google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Sunday March 8, 2015 Ed Sessa

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Mar 8, 2015

Sunday March 8, 2015 Ed Sessa

Theme:  "Hide and Seek" - GEO is hidden (cached) in the middle of each theme answer.

 23A. *Come (to), more or less : AVERAGE OUT. This added "to" in the brackets makes the entry look like a partial. It's not.

 38A. *Subject of lengthy debate : AGE-OLD QUESTION.

 60A. *Union proposal? : MARRIAGE OFFER. Reminds me of the "Union agreement" for I DO.

 81A. *Play it safe : HEDGE ONE'S BETS

 98A. *Mitigate : TAKE THE EDGE OFF

 15D. *Sulu, for one : BRIDGE OFFICER. Our Spitzboov reached "Commander" rank. Commander Spitzboov!

 59D. *Trial movement : CHANGE OF VENUE. Two pairs of theme entries intersect in this grid. This often makes filling easier, but it takes skills & luck to make crossing happen..

Reveal entry:

120A. Hide-and-seek activity utilizing GPS ... and what is literally done in the answers to
starred clues : GEOCACHING

Very few word start with EO*, so Mr Ed's break pattern is consistently *GE O* (quite a few OF*).

Thought of CrossEyedDave immediately when I came to the reveal entry. He's into Geocaching. How's your knee lately, Dave?
 
Did any of you have trouble with the BLEW (15A. Left, in slang) clue? I just could not figure it out. Finally asked the "always there: Santa Argyle. He explained:

"Left, as in "didn't stay" 

The party was a drag so we blew the joint and went to the club."

Across:

1. Head up, in a way : CLIMB. Also 19. One on the trail : HIKER

6. Future MD's exam : MCAT (Medical College Admission Test). And 71D. 6-Across takers, e.g. : TESTEES

10. Pick-me-up pill : NO-DOZ




20. Short-cut pasta : ORZO. Never had it. You?

21. Windy City hub : O'HARE

22. Opposite of a pan : RAVE. Of course I was picturing a cooking pan!

25. Many a worm : BORER

26. Emphatic type: Abbr. : ITAL

27. Adjust, as a spreadsheet : RE-SIZE

28. Company VIP : PREZ

30. Observation platform : ROOF DECK

32. E Street Band guitarist Lofgren : NILS

34. "Mr. Pim Passes By" playwright : MILNE. This I learned from PIM clue.

37. "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" musical : GIGI
 
43. Versailles assembly : SENAT. French Senate.

46. Line partitions: Abbr. : SEGS (Segments)

47. "Friendly Skies" co. : UAL

48. Observed : SAW. And 49. Observes : BEHOLDS

51. Former red state: Abbr. : SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic). Nice clue angle. "Red state".

52. Like the bell of a trumpet : FLARED

55. Biblical shepherd : ABEL

57. South Korean sportswear company : FILA. Very popular in China. South Korean soap operas are extremely popular in China also. Lots of girls visit South Korea just for the plastic surgery.

58. Was duly humiliated : ATE CROW. Are crows actually edible?
 
64. IMO, in "Hamlet" : METHINKS. To answer your question, Dudley, there's beauty in symmetry.
66. Spare tyre sites : BOOTS

67. Old "Oyez!" shouters : CRIERS

68. "__ of robins ..." : A NEST

69. "Give Peace a Chance" co-writer, per Lennon : ONO

70. Colonial story : ATTIC. And 84. 70-Across function : STORAGE

72. Holds tight : CLINGS

75. Metal-threaded fabrics : LAMES.  Fabrics with "metallic threads". Metal-threaded brought up a different image for me.

77. Diminished : LESSENED

85. Fit to __ : A TEE

86. Of no consequence : MOOT

87. London borough : SUTTON. Not familiar to me.

89. Network with a three-box logo : BBC. Never thought of them as three boxes.


90. Admission of error : I GOOFED. Lovely 7-letter fill.

92. Swipe from : ROB

95. Cedar Rapids college : COE

96. Fountain order : SODA

97. Chief Powhatan's son-in-law : ROLFE
 
102. Reproductive cell : OVUM

104. Lee __, first African-American to play in the Masters : ELDER. I confused him with Calvin Peete.

105. Bearing a grudge : SORE

106. Scroll key : PAGE DOWN. So, what keyboard are you using? Mine is an old Microsoft Comfort 5000. Love it.

109. Where lines may be read : PALM. Nice clue.

112. Pity-evoking quality : PATHOS. Like what?

116. St. Patrick's land : ERIN

117. Medical co. in the DJIA : J AND J. Big plant in Shanghai.

122. In __ of: replacing : LIEU

123. "Shaq Diesel" rapper : O'NEAL

124. Regarding : IN RE

125. Standing tall : ERECT

126. Facility : EASE

127. __-Croatian language : SERBO

128. Word with waffle or sugar : CONE. Are you familiar with Kakigōri? So popular in Japan.


129. Bros : DUDES

Down:

1. Scorch : CHAR

2. Like many old soaps : LIVE. Soap operas.

3. Turner and others : IKEs

4. Soft-wool sources : MERINOS

5. 2014 World Cup site : BRAZIL.  And 106. Sports legend of 5-Down : PELE

6. Comedian Howard with a bowl-cut hair style : MOE. Hi there, Chairman Moe!

7. Whip handle : CROP

8. Bleu shade : AZUR

9. Aboriginal emblems : TOTEMS

10. Noodle : NOB

11. "What do we have here?!" : OHO

12. __ Criss, who plays Blaine on "Glee" : DARREN. He looks very familiar.


13. Twistable treat : OREO. National Oreo Day is March 6.

14. "Gravity" effect : ZERO G
 
16. Well beyond one's prime : LATE IN LIFE

17. FEMA concern : EVAC

18. Old TV host with an accordion : WELK

24. Neuter, as horses : GELD

29. Comic strip about a high schooler : ZITS

31. Flounder, e.g. : FISH

33. Complains : SQUAWKS. Another snazzy 7-letter fill.

35. __ Fáil: Irish "stone of destiny" : LIA. We just had it last Monday.


36. "Don't go yet" : NO, WAIT

38. State in northeast India : ASSAM

39. "Beau __" : GESTE

40. Heron relative : EGRET

41. Former Mideast org. : UAR.  Don't google. Guess who is the second Most Powerful Arab Woman in 2015?

42. K-5 or K-6: Abbr. : ELEM

44. Freud contemporary : ADLER

45. Nicholas and Alexander : TSARS

49. Mooch : BEG

50. Puts in, as a political office : ELECTS TO

52. __ benefit : FRINGE

53. Like the town in a Ricky Nelson hit : LONESOME. "Lonesome Town". Unfamiliar to me.

54. Tops, slangily : DA BOMB. For Jayce! I Really Really Like You.

56. Fundamental : BASAL
 
61. Blakley of "Nashville" : RONEE

62. Digs for bats : ROOSTS. "Digs for..." is a great misdirection.

63. Prayer : ORISON. I learned from doing crosswords. Same root as Orate.

65. Canonized fifth-cen. pope : ST. LEO

72. Offer to a guest : CHAIR

73. Move on : LET GO. I've learned to let go.

74. Guiding doctrines : IDEOLOGIES

76. Starlike : ASTRAL

78. Jar Jar Binks' home planet : NABOO. We had this before.

79. Staff sequence : EGBDF

80. "Unleaded" drink : DECAF

82. Sign of approval : NOD

83. "We are __ stuff / As dreams are made on": Prospero : SUCH

88. Tot's piggy : TOE

91. Duel precursor, perhaps : FEUD

93. Signed off on : OK'D

94. Road alert : BEEP

96. Sexy, in a way : SEE-THRU. I linked this before. Fake see-thru skirts.


98. Sawbuck : TENNER. Not a word I use.

99. Lamentable : TRAGIC

100. L-__: Parkinson's treatment : DOPA

101. Honored : GRACED

103. Magic charms : MOJOS. Argyle has magic power!

107. Musical highlight : ARIA. Still waiting for the "Vegas luxury hotel" clue for ARIA, Steve!

108. Taper off : WANE

110. Fallon's predecessor : LENO

111. Poetic time : MORN

113. Ran, old-style : HIED

114. Fairy tale start : ONCE

115. Mil. base drillers : SGTS

118. Small application : DAB. I've concluded that we don't really need eye creams/eye gels.  Moisturizers are enough.

119. "Idol" judge, familiarly : J. LO

121. Central opening? : CEE

C.C. 


38 comments:

OwenKL said...

After several passes, the Montana area beat me. MSAT≠MCAT, WILDE≄MILNE, AQUA≄AZUL, and because of the errors, had unWAGable blanks in CROP, ORZO, PREZ, & TOTEMS.

I used to indulge in a bit of geocaching when I had more mobility. Fun hobby, but couldn't get the LW as enthusiastic about it as I was, despite her being better at it. Lonely hobby to do by myself, so only had a few finds. Hard for me to lim on this subject, because I'm too close to it, so the first two are serious.

When geocaching, one's attitude
Must encompass some fortitude.
The G.P.S.
Isn't just right or left,
You need to read lati- and longitude!

Inside some caches you'll find tiny treasure,
A souvenir knick-knack to give you pleasure.
Sometimes just a logbook
Of who else found this nook.
Either way, it's still something fill up your leisure!

George was looking for a geocache,
Instead found a still and some sour mash!
Took a sip of the shine,
And thought it was fine,
So he logged that this find had some real panache!

Barry G. said...

Morning, all!

Fun Sunday puzzle. I'm short an hour of sleep, so I appreciate the fact it wasn't too much of a brain buster...

I did eventually get the theme, but it didn't help all that much since most of the GEOs were already filled in by the time I got down to the theme reveal. Still, it did help a bit, so that was nice.

Got a bit stuck in a few places for a little while. One was up north where I couldn't remember LIA and didn't know that MILNE wrote any plays. I finally got NO WAIT, however, which let me guess at MILNE and get SAW, which gave me LIA.

Another sticky spot was in the NE, where I just couldn't think of WELK and didn't see ROOF DECK. It wasn't helped by the fact that DARREN was a complete unknown and I thought that 30A started with LOOK instead of ROOF. Plus, I refused to entertain the notion that 14D could be ZERO G, since G stands for "Gravity" which was in the clue. Eventually, however, Mr. Sulu's status as a BRIDGE OFFICER saved the day.

The final sticking point was in the center, where I was convinced that bats lived in CAVES or CAVERNS, despite the fact that neither answer fit. Plus, DA BOMB just isn't a phrase I use or hear in my daily life (although I have heard "it's THE BOMB" before). Once I figured out MARRIAGE OFFER, however, it all came together nicely. I'm still not sure about ROOSTS for "digs for bats," though. Digs refers to where they live, no? And we are talking about the flying mammals, right? And ROOSTS are branches where birds hang out, as opposed to ceilings that bats cling to, correct? I'm missing something here...

HeartRx said...

I enjoyed this one, but ended up with a "fail." My downfall was the crossing of NABOO and BBC. NANOO and NBC looked just fine to me. bzzzt!

Barry G., wherever bats (or birds of any kind) land, that is their "roosting" place. Could be a branch, chimney, or cave ceiling.

I often make orzo, C.C. It looks like rice, but is really a pasta. Loved the clue for it, BTW!

HowardW said...

That took a little longer than usual, despite the relatively simple theme. Got misled at 1D with SEAR rather than CHAR, and went more seriously astray at 56D BASIC instead of BASAL and 71D PREMEDS for TESTEES.
I'll blame it on lack of sleep. Yeah, that's the ticket.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

I had real problems with this one...and ultimately came up short. I thought LIA was NIA (so soon, I forget) and DARREN was DARRIN, so that playwright became MINNI. Bzzzzt!

I've heard that in the whaling towns along the New England coast that houses had a "widow's walk." It was up on the roof where the captain's wife would pace hoping for a view of the ship's mast coming over the ORISON. So, I started with ROOF WALK. Didn't last.

I think of bold for emphasis and ITAL for distinction. You?

There's a funny bit in Wag The Dog. The fictional president, patterned after Bill Clinton, is caught in inappropriate behavior with a little Firefly Girl. The opposition mounts an ad campaign. The soundtrack was Maurice Chevalier singing, Thank Heaven For Little Girls.

I did enjoy the puzzle, and I'm blaming this morning's failure on the time change. At least, that's my story.

Splynter said...

Hi there~!

Hey, I had time to work a Sunday crossword~! Took a day from UPS tomorrow so I could paint the second restaurant overnight - they're closed Mondays, so I have more than 24hrs to work.

Took some time to work this puzzle, but found it enjoyable. I liked "MYTHINKS", but "IGOOFED" with "MERE" instead of "MOOT".

I was curious what E-G-B-D-F might actually be in tune with; turns out to be an Eminor 7th with a flat 9th - sounds jazz to me....

I would like to try Geo-caching, myself.

Thanks again for the compliments and the street name suggestions. I have to find a balance between clever and being done by the weekend....

Splynter

Unknown said...

The Week in Review: M 5:56 T 6:42 W 8:12 T 8:59 F 13:15 S 36:44 S 39:20

Saturday: Not a "Silkie" but I still went through the usual stages of grief and the DNF cloud was looming. MALLAUS didn't look right but I was "sure" about BUTANE and ZOOTSUIT. In desperation I decided to type in MALLETS and take it from there so I was surprised to hear the "TaDa!". Lucky for me the computer was fast enough to stop at the (correct) "E" so it never read the (incorrect) "T".

Sunday: The weekly typo-hunt (maybe I should call it a "perp walk"?). The clock kept ticking but everything looked good. Or good enough. Then I remembered my early doubts about NBC. Boxes? Nope. But I had no idea where Jar Jar Binks was from and NANOO seemed reasonable (an homage to Mork?). Anyway, I tried CBC and then BBC and . . . TaDa!

I understand that some people like solving the puzzles on paper but I would find the frequent "close but no cigar" extremely frustrating.

Anyway, we may have seen the end of single-digit temps here in the snow-covered mid-Hudson valley.

See y'all next Sunday.

Yellowrocks said...

Ed's GEO CACHING was lovely. My brother and SIL do this from time to time. I would like to, but as Owen said, it's better with an enthusiastic partner. I thought of CE DAVE right away.
Opposite of PAN/ZOOM, no, RAVE.
HeartRx, NANOO was my downfall, too. I never considered the BEEB.
CC, your picture of the Japanese dessert makes my teeth hurt. Their desserts are all far too sweet for me.
DO @7:48, for me ITAL is often used for emphasis.
EGBDF. I remeber Every Good Boy Does Fine, a mnemonic for the lines of the treble clef.
Wiki says,"Crow is presumably foul-tasting in the same way that being proven wrong might be emotionally hard to swallow."

HowardW said...

For all those who got stuck at NABOO, here's the song which kept me on the correct path.

JJM said...

I had geo-tagging in there for the longest time, but nothing then would fit. Once I changed it all came together.

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

Like others, I immediately thought of Dave at the reveal, then went back and saw the (then) obvious geo. Lots of fun and clever clues and fill, as CC pointed out.

Speaking of the BBC, is anyone else watching the second season of Broadchurch? I didn't see the first season but did watch the American version, Gracepoint, which I really enjoyed. I streamed the last episode of the original Broadchurch to see if it ended in the same way as Gracepoint, which it did not. At least now I know what's going on starting the second season. (The accents are quite heavy so I'm missing a lot of the dialogue.)

Great Sunday offering, Ed, and sparkling expo, CC.

Have a great day.

Big Easy said...

15A- I initially put FLEW, but changed it later.

'Pick me up pill'- one of these days some constructor will have VIVARIN instead of NO DOZ- both are straight caffeine. I know it will never be 'methamphetamine' or Dexedrine.

I always knew FILA as an Italian Company. I can see why they sold out because their mdse would fall apart; it was big with a lot of tennis players( mostly women) because of the style but they always complained about it wearing out too soon.

Keyboard you say- my laptop keyboard is driving me crazy. Z and 7 don't work half the time and my left shift key doesn't either.

Treble Clef lines EGBDF- One of these days we might see the bass clef lines GBDFA

Heart- I can Sympathize with you. I correctly WAGged BBC & NABOO along with MILNE and LIA. All four were unknowns. This was a tough one for me due to all the proper names, movie and tv references, and a few completely unheard of words, mainly ORISON and PATHOS. I wanted to put ILIAD for Colonial story because I had BASIC instead of BASAL but got it right after storage fell into place.

Solving GEOCACHING before any of the starred clues was the only way I could finish this thing. Too many unknowns- DARREN, COE, NILS, LIA, NABOO, BBC, PATHOS, ORISON.

But I did finish and that gives me some satisfaction.

Rainman said...

CC, you know kakigori but not orzo? I make summer salads with orzo... can't find recipe right now. I'll send it for posting when I do. Nice summary, good work.

Splynter, yes, I, too, would like to try geocaching... I just this week bought a disc golf set, because there's a course nearby. Never played before but I've watched. Nothing like geocaching, I'm sure.

The lyrics to GIGI remind me of my morning so far... "..am I a fool without a mind or have I simply been too blind to realize?... " and "when did (the) sparkle turn to fire" and I was "...trembling on the brink." Love this song but you know it already... so no link.

Actually, I made it through Ed Sessa's offering a lot easier after I (finally) was able to get a bit of his mindset. And isn't that often the case though? It just took longer today.

Rainman said...

Al Cyone,

Your completion times are truly impressive. Waytogo. Are you competing at Stamford this month? You'd probably score way up there.

BTW, there's a post office in Arroyo Grande CA named Halcyon. Probably named after an old community, I'm guessing.

coneyro said...

Am I the only one on the blog who has never heard of GEOCACHING. I had to look up what it is. Interesting, but something I would not be inclined to participate in.

Because of my zero knowledge of the theme, the long fills had me scratching my head as to what was the commonality between them. I did notice the similar letters, but this meant nothing to me. So, technically, I had the answer, but did not know why.

I love ORZO. Pasta that looks like rice. It is a main ingredient in greek lemon chicken soup. I've used it, as well, as a substitute for rice in pudding. Delicious!

The rest of the puzzle was the usual olio of subjects. Diverse and interesting. Not too difficult.

Winded up awakening one hour later than I normally do, thanks to the clock change.

My husband is into the new baseball preseason. And so it starts......

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Lucina said...

Hola, C.C. and all!

Not much time as I'm going to church but wanted to say how much I enjoyed GEOCACHING this grid. That is something I had never heard of until CEDave mentioned it here. This Blog is a source of so much learning!

Later!

Have a wonderful Sunday, everyone! We're going to see The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Loved the first one.

Spitzboov said...

Good morning everyone.

I'm with Barry G. - not enough sleep.

METHINKS this was an OK puzzle. Interesting NESTing of GEO.
22a - pan opposite. Initially I thought of moving a camera ie. left to right, and was trying to come up with a name for the up-and-down motion, (such as we have in gunnery - train and elevate) but couldn't come up with any. Finally thought of show critiques and RAVE fit nicely.

Have a nice day.

CrossEyedDave said...

Hi CC & gang! The knee has made it difficult to do any Geocaches, & my Orthopedist says if it doesn't improve in a month of calcium + Vitamin D + Bone Growth Hormones, he wants to do surgery to inject cement into the bones???

Has anyone heard of this?

(I don't like the sound of it...)

Still awaiting results of bone density tests.

Re: GeoCaching
I highly recommend it for finding beautiful places, & things you did not know about.

For instance: WWII Memorial in Washington has a virtual geocache behind it. Spoiler Alert! (Actually engraved into the stone !)

Here is a link to the website. Signing up is free & easy. Or if that is too much trouble, just click on ""Explore as Guest" to get to this page. On the right side under #1 type in your zip code & click the magnifying glass to get to a list of caches in your area. Better yet click on map this location for an overhead map.

The blue question mark at the bottom of the above map is my puzzle cache "Cement Tennis Court." You can click on it to see comments & pics...

Also, here are some Free Apps to turn yr smartphone into a GPS

"Happy Caching!"

Bluehen said...

Irish Miss @ 1049: Hands up for missing a lot of British dialogue on BBC or PBS offerings. It seems the older I get, the more the British mumble with their stiff upper lips, especially D. I. Barnaby of "Midsomer Murders".
Following a suggestion I first read on this corner, I now turn on "closed captioning" so I can glance to the bottom of the screen to see what I missed. Much better.

coneyro @ 11:25: ORZO in avgolemono soup is a new one to me. Every time I have ordered it or made it, rice was the filler. I'll have to try orzo. Thank you.

Lemonade714 said...

C.C. I doubt you use either TENNER or SAWBUCK to represent a $10.00 bill.

I have missed the GEOCACHING wave, sounds fun.

ORZO, COUSCOUS< QUINOA... all kinds of fun things to cook with. Of course why they make rice shaped pasts?

My wife asked me when we sat down to watch Downton Abbey why I wanted to watch a program where the people did not speak English.

Montana said...

CEDave,
Explored your links a little. I am surprised to see 7 Caches in my little town of 2000 people. Lots more in the county. Who knew? I'm only familiar with what you've told us over the years.
A couple women made our state news when police got a report of some ladies doing something with a box on a pole. Turned out to be a geocache, which led to pictures and a big write-up and explanations.

Montana

Dudley said...

Hello Puzzlers -

A lot of WBS. By the time I got to Geocaching, most of the theme fills were done. I've only done geocaching once, when I accompanied a fellow who is really into it. Interesting hobby, maybe I'll do more someday.

Hello C.C., thanks for the input. Also, when I was a kid, we would say "let's blow this Popsicle stand" when it was time to leave some establishment.

Irish Miss 10:49 - I'm not familiar with Broadchurch. I don't recall seeing it offered in the local PBS lineup. Worth streaming? We did get wrapped up in Grantchester, and hope for more next year.

Lucina 11:58 - oh, good! We plan to see Marigold 2 and would like your opinion.

Steve said...

Still waiting for ARIA too - I'll be staying there in April for the annual NAB convention!

I'm surprised no-one's remarked on SUTTON - that's one obscure fill if there ever was. Line up 100 Londoners and ask them to name off ten boroughs, and I'll bet you a pound to a penny that Sutton doesn't get a single mention.

Husker Gary said...

Very nice Sunday with a mere 3-letter theme. NE corner held out but succumbed. My first GEO-CACHING activity was reading one of these while driving 60 mph

Musings
-That Boston Marathon bomber creep wanted a CHANGE OF Venue. As if…
-AVERAGE OUT – my putt was 10 ft long and my partner’s was 10 ft short. We made it!
-If Boomer ever missed this spare (unlikely), he’d say he BLEW the ten pin
-America’s most famous ROOFDECKS are across Waveland Ave in Chicago
-The last piece of of the St. Louis Archdid not fit to A TEE and had to be hosed down to shrink it slightly
-Whether this very tough surgery I just had was best for me is now a MOOT point
-Do you have these ELDERs in your part of the country?
-In LIEU of pay, teachers get an “atta boy”.
-Remember the LIVE scene from Tootsie?
-NASA gets near ZERO-G inside this diving airplane
-The departure of the TSARS was woven into the Downton Abbey storyline
-Sam Spade’s version of (:45) what dreams are made of

Irish Miss said...

Dudley @ 12:40 - Broadchurch is on the BBC, not PBS. It is an excellent murder mystery, but, as I said, the accents are thick and it is difficult to catch every word. The American version, Gracepoint, was, naturally, much easier to follow. I am not familiar with Grantchester.

I am also following some new, limited episodes shows: The Slap, Allegiance, and American Crime. All good, so far.

Bluehen @ 12:17 -If I have a closed caption feature on my remote, I can't see it.

Bill G. said...

Good morning. I never like the time changes; either way throws me off for a few days.

I should emulate Thumper but I'll just say this puzzle wasn't fun for me. A theme of finding words or phrases containing GEO was just OK but didn't seem especially clever or fun. Fill like DA BOMB, BORER, RESIZE, SENAT, DARREN Criss, RONEE, SUTTON, CEE left me whelmed. I really dunno why but it was just a slog for me. Sorry,,,

I tried geocaching for a while. I enjoyed it when I did it with my son but I eventually ended up mostly on my own and I lost interest.

Jayce said...

Carly Rae! Tom Hanks! And, um, Justin Bieber? I really really liked it!

Bluehen said...

Irish Miss @ 1:52 My setup is with a remote and cable box from Bombast Cable, but I imagine that setting up closed captioning is pretty much the same for most equipment. In my case, I press the "menu" button on the remote. From the TV screen I highlight "Main Menu" and click OK. On the next screen I highlight "Setup" and press OK. On the next screen, highlight "Closed Captioning Setup" and click OK. On the next screen I use the arrow buttons to turn on closed captioning, click OK and exit. It's a lot easier to do than to explain. I'm not saying that smugly. The first few times, my youngest ACLAH had to show me how. "Aw, Dad. Again!?" Good luck.

Irish Miss said...

Bluehen @ 2:32 - After I posted re closed captions, I did some checking and found it's done through the Settings button on the remote. It's very simple, too. Thanks for being helpful.

Jayce said...

Yanno, when I do crossword puzzles, I try not to nitpick, because I know (1) that clues can be intended to mislead, to stretch the imagination, and (2) that Rich does a damn good job of making sure that the clues are not actually wrong or nonsense, such as for ROOSTS. Okay, so DSL is actually a conduit for transmitting internet content, and is not actually an Internet Service Provider of that content, I LET IT GO for the sake of the puzzle solving experience. And I really really really really like solving crossword puzzles. My mom used to love solving "double crostics" and maybe I'll get into them some day. Anyway, I love all the comments you folks post, and wish you all the very very best. (Jeez, I sound like a Gallo ad!)

Abejo said...

Good afternoon, folks. Thank you, Ed Sessa, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, C.C., for a fine review.

Needless to say, this puzzle took me quite a while. About 3 1/2 hours.

Missed on NANOO/NABOO and NBC/BBC. OK. I swear I should start using the IPad again. That way i will know if I have an error.

Theme was fine and clever. It did help me with a few of the answers.

My last area to fill was the SE corner. The words weren't that tough once you had them, but getting to that point was indeed tough.

I do not get DA BOMB. I got it, but have never heard that phrase.

Tried BASIC for 56D. BASAL won out when I got ATTIC.

TENNER was the easiest answer in the puzzle.

Lots to do with the rest of my day. See you tomorrow.

Abejo

( )

Anonymous said...

Yanno?

Anonymous said...

When someone says it took more than three hours to solve the puzzle do they mean that, for more than three hours, they did nothing but work on the puzzle?

Avg Joe said...

Crashed and burned at the corner of Naboo and BBC. It was comforting to have so much company. And since Jar-Jar is universally regarded as the most irritating Star Wars character ever, I cant muster any shame in having never seen that particular movie. i couldn't really justify the NBC answer, but it seemed good enough and the Beeb never crossed my mind. Otherwise, a fun, but reasonably crunchy Sunday offering.

Jayce, on the frequent DSL clue, I've always interpreted that as one of the options that an ISP has to offer, not as a definition of an ISP. From that slant, it's always worked for me.

Lucina said...

Dudley:
Yes, Marigold 2 was fun! Since the characters needed no introduction, the story simply continued with a few subtle under lying subplots. And of course, there was Richard Gere to add even more charm. Not enough can be said about Maggie Smith. She is a consummate actress still dialed in at age 81.

As for the puzzle, NABOO, though unknown, emerged with 5 perps. Otherwise, one letter simply led to another until it was all filled. We had ASSAM tea recently and I assume it's grown in the region of that name. LIA,tto, but I still don't remember it. It just emerged.

Lucina said...

Ugh! That should read, "Lia, too"

fermatprime said...

Greetings!

Am sick again. Goofed up three days in a row.

Cheers!

Anonymous said...

23A is a partial. The phrase "average out to" is something I see and hear regularly.