google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Thursday, May 7, 2015 Gareth Bain

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May 7, 2015

Thursday, May 7, 2015 Gareth Bain

Theme: Anagram

17-Across. Washington landmark : CAPITOL BUILDING.

38-Across. Escher's "Relativity" is an example of it : OPTICAL ILLUSION.

61-Across. 9-Across treatments : TOPICAL STEROIDS.

Did you see the common letters as you were solving? I had to go back and look for the theme when I was done. Pretty straight forward, and just a hint of deviousness in the clueing, so I was wondering if I had the wrong day of the week?!

Across

1. __ of Cleves : ANNE.

5. Ink, so to speak : TATS.

9. Skin problem : RASH. Get out those TOPICAL STEROIDS.

13. Genuine : REAL.

14. "How much wood __ a woodchuck chuck ..." : WOULD. ("...if a woodchuck could chuck wood. A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.")

16. "__ Wood sawed wood": tongue twister opening : ESAU. Did he beat the woodchuck, though? I wonder if our resident thespian Ol' Man Keith knows this one?

20. Hidden supply : STASH.

21. Major installation? : ARMY BASE. Here's a bit of that devious clueing I mentioned. Not an art exhibit or a new kitchen, but the home of a high ranking officer.

22. Pianist Dame Myra __ : HESS. Most famous for her luncheon concerts during the London blitz.

25. Site of South America's westernmost mainland point : PERU. The key word is "mainland."
26. Fairy tale patriarch : PAPA BEAR.

30. Latin dances : SALSAS.

34. Saccharide suffix : OSE. Glucose...fructose...sucrose...(am I being verbose?)

35. Legal write-up : BRIEF.

37. Elizabethan strings : LUTE.

42. Provided with an email dupe : CC'ed. Shoutout to our leader!

43. Poke around : SNOOP.

44. Many corp. logos : TMs. Trademarks

45. Apollo home : HARLEM. The Apollo Theater in Harlem.

48. "The Wolf of Wall Street" director : SCORSESE. I didn't catch that one - any good?

50. Prominent theater sign : EXIT.

52. Suture securer : KNOT.

53. Impeded : SLOWED UP.

57. Bandleader Shaw : ARTIE.

64. NASCAR route : OVAL.

65. Incline : SLANT.

66. __ school : PREP.

67. Use a blowtorch on : WELD.

68. James of jazz : ETTA. And a partial clecho:

69. James portrayer : SEAN. Connery. Bond.


Down

1. Hammer-throw trajectories : ARCS.

2. With 59-Down, "Very clever!" : NEAT. And 59-Down. See 2-Down : IDEA.

3. Popular wine source : NAPA. Lately I have latched onto Chilean wines - their Carménères originate from Bordeaux.

4. Prophet in 2 Kings : ELISHA.

5. "Tea for __" : TWO.

6. Former Time Warner division : AOL.

7. Big wind : TUBA. Another little misdirection.

8. Drink noisily : SLURP.

9. Popular energy drinks : RED BULLS.

10. China setting : ASIA. Were you fooled? We have had this clue many times before.

11. Comic __: typeface : SANS. Hint: Unless you are applying for clown college, do not use this font for your resume!
12. Whopping : HUGE.

15. Places to see FDR : DIMES.

18. "Doctor Who" broadcaster : THE BBC.

19. Constellation named for an instrument : LYRA. Beautiful old celestial map showing Lyra on the right.


23. Shot contents : SERA. Did you really want "ryes," Tin?

24. Some voyages : SAILS.

26. Shelter resident : POOCH. And another partial clecho:

27. Shelter org. : ASPCA.

28. Hero in a Prokofiev work : PETER. The wolf always gets second billing.

29. Rider's handful : REINS.

31. Hotel choice : SUITE.

32. Elemental bits : ATOMS.

33. "Common" asset : SENSE. It' s the least common one...

36. Congregation : FLOCK.

39. New York airport name until 1963 : IDLEWILD. It was renamed after the assassination of JFK.

40. "On Golden Pond" bird : LOON.

41. Big fuss : UPROAR.

46. Suit : EXEC.

47. Mythical gold maker : MIDAS.

49. Barbershop sharpeners : STROPS.

51. Bridal shop netting : TULLE. I always wonder what they are hiding under there?

53. Put in the overhead bin : STOW.

54. "All you need," in a Beatles song : LOVE.

55. Australian export : OPAL.

56. Hurdle for a jr. : PSAT.

58. Flag : TIRE.

60. "World Series of Poker" channel : ESPN.

62. Explosive initials : TNT.

63. Greek vowel : ETA.


Marti, over and out!


64 comments:

  1. Welcome back Gareth, a three themer all gridspnners...

    We have LUTE and LYRA

    We have the LOON, the official bird of the Corner.

    Lots of rhyming WOOD I did not know ESAU

    Loved the color coordination

    Marti the answer is an affectionate little person

    Happy Jeudi all

    ReplyDelete
  2. A surprisingly easy solve for me today. I even got the theme after only two entries! The mini-themes were cute, NEAT IDEA placed symmetrically, and POOCH, ASPCA next to a PETtER like PETER and the Wolf.

    As Chairman Moe pointed out, yesterday UP TO YOU was across and AMP UP was down. Today SLOWED UP is across and UPROAR is down.

    Two days in a row now is Chris in a stew
    A stickler for correctness, these puzzles won't do!
    UP across brings a frown,
    Worse is UP going down;
    He'll sniff at a crossword unless UP is P ⇙
                                                                          U!

    An Archimedean Screw can eliminate much toil.
    When it feeds from a spring, it's indeed an APT COIL!
    From the ground we get water and more, quite a bit.
    Some mine it for ore, some dig a COAL PIT!
    Fuel from the ground we've learned to extract
    So the members of OPEC have formed an OIL PACT.
    This poem has gone south, and gotten too flip
    So I'll end with Tex-Mex food that gives TACO LIP!

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    Replies
    1. "Puzzling Thoughts"

      Owen, that limerick was hysterical !! So now that my alter ego has been revealed ... but I still prefer Moe as my Crossword Corner identity - but some of you know me by my given name, as a few of us have emailed each other off-line

      Late to the party, and I probably wouldn't have replied had you not come up with such a clever POEM. Now, I can't MOPE so I think I'll eat a POME!

      Delete
  3. Morning, all!

    Didn't grok the theme while solving. Got thought it all unassisted, but had a few awkward moments along the way. Started off with GUST instead of TUBA at 7D and couldn't quite understand what TAGS had to do with "Ink". Thought maybe it was a graffiti reference or something. Once I finally got TUBA, though, I still had trouble reconciling the singular "Ink" with the plural TATS. I guess "ink" is "Ink" whether it refers to one or multiple tattoos, eh?

    Elsewhere, I had trouble accepting that SAILS described a type of voyage. I guess "I'm going on a sail" makes sense in retrospect, but at the time I just couldn't see it.

    Oh -- and I also misspelled SCORSESE as SCORCESE at first and tried TOILE before TULLE. Perps to the rescue!

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  4. Friggin Blogger can be as bad as autocorrect when it comes to concrete poetry! I painstakingly make sure the U is exactly under the P, and then Blogger switches to a different font and shoots it out into space! AAUUGGHH!

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  5. Fun puzzle that I managed to complete with only two problem, "samba" for "salsa" and "acne" for "rash" which buggered me up for a while. After a bit of head scratching, the light bulb turned on, and it came together. Good puzzle, good write-up.

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  6. Oh: as usual, I never saw the theme until reading Marti's write-up. DOH!!

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  7. Hello Puzzlers -

    Impressive! How did Gareth think up three anagram phrases of exactly 15 letters? Fabulous.

    Morning Marti, yes I noticed the similar letters, but failed to grok the anagram until the end.

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  8. Good Morning, Marti and friends. Can this really be a Thursday? I just sped through today's puzzle with no write-overs.

    While I didn't see that the first words were Anagrams, I did notice that they all seemed to Rhyme.

    Lots of fun clues that could be paired - Like the Shelter Resident (POOCH) and the Shelter Org (ASPCA) and James of Jazz (ETTA) and James Portrayer (SEAN).

    I had never heard of the ESAU tongue twister, but the perps filled in the name.

    I loved the Major Installation = ARMY BASE.

    My hubby used to watch Dr. Who on PBS.

    ANNE of Cleves (1515- 1557) was the 4th wife of Henry VIII.

    QOD: Marketing is what you do when your product is no good. ~ Edwin Land (May 7, 1909 ~ Mar. 1, 1991)

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  9. Good morning!

    Gareth was not my Bane [sic[ today. This one went pretty fast. As usual, I never saw the theme until Marti suggested I look for it. Yes, it was ACNE (Hi, unclefred!), and TOILE (Morning, Barry!), and I also misspelled SCORSESE at first. But everything worked out.

    Marti, that was my exact thought about that Escher drawing.

    Here's a question for the constructors here today, inspired by 69a. Would it be kosher to clue SEAN as simply "Bean"? After all, he is a well-known actor.

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  10. I liked the puzzle for its misdirecting clues, which made this a little trickier. Encountered almost all Barry G's problems - GUST for TUBA, misspelled SCORSESE. Plus SAMBAS for SALSAS, ACNE for RASH, and NICE IDEA for NEAT IDEA. Glad I was doing this online, or the paper would be a mess!

    I also didn't notice the anagrams until finishing, and didn't get the James/SEAN connection even then! The mental engine must have been in low gear today.

    The wolf got second billing from Prokofiev, and no ink at all in "The Three Little Pigs" and "Red Riding Hood". Must have complained to the ASPCA, until he was headlined by SCORSESE in 48A. ;-)

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  11. 42A The past tense of CC is CCD, not CCED. You use the E only when you spell it out: CARBON-COPIED. When abbreviating, ABBREVIATE: cc'd.

    15D A DIME is not a "place."

    46D The correct clue for EXEC would be "Suit, for short," not just "Suit."

    16A Agreed: ESAU is LAME.

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  12. Generally smooth solve-- WBS about most of the slow downs.
    My only "nit" is that there are Army Posts and Air Force and Naval BASEs, which I have learned in the last few years since my son has been in the military.
    Thanks Marti for the write-up and Gareth for the constructing!

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  13. There are also Joint Bases, including some that are under the control of the US Army.

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  14. Had some trouble with this, most already mentioned. But I also shot myself in the foot with "Idylwild"' so it took forever to figure out Harlem. The light finally dawned, and got it done.

    Interesting night here. Multiple confirmed tornado warnings and our 7" rain gauge exceeded it's limit. Power was out for 7 1/2 hours. Numerous roads in the area are, or were, under water. More rain in the forecast this afternoon.

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  15. Speaking of tongue twisters- It is said that it's almost impossible to
    repeat the words TOY BOAT ten times rapidly. Over the years I've never been able to do it. The Y really screws you up. If only there were a TOY BOYT... but, alas, there isn't.

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  16. Marti: Excellent write-up explaining there was a theme.

    POOCH is a CSO to Hondo who got one yesterday.

    Yeah, I needed ESP to get SERA as the "Shot contents."

    Well today is the 100th Anniversary of the Lusitania sinking.
    Just finished the book Dead Wake by Erik Larson.
    Very interesting ... I highly recommend it.

    Cheers!
    (CanadianEh ... I lost my voice last night cheering on the Lightning!
    But it isn't over yet ... it takes 4 wins to win the series).

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  17. Wow! An easy Thursday. Who woulda guessed?

    Like unclefred, I had acne for rash, and I struggled to remember Dame Myra Hess, but had no other slowdowns.

    Fun puzzle, great write up, Marti. Those tulle ruffles could hide anything!

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  18. Okay, you ever wonder where is the ghost of Allen Funt... CANADA.

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  19. It took Marti's lovely write-up for me to see the anagrammical theme

    Musings
    -I asked a young man where he got his TATS and he replied, “All over the place. Some in Lincoln and some in Omaha!” Hmmm…
    -Lemon, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not see your BRIEFS? ;-)
    -Making a CC with real carbon paper in a typewriter was nerve wracking for me
    -The most famous TM’S by states in which they were founded
    -I watched Wolf Of Wall Street on Netflix. Just when you thought it couldn’t get more gross…
    -Colonel Potter said a surgeon should be able to “tie a slip KNOT is a matchbox”
    -The most famous TM’S by states in which they were founded
    -Do you have a radio station that calls itself, “The 50,000 Watt BLOW TORCH”
    -Did you get a card like this to fill with FDR’s in grade school?
    -Yesterday’s announcement is causing a big UPROAR
    -C’mon, you know the next line - “There's a scout troop short a child, Khrushchev's due at IDLEWILD”

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  20. Good Morning.

    Thanks Gareth, I had a fun run again today, which beats my experiences last month. Easy peasy start with ANNE, one of Henr's Six. In Chicago, Dame Myra HESS concerts are held every Wednesday at the Cultural Arts Center. PAPA BEAR--hey that's George Halas. Bet he and Lombardi never had to deflate footballs to get to a championship. Agree on Comic SANS--never used it for a serious assignment or an exam. Personal favorite today was STROPS--I still have my dad's. Umm, only he didn't use it to hone his razor; it was a behavioral device. Strop to the behind--but mainly it sat on the pantry shelf with great authority.

    Thanks Marti for escorting us. The links are quite nice.

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  21. HG, I loved Car 54, and the is still the go to phrase at Bingo for G-54.

    What is the TM from Rhode Island, which I cannot decipher?

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  22. Lemon, not certain, but I think it's Hasbro. I was shocked to learn that Saks was based in Alabama.

    Husker, I have no idea what that next line could be.

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  23. Hi gang -

    As many have observed, quite an easy Thursday. And a really fine puzzle. Gareth never disappoints.

    Three grid-spanners, clever but not over-the-top cluing, and nice fill. What more could you ask for?

    Marti - is sweet talking someone being verbOSE?

    Did not know ESAU. Do know the woodchuck. He lives in my neighbor's shrubs across the street.

    Many musical opportunities present themselves - I'll just go with my grandma Foley's favorite song.

    Cool regards!
    JzB

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  24. Good morning, folks. Thank you, Gareth Bain, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Marti, for a fine review.

    Puzzle seemed much easier than a normal Thursday. Only took me about 45 minutes instead of 2 hours.

    Theme was fine, only I did not get the anagram until coming to the Blog. I guess I should have spent my normal two hours on it.

    I also had ACNE for 9A. RASH appeared after nothing else would work in that corner.

    Liked TUBA for 7D. I got it after I had the U. I guess I have a leg up on the rest of you.

    Liked MIDAS.

    Our favorite, TNT.

    I used to drive through NAPA Valley a lot when I lived in Cal. Never stopped to wine taste. I was working.

    Good weather today. I will cut the grass this afternoon.

    See you tomorrow.

    Abejo

    ( )

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  25. I must agree with those who felt that this puzzle seemed easier than the normal Thursday fare. This almost felt like a speed run despite "acne" for RASH and hesitating on TUBA because that instrument is in the brass section, not the winds. Like others, I never saw the theme until Marti's fun review. Thank you both, Gareth and Marti.

    OwenKL, loved the limerick and the anagrams.

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  26. Smooth solve today. Felt more like a Wednesday, but nice 15-letter anagram starts. Very nice, GB.

    Thanks Marti, for another great write-up.

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  27. Good Morning:

    GB never disappoints: clever theme, subtle misdirections, and fresh fill. What more could we ask for?

    I did see the anagrams after filling in optical. Had acne/rash and lyre/lute but perps corrected those pretty quickly.

    Thanks, Gareth, for a terrific Thursday offering and thanks, Marti, for the fine expo. BTW, how goes the kitchen renovation? Do you still have your sanity? ��

    Have a great day.

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  28. Hello, friends! Thank you, Marti, for your insightful analysis.

    Barry:
    I've heard went FOR a sail.

    Thank you, Gareth Bain, for a NEAT speed run today. Like others, I'm unfamiliar with ESAU as part of the wood chuck tongue twister. It was a part of my collection of them when teaching English as a second Language. For pronunciation, tongue twisters are a fun tool.

    Madame DeFarge's father and mine were on the same page when it came to discipline, using the STROP. Once was enough.

    I was sure IDYLWILD was correct but finally had to give it up when I checked the spelling.

    Otherwise a clean grid was the finished product.

    CSO to Abejo for TUBA. No problem as the clue has been used before. But surprising to see SERA as shot contents.

    Have a peaceful day, everyone!

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  29. A TUBA is a wind instrument.
    "Wind instruments produce tone by a vibrating column of air.It is classified into two groups; woodwinds and brasswinds."

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  30. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Gareth. This puzzle was so delightfully doable, after that bear yesterday, that it got my morning off to a great start. I had many of the same false tries as others, but got the whole thing in the end, and even sussed the theme. Yay! And fun write-up with great pics, Marti--many thanks to you too.

    Wild and enjoyable poems, Owen.

    Have a great Thursday, everybody!

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  31. WUFS,
    WUFS...

    (What Uncle Fred said,)
    (Twice!)

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  32. Pretty quick for a Thursday.

    Also had GUST/TUBA ACNE/RASH LYRE/LUTE mishap, but perps solved it for me.

    Got anagram theme after second long entry. Kudos to the constructor for fitting three answers that perfectly, in the same amount of spaces.

    I thought the "Wolf of Wall Street" was among the best of Leonardo DiCaprio's performances. A little rauchy at times, but highly entertaining. Highly recommended.

    The famous neighborhood, Harlem, in NYC is a phenomenal, everchanging culturally diverse area. The Apollo Theater was host to the greatest black entertainers of all time. Nowadays, Harlem is getting very upscale, with rents in the thousands, and co-ops selling in the millions. The restaurants are amazing!

    Dr. Who is my all time favorite sci-fi program. It may have cheesy costumes and amateurish monsters, but it's lasted this long for a reason...Great, imaginative storytelling. To me, Tom Baker will always be my #1.

    Enjoy your day....Coneyro out.

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  33. Wow wow wow, I love love loved this puzzle. So much good stuff in it. Awesome anagrams. Great job, Gareth Bain, and thank you.

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  34. Greetings!

    Swell work, Gareth and Marti, as usual!

    Had some of the problems mentioned above, but prevailed in the end. Longer than usual for me, though.

    Had a natick yesterday at AGENA and EVIGAN yesterday. (Drat!)

    Keep hoping for rain here. New water regs very harsh. It has been cold and miserable, but not a drop.

    Cheers!

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  35. Good afternoon everyone.

    Another great Gareth Bain puzzle. He seems to have a way of drawing out of me more things I didn't think I knew than I wouild have first expected.
    Didn't get the anagram schtick until coming here, but that's OK. Finished up in the NE. Only white-out was I had sambas before SALSAS. Some mis-direction and several deep alternate clues, but all fair.
    My IMac has a font: 'comic sans MS' but 4 squares only allowed for SANS.
    EXEC - Merriam gives a definition of 'executive' and does not say it's an abbreviation, so I feel the clue is correctly given.

    Have a great day.

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  36. Owen -

    You're in great form today.

    Otto -

    I don't think you could clue SEAN as just "Bean." There should be some indication that you are looking for a proper name. Something like "Actor Bean" would be OK. Otherwise people who put in LIMA might feel cheated.

    Cheers!
    JzB

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  37. Love the word POOCH. Wonder what its origin could be...

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  38. And I prefer using Comic SANS whenever the doc doesn't have to be formal. It isn't silly or funny as its name implies, but very clear, unpretentious.

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  39. Hi Y'all! Enjoyed the puzzle, Gareth, and even got the anagrams for once. Thanks, Marti.

    Last to fill was the "S" in HESS/SERA cross. I thought Dame Myra's name was HESh. For shots, I was thinking alcoholic or ammo. With all the medical stuff I should have guessed SERA.

    ELISHA not ELIjah. Oh, the APOLLO theater, not the Greek or speed skater.

    I got SCORCESE because of a recent clue with that film name on Jeopardy. I gotta share this with other Jeopardy fans: My yardman came to the door to collect his money and could see my TV through the window. He looked awestruck and said, "Are you a genius?" I said, "No, why would you think that?" He saw I was watching Jeopardy and thought only geniuses watched that show. Actually, I guess we wouldn't enjoy it if we couldn't get some of the questions ourselves.

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  40. AvgJoe; Thanks for the NOAA map site last night. Looked like you were getting enough to wish you'd built your ark. We only got about an inch here. Don't know yet what fell on my fields.

    Jerome, re: toy boyt. When I was a kids, my sis and I had trouble with oatmeal/oytmeal and coal oil/coyoyl (what we called kerosene).

    Jayce: Are you still working with earthquake reporting devices? What do you make of all the recent quakes and volcano eruptions?

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  41. Re. tongue twisters: BOY TOY is a good one. Because it seems so simple, my favorite for years has been BUGS BLACK BLOOD. I can never say it several times quickly.

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  42. PK, yes, I am still working with earthquake reporting devices. There is so much data that we can't keep up with it. The quakes are mostly so small (yeah, I know, small is a relative term) that our analysis algorithms pretty much ignore them. Thanks for asking.
    As for the Scorsese movie, LW and I felt no desire to watch it. There has been too much real life corruption and decadence; we are already feeling overwhelmed and disgusted by it all. It's old news, I know, but the negative effects of Tyco CEO Dennis Koslovski's excesses are still reverberating. Wall Street wolves have destroyed so much!

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  43. Ol' Man Keith- Odd how such a common word as pooch has an unknown origin.
    It dates from the 1920's.
    Odd,too, that POOCH, ASPCA, and PETer are a vertical stack.

    Anyone read "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand? It's the stunningly incredible story of U.S. Army Air Corps member Louis Zamperini. I couldn't put it down.
    Ms. Hillenbrand also wrote "Seabiscuit".

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  44. I haven't read or seen "Unbroken" but I know of Louis Zamperini. He lived in this area and there is a small airport named after him. Barbara and I went to hear him speak locally many years ago. As you implied, we found him very inspirational.

    We're supposed to get a little rain tonight. I'll believe it when I see/hear it.

    Short bike ride, espresso and tutoring; my typical weekday afternoon.

    See ya later...

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  45. Glad you liked the radar site PK. I hope you get as much use out of it as I do. And I also hope you get some rain on your wheat. My good friend in Greeley Co has had a few nice rains lately, but I don't yet know if the heads are filling out.

    The only way to describe last night is that we got pounded. A new all time record for daily rainfall in Lincoln, and we got more than they did. I've never had a rain gauge overflow unless I forgot to dump it. The storms trained all night, and we've got reports of over 10" in some areas. I'm confident we had at least 8" here. I drove in to Lincoln today, and I've never seen traffic like this. Numerous major roads are under water, and the diverted traffic is causing a lot of frayed nerves. And while there are some ominous clouds in the area, all are to the SE and in watersheds that aren't yet over saturated. Here's hoping that we don't get a repeat tonight.

    Oh great! TV just announced that there are some evacuations taking place in town because Salt Creek is in danger of breaching the levee. I hope everyone stays safe!!

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  46. Hola Everyone, JD, Garlic Gal and I had coffee today and planned our trip to see Lucina in June. We've had lunch with Dodo these past few years, and we all thought we should gather for our usual lunch and toast Dodo with a glass of champagne. Dodo always had champagne on the table for us when we had lunch at her senior center. We'll miss her terribly.

    I didn't get to the puzzle until after lunch so everything has already been hashed over by others. WEES. It was fairly easy, though we did discuss some of the clues over our coffee cups this morning.

    We actually had a small, very small, rain shower this morning. For us it is a REALLY big deal to have anything remotely like water falling from the sky. Every drop is coveted. We are on a mandatory 25% water rationing here. Big fines for those who ignore the mandate.

    Have a great rest of the day everyone.

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  47. Ave. Joe posted while I was typing my post and I see that there has been major rain falling in his area. Why, oh why can't some of this be spread out west to us??

    Stay safe everyone in the rain belt.

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  48. Chickie, please be assured I'm not trying to belittle the problem you Californians are facing. I'm entirely sympathetic, and hope the measure being taken are effective, even if they seem draconian. We have a son in LA, and his twin will almost certainly return to the Bay in a matter of 3 or 4 years.

    I grew up a farm kid. As such, I firmly believe we will have water wars within the foreseeable future. I hope we never have to pay as much for water as it is worth. But it doesn't look good.

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  49. "I hope we never have to pay as much for water as it is worth".

    That says it all.

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  50. As Jerome said, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand is captivating. Some days I just couldn't put it down and read well into the night.

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  51. Isn't it a shame....ironic?....that some of us covet rain, while other are flooding? And that's just here on the blog.

    The weather has no respect for any of us!

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  52. Just turned off my TV weather reports. Thunder and light rains here, but they are saying you are in for big amounts again tonight, Joe. Stay dry & safe. Looks like my wheat might be getting it tonight. Greeley wheat is about three weeks behind our wheat. My husband used to finish cutting our wheat then haul the combines to east of Greeley on the NB border to cut wheat there, then on up to the panhandle near Sydney.

    I was involved in "water wars" in the late 1980's & early 1990's. These were the more civilized wars fought in the state legislature & newspapers. Some of the conversations were really heated. Very interesting time for me. I'm afraid, like Joe, the west coast may be in for some really big water rights wars in the near future. It may come down to whether you grow food with irrigation water or fill swimming pools, at first.

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  53. Ave Joe, Because we've economized on our water for well over a year now, the area is using less. So the water company has raised our rates and wants to raise rates some more because they haven't enough revenue(or so they say)to cover their costs.

    I also, didn't mean to make light of your problem with too much water and the flooding that occurs as a result. Our news this evening showed some terrible storms in the plains area and I don't wish that on anyone.

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  54. Late to the party myself. WEES. Fun puzzle and expo.I had a blue prom dress like that in college. I loved it.
    Owen, fine limericks and poem.

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  55. Good evening all,

    Bless those rain gods. We had quite a few showers here today, and we are experiencing beautiful rainbows and a picturesque sunset at the moment. So Bill, it IS REAL RAIN coming your way, just enough to make some of the flowers smile.

    Jerome, Unbroken was an amazing story of courage. There is a reason it has been on the best seller list for a couple of years. The movie could not get all that information , or the feelings that the book conveyed.

    I too enjoyed today's CW. Chickie and Garlic Gal had to explain that the suffix was on the root of saccharide, not that word itself. That made sense.

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  56. Hi All!

    DNF :-( I had ELISiA natnic w/ iESS. Oh well, it was a fun puzzle. Thanks Gareth. And thank you Marti for the writeup and theme reveal (words that end in the CAL sound?).

    In the NE, WEES w/ acne but then I changed it to cySt when SANS appeared. Finally the RASH appeared and that was HUGE!

    Apparently, Apollo was 'at NASA' either. I'll REIN-in the rest of my w/os.

    Fav - EXIT just 'cuz it took so long - I was SLOWED UP by neon? marque? some theater I don't know? Best c/a was ARMY BASE.

    Colbert called O'Reilly PAPA BEAR.

    AveJoe we hope you stay safe.

    Cheers, -T

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  57. CED - re: your OPTICAL ILLUSION link. I finally found if I cross my eyes just right (and "look through" the screen) the answer is zero - they all turn white at the same time!

    BTW, earlier this week we had Dr. Who on BBC America, today THE BBC, any bets tomorrow it's on PBS?

    PK & AveJoe - please be sure to check in tomorrow even if it's only "hi" and nothing puzzle-wise.

    Cheers, -T

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  58. ROLL with it baby

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  59. I completed the puzzle but I don't know why the answer to Flag was TIRE.

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  60. They can both mean to have your energy depleted.

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