Appropriate for our 2016 April Fool's Day offering, JW gives us the letters of the word ENIGMA scrambled and hidden in known phrases. He accomplishes this with a 15x16 grid to allow for three (3) grid spanning 16 letter theme answers. He finishes with a sophisticated reveal, 60A. Sir Edward Elgar composition whose title has never been solved ... and a hint to this puzzle's circles : ENIGMA VARIATIONS (16). The renowned British COMPOSER based his variations on his family and friends.
The bigger grid allows for some nice non-theme long fill like GO CARTS, TREKKIE, TRADED AT, THIS IS HE, HORN SOLO, HAM ON RYE, GET A CASE, PRETENSE, WAR GAMES, and STAY HERE. I guess I am getting used to his puzzles because this took me about 4 minutes to solve, I hope you had fun. Let's look it over....
17A. Reprimand to one not picking up : YOU'RE MAKING A MESS (16). Straight cluing for the phrases hiding the ENIGMA.
22A. Rail transport landmark : STEAM ENGINE (11). Fulton?
39A. Minuteman, e.g. : LONG RANGE MISSILE (16).
49A. "How surprising!" : IMAGINE THAT (11).
and the aforementioned reveal:
60A. Sir Edward Elgar composition whose title has never been solved ... and a hint to this puzzle's circles : ENIGMA VARIATIONS (16).
Across:
1. PĆ¢tisserie cake : GATEAU. A term used in Britain for cake as well.
7. Sold for, as a stock : TRADED AT. Each stock transaction has a buyer and a seller, hence the concept of trade - money for shares.
15. Derby racers : GO CARTS. Well nit parade ahead...I think this refers to the soapbox derby, but the TERM is spelled wrong, sort of.
16. Taps, essentially : HORN SOLO. Man, I see a crossword theme here...HORN/HAN; JW?
19. Pound denizen : MUTT.
20. Biblical birthright seller : ESAU. Poor man was tricked.
21. Oldest of the gods, in Plato's "Symposium" : EROS. This is said by Phaedrus; not my area of expertise but this SUMMARY might help.
26. At a minimum : NO LESS. You will give me your attention, I will accept no less.
27. Swimmer's option : CRAWL. Also known as freestyle. Other choices are back stroke, breast stroke and butterfly.
35. Game winner : OOO. If you are playing tic-tac-toe.
36. Lunch order : HAM ON RYE. JW really loves multi-word fill.
42. Smoke and mirrors : PRETENSE. make believe.
43. "The Soul of a Butterfly" memoirist : ALI. Laila's daddy.
44. Essen article : DER.
45. Concluded, with "up" : SEWED.
46. First 12 children of Gaia and Uranus : TITANS. Can you name them?
58. Chanel No. 1? : COCO. Cute TV misdirection.
59. Columnist Barrett : RONA. See RONAN below.
65. Exercises displaying great strength : WAR GAMES.
66. Conventioneer with antennae, perhaps : TREKKIE.
67. "Don't budge!" : STAY HERE. Stay put sounds more familiar, but this works.
68. "Honor Thy Father" author : TALESE. I have had this GUY before on Friday.
Down:
1. Exit : GO OUT.
2. Intense : ACUTE. Compared to chronic.
3. Design for some MacDonalds : TARTAN. Much more complicated than I knew. LINK.
4. Poetic "previous to" : ERE.
5. Its slot always pays : ATM. They have lots of them in the casino so you can feed the other machines.
6. Winner of all three tug-of-war medals in the 1904 Olympics: Abbr. : USA. Easy guess.
7. Formal phone call response : THIS IS HE.
8. Journalist son of Mia Farrow : RONAN. An interesting young MAN with uncertainty in his life.
9. Debate : ARGUE.
10. Some evidence : DNA. No DNA tests for Ronan and Woody.
11. Carlisle Cullen's wife in the "Twilight" series : ESME. This CHARACTER.
13. And : ALSO.
14. Word with coin or ring : TOSS.
15. Places to clean and press : GYMS. Nice misdirection but I go to the Gym.
23. Tied up : MOORED.
24. Online finance company : E-LOAN. Never heard of this COMPANY.
25. Hard-to-miss signs : NEONS. They even have a Museum in Las Vegas.
27. Trig function : COSINE.
28. Hosp. personnel : RNS.
29. Like much of Australia's interior : ARID.
30. Noah of "The Librarian" TV films : WYLE. I really enjoy the show and FLYNN.
31. Look wrong? : LEER. Wrong look perhaps...
32. Reichenbach Falls setting : ALPS. Famous for a FALL.
33. Teed off : SORE. Not golf this time, anger.
34. "I __ it!" : KNEW. No you did not!
37. Stradivari's tutor : AMATI. MAYBE or MAYBE NOT.
38. Lombardy's capital : MILAN.
40. Co. merged into Verizon : GTE. 64D. Part of 40-Down: Abbr. : TELephone.
41. Start one's law practice : GET A CASE. (Get and GTE) only if you are a litigator.
47. Composer Stravinsky : IGOR.
48. Hit : STRIKE.
49. Caesarean section? : I CAME. Really fun clue, I came, I saw I conquered. Veni, vidi, vici.
50. Mayflower figure : MOVER. The company. LINK.
51. Errant golf shots : HOOKS. Sometimes you need to hook the ball.
52. Musical with "jr." and "KIDS" versions for young performers : ANNIE. I had no idea of the existence of these variations.
53. Shock, in a way : TASE.
54. Church lineups : PEWS. Cute.
55. Gross subj.? : ANATomy.
56. Capital of Turkey : LIRA. The old money misdirect.
57. Like French toast : EGGY.
61. __-jongg : MAH.
62. Addams family member : ITT. Cousin.
63. Altar constellation : ARA.
Well did you find this to be a puzzling puzzle? The theme is a variation of a quotation from Winston Churchill in a 1939 radio broadcast "I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest." Still a factor in the world...I hope you enjoyed the return of JW and spring. Lemonade out.
BTW I did not finish in 4 minutes, but it is April 1st.
Greetings!
ReplyDeleteYou got me with the 4 minutes, Lemon! Thanks for expo!
Nice puzzle, Jeffrey! Workable, too! Really enjoy Elgar!
A few things perped, like RONAN, ESME, ALI.
No cheats!
I was wrong about the roofers. There they were again early this AM pounding on my house covering! Wonderful!
Have a good Friday, all!
PS. The ever prolific Fred Piscop had a cute one in NetWord. A bit easier than Mark's. There is a strange connection, if you look for it!
ReplyDeleteMorning, all!
ReplyDeleteI kept looking for some sort of trick or prank in today's puzzle in honor of April Fools' Day, but the only trick was the lack of circles. Other than that, pretty easy for a Friday and I was able to get all the theme answers with a minimum of perp help based solely on the clues, so that was nice.
Good day,
ReplyDeleteThis was a pretty easy Friday. I got through without too much trouble. When the opening clue was Patisserie cake, I thought this will be a quick DNF, but the rest of the North came together rather quickly and perps took care3 of 1A for me. The Central & South filled in w/o any issues or delays.
No circles, no idea what the theme was, but neither mattered.
Very hectic day preceding a very busy weekend..business wise, so got to run.
Have a pleasant weekend and enjoy April Fools day.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this offering from Jeffrey, as usual. It wasn't as difficult as some of his previous works, but had enough of a challenge for a Friday. The theme entries were pretty straightforward and I remembered Enigma Variations from a previous puzzle. All in all, a satisfying solve.
Thank you, JW, for a smooth start to the "Cruelest Month" and thanks, Lemony, for the entertaing expo.
Supposed to reach 70 + today, then a low of 19 Sunday night, 30's Sunday through Tuesday, and, possibly, some: s n o w! Can Spring be far behind?
Have a great day.
A Lemon suggests, a HOOK is NOT an "errant golf shot." It is predictable, adjusted for, and sometimes useful.
ReplyDeleteI didn't get misdirected at 58a since I spell channel with two n's. Ymmv
ReplyDeleteA HOOK is most definitely an errant shot for this duffer. My drives start out nice and straight heading down the middle of the fairway and then, about twice a round, take a dramatic right turn into the woods.
ReplyDeleteIf you plan on it, it's a draw, if you don't it's a HOOK. Same with a fade compared to a slice.
ReplyDeleteGood April 1 morning to my fellow 'fools'. I had a slow start in both the NW & NE. Didn't know GATEAU, was unaware of a'tug-of-war' contest in the Olympics, and the usual KART_CART wait in the NW. Ditto for RONAN, ESME, and EROS in the NE. Making a WAG for YOU'RE MAKING A MESS got me out of it. Speaking of a MESS, reading about RONAN was a mess; my speculation is that another bull jumped over the fence, not Frank or Woody. WYLE was all perps and TITANS was a good guess.
ReplyDeleteI had more false starts, ARES to EROS, AOL to GTE, PEER to LEER, and confidently filling AOL in 64D because GTE was taken-WRONG.
'Errant golf shots' ALL are errant except the last putt to complete the hole. Let's just say that my drives sometimes are exaggerated straight shots that spin to the left- a lot.
LAT is stealing again.
ReplyDeletehttp://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2012/05/roman-emperor-born-in-spain-tue-5-22-12.html
One strategy I use for solving Word Jumbles is to rearrange the letters on the side and this strategy/gimmick helped me suss out ENIGMA in Jeffrey’s wonderful puzzle.
ReplyDeleteMusings
-A brilliant 2014 movie about ENIGMA and crossword puzzles
-Golden Spike fit in STEAM ENGINE’s footprint
-IMAGINE first leapt to mind as the theme but, like most of us, it has two I’s
-Today is the 40th Anniversary of Apple. I wonder what that stock TRADED AT in 1976.
-I always think of GO CARTS as being motorized not gravity-driven like Soap Box vehicles
- A poignant playing of TAPS (1:43) in a movie whose most famous scene is on a beach
-From the very moving Desiderata - “You are a child of the universe, NO LESS than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”
-HAM ON RYE - Hold the EGGY mayo/miracle whip?
-A 2011 DER Spiegel (The Mirror) cover on an appropriate day
-Do you remember the movies where this machine tried to launch all of USA’s LONG RANGE MISSLES
-Most people have had their NCAA Bracket teams GO OUT too early
-The RING TOSS at the county fair looks easy. I wonder if it’s rigged.
-This night picture from Space shows central Australia’s, uh, ARIDNESS and where most Aussies live
Other than my paper having "pĆ¼tisserie cake" for the 1-A clue, no real problems here after I figured out the ENIGMA anagram. I'm always willing to accept that there might be something I've never heard before, so I just plowed on regardless.
ReplyDeleteI was glad there were no nasty 4/1 tricks. See you all Monday!
Good late morning!
ReplyDeleteWas AWOL yesterday, and almost didn't make it here today. Yesterday I installed a Quicken update that broke Quicken. Every time I tried to open it, it needed to restart Windows. If I said "Yes," it rebooted, "No" and it exited Quicken. Grrrr! Redid the update. Same result. Removed app and reinstalled. Same result. Finally had to get a "cleaner" from the Quicken folk to remove the mess and allow me to start over. Whew!
Today's puzzle was slow starting, but picked up speed as things went on. Didn't figure out that the "jumble" was ENIGMA until Elgar's name showed up. Cute.
Lemon, you think somebody can name all 12 of the Titans? You bet Uranus I can't.
Quarterly dental appt this morning. Busy week!
Kazie, the Barnacle also had "pĆ¼tisserie cake." In my ignorance, I figured it was a type of cake, live angel food or German chocolate.
ReplyDeleteGreat puzzle today, devious clueing, thoroughly enjoyable solve!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the write up Lemon, I enjoyed it as much as the puzzle...
I don't know why I found this under "enigma."
Rabbit Rabbit
ReplyDeleteDesper-otto,
ReplyDeleteThat was my take too--always willing to admit possible ignorance on my part. Putain in French is a whore, so I was a bit uncertain of what sort of cake it might be!
Good morning everyone.
ReplyDeleteA tour de force like others imply, ALSO. Initially thought I was going to need help but then I broke through the top and got it all. Used many WAGS, more than I was comfortable with, but they were all good. Guess I was on Jeff's wavelength today.
Top of the alternate meaning fill were KEGS, MOVER, and OOO.
Reichenbach Falls was a learning.
My paper had PĆ¼tisserie, too. Google seemed to imply that is a German spelling. Anyway, I got GATEAU OK.
STEAM ENGINE is on the cover of "Trains" magazine which came yesterday - good timing.
We tie up a ship but tie down an aircraft. If you are busy with work, you could be tied up or tied down. Don't you just love English?
Hello Puzzlers -
ReplyDeleteImpressive! Not only was Jeff Wex able to conjure up four phrases with the right letters, two were grid spanners, to match the unifier. Looks like some nice work to me.
The MacDonald tartan answer came easily, because I've been watching Monarch of the Glen on Netflix. Last night's episode involved Golly, the hired ghillie, defending the necessity of his bagpipes on cultural grounds. I noticed the drones of his pipes were decorated with two different plaid patterned cloths, and wondered whether that was itself culturally significant.
Spitz - good point. Didn't we just have "out in the cold" recently? At least we can drive on a Parkway, and park on a Driveway. :-)
ReplyDeleteGood morning, folks. Thank you, Jeffrey Wechsler, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Lemonade, for a fine review.
ReplyDeleteWow! This puzzle was great. I feel that way because I did it in about an hour. That never happens to me on a Friday.
I figured out the theme after I was done. Never heard of that composer or his ENIGMA. The only ENIGMA I recall is the German code in WW-II.
This puzzle had so much misdirection, it stumped me for a while. Then I started looking for it and that helped.
TARTAN is a good example of the misdirection.
I tried GOLDEN SPIKE for 22A. It fit and I thought I was so smart to figure that out. However, it soon became apparent that that was wrong. STEAM ENGINE appeared after a few perps.
WAR GAMES was another misdirection. Got it after a couple perps and some deep thinking.
Never saw that the puzzle was 15 x 16 until I came to the blog. The grid spanners were amazing. I wonder how long it took Jeffrey to construct this puzzle.
Anyhow, I am off to my day. See you tomorrow, maybe.
Abejo
( )
Hook = left; Slice = right.
ReplyDeleteHi gang -
ReplyDeleteLike Kazie, I also had "pĆ¼tisserie cake" in the Freep. Mawkish looking word.
Finally managed to tease it all out. Seeing the ENIGMA helped a bit. I've performed that piece. It's quite wonderful.
Aside from STEAM ENGINE and the reveal, this puzzle and the one in the NYT from 4 years ago are completely different. Because Kyle Dolan had that theme idea in 2012, must it then be dead forever? Is there no room in the ENIGMA for more VARIATIONS? At the point where esthetics meets ethics, I'm all for originality - but is that well bottomless? Who is harmed by the duplication? Certainly not the constructor - he gave up all rights with the sale. The NY Times? If so, then in what way? The solvers? After 4 years, I hardly think so. Am I missing anything?
More generally, this is actually a pretty hot topic in the cross word world, and I'm having a really difficult time deciding how to feel about it.
Gary - APPL went public in January, 1984 at $3.83. By August it was down almost 50% to $1.81. It didn't get back above the IPO price for almost 2 years, hitting rock bottom in Q3 '85. It's hard to imagine the original investors not getting shaken out over that time period.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/178016-the-history-of-apple-price-movements-part-1
Here is way more than what you want to know about playing taps.
http://tapsbugler.com/an-introductory-history-of-the-bugle/
Cool regards.
JzB [pitched an octave lower]
The Arizona Republic also had the GATEAU misspelled as putisserie but I realized it must be patisserie and miracle of miracles I recalled it.
ReplyDeleteJeffrey Wechsler gave us an April Fools puzzle by making it easy instead of his usual more ENIGMAtic ones. Using phrases certainly helps the solve even with unknowns such as RONAN.
Thanks, Jeffrey and Lemonade who adds zest to the solve.
Have a happy day, everyone!
Hi Y'all! Great puzzle that was an ENIGMA the first pass through but managed to fill all right with enough WAGS. Thanks, Jeffrey. Thanks, Lemon!
ReplyDeleteNo circles so I had to come to Lemon for an explanation.
Never heard of the falls. All perps. Couldn't name a single one of the TITANS and didn't know what they were called (perps & WAG). For that matter, I didn't know the parents either.
RONAN's picture looks more like a Sinatra than an Allen, fortunate for him. But he really looks more like a Farrow. He seems to be successful despite the public ENIGMA of his birth. Bet he and Mia know the truth.
I have been off-line since my birthday because that day I received a loud beeping report that I was infected with malware virus. I was instructed to phone what I thought was a Mac tech line which I did. I'm not sure now the nice foreign sounding young man was not the hacker who said he was in "Jersey City". At one point when he was supposedly searching my files, a "hacker: Russia" flashed on the screen. There is no financial financial information on my computer except for Amazon purchase from Kindle and those seem to be okay. I just unplugged the thing for a week. So I am trying out being on-line again. However, I don't want to pass a virus along. Can anyone tell me what I should be doing about this? Is there some type of Mac program I can get? The tech said my "firewall had been breeched".
PK, Immediately advise the credit card company you used to purchase from Amazon
ReplyDelete(or where ever) of what you told us. They will keep a close eye on your credit card for suspicious activity!
Note: Are you sure you never did any bank transactions,or paid a bill on this computer?
(I don't like the sound of this Mac Tech character...)
CED: I purposely have never done any financial transactions on the computer. Don't know how and didn't want to learn. Any time anything asks for a credit card number, I back out without entering anything. I still pay bills by old fashioned paper checks. My SSN isn't on there nor is my income tax returns. I hope I was such poor pickings they will leave me alone. But it sure ruined my lovely birthday to be hacked.
ReplyDeleteYes Argyle, but what if you are left-handed like me?
ReplyDeleteVery interesting and well constructed puzzle. Enjoyable, too. When I saw Jeff's name I thought I'd never solve it without a lot of help, but by golly I did it without having to look anything up. I've listened to the Enigma Variations many times and keep trying unsuccessfully to like it. Now that Yahoo Games is going away I have returned to using the L.A. Times site again. I like the Yahoo protocol (U-Click) better than the LAT (Arcadium), but at least the LAT format shows the circles.
ReplyDeleteLemonade, thanks for the terrific writeup and links.
PK, check out an anti-virus program for the Mac called Sophos. My wife, a dyed-in-the-wool Mac user, thinks it is excellent. Also see if Malware Bytes (I know, funny name) has a version for the Mac. It is not actually an anti-virus program but rather something you use to clean your computer after you have gotten or suspect to might have gotten an infection. It saved my son thousands of dollars after he got infected by "ransomware" on his Windows computers.
Best wishes to you all.
Who'd a thunk it? There is an official California State tartan! Our legislature -- I use the term optimistically -- adopted it in 1995.
ReplyDeleteMusings 2
ReplyDelete-Argyle, I’m sure you knew those hook/slice directions are reversed for left-handers
-Lee Trevino – “You can talk to a slice but a hook won't listen”
-Jazz, thanks for the Apple Info. Five minutes ago, Apple was trading at $108.77 and so if you bought a bunch of that $1.81 stock in 1984…
-Viruses, et al have never visited any of my Apple products
-MacDonalds/McDonalds took me a couple of heartbeats
-Rain and wind continue here in the hinterlands!
I did it! I did it! I got a Friday Jerry Wechsler puzzle without cheating! Hurray! Sorry to be so silly about this, but this is really exciting after the tough times I've been having with solving lately. Okay, okay, it took me a lot longer than 4 minutes. I actually got the bottom first, which helped because it meant I got the theme and since I had circles, I could play with the letters in ENIGMA to see what might fit where. That helped a lot with the more difficult top of the puzzle. But what fun, and how satisfying--many thanks, Jeffrey. And you too, Lemonade.
ReplyDeleteHope you got your car fixed, Irish Miss.
Have a great day, everybody, and a great weekend coming up!
I think the movie was "War Games" - "would you like to play a game?"
ReplyDeleteI thought it was three times "rabbit rabbit rabbit"?
Congrats on your Friday solve, no need to apologize for feeling good about it, we've all been there.
I'm also getting a bit tired of the go-Kart/Cart deal. I thought it was a "K" why does the C show up?
"puzzling thoughts"
ReplyDeleteLemonade, 4 minutes to solve? Seriously? I will admit this did not "feel" like a Friday puzzle since I was able to solve it without any cheats - had a lot of perps but no cheats. But 4 minutes??? I'm not worthy. Took me at least 15 or 20 to finish . . .
My northern hemisphere got a little bad start when I put YOU'VE MADE A BIG MESS instead of the correct answer. I also had OMENS before NEONS but those were the only write-overs. I think the SW was the last to fall when I finally realized that the "Capital of Turkey" was relating to currency
Been too busy most days to stop by and "chat"; my season continues to be busy and hoping it stays that way for at least another month and a half.
For the college basketball fans, I need a Tarheel victory in the NCAA Tournament to save face in my brackets. I was not among the handful of people who actually had the four finalists. Not close. I had NC, Michigan St, Kansas and Texas A & M, but I did select UNC as the winner.
Here is an interesting story about an Indiana teenage girl who has made only two errant picks in this year's tournament. Pretty cool story.
And then there is the man who has a perfect final four choice on his bracket sheet, but forgot to choose an overall winner, and thus cannot win the contest.
Have a nice weekend, all
In Owen's absence, and given today is April Fool's day, I do have a limerick:
ReplyDeleteWhen the man tried to play April Fool
He forgot she's allergic to wool.
Tapestry he did stitch
Caused his wife now to itch;
The result of his prank was quite crewel.
Congratulations to you, Misty! And to all those who enjoyed a success on a tough Friday pzl.
ReplyDeleteAnd Thank You, Mr Wechsler! - for giving this old brain a perfectly measured challenge today. The theme is both intriguing and balanced, with three theme-related fills taking the maximum 16-letter responses. The difficulty was high, but just within my range of possibility. I like and hate it when I can find only one or two footholds the first time through--and can hardly improve in the next few passes. I had to wonder if this was do-able w/o cheats.
But I kept faith, and I discovered that this was really the best kind of pzl for me--I mean, a pzl wherein once I cracked enough perps to get a few letters (even just one or two), my ol' reliable brain-pan would grok an entire long answer. It's a great feeling when it comes that way!
My apologies to anon, Bubba, and lefties everywhere, in my right-handed arrogance, I did indeed forget things were reversed when hitting from the other side of the ball.
ReplyDeleteChairman Moe, the 4-minute solve was an April Fool. Check out just above the grid.
Argyle @ 2:05 - oops! Forgot to read that part; I skipped right past it! š
ReplyDeleteLemon: Nice, informative write-up & links. Good Job!
ReplyDelete(Especially enjoyed the April-Fools gag of solving in 4 minutes).
Jeff: Thank You for a FUN Friday puzzle with a theme that was an ENIGMA to me (while solving).
Dang, THAT V-8 can smack, when I finally figured out the ENIGMA theme, kinda actually hurt. lol
Fave today, of course, was KEG ... though I prefer the ones that hold beer over the powder-kegs.
Well, I finished my "part-time" job today ...
Reminds me of a Norm (from the TV Show Cheers) quote:
Norm: "Great, I'm unemployed ..."
Woody: "I'm sorry to hear that Mr. Peterson ..."
Norm: "NO Woody! ... GREAT, I'M UNEMPLOYED ... Get me a BEER!
Hmmm, that gives me an idea ...
Cheers!
Lots of fun. Seeing that the lines of circles all had 6 in a row, I guessed it would be a jumble. I was so happy that this was a fairly quick Friday for me, and then Lemon said it took him only four minutes. I was relieved when he admitted it was an an April Fool prank at the end of his blog. Got me good, Lemony.
ReplyDeleteMy Kindle automatically upgraded itself a few days ago. That caused it to be deregistered last night. Registering it again presented the need to link my email accounts again and to turn on my Google account to bring up my blue identity and profile on the blog. TTP, your hints were very helpful. Thanks. It only took a few minutes.
Also my 3M Cloud library app. has shut down. It is hard to retrieve it in the Kindle. I will have the library tech install the newest vetrsion for me. 3M does not interface well with the Kindle, so says the library staff, but that is the only way to access library ebooks.
DO, I sympathize with how frustrating your experience with Quicken was. PK sorry to hear about your malware. You can buy a malware protection program after you get it cleaned up.
As for my computer, there was a scheduling snafu so the tech did not show up or call yesterday. I rescheduled for tomorrow. I check out my protection every two years or so and now I have that pesky sound problem.
Hi All!
ReplyDeleteFIW - I had 63d w/ Leo WAG'd in and left the O in ARA. Doh! Thank you Jeffrey for pranking me into thinking I solved one of your Fri. Pzls. I had fun with it.
Thanks Lem for the write-up and links. More on 2d's link below.
WOs: 63d; 15d matS (as in laundry) b/f GYM; MCI b/f GTE; RitA -> ROdA -> RONA; @7d, I had "it IS (I?) SHE" - that took a spell to re-parse.
Worst write-over: I knew it was ENIGMA, but had letters already there. As I skipped writing them in, I ended up inking ENIGIGMA. What's a MOmER (50d)?
ESP - 1a. D-O, I get the Chron too. I just figured it was a French baker; I don't know French. I'm sure there's more ESPs but I won't bore.
Greatest (for me) WAG of the day - w/ no squares filled, I thought TITANS(?). Wow, IMAGINE THAT, I got it right!
Fav: Just getting some much on a Fri. For the record, this took me >90 min.
Fav: (It's a tie!). WAR GAMES. Love that movie.
Abejo - 2d was so misdirected, I was still thinking of the burger-chain until I clicked on Lem's link and saw plaid. V8-whack! [we have a TARTAN for our Aberdeen office].
Spitz - To add to your on English: 48d c: Hit - my 1st answer (another WO) was Single. The answer is STRIKE - wait, that's a miss not a hit in Baseball. Season starts Sunday. Go 'Stros!
PK - sorry, you got scammed. Try Jayce's suggestion or just reload from scratch. There is a Malware Bytes for Mac. I've not used it, but their Windows version is fantastic. https://www.malwarebytes.org/antimalware/mac/.
PVX - It was Shall we play a GAME?".
Final Four has set in on Houston. The teams' hotels are near my office and traffic is suck. I don't care though... OOOOO-U! BOOMER.
Cheers, -T
Common misconception, but freestyle is not a synonym for front crawl. Freestyle is a category of competitive swimming where each individual can choose their own stroke - it just so happens that the front crawl is the fastest, and so everyone swims front crawl in a freestyle event.
ReplyDeleteFun puzzle, I missed the 16x15 size, thanks for pointing that out, Lemonade.
Yes, Steve, I was going to point that out, too. I am glad for your support. Some time ago I had that argument with someone who fancied himself a sports expert. We looked it up and he was in error. Talk about IREFUL!
ReplyDeleteDo you hear the one about the blonde bombshell who went to the doctor? When he said you have acute appendicitis she said, "Oooh, thank you!"
You're correct Steve. It seems every Friday we correct mistakes in the write up. Of course lemony is nowhere near as gracious as Argyle @ 205p when making excuses for his errors.
ReplyDeleteRetraction - I had the N from COSINE in my WAG 'o the day. Too, I see I have had an "I" in DER at 1st.
ReplyDeleteYR - LOL blond joke. DW frowns on those until I remind her she's artificially dumb.
Definition: Artifical Intellegence - A blond that dyes her hair brunette.
Cheers, -T
Apologies to all you intelligent blonde bombshells out there. I didn't mean you, since you don't have a cute appendicitis, just an acute mind.
ReplyDeleteI print my puzzles from the LAT website. It had circles, but no clue for 68 across!
ReplyDeleteI once again the butt of a comment, and foolishly will reply that I apologize if I was lazy in my write up and did not recognize that as Steve points out, freestyle is not a stroke but a choice. In the freestyle swim the swimmers generally choose the crawl, but in the medley I believe a few great swimmers have used their specialty twice. Freestyle is not the same as the front crawl; mea culpa. I apologize for misleading any of the readers.
ReplyDeleteMoe, I do not solve Mondays in 4 minutes. Slow and steady wins the... oh never mind.
YR thanks you for the blonde joke; I like them, do not consider them offensive but not being a blonde woman my opinion does not matter.
Lemonade @ 4:30
DeleteAs I mentioned to Argyle I skimmed over the last paragraph and didn't see your reference to its being 4/1; I know that you're good but I'm not sure anyone could write in the answers that quickly if they knew them ahead of time! ;^)
And speaking of fast solvers does that Al guy still post on Sundays? He used to keep a log of his solving times for the week's puzzles. I think he was trying to "fool" us most of the time, too, 'cause his times were unreal - especially on Friday/Saturday
You forgot to mention that you foolishly alleged that Chanel No. 1 was a tv misdirection. No it wasn't. It was a play on Chanel No. 5 and using No. 1 as a reference to who is in charge. Besides the spelling being different, no one says "turn to channel number 7 news." Or "locally, NCIS is on channel number 2."
ReplyDeleteAnon @3:58 - If 68a was at the bottom, did you look at the top of a page 2? My printer does that sometimes.
ReplyDeleteRe: Turkish Lira. I don't believe that is "old money". They are not in the Euro zone and so still use their lira.
Further to the hook and slice, what happens in the Southern Hemisphere?
Congratulations to you too, Ol' Man Keith!
ReplyDeleteSo, I heard this Re: WARGAMES and it's impact on Reagan (about 1/2 down) on NPR last week. Seems our current CyberPlan was started by the Gipper. The movie affected us both. He to protect - me to attack :-)
ReplyDeleteOK, I gots to brag to y'all... Breakfast Club at the office: Every Friday someone from the club brings the yum-yums (think donuts, Kolaches, breakfast tacos). Today was my day and, yeah, I set a new high-bar... Those of the Old Testament persuasion will appreciate this. There's a real NY-style Jewish Deli across from my office:
3 dos Bagels; 1pt Cream cheese; 1lb Nova Lox; Fruit tray...
Price: NO LESS than real NY Delis (Oy, Vey!)
Taste: Worth every penny.
The Lox was outstanding, cream cheese fresh, and the fruit tastes like it was in the sun yesterday. There's enough left over for dinner - the kids feel spoiled. D-O, if this is your thing, get to Kenny & Ziggy's in the Galleria Area.
OK, enough of that, I'm drooling...
Here's where Jeffrey's brilliance shines through...
Not only did he have WARGAMES, but the WOPR playing Tic-Tac-Toe @35a as it figures out the the Minuteman LONG RANGE MISSILEs' launch code (it was 00000000. - no, really /sigh).
Cheers, -T
I was wondering where AnonT was heading with his breakfast story. I saw somewhere that an office had two big Krispy Kreme boxes in their break room this morning. Upon opening them,however, employees discovered carrots, celery, broccoli, cauliflower and fat free dip. Cruel.
ReplyDeleteAlso several found their computer mouse not working and contacted IT. The techs turned the mouses over to discover a post it covering the laser sensor. April fools! was written on it.
Sptizboov@5:00P.M.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in Turkey in 2014 they accepted Lira, sometimes US dollars and Euros though I suppose that is a consequence of being located at the crossroads of two continents. The official currency is the lira as you noted.
Something is afoot on tonight's show. Oh....wait a second...I get it. Very cute Harry Friedman. I counted at least six.
ReplyDeleteAnonT, Thanks for the link to the Malware Bytes; and Jayce, thanks for steering me in that direction. I downloaded the program and hope that's all I need. It was so easy and no charge, I was stunned.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter called tonight to tell me her office tech's teenage son is certified on some Mac stuff and the dad thinks he could help me. Since I still haven't got my browser updated, I may have to get him to do that. After the hacking my desktop has turned from white to blue and the pretty pink/purple opening graphic is gone. I wish I was more computer savy.
Yes, I noticed a few of the April Fools' tricks on Jeopardy tonight, about five I think. I wonder how many I missed?
ReplyDeleteHere are most if not all the April Fool's gags from Jeopardy:
ReplyDelete-They started with an old shot of Alex coming out without pants, but cut back really quickly.
-On the first Daily Double, numbers were mirrored on the contestants’ lecterns.
-Jeopardy was misspelled Jeopardy in the lower left corner during the second segment.
-A cameo appearance by IBM’s Watson.
-They had some shots where Alex gave the correct response, but looked a decade younger when doing so, with a moustache.
-A Daily Double where the full screen was upside-down.
-Using Wheel of Fortune sound effects on a Daily Double.
-A cameo from Ken Jennings responding “What is turquoise?”
-There was a shot at the start of Final Jeopardy from an international version (Estonia).
-Milton’s wrong answer in Final Jeopardy was met with the Wheel of Fortune Bankrupt sound.