Theme: "Online Chat" - Each theme entry is in the pattern of I* M*. (Hello, Irish Miss!)
22A. Fictional detective whose first name is Endeavour : INSPECTOR MORSE
31A. "Somewhere in Time" band : IRON MAIDEN
55A. Times for reflection : IDLE MOMENTS
90A. Best Actress Tony winner in "Wicked" : IDINA MENZEL. I had "Frozen" reference.
111A. Motel convenience : ICE MACHINE
124A. Knowledge seekers : INQUIRING MINDS. Two are plural answers, so no odd man out.
15D. Xanadu locale, now : INNER MONGOLIA. It's called Shangdu in Chinese. Du means "capital" in Chinese.
59D. Sharpie output : INDELIBLE MARK. So neat! Love the guy.
Reveal entry:
124. GroupMe exchanges, briefly, and a hint to this puzzle's eight longest answers : IMs
Simple theme. Very me.
I
originally proposed ILL-MANNERED and IRISH MUSIC as themers also. Rich
rejected the former as it's the only hyphenated entry. And he did not
feel IRISH MUSIC is idiomatic enough.
Rich changed the theme clues quite a bit, but most of my fill clues survived. Progress! I'm trainable, as Gary often says. Wish I had his cluing talents.
Rich changed the theme clues quite a bit, but most of my fill clues survived. Progress! I'm trainable, as Gary often says. Wish I had his cluing talents.
Across:
1. Fightin' with : AGIN
5. Avid bird watcher? : CAT. Waiting for Dave to find the perfect link.
8. Tournament passes : BYES
12. Dogie collar? : LARIAT
18. Anderson of "WKRP in Cincinnati" : LONI. No other way to clue her.
19. Anise-flavored aperitif : OUZO
20. Place to have poi : LUAU. Never had poi. But I bake taro roots often. The smaller ones like these.
21. Fall color : ORANGE
25. Reprobate : SINNER
26. "Wanna __?" : BET. Did you notice that all those attendees in Steve's London reunion last month are couples? The lady in front of him must be special to him. Wanna bet?
27. Guitarist Paul : LES
28. Namely : TO WIT
29. Fannie __ : MAE. Older than Freddie Mac.
30. Paranormal power : ESP
34. First-rate : STELLAR. Boomer prepared us a stellar New Year's Eve meal on Thursday. Walleye, wild rice & acorn squash. I also had pickled Daikon slices, Jayce!
37. Apple Watch assistant : SIRI
38. Wichita-to-Duluth dir. : NNE
39. Jobs for grad students : TAs
42. "Now I see!" : AHA
43. Counterfeit watchdog, for short : T-MAN
46. Staying power : LEGS. Splynter's expertise. Legs and castles.
48. 1994 comedy with an oxymoronic title : TRUE LIES. Schwarzenegger film.
51. Plan in detail : MAP OUT
53. Celestial circles : HALOES
57. Self-reflective musing : IS IT ME? Rich's clue.
60. Record book : LEDGER
62. Cheese in some bagels : ASIAGO. Never had it. I guess what cheese is to you guys is like Tofu to me. Fried, fermented, fresh, I love them all.
63. PC hookup : LAN
64. Interstate giant : SEMI
66. Magazine extra : INSERT
68. Sci. concerned with climate change : ECOL
69. Digital readouts, briefly : LCDs
71. Uses a straw : SUCKS
73. Hotel with a Gold Passport loyalty program : HYATT. No idea. Rich's clue.
75. Fruit-eating fictional race : ELOI. Sorry, this answer 71-A.
77. Exercise units : REPS
79. Decorative plaster : STUCCO
81. Fray, say : WEAR
83. Golfer Poulter : IAN. Saw him in practice tee once. Gosh, what a waste of brand new Pro V1 balls. Those pros are so pampered. Guess how many balls in this pyramid?
84. Go by : ELAPSE
86. Tapped into : DREW ON
88. Chocolate-filled cookie : MILANO
92. "No bickering!" : BE NICE!
94. Like some rats : ALBINO
95. Unconventional : OUT THERE
97. Fifth pillar of Islam : HAJJ
100. Pitcher Sparky : LYLE. And 101. Throw hard : GUN. Both Rich's clue. I had Julia Roberts ex reference for LYLE. Rich loves his Yankees.
103. That, to Juanita : ESA
104. Bugs with horns : VWs. Rich's clue as well.
106. Afternoon TV fare : SOAP
108. "Fifty Shades of Grey" author : E. L. JAMES. Two more sequels.
114. Casino convenience : ATM
116. Form attachment? : ULA. This answer 71-A. Formula.
117. Mother __ : EARTH
120. Cortez's gold : ORO
121. Dot follower, at times : NET. And 113. Dot follower, at times : COM
122. Slightly larger than tall, at Starbucks : GRANDE
127. Less stuffy : AIRIER
128. Molokai neighbor : MAUI
129. Nice concept? : IDEE. Nice the French city. This beach looks too pebbly to lie on.
130. Skinny : POOP
131. Nudge : POKE AT
132. "American Dad!" dad : STAN. No idea. Also Rich's clue.
133. Express : SAY
Down:
1. Courtroom vouchers? : ALIBIS
2. Sister of Cordelia : GONERIL. Bad girl.
3. Coming up : IN STORE
4. Playful bite : NIP
5. Affects adversely : CUTS INTO
6. __ dye: food-coloring compound : AZO
7. Calorie-laden dessert : TORTE. Also 82D. High in calories : RICH. This is our Rich. The lady on the left is his wife Kim. Look at the words on Rich's shirt. ADIN something? That's a crosswordese!
8. Botch : BLOW
9. Cold War KGB chairman Andropov : YURI. Wow, I don't know him. He sounds very important.
10. Bridge positions : EASTS
11. Take to court : SUE
12. County bordering Santa Fe County : LOS ALAMOS. Rich's clue.
13. Disney mermaid : ARIEL And 19. Mermaid's home : OCEAN. Rich changed my ARIEL clue so we could have a "Mermaid' clue echo here. Of course, I failed to make the connection.
14. Sought a seat : RAN
16. Years and years : AGES. Hard to believe I've been married for almost 15 years.
17. U. of Maryland player : TERP
23. Spreading tree : ELM
24. Spanish peak : MONTE. So Monte Carlo is Spanish then?
29. "Whatever" : MEH
32. Time to see stars : NIGHT. Steve sees stars every day. Some of his friends are actors. He lives in Studio City.
33. Remiss : DERELICT
35. Stun with a gun : TASE
36. Resting easy : AT PEACE
40. Make true : ALIGN
41. Circus attraction : SIDESHOW
44. Car owner's obligation : AUTO LOAN
45. Some Windows systems : NTS. This answer totally 71-A. Sorry, guys.
47. Popular buying club : SAM'S
49. Put to work : USE
50. The king of Spain? : EL REY
52. De Beauvoir, to Sartre : AMIE. Enduring love, though both had other lovers.
54. Wranglers alternative : LEES
56. Lipstick characteristic : MATTE. Lower one.
57. Not up to par : ILL
58. With reverence : SACREDLY. Waste of a 8-letter spot. Such a boring word. But I did not have better option.
61. Unconnected : DISCRETE
65. __ du Louvre : MUSEE. What's your favorite piece there?
67. Sensitive thing to touch : RAW NERVE
70. Lady in a 1955 film : SPANIEL. "Lady and the Tramp".
72. Intrusive vine : KUDZU
74. "Dust to Dust" author Hoag : TAMI
76. Rescuer of Odysseus : INO. Learned from doing xwords. 71-A as well.
78. Bridge measure : SPAN
80. TD Garden NBA team : CELTS
85. Environmental warning : SMOG ALERT.
I worked for a company in Tsingtao after I graduated. The big boss
often took me to Beijing for business. Gosh, always so foggy.
87. 2008 honor for Joe Cocker: Abbr. : OBE
89. Spot check? : LEASH
90. Potent ending? : IAL. 71-A. Potential.
91. Squat : NONE
93. Uninherited wealth : NEW MONEY
96. Creole-speaking island nation : HAITI. And 110. 96-Down governing group : SENAT
98. Icon after "Not a member?" : JOIN NOW. And 99. Anonymous one : JANE DOE. And 107. Upscale boarding facility : PET SPA. Pretty happy with the triple stack. This is made possible by the gluey OWE A (134. __ debt of gratitude).
102. She played Fantine in "Les Misérables" (1998) : UMA
105. Boot camp nickname : SARGE
109. Roman province governed by Pontius Pilate : JUDEA
112. Rock of comedy : CHRIS. Funny guy, Chris Rock.
114. Thing to fill or bridge : A GAP. Partial. 71-A.
115. Rush or Cream : TRIO
118. Water color : AQUA
119. Downfall : RUIN
123. Never, to Nietzsche : NIE
125. Where I-86 and I-15 meet : IDA. Rich's clue.
126. 2015 Etsy milestone, initially : IPO. Our cousin has an Etsy store.
C.C.
43 comments:
Greetings!
Great work on double duty, CC!
INO was .... Otherwise pretty straight forward solve.
Enjoyed the original "Morse" more. Loved John Thaw. Was very sad when he passed.
Have a great Sunday!
(Everyone looking forward to Downton Abbey?)
Am currently watching the second "Best Exotic..." Love Maggie Smith and Judi Dench!
Cheers!
INO was perped.
Morning, all!
Pretty straightforward solve today (with a theme that ended up being much simpler than I was expecting), but there were a few sticky places.
The SE corner nearly killed me due to having HADJ instead of HAJJ (which is understandable, I think), SLIM instead of POOP (also understandable) and ISP instead of IPO (completely mystifying and probably the result of a severe brain fart).
The crossing of IAN and INO was purely a guess, but there really weren't any other reasonable contenders. I would have been really cheesed off had golfer Poulter been named IAL or IAR or IAM...
IDINA MENZEL was a complete unknown to me and I struggled to get the GUN/NONE crossing as a result. I'm not familiar with GUN meaning to throw hard, and for awhile I thought maybe GUT was baseball slang for a hard toss.
Finally, LYLE was another complete unknown and it took a very long time to come up with SACREDLY. It didn't help that I wasn't sure if 69A was going to be LEDS or LCDS. The aforementioned IDINA MENZEL didn't help matters there. Thankfully, I finally got the tricky clue for SPANIEL and that helped a lot.
Good morning!
Got the theme, for a change. I was merrily zipping along....until I wasn't. South of the Mason-Dixon Line things got very sticky. IDINA MENZEL was all perps. E L JAMES was all perps. UMA was all perps -- knew the actress, but not that she played Fantine. It finally came down to INA/INO, MILANA/MILANO. I WAGged the "O." Lucky.
TRUE LIES gave us the immortal line, "Denial, it's not just a river in Egypt anymore."
"Celestial circle" has nice alliteration, but are they really celestial? I thought they were just headlamps.
Remembered GONERIL, but she still sounds like a venereal disease.
And yes, C.C., that 45d 71. Microsoft's "new technology" was "so nineties," but you gotta do what you gotta do. Splynter will appreciate the IRON MAIDEN reference. LEGS, too.
BTW, C.C., whose name is it on that baseball? I looks like "Jhau Paulattle."
Good Morning:
Thanks for the CSO, CC; I never made the connection until I read your comment, even though some of my fellow Cornerites address me as IM.
Fun puzzle with some nice, fair misdirection and cluing. CC, I think you're too hard on yourself for using some weak, but unavoidable, fill, especially in a Sunday puzzle. Anyone who had a NYT last week and a LAT this week deserves high praise, indeed.
Yankee fans will remember Sparky Lyle coming in as a closer to the tune of Pomp and Circumstance.
Did anyone see the movie, Foxcatcher, which was based on the actual events surrounding two brothers who were Olympian medal winners in wrestling, one of whom was murdered by an unhinged DuPont heir? Steve Carrell was outstanding as the villain, so out of character for him as the bad guy and so believable.
I watched Sherlock for the first time and was a tad confused. Does each episode go back and forth in time like this one did, or was that a one-off device for this particular installment? Is it always an hour and a half long?
Have a great day.
So sorry! Thank you, CC, for the puzzle and the expo.
Tom, that is clearly Twins Cy Young winnwe Johan Santana who signed C.C.'s baseball. Though I confess the end of his signature is puzzling. I understand he is going to try another comeback this year despite being out of baseball since August 2012. The Twins got Philip Humber, Deolis Guerra, and Kevin Mulvey, as well as center fielder Carlos Gomez in the deal.
Thanks C.C. for a fun start to the year and the insight into the process
C.C. doing double duty ( CCDDD ?)TODAY. This was tough for a Sunday and an ultimate DNF because GUN and NONE wouldn't come out of my brain and I didn't know UMA, E.L. JAMES, or IDINA MENZEL, missing only the "N" in MENZEL. My other trouble was the cross of IMS and STAN because the GroupME clue sounded so strange and I wasn't looking at the long fills that I did correctly (except the WICKED actress).
18A-LONI- Burt Reynold's EX wife is another possible clue
43A-T-MAN- I thought it was the Secret Service
36D- When somebody is stone cold dead in a coffin, why do people say 'He's AT PEACE'?
I spent too much time this morning due to sloppy mistakes, worst of all misreading 99D as 98D and filling JOE BLOW in 98D instead of JANE DOE in 99D. The double-J in HAJJ almost got me. There were some great fill words I haven't seen much- INDELIBLE, SACREDLY, DERELICT, DISCRETE- but I don't want to tell any TRUE LIES and it was a hard slog today with WAGS & PERPS to the rescue. INSPECTOR MORSE, INO, MILANO, LOS ALAMOS, GONERIL (love D-O's description), TAMI Hoad, MATTE and the previously mentioned ones. Strangely I knew YURI Andropov ( short termer after BRESHNEV) and INNER MONGOLIA.
I think D-O and I DON'T read the same books and DON'T GO go to the same plays.
Enjoyed your write-up and puzzle, C.C. I finally caught on to the theme after I had finished. Alas, I wrote in "join now" right away but had only ever heard of "hadj, so changed to "do it now." Of course ".tet" didn't make sense, but I thought it was just something that techs know about and I don't. I wondered why you didn't clue it "Asian holiday" Now I know!
Now on to your puzzle from last week. Why must we syndies have to wait a week for the NYT puzzles but, thankfully, not the LAT?
Happy New Year everyone!
Greetings, friends!
Congratulations, C.C., once again! I loved that you reviewed your own puzzle but you are too hard on yourself.
This was a totally doable puzzle with some clever fill. I love the INSPECTOR MORSE series and like fermatprime, was so sad when John Thaw died. The ENDEAVOR series was good, too. IDINAMENZEL was interviewed on Ellen otherwise I would not have known who she was.
d-o: LOL at your comment on GONERIL. So true.
Some of us would know SACREDLY right away as it's sometimes applied to the Liturgy.
Again, C.C., this is a STELLAR accomplishment on your part and I get to work on your NYT one next.
Have a splendid Sunday, everyone!
A fun Sunday run with C.C. I ran into the theme before I went back to look for it. Clever cluing (gotta love Dogie collar) more than made up for my proper noun dearth of knowledge.
Musings
-Our CAT’S view from her kitchen perch
-C.C. you might want to check that “trainable” description around here ☺
-So far, the Patriots and the Panthers will have a first round BYE
-ESP debate
-Barry asks, “Why can’t SIWI wecommend a westauwant? SIWI SUCKS!”
-MAP OUT all you like but life will chart a different course
-The most famous LEDGER in American history?
-I pluck out all the INSERTS for Joann before I get to this puzzle
-I’m monitoring my REPS now that I’m back to working out
-An ATM in a casino is like potato chips next to my recliner
-Another playful NIP
-Gotta run. More later!
Hi Y'all! C.C., with another STELLAR puzzle, you have left an INDELIBLE MARK on the days of us INQUIRING MINDS. Your works are challenging, but you still can BE NICE to us without too many naticks. Such a relief after yesterday. Always fun to get your take on your own work in the expo.
Are there 100 balls in the pyramid?
I, too, had trouble in the SW. Didn't know IDINA MENZEL and couldn't equate "squat" with NONE or "throw hard" with GUN. Had to resort to a red- letter run. WHAT? Finally, got the connections and accepted them.
I had to look up "Fifty Shades of Grey" in the Kindle store app. I read it, but was so shocked by it, the author's name didn't stick in my mind. What shocked me even more now is that it was written by a woman.
Bug with horns gave me fits. Trying to think of a name for that strange horned dung roller beetle.
Speaking of dung. The lake where we had our party yesterday has a huge population of geese year round. My granddaughter was telling that she fell out of her kayak last summer and couldn't get back in. So she swam over to this deck/dock and hauled herself out on it. To her dismay she found it covered with goose droppings. Ever since, they've called it the POOP deck experience.
Speaking of our Xmas party, it was a huge success. My daughter surprised my by inviting two of my brothers, their wives and a niece and her family with four kids the ages of some of my grandkids. Some of the kids had never met but were very compatible and had a blast playing the new version of monopoly which has some superpower stuff in it. Very lively. Very noisy. Well worth the large (for me) financial outlay.
My SIL has been sleeping on the downstairs couch since she broke her ankle. Right before Xmas, she heard a strange noise and yelled for her husband to come down and put a light on it. He shined a flashlight on the Christmas stockings hung on the mantle for their grandkids. As the light hit one stocking, up popped a mouse's head. Mousy had passed five traps baited with peanut butter, climbed the brick fireplace, and was feasting on their granddaughter's favorite chocolate bars.
Good afternoon everyone.
Got 'er done in due course. Theme fill helped with the solve. No significant hang-ups. Spelt KUDZU correctly.
Liked 'avid bird watcher' - CAT, and 'Nice concept' - IDEE.
39a - TAS. I once was a TA. Materials lab. Good gig.
Hope everyone had a 'guten Rutsch' (good slide) into the New Year.
Hello everybody. This puzzle seemed like a Silkie to me, TO WIT: a toehold here, a foothold there, and slowly but surely progressing little by little to the solve. Sure, some of the answers 71-A'd a little bit but not much, which one expects when the themage is so RICH. Some wonderful clues and answers! Overall, I liked it.
A few write-overs: ORBITS --> HALOES, MAUI --> LUAU (MAUI showed up later), JOHNDOE --> JANEDOE.
That New Year's Eve meal that Boomer made sounds delicious.
I like Asiago bagels.
I'll BET the woman in front of Steve in that photo is special to him. I won't bet AGIN you on that.
I work (part time) for a company called STELLAR Solutions. The founder and CEO's name is Celeste. And their business includes satellites and space science (orbits, not haloes). Wanna bet that naming is not coincidence?
Now to read all your comments.
Hi everybody. A week of rain is supposed to be on the way starting late tonight. We'll see.
I always enjoy the LAT puzzles as I did this one with it's cute little theme. For Celestial circles, I tried Orbits at first. I was going to complain that they were ellipses instead but since orbits (and I) were wrong, I bit my tongue and swallowed my nit. WEES.
I like glossy lipstick better than MATTE.
The golf ball pyramid is a sum of the square numbers; 1 + 4 + 9 + 16 + 25 + 36 + 49. I get 140. As I suspected, there's a formula for it but for this relatively small pyramid, it's easier just to add the numbers.
I loved seeing that this was going to be a C.C. puzzle, even though I had a feeling it was going to be tricky. And it was. I got most of it before I had to start cheating, and I even got the IM theme even though I still don't understand it (Instant Messaging? or something else? Sorry not to be more techie).
But I found the puzzle to be a lot of fun--and especially loved all the doggie (not dogie) references: SPANIEL, PET SPA, LEASH (thought "Spot check" was a hilarious clue for this) and we may as well add POOP. C.C., my doxie Dusty thanks you for this puzzle!
Have a great Sunday everybody. We have El Nino rains coming up next week, so I'll try to enjoy the sunshine while I can.
Bill G: I didn't do any complicated math on that golf ball pyramid. I just counted 1, 2, 3 etc. on a side except for the row which would also be on the other side and multiplied by 4. But I guess I didn't allow for any balls inside the structure. Groan. But this is why I wrote instead of doing much complicated problem solving. Bookkeeping is pretty much basic math.
We also are expecting rain starting tonight and we need it!
fermatprime:
Yes! I am eagerly anticipating Downton Abbey tonight. It's all set to record.
I loved the cluing for LARIAT and enjoyed seeing MAUI and LUAU which I shall experience again soon though not MAUI, Oahu this time. I also forgot to mention that one blank cell was left because I failed to recheck BYES/BLOW. No B.
Enjoyed this one a lot. And with the week old NYT as a bonus, it was a day of lots of C.C. input. Liked the other puzzle just as well. Alas, this one beat me. I spelled Musee as Musea, so one cell short. But the rest made up for it.
The New Years Eve meal sounds wonderful. Very few foods are better than walleye, IMO. Have you ever tried wood parched wild rice, C.C.? It's a lot fluffier and nuttier tasting than regular wild rice. Lighter in color too. It's hard to find, but worth the effort. I've never seen it in a store outside of MN, but I order it from a place in Grand Rapids, MN to get my fix.
Hi all.
Thank you CC. Great puzzle, cluing, and review. A threefer !
It was by no means an easy puzzle, and towards the end, had to change the game to regular. It didn't help that I haven't done more than a couple of puzzles in nigh on three weeks. Amazing how quickly some knowns can become forgottens.
Was raking leaves, mowing the lawn, and cleaning out the flower gardens at my sister's house in Central Texas a few days ago, and came home to my driveway mostly covered in a blanket of snow covered ice at least three inches thick. At the street end, it was up to eighteen inches deep thanks to the township snow plow.
Our mail carrier stopped to chat for a few moments as she was driving by. She said that there were at least a dozen mailboxes that were knocked over. Then a deputy sheriff that lives a few streets away stopped as I was chiseling ice off the top of our ice encased van. He said that he was off duty but called in to work because of the number of traffic accidents. He also said that the mailboxes probably weren't hit directly by the plow, and it was more likely the weight of the ice and snow thrown yard side by the plow. It took most of Saturday to clean out driveway...
easy today.
Formula for sum of squares of first n integers is n{n+ 1)(2n + 1)/6. With n = 7, we get 140. Forgot to mention this.
Don't recall Sherlock going way back in time before!
Getting the theme early helped with looking for IM two word answers as I worked my way down, especially with INDELIBLE MARK and INQUIRING MINDS.
Slow and steady with perps to the rescue in a few slow spots. I am used to HALOS as plural instead of HALOES, but put it in thinking it was an option.
Thanks, CC!
@Irish Miss - none of the prior Sherlock episodes with Benedict Cumberbatch would timehop, they were all set in modern times- if you hadn't seen the prior ones it would be very confusing not only for the timehop/drug induced delirium but also for bringing in the cliffhanger from last season with Moriarty. They are all 1 1/2-2 hours and run more like a miniseries with usually ~4 episodes per year. When they first started filming neither of the leads was a major star, so they have had a difficult time coordinating their schedules for recent follow ups. There isn't another episode now until May!
Should have taken a few minutes to edit my post...
Our friends from up the street just stopped by for a few minutes with home made tamales. Her mother is visiting from Mexico City. They are such a nice family, and her mom makes the best tamales. Of course, I haven't had Lucina's yet...
Just a couple of other side notes. While we were there, my brother-in-law's wife's father passed away. I met him at BIL's wedding last year. We considered driving down to Kingwood (just a few minutes from D-O) for the mid-afternoon wake but it was over a three hour drive from us, and we were leaving at 5:30 AM the next morning.
We left a day earlier than we normally would have because we weren't sure how much of a detour we would have in St Louis. As it turned out, the interstates had been reopened but some of the exits on I-44 in St Louis were still closed due to the flooding. Lots of flooding and damage could be seen from the highway... Big mess. Freaky weather this winter.
Gas was least expensive in Tulsa at $1.51.9. Most expensive was in Illinois at $2.15.9.
It was really nice seeing some my side of the family, but it is good to back home. There's no place like home.
Chairman Moe, We're in !!!!!!! There's still a chance... We're only going to have Big Ben for so long...
InanehikerI @ 3:26 - Thanks for the info on Sherlock; no wonder why I was confused.
TTP: How 'bout dem Stillers??!
The better half and I watched at a local sports bar; neat place where the Steeler fans even have their own separate room - we got good and rowdy whenever the Bills scored or picked off the Jets' passes - we got a good chorus of "Here we Go Buffalo" going which I know pi$$ed off the many Jets fans who were there.
Still don't like Tomlin starting Blake (#41) at CB; the playoffs could be interesting if we can make it to the AFC Championship Game
Just remembered I forgot to comment about DISCRETE / discreet. I know that I've written discreet in a presentation when intending discrete, and taken some good-natured ribbing about it... Spell check wouldn't catch it as an error, and it would require a fairly robust word processing program to check usage in context to find that type of homophone error. I've never seen a graphics/presentation program (eg Powerpoint et al) that incorporates really robust word processing functionality. A second set of eyes (or more) is often advisable before presenting to C level execs...
First saw and then read about KUDZU in Atlanta.
Still have my HYATT Gold Passport card, but haven't used it in probably 10 years or more, and doubt there's enough points on it for anything. Much prefer Hyatt over Hilton. Hilton Garden Inn is usually ok, but Holiday Inn Express always seems to be a good choice for us. We stayed at one in Pauls Valley, OK on the way down. Have to call in and get those Priority Club points added.
Musings 2
-If this year’s college bowl games were a movie, I’d demand my money back. Nebr/Ucla and TCU/Oregon were two of the few interesting games.
-Downton will be on at our castle tonight complete with Closed Captioning.
-Are the minds that pay for this crap best described as INQUIRING (ENQUIRING) minds?
-I first saw KUDZU in Huntsville, Alabama at a NASA symposium and it was pervasive then
-Lily will never see a PET SPA or kennel
-Interesting read about why CHRIS Rock won’t play colleges any more
-Bring on Robert, Cora, Mary, Edith, et al. Even Thomas!
Chairman Moe, bad day for both the Jets and NY football Giants. Great day for "dem Stillers." Don't like needing help and sort of backing in to the playoffs, but the record was enough to get in, and that offers us the chance. Still waiting to hear about DeAngelo and see if he will be ready to go next week.
Would have loved to have seen the game. Thought about going to the nearest local sports bar to watch it, but when the Bears are on at the same time, and despite having about 30 TVs, they typically show the Bears on 28 of them, and the Steelers might be on a 24" tv in the corner with no volume. I can easily find Packer bars here, but not sure of any watering holes anywhere close that are Steelers bars.
HG, I still haven't seen one entire bowl game yet this year. The males were outnumbered three to two at my sister's house, and my nephew doesn't care one way or the other about football. Just hockey, and just the San Jose Sharks. So evenings meant that the TV would be tuned to the Hallmark Channel and all of the heartwarming Christmas season love story movies... Did listen to a bit of the Fiesta Bowl where Ohio State beat Notre Dame as we were driving through NE OK and SW MO, until the AM radio station went out of range...
Late to the dance, but just had to say how much I enjoyed this CC special! Your write up was much too hard on yourself! Clever clues, fun fill....what more could we want?
Thanks!!
Big Easy,
I think the Secret Service USED to be part of the Dept. of the Treasury. So both are right. I recall the character Kate, on NCIS, who was ex-Secret Service had special ability to spot bogus bills.
I have Window NT memories because I had to hasten to finish all my tests for the MCSE certificate for Microsoft before Windows 2000 came out and all the tests changed!
VS
As of 2003, the Secret Service became part of the Dept. of Homeland Security WIKI
VS
Could not find any football games on the radio during the
two hour drive to Miami Airport. (lots of good music though...)
And the 3 hour flight home was made much shorter by CC's long puzzle.
Note to travelers: Using the Iphone, I opened two pages in Safari
at the Airport using 4G (airport WIFI is so 71-A)
one page was the LA Times puzzle site,
the other page was todays Blog.
Then when I had to turn the phone to airplane mode
I still had open a readable Blog (minus links of course)
& better yet, the puzzle was completely workable.
It did slowdown towards the end though, I think I may have used
up too much memory on this big Sunday puzzle + the Blog because
the more I filled in the puzzle, the slower it took to respond
to input. By the time I had only the difficult NE corner left
it was so slow I was watching TV while waiting for the letter I pressed to
appear on the screen.
Note that this may only be a Sunday puzzle size problem for my small phone
because I never had this problem doing weekday puzzles.
Re: 5A,Avid bird watcher pic?
Hmm,so many to choose from, but if I had to pick just one,
it would have to be this one with the sassy bird...
I hope some of you have seen my very late night/early morning post. My sleeping patterns are very messed up again.
C.C.,thanks for doing double duty. Today was very challenging and I needed some red letter help. I enjoyed it very much. I didn't get the theme until three- quarters through, but that is not unusual for me.
IDINA MENZEL came to me right away. I love her singing in "Frozen" and don't have any little kids around to wear the song out for me. Also remember when John Travolta missed pronounced her name so badly.
I've taped Downton but have to wait until my DH finishes watching football. He'll want to watch it also.
Lurk say -
Blue Iris - yes we do read 'em. FWIW - I think most of us Cornerites (OK maybe not Barry G) have sleep issues.
CED - LOL at the bird flippingf the "moon."
HG - Enquiring minds - you made me do this! Weird Al. It's not his video, but a fun mashup.
Too busy today w/ BIL's B-Day, groceries, etc. (BTW, Steve, tomorrow is the sous-vide test drive on some T-Bones). I hope to play C.C.'s pzl later.
Cheers, -T
Hello Puzzlers -
Extremely late to the dance tonight. No particular problems with CC's large Sunday grid - the few unknowns were well perped.
Tonight's first Season Six episode of Downton did not disappoint - I'm glad Mary wasn't bullied by that troublemaker, and that her dad wasn't a pushover either. Anna and Bates deserve a break, maybe now they'll get it.
Good grief! How could I get so old without knowing there were two words DISCRETE & DISCREET. I only knew about the latter and wondered about the spelling in the puzzle today. But I had other things to think about so didn't tune into it until TTP mentioned it. Another broadening of the mind thanks to the corner.
Ultra-late tonight (already worked tomorrows puzzle), but disappointed that no one mentioned the SO to me of Santa Fe being a clue. And one that tripped me up, too. The biggest city in NM is Albuquerque, in the adjoining BERNALILLO county (pronounced as burn-a-leo), so I had that in for a while. Once I decided that conflicted with too many perps, I started going thru the other adjoining counties -- TAOS & MORA were too short, but that left GUADALUPE, SAN MIGUEL, RIO ARRIBA, and SANDOVAL. Perps had to remind me there was also LOST ALAMOST, since there's no direct route to there from Santa Fe!
OKL - So is that a Left turn at Albuquerque to Santa Fe? C, -T
D-Otto,
Lemonade is right. It's Johanna Santana. I do have his autographed ball and a few cards, but the blog picture is not mine.
Lemonade,
The end says 57, his jersey number.
Avg Joe,
I never had wood parched wild rice. I'll see if I can find in our local grocery store.
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