Theme: Play Ball! - Four blocks of black squares signal first
base, second base, third base and home plate. Circled letters spell out
BLOOP, STEAL, ERROR, HOMER.
Revel entry:
32A. With 37-Across, what the circled words (shown in the appropriate direction) are capable of doing : ADVANCING
37A. See 32-Across : THE RUNNER
A few more baseball entries:
6D. Baseball commissioner under whom interleague play became a reality : SELIG (Bud)
25D. Ones getting lots of Bronx cheers : YANKEES. And 58A. 25-Down div. : AL EAST
59D. Mike Trout's team, on scoreboards : LAA. Angels.
C.C. here. No draft from Marti in our blog folder. I'll get the Clue/Answer list up and will fill in more comments later.
Theme involved diagonals is tough to pull off. Don did all the hard work.
Across:
1. Lab shelfful : FLASKS
7. Many a chalet : A-FRAME
13. Nielsen of "Airplane!" : LESLIE
14. Purple Label designer : LAUREN (Ralph). Was this a gimme or tough fill to you?
15. Open, as a fern frond : UNCURL
16. Relieving : EASING
17. Olfactory detection : ODOR
18. Rumor starter : I HEAR
22. Spanish pronoun : ESTA
23. Vintage auto : REO. Never heard of Flivvers you guys talked about yesterday.
24. Ballerina's asset : AGILITY
26. Dress nattily, with "up" : TOG
27. Wrinkle-resistant synthetic : ORLON
29. Alternative to gravel, perhaps : TAR
30. Humiliate : ABASE
35. Poker variety : STUD
36. Golfer Isao : AOKI. Just remember AO is featured in both his given name and surname.
39. Part of a process : PHASE
42. "Bartender, make __ double!" : IT A
43. Tie the knot on the sly : ELOPE
47. LBJ's antipoverty agcy. : OEO (Office of Economic Opportunity). Nose-wrinkling fill. You'll see a few more compromises in this grid.
48. Sierra __ : NEVADAS
51. "Papa-__-Mow-Mow": 1962 novelty hit : OOM
52. Suffix with school : MARM
54. Former "The View" co-host : BEHAR (Joy)
55. Conglomeration : OLIO. Most common subject line in my SENT emails.
56. '30s-'50s British Labour Party leader : ATTLEE. He's back.
60. One on a ladder, to a kitten up a tree : COAXER
61. Property recipient, in law : BAILEE
62. Join up : ENLIST
63. Garden sides : SALADS
Down:
1. Prefix with scope : FLUORO. Not an easy fill for me.
2. Shark, maybe : LENDER
3. Comparable to a cucumber : AS COOL
4. Hurtful remark : SLUR
5. Cocktail with cassis : KIR. Never heard of cassis, French for blackcurrant.
7. Wake-up call, say : ALERT
8. Pilot-licensing org. : FAA
9. Red herring : RUSE
10. __ Nashville: country record label : ARISTA
11. "Stay Fresh" candy : MENTOS. They have a big factory in South China.
12. Mesh, as gears : ENGAGE
19. Tee off : HIT A DRIVE. Hi there Gary!
20. Joie de vivre : ELAN
21. Carrier with a Maple Leaf Lounge : AIR CANADA. Our blog has quite a few Canadian readers. But most of them are quiet.
24. "Here's what happened next ..." : AND THEN
28. Hops driers : OASTS
31. Speakeasy employee : B GIRL
33. Saturn SUV : VUE
34. Physics class topic : ION
38. Bryce Canyon state : UTAH
39. Cider press leftovers : POMACE. Learned from doing xwords.
40. Patricia of "Everybody Loves Raymond" : HEATON
41. Of a blood line : AORTAL
44. "Va-va-voom!" : OO LA LA. I think "Ooh la la" is more common.
45. Self-assured : POISED
46. Gushes on a set : EMOTES
49. His last blog post ended, "I'll see you at the movies" : EBERT (Roger)
50. Most Iraqis : ARABS
53. Mid-11th century year : MLXI (1061). Bad fill. But we could not get anything cleaner here.
55. Eye, at the Louvre : OEIL. Trompe l'oeil.
57. Some RPI alums : EEs. For two of my favorite people on the blog!
C.C.
72 comments:
Stay, I was looking forward to Marti' s take on this wonderful baseball themed puzzle. It took me a while to get the circles in the right direction, but the rest was so cool for this the first week of baseball season.
Did not know POMACE but since POMME is Apple in French it made sense.
Clive Davis was in town this weekend promoting Arista.
Good day all
Morning, all!
Man, what an odd looking grid! No circles in my puzzle, so I didn't have a clue what the theme was or why we had such an oddly shaped grid today.
Managed to get through most of the puzzle without too much difficulty, except for the SW corner where I completely turfed it.
For a "mid" 11th century date, I figured it had to either be MLiI or MLvI, and it took a looong time to finally try an X there. For the guy on the ladder vis a vis a kitten in a tree, all I could think of was SAVIOR or RESCUER or the like, neither of which fit. I didn't know OEO. And, of course, POMACE is complete gibberish to me so I didn't guess it.
Once I finally got MLXI, that got me COAXER. I then entered random letters until OEO/POMACE got me the *TADA* at the end.
The theme is fine. Fillers stink.
Hello,
No circles, no idea, but figured baseball was likely involved somehow and that helped mr out.
The E in LAUREN was a wag. Wanted Mintos for 11D, but the E seemed correct and the I looked out of place for Ralphie's last name.
ADVANCING & THE RUNNER fills confirmed my suspicions about the baseball theme.
The F for FLASKS/FLUORO was another wag. What good is a FLASK on a shelf? There was a time when I would have preferred in the inside pocket of my coat.
Liked 2D, Shark,maybe/LENDER. LESLIE Neilson was a regular at the Greater Hartford Open ProAm for many years. Fun to follow. HE had one trait in his game I never developed. He could laugh and joke about a bad shot.
Don't remember LBJ's OEO. The crossing O with POMACE was another wag. Always want to spell ATTLEE with one T.
Thank you CC and Don, this was a fun solve.
Prognosticators are predicting some icing tomorrow before it becomes all rain. I like winter, but I've had enough for a while. Time to start bitching about the Hazy, Hot, & Humid.
Good morning!
Big fat DNF. I totally blew it in the SW. I was pretty comfortable with MLVI, but I left that poor guy standing on his ladder. Don't remember ever hearing the word POMACE. That ended as P_MA_E. The only word I could think of was POMADE, but knew that couldn't be right.
Oh, well, tomorrow is another day. Off to do taxes again.
Absolutely loved this puzzle ! Very clever. Thank you Don and CC !
As an aside, Pittsburgh failed while trying to ADVANCE THE RUNNER in the bottom of the 16th last night, but still won when rookie Tony Sanchez ripped a single through the left side of the drawn in infield in his first major league at bat, and on the first pitch he swung at in the majors, in the longest game ever played in the storied Pirates history. Ain't baseball grand ?
If the puzzle suggests circled answers, and the Mensa site doesn't show them, just open another window and look at the grid in the Chicago Tribune website Chicago Tribune Daily Crossword
Did not understand Cocktail with cassis = KIR. Perps gave me the answer. Thank you for explaining it CC.
My School suffix was yARd, which led to my eventual failure. I've seen Cider press leftovers before, but it sure didn't come to mind with P-yA-E. Never thought of COAXER even with -OA-ER. I'm a Patricia Heaton fan, so 40D was easy enough. And we just had ATTLEE the other day.
Speaking of Physics and Canada and the Maple Leaf, I read the other day that Dr Tim Meyer will become the COO at Fermilab, and will be bringing some Canadian "flavour" to Fermi. See the Director's Corner comments on Policy Changes in the right panel at this link: Fermilab Today
Hope everyone has a great day.
Good morning everyone.
Baseball theme applied at a Thursday level. Fun to do. Thankyou C.C. and Don.
Got most of it ok but the POMACE/OEO cross was a Natick for me. Not familiar with the TOG up term, nor MENTOS so that was another Natick. Rest of fill went in well and enjoyed the 'base running'. It even goes in the correct counter-clockwise direction. Chuckled at BLOOP.
Thanks for the shoutout at 57d. For the record I was a Ch.E. but I've never seen it in a puzzle.
C.C. - Since the black square count was above, as I understand it, the 43 limit for a 15 X 15, I assume Rich made an exception to accommodate this very special theme.
Off to play some bridge.
Have a great day.
Like Barry, no circles. Although I finished the puzzle, there was no joy in Mudville. Too much use of red-letter help to feel like I really "solved" it. Just managed to get 'er done, but no feeling of satisfaction. W/O red-letter help, would fo' sho' been a DNF.
Do I get to quibble with "Nevadas?" Sierra means saw in Spanish, and Nevada means snow-covered. So the mountain range is not a bunch of "Nevadas" but a single "snow-covered saw." Just as "kudos" is not the plural of "kudo" "Sierra Nevada" has no plural.
Hand up for M and Ms instead of Mentos. However, ESdA and TmG didn't compute and Ralph Lauren could have been spelled with an "a" instead of an "e". Otherwise it was an enjoyable puzzle. Nice job Don and C.C.
I'm not a big baseball fan, but once I saw the grid that looked like 4 bases and the pitchers mound, I figured it had to be a baseball themed puzzle. I usually don't really look at the grid, but with some of the puzzles lately having unique grids, I've started paying attention to the layout.
Instead of using Attlee, there are many British PMs who would fit nicely into crossword puzzles with interesting cluing (Wiki_List_of_PMs). E.g.
1. "Neville" Chamberlain - "Peace in our time."
2. Margaret "Thatcher" - The Iron Lady
3. Sir Anthony "Eden" - Mid 1950s PM instead of the garden of___
I hope everybody has a good day.
Hi Everyone ~~
Of course, I was thrilled with this puzzle ~ so much baseball! After getting ADVANCING THE RUNNER, I had an idea of what to look for in the circles ~ so clever, Don and C.C. ~ thanks for the fun!
No problems except for the crossing of OEO and POMACE. Also, I was thinking of MARM as a word rather than a suffix so that was slow to fill. I had a couple of lucky guesses!
Thanks for the double-duty today, C.C. I like your hint about the AO in both parts of ISAO AOKI ~ maybe now I'll remember!
OOLALALINDA :-)
This was an enjoyable Thursday puzzle! Thanks, CC and Don.
I solve on an iPad with red-square help on from the start. I agree with the person who once said that one gets extra ‘help’ that way in that if a letter goes in with no red, then one knows it is correct, unlike a paper solver. But I am not good enough to do Thursday puzzles yet, so this is what I choose. A DNF, but no alphabet runs. I did a few ‘vowel’ runs, but was able to WAG the rest of my empty squares.
As we discuss ‘circles’ I use Across Lite/Cruciverb on my iPad. I always get the circles. I clicked on the link from TTP and I do not get circles on that puzzle. However, I was exploring this morning so came to my desktop computer. I do get circles from TTP’s link. It is interesting which sites do or do not show the circles as well on whether one is solving on a computer or on a tablet. I think some folks have talked about different newspapers not having the circles, too.
I noticed the ad before the puzzle on the computer. It only takes a few seconds on my iPad for the puzzle to appear. I don’t get a paper newspaper anymore so have settled into using my iPad each morning.
Have a good day, everybody,
Montana
44D: VaVaVoom. Was a running expression on the Honeymooners by Ed Norton (Art Carney). He might have coined it.
LaLaLinda, I read that you live in Connecticut. I am going to be there for the next couple weeks. You don't have an email address listed. Would you be willing to write me personally at mtpughs@yahoo.com and tell me privately where you live. Maybe we will be close enough to have coffee. I will be in New Canaan.
Montana
C.C. Nice job Pinch-hitting on Your and Don G.'s baseball puzzle.
I'm not a fan of "circles in our puzzles" but I enjoyed the way the theme progressed the RUNNER around the bases.
LAUREN for "Purple Label designer" was a gimmie. Only needed 6 perps to get it. lol
Faves today, of course, was FLASKS being crossed by KIR. Go figure ...
Cheers!!!
Wow! The grid, the theme, the fill, the 5 letter baseball words circling the bases around the reveal, the time of year… Did I say Wow?
Musings
-Put hydrochloric acid and zinc in an Erlenmeyer FLASK and collect the gas in a balloon and you will get Hydrogen gas that if you put a match to, could burn hair off your arm. Not that I know…
- Ralph LAUREN was a sponsor of one of our blogs’ fav TV shows.
-The ODOR of 5th graders after a half hour recess at noon…
-I’m just starting into my retirement PHASE. Getting old ain’t for sissies!
-Joy BEHAR was contemptuous of guests with whom she disagreed
-Yesterday, I showed Joann a story about the legendary egg SALAD sandwiches that are made at the Masters Golf Tournament. Guess who made them for lunch and served them with a side of Fritos? Moi!
-COOL AS a cucumber: If you can keep your head while others around you are losing theirs, you probably don’t have a real grasp of the situation.
-I can now see that stupid racist jokes of my ute were just SLURS
-Recent high earthquake activity should put Pacific Rim (Ring of Fire) peeps on ALERT. Bill?
-I can hit A DRIVE a mile and a half: A mile down the fairway and ½ a mile left or right! ;-)
-AND THEN… (2:54)
-MLXI? V years before The Battle of Hastings?
-Easy one: What song contains “What are we gonna tell our friends, When they say Ooh la la"?
-Harder: Who was the loan SHARK in M*A*S*H who got Charles in a bind over buying a cheap vase?
Husker:
The Everly Brothers in the song "Wake Up Little Susie".
Charles' Loan SHARK was Luther Rizzo on M*A*S*H.
If I asked my "Bartender, make IT-A double" ... I'd probably receive a Quad ...
Good morning, folks. Thank you, C.C., and Don G., for a fine puzzle. Thank you (again), C.C., for the fine review.
This puzzle looked daunting. I was able to get most of the center section before the outer areas. Then I just worked my way through the corners.
Really liked the theme. I did mine in the paper since my IPad still will not get the cruciverb puzzle. So, I had the circles.
I missed on MENTOS. I had LAURAN, with an A. I initially had M AND MS for 11D. That did not work so I wound up with MANTOS. Never heard of that candy. So, I missed.
Initially had SAVIOR for 60A. That was not working. Lots of black ink in that area as I tried different letters. COAXER makes sense.
ATTLEE was easy. Have done some reading about him in the past. He was not very good at foreign policy prior to WW-II. Just ask any survivors from Poland.
BAILEE was a new word for me. With 6 perps I had it.
Raining here today. The ground is pretty sopping as it is from all the snow melt. Need a few sunny days.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
(3632366 24)
Miraculously got all but the southern corners. DNF. What is RPI?
I got the circled answers except B-O-P in the SE. Also missed OEO, -TTL-E, (COAX)ER across, P-M--E and H-A--N down in the SW, and --M, A-E--T, B-I-EE, and S-L--S across the SE. That gives an idea of how many blanks were there to make the downs impossible to fathom there too.
Baseball: an unknown foreign language to me.
-Right you are Tinman! My first toast (lemonade – the drink not the lawyer) will be to you tonight!
-I was finishing the puzzle at 8:03 this morning when the phone rang and a school needed me right away for a Home Ec. teacher whose day care had called to tell her that her son had pink eye. I showered, dressed, drove the 8 miles and got here in 22 minutes.
-The principal was somewhat upset with the teacher and told her she could not just leave lesson plans with a) show a video, b) read and do a worksheet, or c) have a study hall. Oh well, that’s what she’s having me do anyway. Her son was in the room waiting with her when I arrived and his eyes looked like a map of LA streets! Couldn’t she have seen that? I hope he wasn’t contagious.
-Addendum to Masters comment: I posted this last year but I’ll repeat today. One of the traditions of the Masters is great food with ridiculously low prices: Menu for the Masters
-I'm off to supervise the making of a pineapple upside down cake and show a video for sex ed. Ooh La La.
Prior post has gone missing.
Hello Puzzlers -
Glad I'm not the only one who got bound up in the SW corner. Only Enlist was filled, and the year had to be MD_I, but that wasn't enough to plow the snow. Eventually caved and looked up Heaton, then OEO, then Attlee, and guessed the rest. Technical DNF.
No circles on the Cruciverb grid, which is unusual. I was aware of Argyle's re-post (in the wee hours) of Owen's message containing a hint about the circled answers, but I soon forgot. Even if I had sussed Homer, it probably wouldn't have cleared the way.
Morning, C.C., thanks for pinch hitting. Really enjoyed the grid design, particularly the balanced theme words in the middle!
C.C. & Don - what a great theme for opening week of baseball!
Enjoyed the other baseball fills, as well!
Thank you both!
Kazie:
RPI, is a UNIVERSITY which has had the pleasure of some of our corner as students.
HG, while you are correct the Masters' prices are so low compared to all other sporting events, a buck fifty for coffee or water really is still ridiculous.
WEES, SW was my trouble spot. I Googled Pomace. Loved the grid and baseball clues. Cute.
Lemon,
Thanks for the link. Never too old to learn something new!
Good Morning:
Well, this was brain buster, especially in the Southwest corner. After much angst and a wag on pomace/oeo crossing, I got my TADA with no help. I didn't have any circles, either, so I never saw the four "bases" until I read CC's expo.
Nice to see the Dynamic Duo back in action; it's been a while. Thanks, CC and Don, for a crunchy but timely and fun "ball game".
RPI is a stone's throw from my house.
Abejo - Have you tried going directly to Cruciverb.com and then clicking on LA Times, to get the puzzle? It works for me on my iPad.
Have a great day.
Almost tempted to go with POMADE because it's the common word, but dared to stick with the "C" and so learned a new one.
I'm not a baseball guy, but the perps gave me enough of the 32/37A key phrases to carry me to a solid "Tada!" I enjoyed the intro-level education to four of the ways to move that runner's butt.
Good morning! I really liked the puzzle. What a unusual-looking grid. I didn't have any circles and had a hard time finding the four diagonal entries. I should have been able to find them since they are the base paths of the baseball diamond. But, I wasn't that clever. I appreciate the good intentions of Owen late last night in trying to give a little hint to those of us with no circles. But some folks seem especially sensitive to any foreknowledge at all. I don't understand it but I accept that it's true.
At my physical yesterday, I finally took the bull by the horns and got a Shingles shot. I'm glad that's out of the way.
That Master's lunch menu looks very reasonable.
Gary, yes I'm on earthquake alert. I'll post something here when the next one hits; if I still have electricity, that is.
I have a friend back east who still tells racist jokes. They're pretty mild, but still...
I have another well-educated and well-thought-of teacher friend who only tells dirty jokes. They are never funny, just filthy dirty. If I can sense one coming on, I try to politely make an excuse to leave the area.
Northwest runner @ 8:19 right now I am looking at the beautiful Sierra Nevadas. Here we call them "the Sierra Nevadas". But like you; the clue did not want me to make it plural until I saw 25 down.
Dnf because of sw corner.
Hello, C.C. and all! Thank you for subbing today, C.C. I hope all is well with Marti.
Congratulations on this creative grid! I'm happy for you who enjoy baseball; for me it was simply a challenge which I met except for looking up Mike Trout who is a stranger to me.
My newspaper had circles and it was a fairly good sashay but the NE gave me fits. I had ELLA and RUSTIC and only after I erased them it came together. Purple label is unfamiliar to me but LAUREN filled in easily.
POMACE looked strange to me, too, but all else worked well since HEATON and AORTAL fit in and COAXED was in place.
Montana:
It's true that sometimes when solving on paper the accuracy of a term is in doubt, but with time and experience I've learned to mesh the grid so that I'm certain of the solve though once in a while I miss one or two.
Have a thoroughly enjoyable Thursday, everyone!
I loved the base running, CC and Don. Most of this was Wed. level for me except for the SW, which was a real bear. I ran through the alphabet twice before I finally settled on COAXER. HEATON was a wag, especially the A, which gave me school _ARM. I didn't think of MARM before that. Afterward I checked and I am sure schoolmarm is a compound word, not a root with a suffix. I could cite references. This matches with what we taught our students.
POMACE was new to me, but as Lemon said, pomme is apple in French.
I was so excited to see a Dynamic Duo puzzle--with circles yet!--when I opened the paper this morning. Yay! I had a feeling it might be a toughie, and so it was--but still a lot of fun. So many thanks, Don and C.C. And double thanks to you, C.C. for your expo in addition.
I got a toehold in every corner right away and ended up with problems only in the NE and the SW. But even though I'm a baseball ignoramus, I actually got the whole theme. I got the reveal and I even saw the diamond in the grid and understood what was going on at each base. It was like watching a game! Yay!
My problem in the NE was due to putting ALPINE for the chalet. For once my Austrian background got me in trouble. In the SW I wanted SAVIOR like many others, but if only I'd considered the less likely X in ML_I, I would have gotten COAXER. Never heard of POMACE, of course.
But what a fun puzzle all the same. I liked the shout-out to Tinbeni with KIR and to our Canadian blogger with AIR CANADA.
Have a great Thursday, everybody!
It was nice of Owen to not post a baseball poem or three this morning, thus insuring that CC gets the accolades all to herself with this clever puzzle.
I also had a DNF like Barry, thanks to that POMACE/OEO crossing.
ADVANCING THE RUNNER by the HOMER almost negates that STEAL effort, as well the ERROR, unless the results put extra men on the bases.
Either way, this puzzle was a Grand Slam!
Musings 2 (or 3, you know my memory)
-I just showed a very frank sex-ed CD to a mixed group of freshmen. It got rapt attention.
-Bill, what precautions do you take out there in La La land that we don’t here where the ground always right where we left it yesterday?
-A STEAL can help more than just getting the base. The threat of or the actual execution of the steal can unsettle pitchers which can divert their attention and quicken their delivery
-I can’t imagine COAXING a cat to do anything it does not want to do
-Lemon, I wish Disney only charged $1.50 for water and Starbucks only that for coffee. ;-)
-Did it seem to you that the School MARM was the only eligible woman in town in all the oaters?
-My favorite Patricia HEATON scene (1:00)
-My dad dropped the “n-word” in my house once and I let him know calmly but firmly that that word was not welcome in our house.
-An oaf, lout, boor, fool told Joann and me some racist jokes on our last bus tour but soon got the hint we weren’t interested.
Anon at 12:29 said
"I also had a DNF like Barry, thanks to that POMACE/OEO crossing."
Barry G. never admits to a DNF.
He just uses Red Letter Help until he gets his "TADA" and then brags that he "solved" the puzzle.
Hello everybody. Nifty puzzle today. I liked the unusual construction a lot. The SW corner was the hardest part for me too. Learned a new word: POMACE. Got good strong footholds with LESLIE and HEATON. My newspaper has "Lab has lots of them" as the clue for 1A. Best wishes to you all.
Hi Gang -
Hope Marti's OK. Thanks for pinch hitting, C.C.
Great to have a base ball puzzle pinch hit on a day when the Tigers are rained out.
Terrific puzzle. Safe at every base. Didn't know Patricia's last name. Wanted the year X years, not V, before William the Bastard invaded England and all that, but couldn't get the X in place, so never COAXED out COAXER.
Got LAUREN from perps. That's the name of one of our beautiful granddaughters.
UNFOLD and UNCOIL before UNCURL.
ATTLEE looks weird.
Is the doorway to your heart an AORTAL portal?
I doubt that POMACE comes from pomme. The same word is used for the fruit pulp residue from pressing grapes for wine or olives for oil.
The Rocky Mtns are called the Rockies, The Appelation Mtns. the Appelations, But Sierra NEVADAS are not allowed. Got it.
AGILITY.
I just read that ML teams average about 7 walk-offs per year. Pirates and Tigers have walk-offs in each of their first two respective games. There were three others in the majors yesterday. Here's a vid.
Cucumber comparable regards!
JzB
Gary: We are lucky. We live on a high spot about a mile inland from the Pacific. No brush fires, no hurricanes, no tornadoes, no floods, etc. We do experience some earthquakes but have avoided any really big ones. We live on the Pacific Rim but we are not too near any of the faults that tend to produce big earthquakes. The biggest ones we have experienced were scary but our damage was limited to a few things getting knocked off shelves.
Do you routinely pay $1 to $3 for water rather than search out drinking fountains? It's hard for me to remember a time when I've paid for water. I am perfectly happy with public drinking fountains. (I would even drink out of a hose.) I do remember going camping with my father when I was young; not at a campsite but out in the backcountry in Virginia. We were running low on water and asked for some at a local house. Their well water came from an area with sulfur and iron deposits in the soil. So far as I know, the water wasn't unhealthy but it had a distinctive smell and taste and I had a hard time downing it.
Splynter, does this affect you?
UPS Fires 250 Employees For Staging A 90-Minute Protest To Defend Co-Worker
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/ups-fires-250-employees-2014-4#ixzz2xqofbBjC
Just got the link from my UPS Denver son,
Montana
Encyclopedia Britannica:
“Sierra Nevada, also called Sierra Nevadas , major mountain range of western North America, running along the eastern edge of the U.S. state of California”
ATTLEE was fresh in my mind because this is the second or third time he appeared lately. Neville Chamberlain, Margaret Thatcher, and Anthony Eden would not fit the clue because they were all of the Conservative party, not Labour. Thatcher was prime minister from 1979-1999, long after the dates in the clue. Neville Chamberlain died in 1940 and so did not serve in the 40’s and 50’s. Eden’s dates coincide, but he was of the wrong party.
The apple figures in here somehow.
"Origin of POMACE
Middle English pomys, probably from Medieval Latin pomacium cider, from Late Latin pomum apple, from Latin, fruit."
"POME (pəʊm)— n
the fleshy fruit of the apple and related plants, consisting of an enlarged receptacle enclosing the ovary and seeds
[C15: from Old French, from Late Latin pōma apple, pl (assumed to be sing) of Latin pōmum apple]"
It always mentions apple first and then related fruits.
From my Webster Dictionary:
pom-ace
(prob. fr. ML pomacium, cider, fr LL pomum, apple fr. Latin, fruit) the substance of apples or other fruit crushed by grinding or the residue remaining after pressing wine grapes.
oops. Sorry, YR. We must have been posting at the same time.
Am I the only one who can make out a "baseball" from the individual black squares?
Hi Y'all! Very clever, C.C. & Don! I didn't see the baseball diamond until C.C.'s great expo. Bravo!
I didn't have circles so didn't get the full genius of this. However, when I did look at the grid as a diamond, I think the small squares look like the players on the field. Some are runners and some are out of position, but still....
This was the first time I ever filled AOKI on the first try. I just noticed its almost a palindrome if you don't count the "S" and "K". I know, I know....
Didn't know KIR, SELIG, POMACE or BAILEE. Tried Buyers for the latter. OEO: tried HUD first. AORTic looked okay for a minute until it turned red.
Sierra NEVADAS: Many names which are originally Spanish have been colloquialized by people whose first language is English. The one that drives me nuts is Buena Vista, Colorado. Locals call it "Buunie" with a long "u" sound. Oh well, when in Rome...
I should have said ISAO AOKI is almost a palindrome...
Gary, did you learn anything yourself from the sex CD? LOL!
POMACE: One year we had a bumper crop of apples. We made cider with my mother-in-law's antique cider press. We had lots of POMACE which she fed to some delighted chickens. I couldn't tell if it flavored the eggs though. The cider was outstanding even when it fermented. We didn't call it POMACE, just garbage.
I should NOT have said ISAO AOKI is almost a palindrome. Now that I look at it again, I see it is NOT.
After all that, maybe I'll remember it better. He visits us often.
A baseball themed xword! I love these most of all I think. Kind of some tough fills for me on the SW corner with POMACE, HEATON and ATTLEE but WAGs saved me here and in a few other places. A big thank you to CC for linking to the "Centerfield" video. IMHO, the best baseball song ever. And incidentally, Go Texas Rangers!
A word to the wise about dentistry.
I used to be a good patient, with regular checkups and all routine maintenance. But when I was hospitalized two years ago, I was thrown off my rhythm and let the years slide by without a checkup. Last week I cracked a tooth, so finally made a appointment for today.
I am back home now--in pain and owing a lot of money above & beyond what my insurance covers. The damages? An old bridge had to be removed, two cavities tackled, an emergency root canal performed, and my jawbone "re-sculpted" to accept new crowns. The penalty for neglect.
BTW, why is it that insurance has driven up the cost of dental work? Anyone?
I'm sure Dave would have posted this later, but just in case he misses it, here you go:
Cute Cat Cake
Manac, you're up!
Ol' Man Keith:
Do you really think it's insurance that has driven up the cost of dental work? I believe it's always been costly. Both my late DH and my daughter had serious dental problems and the cost was always very steep, beyond what insurance paid. Lately I've been visiting my periodontist and even a cleaning (which was part of the procedure) is several times higher than at my regular dentist.
A timely and challenging puzzle today. Good to see the band back together. Had struggles in all areas, but the only unknowns wer pomace and OEO. So the O at that cross was any easy guess.
PK, your chicken story reminded me of a short story by Richard Brautigan: "Revenge of the Lawn". The Cliffs Notes version without a spoiler is: The still is cleaned out to make way for a new batch, and the ducks eat the mash. Hilarity ensues. It's anything but highbrow literature, but it's amazingly funny.
Jeopardy alert. Ken Jennings is on today. And the answers are all a lot tougher than normal.
Oh snap! I like to play along with Jeopardy!, but my old brain just isn't as fast as those young folks. If the answers today are even tougher than normal,I've got no chance at all.
Weird, I've got a cousin (by marriage) whose name is Richard Brautigam. He used to work for a daily newspaper, but I don't think he ever wrote anything. Just one letter off the mark....
Lucina,
Maybe so. I'm aware of the tab now because in just one session I maxed out my annual insurance coverage.
But I am a suspicious cuss. I don't have the data, so all I am sharing is my impression that in general the ready payments from insurers must tempt providers as a group (each of whom individually is a hard working saint) to charge patients "whatever the market will bear."
Maybe someone else can point to relevant study...
Musings 4
-Keith, there is a scene Peggy Sue Got Married where she travels back in time and gets to meet her grandfather who had died when she was much younger. Now as an adult she asks, “Grandpa, what would you do differently if you got a chance to relive your life?” His reply, “I’d a taken better care of my teeth.” My sympathies.
-PK, I don’t think I learned anything useful in the video but the woman making the presentation was very good at telling some kids in Indiana that pregnancy is only one worry of being promiscuous. She named 15 STD’s in rapid fire and told some unpleasant facts about them. The freshmen sat very still and took it all in.
Greetings!
No internet last night. Bummer.
Thanks for interesting puzzle, CC and Don, and for expo, CC.
Must admit to a DNF. Patience ran thin. Also, know virtually nothing about baseball. Tried to access cruciverb.com for circles. Could not find the puzzle on the site. What gives?
Tax documents went to tax preparer (also a lawyer and a bunch of other things) via Harv this afternoon. Hours spent enormous. Medical hardware list totaled to over 8 grand. Doctor and dentist bills another 5. Medical insurance and prescriptions added to total medical. Mortgage about 19.
I live much closer than Bill to prime EQ activity. Lost about 200K in 1994. Situation bad now as I cannot walk or pick myself up from the floor. (At least the big TV is bolted to the wall.)
Suddenly its colder than it was in March. Strange.
Cheers!
The grid scared me at first, but found several anchors that made me a bit more confident. Hand up for the SW corner being the most difficult. LAT paper had "lab has lots of them" as the clue for 1 A. I think of a flask as more of a liquor carrier. FLUORO was one of the last fills former TOG and KIR were new ones for me.
I agree with northwest runner - I don't think NEVADA should be pluralized. Just sayin.'
Ol' Man Keith- I feel your pain. My permanent teeth came through with no enamel, so my Mother gave me fluoride pills every day, but the teeth were always getting cavities no matter what I did. Finally found a dentist who took my work insurance and did a fine job. But when I retired, my insurance wasn't accepted and the other dentist I went to in my opinion, was just out for $ and did not get a return visit from me, I wish they could just lump in dental work with regular medical insurance, because if your teeth are a problem, it can affect your whole body.
Does insurance drive up medical & dental costs? The doctors have to hire more office help to process the claims. Then there are all those people who sell and process the insurance claims at the insurance company. We have to pay their salaries in our premiums. Sometimes Medicare and the insurance companies don't pay for months which makes cash flows at the doctor's office and hospital difficult. But just try to get the receptionist to give you an appointment if you don't have insurance, or an insurance they've had trouble getting money from like Medicare. Many doctors here don't accept new Medicare patients. Or new patients at all.
An ex-editor of the local paper, now a columnist, wrote about being tired and the need to go lay down. That's still 100 percent wrong, isn't it? Or has it been misused so often that it's now OK?
"Ignore your teeth and they will go away."
A pedant walked into a bar......well actually it was a brew pub......
A neutrino walks through a bar...
* A photon checks into a hotel and the porter asks him if he has any luggage. The photon replies: "No, I'm travelling light."
* The barman says: "We don't serve faster-than-light particles here." A tachyon enters a bar.
* A guy walks into a bar. After a bit, one of the patrons shouts out "37." Everybody laughs. A little later, somebody calls out "54" and more laughter ensues. The new guy asks the bartender what's going on. The barman replies, "Everybody knows these jokes so we just numbered them to save time." This sounds crazy but the new guy figures he'll try it. So he yells out "71." The whole bar erupts with howls of laughter for almost a minute. One guy almost falls off the bar stool he's laughing so hard. The new guy asks the bartender why his joke was so successful. "Ah, that's because it's a new one. They've never heard it before!"
A man walks into a blog, and they say, hey buddy, why the long face?
Bill G 7:43 - I sincerely hope it's still wrong, but I fear the nation is becoming too lazy to care. Misuse of lie/lay is like nails on a chalkboard to me.
Whoot! A C.C. Double-header today... Batter up.
It's a 1-1 series for me - a C.C. pzl (W) but my right field and line coaches failed to fully perform (L)... DNF. But we'll put this loss behind us and come out tomorrow swingin'.
48a - I've heard NEVADAS and NEVADA no biggie for me.
In baseball and puzzles I'm a purest, so ink in the paper (no red-letters) and no DH! (sigh accept it old man, the Astros are now AL). I'll google late in the week to find something but still DNF for me (though I'll accept a soccer tie - TDNF).
I had so much fun with this puzzle, but my base runner's (and second hitter's) antics didn't fully break up the corners. Maybe if the squeeze was on...
'Stros are 2-1 v. the YANKEES in the opening series.
Bronx cheers, -T
JzB - Ballet AGILITY finally loaded. Wonderful. Only my youngest stuck with it (oldest onto Choir), but she's not on-point yet. C, -T
Dudley, does your interest in old clocks extend to my newly-acquired 19??s Hamilton railroad pocket watch? Dunno why I decided I wanted it but I did.
Avg Joe, TTP, Bill G: great jokes. Can't let the challenge be unmet:
At a jazz club in New Orleans East,
Where men come to let their ears feast,
A man of the cloth
Was drawn like a moth,
As three bars walked into a priest!
Joke time? Time to find C.C.'s other EEs out there. Hands up if you get this...
How many EEs does it take to screw in a light-bulb?
Only one, but, he has to do it in the frequency-domain.
C, -T
Bill G. - The way I heard the numbers joke (BTW - liked the twist)...
A guy's 1st day in prison.
At lunch someone stood and yelled "45!" The cafeteria erupted in laughter. Another guy yells "82!" Again, laughter.
New guy asks his "new" friend what's going on ad he replies "We've been here so long telling the same jokes we numbered them to save time."
New guy thought he'd try.
"14!"
The room was silent and he sat down. Sheepishly, he asked "new" buddy, "What Happened?"
He replied, "Some people just can't tell a joke..."
-T
AnonT, in my earlier life, I used to get it; something about Fourier Transforms or some such. My original degree was in EE at Cornell followed by a MSEE at USC. I learned an amazing amount of stuff that I wasn't very good at applying and didn't really enjoy. I guess that's why I eventually responded to bad times back around 1970 and switched into teaching. I was lucky to have found something I enjoyed and was good at. Now if I only had gotten a MSCW! :>)
Right. That's the way I heard it originally too. I also enjoyed the new twist.
If you are a fan of Quantum Mechanics and Heisenberg, you might like this one.
* An electron is driving down a motorway, and a policeman pulls him over. The policeman says: "Sir, do you realise you were travelling at 130km per hour?" The electron goes: "Oh great, now I'm lost."
Spitzboov,
Yes. Special gimmick often calls for unusual number of black squares. We have encountered quite a few in the past Wednesday & Thurdays.
Burrito34,
Dear Argyle made the "Centerfield" video link. I often link but not embed YouTube clips.
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