow'n and quiet way too long.

Dodo: as to the other, I think the stretching is what I'm going to do. What did your dad have and do about it? email me if you want.

Ok, I don't get the calculus joke at all. Math is far from my preferred suit (actually a 3 piece pinstripe on a handsome man is more to my liking and I can do that math just fine by being careful...1 + 1 = 2).

Chickie said...

Hello All--A great Monday puzzle to boost the ego. I enjoyed the ulus ending theme phrases.

My hand goes up for Medal/Metal. Our Dodo is anything BUT a knucklehead! But Dodo, isn't it fun to see your "name" in the puzzle?

I enjoyed seeing the Sister and "Sister__" Whoopi's film right next to each other in the clues.

Vidwan, very interesting facts about Silver beating. I never knew!

Barry and Bob, sounds as if your London trips were wonderful. I hope there will be pictures to share.

JD, We're all anxiously awaiting the pictures of your trip to the Coast.

Another entry for my dictionary is Pip for the dot on a die. I didn't know that definition of the word.

Have a wonderful beginning of the week. Apples are calling.

ARBAON said...

Had to go all the way back to college geography for "Benelux." Couldn`t get vacuum cleaners out of my mind! "Fjord" came from the same European geog. course. Learned that what we call "half-timbering" is really called "Fach werk" in European countries where it`s prevalent. (and I learned that in, you guessed it!
Some ancient pseudo history (Romulus and Remus), a Latin show girl (Lola) and What Kramden called Alice ( A pip) A very well-rounded puzzle.

Vidwan: To assume a server would not know calculus terms is very un pc and the butt...excuse me, the point of the joke.

Reminds me of the one about Billy Graham in which he supposedly told his driver, "I`m tired tonight. You`ve heard all my sermons and answers. How about putting on a suit and my glasses and speaking for me tonight while I wear your cap and rest on the back seat." He agreed to and when the q and a part came, a person stood up and said, "Mr. Graham, just where does God come from?" The driver smiled and answered, "Why, Sir, that is such a simple question that I`ll just let my driver sitting on the back seat answer it!"

Al said...

@Lois, the calc joke is basically that the waitress was thought of as being dense and was being set up to cheat to win an easy bet. Instead, she already knew the correct answer better than the prof did and actually had to correct him because he had it wrong.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone else have problem accessing Hotmail?

dodo said...

Morning all,

I'm off and running so can['t stay long. Had to tell you all that I have a hand up for 'metal' and worse!, because of my bad habit of not proofing, I didn't even see 'todo' until I got here! Oh, my bad!

Must run,have a good one, Knucklehead

Chickie said...

Dodo I laughed out loud at your comments today. What a hoot.

MJ, from yesterday. I wanted to tell you what a great looking family you have. You can be very proud of them all.

Creature and Best Bird, Welcome. I'm glad that you have come aboard to enjoy the banter. I'm afraid I haven't welcomed all the Newbies, but know that I haven't intentionally left anyone out.

Thank you, Hahtool for the picture of Tesla since he seems to have become our new "Best friend" here on the CW.

Crockett1947 said...

Jerome, maybe it's an Alaskan native knife puzzle!

Chickie, watch out for those apple pips!

BarryG, nice to see you back. Greetings to all of the new posters. This is a great group and we're getting even better with your input.

Anonymous said...

Lois: I think the joke was that the optimist was being a pessimist about wether the waitress..er..I mean server knew calculus.

MJ said...

Good afternoon, C.C., Argyle and friends. Nice write-up, Argyle.

Even though the puzzle finished easily, I thoroughly enjoyed the sparkling fill. Thanks, Jeff Chen. Well done.

Argyle-Interesting information about the sherry cask.

Thanks to all for the continued shout-outs about our family photo.

BillG-I responded to your question from last night off-line.

Welcome back to the travelers, Barry G., Bob, and JD!

We leave early tomorrow for our trip to Colorado. We'll be staying in a cabin in Drake that was built by DH's great-grandparents about 100 years ago. It's currently owned by cousins who are graciously allowing us to use it for the week. It has most basic amenities, but no computer, telephone, or TV. We plan to do a lot of hiking, and even more front porch sitting, visiting with extended family. Our son Oliver and his family flew up there this afternoon, so we're looking forward to time with them, as well.

"See" y'all in about a week.

Enjoy the evening!

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed today's puzzle after stumbling on several last week. No matter enjoy LAT daily crossword puzzles.

Vidwan827 said...

Testing, testing, testing

Jayce said...

I see you, Vidwan827. It seems to be working.

Warren said...

Hi Argyle, C.C. & gang, A quick puzzle, I finished it in under 8 minutes after my wife left for work.

It struck me as a unique day today when I wrote down 8/9/10,

Here's what's special about today:

* Betty Boop's Birthday
Created in 1930.

* International Day of the World's Indigenous People

* National Rice Pudding Day

Jayce said...

Ooooooooo! Rice pudding! LOL

Amazing what they'll make a pudding out of , isn't it! Suet, even! Old bread ... old rice ... blood ...

Anonymous said...

Warren:

I think we are ALL indigenous to this world, except for Dolly the cloned sheep... and maybe Neil Armstrong,and others, who had moved to the moon, ... and some raucous Martians, in my back yard, who play the loud Lady Gaga music, next to their hot tub.

ARBAON said...

Lois: How do you afford that mansion in the background on a school teacher`s salary?

Spitzboov said...

@ Windhover and Dennis

Yep, that's the 'gator Navy. I did not know that the Carter Hall and the other (Ashland) class LSD's were powered by 2 Skinner reciprocating steam engines (250psi) developing 7400 SHP. The LST's were powered by Diesel engines. (LST-799 by 2 General Motors 900HP diesels and could do 12 kts)

Jeff Chen said...

Hi all! Sorry for stopping by late. Anyone there anymore? =]

Wish I could take credit for the UTURN mini-theme, but alas, no. I had originally conceived of this as an ULUS theme, but Rich wanted to run it as a Monday, and ULUS isn't a very Monday-ish word. HE helped me figure out what was straightforward enough and what wasn't (UNRUH, as in Jesse Unruh, was part of my first pass, what was I thinking?).

Anyway, glad it provided some entertainment!

Jeff