google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Wednesday, July 29th 2015 Ian Livengood

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Jul 29, 2015

Wednesday, July 29th 2015 Ian Livengood

Theme: Identified Flying Objects - as the hint clue tells you, the start of each theme entry spends some time airborne.

18A. Online intrusion : POP-UP WINDOW. Browsers can now block these annoyances, so not so bothersome any more.

24A. Complicated material, metaphorically : ROCKET SCIENCE. What do rocket scientists call it?

51A. 1981 Burt Reynolds film, with "The" : CANNONBALL RUN. Pretty sure I never saw this. If I did it was unmemorable.

60A. Early chronicler of the '50s-'60s civil rights movement : JET MAGAZINE. New to me, but then again I'm not exactly their target demographic.

and to tie it together:

40A. Sponsor's purchase ... or what the starts of 18-, 24-, 51- and 60-Across can have : AIR TIME

Hola, compadres. Steve here with July's final Wednesday. I found this to be trickier than the normal midweek fare. A few proper name unknowns that I needed the crosses to crack, a little misdirection here and there with the cluing, and the theme which seemed oddly un-thematic - to me it fell a little flat. A pop-up (fly ball), a rocket, a cannonball, and a jet (airplane) don't seem to be related by very much except that they spend time in the air, which is the theme. Fair enough, I suppose.

Moving right along:

Across:

1. Pretense : ACT

4. Dissatisfied diner's decision : NO TIP. Wow, you've got to be very dissatisfied to leave no tip at all. Remember folks, if there was something wrong with the food or the meal wasn't to your taste, it's not the server's fault.

9. God of Islam : ALLAH

14. To's opposite : FRO

15. Dry-__ board : ERASE. I attended a meeting once in a new conference room that didn't have the whiteboards in place, but the markers were all there. The presenter thought the wall was dry-erase and wrote all over it. It wasn't.

16. Run off : LEAVE

17. Stereotypical rodeo nickname : TEX

20. "Downton Abbey" character Lady __ Crawley : EDITH. Crosses. I watched Season One but couldn't recall the name.


22. "Get it?" : SEE?

23. Helpful contacts : INS

29. Be a debtor of : OWE TO

30. Places to stand and deliver? : DAISES. This is a word I'm pretty sure I have never used. "We're going to need two or three daises for all these speakers". Nope, I can't see me ever saying that.

33. They can call you out : UMPS. Two baseball references today.

36. Garden alignments : ROWS

38. Busch Gardens city : TAMPA. I don't go to theme parks. Rollercoasters scare me half to death. The first time I rode Colossus out here in Los Angeles I almost burst into tears. I was 35.

39. Walter Scott's title : SIR

42. Slender fish : EEL

43. Base exercise : DRILL.I used to enjoy drill on the parade ground during basic training in the reserve. People thought I was strange. They still do.

45. Way : MODE

46. Skort revelation : KNEE. Odd clue. All the skorts I've seen reveal a good deal of thigh too.

47. Heroic son of Aphrodite : AENEAS. Defender of Troy, demi-god and legendary founder of Rome, although Romulus and Remus might have something to say about that.


49. In a damp manner : WETLY. Here's another word I'm not sure I've used. "He came in wetly from the rain". Doesn't really have the right ring to my ears.

56. Voice vote call : AYE

58. Is laid up with : HAS

59. Outscores : BEATS

65. Messy abode : STY. Check out this posh one in Kent, England.


66. Snorkeler's haunt : ATOLL

67. Letter before lambda : KAPPA. I still need to learn the Greek alphabet. I haven't made much progress.

68. Common break hour : TEN

69. Laundry setting : RINSE

70. Fall faller : ACORN

71. Episodic story line : ARC. Some sources say that "episodic" and "arc" story lines are two distinct styles. Here's an in interesting discussion if you have a few minutes.

Down:

1. Hunting : AFTER. In the "I'm coming after you" sense.

2. System of belief : CREDO. I had CREED first until I saw that "EE-ITH was getting me nowhere

3. Like biohazards : TOXIC

4. One saying uncle? : NEPHEW.

5. Galeón load : ORO. I guess I didn't know I knew the Spanish word for "Galleon". I did know the Spanish word for "gold" though.

6. Brew dispenser : TAP

7. Terre Haute sch. : I.S.U. Indiana State, home of the Fighting Sycamores (I'm not kidding).

8. Soft drink with a red-white-and-blue logo : PEPSI

9. Put off : ALIENATE. I was thinking along the "prevaricate" lines at first.

10. Spy thriller writer Deighton : LEN. "The Ipcress File" is one of his best known. He writes cookery books too.

11. Romeos : LADIES MEN. I had the "L" and started entering "LOTHARIOS". I'm not sure what stopped me, it just didn't feel right.

12. Cosmetic titan : AVON. Final fill for me. My mind went blank and I couldn't think of a single cosmetics company.

13. Fells with an ax : HEWS

19. Nursery intruder : WEED. Great clue.

21. Bout enders, for short : TKO'S

25. Garr of "Young Frankenstein" : TERI

26. Blizzard, e.g. : STORM

27. Chisholm Trail community : COWTOWN. Abilene, for example, at the end of the trail.

28. Org. in many a spy thriller : C.I.A.

31. Olympian's weapon : EPEE. I got stuck on the "Gods of Olympus" train of thought and couldn't get off it for quite some time.

32. Black Friday event : SALE

33. Beef inspection org. : U.S.D.A.

34. Muddy spot : MIRE

35. Bill Bradley's alma mater : PRINCETON. I had the ETON part and couldn't get past thinking about the English school. Something's definitely wrong with my brain today.

37. Cassette half : SIDE B. We've had the argument before about whether anyone says "Side B" as opposed to "Side Two".

40. "Gilligan's Island" co-star : ALAN HALE. Thank you, crosses.

41. Prefix with carpal : META

44. Green span : LEA

46. NASCAR racer Busch : KYLE. He has a racing brother called Kurt, so needed to wait past the first "K". He must feel right at home when he goes to Tampa.

48. Fly in the ointment : SNAG

50. Maine mail order giant : L.L.BEAN

52. Japanese port : OSAKA. Busy place on the island of Honshu.


53. Dreadlocks wearer : RASTA. Time for some Bob Marley.

54. Say : UTTER

55. Backstreet Boys contemporaries : 'N SYNC. Not my cup of tea. Very successful and all seemed to be nice folk

56. Open a little : AJAR

57. Mysterious mountain climber : YETI

61. Chicago Fire's org. : M.L.S. Major League Soccer, in case you don't know.

62. Efron of "Neighbors" (2014) : ZAC

63. Financial pg. debut : I.P.O. Little bit of a clumsy "there's an abbreviation in the clue" here.

64. "Ask Me Another" airer : NPR. Apparently no longer an abbreviation.

Here's the grid, and my work here is done.

Steve

44 comments:

Barry G. said...

Morning, all!

Pretty straightforward solve for me today. I had to guess at EDITH since I've never seen the show, but the perps were kind to me. Couldn't remember ALAN HALE's first name, and it didn't help that it was crossed by AENEAS (who I never knew was the son of Aphrodite), but that didn't take too long to suss out. Oh -- and I misread the clue for 36A as "Garden ailments" for some reason, so that caused a bit of head scratching for a bit.

Supposed to be 94 today. Hopefully the humidity will at least be a bit lower than it has been recently...

Lemonade714 said...

I guess Mrs. Bunker and Ms. Piaf will get a respite from crossword fame with the success of DOWNTON ABBEY

CANNONBALL RUN was one of the many silly Burt Reynolds movies using cars during his hay day.

I agree about WETLY and DAISES, but found it surprisingly easy for an Ian Livengood

Stay cool everyone

Hahtoolah said...

Good Morning, Steve and friends. I enjoyed the puzzle, but the theme didn't do anything for me. The perps filled in a lot of the answers before I read the clue.

I really wanted Leave for Fall Faller, but alas, LEAVE made its appearance with Run Off.

Hand up for wanting Creed before CREDO and thinking of Lotharios before LADIES MAN.

When is a door not a door ... When its AJAR!

Larry Bird attended ISU. I didn't know the mascot was the Flying Sycamores. Almost as scary as the Santa Cruz's Banana Slugs.

One Saying Uncle = NEPHEW was my favorite clue and answer.

QOD: Never for the sake of peace and quiet, deny your own experience or convictions. ~ Dag Hammarskjöld (July 29, 1905 ~ Sept. 18, 1961)

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

I got through this one OK -- a few overwrites, but nothing severe enough to call for Wite-Out. Hand up for CREED. "I don't believe I've ever said 'wetly,'" he said dryly. Steve, if you liked to DRILL, you were probably in ecstasy at the dentist's.

I think NO TIP is justified if the wait-person a) is rude, b) pays little attention, c) screws up your order and doesn't care. But I agree that dissatisfaction with the food is not a valid reason.

The Fighting Sycamores sounds like a good match for my old high school team -- the mighty Pigeons.

Madame Defarge said...

Good Morning.

Thanks Ian. Nice puzzle for me today. I agree with you Steve; the server didn't prepare the meal. Thanks for the fun run through, although I thought AIR TIME belonged to Michael Jordan. ;-)

Have to get out and walk before it grows too hot and humid. Have a good day.

desper-otto said...

Madame Defarge -- my thoughts exactly. We just finished our 3-mile "march" around the 'hood. Temps are only predicted to hit 100 in 5 of the next 7 days. The other two days will be a much cooler 99.

kazie said...

I agree that this was a bit more than Wednesday level, but it all fell together without much effort in the end. I had a few with just a framework in place, and pausing for thought and looking at the whole made the missing letters pretty obvious guesses. A nice workout for midweek.

Avg Joe said...

As several have mentioned, when there is a reveal, I prefer to avoid it, saving it for last. That didn't work today, but it really didn't help much. So the theme was just sort of meh. But the rest of the fill was good enough to make up for it. All in all, a fun puzzle that made you think.

I've had service bad enough to warrant a penny tip a couple of times in my life. But would never penalize the server for the sins of the cook. If that were the problem, I'd tip, but not come back again.

Yellowrocks said...

A little crunchy for a Wednesday, but doable. The theme was on the MEH side. The M and Z in JET MAGAZINE were wags. Unknowns were MLS and ZAC.
Favorite clues were "one saying uncle" and "fall faller."
LOTHARIOS before LADIES MEN.
Having waitressed a good bit, I agree a TIP should not be based on the food. However, I give no tip or a very insignificant one to a waitress who visits the table only to take the order and bring the food. She doesn't return to refill coffee or water, to see if you need anything more, or even to bring the bill. Every time I passed by while serving someone else I glanced at all my tables and parties. And especially when I had a moment to stop, instead of idle chatting I scanned the tables again.Nothing is more annoying than to be ignored by a waitress who is lost in a long idle conversation.

Abejo said...

Good morning, folks. Thank you, Ian Livengood, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Steve, for a fine review.

Got through this at about a Wednesday level time, for me. About 45 minutes.

Got the theme, but it was a little obscure. That's OK.

My only inkblot was writing in CREED before CREDO.

Had no problem with DAISES. I have used the word in its singular form for years. In my fraternity it is common.

DRILL really rings a bell for me. Our Drill Team is DRILLing twice a week in preparation for our trip to Buffalo to compete. Hope to see fermatprime's friend Harvey there.

Not familiar with ARC. Perps.

Not familiar with ZAC, either.

WEEDs are prolific this year, with all the rain we have had. Now we are in a dry spell with big time heat. Could use a rain day.

I also liked NEPHEW for 4D. Good one.

See you tomorrow.

Abejo

( )

Yellowrocks said...

The reason I don't watch Downton Abbey is because the story ARC very much depends on previous episodes, even previous seasons. I dislike serials where I don't dare miss episodes without losing the storyline. Recording doesn't work for me. I used to record shows and never get around to watching them. Ordering previous seasons to watch so I can study up on the characters is too much like work.
I read serialized novels, but only the exceptional ones are good past the 4th or 5th book. After that they become formulaic and trite.
This sounds like grump, grump, but, actually I am in a good mood.
Alans' tests and checkups are all coming up positive and healthy. This past week I am able function much closer to normal and can forget much of the time that I have am in recovery mode.

OwenKL said...

Greetings, folks. Sorry I haven't been by for a couple days, been working on translating a Russian-language site to English. No, I don't know Russian, but I've got a translation program that does the hard work, and I just straighten out the grammar. Anyway, the site is for nonograms. If you don't know what they are check it out -- you may know them by a different name. Anyway, throughout the site they are pretty consistently called "Japanese crosswords". That grates on me majorly, since no "words" are involved, cross or otherwise. I'd like to hear your input on this -- am I over-reacting?
BTW, hand up for CREED & LOTHARIO - I had ELOPE before LEAVE, so that gave me LO for the first two letters.

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

While the theme was a tad odd, the fill more than made up for it. Hand up for creed/credo and lotharios/ladies men. Fav c/a was one saying uncle=nephew. Liked seeing my favorite soft drink, Pepsi. (I have 4 24 packs in my pantry.)

Yesterday's high was 93 and today will be about the same. It's a good week to be on vacation and be near a body of water.

Thanks Ian and Steve for a job well done.

Have a great day and stay cool.

Tinbeni said...

Steve: Excellent write-up. I agree with everything you said.

Ian: Thank You for a FUN Wednesday puzzle.

I usually peruse the clues before I start entering my answers in ink.
If there is a "theme reveal" I like to answer that clue to make my solving easier.
Hey, I'm retired ... I don't like to "work hard" on anything ...

Enjoyed the CSO at TAMPA.
And, of course, my fave today was 6-d, Brew dispenser, TAP.
After all, from the beginning, I have always evaluated the puzzles based on the number of booze clues & answers.

Hmmm, it has stopped raining! I guess 15 inches since last Friday is enough.
... and there is a Blue Sky!
A "Toast-To-ALL" at Sunset.
Cheers!

TTP said...

Good morning all. Thank you Ian and Steve.

I thought the puzzle was fairly easy, but I made a few mistakes and was drawing blanks when a few of the answers should have been a no-brainer. So I thought it was just my personal cobwebs...

My parents had an antique shop in the central Texas COWTOWN of Salado on the Chisolm Trail.

I recall my father's refrain "Ten percent and half again." I can't recall a time where I've never left a tip. My pet peeve is the server that disappears and there is no check.

We ate at Olive Garden a couple of Sundays ago. I had the pasta fagioli. They actually had tipping suggestions (15,18,20 %) and the calculated tip amount printed on the receipt. I've never seen that before.

POPUP WINDOWS are annoying. As Steve said, current browsers are so much better than previous generations. Explore the drop down menus of your browser for user control options to prevent pop up windows and tracker blocking.

If you are a Mozilla Firefox user, you can block all trackers via TOOLS, OPTIONS, PRIVACY. But if you are a nerd or have nerdish tendencies, and want to see the scope of how much your web browsing is being tracked, then add Ghostery extension to your browser. It will allow you to see and block all of the trackers, beacons and analytics engines that are tracking your web browsing and targeting you. If you don't want your searches tracked, use DuckDuckGo instead of other more common search engines.

C6D6 Peg said...

I'm thinking what a lot of you've already mentioned about the theme..... not quite there for me, but lots of good fill.

Steve, people may think you're different, but you're okay in my book!

Spitzboov said...

Good AFTERnoon everyone.

Perps seemed clear today so unknowns like AENEAS, NSYNC and EDITH came easily. Had shoal before ATOLL.; Should have checked YETI and AJAR first. Theme was unremarkable, but fill came easily. Didn't like WETLY. Overall I thought it was easier than the first two puzzles this week.

coneyro said...

A good Humpday to all.

While the puzzle wasn't too hard, I found the theme a bit meh, like some others did.

My smartphone and computer automatically inform me that a POP UP WINDOW has has been blocked. My computer also keeps count on how many for each site.

CANNONBALL RUN was, to be honest, a really horrible film, IMO. My favorite Burt Reynolds movie was "Deliverence". I never looked at pigs the same way afterwards.

I agree with the comments on WETLY and DAISES. Odd sounding and weird. Never would use them myself.

JET and EBONY magazine are two very influential publications geared towards the black community. Very big in N.Y. and I imagine other big cities.

The only answer I was not familiar with was AENEAS, but it filled by the perps.

To sum it up, no ROCKET SCIENCE level clues. Straightforward and a little ho hum.

Tinbeni...Look and listen....The rain, the thunder. Maybe by your house a blue sky has appeared, but I'm not too far from you, and the heavens are opening up. And here we go again....

All you dry and happy people. Enjoy your day.

Lucina said...

Hello, friends!
It's so good to be back and solving LAT puzzles again! This one was WEES, and no, not ROCKET SCIENCE. It was a quick romp and like some of you LOTHARIOS fit right in that space. I had to LEAVE it once realizing that WINDOWS, etc., weren't compatible.

Also, I've only used the singular of DAISES and WETLY I'm quite sure I haven't used or seen. But like Abejo, have needed to arrange a DAIS for many school occasions. I believe, "we need more than one DAIS" was the phrasing I'm familiar with.

Thank you Ian Livengood for a fair puzzle and Steve, for your always amusing expo.

Have a wonderful day, everyone! I have a ton of laundry to do and many RINSE cycles to use.

Beach Bum said...

Pretty straightforward for a Wednesday. Used a perp or two but filled it in from top to bottom without any snags.

I have a nit to pick with 40D -- the "Gilligan's Island" actor was Alan Hale, Jr. The "Jr." was necessary to distinguish himself from his (then) well-known father, the actor and director Alan Hale.

Hope you enjoyed your morning of sunshine, Tinbeni, 'cause I'm sure it's pouring there now.

Big Easy said...

NO TIP- Very rarely do I do that but one thing that annoys me greatly is a TIP JAR by the cash register that some of these places have, expecting a tip when everything is self-service. If there happens to be 'service' afterwards, I leave the tip on the table afterward.

EDITH was unknown but I have never seen the plural of DAIS. Will they need 16 DAISES for the 'debate'? Both were perps. WETLY- new one for me. How about 'He was WET'?

I never noticed 71A- ARC- until Steve's write up because it was filled by perps but I would have never filled it because it is an unknown.

CANNONBALL RUN was a movie about a race from NYC to LA. There was also a similar movie that came out a year or so earlier-GUMBALL RALLY.
TTP- As far as tracking, I use 'Disconnect' to see how many places it blocks. It quits counting a 99, which show up many times. Wall Street Journal has 16 blocked, the Times-Picayune has 57, Google News has ZERO.

POP UP WINDOW - I have them blocked but sometimes I have to unblock them just to print one thing- very annoying having to turn it on and off.

This puzzle filled easily for a Wednesday so I guess you can say it wasn't ROCKET SCIENCE.

Jayce said...

LW doesn't like me to kiss her too WETLY.

Wanted COWBOYS at first, thinking of the professional community.

Hand up for LOTHARIOS.

"Put off" made me think in terms of procrastinate. Well, I got the NATE part right, anyway.

Do you say "anyway" or "anyways"?

My American Muslim friends all call the deity "God."

Hmm, here we have UMP and TKO. How to make them cross? Ah! Add an S to make them both plural!

Fave clue was One saying uncle. Next fave was Fall faller.

SwampCat said...

This was easier for me than the last two days, but I'm not sure why. The clues, even when they were misdirections, just made sense, like Fall Faller and One saying Uncle. Too funny! I got Daises through perps so it didn't bother me. I wouldn't say it, but it made sense.

My car thermometer said it was 104 yesterday. That wasn't official, but it felt every bit of that!

Thanks Ian, and Steve for the witty expo.

Ol' Man Keith said...

Thanks, Steve, for clarifying MLS. I couldn't think of anything but the TV show in response to "Chicago Fire." It's probably generational, as soccer gradually wins more and more American fans...

TTP said...



Big Easy, thanks. I know there are various products for fee and for free that can block popups and website trackers. I'll look into Disconnect sometime tomorrow. Have an 18 hole tournament to get ready for.

One nice feature of Ghostery is that it gives you the actual names of the trackers, beacons or analytics functions that are capturing or analyzing your visit to a website. And you can selectively allow or block as you desire.

You can be assured that if you go to any Google site, whether Google News, Blogger or any other, that Google Analytics has gathered data on your visit.

I opened up Google News, and besides Google Analytics, I got DoubleClick. I imagine that Disconnect does not consider Google Analytics to be something that needs to be blocked, and it already has the very common DoubleClick setup for permanent block... And at wsj.com, I got 20 the first time, then 19, then 18 twice.

Here's an article about a new startup that thinks it can defeat Apple's built in adblock functions.
Page Fair - Anti Adblock



HeartRx said...

OK, so am I the only person who entered "ad space" at 40-A? It made total gobbledygook out of the theme, I have to tell you!

Lucina said...

Jayce,
Your comment on WETLY made me chuckle!

Marti,
Sorry, but it looks like you're the only one so far with "ad space".

Husker Gary said...

What Steve said in his summation works for me. NE took some effort.

Musings
-Buzz Aldrin wearing the same t-shirt Joann bought me
-AIR TIME in this year’s Super Bowl - $4,000,000
-Using a permanent marker on a DRY ERASE board ain’t cool
-Plain Lady Edith compared to hot sister Lady Mary
-It’s hard to keep track of all the story ARCS at Downton Abbey
-Having INS can beat competence
-We always seemed to have a fire DRILL in the winter
-Famous Sports Illustrated cover with ISU’s most famous athletic alum
-Those COWTOWNS were sometimes sans law enforcement
-We had a FLIP SIDE theme recently that could be a SIDE B
-OSAKA was a possible target on 8/6/45 but Hiroshima was picked
-We only drink water when we eat out. Woe unto the server who doesn’t keep those glasses full.
-We always tell the manager about bad food/service and usually get compensation that night or emails and phone calls to if we complain online.

Misty said...

Nice Wednesday puzzle--many thanks, Ian and Steve.

I also didn't know that Aeneas was Aphrodite's son.

Have a good day, everybody.

Tinbeni said...

Beach Bum @ 12:42
The way I see it ... if it doesn't rain at least twice-a-day it wouldn't be a real Florida day in July.

CED would love it right now! ... since it is raining "Cats and Dogs!"

Cheers!

Bill G. said...

I had trouble with Downton Abbey at first but it didn't seem like continuing story arcs were my problem as much as the large number of characters. When I watched my first episode, maybe during the second season, I had no idea who all the characters were. I couldn't tell the servants from the gentry. But I struggled through a couple of episodes and watched a couple of earlier chapters and all was eventually straightened out. It was a nuisance to resolve all of the characters but it was well worth it. I think it is a great example of excellent television.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Ian Livengood, for a fast and easy Wednesday puzzle. Great expo, Steve.

Hand up for the CREed/CREDO error. At 66a I dumbly filled in ATtOL but the perps advised me of that goof.

I keep reading DAISES as DAsieS.

An hour ago the temp was 92*, and with the humidity it felt like 105*! A storm has moved in and the temp has dropped to 81* and feels like 85*. Much better.

I dog-sat for my daughter for four days. He's easy to care for and I'm happy to do it but I'm happy to be back to a one-dog home again.

Enjoy the rest of your day.

Pat

CrossEyedDave said...

Hello?

(Hmm, just checking to see that I am still welcome after yesterdays post...)


I don't see why so many people thought the theme was Meh!
I loved it!

Steve, in yr write up, I too wanted to ink Lothario. (but I couldn't spell it...)
Which brings me to 10D, Cookery Book?
(Hmm, never heard of that, but if it gets the prawn on the Barbie cooked...)

Speaking of which, (not directed to Steve in any way...) The worst tip I ever saw...

Also, I never liked those tip jars for people who do nothing, but it turns out they were just mislabeled

But I think the reason I enjoyed the puzzle so much is that Cannonball Run is one of my favorite movies! (I wonder why...) So much so that Capt'n Chaos was my go to home made Halloween costume for many parties! (Except I now realize I mispelled/mispelt it as Kaos for some reason...)

He is my Hero!

DanT Dant Daaann!

aka thelma said...

CED... thanx for the video... :) still chuckling... :) I too liked the movie... along with Gumball Rally... Gumball Rallies are still being held in various states for various reasons...

thelma :)

Avg Joe said...

Just a strange observation after watching Wheel of Fortune. Some car manufacturer should name a car "Hard Bargain".

As in: "What are you driving? Well I'm driving a Hard Bargain!"

fermatprime said...

Greetings!

Thanks, Ian and Steve!

Hand up for CREed. Otherwise no problems. Thought Edith was much more glamorous last season. Nicer, too.

Glad to hear about Alan, YR.

Cheers!

CrossEyedDave said...

Well, I guess it is late enough in the day. I know many of you have related tales of your daily experiences, I have related a few myself. & while I would love to add some silly links about todays puzzle, I feel a need to relate my near death experience today...

I am not a superstitious man, however, this morning when I saw a penny on heads, I picked it up, & recited "see a penny, pick it up, & all that day, you'll have good luck." (When I see a penny on tails, I flip it over for the next person...)

My next door neighbor had asked me to walk their Dalmatian (Lulu) this week, but not give her any treats as she was having digestive issues. (I slip her a little human food on the side, it is probably my fault.) So i thought, as an treat, I would take her to a nearby wooded park where we could both get some exercise. Local laws require pets to be restrained in vehicles, so I used the front passenger seat belt under her harness, & she sat comfortably in the the shotgun seat next to me.

Cont...

Yellowrocks said...

Did you know tonight's Final Jeopardy answer? I knew the novel. I have read it twice and seen the movie, but I could not come up with the author. Wonderful book.
I also love Rosamunde Pilcher's novels. In "September", set in Scotland, Pilcher frequently used the word sizey. "She was too sizey to fit comfortably in the caravan bunk." "A sizey sum of money." I thought of nits from you all, but the meaning was easily inferred. In Pilcher's novels there are many "Britishisms" which often appear in x-words. Is anyone else a fan of Jodi Picoult? The moral dilemmas she presents are thought provoking and gut wrenching.
CE Dave, I am waiting with bated breath,

CrossEyedDave said...

Part II.

This AM, DW asked me to drive her before work to a Doctors Appt. & then as close as possible to the City to catch a train to work.

She was wearing a black suit, fresh from the dry cleaners.

Now, you must understand that my wife hates dogs (long story,) & cats (My fault...) & animals in general. (Don't get me wrong, she is really a sweet person...)

As she got out of the car at the Doctors, I could not help but notice that she was covered from shoulders to butt in little white hairs! (It's freakin hot! Lulu has been shedding like crazy!) Too afraid to speak, I said nothing...

I moved the car to the parking lot, wiped down the leather seats with disinfecting wipes, (I'm OCD remember..) & removed every hair I could find. When the time came to pick her up, I waited in front of the car with paper towels, ready to remove the offending hairs. I had plenty of time to get my story straight as to why I was wiping her back!

Daughter #3 has been eating breakfast bars in the car on the ride to school for the past 6 months! (Perfect cover story.) As she came storming toward me in a foul mood...

Cont...

CrossEyedDave said...

Part III

There were no hairs on her back as she swept by me screaming "get in the car, I'm late!"

Oh No!

She had discovered my faux pas, (I am trying to learn Frawnch, because of Crosswords...)

I climbed into the car expecting my doom, when she went into this tirade about how the Doctor had brought his dog to work (???) & the only explanation for her ruined suit was the dang mutt must have been on the waiting room chairs!

(The lucky penny, I'm saved!)

Well, I could not let the Doctor take the blame for my mistake. So I reluctantly told DW what had happened & waited for the inevitable result.

To my surprise, when DW arrived at work, she called me to apologize for yelling at me!

(I consider myself to be the luckiest man alive!)

Lucina said...

Because I was gone all week I've recorded all episodes of Jeopardy and have been slowly catching up on them. Only tonight's remains to be seen. Please don't reveal the question or answer. Thank you.

Dudley said...

Hello Puzzlers -

Late again. Hot day. Brain mostly toast. Good thing it was an easy puzzle.

OCD-CED - good story, that! And very inventive plan, too.

Dudley said...

P.S. - Michelle Dockery, oh yes, please!

Lemonade714 said...

Dave you were brainwashed by Siegfried to spell it KAOS.
Happened to many in the 60s. LINK