Theme: Initial names and more. Each theme answer takes the name of a famous person who is known by his initials, and adds a new letter to the end of the initials to create an in the society expression. The answers are pretty cool, and I really was a little taken back by 1A being a theme answer. We have:
1A. Fantasy author and forensic pathologist?: CSI LEWIS. C S Lewis has reached new audiences with the movies made from his Chronicles of Narnia. His life was depicted in one of my all time favorite movies, Shadowlands. It is impossible to have avoided all the CSI shows on television, though it looks like they are finally fading.
22A. Behaviorist and teen confidant?: BFF SKINNER. As a psychology major, there was much debate between ways to modify human behavior; Freud with analysis and B F Skinner who believed you could train humans like rats, simply reward or punish behavior. He was known as the rat psychologist, which did not make him my BFF, BEST FRIEND FOREVER.
33A. Huckster and school supporter?: PTA BARNUM. Phineas T. Barnum was a showman, with little respect for his audience. He probably never went to a Parent Teacher Association meeting.
49A. British novelist and medic?: EMT FORSTER. This author wrote a few very interesting BOOKS , not to be confused with C S Forester who wrote Horatio Hornblower novels. Neither of them were Emergency Medical Techinicians.
63A. Children's author and roadside helper? : AAA MILNE. Mr. Milne was the author of the beloved Winnie the Pooh series (which we read in Latin, Winnie Ille Pu) and like Forster and Lewis a British author. American Automobile Association has been helping drivers for years.
Lemonade here, having horrendous computer problems, having had this post go blooey and redone four times, I am giving up on all the links for this week, perhaps I can get some in during the day. I liked the theme and its consistency, now let's see what else we have hidden to find.
Across:
9. Jah worshipers: RASTAS. The divine being in the Rastafarian religion, the name likely derived from the famous tetragrammaton of Judaism, YHVH, Yahweh.
15. Reason for a pass: LATENESS. I did not get the boys to school late often, but have to go in an get them a pass was always unpleasant.
16. Strike caller: UMPIRE. Balls and strikes.
17. German shepherd: ALSATIAN. Wonderful dogs.
18. Some special forces headgear: BERETS. Who among us did not love the Ballad of the Green Berets.
19. It merged with Kmart in 2005: SEARS. When I was a kid we lived in a town so small all we had was a Sears catalog store. Learned a lot from those catalogs.
20. Hairy: PILAR. Our first Latin of the day, from PILUS meaning hair. You wonder if people like Deion Sanders who married a girl with that name, looks at her and sees her as hairy?
21. High sch. VIPs: SRS. Seniors.
27. At first blush: INITIALLY. What a quaint little phrase.
30. Teen follower?: AGERS. One of the many ways suffixes are described to confuse.
31. Infer: CONSTRUE. Dictionaries list INFER and IMPLY as synonymous; Nero Wolfe is rolling over in his fictional grave.
32. Indeed: YEA. There really are many 3 letter words in this offering.
38. Toon dynamo, familiarly: TAZ. The Tazmanian Devil, very cute.
41. Inspiration for the Frisbee: PIE PLATE. Since all the flying saucers in the movies in those days were pie plates, this makes lots of sense.
45. Lieu: STEAD. Almost a legal term.
48. Time, for one: DIMENSION. Einstein's theory of relativity made time the 4th dimension.
51. CD-__: ROM. Compact Disc-Read-Only Memory.
52. Droid in every "Star Wars" film: ARTOO. DEETO, the little one.
53. Sweet cake that's an Easter tradition in Eastern Europe: BABKA.
55. Spots: ESPIES.
57. University of Cincinnati team: BEARCATS. One of the many teams beaten by UConn on their most recent trip to the NCAA Basketball championship.
60. Gangster's gun, in old-timey slang: ROSCOE. A gat, a piece and so many more. Has anyone read Hammet and Chandler?
61. Permits: ENTITLES. I had trouble with this thinking in noun.
62. Most people: ASIANS. This was so easy it was hard.
Going...
Down:
1. Thing that endures: CLASSIC. So many good and bad things endure, this was tricky.
2. Port of SW Italy: SALERNO . A very pretty city.
3. "That's just wrong" : IT'S A SIN. A bit strong.
4. "That way madness lies" speaker: LEAR. No, I will weep no more. In such a night,
To shut me out? Pour on; I will endure.
In such a night as this? O Regan, Goneril!
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all—
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that.
5. Tolkien's Skinbark and Leaflock, e.g.: ENTS. JRR Tolkein was a close friend of C S Lewis, they both taught at Oxford and wrote fantasy novels. I see a sub-theme with British authors who wrote for younger readers.
6. China's Northern __ Dynasty, 386-534 AD: WEI. Interesting history.
7. First of the Maj. Prophets: ISA. Major Prophets, Isaiah.
8. Three-part fig. SSN. Social Security Number.
9. Creator of a popular six-color puzzle: RUBIK. The cube, many man hours lost on that baby.
10. First name in aviation: AMELIA. Not sure why she is first, but Ms. Earhardt is a continuation from last week.
11. Paid (for): SPRANG. Yes, I sprang for lunch last Friday.
12. Maura of "ER": TIERNEY. I enjoyed her in NEWS RADIO
13. Lost __ : ART. Letter writing is a lost art.
14. Paris possessive: SES. Wake up Lolita, our French lesson; SON means his/ hers of a singular item, SES is his/hers for a plural item. LEURS is for theirs.
20. Adler's subj.: PSY. More abbreviations and more psychology and Alfred Adler a disciple of Freud.
22. Theda of silents : BARA.
23. Bungle: FLUB. Makes me think of FLUB a DUB in the tub.
24. Run-down theater : FLEA PIT. I have heard of Flea bag hotels.
25. Before, in verse : ERE.
26. Where Mandela was pres.: RSA. The Republic of South Africa provided another Masters' champion this past weekend. And, 46D. Lesotho's home: AFRICA. A little landlocked country in the middle of RSA.
28. Dosage abbr.: TSP. Teaspoon.
29. Babbling Addams character: ITT. Their PILAR cousin.
34. Coleridge work: RIME. Of the Ancient Mariner, and Epic Poem.
35. __-do-well: NEER. Another great old phrase.
36. Network that merged with The WB: UPN. United Paramount Network.
37. David Beckham's org.: MLS. Major League Soccer.
38. Half a fly:TSE. Really, we have not seen this stinker in a while.
39. Withdrawal aid, briefly: ATM. Becoming a gimme.
40. Fraternity founded at New York University in 1847: ZETA PSI. Really obscure, but there are not that many greek letters.
42. Hoops embarrassment: AIRBALL. When the shooter in basketball, misses everything, does not hit the basket, the backboard, just air.
43. Caught one's breath: TOOK TEN. I never got more than 5.
44. As one : EN MASSE. French, in a single mass.
47. Spoil rotten : DOTE ON. I love them babies.
48. Brit. military award : DSO. Distinguished Service Order.
50. Lover's gift : ROSES. 20 million red roses are given on Valentine's Day in the US, or so they say. I like other roses better if you were planning on sending me some.
53. Boater's edge: BRIM. Well the brim is everyone's edge, fill it to the brim. Brim are also bait fish? (Note: Boater hat).
54. When Tony sings "Maria" : ACT I. West Side Story.
55. Time often named : ERA. Huh?
56. Under-the-sink brand : SOS. We were a Brillo family.
57. Arthur of "All in the Family" : BEA. Where she played Maude, a liberal who infuriated Archie and who ended up with her own series.
58. Spain's Queen Victoria Eugenia, familiarly: ENA. The grand daughter of Queen Victoria.
59. ___snail's pace: AT A. which is how this puzzle was for me, not hard, just a real slog. Between vision and computer problems, a long night. Enjoy the upcoming holidays whatever your persuasion, and see you next time.
Lemonade
Morning, all!
ReplyDeleteWow, what a great puzzle! Challenging, but definitely solvable and a ton of lovely "aha!" moments. I almost had a DNF due to the NW corner and the fact that (a) I couldn't think of a single Italian port off the bat, (b) I had no idea what the Chinese dynasty was and (c) I had PLASTIC instead of CLASSIC for 1D. I finally put in CLASSIC, though, and the rest fell into place. Thank heavens I knew ALSATIAN! And, as it turns out, I knew SALERNO as well (I just didn't know it was a port).
As for the rest of the puzzle, I don't think I've ever heard of a FLEAPIT before, but that was the only real unknown. Fortunately, I knew all the theme names, so it was just a matter of figuring out what letter to add once I got the theme (which I got pretty early on).
I absolutely love BABKA, btw, although I've never seen it spelled that way before. We always pronounced it "bubke" and I always thought it was spelled that way. Live and learn...
Hello fellow puzzlers,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great puzzle today! (Not easy, but lots of fun.) Thanks Matt! Thanks for write-up, Lemon! Thanks to Al for yesterday.
Loved the funny theme answers. (Except did not know SKINNER.) Hadn't heard of some other answers but perps took care of everything. Great!
Did you hear that the TAZmanian devil is endangered due to facial tumors and predators? See help the devil. (I'll bet that CA and Kazie can add more to this!)
Tax man has not communicated and answered my last questions. He did not acknowledge the receipt of the answers I sent to previous queries. Wonderful.
Cheers!
Good Morning, Lemonade and friends. Great write-up, Lemon. This was a tricky puzzle for me for a while. It took some time before I could make any headway in the NW corner, although it was ultimately CSI LEWIS was the clue/answer that made me see the theme.
ReplyDeleteI love how you were able to incorporate Tetragammaton into your commentary, Lemonade.
I knew straight away that Boater referred to a hat, so could immediately write in BRIM.
I saw West Side Story a few weeks ago at a traveling Broadway Across America show. Nice to see Tony and Maria in today's puzzle.
I had Yet for Indeed, but Nelson Mandela corrected that problem.
My sister is coming in later today and will spend Passover with me. Final preparations for my favorite holiday.
QOD: If you read a lot of books, you are considered well read. But if you watch a lot of TV, you are not considered well viewed. ~ Lily Tomlin
Good morning Lemonade, C.C. and TGIF celebrants all. I hope you get your computer glitches under control, Lemon. Great write up in spite of the problems.
ReplyDeleteI had to do this one online today. Our paper delivery person dropped the paper in the rain gutter at the end of the drive and the runoff from a neighbor's irrigation system soaked it.
The puzzle took a lot of jumping from place to place, but once I stumbled onto the theme with AAA MILNE, I was able to go back and fill the others with the few perps that I had. I usually have trouble with puzzles with a lot of proper names but was able to dredge up the ones I needed today.
I never made the connection of boater and hat and was scratching the old noodle over that one. Perps to the rescue, once again.
FIRST NAME in aviation (10D) makes reference that it is her first name and not last
ReplyDeleteGood Morning C.C., Lemonade and all,
ReplyDeleteGreat write-up, Lemon. Amelia was ‘a’ first name, not ‘the’ first name.
This puzzle was slow for me, but I got the theme, which happened at AAAMILNE. I considered this a miracle- attacked the others and got the other miracles, after wrestling with FLEAPIT. Oddly, I crumbled at the cross of DIMENSION and UPN. I don’t know why I didn’t see that word with only one letter missing, ’n’. Another problem was ARTOO {had lately, I think}-DSO {I had DSC}. Its odd the things that tripped me up. I had to look up 12D: TIERNEY for the ‘r’ and ‘n’.
This was a fantastic challenge and I’m pleased I did as well as I did. Thanks, Matt.
Have a nice day everyone.
Good day folks,
ReplyDeleteI loved this puzzle. It took a lot of deep digging into the memory bank, but eventually I completed it w/o assistance. The themes were very clever, but I never totally figured them out until I read Lemonade's excellent write up.
I too had most of my difficulty with the NW corner and was ready for a DNF, I swagged Salerno, Alsatian, & Lear. They put me in business and I was able to finish.
Maura Tierney was daughter-in-law to an old friend until she and my friends son divorced in 2006. No, I never met the lady.
Favorite theme clue was huckster and school supporter. I always admired PT and his reputation, whether it was deserved or not. Never new Roscoe was slang for gangster's gun. Perps saved me there.
Greetings from the soggy great plains (probably not as bad as Oregon), It looks like an all day event and a gentle spring rain is great for our main enterprise here. If April showers bring May flowers, what do Mayflowers bring? Yup, Pilgrims! What a great puzzle, theme and write-up where NW fell last! Hard earned 100%.
ReplyDeleteMusings-
- Tetragrammaton? Oy Vey!
-Thing that endures is not PLASTIC
-Pass to class took a long time for this teacher (4th down?)
-PILAR, ENTS, WEI and ROSCOE took perps
-Jerry and Elaine had trouble getting a Babka
-FLEABAG for me
Re ERA (Time often named), I assume that means that there are many named eras (Paleozoic Era, Silent Era, Steroid Era, etc).
ReplyDeleteAddendum
ReplyDelete-BFFSKINNER gave me the theme and I remember him from psych class where we talked about the controversy over his eponymous Skinner Box he devised to protect his daughter from the harsh Minnesota winters. I couldn’t get the HTML scripting to make the link hot but it is very interesting even if you have to copy and paste the link into a browser.
http://www.snopes.com/science/skinner.asp
Hi There ~!
ReplyDeleteThanks to Matt for a tough one, and thanks for the write-up, Lemonade.
PTA BARNUM was first to fill in via perps, and that was my A - HA moment; from there came AAA, EMT, and strangely, the one I should have known, CSI - and I know the author, too - much more than SKINNER - I just happened to know BFF.
I knew ROSCOE from the movie "Payback" with Mel Gibson - he bought a HUGE .45 that another character referred to as a "nice Roscoe"
I had BETA PSI for the frat - and wondered who "TAB" was....
not Sylvester, he wasn't a tabby cat....oh, never mind.
Rangers try again~!
Splynter
Hey ~!
ReplyDeleteI just realized INITIALLY made the puzzle - and that had to be intentional.
Splynter
Thks, HG, for the Skinner Link. Very interesting. I heard the rumor years ago, and never the truth. Wow1
ReplyDeleteSplynter, you are absolutely correct. Good job,thanks.
Good Morning All, A whoop-de-doo Friday! I got it, but there was some sweat involved.
ReplyDeleteI was so sure that 2D was PALERMO because most of the letters fit. It took quite a while to back up and redo that section... several times.
I didn't read the Narnia series when I was a kid, but I did read SC LEWIS' "Space Trilogy" as an adult. Where else can you find a hero who is a professor of philology?
There were several unknowns for me. PILAR, FLEA PIT and ROSCOE were all new. Thanks, perps.
Right next door to 4D LEAR was 3D IT'S A SIN. Here's three sisters, (probably very good daughters) who are pretty peppy with It's A Sin To Tell A Lie. Two of LEAR's daughters were very accomplished liars.
Maybe PT BARNUM was thinking of LEAR when he (supposedly) said, "There's a sucker born every minute."
Good Morning C.C., Argyle & Folk,
ReplyDeleteExcellence, once again, Lemonade714!!!!
Fantastic theme!
1a. Of course we read C.S. Lewis to our children!
Don't watch CSI, though. Kids adored CON!
22a. Of course Annie still has BFF's!
Was not particularly impressed with Skinner...I found it interesting, though, he was BFF-like in that he'd lay down with his patients as I recall. Very comforting, I'd think.
33a. Of course I was PTA president for my children's school!
Kids weren't really into circuses...
49a. Of course, Calder adored Horatio Hornblower...Still does.
EMT...takes a special person to do this job well.
63a. I used to call Peter Pooh Bear...He was a good sport about it...probably wouldn't like me telling it in a public forum,though.
Swear by AAA.
4d. Bravo, Lemonade...I know that is from memory!
8d. Wanted TRI like a triangle...not a number.
This was very difficult for me today. Something to keep me humble.
Well, my pool is fully chipped out and the new tile has been installed. The new motor...special energy saver will be installed today...takes so little energy...akin to a 75 watt bulb! That may be a bit optimistic, think?
On that note,
I'm out!
Have a great weekend all!
Shabbat shalom.
@Barry, same with me for the NW corner!
ReplyDelete@Hahtool...of course boater refers to hat...duh to me!
@Anon. 7:34 AM-good catch on that!
Wow! This puzzle seemed like a Saturday-level puzzle but with a theme. Excellent but hard. Once I got BFF SKINNER, I had the theme sussed out.
ReplyDeleteLemonade said: "Dictionaries list INFER and IMPLY as synonymous; Nero Wolfe is rolling over in his fictional grave." Boy, that is a hard one for me to accept. I guess when people screw up often enough, it ends up in the dictionary. Even Barbara Walters screwed up I/ME on The View a couple of days ago.
We just got back from an early assembly at grandson Jordan's school. He got a math award. Grandpa is so proud!
Hi gang -
ReplyDeleteGreat write up Lemonade, and lot's of extra effort. Thank you, sir!
Either puzzles are getting harder, I'm losing it, or this one was just out of my knowledge base. Biggest DNF ever. Clever theme. Did get AAA MILNE and BFF SKINNER. Slog from beginning until I gave up. Seeing "half a fly" made it all the more sour. That is dross!
Tolkein and Lewis were BF's but not F. They had a great falling out and did not speak for years. Finally, in old age they reconciled.
In tracking down Muara TIERNEY, I discovered she is a breast cancer survivor.
Thanks for the Quebe sisters lnk. Not typically on my radar screen, but I appreciate a good performance in any style.
If they got together with RUBIK - no, never mind.
Cheers!
J(z)B INITIALLY
Good Afternoon Lemonade, CC, et al., DNF puzzle -ran out of time. Still out of time but wanted to tell Lemonade how much I enjoyed the write up. Outstanding! I admire your dedication to the cause - 4 blooeys and yet you persevered. Thank you. I enjoyed your work more than the puzzle. Learned a lot.
ReplyDeleteWe are under lockdown b/c the students disagreed w/admin over a hot issue and have threatened a massive protest. Police and their dogs are swarming the place. Soo glad it's Friday!
Happy Holidays to all. We get off Easter Monday but not Good Friday. Is it me or is that strange?
Bill G: Congratulations to you and your grandson. I'm sure he loved that you were there to see that.
ReplyDeleteJazz: I'm so glad you had big trouble. Makes me feel better. I ran out of time, but another week probably wouldn't have been enough.
OMG, Lois, what is going on at your school? The biggest thing we ever had at our school was a food boycott and that only cost the district some money.
ReplyDeleteHusker: this is all over Michael Vick's jersey not being reinstated in the showcase. Here come sirens!!! Geeze!
ReplyDeleteHusker: it's all going to be ok. Some of the kids feel MV's accomplishments here should be celebrated and obviously the powers have other thoughts for whatever reasons. Things are under control and dismissal coming. What a day! Plus some kids are observing the day of silence to support Gay rights. It's hard to have effective teaching moments w/out conversation. I'm surprised the kids aren't having a sit-in too. The more things change, the more they stay the same! I have a committee meeting at a nearby watering hole...I mean conference room. Any wonder why teachers drink?
ReplyDeleteHello fellow solvers, er, sufferers.
ReplyDeleteLemonade, excellent blogging with great detail. Thank you.
At a snail's PACE well describes my progress and was congratulating myself on finishing until I found some errors. Oh, no!
1st one, BETA, not ZETA, 2nd, TTABARNUM, what????
3rd, AIRCALL, oh, AIRBALL, darn sports clues.
However, I did suss the theme because all the authors were familiar and I also recall Maura TIERNEY from News Radio.
Some fill just emerged of iteself such as BRIM and ROSCOE. For time I had DETENTION for a long while until the light turned on to DIMENSION. I just couldn't recall ARTOO and had ARTOM????
What a fun challenge from Matt Matera for Friday. Thanks.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!
What? Imply and infer as synonyms! I can't believe the dictionary writers would cave in to that.
ReplyDeleteHi.
ReplyDeleteNever got around to the puzzle last night because of The game.
Thanks Joe for the OT goal.
BUSD always had Monday off because
teachers didn't want to deal with the hyper kids on all of that sugar.
Take care. eddy
Good afternoon, folks. Thank you, Matt, for a tough puzzle. Wow. Thank you Lemonade for analysing it.
ReplyDeleteI had a tough time with this one. The only standard crosswordese I saw were TSE, BARA, ENTS, RUBIK, NEER, and ATM.
Thought AMELIA was clever for hirst name in aviation. I wanted to put in WILBUR at first. That would have been the First First name.
The theme was clever, as well. My first one to get was AAAMILNE. The rest came eventually.
Don't recall ever hearing of a ROSCOE as a gun. I suppose I am not old enough.
Hope Saturday's is a little easier. See you tomorrow. Off to Dixon, IL, in the morning. Will take my puzzle with.
Abejo
Does anyone else remember watching Howdy Doody and seeing FLUB A DUB ?
ReplyDeleteThank each of you who has added to the blog; it was not my best night and I missed the INITIALLT fill being significant.
HG's LINK .
Lemonade: Fear not, you did a great job with the blog. If you hadn't said you were having computer problems, I don't think any of us would have know. You were still able to keep up in step with your fine sense of humor.
ReplyDeleteWas I the only one who thought of Guard Dog for the German Shephard?
I remember Howdy Doody very well. I'd start watching the test pattern until it came on at 5:30. Buffalo Bob, Princess SummerFallWinterSpring, Mr. Bluster...
ReplyDeleteHey kids, what time is it? It's Howdy Doody time! "It's Howdy Doody time, it's Howdy Doody time. Bob Smith and Howdy too, say Howdy Do to you. Let's give a rousing cheer, for Howdy Doody's here. It's time to start the show, so kids let's go!" (Or something like that.)
Good afternoon lemonade and all.
ReplyDeleteTough one for me; authors not being my strong suite. Did suss out AAA MILNE, however. Also, did not know ROSCOE, TAZ, MLS and WEI; and never heard the word FLEAPIT, either. I didn't remember that SEARS merged with Kmart. Bright spots included ASIANS, AFRICA, DIMENSION and PIE PLATE.
For those following Kazie's travels, she reported in at 2:24am in yesterday's blog - in case you missed it
Better luck tomorrow..
I meant to post this earlier in the week but got distracted.
ReplyDeleteA late comment by an anon on last Sunday's puzzle made a good catch and a learning moment for me. (Scroll to the bottom of the link.)
Anon pointed out that Caracas and all Venezuela are in their own time zone and not the Atlantic time zone. They use a -4:30 hour offset from Greenwich Mean Time.
Yes, most of our Anons seem intelligent and often have something worthwhile to contribute. Unfortunately, some of them tend to be pretty unpleasant.
ReplyDeleteA totally unnecessary comment.
ReplyDeleteHah B Talk about the pot calling the kettle black
ReplyDeleteSpitzboov:
ReplyDeleteThank you for the Kazie alert as I had not checked last night's posts.
JD:
I'm looking forward to your travel photos.
Thanks for the time zone information, Argyle. I hope that none of the constructors zero in on it.
ReplyDeleteKazie, nice to hear from you and that you are having a great time.
JD, how can you possibly be home already? It seems like you just left. I'm sure we're all looking forward to some new photos.
Lois, my sympathy to you and your fellow teachers. Spring is in the air and the natives (students) are getting restless. After being cooped up all winter they are ready to act up and act out. I hope for your sake that they settle down quickly.
Hello everybody. First of all, let me yell at the top of my lungs, "Good to see you, Buckeye!"
ReplyDeleteBeen workin' my you-know-what off the last three days, and did all three puzzles today. Whew. 'Twere fun, thugh, and amazingly I solved 'em all with no cheating or lookups. Excellent puzzles, all.
Thanks to you bloggers for adding so much pleasure to the whole experience.
I unnerstand how scary driving a big U-Haul through snow can be, Melissa Bee. Once had to drive one through the twisty-winding part of I-5 across the Oregon-California border in a snowstorm. Through the Dunsmuir area was the twistiest. 'Twas foolish of me. So where do you live now?
Gotta go. Best wishes to you all.
Speaking of northern Calif along I-5, I recall taking special notice of a nice little mom-n-pop place called Yreka Bakery. Really.
ReplyDeleteFunny name for a town. Weed, too.
Argyle - Apparently the change to VET was made by Chavez in 2007. Some other time oddities:
ReplyDeleteCanada's Newfoundland province is half-an-hour out of step with other Atlantic provinces.
Pakistan is only half-an-hour behind India, while Nepal is a mere 15 minutes ahead of its large southern neighbour.
Western Australia and South Australia observe a 90-minute time difference across the state boundary.
Hello Puzzlers - Late to the party again, had to do a flying job today (poor me).
ReplyDeleteYup, one hard puzzle! Lots of unknowns, couldn't tell early on if the additional letter position was the same from one answer to the next. Had PALERMO for ages, and was certain that ALMYS had merged with KMart. May be a local store, I dunno.
Don't want to miss the chance to gush about Maura Tierney, my favorite actress from the whole ER world. She is just lovely with her Irish looks. Too bad the uneven scriptwriters so often gave her character some stupid portrayals to suffer through.
Weed is a strange name, sure, but what about Yreka?
ReplyDelete@Husker Gary, thanks so interesting!
ReplyDelete@BillG, Proud with good reason! Jordan obviously has your math genes!
Like many of you, I'm a fan of NCIS. Another big favorite is The Good Wife. My third favorite is starting its final season tonight at 8pm on NBC. That's Friday Night Lights. It has great story-telling, excellent characters and super acting.
ReplyDeleteYreka, pronounced Wye-Reeka, is a historical little town in very northern California. From Wiki: Bret Harte had arrived in California in the [eighteen-]fifties, twenty-three or twenty-four years old, and had wandered up into the surface diggings of the camp at Yreka, a place which had acquired its mysterious name — when in its first days it much needed a name — through an accident. There was a bakeshop with a canvas sign which had not yet been put up but had been painted and stretched to dry in such a way that the word BAKERY, all but the B, showed through and was reversed. A stranger read it wrong end first, YREKA, and supposed that that was the name of the camp. The campers were satisfied with it and adopted it.
Thank God for aging! Being over 50 allows one to slide a bit and just throw in the towel, as it were, when yawning over takes a brain workout!You see there is nothing riding on completion of the xword. That's it; no grade, no $$$$ and no approval nor disapproval. At least that's my story and i'm sticking to it.
ReplyDeleteI completed about 75% of the puzzle before I began to yawn and the words blurred. I'm calling it a night. The dinner of a yummy filet and Gorgonzola salad have added to my general lethergy.
Tata, puzzlers. Tomorrow is another day, or so says Scarlett.
My favorite song--"Its my first one today. Fill it up to the brim. 'Til my troubles go dim. Brother, I'm on my way".
ReplyDeleteMom:
ReplyDeleteScarlett was right, and so are you. There'll be another one tomorrow.
Hutch:
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, Webb Pierce.
To Hahtool: No, you weren't the only one who wanted GUARD DOG for German Shepherd.
ReplyDeleteAbejo
Mom Speaks, I agree with you about solving the puzzle when it's really hard. That's why I use the red letters online when necessary.
ReplyDeleteThere are a couple of nice restaurants near here that make a great chicken Waldorf salad with Gorgonzola. Really good stuff!
Bill G - That's interesting stuff about Yreka. I wonder whether it is true.
ReplyDeleteFrom earlier: what's this? A dictionary claims that imply and infer are synonyms? Burn that book!
Dudley, I agree. Get rid of that dictionary!
ReplyDeleteMy desktop dictionary certainly distinguishes between the two words. An online reference said, "These two words, which originally had quite distinct meanings, have become so blended together that most people no longer distinguish between them. If you want to avoid irritating the rest of us, use 'imply' when something is being suggested without being explicitly stated and 'infer' when someone is trying to arrive at a conclusion based on evidence. 'Imply' is more assertive, active: I imply that you need to revise your paper; and, based on my hints, you infer that I didn’t think highly of your first draft."
Late greetings,folks,
ReplyDeleteGreetings, folks,
ReplyDeleteLate as it is, I must let everyone who is interested know that I have had my fill of fried asparagus...and it is to die for(I know this phrase is dated, but it is so appropos! I haven't ventured to the Asparagus Festival, and will not attend. I don't choose to be one of the 100,000 people expected to attend.
Don't need to because our chef presented platters of the divine concoction at our weekly wine party before dinner. Really, those spears are heavenly. I think the were fried in peanut oil, at least it tasted so! I've forgotten if that was the recommended medium in the recipe, Annette, and I don't have it right here.
more....
ReplyDeleteThat's really all; took twenty lines to tout that good thing!
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thought this puzzle was a killer! I had about eight or ten entries after the first pass and almost decided I'd go DNF. I only got it finished by many, many lookups. I did not find perps helpful, but I did grok the theme after PTABarnum and that did help.
Put in 'Amelia' and 'brim' right away, and then erased them both before finally leaving them in!
Lemonade, I do like your style. Reading your blogs feels like having a real conversation. Thanks so much!