Like the recent Paul Hunsburger puzzle written up by marti, this puzzle is its own theme. In a wonderful blend of visual (the big "E" created by the black squares, and the really difficult task of cluing AND filling a puzzle without ever using the most COMMON letter in the alphabet, the e. To do both is awesome. This is Bruce's first LAT publication, his NYT debut in January of 2013, was with 4 "1"s made of the blocks, then his second recently on Valentine's Day that created a little KERFUFFLE , and finally another grid theme Tuesday in the NYT as a collaboration with Peter Collins. The fill includes every other letter and some really sparkly fill including three grid spanners, PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM, PSYCHOANALYZING and TOTALITARIANISM. Also a slew of nice nine letter fill, ALAN ARKIN, CANADIANA, COSTA RICA, DRAMATICS, HAND HOLDS and PUSSYCATS, and really fun triple 7 stacks top and bottom. I am really curious as to what everyone thought of this and whether you will grade it an A or an F. Is there a theme, or is it a themeless without any E?
The reveal:
65A. What this grid's big symbol is, Across and Down : MISSING.
(Note from C.C.: The Saturday we had a while ago is a themeless puzzle without E in the clue or grid. Also, today's grid features a Top to Bottom symmetry.)
Across:
1. Small amount : JOT. I get my J right away.
11. NFL captains : QBS. QuarterBacks. A very misleading and not necessarily true clue.
14. __ Jima : IWO. Back in "WWII, the big one". What 1950's TV show is that line from?
15. High-class tobacco products : HAVANAS.
16. Samovar : URN. not an expert, other than from my Russian grandmother
17. GPS finding : LATitude. A CSO to the Times? Or maybe Jimmy B. (3:28)
18. Good chap : OKAY GUY. Not sure why, but I really liked this fill.
19. Nonpro sports org. : AAU. Amateur Athletic Union. Has a storied but controversial HISTORY in American amateur sports.
20. Plot : TRACT. Land not a story.
22. Providing with a transcript, possibly : CCING. Another CSO?
24. __-tzu : LAO. Father of TAO.
25. Climbing aids : HAND HOLDS. Nice alliterative fill. Many resorts and cruise ships are offering climbing places.
29. Arm support : SLING.
31. Viral chorus? : ACHOOS. Really another very fun clue that is Friday fair; that talent is nothing to sneeze at.
32. Turkic Russian : TATAR.
33. Histrionic display : DRAMATICS. I think every family has at least one Drama Queen.
37. Roast, in a Baja dish : ASADA. Thank you Taco bell for teaching me this one.
38. Stuck : IN A RUT.
39. __ mining : STRIP.
40. "Argo" actor : ALAN ARKIN. Still have not seen that movie, though Arkin was great in Catch-22.
43. NBA coach Thomas : ISIAH. Sports trivia are tough on many solvers, especially when you are using a great player who had a very short coaching CAREER.
44. Historic town in Lazio : TIVOLI. Really obscure, even if the garden is famous. VIEW. (1:09)
45. Santa __ winds : ANA.
46. Innocuous sorts : PUSSYCATS. Not my first thought but in hindsight it works, usually with Big and baby talk.
50. Way to find out what you know : FINAL. Exam.
52. 3-D graph part : Z-AXIS. To join the x and y to get the third dimension.
53. "It's just __ thought ..." : AS I.
54. "South Pacific" song : BALI HAI. It has been linked many times, again?
60. Highway or city stat : MPG. Miles Per Gallon.
61. "Illmatic" rap star : NAS.
62. Mythical symbol of purity : UNICORN. Purity, really? I did not know this.
63. Fitting : APT.
64. Room with hoops : GYM. I guess a basketball court is a room, and I like the hoops misdirection.
66. Albany is its cap. : NYS. I understand this must stand for New York State but I find this a real stretch as NY is the state where Albany is the capital.
Down:
1. Dump : JILT. Originally a word for harlot, it became just a deceiver in love. Probably from a woman named Gillian or Jill. So maybe that is why they went up the hill.
2. Man __ : O'WAR. What a random and challenging fill in the blank. A great racehorse.
3. Autocratic approach : TOTALITARIANISM. This was a big word I heard often while I was growing during the Cold War.
4. Book with shots : PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM. Really nice clue/fill, especially bracketing a nine letter fill.
5. Poison __ : OAK. Ivy, Oak and Sumac, the poison sisters.
6. Morgantown's st. : WVA. West Virginia whose basketball team in 31-0 this season, only undefeated team.
7. Low island : CAY. We have lots of Cays and Keys in our area.
8. Afr. country : ANGola.
9. If said again, group in a 1950s African uprising : MAU. You can draw your own conclusions, but this was talked about when I was very little. HISTORY.
10. Studying on a couch? : PSYCHOANALYZING. My favorite Psyc professor was a Neo-Freudian.
11. Draw back with alarm : QUAIL.
12. Stock mark : BRAND. Nicely done, a mark on the livestock.
13. Curls up : SNUGS. verb (used without object), snugged, snug·ging. to lie closely or comfortably; nestle. Meh.
21. Books about Toronto and Ottawa, say : CANADIANA. Like Americana, *CSO to Eh!.
23. Country abutting Nicaragua : COSTA RICA, where everyone goes for inexpensive plastic surgery.
25. Put away : HAD. I had 3 pieces of Papa John's.
26. Not down: Abbr. : ACRoss. Context.
27. FDR loan org. : NHA. The National Housing Act was a landmark in the residential buying experience in the US. LINK. Much of what I do these days relates to closings, and foreclosures.
28. Papa John's rival : DOMINOS. All pizza no matter how you slice it.
29. GDR spy group : STASI. German Staatsicherheit meaning State Security. You can READ all about it.
30. Holds up : LASTS.
34. Annoy : IRK. Is it coincidence this rhymes with jerk?
35. __ bono: "Who stands to gain?" in law : CUI.
36. B&O stop : STN. We know it is station, but is it STA or STN?
40. Org. for Nadal and Djokovic : ATP. Association of Tennis Professionals.
41. Lucy of "Kill Bill" : LIU. Elementary anyone?
42. Colorado NHL club, to fans : AVS. The rather depressing nickname, the Avalanche.
47. Band guitarist, in slang : AXMAN. The axman from AXE, BOBBY BARTH. (2:48)
48. Lacking stability : TIPPY. A stretch for me; that table was tippy? No Hedren or Walker?
49. Army squad NCOs : SSGTS. Staff sergeants?
50. Sharp tooth : FANG, So as a vampire, you name your bar Fangoria.
51. Words from Watson : I SAY. All I think of was Nigel Bruce, " I say, HOLMES".(1:09).
55. Buy from Sajak : AN I. Apparently Pat sold all the Es.
56. Paris lily : LIS. You all know 'Fleur de Lis.'
57. Suffix with tact : ICS. So this is ok fill because it is clues properly, but would tact ending be ok?
58. __ polloi : HOI. Literally "The people" in Greek, hoi means "the" so do not say 'the hoi polloi'. Has come to have derogatory connotations.
59. Valiant's son : ARN. The young prince.
I am neither young nor a prince, but I had a royal good time with the grid and all the fresh fill. It seemed oddly easy after all, but I cannot imagine the work needed to avoid a single "e" in fill and clues. Get ready for more daylight and less sleep. Turn the clocks ahead; reporting from Ocho Rios, Lemonade out.
65 comments:
Morning, all!
Nothing easy about this one for me, I'm afraid. I completely missed the point of the theme and kept waiting for something that had to do with "E". At the end I stared at M_SSING and stuck in an I just because it made a word and seemed more likely than, say, MASSING. The fact that none of the clues contained the letter E does explain some of the weirdness, however.
Got through the western section pretty quickly, but really got bogged down in the East. I finally looked up Nicaragua to see what abutted it in order to get COSTA RICA, and that have me the needed foothold. Of course, that FOOTHOLD ended up being HANDHOLD instead...
AVS, ATP, CUI (I had QUI), TIPPY, SNUGS, NHA and HAD were among the many short answers that caused me grief, mostly because of the odd cluing.
Well, there was no missing that big "E" but I kept looking for something that the symbol, not the letter, might resemble when viewed horizontally and vertically (i.e. across and down). In other words, I was over-thinking it. Very impressive to construct a puzzle without an "e".
The western third filled fairly quickly but the rest was challenging. In the end I had to change MAO to MAU (and then BOY to GUY).
TIVOLI is also a little village here in the mid-Hudson valley of NYS (which is often used to distinguish it from NYC).
TATAR has been in the news lately, thanks to the current crisis in Ukraine. (And I still think "Ukraine" sounds odd without the preceding definite article. Click here to learn why it's properly omitted)
[15:29]
Thank you for a challenging puzzle, Bruce. Thank you for an excellent review, Lemonade.
Wow! A great Friday challenge! I liked this puzzle, but didn’t really appreciate the missing Es until I came here and read Lemonade’s review. I had M-SSING for the unifier, so I was the only letter that made sense to me. But I was thinking the unifier meant the black squares were MISSING letters.
I solved this puzzle in normal Friday time, but had to turn on red letter help when I got stuck at the end. I could not get A—OOS / A-R / N-A. I was thinking internet for viral, had no clue to A-R, and didn’t know N-A. I had to resort to a letter run to get AC-OOS, and then solved from there. I still didn’t get ACR until I read Lemonade’s review, then doh!
Red letter help also showed me that I had an error at 1A where I originally had TAD, changed it to TAT when I solved TOTALITARIANISM, leaving me with TAT / TILT and AWAR. Grrr! Taking out the red letters pointed the way.
I had too many write-overs to list, but the perps solved all them.
Lemonade --
Ocho Rios? My wife and I honeymooned in Ocho Rios in 1971. Back then it was a resort called Tower Isle. Today it is a Couples Resort. We had a great time! The weather, food and setting were great. Of course we love beach vacations!
When I first ran through this puzzle it looks like a DNF. I might have filled in 5 answers, but thanks to some WAGS it fell into place. IWO Jima made Man O WAR. I doubt any GPS (other than nautical) provides a LATitude, although it will eventually get you to your destination. I think of QUAIL as a bird. The perps enabled my solving as I have never heard of CUI bono, rapper anybody, ASADA. I wonder if the TATARs that Stalin exiled from Crimea will be allowed to bote in the election next week.his ceedians
Well, thank you, Mr. Haight and Lemonade...I'd give it an A. Enjoyed the Excitement of Extricating the Effective Elements...Enough, Enough....
Not an experienced enough solver to know whether it's themeless or not, but really enjoyed it and solved more quickly than I would have expected. (It really is hard to write without the big E.) I really liked the fill. Liked Tatar - much in the news. And favorite clue is probably 31A, "viral chorus", though 4 and 10 D are very good. For 10D, I initially wanted to do something involving a potato.
When I first looked at it, I was puzzled that there were 3 rather than 2 or 4 down-spans, but CC noted the vertical symmetry. Thank you.
Cheers to all.
Good morning!
I guess I'm in the minority thinking this one was really tough. Until I figured out that there was no E in the puzzle, I'd written ATE/HAD, THEATRICS/DRAMATICS, tactILE/ICS. My grid was awash with Wite-Out. If it weren't for the long downs to anchor things, I don't think I'd have been able to finish.
But I'd still rate it an A puzzle. I liked it all the while I was hating it.
Good morning everybody, and Happy Friday!
Wow, this was a brain buster for me. And a DNF. I had so many write overs that I can't tell what's what and who's who. My grid is a sticky mess of correction fluid and ink blots.
I liked the puzzle and enjoyed the challenge. I was surprised to see I got so many odd answers correct, like ddD: Draw back with alarm: QUAIL, and 46A: Innocuous sorts: PUSSY CATS.
But in the end this puzzle remains a DNF. (At least my captcha is numeric/legible.)
Have a great day and a wonderful weekend!
Good day to all,
After looking over the grid, I thought this was going to be a quick DNF, but as I started to doodle here and there, it started coming come together. Of course, I never recognized the lack of E , but in the end, it didn't matter.
The I & S in MISSING was my final fill and I couldn't figure it out. It was a wag, but the only one that seemed appropriate .I was 50% sure LIS was OKAY, but had no idea what vowel Sajak was selling
today.
Agree with Lemon on the cluing for 11A. Had Sta before STN for 36D. Guess 22A sort of defines what we were all doing today.
I really enjoyed this puzzle, and would have been the case even if it had been one of my usual Friday disasters. It was a fun challenge.
I started at the bottom and soon had MISSING E. Then I did the west coast top to bottom five cells wide. I realized there were no E’s in the answers, but the puzzle filled so quickly I ignored this hint. I waltzed right through it, but I realized how clever it was of Bruce to fit all this together without any E’s.
Great blog, as always, Lemony. I looked up your link for the Valentine’s Day puzzle. I was surprised that Rex Parker used APTEST in his write up, after yesterday’s objection to APTER.
My favorite was Viral chorus/ACHOO. Nailed it!
Al C, interesting about Ukraine vs The Ukraine.
I use TIPPY all the time. I hate a tippy restaurant table. That stack of cups is tippy and about to fall.
I have known plenty of drama kings as well as queens.
The word QUAIL always brings up this earworm for me, “A wandering Minstrel I“ from The Mikado. This version is beautiful, but the word QUAIL in it is not clear, so here are the lyrics for that verse.
But if patriotic sentiment is wanted,
I've patriotic ballads cut and dried;
For where'er our country's banner may be planted,
All other local banners are defied!
Our warriors, in serried ranks assembled,
Never QUAIL — or they conceal it if they do —
And I shouldn't be surprised if nations trembled
Before the mighty troops of Titipu!
Link Listen
The West Virginia Mountaineers basketball team is having a down year with a record of 16-14.
However, the Wichita State Shockers are the only undefeated team left in division 1 men's basketball with a record of 31-0 with only 1 game remaining. They play a weak schedule so they are not favored to win the big dance known as March Madness.
I think of a TIPPY canoe as lacking stability.
Good morning (again) folks. Thank you Bruce Haight, for an excellent puzzle. Thank you, Lemonade, for a fine review.
Got a couple up top to start with. Did not look good. So, I bounced around and got what I could. This helped.
Fortunately, PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM and TOTALITARIANISM both came pretty easily once I had a few letters. PSYCHOANALYZING also came easily a little later. All these helped a lot.
Liked Z AXIS.
I had SCAFFOLDS for 25D for a while. Eventually fixed that to HAND HOLDS.
CANADIANA was clever.
I finally finished with MISSING. I could not figure out the theme. Did not realize that there were no E's.
Fun puzzle.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
(109 38248933)
Hello Puzzlers -
Had to work at it a bit, and had to rework some answers that seemed right, but got there in the end. Cementing the long verticals definitely helped. Once Missing got filled in, I had to stare at the grid before the light popped on. Excellent! What a splendid construction, I'd give it an A. Nicely done, Bruce!
Lucy Liu? Yes, please!! I thought she looked particularly cute in last night's Elementary, in which she knew how to get the TV remote away from a protective rooster. Fun, eccentric bits in that program!
Yellowrocks - Tippy is a word I associate with the time I lived in Pennsylvania. Sound about right?
Good Morning:
Finished w/o help but not quickly or easily. Thought some of the cluing was "meh" but some was fun, e.g., viral chorus=achoo, book with shots=photograph album, and studying on a couch=psychoanalyzing. I saw the missing "E" from the fill but not from the clues until I read Lemony's excellent review. Kudos to Bruce Haight for this most unusual and remarkable effort.
We are supposed to get above freezing temps today for the first time in two weeks. Hallelujah! OTOH, though, maybe some more snow mid-week. :-(
Have a great Friday.
Wait a second. There were no e's in the clues either? Yikes!
Good morning everybody!
I got about 1/3 of the puzzle done then gave up and turned on red letters.
I missed that there were no Es in the puzzle as I was doing it, but noticed all the others with a Z,X, J etc. that we often do not see.
Montana
Brilliant puzzle today and required Friday level work (meaning some Google and red letter help) to complete.
I did not miss my CSO (CANADIANA) and was happy to note that OTTAWA was spelled correctly today!! Also noted LIS as Quebec flag/symbol has fleur de lis.
Many of my initial answers needed to be changed. TAD before BIT before JOT, IVY before OAK, SHI before LAO, KEY before CAY.
Several WWII clues today with Iwo JIMA and POWCAMPS, and African references with MAU MAU and ANGOLA.
I expect CED will have fun linking PUSSYCATS!
I did exactly what Barry G. described. Could not figure out what the clue at 65A was getting at, although it doesn't help that the theme didn't print out. But I did finish the puzzle.
Barry G., you often make me feel better, as we usually seem to struggle at the same places. I figure if you had problems with some clues, I don't feel bad about my shortcomings.
Sometimes a HAVANA is just a HAVANA.
Wichita State is undefeated in men's college basketball; West Virginia has several losses, but is always a good team.
Dudley, why the PA association? Didn't you mean tipsy as in our college days? LOL
I used to hear,"He's a pussycat," fairly often and everyone seemed to understand it. It was mostly said of adult males. The meaning is amiable or easygoing, kind. For us it was a compliment. I've read today that it could be a putdown such as weak or compliant. I suppose it has fallen out of favor because of the vulgar meaning of pussy. There are so many perfectly good words that have become taboo in polite company because of their double meanings.
Alan Arkin's best scene from Argo.
**Warning needed for foul language but not for any spoilers**
I enjoy saying "Argo f- yourself". Is that bad?
Hmm, no letter E, & pussycats, how can I possibly convey this theme with imagery?
#1
#2
Lemon, re: 14A WWII the big one 1950 tv show, I can imagine Jackie Gleason saying it on the Honeymooners, other than that, I don't have a clue...
I had TOTALITARIANISM, CANADIANA, BALI HAI and UNICORN but I had GUATAMALA instead of COSTA RICA. Ooops!
Strange, interesting puzzle. It's unusual for me to get all those grid-spanning downs without any problem and then have endless trouble with lots of small three letter items. Well, of course, the sports initials always defy me. In the end I got pretty much everything except the middle east. And although I got both MISSING and saw that dramatic E, I didn't get the point until Lemonade's expo. Still had fun, if not total success.
But I got my first Diabolical Sudoko in ages, so that made me feel a little less dumb.
Have a great Friday, everybody!
Al Cyone @9:45
Great catch! re: No 'E's' in the clues!
No booze, in the grid, either! 'nuff said!
WWII the big one
Archie Bunker
All in the Family
Completed the puzzle, but had to read Lemonade's write-up go understand the theme.
I don't much care for these "themeless" puzzles, but I do appreciate the constructor's creativity!
Happy Weekend to all!
Yellowrocks and Dudley, I grew up in Pennsylvania, and we all used "tippy" to describe something that looked/was unstable.
I wouldn't call this themeless; if I had gotten the reveal first, it would have made choosing my answers much easier. I think that qualifies it as a theme.
Good afternoon everyone.
Throughout the solve, I was MISSING the notion this was about the MISSING letter E anywhere in the grid. The large blocked out letter E stood stoically to taunt me all the way. Otherwise it felt like a Saturday puzzle.
Had OAK before ivy. and flirted with alleycats before PUSSYCATS. Got the 2 right down spanners early on but TOTALITARIANISM was crunchier. Guessed at ASADA. Nice shoutout to Canadian Eh with CANADIANA.
Only miss was having Napoli for Tivoli.
Tinbeni @11:15: It wasn't my great catch. I missed it in Lemonade's review ("To do both is awesome") and could hardly believe it when it was mentioned in Irish Miss' comment @9:33.
I had a lot of difficulty with this one but unlike many had the most trouble with the SW and the NE.
Hi Y'all! Interesting and challenging, Bruce! Great expo, Lemonade!
I was left puzzled over what the large "E" had to do with anything until Lemon explained it. It wasn't MISSING. I could see it large and black right there in the middle.
"Illmatic" still puzzled me after reading everything. Google says it is the name of the premier album for a rapper calling himself NAS. Okay, but think I'll pass on hearing the album.
Man OWAR, not "cave" which is a more common term these days.
All these years, I thought TATAR was Mongol not Turkish.
I had a map of central and South America hanging on my refrigerator for a year trying to learn the countries. Abut Nicaragua? I tried Honduras and Panama, Columbia after I got the "C". It's true. You can't teach an old bitch new tricks.
STASI is not nearly as famous as the KGB. I couldn't even guess what GDR meant. The Cold War years are easy to forget. Hope we aren't going to relive them.
I did know ISIAH, having seen him giving commentary on NBA Game Time recently where they addressed him as "coach".
Al, I'm sorry I missed that too in Lemon's write-up & Irish Miss's comment.
All done!
Like others, I kept looking for something symbolized by "E," and didn't get the reasoning until reading Lemonade's fine analysis. I agree with her, that it must have taken an enormous effort to avoid using our most abundant letter.
All in all, an enjoyable not-too-difficult crossword from Mr Haight. My only hangup was in the "Viral chorus" area, mainly because of the wonky way the verb "Put" operates. In the clue for 25D, the answer could be HID just as well as HAD, so for too long a time I lingered at 31A with I??OOS. Finally, remembering to double-check any clue using "Put," I got 'er done.
Hi gang -
Nothing oddly easy about this for me. Big DNF, and way over my head. I got all the grid spanners, but they didn't help. Viral chorus is clever, but a bit unfair, IMHO.
Tried HAND and FOOT HOLDS, but couldn't generate perps either way.
Missed on JOT-JILT. Some days, the puzzle gets you.
I only knew TATAR because I read recently they are the second most common ethnicity in the Crimean peninsula, after Russians. Ukrainians are 3rd. Tatars have no reason to love the Russians. Things there could get very ugly.
Re: Dramatics, we have seven grand-daughters, and 6 of them are in dance, theater or both. Emily, who will be 8 in April, is the current reigning drama queen.
This is a mostly great puzzle that mostly beat me up.
Speaking of Russians, tonight we are playing
this
and
this.
It's a real kick to be able to play such great music.
Cool regards!
JzB
Hello everybody. I thought this puzzle was interesting after seeing the unusual grid. It was hard for me too. I agree with Lemon that 11A is misleading. Quarterback are sometimes the team captains but not always. But I guess one could argue that their play calling makes them the captain in an informal sense. I finally noticed the missing Es in the fill but not the clues (like Irish Miss) until reading the writeup. Thanks Bruce and Lemon.
Now that I've thought about it a little more, I realize that some of the clues had to be worded carefully and oddly because they couldn't contain any Es. So I can give "Captains" for QBs a pass. It must have been a real challenge for Bruce and Rich.
Villa d'este, Tivoli is gorgeous!
The gardens are stunning and overwhelming to wander around in. It took two decades to build them and they only run by pressure from an aqueduct. No pumps are used. There is a wonderful short on them on youtube
49 down should be SSG's or SSGS which the US Army uses. Author used airforce abrv. for Staff Sergeant. Also squad leaders could be Cpl's or Sgt's. Platoon Sergeants usually are SFC's. Just a note. Don't use the Spanish Inquisition on me.
Happy Friday vrybody!
Put m down for liking this puzzl vry much. Always amazs m how crativ our constructors ar....
WBS rgarding nding to look up COSTA RICA to gt a footHOLD....
Didn't raliz thr wr no " "s in ithr th clus or answrs until rading Lmons writ-up, so thanks for that...!
Thoroughly njoyd th frsh cluing today, too many to mntion....
Doc out....
For all the Wichita State fans I apologize, I am sitting looking out over the ocean and I guess my mind d wandered after I typed the W.
Donor Gillis' father was WWII the big one.
The amazing thing about the puzzle is that he was so successful in eliminating the 'E' from the fill and the clues yet most of you did not as that aspect. It is really hard to clue QBS without an e, passer, signal caller, even my favorite pass master.Accounting program abbr is the best I could do and many do not know Quick Books.
Good luck to Marti at ACPT, and I strongly suggest you all read the crossword fiend yesterday for a typical exciting discussion to which C.C. was a major contributor.
The link is on the side…
Thomas' first name has two I's
I'm not at the ACPT this year Lemony. With only one week before the tenants move in, there's just too much to do here at home.
Oh sorry Marti I thought I had read you were going. I want reiterate how amazing this was because except for the it was a anagram. He used them all...
Tinbeni, I just came across an ad for a product that was just MADE for you - check it out…!
River Doc
I already have the ones called "Whisky Stones".
But I never use them. Room-temp./Neat is fine for me.
Hmmm, Pinch & Scotch don't have an 'E' ... why weren't they in the grid???
Cheers!!!
BTW, I already "sprang" ahead an-hour ... I'm NOT losing part of my weekend!
Hell yes, they even drop the E when talking about Scotch whisky.
Once again lemony shows that he doesn't understand what an anagram is.
Barbara and I just got back from lunch with son Tim's serious girlfriend, Angela. She invited us out to a Japanese place called Shabu Shabu. You order uncooked meat and seafood of various types. They bring it and an assortment of vegetables and noodles to your table and you cook it yourself in a pot of boiling water, kind of like fondue. It was tasty and fun.
It seems that President Obama was aware of this puzzles gimmick when he tried to remove the E's from Respect.
Are the new fads worth it ?
Just a note on the use of stainless steel ice cubes instead of good old fashioned ice ( cubes - ) ... for cooling your drinks ...
The specific heat of ice @ 0oC is exact;y = 1.00 calories/gram.oC
The specific heat of common stainless steel is about = 0.121 to 0.126 calories/gram.oC
So, it will require about 8 times as many Stainless Steel cubes to do the work on one ice cube, the same size.
Not, very efficient....
Plus there is the Latent heat of fusion/ crystallization / melting of ice, which is 80 calories/gram .... that is not applicable for the stainless steel cube.
so one gram of ice melting from -1oC to 0oC, water gains ( cools your drink ) by ..... 80 + 1 = 81 calories
and a one gram stainless steel cube in that exact range, cools by 0.121 calories.
Is it worth it ?
Rant ends.
A typical Friday DNF. Interesting theme. Too bad I didn't catch it on my own. But, thanks to Mr. Lemonade, it was pointed out to me. Someday I'll learn to look for the theme.
When I was in college in the late 60's, my roommates and I would walk to the original DOMINOS for pizza.
Happy Friday Evening.
Pat
Ah, numerical captcha.
Dudley, I didn't realize TIPPY was a PA thing. I have lived in NJ since 1960 and don't feel odd using TIPPY all the time.
I am even more in awe of Bruce's puzzle now that I know that there were no Es in the clues, as well as no Es in the answers. I found it Wed. easy since I was on Bruce's wave length. The clues did not seem at all odd to me. I admire the complexity of this offering.
Bill G, my Japanese DIL makes shabu shabu at home. It is very delicious and fun. She says shabu shabu means wash wash because you hold the ingredients with chopsticks and swish them around in the hot pot.
Did all of you realize that you can keep hitting the turning arrow until you come to all numbers in the captcha? I try not to, so that I don't lose my ability to read the suashed letters.
Have you seen the video about the goose who became really attached to a retired salesman? It will warm the cockles of your heart, whatever they are. A friend that's fine and feathered.
Pat, was Domino's pizza in Ann Arbor?
For the record, the context makes it clear that I typed pangram which autocorrect gleefully changed to anagram. To put in language understood by each of the 25 other letters in alphabet appear in the fill.
We just experienced a substantial jolt from an earthquake. It was only magnitude 3.2 but it was very close, about 4 miles north. One big jolt that rattled the windows and my nerves.
Bill...
Was it centered on the coast or a bit inland... ? 4 miles is close enough... I'm sure you were there for the northridge quake, but where you there in '71 for the simi valley one ? that one made a believer out of me.... :)
Hopefully the "Big" one they have been talking about for as long as I can remember will be diminished by all the little shakers you have....
You should be used to them by now... :) :)
thelma
Thelma, I am somewhat used to the little ones by now. I moved out here from Virginia/Cornell in 1963. We got married in 1965 and bought our house in 1969. The trouble with enjoying the shaking of the little ones is that you are never sure how much worse it is going to get.
This one was centered about a mile inland from Marina del Ray, near Loyola Marymount University where two of our kids went to college.
Yes, we experienced the Northridge quake and the Sylmar quake. Both were strong and long and super scary even though we are about 30 miles south.
I am pissed off today. I just found out that TimeWarner has the rights to the Dodgers telecasts and isn't sharing. We dropped TimeWarner about a year ago and now I'm even angrier at them though I have no idea what I can do that would be constructive. Rats!
Earthquake: Bit of a quiver here in E Hollywood, but nothing substantial. Puzzle was a big DNF. No red letters in the hard copy LAT.
Bill.....
I definitely am not making light of the quakes... and as far as "enjoying" any of them I wouldn't go so far to say anything about enjoying them... :) :) as you say, you never know if they are going to continue...
I was in bev hills in '71 and in westwood for the northridge thriller.... we felt them strong enough... as you said, they both really got your attention.... :)
Thanx for the info... I have a friend in playa and will call tomorrow....
thelma
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