Theme: "Frat Pack" - Greek letters span across each theme entry.
23A. *Hit that just clears the infield : BLOOP SINGLE
25A. *Recyclable metal : SCRAP IRON. Quite a few candidates to embed PI, PSI, RHO, MU, ETA & NU.
42A. *Clara, to Tabitha, on "Bewitched" : GREAT AUNT. The TAU is limited.
55A. *Legislation of 2001 : PATRIOT ACT. Very very limited choices for this one and 86A, given the letter length.
76A. *Hippo : RIVER HORSE
86A. *Half a team's schedule : HOME GAMES
107A. *Typical Western : SHOOT 'EM UP
37D. *Delayed reaction : DOUBLE TAKE
45D. *Run into : HAPPEN UPON
Reveal entry:
109A. One spans two words in each answer to a starred clue : GREEK LETTER
I'm
so glad there's a reveal entry. I would not have guessed the gimmick
with the "Frat Party" title alone, unless those Greek letters are
circled. But Rich can't use circles on Sundays due to technical issues.
Fred Piscop is a veteran constructor and his puzzles are always super smooth and clean. I love his bio at Stan's Newsday:"...
When he’s not puzzling, he plays keyboards in a rock band, samples
microbrews, and collects spelling errors in comic strips."
 |
| Fred Piscop, David Kahn, Liz Gorsk, ACPT 2011 |
Across:
1. Rad relative : NEATO
6. Take second : PLACE. Win, Place & Show.
11. Downloaded 'zine : EMAG
15. Most minigolf pars : TWOS
19. "Good Eats" host Brown : ALTON. Goofy guy. We also have 28. "Order up!" shouter : COOK
20. Party hearty : REVEL. Only heard of "Party hardy".
21. Matching __ : PAIR
22. Smooth-talking : OILY
27. City on I-5 : SANTA ANA. Know the city, not I-5 though.
30. Pequod co-owner : PELEG. "Moby-Dick".
31. Plunk (down) : PUT. And 44. Stopped operating, with "down" : SHUT
32. It's a fact : DATUM. So is 5-letter TRUTH.
34. Inferior, in slang : CHEESY
35. eBay users, at times : BIDDERS
39. Car loan figs. : APRs. Annual Percentage Rate.
40. Ell or tee : JOINT
41. Romantic affair : AMOUR
48. Source of fries : SPUD. This is how I cook potatoes. Ignore the Szechuan peppercorn. Too hot.
49. Elisabeth of "Gracie" : SHUE
51. Silas Marner, e.g. : MISER
53. Words on an initial reference volume : A TO (A to Z, e.g.)
54. Johnny __ : REB
59. Quaker in the forest : ASPEN
61. Players in a July contest : ALL-STARS. I mentioned that the ticket was too high for me. The price for Super Bowl 2018 is at least twice ridiculous.
64. Radium co-discoverer : CURIE
65. Curt : SNIPPY
66. Silk-stocking : ELITE
67. Many mottoes are written in it : LATIN. MN has a French motto: L'Étoile du Nord.
68. Diagonal line, on some score sheets : SPARE. Bowling.
69. On key : IN TUNE
71. Toaster opening : HERE'S
72. Gin cocktails : MARTINIS. Hey, Bond again, Splynter!
75. Mary __: ill-fated ship : DEARE
78. Prefix with sex : UNI
79. Cartoon shriek : EEK
80. One of Mexico's 31 : STATE. Estado.
82. Like Solomon : WISE
83. Top : APEX
84. Calculus calculation : AREA
90. Skip the festivities, in a way : ELOPE
91. "King of the Bullwhip" star : LARUE. Lash LaRue.
93. Logician Turing : ALAN. Got a royal pardon last year.
94. Brings up : PARENTS
96. Author Allende : ISABEL. She does not like being compared to Gabriel García Márquez.
98. Loses crispness : WILTS
99. Baseball's Steroid __ : ERA. And 40D. Steroids, slangily : JUICE. Can't stand this guy.
100. Successor to Bess : MAMIE
101. Bris, e.g. : RITE
102. Put forward again, as a claim : RE-ASSERT
112. Back : HIND
113. Used up : GONE
114. Boston College athlete : EAGLE. Gimme for Marti/Barry G/Dudley.
115. Name meaning "born again" : RENEE. Re-Nee.
116. Sport scored electronically : EPEE. Look, new clue for EPEE.
117. Sees : GETS
118. Put up with : STOOD
119. Marshy lowland : SWALE
Down:
1. Collars : NABS
2. Raines of old movies : ELLA. Not familiar with this lady.
3. Zillions : A TON. And 92. Not much : A BIT
4. Traffic sound : TOOT
5. "Well, it looked good __" : ON PAPER
6. Dusting may reveal them : PRINTS. Nice clue.
7. Olin of "Chocolat" : LENA
8. ERA part: Abbr. : AVG
9. "Snow White" frame : CEL
10. Sophocles tragedy : ELECTRA. Sister of Orestes.
11. Derby town : EPSOM
12. Vehicle brand with a bulldog in its logo : MACK
13. Pump output : AIR
14. Golf club shaft material : GRAPHITE
15. Rest stop features : TOILETS
16. What spies may wear : WIRES
17. Curriculum suffix : OLOGY
18. One-word def. : SYN. Oh, I see, like how dictionary defines "Sexy" as "Glamorous".
24. Reptilian tail? : SAUR. OK, like Dinosaur.
26. Hammer end : PEEN
29. Drum out : OUST
32. Risk taker : DARER. Phil Mickelson, who has GUTS (42D. Nerve).
33. Make fun of : APE
34. Occasionally amended doc. : CONST. No idea. Constitution?
35. City of southeastern Iraq : BASRA
36. Urge forward : IMPEL
38. Flop : DUD
43. At full throttle : AMAIN
46. Lone Star State sch. : UT EP. University of Texas at El Paso.
47. "West Side Story" hero : TONY. Maria's boyfriend. We have Hmong gangs here in MN.
49. Dramatic outpouring : SPATE
50. Hound's prey : HARE
52. Charged : RAN AT
56. Empathetic words : I CARE
57. Word with ear or wear : OUTER
58. McEvoy of cosmetics : TRISH. High-priced.
60. Voice of the iPhone : SIRI
62. Talk like a lush : SLUR
63. Points at the table? : TINES. Great clue.
65. Shopping __ : SPREE. Come visit Mall of America, Gary!
67. New Orleans protector : LEVEE
68. Get wise with : SASS
69. "That's the general __" : IDEA
70. Not e'en once : NE'ER
71. Blackjack request : HIT ME
72. Sports doc's pics : MRIs
73. Klutzy : INEPT
74. Boxcars, for high rollers : SIXES. No idea. I'm not even a low roller.
76. The Phantom's rival : RAOUL
77. Berlin Olympics star : OWENS
81. Like some omelets : THREE-EGG. What's your typical breakfast, D-Otto?
83. It's drawn in bars : ALE
85. Dessert menu phrase : A LA MODE
87. Pace : GAIT
88. Asserts without proof : ALLEGES
89. Yoga class need : MAT
90. Mistake-fixing tools : ERASERS
94. Snuck a look : PEEKED
95. Sea divided by shrinkage : ARAL. What does "divided by shrinkage" mean? The Russians say Aral Sea has stopping shrinking.
96. Beatnik's "Got it!" : I'M HIP
97. River to the Rhone : SAONE
98. Cleaning cloths : WIPES
101. Pipsqueak : RUNT
102. Move, to a Realtor : RELO
103. Gumbo, for example : STEW
104. Mount near Catania : ETNA
105. Irish dance : REEL
106. One with rings : TREE. Tree rings.
107. __-crab soup : SHE. Never had it. How strange, she-crab.
108. Bossy Stooge : MOE. Here there, Chairman Moe!
110. Informer : RAT
111. It may be massive : EGO
C.C.
51 comments:
A little Greek cow, who said only MU,
Decided it was time to learn something NU.
She flubbed every vowel,
So thew in the TAU-el,
"I guess learning Greek ain't what IOTA do!"
The size of the dinner was, O, MEGA!
Every dish that went by, he still ETA'.
At last, with a PSI,
He reached for a PI --
A RHO of buttons all popped off togetha'!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Cryptic clue for a word from today's puzzle:
Western sex is what dozens are divided over (5)
IF YOU DON'T LIKE CRYPTIC DISCUSSIONS, SKIP THIS ENTIRE COMMENT!
Nice Cuppa:
Thank you for explaining KRAKOW, since I didn't get back to the blog until late evening yesterday. You did get it exactly right.
Play | on words | One | soft-centered | cleaner (10)
[OEDIPUS REX] = [OED] [1] [PUS] [REX]
I had to google "rex cleaner" to discover Rex Chemical Co., "Rex Chemical has been a manufacturer and distributor for over 50 years, serving the South Florida Market." They seem to make mainly janitorial supplies, but do have the Rex*Klin line of household products, though I couldn't find any retail outlet that sells them.
When I first started writing Cryptic clues, a wise mentor told me the challenge is not to write clues that are so hard no one can solve them. Anyone can do that, once they've learned a few rules. The challenge is to write clues that are just hard enough that the solver can feel satisfied with himself once he figures them out.
I think this is a philosophical difference between British Crosswords, where the elitism of nobility holds sway, and American Cryptics, which are intended for anyone to solve.
Morning, all!
I had fun with this one. I was about halfway through the solve when I got to the theme reveal and had a blast going back through the theme answers I had already filled in looking for the hidden letters. Going forward, it was also a lot of fun looking for them in the theme answers I hadn't answered yet. I think my favorite was OMEGA hidden in HOME GAMES.
I shot myself in the foot a few times, which slowed me down a bit. GLIB instead of OILY, REAR instead of HIND and A LA CART instead of A LA MODE were the worst offenders. The fact that the last two were both in the SW corner was made worse by the fact that that corner also had ISABEL (totally unknown), SOANE (if you say so) and SHE (huh?), not to mention ROAUL (which I did just mention, so there!)
Elsewhere, TRISH was another complete unknown, but the perps took care of her in short order.
In other news, the linked picture to Cindy Crawford set off my virus scanner for some reason as a "threat". Pity, since I've always been a fan and would have loved to have seen the picture...
Hi Y'all! This was a frustrating solve for me because I lost the puzzle three times and had to reconstruct. It was hard enough as it was. Although I studied awhile, I didn't see the GREEK LETTERS until C.C. pointed them out. Thanks so much! Thanks Fred, for exercising my mind.
Never heard of a BLOOP SINGLE, ELLA, SAONE or TRISH. We've had SAUR before. Did I remember it? Nope. AMAIN? Must be nautical.
I5 goes from Southern California to the Canadian Border. Lots of cities to choose from.
Bess: I was thinking the Queen not Truman.
Amending a CONtract not the CONSTitution was what I kept trying.
I filled the puzzle but lots of red letters appeared before I landed the right ones, by guess & by gosh, as my uncle used to say. But hey, I got BASRA & UTEP right off.
Good morning!
Maine was my main problem today. Like Barry, I felt certain GLIB would be correct, and it meshed (sorta) with Curriculum VITAE which I felt certain was also correct. Bzzzzzt! That area was the last to fall.
I'm sure WILTS positioned above the "Bris, eg." was on purpose. BASRA changed my SELLERS to BIDDERS, and MARTINIS fixed my RAN UP to RAN AT. Remember the TBBT episode when Raj fell in love with SIRI?
C.C., my favorite breakfast, especially on the weekend is eggs benedict. My 10-year-old Calphalon egg poacher is almost worn out.
C.C., by 2007, the Aral Seat was beside itself, literally. Scroll down for the image.
For the past several days, every captcha has been "Photo Sphere." Anybody else seeing that?
My first thought on this puzzle was looking for TRIPLE and HOMER as I started working down the left side and had BLOOP SINGLE and DOUBLETAKE. Not knowing the Greek alphabet ( I usually download a Google image when I need it)the term "Frat Pack" is associated with Sinatra, Sammy Davis, and friends. It's also the name of a band in New Orleans.
ALTON Brown- my wife can't stand him but I think he is the only television chef that really knows what is really happening when food is cooked. I really miss his show "Good Eats" because it explains what is really happening when food is prepared and cooked. Anybody can put salt, butter, and spices on food, but Alton explains the reason why certain condiments enhance certain foods.
But back to the puzzle. The reveal I never got, but the puzzle was pretty straight forward and the unknowns-PELEG RAOUL LARUE(even though he is from New Orleans-allegedly) ISABEL ETNA SHUE TRISH DEARE -were easily solved by the crosses. The most unusual clue- 94A was 'Brings up'. I have never heard the term PARENTS being used in that way. The clue that puzzLed me the most was 'Toaster opening'; my brain was on breakfast, not a celebration.
C.C. when playing the dice game craps, two sixes (12) is a losing roll just as rolling two ones (2) is bad. The first called box cars, the latter snake eyes. The names are visuals but perhaps as a gambler you would might end up riding the rails in the box cars.
There were quite a few unknowns but they were accessible and the theme was tight and the reveal more than fair.
Owen wouldn't OEDIPUS REX be (7,3)?
The NW and NE corners proved the stickiest. In the latter I was too committed to either FOUR or FIVE for the mini-golf pars and OLOGY was not exactly an intuitive answer. But, eventually, that corner fell. In the NW the only Raines I knew was Claude but of course that wouldn't fit no matter how I tried to mangle it. And I was too committed to POP UP SINGLE. I finally figured it out (though it took a moment to realize that the improbable double A's in SANTAANA were parts of two different words). Which left SAUR as the last fill (and, I guess, my favorite clue).
[28:32]
I really enjoyed this puzzle. I figured the theme would involve Greek letters. I worked the SE quadrant first, so I had the full explanation of the theme early on.
She Crab soup is made with the female crab because her roe needs to be included in it.
"Party hardy" and "party hearty" are both used, but hearty is used a bit more frequently.
If you're trying to wish the person well in holding up to all that drinking, it's "hardy." If you want them to have a lot of rollicking fun, it's "hearty."
The "Frat Pack" is a nickname given to a group of comedy actors who have appeared together in many of the highest grossing comedy movies since the late 1990s. The group usually includes Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, and Steve Carell.
The "Rat Pack" of the 60's included
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop.
Good morning from Vail, CO. Vacationing with family.
I did the puzzle late last night and moved through the clues more quickly than usual. Even saw the theme, although I had to look for MU for a long time.
Have a great day,
Montana
SAONE, SHE/EPEE, REEM, RENEE and TREP were right! I’ll take a 100% out of petty cash. Title gave the gimmick but no help.
Musings
-The PATRIOT ACT on 9/12/01 looked good, 13 years later…
-Guns in a typical SHOOT ‘EM UP don’t seem to need reloading
-NEATO CHEETO is a familiar phrase at this homestead
-Diner phrases for A COOK
-C’mon, we all watched this game of Matching PAIRS. Solve?
-I saw a former student last night who I thought was going to become an electrical engineer. Turns out he’s allergic to calculus
-As soon as I find out who ISABEL and GABRIEL are, I will never compare them ;-)
-Canseco became a pariah when his book blew the whistle on the STEROID ERA. However, every word was true.
-Famous REASSERTION aftermath(:14)
-Of Carmen, Sophocles might have said όμορφη γυναίκα (Greek for hubba, hubba)
-Joann gave daughter a package of WIPES for a porta potty TOILET last night
-Despite an all-star cast, Tammy is a horrible DUD!!
-“Let’s build New Orleans below sea level. The LEVEES will protect us”
-We’ll be at Mall of America at the end of August, C.C.!
Good Morning:
Had fun with this, although the theme was a complete mystery until the reveal. Went astray with sellers/bidders, glib/oily, cheapo/cheesy, snappy/snippy, and soup/stew.
CSO to Boomer (spare), Chairman (Moe), and Tin (Martinis), and stretching it a bit, Owen(s).
Thanks, Mr. P for an enjoyable Sunday romp and thanks, CC, for a thorough expo.
Have a great day.
Musings 2
-Oops, I had SWAMP (not SWALE), REEM? (not REEL) and TREP? (not TREE) so give me two bad cells and I’ll put the 100% back in the drawer
-Photo Sphere seems to be an innocuous “prove you're not a robot” and get in a commercial at the same time. At least it is legible.
Good morning C.C. et al.
I really enjoyed the puzzle today, although I didn't get the them until I saw the reveal. Like Barry, I had fun going back and identifying all the Greek letters in the answers.
You really should try she-crab soup, C.C. it is delicious! They call it that because it is made from female blue Atlantic crab with the roe mixed in the recipe. The best she-crab soup I ever had was at 82 Queen in Charleston, S.C. Here is a good recipe, but it would be really tough to get the right crabmeat and roe.
Where is Cindy Crawford link?
Where were you 45 years ago today?
G' Morning C.C. and puzzle pals
Well, I finally decided try the LAT Sun so I printed from Mensa - no title there - thank goodness for the reveal which made it more fun to hunt down the alpha-beta.
Alas, a DNF @96a/97d/76d. Oh well, a fun offering from Fred and writeup from our C.C.
Splynter's table looks just as good in real life as ON PAPER. If you don't do woodworking, understand a simple box is not easy - he was being modest w/ "it's all in the saw."
ALTON Brown's brine is used every year for my turkey!
Mmmm, Hand-pulled ALE from a cellar in Scotland...
Rat Pack, Frat Pack, don't forget the 80's Brat Pack.
Owen - LOL #1. Also, if you're correct on NC's Cyrptic, that means I got it once in a row!
HG - Tomorrow at the office (um, during lunch..., yeah), I'm going to look into the ad CAPTCHAs. I've been getting them about 60% of the time and wonder what's behind them. It does make it easier to post.
I taking Z. to the Dog Show today - I fear she thinks we can buy a dog or a PAIR there. She's going to be sorely disappointed.
Cheers, -T
Hi all
Fun stuff but an incomplete for me. Got it all, but not without some help.
H-G and Anon-T, I had a different take on Photo-Sphere. I'm getting no Ads. Just a background that says Photo Sphere. If I recycle, I usually get an image with numbers.
I believe that the images presented in reCaptcha are Photo Sphere images. I think the code has a little bug. I sent in a feedback yesterday suggesting as much...
Hello, weekenders!
This started out slowly for me but with a bit of fill here and there, it came together though my ERASER came in handy a few times.
Sports clues, of course, elude me, but if the perps align, then they stay.
What a fine mental workout, thank you, Fred Piscop and you, C.C. for enlightening me on sports lingo especially.
Have a special Sunday, everyone!
TTP - That's what I get too w/ a little turned-down upper-right corner that says "ad." However, if you just type Photo Sphere it actually works as if a CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public (ALAN)Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) is there - NEATO!
Anon-T,
NEATO FRITO CHEETO !
H-G, not that I can solve it, but are you actually getting ads in the box, or is like Anon-T described ?
DNF for me. ELLA, ALTON & BLOOP were unknown, and I was loath to put in NABS because BLOOP seemed so ridiculously unlikely. The rest of the puzzle I got without assistance.
The "Electra" picture was blank and flagged by my virus scanner, too.
Lemon: You are right! Nice Cuppa should have clued OEDIPUS REX as (7,3), not (10). I didn't even notice the error.
I wonder what a photosphere looks like? All I ever see are house numbers any more.
Husker, 45 years ago the first DW and I were in a Tokyo hotel watching the moon walk on Japanese TV and listening to the audio from Armed Forces Radio. In those days the hotels were dirt cheap and a taxi ride to anywhere in Tokyo was about 25 cents. You just had to be sure to get the English-speaking concierge to write down your destination so you could show it to the taxi driver. That trip was also my first bullet-train ride, Tokyo to Osaka.
Owenkl, is today's cryptic - Sixes ?
Today's cryptic joke.
Our esteemed crossword constructor, today, was cruising down a 'shady' neighborhood in his town, when he was followed, and stopped, and pulled over by a police car. For driving too SLOWLY..
The officer walked over to his car, asked him to step outside, and then asked him his name. After that was given, he was made to 'spread eagle', handcuffed and put in the back seat of the police cruiser, to 'cool down'.
Why ???
To get the joke, all you have to do is pronounce his name out loud.
(Sorry, Fred :-) )
I had never "seen" nor "heard" party hardy before. Would one also eat hardy ?? I think not. My guess is that this is another misunderstanding of English spoken by Americans who enunciate t's like d's. The speaker says hearty .. the listener hears hardy. And another fine expression is on its way to bastardization.
I really liked this puzzle. I had all the theme answers before getting to the reveal, so it was fun going back and finding the GREEK LETTERs. I had one write-over: honk before TOOT, and I had one bad cell, snappy instead of SNIPPY as I was unfamiliar with SIRI.
Your limericks were great, Owen.
I love eggs benedict, but I like my eggs fried over hard instead of poached. One restaurant where I ordered my eggs fried refused to do it. What a disappointment.
I've only gotten Photo Sphere once and wasn't sure what to do, so I typed it in, and it worked. Usually, lately it's been house numbers. However, today its the old squiggly letters.
Interesting puzzle. Nice writeup.
Hi there~!
Wanted to post an update on the Rook Table for those interested; I test fitted it in its future location. To answer your question from last night, PK, EIK is my Eat-In Kitchen, and I was thinking about going overboard and getting a $5-600 slab of Silestone Stellar Midnight for the top of the Table....but I am also considering going back to school this fall, and might want to watch the funds.
Rook Table
Splynter
Greetings!
Very nice offering, Fred! Fine expo, CC!
Liked the theme!
Also had Soup before STEW.
Had to go back and search for Greek letters.
Still have Photo Sphere. Fine with me!
Cheers!
Western sex is what dozens are divided over (5)
[{read westward}=reverse] [SEX IS] = [{half-dozens}=SIXES]
Splynter:
That's a fine looking table, very masculine and sturdy. What kind of stain/paint will you be using?
My captcha's have been house numbers.
Had a tough time with this today. Nearly got it done, but got hung up at 34a when I entered cheapo, so that kept most of the rest of that corner from falling. Finally peeked at the solution they give us on Sunday for the correct cheesy, and the balance dawned on me.
Splynter, here's an idea. Howz about a Corian top with a chessboard? You could do it with scraps that you could get for next to nothing if you know the right people, so your only expense would be seaming kits. It would take a lot of work, but it would be cool, and it is already a chess themed table.
Hi again~!
Ya know, Avg Joe, that's a great idea - and I can rout the edges myself, too; I am going to be done with the BBQ job in less than a month, as I am planning on getting into the Home Depot as a kitchen designer - and I might have an "in" for getting scraps~!
Lucina, I am thinking about a stone spray paint with a brick-like pattern.
Splynter
Splynter, wow! What a lovely table, very creative. You are so talented.
Alan is having an MRI brain scan tomorrow. Since July 7 he has had only one episode of his primary problem. Thank goodness. But over many years he experiences a general malaise several times a month, weakness, dizziness,tiredness, etc.
Poor Alan has been feeling sickly all weekend. Tomorrow I hope we can find something we can work on, but nothing too shocking.It is hard to know what to wish for.
Yellowrocks
Splynter, Corian is a demanding medium, but it's no worse than most of the really hard woods to work with. Similar to ebony, Brazilian cherry, curly birch, birds-eye maple and well aged ash perhaps. Your tools have to be sharp, and your patience has to be elevated, but it's rewarding to work with.
You'd need no more than 3 colors..2 would work.You could get by with pieces that are no wider than 10-12" and no longer than 4'+/- if you joined the perimeter rather than cutting out the center. And if you can only get 1/2" material, you can compensate for that with a thicker substrate and multiple layers for the self edge. Sounds like scrap to me. With a light colored perimeter and dark squares the joints between could be light, providing contrast, while matching the border and necessitating only a single color for the seam kits.
I hope it works. Keep us posted.
Just saw on the news that James Garner died. :-(. RIP, Jim.
Back from the Dog Show. Damn if they weren't giving away strays. I had to stay strong. It helped imagining no AMOUR for (at least) a week if I brought a dog home... Z. had fun meeting all the breeds.
YR - Sorry to hear about Alan...
Splytner Very well done. I can't wait to see it completed. I'd like to try that design this winter modified for a chess-board inlay just below the dental-work at the top if you're willing to share.
Cheers, -T
{Photo Sphere again} - from those who get it, are you on an iThing or Droid? Just currios.
Hi all.
Splynter, looking good. I forgot to mention yesterday when I saw your earlier picture that I now know why you couldn't use the conventional method for cutting crown.
Avg Joe, I entered chintzy at 34A, then changed the z to an s. Good idea for the rook table top.
Blogger is a Google product. Blogger doesn't use Captcha. Captcha can apparently be readily compromised.
Blogger uses reCaptcha. Think of it as reverse Captcha or re-engineered Captcha. Google bought reCaptcha a few years ago and has steadily improved it. YMMV.
My error about Photo Sphere. The house and building number images you see and enter are collected with Street View. Photo Sphere is an Android technology that Google developed that allows the user to take a 360 degree panoramic view.
So perhaps an overzealous Google employee was promoting Photo Sphere by making it appear where we would normally enter the reCaptcha value. Then it would be an ad, and I surmise that HG was only seeing Photo Sphere like some of the rest of us.
The fact - as Anon-T first pointed out - that one only need to enter "Photo Sphere" to get past the reCaptcha would be a hole that any spammer could employ.
I'm now back to blurry words rather than street addresses. Maybe they understood my feedback.
OOPS. I intended to use EXPLOIT and used EMPLOY.
Yellowrocks, best wishes.
Anon-T, I'm using a laptop that's running Windows XP...
Avg Joe, I saw the news about James Garner. I liked him. The Rockford Files was a favorite.
TTP - I knew you meant Exploit :-) Also, I use CAPTCHA as any generic prove you're not a bot. I don't know if this is still the case, but for a while you could hire some folks in India that will solve them for a few cents. For a few thousand dollars and a bot you could register a couple hundred thousand email addresses.*
I remember Rockford Files (my ring-tone comes from that phone :-)). I also lived in Norman, OK (BOOMER!) where the Bumgarner name is well known and liked. What a guy.
For 34a I had sHoddY at 1st.
Cheers, -T
*I researched this for a client a few years ago.
Photo Sphere again - iPad
32D The "risk taker" is the DAREE, not the DARER.
88D "Asserts without proof" = ALLEGES is incorrect. There may be proof, maybe not.
Back after a long day out with the family.
Sorry, I meant to refer to the Carmen Electra picture, not the Cindy Crawford picture. My virus scanner keeps identifying it as a threat and won't display it, so hopefully nobody else is getting infected with any malware as a result.
Big fan of Cindy Crawford. Not so big a fan of Carmen Electra...
Hi again~!
Sure, Anon-T; just send me an email~!
Splynter
My take on party hearty v. hardy: the former is Champaign past midnight and James drives you home. A mild hangover if you will. The latter is waking up naked not knowing where you are, what you did, nor the name of the horse.
So, a little research shows Urban Dictionary agrees with me while parses it better.
For us Vets - here's a Party Hardy cadence.
Cheers, no matter how you like to party. -T
Anon @ 1904 - If a person dares to take a risk in an intransitive sense, then that person would be a DARER.
I hate cliffhangers! Did anyone else watch Endeavor tonight? It means we have to wait until next season.
Lucina, I agree. I hate cliffhangers. I was hoping I wouldn't have to wait until next season. Poop on the BBC too! Rats!
AMAIN??? Me thinks that's too obsolete for a 21st century puzzle. Who's the silly caitiff who came up with that one?
I've removed the Carmen Electra picture. My Kaspersky did not find it suspicious when I linked it.
Splynter,
Gorgeous!
I too thought AMAIN was a bit of a stretch. Still didn't understand HERES for 'toasters' until I had the puzzle complete. (Something to be said for taking the pressure off). The theme came to me surprisingly early. A big help for a nimble completion.
Good Monday afternoon, folks. Thank you, Fred Piscop, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, C.C., for a fine review.
Just finished the puzzle. A day late, but what the heck. Really enjoyed it.
Liked the theme. Greek letters. Really did not need it to finish.
I will not comment too much since nobody will probably read this because it is so late. See you tomorrow (Tuesday)
Abejo
(1841)
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