google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Saturday, Jul 8th, 2017, Samuel A. Donaldson

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Jul 8, 2017

Saturday, Jul 8th, 2017, Samuel A. Donaldson

Theme: None

Words: 64 (missing J,X,Z)

Blocks: 30

Our last construction from Mr. Donaldson was one co-authored with Brad Wilber in October last year; prior to that, he had a Saturday dating back to 2009.  No hang-ups during the solve for me, a few proper names and some odd 'rare' words, but overall a fun puzzle. Chunky corners, only 4 three-letter words, and a friendly "get-there-from-here" grid which included single nines, paired nines and a couple of 10-letter answers;

30a. Riding in the far-left lane, perhaps : CARPOOLING

Check out the next door neighbor over the fence

37a. Producer who developed "The Jeffersons" : NORMAN LEAR


 EARWORM~!

12d. "No need to be scared of me" : I DON'T BITE - hard.  Or maybe you like being bitten....?


29d. Big storm : NOR'EASTER - where I live today, this type of storm and a full moon could lead to flooding.  Scary.

StO(n)p WA(rd)ffling~!

ACROSS:

1. Gone for the summer, perhaps : AT CAMP - Figured it was school related, and started with AT HOME, which was close

7. Elegant pool entrance : SWAN DIVE - I was thinking we were looking for a noun like 'diving board', not the 'action' of entrance; I had a diving board go out on one of my trucks yesterday - there's no limit to what we will ship these days....

15. Jet Ski competitor : SEA-DOO - I knew SKI-DOO would not fly, but I was close

16. NFLer from 1982-'94 : L.A. RAIDER

17. Trick : TRIP UP

18. Last of Sophocles' Theban plays : ANTIGONE

19. Off-base : ERRANT

20. Post-sunburn phase : PEELING

21. Midway game : RING TOSS - ah, not SKEE BALL

23. Number of hills di Roma : SETTE - knew the answer was "seven", but spelling it was....

24. "30 for 30" documentary series airer : ESPN

25. Touch with gauze : DAB AT

27. They may be fake : TANS - my favorite fake tan look



34. NYSE debut : IPO - New York Stock Exchange, Initial Public Offering

35. "Ciao Italia" chef Esposito : MARYANN - perps

36. Cable co. acquired by AT&T : TCI

39. Ocean hazard : REEF

40. Unalaska native : ALEUT

41. Blocking action : VETO

43. Performs surgery on, in a way : LASES

45. Braised chicken dish : COQ AU VIN - we've seen this before on Saturday


49. Runner with big eggs : OSTRICH

51. Final syllable : ULTIMA

52. Lobster sensors : ANTENNAE

53. Otis of elevators : ELISHA - I did not know his first name - his Wiki

54. Men's department fixtures : TIE RACKS

55. Forwarded : SENT ON

56. Decorative herbs : PARSLEYS - spell check is not happy, but it's OK with me

57. Training aids : TREATS - ah, dogs

DOWN:

1. Michaelmas daisy : ASTER

2. Country singer Gibbs : TERRI - filled via perps

3. Memorial rocks : CAIRN - oops, not STELE

4. Much magazine content : AD PAGES - well, I knew it was AD 'something', or 'something' AD(s), but PAGES took a while

5. Goes up : MOUNTS

6. Coke holder : POP-TOP CAN - "Coke" seems a little too specific - I can get Diet Dr. Pepper in a pop-top can, too - or is the author trying to throw us off with the "gram" type of coke~?

7. High-fives, e.g. : SLAPS

8. Ebb : WANE

9. Crafts in CancΓΊn : ARTES

10. Attached by pounding : NAILED ON - I was close, had NAILED TO

11. Technology catchall : DIGITAL - I'm not a huge fan of all these companies that jumped on the Apple bandwagon and offer their products with "i-something" names; did you hear about Apple's new make-up line~? It's called iShadow.

13. Retaliation : VENGEANCE

14. Word of relative time : ERE - I had ERA, and did not get my "ta-DA~!"

22. Jam : SNARL

26. "What a long week!" : TGIF - Thank God It's already past July 4th, as far as I am concerned

27. Turner of music : TINA

28. Michael Corleone's first wife : APOLLONIA

31. Reuben setting : RYE - ah, had me confused at first

32. Finnish distance runner Nurmi : PAAVO - OK, I cheated - I Googled this answer to get a foothold in the middle

33. For the asking : ON REQUEST

35. __ instinct : MATERNAL

38. Summons (up) : MUSTERS

39. Dancer's program : ROUTINE

42. Like one looking down on his neighbor? : TALLER

44. On account of : SINCE

45. Musical whose plot involves a two-person tournament : CHESS - I had "-HE--", and this seemed like a logical WAG.  The game I conceived went with me again to Delaware last weekend and I worked out the details with Mike as a two-player version; now I need to get some people together and try it with four players


46. Windows 7 precursor : VISTA - I'm still with XP, and content - but Firefox has stopped supporting the software.  Gonna have to cave at some point to the "future"

47. Cry from one on a streak : I'M HOT - also got lessons from Mike on how to really play Texas Hold'em, since he gets out to the Dover casinos once in a while

48. Asian breads : NAANS

50. Like dried mud : CAKY

52. Novak Djokovic's org. : ATP - sounds like a tennis name to me

Splynter

Note from C.C.: 

I'm sad to let you know that Leah (Chickie on our blog) lost her husband Bill on July 6th. Chickie was very active on our blog for many years. She and Bill just celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary last month. You're in our thoughts, Chickie.

40 comments:

PK said...

Hi Y'all! Well, I'M HOT but it's just the weather. First pass thru I had only SEADOO in the top third tier. Lucky WAG. But it got to be more fun. Thanks, Samuel. Thanks a lot, Splynter. (I'd high five you but I don't do SLAPS, only cLAPS or hugs.)

The ol' NORwEST was again the last to fill. Been too long since I had anyone AT CAMP. Didn't know TERRI Gibb. Used to know country singers when I played the radio while driving. Now I'm more EASy listening.

LA RAIDERS? I was looking for a player's name.

Goes up? MOUNTS? MOUNTS? Get my mind out of the.....

There's a musical about CHESS? Hard up for subject matter, aren't they?

Had __ARL & tried peARL before SNARL perped in. Didn't read the clue.

Lots of "didn't knows": VISTA, ANTIGONE, MARY ANN, TCI, PAAVO, APOLONIA and Novak Djokovies org.=ATP.

Some are fake? TANS was ESP. My mind was hung up on female parts.

Like Splynter, I knew Rome has 7 hills. I WAGd SEiTE and quickly corrected to SETTE.

OwenKL said...

FIR. Anyone else notice the CAIRN TERRIer? Perhaps that's the dog breed in my first poem?

{A, B, A.}

Cerberus guarded Hades -- the gates and such.
One head would SNARL, two would lather up!
When a protester came along
The cur soon had ANTI GONE!
But ANTIGONE used TREATS to TRIP UP the TRI-PUP!

Doyen MARY-ANN of all π˜ˆπ˜™π˜›π˜Œπ˜š was a champ.
On anything but kitsch she'd put her stamp!
Once, ON REQUEST,
She gave tchotchkes a test --
She'd try to be fair, and take a DAB AT CAMP!

The police were outgunned! With a rat-a-tat-tat,
The gangsters were daring to take a DAB AT attack!
Then with a SWAN DIVE
VENGEANCE came from the skies --
Gotham City's protector: "Run! it's DA BAT!"

TTP said...



Good morning. Thank you Samuel and Splynter.

Couldn't get the SE corner solved without help. Plus had ERA instead of ERE in the NE. Should have caught that mistake, but having SENT TO rather than SENT ON prevented seeing NAANS. I was stuck in an email context.

I was thinking of Italian braised chicken dishes. Probably because of MARY ANN and Lydia. With the leading N of NAANS, that gave me C----V-N, and cocoa van was a given. Thank you Julia. And Irma.

Kicking myself for not remembering ELISHA.

I "won" a pistol BB gun at the carnival RING TOSS game when I was 9 or 10. I rushed home. My mother took it away. Never saw it again.

TREATS for training aids was my favorite clue.

Splynter, if you are still on XP, make sure you download and install KB4012598. If not, you could get infected by petya, and that might make you wannacry.

Chickie, I am so sorry. My condolences.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

Tough, tough, tough. But fair, fair, fair. With only ASTER and ERRING (which turned out to be wrong) in place, I departed the great northwest for other climes. When LARAIDER showed up, I figured he was just another sports guy with an unfamiliar name. D'oh! Worked clockwise from the NE, and POP TOP CAN finally broke the NW open. Pulled into the station right on time. Thanx, Samuel.

Splynter, why are you waffling? And what are you waffling about? Do tell.

Chickie, I'm sorry for your loss.

Lemonade714 said...

My condolences and prayers for you Chickie. We have missed you and hope your family will make this awful time pass.

CanadianEh! said...

Tough sledding today. Thanks for the fun, Samuel and Splynter.
Started with a sea of white but filled in eventually after turning on red letters.

Fake TANS never give a PEELING problem.

Hand up for not knowing the Roman seven.
DH gave me ATP while watching Canadian Milos Raonic on the way (we hope) to winning his match at Wimbledon

I went from XP to Windows 7 (and now 10) because of reports that VISTA was not user friendly.

Condolences to Chickie and family.
From yesterday, thoughts and prayers to YR and friend.

We got rain overnight which means I don't have to water the garden today.
Enjoy your Saturday.

Yellowrocks said...

First of all, thank you all for your understanding comments about my dear friend's health. She seemed all right at Christmas so it is a shock to both of us. She seems to want to reminisce so I will send her frequent cards with a memory on each one.
Chickie, my thoughts are with you at this very sad time. You had so many good years together, may your happy memories help you through this.

I pecked my way through this one and almost gave up in the NE. VENGEANCE, ANTIGONE, and PEELING gave me a start, but LARAIDERS, SETTA, and DIGITAL were snarling my solve. I finally got CARPOOLING and changed I WON'T to I DON'T. I had such a mess in that corner I didn't see LA RAIDER and I was looking for a name. I missed R in that and ERE. One bad cell. TCI and ATP are new to me.

I gave up XP when it was no longer supported and I couldn't get patches. With wannacry and petya coming along, I am glad I did. I was advised by IT friends not to get VISTA, so I didn't. I still have Windows 7. Do you like Windows 10? Is it like Windows 8?

Bluehen said...

Chickie, I am so sorry for your loss. My deepest condolences.

This puzzle solved a little faster than most Saturdays do, even with that sticky Northwest corner. Like others, POPTOPCAN broke the ice and opened up the blockage.

I was glad to be reminded of COG AU VIN. It's been too long since I have made it. It's not difficult to prepare and a family favorite. One reason mine is so special is that I use real cocoa.

On that note, Ill retire.

Cya!

Spitzboov said...

Good morning everyone.

Deepest sympathy to Chickie. I am so sorry for your loss. You have lots of friends here so don't hesitate to keep in touch.

(We just returned from attending our son's mother-in-law's funeral services in the Rochester area.)

Thanks Splynter for leading us through today's puzzle. You step up every Saturday, usually not an easy one to solve, and do a good job.
I needed more than a modicum of wite-out this morning, but eventually got it done. The NE was last to fall. NORMAN LEAR was a good guess. Wanted CARPassING for the longest time, but perps pointed the way. Favorite fill was SWAN DIVE. I always thought ANTIGONE was a synonym for 'here'. (Buffalo has a funeral service named AMIGONE,)
MATERNAL instinct - There's a lot of this each day on the blog, and is much appreciated.
MOUNTS - Guess I might've had a similar reaction to PK's.
PEELING - Did a lot of that in my yute. Careless, I know, but not as well understood then. Paying for it now; with a melanoma and basal cell removal in the past year. (I see a dermatologist every 3 mos. now.). Use plenty of SPF 50 sunblocker with the stipulation: 'Broad Spectrum' which covers UVA/UVB rays.

Big Easy said...

It was a sea of white with just a few gimmes today. Plus the unknown names that were perped- APOLLONIA, MARY ANN, TERRI Gibbs, ELISHA. At least I knew NORMAN LEAR and PAAVO Nurmi. But my REIP UP today was the cross of ANTIGONE and ERE. I finished both with 'A', thinking that maybe ANTIGONA was a latin spelling. And after looking it up afterward it is an opera of ANTIGONE. ????? I was ERRANT.


CHESS the musical? unknown. Who knew. But going back to the NE, I knew SETTE and VENGEANCE but wasn't sure of their correct spellings.

Splynter- the reasons Microsoft stopped supporting XP are twofold. The first was that it was OLD and they had newer operating systems but mainly, over 80% of the people ( mainly in Asia) using XP didn't pay for them.

Big Easy said...

Make that TRIP UP, not 'reip up'

Billocohoes said...

PAAVO Nurmi (1920s) was one of the first of every Finnish runner since then to be called "the Flying Finn".

PK said...

Chickie, so sorry to hear of your loss. 63 years is a wonderful accomplishment.

BunnyM said...

Good morning all!

Thanks Samuel for a tough but doable fun solve and to Splynter for being our fearless guide:) Not too bad for a Saturday. Had some early WAGs w/ ATCAMP, POPTOPCAN and TIERACKS.
I did have a couple of cheats - ANTIGONE and ELISHA
Lots of perps saved the day: ESPN, MARYANN, TCI, COQAUVIN, APOLLONIA, PAAVO and ATP

I was also looking for a player's name for the NFLer clue. Since I had Won't/ I DONT BITE, this made 16A Laraiwer. Hmm... seemed somewhat legit to me so my Doh! moment came when reading the blog ;)

Splynter you are right about the Jeffersons theme song being an earworm- I'm sure it will be with me all day. My DH's stepfather has been lifelong friends with one of the writers from the show. So when the family vacationed in LA many years ago, they attended a taping of the show and met the cast. Not sure if they met NORMANLEAR, though; DH might not remember anyway since that was around 35 years ago. He doesn't remember which episode it was- just being star struck and how nice everyone was.

At 5'2 many are TALLER than me. DH is 6'2 - I joke that I married him so he can retrieve items out of reach for me. Thank goodness he's also kind, funny and handsome ;)

YR - my sympathies are with you and your friend. I do hope those wonderful memories will help you both during this time.

Misty- so glad to hear that Dusty has improved enough to be running! He sounds like a fighter :) Albus was a mess yesterday evening. A terrible storm blew in around 6pm with strong winds and heavy rain. He hid for over two hours. Now that the sun is shining, he's happy and relaxed- napping and snoring!
Luckily we didn't have too much damage - the yard and deck are covered in tree limbs and leaves and a couple of chairs blew over. We only lost power for a few minutes. We went to dinner and Home Depot after the worst was over. On our way out of the neighborhood, there was a huge tree that had fallen a couple of blocks from our house; it was completely blocking that street's entrance. The restaurant was closed due to no power; Home Depot was running their generators so they could stay open. It was strange walking around in there with only a few lights on and only a couple of other customers.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day! We are attending our great niece's first birthday party today- should be fun.

BunnyM said...

Chickie- my condolences for your loss. PK is right- 63 years is a wonderful accomplishment.

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

Today was my comeuppance for pooh poohing the recent spate of simple Saturday solves. I did finish w/o help in the "old" normal Saturday time (29 min.) but it was a chip here, a chip there struggle. Also had Era/Ere but I knew Antigone was correct. Should have gotten Maryann sooner as I've seen her show. Norman Lear is practically a household word but not Mr. Otis's first name. I tried LA Rammer first and made a mental note to complain about it being a stretch, but perps corrected that to the much more palatable LA Raider. I breathed a sigh of relief when I got the Tada.

Thanks, Mr. Donaldson, for a very challenging, but doable, exercise and thanks, Splynter, for guiding us along. Good luck with your game testing.

Sincere condolences, Chickie, on your tremendous loss. You are in our thoughts.

PK, insomnia back again?

Have a great day.

TTP said...

I never had a Windows VISTA or 8.1 system.

I had two Windows XP systems, and two Windows 7 systems.
I upgraded both Windows 7 systems to Windows 10 when the upgrades were still free. I'm fine with Windows 10.

Windows XP Support ended in 2014. Windows Vista EOS was earlier this year.
Windows 7 will have extended support until early 2020. You can get patches through then.

Microsoft took the highly unusual step of releasing an update that corrected the vulnerability as far back as Windows XP, even though it no longer supports XP.

Methinks they did it because the fix would have been easily portable from OS to OS when they were patching the supported Vista and 8.1 OS's, and because of the large numbers of XPs still in use, and because of the significant havoc that could have been caused.

The difference is that Windows installer "Auto Updates" doesn't work on XPs anymore, so XP users (Such as Splynter) have to go to the Microsoft website and download KB4012598 manually and then install it to be protected from the WannaCry / Petya ransomware exposure.

Big Easy, I tend to believe that Microsoft ended XP support simply to be able to deploy their resources to more current OS's and and other products, just as they always have done.

Anonymous said...

As Poirot might say, the little grey cells were not working in the NW. I was tripped up by pop top can. My errant thinking kept me from a tada. But a fun, crunchy puzzle and wonderful write-up by Splynter. FWIW, I reluctantly upgraded from Win7 to Win10 after hearing numerous horror stories. However, the upgrade and subsequent "anniversary" update went without a hitch. I have one small issue - it goes to sleep after 10 seconds. I had to load "caffeine" which is a free app to fix that. And I added "classic start" since I'm more comfortable with that. Lovely day here in Chicago. Hope your Saturday is great! JB2

WikWak said...

@ PK--If you think they were hard up for subject matter when they did CHESS the movie, wait until you see the same billboard I drive past daily. Bright yellow, covered with emojis, a giant-size �� in the middle. "Meet Poop!"

The emojis movie is coming this summer. Gad.

WikWak said...

Hmmm... the preview showed the actual poop emoji, not ��. Sorry.

Husker Gary said...

Musings
-I worked from Southern California to the Keys to the rockbound coast of Maine and then struggled in the Pacific NW (CAIRN, TERRI and SEADOO not SKIDOO).
-One part of my head said Rich would never allow TINY SPOON for a Coke holder but I had _ _ _ _ _ P _ _ N
-ON THE RAIL seemed right for “riding” in the far-left lane
-NORMAN LEAR boldly took on prejudice with his TV shows
-A wonderful cinematic SWAN DIVE (1:02)
-30 For 30 has some poignant stories about “Rags to Riches to Rags” e.g. Brian Bosworth
-MARY ANN and Ciao Italia? I had no idea but it seems like an odd coupling
-That runner’s big egg is the largest single cell in nature
-TIE Tacks was wrong. Does anyone still use them?
-J.D. and Chef Wendy (among others) have SENT ON some fun items to me
-ON was the last preposition I chose for NAILED _ _
-Blogging here is definitely DIGITAL, but my fav solving is definitely analog
-“Don’t start the car, APOLLONIA!”
-On Sept. 27, 1862, Benjamin Butler MUSTERED the all black First Regiment of Louisiana Native Guards into Union service
-We have never had an issue with Apple IOS on our five devices
-Sympathetic thoughts for YR and Chickie today.

C6D6 Peg said...

Thanks, Mr. Donaldson, for a fine Saturday challenge. FIR, but was not sure with crossing of MARYANN and PAAVO.

Thanks, Splynter, for a great write-up. Carpool pic was great.... there was one that drove into the reflecting pool at our work site in the 90's. What a mess!

Anonymous T said...

Hi All!

Doomed, I say, doomed! @7a is not an infiniti [sic] entrance to a pool (if you've seen them, they are elegant) and 14d isn't ish (It's noon-ISH here and getting warm). Well, Frog. //I should sleep...

More Frogs - Skee ball stood alone in the NW (and bzzt) 'cuz I wasn't going to go w/ SNO CAT, my lone little grey cell thought @15a.
I knew TINA but wanted tornado-- for 29d. PK, um, yeah, 'They may be fake' and I'm looking at T-TS @27a... I've seen press-on TATS in Cracker Jack boxes...

Knowing The Jeffersons is a spin-off of All in the Family, NORMAN LE-R was a gimme [well, not the spelling].

Thanks Samuel but I'm not Saturday worthy (but I try!); you stumped me good. For anyone that can suss this in <30min [looking at you IM], Tip 'o the Hat.

Thanks Splynter for showing me the grid and your expo. I would have Googled / cribbed / played more but the sprinkler guy was here. As always, your expo was witty and leggy. Is there any way to get a beta-test of your game?

{A, ?, A}

Chickie - I am so sad for your loss. The Cornerites are here for you and will provide a kind shoulder.

YR - The advise you got on Vista is sound. Keep that IT guy.

TTP - And just the other day you said you were 'losing it.' :-) Vista was crap and they finally got it right-ISH in Win10 with respect to the interface (though I still like XP's look-and-feel) and 10's security is getting pretty good - not Theo's OpenBSD-level but business-acceptable.
Re: patching for wCry, [EternalBlue was the vector], my circle agrees that a certain TLA gave MS the heads-up and 'advised' them to patch XP too [remember: DOD still has lots of XP boxes, esp in the Navy, as do our friends' critical systems in the UK.]

Y'all have a great day!

Cheers, -T

MJ said...

Good day to all!

A challenging, but enjoyable Saturday puzzle. PAAVO Nurmi, TERRI Gibbs, and APOLLONIA Corleone were all perps. I was having trouble in the SE and finally googled ELISHA Otis to finish up. He got the dancer to perform a ROUTINE rather than a Recital and the rest was smooth sailing. Thanks for your faithful Saturday expo, Steve. That's quite the carpooling pic.

So sorry for your loss, Chickie. You are in my thoughts and prayers.

YR--Best wishes to you and your life-long friend.

Enjoy the day!

Northwest Runner said...

For now just a quick rant...If you are on Windows XP, upgrade this instant. It has been obsolete, unsupported, and vulnerable for over 3 years. There will be some adjustment, and a new computer will run you $300 to $400 for something middle of the road, but you need to do it to protect yourself and your data.

Lucina said...

Thank you, Samuel and Splynter!

Three-fourths of this, NE, SE, and SW were easily filled with even the unknown MARYANN and PAAVO perped. That could have been a Natick. I recalled APOLLONIA only because it is such an unusual name. ELISHA took a while longer but eventually it seeped out. Having RECITAL before ROUTINE blocked my progress but not for long.

In the NW not in a hundred years would I have known SEADOO, only SEA--- for starters. Finally I just looked it up and all else fell in place. ASTER patiently waited there and I had heard of TERRI Gibb so all that helped.

Chickie, my dear friend, I am so sorry about Bill. You cared for him during his long illness and now you must feel a terrible void. Please know that my thoughts and those of all your friends here are with you.

Have a great and special day, everyone! Every day is a gift!

Michael said...

PAAVO Nurmi (1920s) was one of the first of every Finnish runner since then to be called "the Flying Finn".

Yes, he brought things to a good Finnish....

Misty said...

Well, I got practically nothing on my first run-through of this Saturday toughie, and so the cheating started much earlier than usual. There were just too few short answers, and I got hardly any of them in the beginning, and I should have known NORMAN LEAR and ANTIGONE. But after a bit of cheating, things started to fill in, and I still had a fun morning. So thank you, Sam (is it okay to call you that?), and you too, Splynter, for your always helpful expo.

So sorry to hear about that terrible storm, BunnyM. Thank goodness it's over, and Albus is happy again. We are having a heat wave here in southern California, but Dusty doesn't seem to mind as long as we keep windows open and a small fan on.

So sorry for your loss, Chickie--what a difficult time you've had. My heart goes out to you.

Have a wonderful weekend, everybody!

Ol' Man Keith said...

Who ever heard of anything called SEADOO?! C'mon, guys. You too, Mr. Donaldson!

(Although I'm in SoCal, SEADOO was not any part of my surf 'n sand days!)

I confess my Ta-DA! was somewhat diminished today by my need for two lookups in the *#@! NW corner. I still claim I earned it based on the relative toughness of the pzl and the speed and alacrity with which I breezed through all but the stupid *#@! NW corner.
And *#@! SEADOO!

Got APOLLONIA on a WAG, ELISHA and PAAVO via perps (correcting my initial PAOLO). I thought Sophocles' Oedipus was written later, but ANTIGONE must come later in the plot's chronology.

Splynter - neat links today, especially for CARPOOLING & I DON'T BITE. Thank you!

PS. Sad to read of your great loss, dear Chickie. I join others in wishing you much resilience - and hope you will find renewal and strength in so many years of happy memories!

Jayce said...

Yep, this was a hard one, but a fun challenge. I confess to wrinkling my nose at some of the obviously-deliberately misleading clues ("Aww, c'mon, man! That could be anything! Gee thanks for the 'perhaps' and 'in a way' stuff!") but it's all good. Thanks for the hour of entertainment, Sam (may I call you that?)

I upgraded from Windows 7, which I liked a lot, to Windows 10, which I like less, about a year or so ago. I still have mixed feelings about Windows 10. It seems they keep changing it with every update, and such updates occur rather frequently. I had to re-configure my settings after many updates because the update messed with them. My biggest gripe is that Windows consumes many gigabytes of data per month; it seems it is constantly "talking" on the internet and often hogs most of my bandwidth. The Wifi LED on my router blinks when there is traffic activity and is steady, non-blinking, when idle; well now it seems never to be idle, it blinks all the doggone time. If I had a data plan with 50 gigabytes or less per month I'd be over the limit every month. Other than that, it is a just-okay operating system.

Congratulations on your 63 years, Chickie. As Ol' Man Keith so eloquently said, I join others in wishing you much resilience - and hope you will find renewal and strength in so many years of happy memories!

Jayce said...

Spitzboov, your comment about ANTIGONE being a synonym for 'here' made me laugh.

PK, your comments about MOUNT also made me laugh.

Yellowrocks said...

Jayce, thank you for your comment. I think I will keep my 2014 computer and Windows 7 until the computer dies or Windows 7 is no longer supported. I am happy with it. When I bought the computer I tried Windows 8 as a demo and hated it. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Why mess with 10?

TTP said...

Yellowrocks, why mess with Windows 10 ? I know, right. Why mess with touch tone phones when the rotary dial still works just fine ?

Seriously though, Win 7 is probably still good for you, and you should be OK using it through 2019.

I like Win 10, but I still like XP, and have 2 computers that are using it. They can't be upgraded. They can be replaced, but not upgraded. I have some programs that I use that would change from free to fee if I replaced, and I also use them for storage and networking purposes. They've been rock solid, which is probably why as one of the reasons as according to what Anon-T alluded to, they are still in heavy use in some areas.

I'll probably run the XPs into the ground, just like an old car that needs a little bit of maintenance but costs you basically nothing - if you know what you are doing.

I do agree that casual users on any platform should stay within the currently supported releases, and doing so may cause a bit of financial or emotional pain as one gets through the learning curve. A memory upgrade on most computers will alleviate most of the problems Jayce spoke of, but if you don't have a decent internet connection you will never be happy with Win 10.

Big Easy said...

TTP- concerning Windows XP piracy:

"Steve Balmer once met Chinese president in concern of piracy. The ratio of licensed windows to pirated windows in china is 1:9. Every one out of ten PC in China uses genuine user. That's way too high.!
Indonesia is considered to be 2nd on the list with 86% pirated windows users, followed by India with a piracy rate of 63% while United States has least piracy rate of 19%.
If we consider the global scenario, the piracy rate is 57%."

Why continue to provide support for people who didn't pay for it in the first place? Besides, why would any company (other than a automobile manufacturer) come out with any product unless it was an improvement on the older version/model. 45 years ago I paid over $100,000 for an IBM system. What did it have? 1.5megabyte removable disk, 8k (not kilo, not mega, not giga) of core. 80 column keypunch machine. Card reader that always jammed. 30 lines-per-minute printer. I had to take the disk to someone else (Mobil Oil) that had an extra drive once a week just to back up my system.

No matter which brand you buy today, it's faster, cheaper, has more memory than what you are currently using.

PK said...

WikWak: usually children outgrow the poop fascination around 3 yrs old. I don't know what happened to the emogi creators. The game channel I frrequent now has a new show "Emogenius." Won't watch it. Or the movie.

Spitzboov: "antigone = here: Most clever. Laughed out loud.

SEADOO: An adult friend bought a SEADOO when my daredevil son was a teenager. Friend turned the kid loose with it at the lake without adequate instruction. Somehow the kid turned it over and almost drowned altho he was a strong swimmer. Thereafter, we called it the SEADOn't.

Irish Miss: nope, not insomnia exactly. Erratic sleep patterns. Slept from 8 p.m. yesterday to 2 a.m. then up for a while. At noon I went back to sleep until 7 p.m. tonight. So I had 13 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. Drives me nuts. Hard to remember what day it is.

Wilbur Charles said...

I had my driving gig today. Everytime I finished a run I'd take another crack at it. I was hoping to finish by Tuesday. But..

I did finish. SEPPE surprised me but I had DIGITAL. I knew Sam was referring to an NFL team that had moved but needed to suss LA to get the V8 can moment.

Chickie, I'm a relative newbie but Lucina put it perfectly as usual.

It's funny how my brain keeps working and the mists clear,

Splynter, I love your write-ups and marvel that you preserved your gray matter.

Owen, I agree that #1 is an artful A but I really loved #3.

It's funny to get 100% on the weekend and flub earlier.

G'nite

WC

PS. Who's Mike?

Yellowrocks said...

Upgrades are not always better. The automatic upgrade on my Kindle has some glitches. Vista and Windows 8 were not great. I have a strong Internet connection and no problem with speed of memory. What would I gain?

Anonymous T said...

YR - TTP was, I think, speaking tongue-in-cheek re rotary dial / upgrading Windows. You're on Win7 and are good for a spell (at least 2019, as TTP pointed out).

PK - SEADOn't; LOL!

Big Easy - what oil company were you with? I find it funny, peculiar not haha, that fossil-fuels compel technology -- our company is near the bleeding-edge of high-tech just to vamp oil. [Folks, the tech is really cool - I've seen 4D seismology maps of Earth 4 miles deep; the Geo-guys have equations that look eerily familiar to EEs' formulae -- the data gathered is measured in petabytes (take that across town to backup BigE :-)).

To your piracy comment... Balmer can moan but the reality is MS didn't give a hoot about it early on - it was part of their business model. I was able to 'acquire' Word & Excel in college and didn't need to pay for WordPerfect nor Lotus123. Now, which is still making money today?

For the idle:
C, Eh! We were talking last week about Penn & Teller who you'd not heard of and I said there are better (funnier) tricks than I linked. Here's one on Fallon. The magic is in the double-misdirection (unless he's not lying about memorization).

Did anyone listen to the SciFri link on cool cooking I posted yesterday? There was a mention of encasing a raw egg-yolk in salt in the fridge for a week and then shredding the preserved yolk on a green-salad. Anyone ever do that? Is it good?

Cheers, -T

TTP said...

The "Seriously though" should have conveyed that my previous statement was intended to be humorous.

My original point was in response to Splynter's note that he was still on XP. I offered that he should manually download KB4012598 to be protected against the vulnerability that was used in wannaycry / petya.

"What would I gain ?" If the conversation is about updates, and most significantly security updates, then moving to Windows 10 would get you support until Oct 2025, rather than Jan 2020 as you have with Windows 7.

If the conversation is about Windows 10 vs Windows 7 as an OS, it's far more than I would care to venture into. If that's what you are after, then you might consider searching the Microsoft pages and forums.

By the way, it's the speed of the internet connection, and volume of memory. Faster and more are better. More better. Speed of memory wouldn't be a significant factor at your level given that you said your computer was a 2014 model. It might be for a power user or a gamer, but memory speed is mostly sales hype for a casual user.

Picard said...

Hand up with BunnyM putting I WON'T BITE and getting LARAIWER. Hand up thinking this was a specific player's name. But then I parsed it correctly and was able to FIR.

I don't get why ERE is a "Word of relative time".

TCI seems to be an example of my pet peeve: A regional brand name unknown outside that region. Wikipedia claims it was once the largest cable company in the US. But at that time that was not saying much.

XP was probably the best product made by Microsoft. I have seen no advantage to anything that came since. Just new bugs and annoyances. I will try to keep Windows 7 going as long as possible. Windows 10 has no benefits. Just incompatibilities with some older software.

Anti-piracy measures in general only annoy honest users and do little to stop the bad guys. Considering how much cheap labor we have gotten from Asia we should not begrudge them a bit of piracy, anyway. Eventually they will become paying customers in large numbers.

Yes, lots of unknowns. But overall a fair and satisfying ride!

Unknowns: TCI. CHESS, ELISHA, ATP, PAAVO, MARY ANN, TERRI, ULTIMA, SETTE, "30 for 30". All fair with perps.