google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Wednesday, November 19, 2014 C.C Burnikel

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Nov 19, 2014

Wednesday, November 19, 2014 C.C Burnikel

Theme: Cumulus cumulatives - or serious cirruses?

17A. Leave in a huff : STORM OUT. Storm cloud. Not something you'd want to be flying into.

25A. Book keeper? : DUST JACKET. Dust cloud. Not something you'd want to be flying into.

34A. Steak topper : MUSHROOM SAUCE. Mushroom cloud. Not something ... you get the idea.

48A. Deep-fried carnival treat : FUNNEL CAKE. Funnel cloud. Not some .. OK, OK, enough already. Yikes!


58A. Virtual storage area, and a hint to words that start 17-, 25-, 34- and 48-Across : THE CLOUD

G'day everyone! Steve here with a C.C. Wednesday special. No baseball unless I missed something glaringly obvious, but plenty of food (!), technology and frilly things to ratchet up my interest level. The theme might have been written for me today - I'm looking down at the cloud tops on my way to Detroit to discuss one of my companies' cloud offerings with a customer.

Et alia:

Across:

1. Amin portrayed in "The Last King of Scotland" : IDI. Exiled Ugandan despot.

4. Arabic "son of" : IBN

7. Took out : ERASED

13. __ race : RAT

14. Lingerie tops : BRAS. Frills!

16. Turkey feature : WATTLE. Not the most attractive of birds.


19. Necessitate : ENTAIL

20. "Evil Woman" rock gp. : E.L.O. Founder member Roy Wood went on to odder things with Wizzard. If anyone cares to explain the bass guitarist's outfit of angel wings, cricket pads and roller skates I'd be interested to hear it.

21. Lode loads : ORES. Clue-tactic

23. JalapeƱo topper : TILDE. The squiggly diacritical on the "n".

24. Chignon, e.g. : UPDO I learned this from crosswords. I've never heard it used otherwise, but then again I don't hang out in hair salons on the eve of special occasions.

27. Ultimate authorities : SAY-SOS

29. "Have some!" : EAT

30. Seattle-to-Reno dir. : S.S.E.

31. Stains on a record : BLOTS

32. One who woke up on the wrong side of the bed, say : CRAB. Marti sometimes confesses to wrong-side awakening, but I'd hesitate to ever describe her as crabby.

40. Neighborhood sale caveat : AS IS

41. Dishonorable fellow : KNAVE

43. Blissful sounds : AHS

46. Cherry core : PIT

47. Damaged : HARMED

52. One, to Goethe : EINS. This threw me - I confidently had EINE until EDE at 42D made no sense, as you can see from my final fill in the grid at the bottom.

53. Deceit : FRAUD

54. "Are we __ not?": "Is it a date?" : ON OR. Not exactly the most polite way to start out, in my ever-so-humble opinion.

55. Puerto Rico hrs. : A.S.T. The famous Atlantic Standard Time. Easterly bits of Canada (eh!) also use it.

56. TaylorMade parent : ADIDAS. I used to pronounce it "Addy-dass", as did the entire continent of Europe. I now pronounce it "Add-eee-das" due to the hilarity and mirth which ensued when I moved to the USA and my friends heard me say it. I use TaylorMade golf clubs, although similar hilarity and mirth often follows the witnessing of a shot played with them.

61. "Fighting" college team : ILLINI. Pah. Second-rate fighters. Irish first.


62. "Born Free" lioness : ELSA

63. Word after common or case : LAW

64. Starts over : RESETS

65. Pink Floyd guitarist Barrett : SYD. Or Roger Keith to his mom. If you've got 10 minutes to spare, here's "Shine on you Crazy Diamond" - the band's tribute to their former "madcap" member.

66. New Haven student : ELI

Down:

1. Govt. org. that may freeze assets : I.R.S. Not the warmest of agencies, that's for sure.

2. Desert fruit tree : DATE PALM

3. "See?!" : I TOLD YOU

4. "Big Blue" : IBM My first programming job was working on an IBM/370 mainframe using punch cards. Many years later, I had a meeting at the IBM offices in Frankfurt and was alarmed to see that the model of punch card machine I used every day was reverently displayed, under glass, in the building's lobby. Feel old, much?


5. Coop groups : BROODS

6. Tiny Pacific republic : NAURU. Small  indeed - 9,200 people on 8.1 square miles.

7. Ma that baas : EWE

8. Go off on : RANT AT

9. Place to stick rarely used stuff : ATTIC. Basements and garages for the overflow. Then to the neighborhood sales.

10. Celery pieces : STALKS.  STICKS first.

11. Fails to pronounce : ELIDES. I still shudder when I read "gonna" in print. I don't think I'll ever get used to that one.

12. Knock out, as a character : DELETE

15. Fr. holy women : STES

18. Dove bars? : ROOSTS. Cute! I had a couple of Dove squares last night, I like the little "fortune cookie" messages inside the foil wrappers.

22. Cooks, as dim sum dumplings : STEAMS. Oh boy!


24. iPad-to-PC port : USB. Universal Serial Bus, in case you wondered.

26. Ring punches : JABS

28. __Kosh B'Gosh : OSH. From Wuscaahnsun.

32. Store with a Kirkland Signature brand : COSTCO

33. Many a Louis : ROI. Many indeed. Louis dix-huit was the last. Neither English kings nor Popes come close in the XVIII stakes.

35. One way to travel : RAIL

36. Letters in an APB : AKA

37. Beyond belief : UNREAL

38. Lingerie top : CAMISOLE. More frills! No links from me, I'll leave that to others.

39. Ultimate : EVENTUAL

42. Vogue VIPs : EDS

43. Intense romance : AFFAIR

44. Steeplechase feature : HURDLE. The obstacles in the Grand National steeplechase, which is run annually at Aintree racecourse near Liverpool, England, might feel insulted to be called "hurdles". The fences are around 5 feet high  and some are almost 12 feet wide.


45. Escargots : SNAILS. Garlicky deliciousness.

46. One fussy about minor details : PEDANT. Crossword constructors, editors and solvers? I hope not ...

47. Charge against Galileo : HERESY. Not public endangerment by dropping lumps of lead from the top of the Tower of Pisa? Odd.

49. Film with a minimal costume budget? : NUDIE. No-frills production!

50. Put in a chip : ANTE

51. JCPenney rival : KOHL'S. I thought JCP had disappeared with the Macy*s takeover, but apparently still going strong.

57. Paris, to Nicky : SIS. Ahhhh - the  Hilton sisters. Things have been quiet with those two recently, thank goodness.

59. Dishonorable fellow : CAD. Egad!

60. MADD focus : DWI

Just enough time for the grid before my blog-meter time expires.

Steve



Note from C.C.:

Happy Birthday to dear Creature, a very active member of our blog until an accident took away her husband on her birthday three years ago. I hope you've sold the farm and settled down on your city life. Leave us a note when you drop by, Creature. You're in my thought often, so is Chickie, who's taking a leave from the blog to take care of her husband Bill. Our best wishes also go to Misty, Dave and their loved ones. 

I feel incredibly lucky that I have you guys to turn to when I need advice and guidance, and I hope this blog can be of some help and comfort when you are in need as well.



Creature

48 comments:

  1. Morning, all (and Happy Birthday, Creature, wherever you are)!

    Mostly smooth solve today, but I almost got taken out by some of the cluing. I did not know what a "chignon" was, although I certainly knew what an UPDO was. Similarly, I've never heard of "TaylorMade" but was able to get ADIDAS with a lot of help from the perps. And, while I've heard of ILLINI, I didn't know they were "Fighting" (Like Steve, I wanted IRISH, but it didn't fit).

    Great clue for TILDE! I was thinking, "wait, you top things with jalapenos, you don't top jalapenos with anything." And then the light bulb went on or off, depending on your personal linguistic idiomatic preference.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A double dip this week with marti and C.C. and I also loved the Jalapeno TILDE clue/fill.

    I echo your sentiments for Creature, Chickie, Misty, Dave and anyone else who is facing tough times

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  3. Good morning, folks. Thank you, C.C., for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Steve, for a fine review.

    Well, I was able to do this one last night on my way home from Waukegan. So, here I am Bright (not) and early.

    Temperature is better than yesterday. it is 22 now.

    Puzzle was about right for a Wednesday. The theme appeared. Very good and apropos for our times with THE CLOUD.

    NAURU again. We have had that before and I remembered it this time.

    DATE PALM reminds me of my days in Indio, CA. Big industry there. One of our guys forgot to crack his window while at work and his console melted in his car.

    MUSHROOM SAUCE is good. I used to live in Cabot, PA, where they grow mushrooms underground, Moonlight Mushrooms. They had an outlet store (mushrooms only), and we bought them for 50 cents a pound. Fresh!

    Never was a big FUNNEL CAKE person. However, my wife really likes it.

    61A was easy. Fighting ILLINI, our U of Illinois team.

    I also liked TILDE and the clue. Clever.

    WATTLE was a new word for me. Good depiction in the turkey photo from Steve.

    Well, I have lots to do. Dinner for 18 people today for tonight. Meatloaf and all the trimmings.

    See you tomorrow.

    Miss you, Creature.

    Abejo

    (335)

    ReplyDelete

  4. Hello everyone,

    When I came here to check my entries I was positive I was Ok, but it turns out to be a DNF. The U for UPDU & USB was not present. I did not know the answer to either clue, intended to Wag something and forgot about it.

    As far as the rest of the puzzle,it was a struggle. CAMISOLE, FUNNEL CAKE, & THE CLOUD all were ?????'s. Wags seem to have been the order of the day.

    Creature, Happy Birthday. Look forward to your returning daily.

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  5. Good morning!

    I was zooming along just fine until mid-court. I wanted ANON before CRAB showed up. MARRED/HARMED and IRISH?/ILLINI. I always wait for the perps to decide if it's DUI or DWI.

    I enjoyed the outing, C.C., and enjoyed your humor, Steve. I'll bet there are lots of folks at IBM who've never seen a punch card, let alone drop an entire deck of 'em.

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  6. Good morning!

    Happy Birthday, Creature! I do hope you stop by - it's always good to know that your Corner friends are wishing you well.
    ¸¸¸.•*¨*♫♥♫¸¸¸.•*¨*♫♥♫¸¸¸.•*¨*♫♥♫¸¸¸.•*¨*♫♥♫

    Fun write-up, Steve! And yes, I have been known to get up on the wrong side of the bed occasionally.

    It's always fun to see C.C.s name on the puzzle, because I know I am in for clever clueing and fun entries with an "AHA!" moment at the end.

    This time I got the theme with the MUSHROOM, and realized we were looking at CLOUDs (from both sides now?)

    I thought sure that C.C. threw in the BRAs and CAMISOLES just for the guys. And I smiled when I saw the clue for STEAMS. Dim sum dumplings - yum!!

    But my all-time favorite was "Dove bars?" for ROOSTS. Great one!!

    Happy Hump Day, everyone!

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  7. HI All!

    Bet y'all are surprised to see me this early. I got up at 5 to build two garlic infused pork-roasts for the IT pot-luck today - good EATs. After I got the pig in the oven I opened the paper and a C.C.! With a Steve write-up.

    So, no RATs!, nothing to RANT AT, nor RAIL against. A fun Wed.

    My only write-over was Macy's for KOHLS. UPDO? Oh, that's what a Chignon is. Same with Steeplechase - heard it, knew it wasn't a church thing, but.... Oh, where is it. Thanks Steve.

    OK, as a security guy, I will have a SAYSO on THE CLOUD - do your risk analysis - take it AS IS.

    Fav - IBM w/ ILLINI. When getting the computing merit badge, our scout master took us to ILLINI's* IBM 360 for a night of programming (yes, punch cards).

    Time for a bit of a nap while the pig cooks.

    Cheers, -T

    *State of IL's 360, not UI's

    ReplyDelete
  8. A nice midweek offering C.C.!

    Happy birthday to Creature too! I hope you can stop in some time today and "see" us.

    I have never seen/heard of Taylormade, Syd, funnel cake, and would never have associated Paris with the Hiltons. They are completely off my radar, having never heard of Nicky either. As a result the SW corner took me quite a while to get out.

    I also got hung up because I was thinking there weren't too many actual clothes in the movie Avatar, but couldn't for the life of me think of the word avatar. Finally after getting it all filled in but before coming here, I googled "movie with blue people" to relieve my brain drain. I seem to lose words like that all the time lately.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Good morning everyone.

    Happy Birthday to Creature.

    Straightforward solve today. But I did have to wite-out 'salsa' which I had before TILDE. Great misdirection.
    Got the theme ok, but didn't really notice the cloud motif until reading Steve's intro. Original!
    With BROODS, ROOSTS, and WATTLE, I began to wonder if the puzzle had a poultry them, too.

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  10. I have been doing these puzzles for years and always enjoyed reading the comments after finishing.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Fun puzzle. Charming expo. No unknowns. Waited for the perps to make my choice on a few. My only write over was MAIMED before HARMED. "Shoulda" waited for that one, too.
    It seems only the men never heard of CHIGNON, pronounced, SHēnĖŒyƤn.
    The cover of the novel, Mr. Churchill's Secretary, shows a chignon. I loved this book. In the link read down to the description to see the feminist theme. This very competent, well educated woman was denied the position she would have had as a male. She "showed 'em" what she was made of.
    Link novel
    Happy birthday to Creature. We miss you. We also miss Chickie. Best wishes to you and your husband, and also to Misty and Dave.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Happy Birthday, Creature. You will be Toasted at Sunset.

    C.C. Thank you for a FUN Wednesday puzzle. Probably my "new" All-Time Favorite constructed by you.

    Steve: Enjoyed your write-up ... but I gotta tell you the musical selection of Pink Floyd Shine On You Crazy Diamond ... all 10:38 of it ... was just the perfect song I needed today.
    [Which, of course, lead be to the Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here / Comfortably Numb (10:34) of the left side].

    Many reflective thoughts running through my head today ... thinkin' about former friends gone by and My Bucket List etc.

    tears will be shed ... and (hopefully) some laughs ... as past exploits will be shared ...
    (and then I get to repeat this again tomorrow ... tears ...)

    Your kind words yesterday were greatly appreciated.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I am 3 for 3 this week! Rats that there is no TADA in ink... I had storm off with a tiny republic named Nafru & some French SFES. I also spelt/spelled Camosole wrong making me wonder what Eons had to do with Goethe...

    Daughter is fine, I think it was more panic than attack. Now I am more concerned about the side effects of Prednisone?

    Cant pass up a Creature Cake!

    Hmm, I can't tell which ones are photoshopped. So here's the whole page...

    P.S., If you don't buy DVDs for your Kids/Grandkids, you may not have seen the Disney/Pixar short Partially Cloudy.

    Oh, CC, I did enjoy Jalapeno Topper as I am familiar with every hot food ever made, & when none of them fit I knew it had to be a misdirection...

    ReplyDelete
  14. Take notes, Lemony...
    THIS is what a write-up should be!
    Clever, witty, informative, with just a touch of humility and self-deprecation. An absolute joy to read.
    Great job, Steve!

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  15. "Puzzling thoughts":

    Another C.C. so soon??! Great puzzle, Ms Burnikel, but where are the BB or MN connections??!! I did like that you got TWO Wisconsin references w OSH (Kosh B'Gosh) and KOHLS - both Cheesehead State icons. I had KMART before KOHLS so there's a significant ink blot in the SSE corner

    I didn't check my perps and found an error in 42D/52A - hand up for EDE/EINE so today is officially a FIW for me

    23A - cute clue and solve; 14A, 38D and 49D all satisfied my prurient interests! ;^)

    Can't say I've ever seen WATTLE in a crossword puzzle before, and hope I never see one in a mirror too soon!

    Thanks for the informative and witty write up, Steve. HBD Creature (though I don't know you) and belated condolences to Tin from his news yesterday about his friends passing. Hope you had a break in the CLOUD(s) at sunset to give them a proper farewell toast ....

    ReplyDelete
  16. I fought through some cloudy thinking to finish C.C.’s fun puzzle. KMART, ALL and INDIE had to leave the game.

    Musings
    -I can be an ELIDIN’ kind of guy
    -WATTLE removal
    -A missing DUST JACKET can reduce a collectible book’s value by 50%
    -I got my first pedicure last night. I’d give it 3 AH’S on a 4 AH scale
    -Tired of a COMMON LAW marriage?
    -Old computer equipment? I had kids play the original PONG game yesterday and they loved it.
    -A RANTING Husker
    -My MacBook Pro has a Delete key but no Backspace key like most computers
    -Getting your book banned at COSTCO can be very beneficial
    -We traveled by rail from Berlin to Munich and I thought I would sleep like a baby in my berth but I was awake the whole time.
    -We’re sorry Galileo Turns out you were right.
    -Happy Birthday Creature.

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  17. Oops HBDTY Creature and many more. There is always a spot for you here at the Corner.

    Tin, I know what you are feeling, in a three year period I lost a brother, two b-I-l, two of my best friends and many neighbors. But we go on....

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  18. Roger, welcome to our Corner.

    Comment any time, the blog has survived with new blood keeping old blood flowing.

    Moe, the advantage of a beard is the hidden wattle.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Funny how even when lemony is offering condolences he manages to make it all about himself. What a tool.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anon@10:43 - Dude - look at the calendar. It's only Wed.

    Cheers Roger. Welcome. Feel free to pipe-up and ROOST with us. Cheers, -T

    ReplyDelete
  21. Hello Puzzlers -

    Smooth sailing, the only unknown I can think of was the Taylor Made and Adidas link. Thanks C.C. for another fun puzzle. I admit I wouldn't have caught the theme without the unifier.

    One minor technical point: iPads don't have any ports on them, USB or otherwise. The power and headphone jacks are the only user connection points.

    Howdy Steve, I spent many undergrad hours at that IBM punch machine. I still marvel at their smoothness of operation. They must have been superbly designed and made. That was back in the day when we still made stuff.

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  22. Greetings, friends! Witty blog, Steve, appropriately written above the CLOUDS.

    WBS and WEES. This was great fun, C.C. I ERASED only twice, KMART before KOHLS and started with DUST COVER but of course then JACKET emerged.

    Loved dove bars, ROOSTS.

    I've never had a FUNNEL CAKE as I haven't been to the fair in decades, only read about them. Are they good?

    Like others, I have to wait for DUI or DWI and SYD, the Pink Floyd guitarist is now embedded as a crossword staple.

    TaylorMade is unfamiliar to me but ADIDAS is well known and hooked on to AFFAIR nicely.

    HG:
    Congratulations on your pedicure!

    Happy birthday, Creature! I hope we see you.

    Have a wondrous Wednesday, everyone!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Good afternoon everyone.

    Tin: my thoughts are with you. Two funerals in two days has to be very tough.

    I'll try to find the Maine link. I lived there for six years, and my two boys were born there. Have many happy remembrances.

    Gave up on today's puzzle for most of the bottom third. Thank heavens for this blog so I can find out the answers.

    Cheers

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  24. If any of you are trivia nerds, you should check out the UK-based Guardian newspaper daily quiz here

    You should especially check it out this coming Friday - I set the questions :)

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  25. Husker, you finally caved and got a pedicure, and found it nice? I TOLD YOU

    Thanks Lucina, I missed that bit. :-)

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  26. Hi Everyone:

    I had to smile when I saw CC's name the day after Marti's puzzle. I wonder if Rich does this to amuse us and make us happy! If so, he succeeded.

    Enjoyed the theme once I filled in the reveal. Only misstep was stomp out before storm out. Never had a funnel cake but I sure do love my snails. Wanted Irish but I have heard of the Fighting Illini, so that wasn't a problem. Nice job, CC, and swell expo, Steve. I enjoy your humor!

    Happy Birthday, Creature; hope it's pleasant one.

    Dave, glad to hear your daughter is better.

    Best wishes to Misty and Chickie and their spouses. And sympathetic thoughts for Tin.

    Very cold again but also lots of sunshine.

    BTW, the island of Nauru was featured prominently in Madame Secretary on Sunday's episode.

    Have a great day.

    ReplyDelete

  27. Well, wonderful to see a C.C. puzzle this morning, although I sadly got a DNF because I had ABU instead of IBN. A little off my game, I guess, after a couple of stressful days. But loved the theme and the many clever clues--TILDE especially. And thanks for the fun expo, Steve.

    Many thanks for all the kind wishes from so many of you, both yesterday and today. Rowland was able to come home from the hospital yesterday afternoon. His speech is fine again, thank goodness, but he is very weak and still has trouble standing and walking. But we're hopeful that this will improve before too long.

    Much love to Creature and Chickie.

    Have a great Wednesday, everybody.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Greetings!

    How do you do it, CC? Thanks for great puzzle. Super expo, too, Steve, as usual.

    Steve: my first (it was a summer) job was creating programs and punching paper tape for the then-new IBM 1620, a "small" machine.

    Happy birthday to you, Creature! How we get to "see" you! Condolences to Tin. Glad things are improving for your husband, Misty!

    Cheers!

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  29. Hi gang -

    Kind of a slow go for me today, but I made it.

    Nice puzzle, CC. Great verticals.

    CLOUDY here today. Only a little snow, but very dangerous driving.

    Stay safe, everyone.

    Cool regards!
    JzB

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  30. "Dove bars?" for ROOSTS. Genius! A very neat-o puzzle today. A neat-o one yesterday, too.

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  31. Chickie, Misty and Creature, I hope everything gets better soon. Good wishes coming your way!

    Our local high school (a half-mile away) has gotten a couple of vague threats posted on a social media site. So the school has been closed for a couple of days. Geez...

    This is kinda nice; a WWI-themed Christmas ad from Sainsbury's in England. Silent Night

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  32. Irish Miss, you can be sure that there is a method to Rich's scheduling madness!! ;-)

    Bill G. - heartwarming Sainsbury's ad. I also watched the videos about making the ad, and the story behind it. Thanks for sharing!

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  33. Thanks from a long time lurker. I am always so happy to see a Marti or CC byline on a puzzle because I know it will be creative but doable and fair.

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  34. Bill G, I second Marti's motion. That Sainsbury ad was quite nice. I have heard of spontaneous cease-fires in the trenches at Christmas; kinda gives you hope...

    ReplyDelete
  35. Dudley:
    Yes, it does give one hope that one day everyone will lay down their arms for longer than one day. . .

    Ken Follett writes movingly about that day in Fall of Giants.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Thank you C.C. and Steve

    I concur with desper-otto regarding DUI and DWI. Years ago I was the state director for MADD. I learned that there was not universal agreement as to the choice of terms. The 50 states were about evenly split with their statutes referencing one or the other.

    As for puzzles, that's not much help. We can only rely on the kindness of the constructor to give us an easy perp.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Loved this puzzle; thanks, C.C. Steve, I always enjoy your write-ups!

    Hand up for salsa before TILDE.

    Dove bars? was my favorite clue today. Speaking of birds, we have an older building across from our lab windows, and on cold sunny days like today, 10-20 pigeons line up on the ledge to sit in the sun. It's fun to watch how they jockey for position up there!

    Good wishes to Creature, Tin, Dave, Misty and Chickie. It is so nice to support each other on this blog. Thanks for getting us all together, C.C.!

    ReplyDelete
  38. CC, great, great puzzle. I loved the theme. I'm going to share it at work. The whole "cloud" thing. It also brought back a lot of old memories when Steve linked that picture of the old keypunch.

    I can not only run one of those old keypunches, but I would bet that I could tear one down and rebuild it again. Not that there's any demand for that skill these days.

    They were part and parcel for my MOS in the military. We also used this sorter and this is the system we used to keep track of everything we needed to keep track of.

    Let's see some of these hackers hack that old iron ! I think we'll see you coming as you lug those card decks up to the card reader !

    A Buffalo haboob

    Thanks CC, and thanks Steve.

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  39. Steve,

    Like Abejo, ILLINI was easy for the "Fighting" college team. Not enough letters for Irish.

    As to whether second or first, "I got no dog in that hunt."

    ReplyDelete
  40. Best wishes to all that are ill, ailing, or are recovering.

    Sallie, those Maine pics were Saturday at 10:30, and again yesterday morning.

    Select either day in the archives on the right side of the write up, then use CTRL F (for find), then key in your search argument and press enter.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Bill G - I read about the WWI Christmas incident somewhere. It's a shame they had to go back to killing each other. BLOTS on humanity.

    TTP - the system to stay organized is a pretty lady in a room with a computer? I should have taken that MOS.

    Did anyone read Feinman's account of building the MUSHROOM CLOUD bomb at Los Alamos. He had a room of humans doing the pre-computing.

    On the way to a meeting my phone lit up with txts. Pop sent "Christmas lists by Thanksgiving or no bird / booze". A back and forth went nuts as my sibs threw barbs at each other. "If you knew what a regular paycheck was" and such. This, by the way is all done in fun. We have think skin and no one STORMs OUT, but zings back (Sib1 to 2: "Why couldn't you keep your 1st wife", Sib3 to all: "it was his small..." you get the idea). All is fair game. Hurray Christmas!

    I can't wait for the 5 of us to be together again - our spouses, not so much :-).

    Cheers, -T

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  42. The FAMOUS 39 ( YES THIRTY NINE REASONS TO LOVE MAINE) (huh?)

    TTP - While I agree with you on the details and the concept of the whole tracking thing,

    and of course, it was entirely your great idea,

    to present the links to the pictures in the first place ...

    The fact is,

    some people,

    including me,

    for example,

    have a tough time following computer instructions and algorithms. Even simple computational instructions on the blog.

    (Wait till you get old - ).

    So, for them,

    and FOR SALLY -

    here, again,

    39 Reasons that living in Maine ruins your life.

    ... or something like that.

    So, go ahead and click on it. (It won't hurt you.)

    Thats why C.E.D. is pretty much GOD around here.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Anon T - Regarding the First Christmas during the war WW1 when the killing stopped for 24 hours, more or less, (I know, I also saw the movie).

    ...Only for the first year.1914. Subsequent years, everyone pretty much forgot Christmas -

    It worked because:

    1. They were both Christians, and a somewhat common stock. A common root language. Similar customs and culture. And even their royalty were related by blood, with Queen Victoria.

    2. It could never have worked anywhere else with the Japanese etc. Everyone thought the Japanese were a subhuman race to begin with.

    3. And yet - the WW1 went on until the entire manhood of both Britain and Germany and pretty much most European countries had been extinguished. So much for the brotherhood of man.

    Abba Eban, who turned up in yesterday's crossword famously said."History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives".

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  44. Thank you TTP and Helpmore Hannah for the help to see the Maine pix.

    This is truly a friendly blog.
    As well as one that is fun to read.

    Cheers

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  45. clever, way beyond my small brain. very clever!

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  46. Hannah:

    I'd say there's a bit something to that. In WWII there's the story of Charlie Brown (re-told in A Higher Calling,) - the warriors respected each other as such. I may still have my head in the CLOUDs, but I think when we learn to respect others (as opposed to thinking of one group as sub-human or non-whatever-religion) we won't harm one another. Just Imagine (Lennon).

    Cheers, -T

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