Theme: STNIOJ SDRAWKCAB
17A. Extra effort : WOBLE [ELBOW] GREASE.
21A. "That's rich!" evoker : EENK [KNEE] SLAPPER.
40A. Take on responsibility : REDLUOHS [SHOULDER] THE LOAD.
57A. It usually involves rapping : PIH [HIP] HOP MUSIC.
And the unifier:
64A. Filing option, or what can be found in four long answers? : JOINT RETURN. The first word of each phrase is a synonym for a body part (specifically: joint) that "returns," or goes backward. Nice theme, and appropriate as tax deadline day draws near!
Just missing a Z for a pangram. Thankfully, most of the fill was fairly easy, but I still had a huge blank swath going down the west side of this puzzle for the longest time. Every time I checked the down answers, it gave me jibberish for the beginnings of the theme entries. I bet I'm not the only one who did that.
Marti here, filling in for our fearless Friday fellow. Thanks for pinch-hitting for me yesterday, Lemony!
Across:
1. Least ancient : LATEST.
7. Some TVs : RCAS.
11. This second, briefly : PDQ. Pretty Da*n Quick.
14. Forward, to Fiorello : AVANTI. Italian. I am going to Italy this summer, and have been brushing up on my rusty Italian, so this was a gimme.
15. City SW of Buffalo : ERIE.
16. Christian sch. since 1963 : ORU. Oral Roberts University. And 61-Down. Kind of exam : ORAL.
19. Shoofly ___ : PIE. Really sweet southern dish made with molasses, and topped with a sugary crumble.
20. Skittish NBC show? : SNL. Saturday Night Live. Full of "skits."
23. Jellied item in British cuisine : EEL. I have linked this dish before. It's not a pretty sight.
25. "Days of Grace" memoirist : ASHE. Arthur finished it just a week before he died.
26. Relaxed : EASY.
27. GRE components : ESSAYS.
30. Doubter's question : IS IT?
32. Note promising notes : CHIT. Hands up for those who wanted IOUs? I read it first as "note-promising" notes, instead of "A" note that promises notes (money.)
33. Letter-routing letters : ATTN.
36. Big-eared flier of film : DUMBO.
43. Finish : USE UP.
44. It may be spare : ROOM.
45. "Progress through Technology" automaker : AUDI.
46. "Awesome!" : NICE. and 50-Across. Awesome, in a way : EPIC.
48. Original Speed Stick maker : MENNEN.
53. Used to be : WERE.
56. Giant of note : OTT (Mel)
60. Rock's ___ Fighters : FOO. THESE ARE MY FAMOUS LAST WOOORRRDS... 4:52
63. Maker of SteeL kitchen products : OXO. I have a lot of the Good Grips items, but didn't realize they also have other lines, including SteeL.
66. Beret, e.g. : CAP.
67. ___ Accords: 1993 agreement : OSLO.
68. Having trouble : IN A JAM.
69. Charles V's domain: Abbr. : HRE. Holy Roman Empire.
70. Light submachine gun : STEN.
71. Forgetful, maybe : SENILE. "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most..."
Down:
1. Murphy's and Godwin's, for two : LAWS. Murphy: "Whatever can go wrong, will." Godwin: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
2. Shakespeare's flower? : AVON. Here's where I started suspecting something goofy at 17-Across. Of course we have seen "flow-er" referring to rivers many times, and I was sure this had to be AVON. But what the heck is WO*** GREASE??
3. Carving area : TABLESIDE. I am a sucker for Bananas Foster prepared TABLESIDE.
4. It's bigger than the neg. : ENL.argement.
5. Unwavering : STEELY.
6. Buster Brown's dog : TIGE.
7. Causes a stink : REEKS.
8. Collide with : CRASH INTO.
9. Where the slain roll? : AISLES. Hahahahahahahaaaaa...you slay me, Julian!
10. "I ___ beautiful city...": Dickens : SEE A. You may be more familiar with the ending of this quote: "It is a far, far better thing that I do..."
11. Dad : POPPA.
12. Preserves, in a way : DRIES. Think "dried fruit."
13. Editor's request : QUERY. Rich only accepts theme queries for Sunday puzzles. For the rest of the the week, he requires a completed grid with clues.
18. Genetic letters : RNA. I really wanted to enter this, but EEN* SLAPPER just didn't seem plausible for 21-Across.
22. Prone to snits : PETULANT. I was getting into a snit by this time...
24. Grab a sandwich, perhaps : EAT LUNCH. This one beat me up and stole my lunch money, so I had nothing left to buy a sandwich with.
27. 65-Down shade : ECRU. And 65-Down. Darken in a salon : TAN.
28. Women : SHES. meh.
29. ___ Miguel: Azores island : SAO. In the North Atlantic. Map.
31. Suffix with ox- : IDE.
34. Like many a brisk 45-minute walk : THREE MILE. I usually do two miles on the treadmill in 1/2 hour. So this is just about right.
35. General on a menu : TSO. Hello, ol' friend!
37. View from Tokyo : MOUNT FUJI. Nice view, with a hat made of lenticular clouds..
38. Wished : BADE. Past tense of "bid."
39. Valhalla chief : ODIN.
41. Reuters competitor : UPI. United Press International.
42. "I wonder..." : HMM.
47. Breakfast cereal magnate : C.W. POST.
49. With 50-Down, when modern mammals emerged : EOCENE. And 50-Down. See 49-Down : EPOCH.
51. "Brave" studio : PIXAR. I vaguely remembered seeing commercials for this movie, so knew it was an animated film.
52. "Fingers crossed" : I HOPE. By this time, I was hoping I would be able to finish the puzzle!
54. Bad sentence : RUN ON. Because "life" is too short.
55. Round no. : EST.imate.
58. Parts of la cara : OJOS. La cara = "face" in Spanish. Ojos = "eyes." Al Martino got it right.
59. 1978 Booker Prize recipient Murdoch : IRIS. Dame Iris Murdoch, for her book "The Sea, the Sea."
62. "I got it" : ON ME. (Sorry, not today. Someone stole my lunch money...)
See you next week in my usual Thursday seat!
Hugs,
Marti
Hello, all!
ReplyDeleteOne heck of a puzzle, Julian! The "PIH" and JOINT RETURN gave away the theme, thank heavens. Otherwise, I floundered for a while. But I triumphed in the end with no cheats, giving happy feelings after a pretty dismal day! (After settling on the hip joint, I made a list of other joints and looked around for places to put them.)
I figured you would be tapped to blog today, Marti! Will read your sure-to-be superb effort later. Think I will try to find the arms of Morpheus!
Happy Friday!
Man, it took me forever to finally figure out what the heck was going on with this puzzle. As with Fermatprime, it wasn't until I got to PIHHOPMUSIC that I realized what JOINT RETURN was talking about. After that, it was pretty easy to go back and fill in EENK, WOBLE and REDLOUHS. Before that, though, I was really floundering.
ReplyDelete[ulngsta]
[taimeat]
[ialywo]
TGIF!
ReplyDeleteYup, I kept IOUS for much too long. But it rang true and looked so Friday-ish I just knew it had to be. Not! Trying to decide SAN/SAO and TYGE/TIGE slowed me down.
ORU reminded me of his TV days. We'd clown around in the living room ordering each other to touch the TV screen as we shouted "Heal! Heal!".
I got to see MOUNT FUJI from the bullet train back in '69. Just about the same view as in the picture, but without the clouds. I know it was '69 because Armstrong was on the moon.
Marti, thanks for defining Godwin's Law. I'd never heard of it, but it sounds logical.
Have a great Friday, Marge and Tina!
Totally a DNF here. Upper right 4 squares completely blank. Had to look up Shoofly. Like others, got the theme at PIHHOP and JOINT RETURN. Still, didnt like this puzzle at all.
ReplyDeleteDNF!
ReplyDeleteAlas, it's a DNF for me. I started this on train and thought I'd finish up at work, but my work day started off with a bang, and I'm just too busy.
However, reading the writeup I doubt I would have gotten the theme clues. Backwords words...very tricky!
I did see some great clues though:
- 20A: Skittish NBC Show? SNL
- 32A: Note Promising Notes: IOU
- 2D: Shakespeare's Flower: AVON
I'm sure there were more, but I just didn't get to them today.
Hope your Friday is Fantastic!
Marti: Thank you for the excellent write-up and links.
ReplyDeleteHMM ... I could not remember Buster Brown's dog, TIGE, if my life depended on it.
The rest of my solving experience also REEKS.
I couldn't tell you who was "Any Year's" Booker Prize recipient. Let alone 1978.
EOCENE EPOCH also not in my wheelhouse.
My THREE MILE walk only takes about 40 minutes.
Soooooo ... a Friday DNF (but a NICE Ink Blot).
A "toast" to all at Sunset.
Cheers!!!
Good morning, all! I won't have time to do the puzzle until tonight; I'm going to Michigan to visit Mom.
ReplyDeletePK: a couple days ago I was behind a red minivan with the license plate: ?? & PK. Would that be you?
Have a great day everyone!
Pat
Hi Everyone ~~
ReplyDeleteI decided I really liked this puzzle, but only after I figured out what was going on. :-) I was becoming frustrated with the nonsensical beginnings of the theme answers. I kept checking and doubting the perps but they seemed right.
I realized much too late that I was paying attention only to the JOINT part of the unifier. Had I seen that RETURN explained the "nonsense," this all would have fallen into place much more quickly. I need to get better at seeing that "extra layer." Thanks for the challenge, Julian Lim.
~ A wonderful write-up, Marti. I had many of the same thoughts in considering some answers, i.e. - Ious / CHIT, Life / RUNON. Also, I had - 65D - Darken in a salon - Dye before TAN and at 62D I was thinking of "I got it" as 'I see' so that was slow to fill.
~ Whenever I fill in MENNEN in a puzzle, I hear the "By Mennen' jingle in my head.
~ My father was POPPA to his grandkids.
Rainy, cool, and dreary here today but better days are ahead!
I should get a slap on the TSIRW for not seeing this great theme earlier. Don’t you hate it when you know the answer but see it won’t fit? (It’s gotta be HIP HOP) It feels good to be out of the box once in a while ;-)
ReplyDeleteMusings
-LED’D, LCD’S, CRT’S? Nope, Nipper’s brand.
-If I’m asked to do a chore around here, the time frame of PDQ is assumed
-SNL skits are like the first verse about this Wadsworth girl
-Speaking of tennis pioneer ASHE, I plan on seeing this movie about another athletic pioneer.
-ESSAYS are much more palatable now that computers allow effortless editing
-Didn’t we all laugh/cry/laugh at Dumbo, The Lion King, Bambi, et al
-Daughter and son-in-law’s garage will only house Volvos and Audis. I park my GMC in the street!
-Is anyone else getting tired of hearing Awesome as an adjective in everyday discourse?
-OSLO Accords, Camp David Accords, et al can’t seem to overcome centuries of hate
-“Poor Sydney Strawberry. His POPPA’s IN A JAM.”;-)
-More Murphy’s Laws
-FLOWER didn’t get me today! Shakespeare was a dead giveaway.
-Ultimate NASA compliment, “You are a STEELY-eyed missile man!”
-I first had the Slain rolling in the MORGUE. Yikes!
-Of all my titles POPPA/PAPA is my fav
-That’s my treadmill rate too, Marti. Is this where you did your great write-up?
Good morning, everyone! Yowza – what a devilishly clever theme, Julian! Had to resort to the solve-from-the-bottom-up strategy, so I got the JOINT RETURN unifier before any of the theme fill; otherwise it would have been hopeless. Wonderful expo Marti – loved the MOUNT FUJI picture with its cloud “hat”.
ReplyDeleteHand up for IOUS before CHIT. Wasn’t fooled by Shakespeare’s Flow-er. Misread the clue for 51D as Braveheart Studio at first, so PIXAR took some time to appear. Got a guffaw out of Where the Slain Roll? = AISLES. Still ended up with a DNF thanks to entering PAPPA at 11D and not giving a second thought to what school ARU might be.
Any advice from the cat owners here on the blog on how to discourage my little darlin’ from chewing on wires? So far we’ve discovered an alarm clock, a web-cam and a phone cord have fallen victim to this new bad habit. Apart from the damage, I’m more concerned that he’ll end up getting hurt. The sooner we can nip this in the bud, the better.
Have a great Friday, all!
Good morning everyone.
ReplyDeleteAgree with Marti's assessment. Eventually got most of it and backed into the rest. I spell Poppa with an A so I did not get ORU. But for a Friday I was satisfied. I WAGged AVANTI so that helped with the NW. Also guessed OSLO and AVON. Had IOU before CHIT. In the Navy a 'chit' was a kind of authorization slip. Also had steady before STEELY. Perps were ample enough that I got the backword JOINTS ok. OJOS is new to me.
Have a great day.
Like Barry and Fermatprime, JOINT RETURN and PIHHOP MUSIC finally gave me the theme. UGHH! I am not a fan of backwards answers unless they spell something that makes a new understandable phrase. (Gross understatement)
ReplyDeleteThe puzzle was doable without help and otherwise enjoyable. Close to okay, but no cigar. Thank you, Marti, for saving the day with your witty blog, leaving us with a delightful aroma.
Maybe I am in a bad mood from taking the burned out fluorescent tubes from my kitchen light to the dangerous waste recycling center this morning. You need an appointment to drop these off. How do people who are not able to drive or those living in the hinterlands, which we called the middle of nowhere, handle this?
Did you realize that you are required to take energy saving CFL light bulbs to the same sort of center because they contain mercury? Most people just dump them into the regular trash, not realizing the impact on the environment. It seems the new technology is no so environmentally friendly after all.
DNF and totally out of my wheelhouse. The only completely correct answers I had were: LATEST, AVANTI, PIE, SNL, EEL, EASY, DUMBO, AUDI, WERE, LAWS, AVON, POPPA, EAT LUNCH, TSO, UDE, BADE, ODIN, EST and ORAL. Too many incorrect letters to help with WAGs and the back-to-front theme would never have occurred to me in a million years.
ReplyDeleteMarti, thanks for a stalwart effort and good explanations.
YR, Do you separate your garbage with a recycling bin? Here you can put those CFL's in with the other recyclables.
ReplyDeleteHusker Gary:
ReplyDeleteAWESOME musings today ...
OK, you know I think your musings are great ... but I had to kid you just the same.
WHAT ???
"42" isn't about Mariano Riveria ... my favorite New York Yankee???
(Well that changes the "movie night" schedule).
Good morning, folks. Thank you, Julian Lim, for one tough puzzle. Clever, though. Thank you, Marti, for the swell review.
ReplyDeleteBefore I start, I solved my IPad problem. I had too many puzzles stored in it. I erased them all and I was immediately able to download the puzzle for today. Now I know.
Got started with the puzzle up North with ERIE (of course) and REEKS. Then ASHE.
After that I bounced around all over. Finally got the JOINT RETURN at 64A after OJOS appeared.
The backwards words eluded me for a long time. I had ELBOW GREASE at 17A. I figured that had to be right. Wrong. EENK SLAPPER was my Rosetta Stone.
Liked the photo of MOUNT FUJI, Marti.
Well, after four hours on this puzzle I am glad I am done. Much to do today.
See you tomorrow, probably late.
Abejo
(hidclo)
I thought "42" was gonna be about Douglas Adams. Not!
ReplyDeleteI don't know of any place around here where you can recycle CFL's. And for most hazardous materials, there's a fee to recycle, so only the righteous recycle. I've switched all of the recessed floods in my house to LED's. My kitchen is actually brighter than it used to be and electric usage is only a quarter of what it used to be.
A definite DNF for me either. I just could not get the theme. I wish the theme would be given so at least I would have some idea of what was going on. I hated today's puzzle. Worse than Saturday's. And I was complaining at the beginning of the week about how easy these usually are - got me good today!
ReplyDeleteHG @ 9:02, That treadmill desk looks like a neat idea. I listened to the entire NPR story-fascinating concept!
ReplyDeleteIn our town, they have a free hazmat recycle day once a year (usually in the spring). I have gotten rid of cans of DDT (from previous owner), paint, fluorescent bulbs, old computer monitors...but they just refuse to allow me to drop of DH!!
Kazie, thanks for the info. I am sure that 90+% of my neighbors do not take the CFLs to a special place, but instead, they use either the regular trash or our curbside single stream recycling. However, I asked today at the center and they said we should not do this. Although each bulb contains just a tiny amount of mercury, think of all the mercury released by millions of bulbs placed in the regular recycling. I haven't bought any CFLs thus far. It seems illogical to save the environment by releasing mercury into it.
ReplyDeletePS There is no fee here, except for tires and large appliances like washers and refrigerators.
I was wondering how the PA Dutch shoofly pie became a southern treat. I checked to see whether shoofly pie originated in Germany. Apparently not. According to the following article shoofly pie seems to have originated among the German settlers in PA. I think perhaps the Mennonites brought the recipe to the south and other places with when they settled in many of the U.S. states.
I love wet bottom shoofly pie. It is great to eat at breakfast with coffee. A real PA Dutch (German) tradition.
Link text
What a surprise puzzle for me. I thought I had the wrong day since I was doing so well. I was ‘sailing’ along with the answers until WOBLEgrease. What the heck! Kept going, and got to EENKslapper. That’s when I ‘got’ the theme, but then I kept thinking it should be POHPIHmusic rather than just the “PIH’ hopmusic. That slowed me down.
ReplyDeleteI used red letter help in a few places, so a DNF, but this has to be one of the quickest Friday solves, for me, in a long, long time. I really enjoyed the puzzle, Mr. Lim. Marti, I thought I had the theme, but until I read your blog, I didn’t see the joint connections. Thanks so much for all you add to the Corner.
Abejo: I have an original iPad and I learned that I had to delete the ‘old’ puzzles. I also have to close apps that are open. I read several news apps, do several solitaire/word games, check the weather/roads, use TV Guide, and so on. Unless I close those programs using the double click on the home button, I can’t get a ‘new’ puzzle for the day.
I knew Eosene but forgot about epoch, so needed perps to help there.
Have a good Friday, everyone,
Montana
CED: You were part of my CAPTCHA today!
ReplyDeleteMontana
Good morning:
ReplyDeleteKudos to Mr. Lim for his creative craftsmanship. For any other comments, I'll follow Thumper's advice. Sharp write-up, Marti.
We have a rainy, gloomy, cold day. Where oh where is Spring?
Have a great Friday.
-Tin, thanks for the awesome (Yuk!) comment ;-)
ReplyDelete-We all know CC came to us from China and is amazing, remarkable, astonishing, marvelous, astounding, beyond belief, (See, that other word can be avoided) but did all of you see what this 14-yr-old boy is doing at the Masters?. He’s not even old enough to play on a high school team but is teeing it up with the best in the world!
-BTW, 53-year-old Freddie Couples is right in there with the non-gray haired players too! What a game!
-Dang, now Marti will hop on that treadmill to work and be in even better shape than this slacker who is already miles behind her ;-)!
dnf. never got the backward clue.finished only after i looked here. disappointed in myself. :=(
ReplyDeleteIt is an awesome puzzle and awesome write up and awesome comments so far, awesome!
ReplyDeleteIt is an odd feeling to begin Friday from this side, but since Julian is one of the hard ones for me, it all worked out.
The Skittish/SNL was especially cute.
Great week end all.
I put in KNEESLAPPER immediately only to figure out it was wrong. But, it had to be. Once I filled everything around it, did I figure out the theme. Clever.
ReplyDeleteI guess I never would have thought of KNEESLAPPER as "rich". To me, the expression has always been used cynically as in "That's a bit rich!" --meaning something is going too far, too expensive, or unbelievable. Never funny.
ReplyDeleteYR, I agree with you. If adding mercury to the environment isn't worse than using more electricity, then I don't know what is! At least they should have thought of an easy inexpensive way to recycle it before flooding the market with those new lights.
YR, here's June Christy's 1945 recipe for Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy 2:43.
ReplyDeleteWell, this one totally defeated me. I got lots of answers, including all the writers, MOUNT FUJI, and lots of other stuff. But the WOBLEG just couldn't be right, I knew, nor the REDLUO, so I just gave up in despair. And to think this was only a Friday! Bet we get a fiendish Silkie tomorrow--aaarrrrggghhh. Oh well, the write-up was fun, Marti, and the theme was clever even if I didn't get it.
ReplyDeleteAbout light bulbs. I have to get an electrician to come in every so often since I can't change some of the burned out ones myself (too high to reach, too hard to get the covers off, etc. etc.) Thankfully he's been willing to take all the discarded bulbs I've accumulated with him.
Have a good Friday, everybody!
Hint about San/Sao: if you are dealing with Portuguese, it will be Sao. If Italian or Spanish, it will usually be San.
ReplyDeleteAzores are Portuguese so Sao is the best bet.
Greetings, Marti, et alii.
ReplyDeleteYowza! As soon as I saw the constructor's name I knew it would involve something tricky and it was. However, like some of you, PIHHOP MUSIC opened the door for me. Very clever, Mr. Lim!
The entire eastern seaboard flooded in like the mighty Mississippi but in a slow seep and so I had the last part of the themes. Then it was time to do some deep thinking.
However, I felt SENILE since I failed to see the JOINTs involved so thank you, Marti, for that explanation.
Where the slain roll, AISLES is a brilliant clue/fill.
Shakespeare's flow-er didn't fool me so AVON appeared early on and AVANTI is familiar, too.
Good work, Julian, thank you.
Have a fantastic Friday, everyone!
Hi gang -
ReplyDeleteHad to set this aside and come back a couple hours later to get the NE corner, as PDQ slowed me down. Still came doen to a wrong guess at PAPPA / ARU.
Sussed the clever theme - eventually, and only because of the unifier, but I don't like it. 'Nuff said.
The long down fill are awesome.
"Where the slain roll" had me thinking of the center AISLE of a church. Big WTH?!? moment. Too many funerals lately.
Got through the winter pretty much unscathed, but now have a really awful cold.
Cool [not cold] regards
JzB
I knew IRIS only because I saw the film when it came out. I love Judi Dench and will always go see a movie she's in and she played the lead, IRIS.
ReplyDeleteI thought you could take spent CFL's back to the store where you bought them. Is that wrong?
ReplyDeleteCheers!
JzB
The tree huggers also told us that CFLs would last 10 to 20 years. "You'll rarely have to replace them." Horse hockey!!
ReplyDeleteYellowrocks, check with your local Home Depot, Lowe's, Ace or Tru-Value hardware. Many of them have recycling programs for CFLs.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to say, that when it comes to Julian Lim puzzles, Thumpers quote just doesn't cut it...
ReplyDeleteHi Y'all! Awesome puzzle, Julian! Well, I said, "Aw something! several times." I usually love Lim puzzles. I always try to fill the NW block first. I got the backwards trick with WOBLE GREASE which I repeated aloud several times and suddenly the light dawned. Helped a great deal with subsequent fills. By the end, I appreciated the cleverness.
ReplyDeleteGreat expo, Marti! I completely missed the cleverness of "skittish TV". I skipped over filling it when I read it and it filled in without my notice.
I tried Mt FUJIama at first. No fit!
I didn't know florescent bulbs were hazmat. I have used some halogen bulbs touted to last 5 years which last about two months. Threw them in the
trash. Another nono?
pje: Warn't me in a red minivan with vanity plates. EGAD! some imposter has stolen my initials! LOL!
I hate to be stuckup but I gotta go get my annual blood tests to get my thyroid meds renewed. Ungh!
DO, thanks for the shoofly recipe. It looks good, similar to our own family recipe. The market stand pies we can buy in Lancaster County are very good, but they can't beat home made. Now that I have the taste in my mouth I will have to bake one.
ReplyDeleteJazz, you are correct. Earlier this afternoon I discovered our Home Depot accepts all kinds of used small CFLs, bulbs and tubes up to 3 feet. I took my used 2 foot bent U tubes to Home Depot when I bought new ones to be sure of a match. The clerk handed them back to ma and didn't say a word about recycling. I should have asked.
You are all so good for me. Interacting with my virtual friends is dissolving my w(b)itchiness.
Spring has sprung, finally, in the last two days. I can sit in my glass atrium and enjoy daffodils and forsythia. The bushes and trees are showing a blush of red or green with the promise of new leaves or buds. The birds are singing. I saw a baby rabbit. The sun will come out tomorrow.
That's very interesting info on recycling bulbs. My kitchen requires two 8-foot fluorescents which last about 12-15 years and the hallway has a hologen bulb which I've changed twice in the past 20 years.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first changed the kitchen ones they cost $3.00 each at Home Depot; next time, $6.00 and just recently had to change them and they cost $9.00. Interesting progression.
-Just back from the Y where I was watching the Master’s on the treadmill TV and CNN on the wall TV (golf allows that). I almost choked when I saw the CNN crawl noted Jonathan Winter’s passing as “Former costar of Mork and Mindy, Jonathan Winters…” Really? I suppose that made sense to the young person who wrote that but seemed to be a woeful epitaph for Jonathan.
ReplyDelete-BTW, a Master’s official penalized Tianlang Guan today for slow play, the first such penalty levied in many years. The very heavy official looked like a bit of a bully talking to 14-year-old Guan and the boy could miss the cut because of that one-stroke assessment.
-CC, is Guan the boy’s “first name” and how his peers would address him and Tianlang his family surname?
-Every green energy initiative has negative sides as well. We have incandescent bulbs here and never seem to replace them that often.
-Quick question – Do ACPT tourney puzzles have gimmicks like Julian’s?
CED: LMAOROTF!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteWhere did you find that clip?
My sentiments exactly.
Man, am I glad I spent the last 2 hours adding up my "tax crap" instead wasting time on that puzzle.
Blecch.
JavaMama @ 9:09am Re: cat chewing cords.
ReplyDeleteThere is lots of advice on the internet, but the best I have heard is at the end of the above link:
smallest-size canine rawhide chews—dip in warm water and zap in the microwave first to soften a bit. A percentage of cats reduce their chewing activity or even stop altogether if you add digestible fiber to the diet. Fresh cat greens, green beans, lettuce added to the cat’s food bowl may do the trick. Some of the “hairball formula” commercial diets also may work, as they simply increase fiber in the ration.
So, distraction, activity, things to chew on,,, & if that doesn't work, 120 volts usually does...
Re: recycling CFLs, yes Home Depot seems the best bet. Kazie, here in N.J. they are very picky with recyclables. I once had my entire can refused & was left a sticky note saying I left a cork in a bottle of wine...
Montana @ 10:17
CED part of Captcha?
(all I can say is, THEY WILL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!!!)
For some reason, I got the whole puzzle except the main clue. I put in FiJI instead of FUJI, and RETiRe instead of RETURN - and couldn't see what was wrong.
ReplyDeleteBrain burp.
Did not know what cara or OJO were. Thought cara might be dear, caro being dear in Italian. So much for figuring out Spanish from Italian.
Well , got the unifier right away & mistakenly had the audacity to fill in the "joints "! After that there was much joint replacement happening! There were some good clues / answers in our mess after the "surgery" ! Another humbling crossword moment ! Don't think I'd try shoofly pie after reading "The Help" , lol !
ReplyDeleteHusker G. @ 3:59, I assure you, the harder ACPT puzzles do indeed have such gimmicks. The one that kicked my a** had a title "Take Five." In each entry, you had to omit the five vowels a-e-i-o-u. So one entry was WITCHES CAULDRON, but the answer you had to write down was WTCHSCLDRN...WTF???
ReplyDeleteCED @ 2:12, I can identify with that quote, LOL!!!
ReplyDeleteCED @ 4:39
ReplyDeleteYou threw out a bottle of wine?!?
Man, we need to have a little talk.
Cheers!
JzB
Hello everybody. Took a long time to figure out the reversed joints, EENKSLAPPER being the Rosetta Stone for me. Some lovely down fill. Like Spitzboov and Java Mama I filled in PAPPA and gave no thought to ARU. Overall a hard yet solvable puzzle.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of wine, LW and I discovered a nice Whodunnit series called Blood of the Vine on a channel called MHz Worldview. It's in French with English subtitles. What makes it extra fun is that each episode takes the intrepid enologist and amateur crime solver to a different area of France's wine producing regions and throws in some interesting tidbits about the wine that is produced there. The French attitude toward and categorization of wine is very different from California's approach.
Best wishes to you all.
Dodo, I have no idea why this was posted in "Comments Section Abbreviations". I assume you wanted it here.
ReplyDeletedodo said...
Hi gang,
Just dropping in for a sec. I wrote a long comment after reading the comments about a puzzle having to do with 'dodo'. I can't remember when it was. Didn't know that there was a new procdure for posting and lost the comment. . I hope I'm getting this right.
I've been missing you all, though J.D. Carol, and Chickie have kept in touch and we're planning another get together here in June, when Lucina pays her anual visit.
If anybody else feels like making the trip, let me know and I'll be happy to have you join us. We picked u p Garlic Girl a couple of years ago and she sees the lucky south peninsula two regularly. Carol made it once before my time, but Oregon is a bit of a trip for lunch! We'd love it if you could do it again, Carol.
C.C. you know there's always an open invite for you, too. How great if you could make it!
Hello and hugs to all the rest. I think about you often, dear friends.
April 12, 2013 at 7:06 PM
Ran aground like a Supertanker hauling India ink (which is what my puzzle began to look like at the end before I came here in shame to find out what in the holy heck went wrong). I'll REDLUOHS the blame for my DNF. Maybe my mind wasn't quite as twisted as it usually is, and needed to be today? And just who (other than Superman with his X-Ray vision) could make out the numbers in the first photo of "Please prove you're not a robot"???
ReplyDeleteTough puzzle but doable. Nice writeup. Thanks Julian and Marti.
ReplyDeleteCED, I loved your Yosemite Sam cussing video. What a great character he is!
The Dodgers/Padres game last night was interesting; a hit batter and a big basebrawl. I'm not normally interest in fighting, especially mixed martial arts, but this brawl was fun to watch unfold. It's too bad though that the Dodgers pitcher ended up with a broken collarbone.
Dodo, it was fun to hear from you. Keep it up.
Tony, don't worry about the numbers; just do the letters.
ReplyDeleteConservation of mass See Link
ReplyDeleteSpitz, I don't know what to make of the elephant vs. iPhone video. The elephant might be a bit brighter than those teenagers.
ReplyDeleteArchie Bunker's having a bad day all around.
Archie's bad day.
{croopoop}
This senile woman was in a jam on this puzzle. Thanks for explainatons. Mary
ReplyDeleteIf that phone was in the pile of what I think it was, it would take more than a quick wipe-off to get me to put that to my ear....and MOUTH. Yukkk!!
ReplyDeleteTough. A DNF, although I got the reversed word theme before giving up.
ReplyDeleteWhat stalled me for a long, long time was ERIE. I wanted TROY, and because the "R" worked, I didn't want to abandon it. But even that caved for me.
The real stinker was the combo of short words in the NE corner. PDQ and ORU kept me from filling in anything else. Finally, I collapsed. I rarely give up these days, but there is still a point where my curiosity is stronger than my determination.