Theme: WITH APPROPRIATE ACTIONS. The word WITH is inserted into familiar 2-word phrases, yielding a new 3-word phrase. In each instance, the first word, originally functioning as a noun, is verberized in a way that is synonymous the verb "tweak" in its respective clue. "Tweak" means to make some kind of adjustments to something. As an exercise, the interested reader might want to reimagine yet another set of meanings, in which the first words are reverted back to noun status. Thus endeth my longest ever theme exposition.
17. Tweak some violin holders? : FIDDLE WITH CASES. Musical instruments are fragile and have specially designed cases to protect them. One may tweak them, I suppose. And violins are FIDDLES, so it's all good.
27. Tweak some church chimers? : TINKER WITH BELLS. So - what does this bring to mind? TINKER BELL or Quasimodo? And what does this say about you? No need to answer.
49. Tweak some ski parkas? : MESS WITH JACKETS. A MESS JACKET is a formal waist coat. One may tweak it, but the connection to skiing is lost on me.
63. Tweak some business outfits? : MONKEY WITH SUITS. Remember dress for success - navy blue suit, white shirt and rep tie? [Too often worn by human rep-tiels, but that's another story.] This is known in the vernacular as a MONKEY SUIT. You can change his coat and alter its pants.
Well, these are cleverly constructed, and all four theme answers are grid-spanning. Three of the four make a tight set. Maybe there's a point to MESS JACKET that I'm missing; but it doesn't seem to quite fit the pattern.
Hi gang - JazzBumpa here. Let's FIDDLE WITH this puzzle, see if anything rings a BELL, and hope it's not a MESS that makes MONKEYS of us all.
Across
1. Just open : AJAR. Opened slightly, not recently.
5. Hot under the collar : ANGRY. Perturbed.
10. Loot from a heist : HAUL. Slang for a robbery and the stolen goods.
15. West Indies volcano : PELEE. On the Island of Martinique, 4583 foot elevation.
16. Site of Napoleon's first exile : ELBA. Able was I ere I saw ELBA.
20. Maker of many kitchen rolls : ALCOA. Aluminum foil, that is, not little bread-like items.
21. Wall St. deal : Leveraged Buy Out. This is the purchase of a controlling share of a company, by its management or an outside investment firm using borrowed money.
22. Baking soda targets : ODORS. Keeps your fridge fresh.
23. Like used fireplaces : ASHY. A word you may well never see again.
25. Tach nos. : RPMs. Revolutions Per Minute, a measure of the rotational speed of a mechanical component. In an automobile, the RPMs of the crank shaft are displayed by the tachometer.
34. Brit. record label : EMI. Originally an acronym for Electronic and Musical Industries.
35. A few bucks? : DEER. Male animals of the family Cervidae. Finding this answer did not take a lot of doe.
36. Fuss over : DOTE ON. Treasure, cherish and be uncritically fond of.
37. Part of a sitcom farewell : NANU. Poignant clip.
39. Pulled off : DID. Accomplished
41. Spot for a 48-Across : SOFA. Not a NAP spot for me. Puts a crook in my neck.
42. Representatives : AGENTS. A person who acts on behalf of another.
45. Nintendo rival : SEGA. They went out of the game console business in 2001, but remain the world's most prolific arcade producer.
48. Short snooze : NAP. Not for me. I sack out for at least an hour.
52. __ helmet : PITH. AKA the sola topi, a light weight cloth covered head covering made originally from the pith of the sola, an Indian swamp plant of the pea family. Cork-like substances from other plants may also be used
53. Pre-coll. catchall : EL-HI. Referring to ELementary and HIgh school education, my dear Watson.
54. Torch job : ARSON. The crime of burning down a bulding.
57. And such: Abbr. : ETC. And so on, yadda, yadda, yadda. Abbr. for ET Cetera, from Latin for "and the rest."
59. Trims, as a lawn : EDGES. Along the walkways, ETC.
66. Arctic formation : FLOE. A sheet of ice that calves off a glacier.
68. Scientology guru Hubbard : L. RON. Famous writer and highly influential charlatan. Notably, he briefly commanded two ships during WW II, but each time was relieved of this duty because his superiors found him to be incapable.
69. Like most fairways, daily : MOWN. Short cut grass on a golf course.
70. Some Parliament members : LORDS. House of Lords and House of Commons.
71. A whole bunch : TONS. Slang for lots and lots.
Down
Down
1. NATO alphabet starter : ALFA. This exists so that "critical combinations of letters and numbers can be pronounced and understood by those who exchange voice messages by radio or telephone regardless of language barriers or the quality of the communication channel." See the whole series here.
2. Monopoly corner : JAIL. Neither Free Parking, Go, nor the awful Go To Jail square fit.
3. Adapter letters : AC-DC. Alternating and Direct electrical Current.
4. New Jersey's state tree : RED OAK. Michigan's is Eastern White Pine. I'll let you guess Ohio's.
6. One recently hitched : NEWLYWED. Successful chest thumper, perhaps.
7. Smooth-talking : GLIB.
8. Parting shot : RETORT. Not necessarily parting. Could be any sharp or wittily incisive response.
9. Slangy "Sure" : YEH. Uh-huh.
10. Hands-free devices : HEADSETS. Devices that hold earphones and a microphone in place on a user's head.
11. To boot : ALSO. Originally, something extra thrown into a bargain, from Old English bōt, meaning "advantage" or "remedy." Ultimately of Germanic origin.
12. Lyft rival : UBER. Both are app-based ride sharing protocols connecting passengers with available drivers.
13. Scottish miss : LASS. A young lady, Not to be confused with Swiss Miss, a chocolate-flavored drink.
18. Performed light surgery on? : LASED. Performed surgery with a laser.
19. Jazz club performers : COMBO. Small group of musicians.
24. Eur. power until 1806 : HRE. I had no idea that the Holy Roman Empire existed that long. It reached its greatest geographic extent in the 13th century, and had been losing bits and pieces since.
26. Third deg.? : PHD. After B.S [everyone knows what that stands for;] and MS [more of the same;] comes PHD [Piled Higher and Deeper.] The cynical view is that one advancing in specific studies gets to know more and more about less and less, until s/he knows everythign about nothing.
27. Midmorning hr. : TEN AM. Time for a coffee break.
28. Reflection : IMAGE. What you see in the mirror. But the mirror sees you!
29. Little League teams : NINES. For a baseball team at any level, the synecdoche is a NINE.
30. Like Oscar Wilde : IRISH. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde [1854-1900] was a playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet. His most famous works are The Importance of Being Earnest and The picture Of Dorian Gray. He spent time in prison for being homosexual, a crime at that time. After his release he felt London for Paris, where he died, destitute.
31. Big name in spaghetti westerns : LEONE. Sergio, [1929 - 1989] an Italian film producer, director, and screen writer, made famous in the mid 60's by his low budget, Italian-made movies about the American old west starring Clint Eastwood.
32. OK for dieters : LO-FAT. Or lo-cal. Needed perps to tweak my answer.
33. Breaks like a branch : SNAPS. As a branch from a tree in high wind. Or, sometimes, even the trunk.
38. Implied : UNSPOKEN. Or, at least, not spoken of directly.
40. Down in the dumps : DEJECTED.
43. Shipping department supply : TWINE. To tie things up.
44. Lab order? : SIT. Command to a Labrador Retriever.
46. Milk purch. : GALlon. Note Abrvs.
47. Feels the pain : ACHES. Remember when Bill Clinton said, "I ACHE with you?"
50. "My Generation" band : THE WHO. KIDULTS?
51. Portmanteau for a grown-up who hasn't yet grown up : KIDULT. Not familiar with this term. But my motto is, "What I lack in youth, I make up for with immaturity. " I did grow up once, didn't like it, and I'm never doing it again. So maybe I qualify.
54. Switch on a boom box : AM FM. Note that "switch" here is a noun not a verb. Toggling it actuates either of two different radio frequency bands.
55. Caramel-filled candy : ROLO. Shaped like an inverted bucket, this candy is chocolate coated caramel.
56. Put one over on : SNOW. An attempt to fool or mislead somebody.
58. Stadium ticket specification : TIER. A seat grouping at some range of elevation.
60. Copter's forerunner : GIRO. More formally, autogiro or autogyro - a type of aircraft with both a powered propeller, as in a typical airplane, and an unpowered set of rotor blades that rotate in the slip stream to provide lift. One was first flown in January, 1923. The first operational helicopter was built in Germany in 1936.
61. David Cameron's alma mater : ETON. Any hint of a 4-letter British school, plug it in.
60. Copter's forerunner : GIRO. More formally, autogiro or autogyro - a type of aircraft with both a powered propeller, as in a typical airplane, and an unpowered set of rotor blades that rotate in the slip stream to provide lift. One was first flown in January, 1923. The first operational helicopter was built in Germany in 1936.
61. David Cameron's alma mater : ETON. Any hint of a 4-letter British school, plug it in.
62. Three-part figs. : SSNS. Social Security Numbers, portrayed as 123-45-6789.
64. Monogram on some pricey handbags : YSL. The initials of Yves Saint Laurent. I never understood why putting some foreign guy's name or initials on an article could inflate its purchase price by some high multiple.
65. Store door nos. : HRS. Hours that they are open for business.
That wraps it up. I had my nits, but this is a fine puzzle, brought to you by two of the best names in the field. Hope you enjoyed it.
Cool regards!
JzB
That wraps it up. I had my nits, but this is a fine puzzle, brought to you by two of the best names in the field. Hope you enjoyed it.
Cool regards!
JzB
50 comments:
Greetings!
Thanks to Gail, Bruce and Jazz!
Swell puzzle. Cute theme. Easier than usual Wed., I thought.
Didn't know REDOAK, but nothing else to note.
Slept a lot today. What now?
Cheers!
No particular problems, except that I've never seen GYRO spelt with an I before. Nor YEAH without an A. Nor KIDULT with any spelling. All inferable, with solid crosses, but still ---
The theme was also pretty meh, I'm afraid. TINKER-BELL would have been cutest, but not -BELLS plural. FIDDLE-STICKS, but not -CASES. MONKEY SUITS was bland, but grammatically stronger than the other two. A MONKEY SUIT is a tuxedo, but what was a MESS-JACKET?
Fairy-dust is sprinkled by a small elfin miss;
TINKER-BELL sprays it around as a mist!
Some notice the floaters
Evince distinct ODORS --
After all, fairy sparkles are lisping fairy PITH!
Brucie was being released at long last,
Wrote his boyfriend, if you want me, give the oak tree a sash!
But the tree was left bare,
Not because of no care,
But because yellow ribbon and RED OAK just clash!
~^~^~^~
Nell sells daisies on a glacial ice FLOE,
The temperature freezing, starting to SNOW!
Her brother has MOWN lawns
Since just before dawn,
And her grandma turns tricks at NINE BUCKS a go!
There ne'er was a story as pitiable as Nell's,
(It's the kind of movie that really sells!)
She gets ASHY but warm
When a cad burns her farm --
(The ANGRY villain will be ARSON Welles)!
{C+ (questionable language), C+ (non-PC stereotype), C+ (absurdness), C+ (horrid pun).}
Good morning!
The theme was hard to miss this morning. Even on my tablet, typing with a stylus, this one came to together with quickly. Thanx, BV, GG and JzB.
It's gonna be a dandy dumpling day here on Florida's left coast...if it ever gets light out.
Guessed wrong on A or E for YEH.
Good Morning, JazzBumpa and friends. I was not Stuck in the Middle with you on this puzzle. I realized immediately that WITH was the insert into a common phrase, although I am not familiar with a MESS JACKET.
The Bald Cypress is the State Tree of Louisiana. What is your state tree?
When is a door not a door? When it's AJAR!
Third Degree = Ph.D. was my favorite clue of the puzzle.
I was a NEWLYWED 30 years ago yesterday.
Fun seeing AC/DC and AM/FM in the same puzzle.
I over though A Few Bucks and initially went for Ones instead of DEER.
Like Owen, I wanted Gyro instead of GIRO.
Still assisting people who literally lost everything in the Louisiana flood. It is truly amazing how the community has come together to help. Over 10% of my colleagues lost everything, and nearly everyone else was affected in one way or another.
QOD: The world can’t tell you who you are. You’ve just got to figure out who you are and be there, for better or worse. ~ Dave Chappelle (b. Aug. 24, 1973)
JZB- you need to correct your write up of Oscar Wilde- It reads 'he FELT London' instead of 'he LEFT London'.
Good morning! It was an easy Wednesday and the theme was obvious from the gitgo. I was WITH it all the way until 51D and KIDULT was all perps. The MESS WITH JACKETS was an easy fill but I never heard of a MESS JACKET.
Sodium Bicarbonate- I buy it in big bags and use it to keep the outside of my gutters stain free. I also spread it all over the floor mats of my cars before I vacuum them. Cars never have a smell.
Good morning, folks. Thank you, Gail and Bruce, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Jazzbumpa, for a fine review.
I wanted to do this in the paper this morning, but they delivered the Daily Herald instead of the Chicago Tribune. So, I used the IPad.
Puzzle was fine. Theme appeared and was very good. Four grid spanners, to boot!
My last word was PELEE, because I had it spelled wrong. Had an A at the end. That is the good thing about doing it on the IPad or computer. You know if there is a problem.
NANU again, so soon. Interesting.
I am out the door to guard the crossing. See youn tomorrow.
Abejo
( )
Re: Yesterday,
Too nice a day not to spend it out in nature.
However,
A belated Happy Birthday is due Tinbeni, (I hope it is not to late for a chaser...)
(& yes,it is a cake...)
Also, Proof I read the late night comments...
Re: Todays puzzle,
Learning moment: red oak is NJ's state tree?
hmm, the wood of sinking ships is New Jersey's state tree. How appropriate...
I recently saw a 1 hour TV program explaining the mysterious circumstances
of the ghost ship, Mary Celeste. It turns out they were carrying barrels of alcohol,
made of white oak. however 9 of the barrels were accidentally made of red oak,
which is very porous. The result was disastrous...
If interested, here is a synopsis.
If REALLY interested, here are the technical reasons...
This is the third time NANU has appeared in a major newspaper puzzle this week (although one of those was syndicated and a month old). It's too odd a word not to notice.
Good morning everyone.
Always enjoy the Gail - Bruce collaborations. Once I saw wherte the theme was going, I quickly filled in 'WITHs' wherever I saw an 'i'. 4 spanners. Not too shabby. Kept reading 'tech' for 'tach'; so finally got RPMS. Do you think we may be über using UBER?
Otherwise, no issues, no erasures, no look-ups.
Start of the NATO alphabet is ALPHA, not ALFA.
Another hand up for MESS JACKET, but apparently it's become waiters' wear as well as formal military dinner dress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mess_jacket
To pick a nit, RPMS seems like a redundant plural.
Always thought MONKEY SUIT was specifically a tuxedo, but I suppose it can be any suit that's way more formal than the wearer is used to.
Jazz: Wonderful write-up. Enjoyed THE WHO.
Gail & Bruce: Thank you for another FUN Wednesday puzzle. You two are a Great COMBO.
CED: Nice cake! I agree with its sentiment ... Age is just a number.
(But, dang, I can't seem to get that When I'm Sixty-Four ear-worm out of my head. LOL!)
Fave today was the theme "MONKEY-WITH-SUITS" ... I wore a suit for 40 years until I Retired.
Now, I pretty much wear "Shorts and a T-Shirt."
Hahtoolah, I looked it up. The Florida State Tree is the Sabal Palm.
I was kinda hoping it was the Gumbo Limbo Tree (Been reading a lot of Randy Wayne White books lately).
A "Toast-to-ALL" at Sunset ... or when the "Sun-Gets-Over-The-Yardarm."
Cheers!
Greetings to all!
Fun, fun puzzle today. Gail and Bruce are a great duo. PHD clued as third degree gave me a chuckle.
Wonderful expo, Jazzbumpa. You outDID yourself.
Enjoy the day!
Musings
-If Lila Cherry is willing to accept KIDULT in Bruce and Gail’s fun puzzle, so am I.
-Is a MESS JACKET another name for an Eisenhower Jacket?
-I just recently discovered this feature of the boxes with those rolls
-You’d see DOTE ON in action if you attend a Little League NINES game
-Having trouble finding a ball you know landed in the UNMOWN fairway makes you ANGRY
-End of a famous Churchill RETORT – “If I were your husband, I’d drink it!”
-A frequently used LASER procedure these days
-A 33 second video showing the diminution of the HRE
-Trees SNAPPED in 90 mph winds a few miles from here last night
-UNSPOKEN “rules” of baseball
-A DEJECTED cousin of mine greatly details all her emotional baggage on Facebook
-This GIRO was featured in Frank Capra’s fabulous It Happened One Night
Hi gang -
Fun times today. I especially love it when some anon pipes up to allegedly correct what is already right.
It absolutely is ALFA!
I'll let felt for left stand to remind me that I'm not perfect.
Gotta run. Yard work to do, and rain is coming later in the day.
Cool regards!
JzB
Good Morning:
My delight and appreciation for Gail and Bruce's concoctions continues. This was clever and fun to solve. I, too, had Gyro and had to wait for perps on a few fill-ins, but finished cleanly and quickly. I also liked seeing AC/DC and AM/FM. I've heard of Mess Jackets, I think, in the military sense. I was unaware Oscar Wilde died so young.
Thanks a bunch, Gail and Bruce, for a mid-week treat and thanks, JzB, for the enjoyable and informative expo.
Happy Anniversary a day late, Hatoolah, I hope it was special (considering the circumstances).
Happy Anniversary to Wilbur and wife, also. This should dispel your idea that late-night posts go unread. Au contraire! I think most of the regular posters read the previous day's posts before they read the current blog.
Have a great day.
Anon @ 0807 - ALFA is correct. Web sites agree w/ my actual experience in a NATO unit. Alphabet word equivalents were selected so that regardless of a NATO member's native language, the word pronunciation could be uniquely understood by any other member. Pilots use it for the same reason.
Good Morning!
What fun this morning! Thanks Gail and Bruce. Fvorites: PHD and KIDULT--Never heard this before, but I know quite a few. Yesterday in Chicago, a Nordstrom was robbed of approximately ten pricey designer handbags worth $25K. Quite a HAUL! My husband fell off his chair and said that must be a mistake. No, sir. It's true. None in my closet, however.
JazzB, Your informative explications and wonderful wit are delightful! Many thanks. In Bayeux, France, I visited a lace shop where women were working on lace patterns. En francais, a sign read, "Do not disturb lace makers." Very complicated work with a beautiful result.
Have a fine day.
Still absolutely HATE el-hi, a word that exists only in crossword puzzles.
Reallly liked the theme this morning, and got it quickly with TINKERBELLS and MONKEYSUITS. The others were a bit of a stretch, but was impressed with the gridspanners. Thanks, Bruce & Gail, for a fun morning outing!
Nice write-up, JzB. Also enjoyed The Who.
Hi All!
I flew through Gail & Bruce's effort faster than yesterday's. I was on their (No Negative) Waves-length today. Thanks to the both of you for a clean (if somewhat-unheard-of) theme-spanner puzzle. MONKEY SUIT was my favorite of the themers - I say that every time I have ta wear a tie & JACKET.
JzB - Hand up - LOcAl @1st. Thanks for the expo & THE WHO clip.
THE WHO - only the 3rd greatest rock-band ever - with perhaps the greatest drummer [if you have 53:33 - BBC] outside of a jazz COMBO.
WOs: Just LOcAl. Oh, and the bone-headed mis-parse: TINKER WI TH(E) BELL
ESP: ELBA (ere, I saw...)
Fav: WEES - PhD for 3rd. Deg.
JzB - Ever have a guy from India explain that to you? My buddy in college was getting a "Piled High and Deep" in Chem when I first heard "BS, MS, PhD" from him. His accent made it priceless!
{B, A, C+, A- (I love PITHy-puns!)}
FLN - Happy 30 Wilber. And Hahtoolah too! Hahtoolah - You're doing god's work in LA - blessings upon you.
The Army fed me my phonetics... ALFA, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo[...], Romeo...
Hey, CAN I claim ALFA for the CSO?
YEH, just DID :-)
Cheers, -T
From Wikipedia, FWIW...
After the phonetic alphabet was developed by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)[1] (see history below) it was adopted by many other international and national organizations, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), and the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU).
The ICAO developed this system in the 1950s in order to account for discrepancies that might arise in communications as a result of multiple alphabet naming systems coexisting in different places and organizations.[5]
In the official[6] version of the alphabet, the non-English spellings Alfa and Juliett are used. Alfa is spelled with an f as it is in most European languages because the English and French spelling alpha would not be pronounced properly by native speakers of some other languages – who may not know that ph should be pronounced as f. Juliett is spelled with a tt for French speakers, because they may otherwise treat a single final t as silent. In some English versions of the alphabet, one or both of these may have their standard English spelling.[7]
Pretty well done puzzle in construction and clueing. "Mess with Jackets" is weak though.
Hahtoolah, congratulations on your 30th wedding anniversary. Best wishes for much more future joy and happiness.
In 'your' QOD, should it not be,
1 Either .....'You've just got to figure, who you are, and be THAT, for better or for worse' .... ?
or, 2, ....'You've just got to figure, WHERE you are, and be there, for better or for worse' ... ?
or am I missing something.
Happy 30th anniversary wishes to Hahtoolah and hubby (Hahtool?), and to Wilbur and Betsy.
Fun puzzle. Add my enthusiasm to that already expressed by several of you about that wonderful team of Grabowsky & Venske.
And once again I say I really enjoy your write-ups, Jazzbumpa. (That doesn't mean I don't enjoy the write-ups by all of you.)
Every time I see ALFA I think of Anonymous T.
So, Tibeni, will she still feed you?
Best wishes to you all.
Like others before me, I was unaware of KIDULT. But I see how useful a label it is, especially in this intense political period. No names, please.
A clever theme today. I had no trouble with the "ski" reference at 49-A, as did JzB. Maybe I'm missing his point, but "Mess jackets" have as much relation to "ski parkas," to my thinking, as do "Tinker Bells" to "church chimers." Each of the clue categories encompasses the noun in the fill. The delimiters, "ski" and "church," are equally relevant, or irrelevant...
Aren't they?
Jayce - LOL! Why not let Tin's ear-worm live for one more 45 RPM? :-). C, -T
Yes, I'm familiar with MESS JACKET as the required military coat for a formal dinner ("Mess"). When I first learned the term, ages ago, it was indeed a formal version of the Eisenhower jacket. I did not know it became used by waiters or other non-military types.
Loved, loved this one! I thought the theme was fun and impressive. I had no problem with MESS JACKETS because...well...because of what Ol Man Keith said!
Didn't know KIDULT but perps said I had to, and it made some sort of sense.
Owen, I appreciate your explanations for your ratings, but I thought the verses were all fun. As a KIDULT I have no problem, either, with pithy puns.
Hahtoolah, I am also pleased with the way all of Louisiana is helping the flood victims. In New Orleans everyone I know feels very strongly that we need to pay back for the help we got after Katrina.
Has anyone heard from Boo? The water went his way after it left the Baton Rouge area and he hasn't posted since.
Hi Y'all! Fun & fast puzzle from Gail & Bruce. I always view their names with unease because I'm not always up to their difficult puzzles. This one was great.
I did have a few hiccups. The SW corner made a MONKEY of me and stayed blank until last. For one thing I had ISL instead of YSL. Y I did that, don't know. "Berg" before FLOE. "Play" on golf courses before MOWN. Really? They MOW that often? Candy with caramel: so many. Tapes before TWINE. Haven't used TWINE in packaging in years. Couldn't think of ARSON. DUH! Finally red-letter ran the A and then rapidly filled it all in.
AJAR: My house has settled strangely and the door between the kitchen and garage is permanently AJAR. Making me ANGRY. I had a dead mouse smell in the kitchen yesterday. Can't find the thing. For some reason, I think the AJAR situation has something to do with a mouse getting in. I'm considering using duct tape on the big crack and using the remote on the big door to get to my car. My son looked at it two weeks ago and said he'd have to get a plane. I won't nag him. He's busy.
Never heard of KIDULT. Known a few. Ron, too funny! Great expo!
MESS JACKET had to be military. They're the only people who put on a tie and jacket to attend a MESS. I wear an apron or my oldest clothes.
Happy Anniversary Hahtoolah also Wilbur & Betsy!
Hahtoolah, bless you for helping the flooded. My BFF's granddaughter is getting my check this year instead of the Red Cross. It's a drop in the bucket when everything is gone, but all I can do. Her baby is due any day.
Swamp - Boo posted last night asking re: you & Hahtoolah. Good to read both of you today. C, -T
Ooh, a Wednesday Gail and Bruce puzzle--bound to be exciting, and so it was. I smoothly worked my way down, so got the theme right away and thought it was funny and cute. My only snag came in the little Southwest corner, and I'm embarrassed that I had to look up ROLO in order to finish, even though I had ARSON and FLOE. MONKEY just didn't come to mind and I didn't get MOWN because I wasn't thinking of fairways as golf courses. My limitations in not playing golf or eating chocolate costing me a TADA this morning. But no matter--I had so much fun--and I enjoyed seeing all those MONEKYs, Jazz B.
Have a great day, everybody!
P.S. I loved "Mork and Mindy" so much, NANU NANU can come up in every puzzle, as far as I'm concerned.
The week just keeps getting better...thanks Gail and Bruce. Lots of simple answers, but thinkable clues.
A great Gail G./Bruce V. puzzle that I almost finished! Thanks for correcting my errors, JzB.
The Carolinas were my downfall. My spaghetti westerns and dieters fare messed up that area and I couldn't see the problem so I had to check the grid.
KIDULT? Never heard of it, would prefer to not see it again.
Happy 30th anniversary to Hatoolah and hubby, and also to Wilbur and Betsy. May you celebrate many more!
Wilbur Charles, I learned early on to read last night's late posts the next morning. If I don't, someone always seems to reference the comments and I have to go search to see what I missed.
Positive thoughts to the Cornerites in the flooded areas. I hope come through this with little to no damage.
Have a nice evening.
Pat
Jayce @12:19
Gal-Pal not only still feeds me ... but is a gourmand when it comes to desserts.
Just what I expected since she is a prime younger woman of 61 (as of Aug.5th).
Anon.T @12:38
... Thanks ... and the ear-worm continues ...
(Guess I'll just accept it all-this-year, LOL)
Cheers!
Very late to the party today. Thanks for the fun, Gail and Bruce, and JazzB. Belated HBD to Tinbeni and anniversary congratulations to Hahtoolah & DH, and Wilbur & Betty.
No huge problems today. Hand up for BERG before FLOE and not being familiar with KIDULT.
Many international differences noted today which develop my ASL (American as a Second Language as Nice Cuppa likes to call it!):
Canadians usually have a nap on a couch or chesterfield although SOFA is becoming more common.
Our aluminum rolls are from Alcan not ALCOA.
Parkas are generally warmer than JACKETS here.
We don't have any LORDS in our Canadian Parliament. (We do have some Ladies!)
We have SINS not SSNS. (perhaps that is why we are always saying, "pardon me")
Our milk is not in a GAL but rather in bags (3 bags in a larger bag for a total of 4 Litres).
MilkBags
In our area we can recycle the bags and some service groups are still using the outer bags to weave bed/mats for children in Haiti.
Mats
Our Ontario provincial tree is the Eastern White Pine and of course everyone knows Canada's Maple!
Anon T, thanks for the heads up on Boo. He seems in fine feddle.....er fiddle? Hope he is dry.
And happy happy to all who are celebrating. Did I forget to say that?
Jazz B....you out did yourself today! Thanks! How do you find all those links?
What a fun day this has been...
Thank you CanadianEh! for the info on milk bag mats. I should really try to see if I can make mats out of grocery bags. Seems like a pretty neat idea. I should really watch that video again, and make notes on how those mats are woven.
"puzzling thoughts":
Two late night ditties for this puzzle:
First, a haiku:
Penguin's moving away.
Global warming's causing this.
He'll go with the FLOE
Second, a naughty limerick:
A remarkable fact you should know,
Is how women in Iceland lie low.
When their period starts,
They freeze their private parts;
Seems they just want to go with the FLOE
And a cute limerick:
Said a polar bear on an ice FLOE,
"Old Duke Ellington surely would know,
When it's cold way up here,
The 'blues' shiver your rear;
It creates a true 'Mood Indigo'!"
should've said 3 ditties ...
Canadian Eh: Milk bags? The learning moment of the day. Here I thought the only milk bags were udders or the human equivalent. I can see so many ways of making a MESS with a plastic milk bag and children. Y'all must cope well with it in Canada.
C. Moe {A, C, B} :-)
Misty - I looked and looked for fun Mork & Mindy and found this clip which I found most poignant - all things considered..
C, Eh! - It's funny (peculiar) shopping in other countries - Bags of milk? Really? (I read the pros & cons; interesting) When I was in Cairo the eggs weren't in a cooler; they were just out on a shelf. Weird to this Yank. Aberdeen was the best tho - an entire wall, floor to ceiling, of booze.
Everyone point & laugh at me:.
In Basic I wrote soon-to-be-DW a letter...
"DEER K.", it started...
She wrote back...
"I love you too but there's no need to fawn over me....".
Took me a year for the penny to drop:-)
Cheers, -T
Anonymous T, thank you so much for the clip! I've never seen this before!
In the Navy ('64-'68) and law enforcement dispatching we called it the International Phonetic Alphabet, but a search on that gets a lot of sites about those weird marks that show how things are pronounced. But I persevered and did find this on the NASA Virtual Skies site: (it was in 2 columns & they got kind of mushed together in the copy/paste).
International Phonetic Alphabet
Aviation has its own unique vocabulary, phraseology, and acronyms.
Letter and numeral pronunciation can be easily misunderstood (such as hearing an "S" for an "F" or a "B" for a "D"). Because of that, letters and numerals in aviation are spoken using the International Phonetic Alphabet. This alphabet substitutes an entire word to represent one letter. The first letter of the word is the letter of the alphabet it represents. It would be difficult to confuse "Sierra" (the letter "S") for the letter "F" (said as "Foxtrot"). The numeral "nine" is pronounced "niner." The accepted reasoning is that "nein" is a common German word that means no. By eliminating that pronunciation, confusion was to be avoided.
International Phonetic Alphabet
(Accented syllable in bold.)
A - Alpha ( al - fah) N - November (no - vem - ber)
B - Bravo (brah - voh) O - Oscar (oss - car)
C - Charlie (char - lee) P - Papa (pah - pah)
D - Delta (dell - tah) Q - Quebec (keh - beck)
E - Echo (eck - oh) R - Romeo (roh - me - oh)
F - Foxtrot (foks - trot) S - Sierra (see - air - ah)
G - Golf (golf) T - Tango (tang - go)
H - Hotel (hoh - tell) U - Uniform (you - nee - form)
I - India (in - dee - ah) V - Victor (vik - tor)
J - Juliet (jew - lee- ett) W - Whiskey (wiss - key)
K - Kilo (key - loh) X - X ray (ecks - ray)
L - Lima (lee - mah) Y - Yankee (yang - key)
M - Mike (mike) Z - Zulu (zoo - loo)
No One Reads The Late-Night Posts: Posted After Midnight
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It's late night at the Corner, a hush is on the land.
Proper folks have gone to sleep, trolls are in command!
But wait! An explicator struggles with a grid,
And a moderator, a rogue spammer just has hid!
So rest, you sleepy solvers, the morrow's puzzle will be grand!
It's midnight, and through cyberland, tablets are aglow.
The L.A. Times has come online, blank cells are in each row!
The phosphors fill from block to block,
The ta-da sound will stop the clock,
Some words are constipated thoughts, while other answers flow!
It's the wee hours of the morning, the blog is safe at rest.
The anons are in the woodwork, where none can be a pest!
Somewhere a cruciverbalist wrestles with a vowel,
Thinks it's time to go to bed, leave the id to prowl!
The cells and blocks wait patient, pending subconscious quest!
The dawn is soon approaching, all wrapped up on the porch,
Inside the news and comics, enfolded in the sports,
Next to the sudoku and jumble
There resides the crossword puzzle,
To conquer or be conquered; leave solvers smug or out of sorts!
And so the new day starts, whether weather be bright or rainy.
The crossword is symbolic of the solvers' claim to brainy!
And it doesn't matter in the greater scheme of things
How solvable it is, it's the pleasure that it brings!
Likewise the Crossword Corner, where friends can be explainy!
Me too. I'm still here...
Well, here it is, the next morning. Thanks to all for anniversary wishes, she doesn't do cruises so I guess it's that expensive zoom lens so she can zoom in on the wild birds.
Sky and birds. Florida
Thought I was stuck there on a Wed and then, PUFF, it was done. Having a repeat on NANU helped as 'U'NSPOKEN followed.
Speaking of Florida. Heidi? Feel free to track and opine about that baby.
The (not so) Great Unread
PS. The Great U R was a takeoff of the Great I am. I'll shelve it.
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