google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Sunday September 16, 2012 Pam Klawitter

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Sep 16, 2012

Sunday September 16, 2012 Pam Klawitter

Theme: Prix Fixe Menu - Common prefixes are added to the start of the first word of each common phrase.

23A. Where there's no rest for the weary? : DISCOMFORT STATION. Comfort station.

38A. Precinct high jinks? : MISCHIEF OF POLICE. Chief of police.

47A. Adman's demo reel? : PRODUCT TAPE. Duck tape.

63A. Engross the financial district? : PREOCCUPY WALL STREET. Occupy Wall Street.

82A. Court defense team? : ADVICE SQUAD. Vice Squad.

88A. Where meteorologists relax and talk shop? : FORECASTING COUCH. Casting couch.

109A. Overpromotion of a Stephenie Meyers fantasy novel series? : TWILIGHT POLLUTION. Light pollution.

All the seemingly prefixes are parts of the words rather than real prefixes. So quite consistent.

When I downloaded the puzzle and saw the title, I thought "Boy, food! CrossEyedDave will have trouble concentrating again".

Across:

1. Venomous African snake : MAMBA

6. Slants : SKEWS

11. Actor Keach : STACY. He played Mike Hammer. Stacy is also the first name of Fergie (The Black Eyed Peas).


16. Martes, por ejemplo : DIA. Martes = Tuesday, in Spanish.

19. Pan Am rival : US AIR

20. "Delta of Venus" author Nin : ANAIS. Gimme for our Passionate Kisser PK.

21. Actor/public speaker who often began "Unaccustomed as I am to speaking ..." : HARPO. News to me.

22. Before, in ballads : ERE

26. And not : NOR

27. Exhibit presenters, briefly : DAs. Oh, evidence exhibit in court.

28. Swedish imports : SAABs

29. Some Deco collectibles : ERTEs

30. Agent Scully on "The X-Files" : DANA. She's quite cool.

31. Consider judicially : HEAR

32. Old Cleveland-based gas company : SOHIO. Merged with BP in 1987.

34. Got burning again : RE-LIT

35. Word from a crib : MAMA. This seems to be universal. Same in Chinese. Our father is Ba Ba though.

43. Multiple choice options : A B OR C

45. Rural "What if ...?" : S'POSE.

46. "Damn Yankees" role : LOLA

50. Mason's jobs : STONEWORK

55. Fruity wine concoctions : SANGRIAs. Stay cool, Bill!


56. Rifleman's aid : SCOPE

57. "Permit Me Voyage" poet James : AGEE

58. NBC sketch series : SNL. Lots of parodies of "Call me, Maybe?" on YouTube. The original is so good. Surprised by the ending? "... Hey, I just met you, And this is crazy, But here's my number, So call me, maybe?..." . Has to be the most catchy lines in the whole summer.

59. Staircase shape : SPIRAL

62. Sports venue : ARENA

69. __ d'Alene : COEUR. "Heart" in French. Lemonade would comment on CoeurRx here.

70. Can't-miss : NO LOSE

71. Links target : PAR

72. Yank or Jay : AL'er (American Leaguer). I know we don't say this in real life, but...

73. Whomp, biblically : SMITE

75. Learning period : SEMESTER

80. Cadenzas in concertos, say : SOLO PARTS

85. Soccer great who wore #10 : PELE. Never paid attention to his jersey number.

86. Court conclusion starter : I REST. " I REST my case".

87. Home of Oral Roberts University : TULSA

95. Draft picks : ALES. Can't fool me any more.

96. Birds named for a Greek titan : RHEAS

97. Big name in wrap : ALCOA

98. Turkic tent : YURT. See here. Lots of yurts in Mongolia.

100. Utopia : EDEN

101. __ Cup: classic candy : MALLO. Dennis probably carried this in his old store.

103. Extremely tiny : MICRO. So Romney is a fan of the tiny Snookie?

105. Actress Farrow : MIA

108. Large expanse : SEA

113. Elevator compartment : CAR

114. German wine region : BADEN. Marti & Kazie probably know. I've got no idea.

115. Glacial ridge : ARETE

116. Port-du-__: French cheese : SALUT

117. Prince Valiant's boy : ARN

118. Puppeteer Lewis : SHARI

119. Epic accounts : SAGAS

120. Bobby pin target : TRESS. How can we live without bobby pins?

Down:

1. California college Harvey __ : MUDD. What's it famous for?

2. China setting : ASIA

3. __ media : MASS

4. Flickable lighter : BIC

5. Materialized : AROSE

6. Jaunt through the jungle : SAFARI. Hi there, JD!

7. Turning point? : KNOB. Great clue.

8. Aardvarks have long ones : EARS

9. Quipster : WIT

10. Sound of a leak : SSS

11. Zhivago portrayer : SHARIF (Omar). "Doctor Zhivago" is so moving.

12. Skin tones? : TATTOO. I like this clue.

13. Singer India.__ : ARIE

14. Navy NCOs : CPOs. I have a "Citizen's Guide to the US Navy", thanks to Spitzboov.

15. Hither's partner : YON

16. Highest North American peak, to natives : DENALI

17. Like "Big deal!" : IRONIC

18. Do a worm's job : AERATE. Worms take their job seriously.

24. Hat-tipper's word : MA'AM

25. Giggle : TE-HEE

30. New Jersey/Pennsylvania border river : DELAWARE

31. What a gal has that a gent doesn't? : HARD G. That's Don. Nice fill & nice clue.

32. Visit Amazon.com, say : SHOP

33. Seine tributary : OISE

34. Part : ROLE

35. Meteorology tools : MAPS

36. Hocus-pocus opening : ABRA

37. Full __ : MOON. Always a full moon on Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, a national holiday. I love moon cakes.


39. Retired jets : SSTs

40. Tax prep pro : CPA

41. Hardly a jolly good show : FLOP

42. Bread in a skillet : PONE

44. Screen blinker : CURSOR

48. POTUS's alternate title : CINC (Commander-in-Chief). "Hey... And this is crazy, But here's my number, So call me, maybe?..." The guy in black T-shirt & black eyeglasses in the very start is Michael Phelps, right?

49. Soft mineral : TALC

50. Fish feature : SCALE

51. Usage fee of a kind : TOLL

52. Molding style : OGEE

53. Monthly expense : RENT

54. New Zealand parrot : KEA. Wow, look at her wings.

56. Ladies of Sp. : SRAs

59. Windex targets : SPOTS

60. Pulitzer journalist killed in combat in 1945 : PYLE (Ernie)

61. 1945 battle setting, familiarly : IWO

62. Collar : ARREST

63. Links shirt : POLO

64. Angler's favorite dance? : REEL. Another nice clue.

65. From the Continent : EUROPEAN. Are British Europeans? If so, my favorite European. "Hey... And this is crazy, But here's my number, So call me, maybe?..."

66. Part of BTU : UNIT

67. An article may be written on it : SPEC

68. Get under control : TAME

69. __ in Charlie : C AS

73. Pamplona parlor : SALA

74. C-ration successors : MREs

75. In __: as found : SITU

76. Crouch down : SQUAT

77. "Aqualung" band Jethro __ : TULL

78. Fluency : EASE

79. Dietary amts. : RDAs. Now RDIs.

81. Muscle mag display : PECS

82. Cornstarch brand : ARGO. Also the title of the new Ben Affleck movie.

83. Ten up front? : DECA. Prefix for "ten". Hard clue.

84. Brandy label letters : VSO

86. Undercover, for short : INCOG (Incognito)

88. Diet Squirt alternative : FRESCA

89. Worrywart's words : OH DEAR

90. Gain again, as trust : RE-EARN. Tough to gain back. So honor your promises at the first place.

91. Mutt, vis-à-vis Jeff : TALLER. "Mutt and Jeff".

92. "Fighting" college team : ILLINI

93. Pedals : CYCLES

94. Fling : HURL

99. Rudely awaken : ROUST

101. [Air kiss] : MWAH. The kiss sound. "Mwah, Mwah", from Minnesota!

102. Elton John/Tim Rice musical : AIDA

103. Video file format : MPEG

104. Little bit of Greek? : IOTA

105. Wide margin : MILE

106. Debtors' letters : IOUs

107. Hill workers : ANTS. Not Capitol Hill.

109. Conan's network : TBS. CrossEyedDave is more entertaining.

110. Isn't without : HAS

111. Vocal syllable : TRA

112. Road crew's supply : TAR

Answer grid.

Happy Birthday to dear D-Otto! Any luck in the casino yesterday? Here is a young D-Otto in his Navy days. He said it's "A 1970 snapshot at the control console of the shipboard radio station during the final cruise of the carrier Bon Homme Richard. I stumbled across that one in an online copy of the ship's cruise book."

C.C.

42 comments:

Hahtoolah said...

Good Morning, C.C. and friends. This was a fun Sunday puzzle. I was amused by most of the theme answers. I easily globbed on to the DISCOMFORT STATION.

Interesting about the PRE-OCCUPY WALL STREET is that the movement started exactly 1 year ago tomorrow.

I am having a bad experience with US AIR. When we returned from our trip last June, the airline lost our luggage. When it was returned several days later it was damaged. We reported the damage and the airline took the luggage, ostensibly to either repair or replace it. We have been corresponding with the airline for the past several months. Last week we got a letter from the airline claiming no knowledge of our claim and apologizing for the "unpleasant" experience we suffered.

What Ever LOLA Wants, Lola gets!

Sitting on a Park Bench.

Full MOON Pies are a southern staple.

I have probably done more than my fair share of SHOPPING for books on Amazon.com.

QOD: I am not a has-been. I am a will be. ~ Lauren Bacall

Barry G. said...

Morning, all!

Fun puzzle today. Unlike Hahtoolah, I've never heard of COMFORT STATION before, so that one took awhile. All the other theme answers came pretty quickly, though.

Other unknowns were Harvey MUDD (I keep thinking of a minor Star Trek character named Harcourt Fenton Mudd) and, er.... Well, I'm sure there were others, but I can't think of them right now.

Hahtoolah said...

Happy Birthday, Desper-Otto! I hope you have a wonderful day.

Dudley said...

Hello Puzzlers -

A real breeze compared to yesterday's backbreaker.

Argyle said...

Ichabod Mudd with two D’s from “Captain Midnight”, a Saturday-morning children’s show of the early 50's.

Yellowrocks said...

Unique theme for a puzzle. I caught on with DISCOMFORT STATION. In the city, public rest rooms were called comfort stations when I was a child. Without them there was real discomfort.

Fairly easy for a Sunday. I always blank on India's last name. I had HARPO early on, but didn't trust it. HARPO seemed wrong because he is known for not talking. I finally accepted it.

Research tells us Harpo used to speak in films until he got a negative review that panned the way he said his lines but praised his miming. So he chose not to speak in films thereafter and found miming very successful.

Have you read "Ernie’s War: The Best of Ernie Pyle’s World War II Dispatches," a compilation of Ernie's columns from the point of view of the common soldier? Great.

Happy Birthday D-Otto

TTP, thanks for your concern. I tightened all my computer connections last night with little success, but this AM everything is fine again.

desper-otto said...

Good morning, all.

Fun puzzle, today. I thought it was going to be a speed run until I got down to the TX/NM border... MALLOW, MWAH, AIDA, and BADEN were slow to appear. Enjoyed the clues for KNOB. RHEA was a titan? Anteaters have long EARS in addition to long tongues and snouts? Who knew? Still, I finished under my time-limit, so all is well.

C.C., I've been licking my wounds from my gambling losses. I splurged this time and decided I would put up $10. Didn't take me long to lose it. But, as a first time visitor to the casino, they had given me a $15 credit, so I still came out ahead.

C.C, Hatoolah, thanks for the birthday wishes. I'd forgotten today was my birthday; DW isn't here to remind me. As it turns out, today is the most common birthdate in the US in recent years. Coincidentally, I was born on my father's 47th birthday, and he died a few days shy of my 47th -- almost 94 years old.

Spitzboov said...

Good morning everyone. Enjoyed the comments, C. C.

Happy Birthday, Desper-Otto. Great 'NCO" picture.

While I finally 'got' the theme, I would say that the pre in PREOCCUPY feels like a normal prefix. Nevertheless a good clever idea. Generally easy enough, but I came close to a Natick in the bottom left center with BADEN and MWAH. Finally guessed AIDA at 102d, and that brought it home. I didn't think of BADEN as a wine region, but I SPOSE it could be. Can any aficionados weigh in on this? Not familiar with the MWAH kiss thing anyway. Moi? Haven't they stopped making SAABS? New learning about RHEAS. They seem relatively diminutive; Rhea Perlman, 5' 1½" (1.56 m), too. Have seen DIA before but was reenforced today. I knew the Mongolians used YURTS, and the language is in the Turkic grouping, so I guess the clue is OK? Overall, good
job, Pam.

PK said...

Hi Y'all, Very enjoyable puzzle today, despite being hard. Thanks, Pam.

Thanks for the great commentary & shoutout, C.C.!
Although it should have read FORMER passionate kisser. Been so long, I've forgotten how to pucker.

DNF Got hung up in the lower central area. I saw ICESQUAD and plunked in "pol" as a prefix. Thought PAGO looked okay for corn starch. Didn't figure out the middle three squares for 86A.

I thought Elton/Tim did a musical on Alvin Ailey so I put "Aile" in there and was so sure, I had to google it to find out I'm nuts. (You all knew that!)

Had to look up both colleges. I wanted Fighting Irish. I'd heard of Harvey Mudd College when a student competed on a game show.

DELAWARE River was a gimmee. I had my worst panic attacks ever, driving on the high humped bridge over that river. Don't like any bridges but that almost did me in. I lived to tell it.

Happy Birthday, Desper-Otto! Cute picture!





Irish Miss said...

Good morning:

This was a DNF for me as I had put in Samba instead of Mamba and didn't get my TA-DA. Never heard of Harvey Mudd but should have known the difference between a dance and a snake!

Overall, a fun and clever puzzle. Thanks, Pam, and thanks, CC, for your write-up and links.

Happy birthday, D-Otto; enjoy your day.

Happy Sunday.

desper-otto said...

I didn't get to join in the husband hoo-hah yesterday -- the WiFi at that casino really sucked. But the discussion did remind me of this song intro by Tom Lehrer. It's one of his funniest intros, and the song's pretty funny as well. But it's better heard than read. Here it is sans intro.

YR, PK, Spitz, Irish Miss, thanks for the B-Day greetings.

Husker Gary said...

MWAH held up the south on this fun puzzle but every cell has a resident! DISCOMFORT… was theme reveal after I let go of DISCO. HBD Otto!

Musings
-Court teams can defend any vice if there enough simoleons on the table
-CASTING COUCHes have led to roles after metaphorical “rolls in the hay” - and not
-Loved HARPO clue and learned he could speak. I now know RHEA is a Greek titan as well.
-Beautiful song with ERE in the lyric
-Youngest daughter loves Volvos and SAABs
-Before I started with LP, I RELIT a lot of briquettes
-MAMA is MAMA in Chinese, cool!
-S’POSE is a fun word but I really like Avg. Joe’s prolly
-I know there’s a poet AGEE but always think of Tommy of the Miracle Mets
-I went to a college with 15-week trimesters and that seems like plenty to me
-I taught for a MICRO managing principal and hated it.
-I got an SSS in a rear tire the day before we left for Black Hills. Thank God for Wal-Mart auto shop at 6 pm on a Saturday night.
-I always find my keys in HITHER or YON
-We crossed the Delaware River at Camden, NJ to get to Philly. Couldn’t live in Camden.
-It costs quite a bit in TOLLS just to drive from Orlando to KSC
-In what movie did cheap Ted Knight offer a boy a FRESCA?
-Gotta run, read y’all after mass

fermatprime said...

Greetings!

Nice puzzle, Pam! Very informative write-up, CC! Took a bit longer than usual.

HBTY desper-otto. Nice pics. You look like a very pleasant person.

Struggled with MWAH, AIDA and BADEN as did Spitzboov. (Thought the latter was Baden-baden.) No problem with MUDD. Wasn't the MUDD character on Star Trek the purveyor of Tribbles?

Now my contractors have informed me that my house needs to be bolted to the foundation. Expensive. But, this is the site of the Northridge earthquake. My girlfriend thinks this is unnecessary.

Cheers!

fermatprime said...

PS Loved hearing a great song by Lehrer again. Thanks desper-otto!

chan said...

Fairly quick run through for today's puzzle. A number of things I wasn't familiar with, but they all fell out nicely through perps.

I'm going to be hearing Call Me Maybe all day long. Certainly could be worse though. While I've heard the song several times, I'd never seen the video. Very clever!

Anonymous said...

call me maybe meme is very clever.

Anony-Mouse said...

Desper-Otto ..... Happy Birthday and best wishes for many more. I loved your Tom Lehrer link.



Hahtoolah, if you're still here - I just read a book, non-fiction, biography, 'The Convert' by Deborah Baker, Graywolf Press (2011). Its based on archive documents, from the NY public library - and it happened 60 years ago !!!

Its a short and sad story, but worth a quick read - definitely not a keeper - so, for Gods sakes, don't bother to buy it - borrow from the library. The theme might be somewhat up your alley, .... possibly of interest to you .... and may cause you to think, about unfortunate souls and have some empathy for the poor woman. Not a happy book.

Anony-Mouse said...

Bill G. - you never gave the answer to your riddle, of Friday, on consecutive number sides and altitude of a triangle - except for the hint that the altitude was 12. I kept looking for the answer on the following days ....

So, I did it the 'donkey' way of all possible perms and combs.

I had
- 9, 10, 11, 12
- 10, 11, 12, 13
- 11, 12, 13, 14 ... and
- 12, 13, 14 ,15

with the alt. as 12, I calc. all possible areas of the tri. = 0.5 x base x alt. and then calc. the Area of the tri. with all the 3 sides ....

Area = SQRT of .... s x( s-a)(s-b)(s-c)

where s is half the perimeter ....(a+b+c) = p .... p/ 2

I struck a vein with 12, 13, 14, 15.

Remember, when you offer a riddle, somebody may want the answer.

TTP said...

Not a speed run, but a completion. 1 hr, 7 min, 9 sec. 23 Words across on first pass, 37 Down in 38 minutes. The rest was filled hither and yon. The puzzle was fun and a bit tough in places. I enjoyed your write up CC. Include me in any list of people that will watch any parody of "Call me, maybe." They're all fun.

Happy birthday Desper-Otto ! Interesting link as well. Checked mine. Middle of the pack at 179.

I was stationed in Baden Wurttemberg in SW Germany for 3 years in Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Went to a number of wine fests (and bier fests) while there. The Rhine, Neckar and Danube all run through B-W. The Rhine area (west) is the Baden wine area. Wife's first cousin has a vineyard, restaurant in B-W near Heilbronn, but that's in the Wurtemberg wine area. Mosel valley wines were my favorites. Fermatprime, Baden-Baden is the spa town in the Black Forest, just south of Karlsruhe. Expensive and high-brow.

Yard work beckons. Had to break my date with John Deere yesterday as the clothes dryer quit blowing hot air. Part coming from Amazon this week. See you all later. Call me, maybe.

TTP said...

Should have been, "Wife's first cousin has a vineyard, restaurant and hotel..." A Gasthaus.

From WIKI:

A Gasthaus (also called Gasthof, Landhaus, or Pension) is a German-style inn or tavern with a bar, a restaurant, banquet facilities and hotel rooms for rent.

Gasthäuser are typically found in smaller towns and are often family-owned. It is not uncommon to have three generations of a family working together in such an establishment and many have been owned by the same family for generations.

CrossEyedDave said...

Luckily, there wasn't too much food in today's puzzle.

Thanks for the Captain Midnight clip, I thought i never heard of it, but then why do i recognize every actor? (more research needed!)

CC, do i have to link Harpo for you? (hmm, which clip should i do? this may take days to figure out...) Oh, & is the Harvey Mudd University famous for The Fosters run?

Harcourt Fenton Mudd made a robot copy of his wife, just so he could turn it off by saying "shut up!"

Desper-otto, Happy Birthday, but they can be scary when your getting up there...

P.S. Check out what comes up when you do a Google image search for an unusual name like Desper-otto!

desper-otto said...

Husker, Fermat, Anony-Mouse, TTP, CED: thanks for the birthday wishes.

Fermat, it wasn't the Trouble with Tribbles episode. The episode was called Mudd's Women (and it was Harvey Mudd just like the college). Mudd gave the women some drug which supposedly made them ultra-attractive to men(pheromones or whoremoans, perhaps). Kirk, naturally, fell victim.

I remember seeing Ernie PYLE's grave in the Punchbowl cemetery on Oahu.

And YURT summoned up memories of an early Stargate SG-1 episode. The team was off-world on a primitive planet, and Captain Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) was segregated from the male members of SG-1. She came out of her yurt complaining that it smelled of rancid yak butter. That mental image created a lasting memory for me.

TTP said...

Front forty done. Either this yard is getting bigger or I am getting older. Going to have to start wearing a dust mask.

H-G, my dad always said "pobly." just an idiosyncrasy that he had.
To your FRESCA query... Caddyshack ?

Hatoolah, we stood in baggage claim by the empty circling conveyor at least 5 minutes on our return from San Jose. Everyone had picked up and left. It finally appeared. What a relief.

Y-R, glad it's working ok again. The audio driver may have got hosed in memory and the power off/on pobly reset it.

desper-otto said...

Oops! It was Harry not Harvey on Star Trek. I stand corrected once again -- pobly the result of too many bdays.

Jayce said...

Hello everybody, and happy birthday desper-otto! Amazing what came up on the Google image search!

Yep, I was surprised by the ending.

Enjoyed the puzzle today. Finished it without "cheating" even though I had a hard time in the MALLO - ILLINI - BADEN area. In re RHEA: WEES.

Best wishes to you all.

Anonymous said...

"Call Me Maybe" - Baby Parody

Bill G. said...

I really enjoyed this puzzle, prolly because I figured out most of the tricky stuff. Nice writeup C.C. Thanks all around.

Happy birthday Desper-otto! I hope it's a good one.

Fermatprime, if it were me, I wouldn't bother with bolting the house to the foundation since it's really expensive. (How expensive?) If another big earthquake shows up in that region, your house will probably suffer a lot of damage no matter what. Of course, my advice is worth exactly what I'm charging for it...

Anony-mouse, I am happy to give the answer but there seemed to be almost no questions or comments about the puzzle. With so little interest, I figured nobody cared. Your 12, 13, 14, 15 answer is correct. The altitude (12) divides the base (14) into segments of 9 and 5 which results in a 5, 12, 13 right triangle and a 9, 12, 15 right triangle. BTW, I enjoyed your use of Heron's formula. Very nice!

Did any of you watch Sunday Morning today? Lots of good stuff including some Civil War history about the bloody battle of Antietam, Dodgers' long-time announcer Vin Scully and a wrongly-convicted man recently released from Death Row. I always look forward to their Moment of Nature at the end and for some reason, it was missing today though I found it online.

Have a nice Sunday!

CrossEyedDave said...

oh wow! Captain Midnight was before my time. But his sidekick looked so familiar!

I finally traced down why he was "familiar" to "me". He was the one of the contractors that Eddie Albert hired to fix his house on Green Acres! The Lab Technician is familiar too, but so far i can't find out why...

CC, you forced me into this, I have always admired Harpo for his harp playing, & ability to get the girls,,, but if you really do not know Harpo, then you must watch this excerpt from "Duck Soup". & if you want to know why there were 3 people ( maybe more ) you will have to watch the movie! Then check out Lucille Ball & Harpo!

Anonymous said...

Loved the Marx clips. The first one looked like Groucho.

Bill G. said...

CED, thanks for the videos. They brought back fond memories.

Abejo said...

Good Evening, folks. Thank you Pam Klawitter, for an excellent puzzle. Thank you, C.C., for a great review.

First, Happy Birthday, Desper-Otto. Many happy returns.

Well, this puzzle was pretty good. Much easier than Saturday's.

Got started in the north across the top. Did not get them all first pass, but they fell later.

DIS COMFORT STATION came easily. We all remember those. Sometimes called outhouses.

What's the story on the MUDD college?

I also thought SAAB's were out of production.

The rest of the themes came after some thought. My last was PRODUCT TAPE. Duct Tape is one useful tool.

Haven't had ARETE in a while. I like these gimmies.

Thought AERATE for 18D was a good one.

HARD G took me a while. I should get used to those.

Had a fun time in Buffalo. At the same time we were having our event, the U S Navy was honoring the bicentennial of the War of 1812 at the same hotel we were in. They had quite a group. Ships in the harbor and everything.

Off to Erie to walk in "Light the Night" on Tuesday, fundraiser for leukemia.

See you tomorrow.

Abejo

Yellowrocks said...

I never heard an outhouse called a comfort station. Those I knew of had flush toilets, mirrors, etc. They were run by the city. Though not too fancy they were clean and comfortable. Much much nicer than today's Porta Potties. We didn't have comfprt stations in the country,but there were some outhouses.

Bill G. said...

At the café I used to frequent, there was a nice Mexican barista named Letty. As we would chat from time to time, I found out her mother had gotten laid off and Letty was using part of her earnings to help pay the household expenses.

Today I went to another coffee shop and chatted with another Mexican acquaintance and barista, Marcos. He was also working two jobs to help out his mother and father with expenses. Very impressive work ethics.

Barry G. said...

Hopefully it's not to late to say Happy Birthday, desper-otto!

Abejo said...

Yellowrocks, yes I remember "comfort stations" in some small towns, as you described. I guess comfort could be in the eyes of the beholder at the specific time in question. For me an outhouse spells comfort if the time and place is right.

Of course nowadays, those things probably do not exist in small towns anymore.

One town I worked in had no public toilet, or comfort station, and the telephone exchange had no bathroom or running water. Our company had to pay a local gas station to let us us his facility. Ah, the good old days.

Abejo

Avg Joe said...

Long day, so I'm catching up. First: Happy Birthday, Desper-Otto.

Interesting puzzle with enough challenge that it was never easy, but enough gimme's that it was very doable. I'm surprised no one mentioned my specific problem on 1D where I had MU-- and really wanted Muir in lieu of Mudd. But it worked out.

Enjoyed the Duck Soup clip immensely. We've added it to our NetFlix queue. Not so sure about the Call Me, Maybe earworm. Some aspects of pop culture are prolly better left unearthed. But on the topic of pop culture, the 60 Minutes piece on Adele tonight was very good.

Bill G at 6:58: Interesting that that comment comes on the eve of the occupy movement's 1st anniversary.

Dennis said...

Happy Birthday, Desper-Otto; hope it was outstanding.

Anonymous said...

Good night all.

A late happy birthday Desper-Otto.

I didn't even have time to try this puzzle.

Bill G. said...

Avg Joe, I'm a little slow on the uptake as usual. What is interesting about my comment as pertains to the Occupy anniversary?

Lucina said...

Good evening, friends. Late I know, but today was the family party day for September birthdays, eight of them! One included my granddaughter It has been a long party day!

Actually I finished today's puzzle before leaving but had not time to post. This was great fun from Pam Klawitter and I felt compelled to comment. You all have likely found all the clever fill and clues so WEES. My only blank was at MWAH /MALLO. Couldn't grokk either one.

I hope your Sunday was spectacular, everyone!

desper-otto:
I'm sorry I missed your birthday and hope it was very special for you.

Lucina said...

I'm still working on Saturday's puzzle as it was a really busy day. Three-fourths finished but I'm stuck in the NW. See what I can do now.

Bill G. said...

Lucina, I'm curious what you think about the Saturday puzzle; hard and not much fun for me.

Damn Dodgers...