google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Friday, May 23, 2014, Sam Ezersky

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May 23, 2014

Friday, May 23, 2014, Sam Ezersky

Theme: "I'll have the usual."

Let's start with the reveal today:
56-Across. Pub purchases, and a hint to this puzzle's circled letters : MIXED DRINKS. If you had the circles, it was a pretty easy scrambled letter theme to spot.

11-Down. Refuse transports : DRAIN PIPES. Pepsi - overwhelmed by the competition in this puzzle?

17-Across. No ordinary creation : MASTERPIECE. Sprite - made by Coca-Cola Co.

27-Down. Record player : DISC JOCKEY. Coke - Coca-Cola's original.

35-Across. Colonial environment? : ANT FARM. Fanta - also made by the Coca-Cola Co.

Marti here, switching with Lemony who was kind enough to blog my puzzle yesterday. In this one, well-known brands are mixed up inside the theme entries. I thought the theme was well-done, and enjoyed seeing the spiral pattern with a bonus 7-letter themer smack in the middle. And just missing a Q for a pangram. Let's see what else Sam is offering today.

Across:

1. Meddle, in a way : KIBITZ. Great word to start off!

7. Regarding : AS TO.

11. Shakes at rehab : DTS. Not the ice cream drinks, but Delirium Tremens.  Not nearly as fun.

14. Carelessness? : APATHY. Great misdirection. Not caring makes you apathetic.

15. Skater Michelle : KWAN.

16. P-like letter : RHO. I can kind of see the similarity…

19. 2008 govt. bailout recipient : AIG.

20. Some Super Bowl highlights : ADS.

21. Typical leader? : STEREO. Stereotypical.

22. Send an IM to : PING. IM = Instant Message.

23. More than glance over : PEER AT.

24. "__ Tonk Women" : HONKY. Rolling Stones classic, but I'm saving my music link for a better one.

25. Golfer's concern : BAD BACK. Do you think Tiger will ever…

28. Get ready on the golf course : TEE UP. …again?

30. Pelican relative : IBIS.

31. Like the action in "High Noon" : REAL TIME.

34. NFL's Jim Brown et al. : FBS. Fullbacks. Before he was an actor, he played for the Cleveland Browns his entire career 1957-65, and set several records. His 1,863 rushing yards in the 1963 season remains the all-time record for that franchise to this day.

38. __ patch : PEA.

39. Walls are an important part of it : FACEBOOK.

41. Drop-down item : MENU.

42. Cartoon mouse : JERRY.

43. Instrument for Jimmy Dorsey : ALTO SAX. Here's my choice for today. Classic! 1:25

46. "The Hot Zone" subject : EBOLA.

48. '90s sitcom neighborhood : BEL AIR. "The Fresh Prince of BEL AIR."

50. Gossamer : LACY. A bit of gossamer lace for the guys.

51. Like some livestock : BOVINE. And it's only fair to have some BEEFcake for the ladies.

52. "__ Am": 2007 Alicia Keys album : AS I.

55. "For shame!" : TSK.

58. Pickax picking : ORE.

59. Yemeni seaport : ADEN.

60. Tout's tidbit : HOT TIP.

61. "Opposed" : NAY.

62. Kid : JEST.

63. Entry for Ripley : ODDITY.


Down:

1. Hindu god of desire : KAMA. The Sanskrit term also means pleasure and love - one of the four goals of life.

2. Air, for one : IPAD. The iPad Air was CNet's 2013 Editors' Top Pick for the best full-size tablet.

3. Largemouth __ : BASS.

4. Long-haired cousin : ITT. From "The Addams Family."

5. Debussy work, across the English Channel : THE SEA. In French, "La Mer."

6. Allergy medication brand : ZYRTEC.

7. Director Kurosawa : AKIRA. 1910-1988. Prolific and influential film maker. I remember his "Seven Samurai."

8. Southern brew : SWEET TEA.

9. __ salad : TACO.

10. "Story of My Life" band __ Direction : ONE. Also initialized as 1D, a boy band that was propelled to instant success via social media. Their first three albums debuted at number 1.

12. Aptly named Final Jeopardy! theme song : THINK. Anyone watch Ken Jennings and Roger Craig lose to Brad Rutter?

13. "Never eat __ waffles"" compass point mnemonic : SOGGY. N-E-S-W.

18. Exec's extra : PERK.

22. Show some lip? : POUT.

23. TV pledge drive holder : PBS. Do you support them?

24. Navigation location : HELM.

25. "Back to the Future" bully : BIFF.

26. Group whose second letter is often written backwards : ABBA.

29. Exaggerated feature in Obama caricatures : EAR.

31. '60s atty. general : RFK. Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy.

32. Suvari of "American Pie" : MENA.

33. __ de vie: French brandies : EAUX. Singular: Eau de vie.

35. Spelling word? : ABRA.cadabra.  Magic spell. Minor nit: it's only part of the word.

36. Neither partner : NOR.

37. Places for action figures : TOY BOXES.

40. Serpentine : EELY.

41. "Eat __ chikin": Chick-fil-A slogan : MOR. I love their ads, but don't think I have ever eaten at one.

43. "Put __ on it!" : A LID.

44. Cry from a nest? : LAND HO. Crow's nest.

45. Steering system component : TIE ROD.

46. Entertainer John whose middle name is Hercules : ELTON. Né: Reginald Kenneth Dwight.

47. Iraqi seaport : BASRA.

49. It happens : EVENT.

51. Tarry : BIDE.

52. Lock opening? : ANTI. Anti-lock, as brakes.

53. Satiric bit : SKIT.

54. Traveling game : I SPY. with my little eye...

56. Coll. focus : MAJ.or.

57. "__ be an honor" : IT'D…to blog again sometime for the Friday crowd!

Marti


67 comments:

OwenKL said...

Some people like PEPSIs, some people like COKEs;
Some people think SPRITE is the drink for a toast!
Some people think Santa
Should get cookies and FANTA,
While at Villa Incognito they drink whiskey the most!

MIXED DRINKS may be cocktails for feeling frisky,
Or they may mean aged and blended whiskey.
And for food flambé
Mixing brandy's the way,
To the French they're the waters of life, EAUX-DE-VIE!

Thanks to today's soda fountain self-serve,
I can MIX my own DRINK, if I have the nerve.
Various names for this fluid ride:
Kamikaze, black cow, suicide.
This soda SWEET TEA is what I deserve!

OwenKL said...

People would think I'm an ODDITY,
A tour thru my MENU an Odyssey;
I MIX cold cocoa
With cherry cola,
The liquid ambrosia is ecstasy!

I really do mix chocolate milk and cherry cola (also regular cola and Dr Pepper). I could live on that stuff! Best taste is half-and-half, but the LW gets on me about calorie counts, so now I mix 1 part chocolate milk to 2 or 3 parts diet soda. Still tastes like nectar of the gods, IMHO!
I also mix packets of instant oatmeal using black coffee instead of hot water. It's good!

OwenKL said...

DNF. Naticks at A?IRA ✜ ?WAN, KAM? ✜ ?DS, A?RA ✜ FAkE ?OOK, and had DISk JOCKEY instead of DISC. Records are always DISKs, aren't they? We didn't start playing music off of CD:DISCs until records were obsolete! And a FAKE BOOK would have been a perfectly legitimate entry, though it would have needed a different clue, like "secret stash" or "improv source".

Barry G. said...

Morning, all!

Found this one challenging, but less so than yesterday's puzzle. Lots of potential pitfalls (such as DISC/DISK as Owen mentioned), but I managed to get through them unscathed. Also wanted TDS instead of ADS at first and had to make a WAG at SWEET TEA. Oh -- and I really, really thought 35D ("Spelling word") was going to be TORI...

I did have one question/nitpick: does anybody really need a mnemonic to remember the points of a compass?

[Dang, I simply cannot read the capcha today, regardless of how many times I refresh it. Gotta keep trying...]

Dudley said...

Hello Puzzlers -

WBS, including the part about the mnemonic. Seems harder to remember it than the cardinal points, sorta.

Mena Suvari? Yes, please!

Nice coincidence to have the iPad Air in today's puzzle, the first one I've solved using that device. My trusty iPad 2's battery was getting weak, so I opted for a newer device. Love the lower weight!

Morning, Marti, outstanding Jimmy Dorsey clip. He made it look easy.

Benny and the Jets said...

Marti: Although Elton John is openly gay, I don't think he ever had a sex change.

Al Cyone said...

A slow start and a sticky finish (thanks to DISK/DISC, already mentioned). ABRA made (makes?) no sense but the perps were solid.

We had a pretty impressive hailstorm here in the beautiful mid-Hudson valley yesterday. Only pea-size but a rare enough event to get one's attention. I pulled off the road to wait it out though most didn't. And too many drove without their headlights on. Talk about "clueless".

[15:33]

HeartRx said...

Benny and the Jets @ 6:14, thanks - I fixed it. I think Né is used for the masculine "born as" in stead of Née, which is the feminine form.

TTP said...

Good morning all.

A big fat noooo for me on this one. It was one of those days where I had so many words on the tip of the tongue, and couldn't quite recall them.

My demise started with entering DUMP TRUCKS for refuse transports. That error was easily found with a most certain HONKY, PING and PEA.

And I don't know about any one else, but Air, for one, was NEED. I don't think I could live without it.

Didn't help that I spelled KWAN with an O, got caught with the LEER AT trap, my navigation location was HERE, as in the you are here markers, and Jim Brown et al were RBS for running backs, rather than Full Backs.

All of those errors left me searching the old noggin for the correct fill. eg, I just couldn't think of BIFF since I had an R in the third position, and kept thinking it must be BARK or BIRK and finally hit on BARF to BIFF. ARGH !

Marti, I enjoyed your write up. I saw the others, but for the life of me could not parse SPRITE. I loved that jpg of JERRY. He's so happy.

Big Easy said...

DNF. Couldn't even get started. This puzzle had way too many unknowns that WAGS and PERPS couldn't help me solve. AS I AM, THINK AKIRA MENA BIFF KIBITZ. For all I know the pelican relative could have been T-REX. BELAIR is where O.J. ended up after the Bronco chase. I had heard of the GOSSAMER albatross but had no clue what gossamer meant. That was one heck of a bicycle ride across the English Channel. A person would definitely be directionaly challenged if they needed a mnemonic to know north from south or east from west.

This puzzle ate my lunch and more power to those who solved it. I Googled eight clues and still couldn't do it.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

Nice puzzle today. Enjoyed your writeup, Marti. I keep mixing up the A and I between ECOLI and EBOLA. I thought the director was ICHIRO; it took some time for AKIRA to peek out.

My "Navigation location" started life as HERE (as in You Are HERE) and ODDEST was in play before ODDITY reared it's ugly head. Hand up for TORI.

I remember when CD's were first introduced. There was a huge uproar that vinyl was superior. There was even an entire magazine, Stereofile (I think it was) devoted to the losing battle.

Out on the oil rigs there are always two pitchers of tea -- one sweet and one not. I once chose the sweet one by mistake. Once.

Yes, Marti, I contribute to PBS, also NPR. And you know, when I squint at it, that Rho does look sorta like a P.

In the end, I have to confess to a DNF. I thought those Super Bowl highlights were TDs. Forgot about the ADS. KAMT made no sense, but I never really looked at it.

Rick said...

Much easier than yesterday's puzzle. There was less minutiae and obscure mentions. A lot of thinking. Nice puzzle

Rick

Avg Joe said...

Lots of ways to go wrong, and I did. The wrong end of the Ticonderoga got a workout today. Finished it up in the Puget Sound, but that took a while. Second letter in Zyrtec started as an E, then an I. Kibitz also started with a U, and I wasn't yet convinced that long haired didn't relate to music. Apathy straightened all that out, but I too left T from TDs in place for a FIW.

D said...

anyone explain why REALTIME is the answer to 31A Like the action in "High Noon" ?

Are we talking the Gary Cooper movie or ?

perhaps a better clue might've been
31A Like Skype

Yellowrocks said...

Quick puzzle for a Friday.
I did this w/o the circles. I was looking for mixed (scrambled) mixed drinks from the bar. When I got the newspaper I filled in the circles and saw they were all soft drinks.
I can't stand SWEET TEA. Around here when you ask for iced tea you normally get unsweetened tea. Down the shore and down south they automatically bring SWEET TEA. Ugh! At Mickey D's you have to specify which one.
The P in IPAD was the last to fall.I never heard of Air Ipad and I spelled ZYRTEC with an E instead of a Y. Then I saw APATHY, clever misdirection. "I couldn't CARE LESS."
When I was a kid my family played a lot of cards. Mom always said, "No kibitzing."
DISC JOCKEY is almost always spelled with a C in DISC.
I agree ABRA is only part of a word.
Having a mnemonic for the directions seemed to me an ODDITY, too.
I love the word GOSSAMER.

Yellowrocks said...

DEATH by Emily Dickenson

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only GOSSAMER my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

Yellowrocks said...

Link gossamer butterflies

PK said...

Hi Y'all! This was waaaay outside my comfort zone. I couldn't make sense of the letters in the circles even with the unifier. I filled all the squares with red-letter help but kept going, "Hunh?"

Instead of AIG for the bailout, I put GMC. Well, they got some too, but I couldn't remember what year.

I was annoyed by the clues for KIBITZ, APATHY & MENU, though I finally understood them.

Thanks, Marti!

I had slept a couple of hours before I got up and tried this puzzle. I should have stayed in bed.

I agree the captcha has been a booger to find something remotely readable this week.

Dudley said...

I forgot to ask: is there a correlation between golfing and back trouble? Or maybe is it just that golf is nigh impossible with a bad back?

PK said...

Dudley, my back hurts just watching those twists golfers do driving off the tees.

Al Cyone said...

D@8:06: The movie "High Noon" takes place in "real time". That is, an hour's worth of action takes an hour on the screen. So a two-hour movie represents two hours of action. Maybe about an hour-and-a-half before noon and fifteen minutes after? In most movies, the events depicted may span days, weeks, or even years.

thehondohurricane said...


Hello folks,

Not a lot to say because the puzzle was a big fat DNF for me. Managed to fill in most of the South, but the North & Central were 70% white when I gave up.

My puzzle did not have the circles, but they would not have been any help,

High Noon action/REAL TIME...... right!



Husker Gary said...

Musings
-I struggled to get it all but had fun on the way. It had to be ABRA but I couldn’t get off TORI Spelling for a long time and figured it must be something about her underwear.
-Too much misdirection to even mention but the middle of the puzzle is where I struggled the most.
-I drank a lot of these products in pubs (Nesbitt’s not FANTA) where I spent a lot of time with my dad before he got the DT’S and dried out.
-More later. We’re picking up the grandkids in Lincoln and headed for Omaha.

Tinbeni said...

Marti: Wonderful write-up. Really enjoyed the Dorsey link!

Wonder how many heard the Final Jeopardy theme song "in their head" when they read the clue for 12-D.
Had TH_ _K before I realized the answer must be THINK. (Great title for that tune!)
My WAG Of-The-Year!

OK, my nit ... the theme was Pub purchases ... and the MIXED DRINKS are Non-Alcoholic??? BOOOOOOO !!!

At Villa Incognito that would never fly ...

Cheers!!!

HeartRx said...

Tinbeni, I sort of agree with you, and there were several issues with the reveal for me:

First of all, I thought pubs served beer, wine or whiskey - not mixed drinks. Those would be purchased in a "bar."

Then to have all four theme entries with brand names of soda, not names of cocktails scrambled up, was a little strange. Although you could argue that sodas are certainly "drinks," I generally think the expression "I'll have a drink" implies that I want something a little harder than soda!

Finally, there was one outlier - Pepsi. All of the others are Coca-Cola brands. It would have been nifty if there were two Pepsi brands and two Coca-Cola brands - then the wars would have been more even. ;-)

But none of the above took away the fun of solving and figuring out the theme!!

TTP @ 6:56, FWIW, I also struggled a bit before coming up with SPRITE.

desper-otto said...

Husker, I'm surprised Tori didn't object to your position!

Marti, yes I watched that final in the tournament of the decades -- just yesterday. Jeopardy comes on at 4:30 PM here, and I always DVR it. But it may take several days before I get around to watching it.

YR, I think your ED poem might have been a "mixed drink" -- ESPRIT de corpse.

Don't understand why you're having problems with the captcha. The picture's sorta dim, but the numbers are very legible.


GarlicGal said...

Good morning, Solvers.

Well, I finished it, but not correctly! I also had "leerat" and couldn't figure out "lbs". And "mout" for "pout" (ming looked right to me...duh).

Last to fall the "p" in pipes and pea. V-8 can time!

So, a DNF for me. But I enjoyed the fills and clues.

Everyone have a great Memorial Day weekend. We'll be doing a little Sausage and Syrah event at a local winery...YUM and CHEERS!

Barry G. said...

Don't understand why you're having problems with the captcha. The picture's sorta dim, but the numbers are very legible.

For some reason, I couldn't get numbers to appear this morning, no matter how many times I hit the reload button. Just blurry, crooked, squished together letters I couldn't read.

Fortunately, however, the captcha is now showing up as a number...

Spitzboov said...

Good morning everyone.

A tough one today. Couldn't get an anchor until dropping near the bottom with BASRA and ADEN. But slowly, ever so slowly I got the solve to bloom out from there. Began to see how the circled fill 'worked', but didn't find it particularly helpful. NE was last. After considering 'trash trucks' the perps eventually gave me DRAIN PIPES. Good Friday puzzle, Sam. Thank you.

24d - HELM. Navigation as used here, I think of as 'conning'. (First thought of 'fix' then 'line of position. Of course neither fit.:-) )

29d - EAR. Yesterday about 4:45pm, BH and I had just left our home to have supper at Appleby's when I looked up and saw 3 helicopters of the type like Marine One. POTUS had just given a speech at Cooperstown and was on his way back to Griffiss International Airport, the former Griffiss AFB at Rome, NY. and was passing over our neighborhood. (I couldn't see his ears and he didn't return my wave.)

That's all the news. Have a good day.

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

Found this a challenge but doable with some patience and perseverance. Enjoyed the misdirection clues such as Refuse transports, Carelessness, Colonial environment, to name a few. One Direction gained a lot of recognition when one of the "boys" had a short-lived relationship with Taylor Swift.

Thanks, Sam, for a Friday workout,and thanks to Marti for making it all crystal clear. BTW, Marti, just love the image of Jerry!

I agree with Barry about the captchas being so blurred and strung together. I question my eyesight some days. The numbers aren't usually affected but they can sometimes be on a very dark background.

Have a great day.

Al Cyone said...

I agree with Barry about the captchas being so blurred and strung together. I question my eyesight some days. The numbers aren't usually affected but they can sometimes be on a very dark background.

A few observations about reCAPTCHA: The blurred, wavy letters are the ones you have to get right "to prove you're not a robot". The other word is something the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software didn't recognize so our (human) help is being enlisted.

Similarly, the wavy numerals are what you have to get right. The other is a picture of an address from Google Street View. Again, we're being asked to identify something the software couldn't.

The numerals are a more recent project so there aren't as many in the system.

Apologies to those for whom this is old news.

HeartRx said...

Al Cyone, thank you so much for that reCAPTCHA link. I never knew that's what they were doing with those funny letters! So every time we solve a reCAPTCHA, we are helping to digitize books, improve Google street view maps and make progress with Artificial Intelligence - NEAT!!

Lucina said...

Greetings, Super Solvers! Hi, Marti. Thanks for the lovely commentary.

And thank you, Sam Ezersky, for forcing me to THINK! THINK! THINK! I doubt clueing could get more obscure than this but with a few erasures I got most of it.

Hand way up for wanting TORI Spelling, but ANT FARM was already in place so ABRA took a while and since I had DISK, that also prolonged FACE BOOK.

I decoded most of the circled words but SPRITE and the entire NW corner was a mess since APATHY never appeared. I spelled ZeRTEC not ZYRTEC, didn't know I-PAD air and just guessed KIBITZ.

I really must get acquainted with modern music, more technology and those Hindu gods. I did successfully WAG AS I Am.

A great challenge today!

Have a great Friday, everyone!

Anonymous said...

"pea patch", seriously?

Wolfman said...

Here are a couple not so obvious tuneagement links:

ANTFARM
-notice the plethora of Michael Jackson visual references(including his infamous PIPES commercial mishap)?
-also, what a great BASS line!

ODDITY
-see what I did there? Alien/Space? Cute, huh?

So, I guess that only leaves one choice for Sir ELTON.

Thank you for lending me your EAR by letting me be your DISC JOCKEY.

Misty said...

My goodness, this was a toughie. I thought I'd never get it and it took me ages. But in the end I miraculously got the WHOLE THING. Yay! Many thanks, Sam, but please make your next one a little easier, OK? And thanks, Marti, for the always fun write-up.

I got the theme pretty early on and thought Tinbeni is going to love this! Then as the soft drinks emerged, I thought Tinbeni is going to hate this. I was right.

We've watched Jeopardy every week night for years and years but never knew that the final theme sing was named THINK. How did anyone find that out?

AlCyone, thanks for explaining the "High Noon" answer. I wondered about that one.

Finally, Yellowrocks, thanks again for one of Dickinson's saddest but sweetest poems.

Have a good Friday, everybody!

Lemonade714 said...

Enjoyable puzzle from a talented young man, still a teenager as is David Steinberg who created the NYT today. It is quite reassuring for the future of the crossword puzzle to have such young and talented constructors already being published. Sam is too young to buy alcohol, so I give him a pass on the pub/soft drink theme though it was surprising that Rich let it stand.

I think there mnemonics for many things which may seem silly to an educated person, but which are very much needed by others. Add to the mix the various conditions from dyslexia to CP to Parkinson's and you can see a clear ned for extra tools.

marti, your gossamer lady had too much saline for my taste, but then the doctors tell me to control my salt intake.

Wolfman said...

Sorry, one more:

AIR
- this one's for TTP@6:56 AM

Steve said...

Wow - long and slow today. I'm also a little surprised about the "pub" part of the clue for the reveal.

I love anagrams, so otherwise happy, although the theme didn't really help me as I wasn't expecting four sodas.

Thanks for the expo, Marti, especially ITT - I never watched the Addams Family and was baffled by that one!

Steve said...

I just noticed that today's constructor also authored the Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle today.

Jazzbumpa said...

Hi gang -

Good theme, well executed, though neither circles nor anagrams are my favorites.

But - I hate the ___ opening clues.

A BAD BACK is a concern of many people who are not golfers. Not fond of this clue.

There were some good moments , but overall, I found this one to be more drudgery than fun.

Cool regards!
JzB

Ol' Man Keith said...

Kurosawa! Ah... Rashōmon! What genius.
Thanks for the fine explication, Marti. But I think ABRA was worth more than a nit. It was hard enough to crack the clue (but fair) without leaving out nearly two thirds of the answer.

CrossEyedDave said...

Wow! I actually got it done, but it took an hour in the hospital waiting room that forced me to suss every possibility... DW did help me with one, "pout."

Navigation location was home & here before helm finally emerged.

Even when it was done, after I had plugged my drain holes with pipes, all the mixed drinks made sense except "STERPI?" I had to rewrite it several ways on top of the puzzle before I saw it.

I agree with Tinbeni on this one...

OwenKL, I don't know about chocolate milk & soda,, (wait a sec, isn't that the recipe for a Brooklyn EggCream?) But oatmeal mixed with black coffee sounds sounds great.

Yellowrocks said...

I’ve visited many pubs in Ireland and Scotland where I saw mixed drinks being served. A check online confirmed this impression. Among the mixed drinks were gin and tonic, whiskey and water or coke, rum and coke, vodka and orange juice, vodka and tonic and bloody Mary. There seemed to be only these simple types of mixed drinks. I did not see Manhattans, martinis, black Russians, whiskey sours, etc., but they did have wine. Speaking of ODDITY, my friend always ordered premium Scotch served with Coke! Bleh! Along with black and tan and many beers, Jameson whiskey was very popular in Irish pubs and all types of Scotch whisky in Scottish pubs. No ice, of course, but I risked being a clueless tourist who must have ice. More customers in the pubs drink Jameson and Scotch neat, but they are also served with mixers. Tinman, you should try some of those native scotches. Yum! Some of the brands they never export are even better than Pinch and much less expensive in Scotland.


I wonder whether a bad back is to golf as bad knees are to square dancing. All that twisting and sudden reversal of direction is hard on the knees. I had another cortisone shot on Tuesday and am back on the dance floor. I am sure I am facing knee replacement in the fall.

The RHO has always reminded me of a P, so that was a gimme.

Anonymous said...

Terrible time today completing this puzzle. I find it amusing how folks from different areas of the country use different words for "soda", as we call it here in the NE. Some folks call it pop, others call it Coke. "What kind of Coke would you like?" "Sprite." Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Unknown said...

This fun puzzle took quite a while to solve, but I did it. I had TUNA before TACO and TILLER before TIEROD, but those were fixed by perps.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend.

Jayce said...

Hello everybody. Very hard puzzle today. Needed to do one lookup to get BIFF. Wanted DISK and refused to change the K to a C, which gave me FAKE something. And so it went. I had LEER AT and therefore never solved PBS and never learned about the golfer's BAD what? Hack?
Un-"mixing" STERPI always gave me PRIEST. Never saw SPRITE until coming here.
Same nits and gripes as many of you had.
Best wishes to you all.

BV Ahlers said...

YR @8:21 enjoyed your link to gossamer butterflies - beautiful. However, there were many moths on there as well. Moths are fuzzy but come from smooth caterpillars, while butterflies are smooth and come from woolly or hairy caterpillars.

Jayce said...

Er, I mean, the same nits and observations as many of you had.

Anonymous T said...

Hi all!

Haven't read everyone yet, but I will after a nap and dinner...

What D-O said re HERE and ODD?T?

I wish we had a grid "snap chat" on this site. I'm so proud of what I was able to get on a Friday! (there's your next $1M idea C.C. :-))

When CDs came out Pink Floyd's "The Wall" was >$50. I stuck with vinyl until Columbia House had CDs.

I agree with Tin - Soft Drinks != Pub Fare.

Did no one else not have oil at 38a? Maybe just a Texas thing. Very much unlike SWEET TEA.

Gotta run, but I'l catch up later.

Cheers, -T

Tinbeni said...

Anonymous T
My first thought for 38-a, "___ patch" was EYE patch.
That's what happens when you live in the Land-of-Gasparilla.
And those Bloody Pirates ...

Also for 23-a "More than glance over" I wanted "peruse" before PEER AT emerged.

Luckily it is getting time for "A Toast" ...
Alcohol (Not any of these wimpy "MIXED DRINKS") WILL BE consumed ... NEAT ... LOL !!!
Cheers!!!

Anonymous T said...

Nap preempted says...

Ok, time for a better post. Thanks Sam for a wonderful puzzling puzzle. Marti, thanks for the fun write-up.

Nancy M - I had cobb before TACO. I though Rich threw me a bone earlier this week.

Al Cyone is right about us bloggers helping The Google with Street Views. Marti - we are the AI!

Also Marti - Just NPR. I'm a sustainer, though I listen mostly on Sat. Radio (I get SF & Philadelphia shows too).

YR - I'll be sample Scotch in Aberdeen in a week w/ exactly one cube of --- (sorry Tin).

LEM - ASTO dyslexia (took my twice to get it right)... What bugs me is they make it hard to spell. Like someone with a lisp trying to say his affliction. It's just not nice.

Now, about that nap...

Cheers, -T

Wolfman I said...

Put A LID on it?

I was thinking more like this.

O.K., ok, okay...Sorry to go all poppy on y'all.

How 'bout this for LAND HO?

Wolfman II said...

Don't worry Wolfman I.

It's alright that you linked that Beyonce video. Just don't let it happen again!

Lucina said...

Oh, yes, Marti. I'm a sustaining donor for NPR and KBAQ (classical) but only yearly for PBS.

I believe I've had a TACO salad only once and never again. It's just not my idea of a good salad. I prefer actual TACOs.

Avg Joe said...

Wolfman! (Or,men)

Tuneagement? Seriously?!

©®™!

I'm going to have to discuss this matter with my legal counsel. ;-)

aka thelma said...

What Jazzbumpa said - more drudgery than fun - I did finish all but a couple squares and finally quit for lack of interest...

Thank you Marti for your write up today... and thank you for your very difficult puzzle yesterday... :) difficult for me anyway..... but I finally finished a Marti puzzle... :) woohoo......

I hope you all have a great holiday weekend.
Honor Our Veterans

thelma :)

Wolfman II said...

It is men, Joe.

Rest assured all, WolfmanI and I are indeed perfect strangers.

fermatprime said...

Greetings!

Thanks Sam and Marti!

Can't get circles at night and so missed the anagrams of drinks. Otherwise OK except had to search the alphabet for the A in ADS and KAMA.

I donate a bunch to KUSC (Classical radio here).

Never knew name of Jeopardy song. Yes, I watched Jennings lose. What a bummer!

Am one of those people whose life has gone to pot due to a BAD BACK.

Cheers!

Bill G. said...

I see there is a possibility of a new meteor shower tonight, scheduled to hit its predicted peak at about 3pm EDT. It'll probably be cloudy here.

Bill G. said...

Sometimes newer isn't always better or stronger...
One for the old guys:

CrossEyedDave said...

Hey OwenKL,

I was hitting the next button after Bill G's tractor video & came across this curiosity. I wonder whats happening here...

P.S. How do you get the crossword so early?

Lucina said...

I also watched Jennings and Roger Craig lose. I was rooting for him as he was the only non-millionaire. However, I thought the whole million dollar tournament was lackluster. It lacked the sparkle and fire that Ken Jennings showed during his 73 game run.

Anonymous T said...

Still no nap said...

DW & I went to the cantina (she got home just as I put my head on the pillow) and had a wonderful time, but now I can't sleep.

Bill G. I though the meteor shower was supposed to start around midnight EST. Unfortunately, showers and Houston's lights are in the northern sky.

Owen KL - W-CED-S. How do you get the pzl so early?

aka Thelma gave me an idea for Monday - all Vets here put your hands, branch, and years up!

e.g. Hand up - Army '87-'93 Vet. Desert Shield / Storm (state-side).

Cheers, -T

OwenKL said...

I enjoyed both videos.
As I understand it, milk goes through our digestive systems as a solid. Stomach acids curdle it as soon as it hits.
I found from experience that I need to pour the milk into the soda, not the other way around, and not too fast. Otherwise it foams massively, and the foam stays foamy, it doesn't collapse. I haven't had the reaction in that video, but the chocolate does precipitate out if I let it set very long. I often leave a half-mug on the bedstand and finish it off when I wake up.

Those who asked, I sent you an e-mail about the early LATs.

Abejo said...

Good Sunday morning, folks. Thank you, Sam Ezersky, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Marti,mforma fine review.

Well, I am sitting in Pittsburgh, PA, and finally got Friday's puzzle finished. Took me a while. However, I was extremely busy on Friday and Saturday and could not put much time into it.

I did mine on the IPad and therefore had no circled letters. Got all the theme answers just did not know what I was looking for. No problem.

Liked 44D, LAND HO. Took me a while to get that, but thought it was clever when Imdid.

There were so many tough ones I will not list them. Lots of trial and error. If I had been using a newspaper it would have been and inkblot.

Now I have to get Saturday's and Sunday's done. Heading to Philadelphia. Hope to get them when I am on the way.

See you later today.

Abejo

(76)


Abejo said...

PS: I remember watching High Noon as a youth and took note of the fact that it was in real time. I think Tex Ritter sang the song.

Abejo

(1030)