Theme: "Vice Versa" - Long I sound is changed into ER sound.
27A. Optimal payment arrangements? : THE BEST OF TERMS. The best of times. Two more tiny THE's in 111A. It has finals in June : THE NBA. 4D. "Terror has no shape" sci-fi creature : THE BLOB
42A. Mideast cry of despair? : ARABIAN NERTS. Arabian Nights. Ali Baba.
67A. Gems kept in inventory? : STOCK PEARLS. Stockpiles.
96A. Like one brandishing a Super Soaker? : NERF WIELDING. Knife-wielding. I googled and found out that Super Soaker is a Nerf water gun brand.
114A. White stallion at school? : SILVER LEARNING. Silver lining.
15D. Reason for cowboy unemployment? : NOTHING TO HERD. Nothing to hide.
55D. Coquette education? : FLIRT TRAINING. Made me smile. Thought of dear Splynter, who's actually very shy. Flight training.
Two sound changes occur in the front. Five at the back. Two multi-word answers. Five two-word entries. No odd man out. Consistency!
Mike also started his first theme entry in Row 4 rather than the conventional Row 3. I'm going to experience this design myself.
I'm completely in awe of puzzle title, so aptly describing the theme gimmick. Genius!
Across:
27A. Optimal payment arrangements? : THE BEST OF TERMS. The best of times. Two more tiny THE's in 111A. It has finals in June : THE NBA. 4D. "Terror has no shape" sci-fi creature : THE BLOB
42A. Mideast cry of despair? : ARABIAN NERTS. Arabian Nights. Ali Baba.
67A. Gems kept in inventory? : STOCK PEARLS. Stockpiles.
96A. Like one brandishing a Super Soaker? : NERF WIELDING. Knife-wielding. I googled and found out that Super Soaker is a Nerf water gun brand.
114A. White stallion at school? : SILVER LEARNING. Silver lining.
15D. Reason for cowboy unemployment? : NOTHING TO HERD. Nothing to hide.
55D. Coquette education? : FLIRT TRAINING. Made me smile. Thought of dear Splynter, who's actually very shy. Flight training.
Two sound changes occur in the front. Five at the back. Two multi-word answers. Five two-word entries. No odd man out. Consistency!
Mike also started his first theme entry in Row 4 rather than the conventional Row 3. I'm going to experience this design myself.
I'm completely in awe of puzzle title, so aptly describing the theme gimmick. Genius!
Across:
1. Offed, biblically : SMOTE. Funny how SMITTEN is the only form we still use today.
6. Matter : COUNT
11. Big D school : SMU
14. Exchanges from centers : SNAPS. Football. I had to ask Boomer.
19. Dash dials : TACHs
20. Canadian skater Brian : ORSER. Quite a few names in this grid.
21. Mother __ : HEN
22. Forum garments : TOGAE. More often TOGAS.
23. Butt ends : ASHES
24. New car option : LEASE
25. Like some exercises : ISOMETRIC. See here for definition. New to me. I do know plank & Russian Twist though.
30. "Sugar Lips" trumpeter : AL HIRT
31. Lord Grantham of Downton Abbey, e.g. : EARL.Gimme for a few blog regulars.
32. Some hosp. areas : ORs
33. Fifth-century pope : LEO I
34. "Spare me the specifics" : TMI
35. Black-and-white predator : ORCA
37. Eight-time Coty Award winner : BEENE (Geoffrey). Fashion award. Got via crosses as well.
38. Bigwig : HONCHO
47. Response to a sinking feeling? : SOS. I thought this might be sinking a putt. Nope.
49. Radiate : GLOW. And 115. Radiate : EMIT
50. Finalize, with "up" : SEW
51. Lining fabric : FLEECE
52. Yorktown __, N.Y. : HTs
53. Scrabble 8-pointer : J-TILE. Easy J crossing with JOT (53D. Write (down).
54. In the sky : ALOFT
56. Lorre's "Casablanca" role : UGARTE. No memory of this guy. I did like the movie though.
59. Yelled excitedly : WHOOPED. Never used the word as a verb.
61. Election figure : POLLSTER
64. Tic-tac-toe loser : OOX
65. Writer: Abbr. : AUTH
66. Govt. benefit : SSI
71. Attention : EAR
74. Bring up, or something to bring up : REAR. Bring up the rear. Great clue.
76. Want ad letters : EOE
77. "Apollo 13" co-star : ED HARRIS
80. Trustbusting period : TAFT ERA
83. Berra famously jumped into his arms during the 1956 World Series : LARSEN (Don). The only perfect game in World Series.
86. Defiant retort : I DO SO
87. Egglike : OVATE
88. Morse code bit : DIT. Not DAH.
90. Senses, as trouble : SMELLS
93. Diarist Anaïs : NIN
94. Former prime minister who grew up in Milwaukee : MEIR
95. __ culpa : MEA
99. Area for growth? : BOTANY. Nice clue also.
101. Heavy hammers : MAULS. New to me.
103. Santa Monica landmark : PIER
104. It's charged : ION
105. Inactive : IDLE
106. Jump shot shape : ARC
107. Former VOA overseer : USIA (United States Information Agency). Tiny US dupe with 8. "Wild Blue Yonder" mil. branch : USAF
118. "In Rainbows" Grammy-winning rockers : RADIOHEAD. Via crosses as well.
120. One-celled critter : AMEBA. Amoeba is more common.
121. City west of Youngstown : AKRON
122. __ in itself : AN END. Easier when the partial is clued at the back: [Put ___ to (finish)].
123. Madre's hermana : TIA
124. Like forks : TINED
125. New Hampshire college town : KEENE. We had this a couple months ago.
126. Unkempt : MANGY. And 12. Most unkempt : MESSIEST
127. Spots : ADs
128. Stiff collars : ETONs
129. Maritime birds : ERNEs
Down:
1. Assert : STATE
2. One of Chekhov's "Three Sisters" : MASHA. IRINA also has 5 letters.
3. Brownish shade : OCHER
5. Latin 101 verb : ESSE
6. Monk associate : COLTRANE (John). Thelonious Monk. I was picturing a real monk.
7. Double Stuf treats : OREOs
9. Tweeting site : NEST. Always a fun clue.
10. Sapling : TREELET. Thanks for identifying my two Agnes plants, TTP. Now I'm eager to see how that English Ivy spreads. Maybe I should put the polka dot plant back to a pot. They look prettier this way.
11. Peres of Israel : SHIMON
13. Digit in diez : UNO. diez = ten.
14. Mariner's patron : ST. ELMO
16. Farming prefix : AGRI
17. Au __ : PAIR
18. Shakers, but not movers : SECT. Great clue.
26. Compulsory British subject : MATHS. I still can't believe what happened.
28. L.A.'s environs : SoCal
29. Roger of "Cheers" : REES
36. Breakups : RIFTS
37. City near Anaheim : BREA
39. Pace : CLIP
40. With 109-Down, uncommon eagle : HOLE. 109. See 40-Down : IN ONE. On a par 3 hole. Mike often posts stunning golf course pictures on his Facebook. He must play lots of golf.
41. Due : OWED
42. "Stat!" relative : ASAP
43. HR dept. concerns : RELOs
44. Base runners : AWOLs
45. Introduction to science? : NEURO, Neuroscience.
46. Heart test: Abbr. : ECG
48. Warren Commission subject : OSWALD. Oh, Lee Harvey Oswald.
52. Numerical prefix : HEXA. Six.
57. Rodeo competitor : ROPER
58. Ring site : TOE
60. Sudden silence : HUSH
62. Peter or Paul : TSAR. Not SAINT. Fantastic clue.
63. It retired its spokesbaby in 2014 : E*TRADE
68. Breton or Gael : CELT
69. Ukulele wood : KOA. Learning moment for me.
70. Take more People : RENEW. Magazine.
72. Quaker Oats product suffix : A-RONI
73. "Mr. Mojo __": repeated words in The Doors' "L.A. Woman" : RISIN'
75. Rare shoe width : EEE
78. United choice : AISLE. Another great clue.
79. Lennon work : SONG
80. Pyramid, to Tut : TOMB. Big "D'oh!"
81. Economical Chevy : AVEO
82. __ accompli : FAIT
84. Latvia and Estonia, once: Abbr. : SSRs
85. "Unbelievable" band : EMF
89. Diamond hit : I AM I SAID. Unfamiliar with the song.
91. Watches one's mouth? : LIPREADS. To me, "one's" always refers to oneself. But you read other's mouth to lipread, right?
92. Canon competitor : LEICA
95. Chatty bird : MYNAH
96. Empty : NULL
97. Improve, as one's game : ELEVATE. This "one's" works perfectly.
98. More smashed : DRUNKER. Sounds weird in ER/EST form.
100. Opposite of a star : NOBODY
102. Avia competitor : ADIDAS
106. Truman veep Barkley : ALBEN. I googled, then found out I had googled him before.
108. Sound during a chase : SIREN
110. Actress Moorehead : AGNES. Hello, Irish Miss!
111. Rail vehicle : TRAM
112. Maui's scenic __ Highway : HANA. So pretty.
113. Paradise : EDEN
116. Ashcroft's predecessor : RENO
117. One leaning against a garden fence : RAKE. Not a person.
119. Greek vowel : ETA
Happy 51st Anniversary to dear Spitzboov (Al) and his wife Betty!
Greetings!
ReplyDeleteThanks to Mike and CC!
Cute theme! Got a kick out of FLIRT TRAINING.
Several things were perped: SMU, BEENE. UGARTE, LARSON, USIA, KEENE, ETRADE, KOA, AVEO, HANA.
Have a great day!
DNF. A lot of white (and later, red) between NERTS and POLLSTER (which started as YES VS NOS > YEA VS NAY). When I turned on the red, I had a bunch scattered thruout the rest of the puzzle too. Mostly where names crossed, tho I did have the rare eagle as HOWE['s] ANOLE. I remembered an ANOLE was some type of animal, but not that it's a lizard type of animal.
ReplyDeleteThe theme was also opaque as fog. I got it in hindsight, but it was no help in solving. THE BEST OF TERMS is a legit phrase for a relationship description, so I didn't even realize it was gimmicked from something else!
{C, C, C.}
MEA CULPA if this poem does not comply
With proper usage to which Latin should apply.
I don't know if TOGAE
Are T-shirts in ESSE,
But at least this poem is FAIT ACCOMPLI!
OSWALD loved AGNES, and he let it show!
Her eyes are so radiant, they EMIT a blue GLOW!
Her voice is a SONG CLIP
That keeps time with the ION DITS,
Of the Geiger COUNTER that tells their love go!
An ORCA and AMEBA were having a spat
Over which one was really tending towards fat!
Absolute numbers favored the ORCA;
Percentage of body pointed to the AMEBA.
They hailed a whale, who judged them -- both perfect snacks!
Morning, all!
ReplyDeleteMostly smooth romp today with a few impossible crosses thrown in just to make things interesting, I guess...
Had trouble getting the theme right away simply because I was expecting some punny stuff and THE BEST OF TERMS seemed like a perfectly normal phrase to me. It wasn't until I got to ARABIAN NERTS that the light bulb went on.
Impossible cross number one occurred at LARSEN/EMF. Didn't know either and finally guessed that EMF looked more like a band name than OMF. Really wanted ELO, but that didn't work. In that same area, I barely remembered that KOA was a type of wood, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to guess at LARSEN.
Impossible cross number two occurred at BEENE/BREA. Not a baseball fan and had no idea who BREENE was. And, while I've heard of La BREA tar pits before, I'm not familiar with BREA itself. Again, I finally guessed that BREA was the most likely city name and BEENE certainly sounded like a real name as well.
DIT, DOT, DAH... All begin with "D", all have three letters, and all fit the clue. Couldn't make any of them work, however, until I finally realized that "Diamond Hit" was referring to the singer. D'OH!
And yes, I meant BEENE, not BREENE...
ReplyDeleteI agree that the title is the perfect description of the puzzle and wonder if it did not come first. I had more unknowns than usual for a Sunday with UGARTE ringing no bells at all and HANA, TREELETS and I AM I SAID all perped...
ReplyDeleteISOMETRIC exercises were quite the big thing here for a while when I was young; I recall many people standing in doorways.
Happy Sunday all.
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteNo, I didn't get the theme. Par, but no HOLE IN ONE. Managed to fix everything except AVEA/BATANY. NERTS!
NERTS and C.C.'s "D'oh" comment evoked memories of a Simpsons episode I watched last night. Mr. Burns had just announced that there would no longer be free donuts for the employees at the power plant. The reaction (0:05). Priceless.
Learning moment: "Hermana" means sister, not husband. I had TIO.
Have always heard the expression as "an end unto itself" rather than "in itself."
"United option" is a sore spot. Especially if it had been "American option." A couple of weeks back I booked a flight to Florida for this week. It wound up costing a bundle, because none of the "included" seating was available and there was an additional seating charge for every leg of the flight. I got buyer's remorse within minutes and called American and cancelled. The refund showed up on my Mastercard, but only for the flight -- not for the $95.20 in add'l seating charges. I called to complain, and was told I had to request the refund on-line. I did so, and they emailed this morning that they'd already refunded that flight. Excuse me, it's time to go back to on-hold hell....
I suppose Tut would've looked at a pyramid and known it was a TOMB, but Tutankhamen himself was buried underground, not in a pyramid.
ReplyDeleteLorre as UGARTE acquired the "letters of transit" and gave them to Rick to hold for him, which brought Ilsa and Victor to Rick's cafe and set the plot in motion.
If I used NERTS at all it'd be for frustration, despair would seem to require a stronger word.
Thanks C.C. for including the Neil Diamond song. In my youth he was one of my favorite singers and I still have several of his albums (vinyl).
ReplyDeleteThere were several areas that stymied me; "nerf" eluded me partly because, through crosswords, I've heard of EMO but never EMF. Hope I remember this in the future!
Have a lovely day, everyone.
Hello Puzzlers -
ReplyDeleteRan into some trouble at Togae and Nerf. I didn't realize there was a whole family of Nerf branded products, including Super Soakers. I only knew the soft foam toys by that name. Got there ultimately.
Morning, C.C., thanks for elucidating today.
On Friday I drove through Lenox, MA, and went past the famous Tanglewood grounds. There was a lot of activity, and upon reflection I realized they were getting ready for the summer season opening performance on Saturday. It was to be the final Prairie Home Companion show from Tanglewood. So ends another era. Garrison Keillor has earned his retirement.
As I started seeing the theme, I thought NOTHING TO HERD came from ...TOO HARD, which further camouflaged the gimmick.
ReplyDeleteI have a lot of additional comments I could make (some even in polite language), but I imagine they'll show up from other posters.
However, I did pick up an earworm for Hush.
"Compulsory British subject : MATHS. I still can't believe what happened."
ReplyDeleteB-b-b-baby you ain't seen nothing yet.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, I got off to a very slow start and it seemed like forever before the theme came into focus. I, too, wanted EMO but it just wouldn't work. I knew Ugarte but kept tripping over the pronounciation and spelling. And, for the life of me, I could not remember what field the Coty awards are for. Avea, Avio, Aveo, who can remember? Not I! All in all, I struggled to get the tada but finally crossed the finish line, slower than usual, but in one piece.
Thanks, Mike, for a Sunday Stumper and thanks, CC, for a great expo and the CSO. The plants look hearty and healthy, not to mention pretty as a picture!
DO @ 7:31 - I hope you have less aggravation getting your refund than I experienced getting mine for the erroneous charge for the newspaper cancellation. I still get agita every time I think of what I had to go through! My sister is now going through a similar situation with Verizon. Remember the good old days when people were competent and customer service put the customer first?
There once was a fella named Diz,
Who was thought to be quite the Wiz.
He had magical powers
That turned weeds into flowers,
Which led to a fast growing Biz.
Don't worry, I won't quit my day job. (Whatever that might be! ��)
Have a great day.
Verizon is notorious for that stuff. Try the FCC , Verizon is mortally afraid of them
DeleteVery challenging with so many names and unknowns crossing each other. All my perps and wags were successful except for EMF. Got BREA, BEENE, REES which were iffy.Have you heard about the Ohio teen who died from breathing in a brain eating AMEBA.
ReplyDeleteScary!
I use WHOOP as a verb. We WHOOPED when our team won the tournament.
Also there is the whooping crane.
Does it sound like a WHOOP?
“A giggle in every theme fill” should be Mike’s motto today! SILVER LEARNING my fav. As a blogger I know titles can be hard but Mike or Rich hit this one out of the park.
ReplyDeleteMusings
-SLAIN seemed better than SMOTE but… and MATHS?
-Nobody said that SNAP had to go between the center’s legs (:25)
-I filled in ASHES and AISLE and “got ‘em” five minutes later
-Some UK POLLSTERS forecasted a 23% likelihood of Brexit occurring
-ED HARRIS, playing Gene Kranz got the second most famous line from Apollo 13
-I made my girls shoot over a mop I held up to get more ARC on their shot
-The King of/in AKRON this week.
-Oh, that secular MONK!
-In HEXAdecimals, I will be only 46 in September
-LIPREADS seemed wrong to me as well
-NULL humor
-I’m no fan, but RENO got trapped into two seemingly “no win” situations with Elian Gonzalez and Waco
Hi Y'all! I made a big mistake before I started the puzzle and didn't eat breakfast. I badly needed brain fuel for this 2 hour endeavor. Lots to like, but more to frustrate in it. Thanks, Mike, for a workout.
ReplyDeleteNever really got the theme until C.C. 'splained it. I had to laugh: all the clues C.C. especially liked were the ones that caused me trouble. Have to admit they were clever.
Confidently typed in NOTHING mOoing, for cowboy unemployment. Nope. Liked that better than TO HERD. I know now it didn't fit the theme. Still like it better. Made me giggle.
ARABIAN NERTS was the last fill area. NERTS fit my feelings on it.
Knew ORSER, AL HIRT, OSWALD & MEIR, thankfully. Some of the others had to be red-letter runs.
SOS: I got such a sinking feeling on this puzzle. Maybe I needed to be DRUNKER.
Couldn't get USAF. As you may recall, I have a son retired from that prestigious organization. Couldn't get the US part. Duh!
Didn't remember any TSAR named Paul.
Oh, Neil Diamond & not the sparkly kind.
Knew ALBEN Barkley's name was one that no one else's mother had inflicted on him.
Knew FAIT but not how to spell it: FeTe, FATe. Perps to the rescue.
FLIRT TRAINING was nothing I ever needed. I was naturally adept in my younger years, to my mother's chagrin.
Good morning all. Thank you Mike and CC.
ReplyDeleteI got the theme right away. Or so I thought. Then got bogged down in so many unknowns. Didn't help that I either misspelled or flat out entered the wrong answer in other places.
HObnob before HONCHO. Was thinking nabob I guess. SHaMON before SHIMON. OCHre before OCHER. Either is correct, but not in this puzzle. Au LAIt before Au PAIR. AbOve before ALOFT. MiNAH before MYNAH. Nikon before LEICA. Spelled LARSEN with an O. Probably due to working with a Larson for years.
I too am more accustomed to "An end unto itself" rather than in.
FAIT Accompli. Motto of the 79th Engineer Battalion
My front tire blew out on a five lane section of the interstate in a city west of Youngstown on the return trip from a visit to Ohio State in my junior year of high school. It was a Firestone 500 Radial. They were HQ'ed in AKRON. How appropos.
I know, "spare me the specifics" it's TMI.
Happy anniversary to Spitz and Betty. Best wishes for a quick recovery, Betty.
ReplyDeleteIrish Miss, I liked your poem.
DO, I sympathize with your bureaucratic runaround. After hours held in telephone limbo, sometimes there still is no solution forthcoming. Our newspaper columnist who works on this kind of problem is not always successful, even with all her clout, but sometimes it works. Good luck to you.
The British word, MATHS, sounds odd to our American ears, but we do add the S for mathematics, so why not add it to math?
Yeah, I guess a lip reader watches someone else's mouth.
Alan has recovered from his 2 day bug, so we are going to the mall.
Happy Anniversary to Al and Betty ! Just saw that. Hope all went well. Must have missed it earlier this morning. Hope all went well with your wife's surgery Spitzboov.
ReplyDeleteSlow but steady this am. Caught the theme at THE BEST OF TERMS, and C.C. believe it because the British are tired of the EU, Commission, & Euro Parliament dictating to them what they can and can't do.
ReplyDeleteCrosses and perps were needed for BEENE, UGARTE, ORSER, KOA wood, Mojo RISIN, and the Unbelievable band EMF. Jump shot -ARC- all shots arc with gravity.
ISOMETRIC- my brother did them regularly using a chain connected to a crossing bar.
UNITED- flew back from Vancouver two weeks ago and our two checked bags were charged $25 each-Canadian. My Mastercard shows a charge of $41.16 American. So I guess you get charged for the bag in the local currency.
Have to be quick as I must be off to church. I just could not enter into Mike's wave length and so had a really hard time with most of this. The bottom breezed in easily but not the top and some of the center. Of course too many sports clues immediately turn me off so that was part of it and some really obscure three letter fill.
ReplyDeleteIt's not Mike's fault, just mine, but still a good challenge. Thank you, Mike and C.C.
Have a delightful Sunday, everyone! Humid here.
SMOTE is the past tense of "smite," which means – even in the Bible – to deliver a heavy blow, not to kill or "off." Foul.
ReplyDeleteThe 111A clue needs an "abbr." or "for short": NBA is an abbreviation for National Basketball Association. Foul.
126A "Unkempt" = MANGY and 12d "Most unkempt" = MESSIEST = double meaning definition foul, besides which, MANGE is not a mess, it's a disease. Foul.
The 3D clue needs a "var.": OCHRE is a more common spelling than OCHER. Foul.
EKG misinitialed again. Foul.
It's OK to put Neil Diamond in a crossword puzzle. EMF is too obscure. Foul.
The 95D clue needs a "var." Both MINA and MYNA (without an H on the end) are more common spellings than MYNAH. Foul.
By the way, Barry G., "La Brea tar pits" is redundant.
C,mon Anon, lighten up. It is a weekend puzzle, after all. Your complaints might fit a Monday puzzle.
ReplyDeleteThe dictionary says SMITE means to hurt, kill, or punish (someone or something). In the Bible SMITE was often used in the sense of kill.
MANGY means more than having the mange. From the dictionary:
1. Affected with, caused by, or resembling mange.
2. Shabby or squalid: a mangy old coat; mangy tenements.
3. Mean; contemptible.
OCHRE/OCHER and ECG/EKG are both acceptable. So are variants of MYNAH. Weekend crosswords do not always go for the most common spelling or meaning. That is why many of us prefer them. BTW, I most frequently see MYNAH with the H.
We call “most unkempt” and “unkempt "clechos : Clue echos. Same clues for different entries in the grid." See the definitions in Olio.
NBA is so common it does not need an abbrev. as a helper on weekends.
Continuing:
ReplyDeleteWe have discussed La Brea Tar Pits incessantly here. In meaning it may be repetitious, but that is the official name of those specific tar pits. They are not merely La Brea, because that could refer to any tar pits.
BTW, when I was new here someone wrote,"How do you know? Isn't that merely your own opinion?" Ever since that I have backed up my own opinion with research. Some think that is pedantic, but I think off-the-top-of-the-head rhetoric is specious and ill informed.
We need to cultivate day of the week puzzle sensibilities. Even when I goof I prefer the challenge and ambiguity of weekend puzzles.
I had fun with this one. Or at least I thought I did until ANON made me realize that I should be cursing the fouls instead of enjoying the morning. (kidding). I don't create puzzles, I just solve them so I don't care about whatever minor rules are broken. I did an online puzzle the other day which contained the same word and clues: Bird's beak: NEB, Birds' beaks: NEBS. Now that's a foul.
ReplyDeleteDudley @ 0930 - I heard most of that show last night. Very entertaining - he had just returned from Oslo, so he was in fine fettle describing his interactions with the Norwegians.
ReplyDeleteTTP @1135 - All went well with BH's surgery. She came home 2 days after the procedure and is walking with minimal assist. Thanks for asking.
Still working on today's puzzle.
The BLOB was filmed in my hometown of Abbeville La. I was an extra in the movie. Quite a few of my friends were in there also ~!~!
ReplyDeleteThis one ate my lunch before I could. Very good puzzle tho ~!~!
Plus Tard from Cajun Country ~!~!
Happy Anniversary Spitz & Betty. May you enjoy many more.
ReplyDeleteVery hard, but satisfying puzzle. Sure, I had to look some things up, such as the name of the Peter Lorre character. I used to feel that Googling was somehow "cheating," but have changed my mind. My mother was an avid and skilled crossword solver, and she had no qualms about referring to her massive dictionary, her Roget's thesaurus, her Columbia encyclopedia, or her Bartlett's book of quotations to help her get answers. I have now adopted that philosophy, so for me there are now more levels, or nuances, of what measures my solving "success." Today, for example, I feel I solved this doozy of a puzzle successfully and satisfactorily even though I used network searches to acquire information I didn't otherwise have. The alternative would to have "failed" to solve it, which I believe is a less satisfying, even unfulfilling, alternative.
ReplyDeleteLucina, we just had a wonderfully pleasant telephone chat with our son and his family in Tempe, and they did mention that it was getting "humid" there. 20% relative humidity, in fact, which would be dry here. "It's all relative, Gramma."
Happy anniversary, Al and Betty, and best wishes to you all.
Spitz, good news. Happy anniversary!
ReplyDeleteJayce, we agree yet again. I've always preferred finishing a late-week puzzle with whatever help is necessary as opposed to not being able to finish. But you expressed it better than my attempts.
CC, your plant on the right reminds me of caladium house plants I once had. They were lovely. It is too cold here for caladiums to survive the winter outdoors. When the indoor plant died off in the fall I threw it away. I now realize I could have preserved it indoors in a dormant state during the winter and started it again in the spring.
ReplyDeletecaladiums
Good evening everyone.
ReplyDeleteLate posting. Finished today's solve. Liked the theme. Did not like the clue for 44d - AWOLS; as it seemed utterly amorphous. I'm sure there are many runners on bases what with PT and all that, but, of course, they are not AWOLS. AWOLS are not runners; they just don't show up for muster. Very awkward wording.
An entertaining puzzle with a more-challenging-than-usual theme for a Sunday. Loved the clue for SECT, even if I thought the crossing TOGAE was a heavy price to pay for that entry.
ReplyDeleteBut I have to say that 1A was an unfortunate way to start. And, yeah, I get that it's a Sunday puzzle, and I completely agree with Yellowrocks on MANGY, OCHRE, ECG, and MYNAH. I do think, however, that Anon@12:11 has a valid point re: SMOTE (which might have been more readily heard if phrased less pugnaciously).
To "off" in the sense of the clue is to "slay". To "smite" is to hit hard. Those who are sufficiently smitten may, indeed, end up slain, but the two things are most assuredly not the same. Check it out at Oxford Dictionary.
Finally got around to this after a 3 week business trip - shouldn't have returned. VERY stupid theme and I intensely dislike all the slang within. "RADIO EAR"?????? NERTS????? Give me a break! When will a constructor be born who actually knows how to use American English and eschews pop media claptrap, slang and nonsensical abbreviations?? I know it's more difficult to do so, but please try!!!
ReplyDeleteI know it's way too late but despite everything I don't get NERTS. From the theme it was indubitable but what's a NERT!!!
ReplyDeleteI saw my SOCAL friend and meant to ask him about four letter towns. BREA/BEENE cross was tough
Xword etiquette? Mine is you can ask someone who never did a xword in there life things like Pokemon characters or Beyonce song lyrics but never Google
Problem is you ask'em and they go ahead and Google it.
Haven't started Wed yet
Fun theme. I got all the way through but was left with a totally unknown crossing of REES/BEENE. This seemed like an unfair crossing as several letters could have fit and made it a possible name. My WAG did work.
ReplyDeleteDid not know the city of Brea even though I live in California. But I know "brea" means "tar" in Spanish so I could guess it could be a city name. A lot of oil producing areas in California are also tar seeps. The beach near my home is often covered in tar.