Theme: Party! - That is if you aren't partied out from last night.
17A. 2006 best-selling Elizabeth Gilbert spiritual memoir: "EAT, PRAY, LOVE"
24A. Place to go blond: BEAUTY PARLOR
39A. Breakfast-in-bed surface: LAP TRAY
51A. Carnivorous plant: VENUS FLYTRAP
61A. Political organization founded in 1995 by 35-Down ... and a literal hint to each set of circled letters: REFORM PARTY
And 35D. '90s presidential candidate: ROSS PEROT
Argyle here and RABBIT, RABBIT for a new year. Ross Trudeau makes his debut with us but he has been published in NYT. Okay, I'll be quiet now.
Across:
1. Edible epitomes of redness: BEETS
6. Insurance giant with a spokesduck: AFLAC
11. "No chance!": HAH!
14. Heap praise upon: EXTOL
15. Fortune-telling prefix with "sayer": SOOTH
16. "Dude!": BRO!
19. Texter's "Egads!": OMG!
20. Self-satisfied: SMUG
21. Salon goop: GEL
22. Frozen waffles: EGGOs
28. Capital of Zimbabwe: HARARE
30. Celestial bear: URSA
31. Honda luxury brand: ACURA
32. iPhone assistant: SIRI
34. Dull-colored: DRAB
38. Teen blemish: ZIT
42. Lowest Scrabble tile value: ONE
43. Biblical garden: EDEN
45. One signing the checks: BOSS
46. Ejects: OUSTS
48. Western gas chain: ARCO
50. End-of-day photo op: SUNSET
55. Like environments where you can walk on air?: ZERO G. Cute.
56. Deserved: DUE
57. Unwanted lawn plant: WEED
60. Means justifier: END
65. Key & Peele, e.g.: DUO
66. Modify to fit: ADAPT
67. Remote-controlled flying camera, say: DRONE
68. "Gimme a __": SEC
69. Brass band heavyweights: TUBAs
70. Crumbly cheeses: FETAs
Down:
1. Hive denizens: BEES
2. Oral or final: EXAM
3. Caesar's last question: "ET TU, BRUTE?"
4. Fifth, often, for a manual transmission: TOP GEAR
5. Nikon product, briefly: SLR. (single-lens reflex camera)
6. To this point: AS YET
7. Seward's __: Alaska purchase: FOLLY
8. British john: LOO
9. Off-road transp.: ATV
10. Sitcom title bar: CHEERS
11. Streaming option for "Game of Thrones": HBO GO. Site. New to me.
12. Knight wear: ARMOR
13. Ones who don't share: HOGS
18. Fever and chills: AGUE. Best wishes, C.C.
23. Kitchen bag brand: GLAD
25. Decimated Asian sea: ARAL
26. Runs smoothly, as an engine: PURRS
27. Diva's highlight: ARIA
28. Visibility inhibitor: HAZE
29. Alkali neutralizer: ACID
32. "Spaceballs" or "Scary Movie": SPOOF
33. "__ your turn": IT'S. As in, "Throw in a chip; it's your turn to ante!"
36. First chip, maybe: ANTE
37. Oscar adjective: BEST
40. Kindergarten basics: ABC'S
41. Part of MYOB: YOUR. (Mind Your Own Business)
44. iPod model: NANO
47. In the dark: UNAWARE
49. Nickelodeon toon tot: RUGRAT
50. Champagne flute feature: STEM. Apt.
51. Trial locale: VENUE
52. Triage MD: ER DOC
53. Parkinson's drug: L-DOPA
54. Mongolian tents: YURTS
55. Pizza pieces in London?: ZEDS
58. Sicilian volcano: ETNA
59. Hair-coloring agents: DYES
62. Harvard URL ending: .EDU
63. Terrif: FAB. slang, terrific / fabulous. Have a great year!
64. Adobe file format: PDF. (Portable Document Format)
Argyle
67 comments:
White Rabbit, White Rabbit (which I said to my wife after our midnight kiss)!
Since I did it on Mensa, I can brag about getting the theme without even knowing there were circles! Each of the four phrases in the positions I expected to see themers had the same 6 letters together: eaTPRAYLove. So the tricky part was realizing I had to get the L out of there!
VENUS, the goddess of LOVE and BEAUTY
Was served on a clam-shell doing LAP-TRAY duty!
To EXTOL her is FAB!
No way she is DRAB!
Why, even her ZIT is a cutie!
For-SOOTH, the Sayer said true!
To BRUTÉ, his last words were, "ET TU?
This, then, is good-by,
Thus does Cæsar die,
Like a BOSS, when my day is DUE!"
Some subtleties to today's puzzle that you might not have known: The ides of March, until the adoption of the Julian calendar, was New Years Eve. (Thus September thru December were the 7th thru 10th months of the year, and changable February was the final month of the year.) The Julian calendar took effect on January 1, 45BC, and Julius Caesar was assassinated on the ides of March 44BC, the day he had robbed of holiday status, 14½ months later. Caesar's calendar REFORM changed the date of the New Years PARTY. Caesar was the man who would be Emperor, while ROSS PEROT formed the REFORM PARTY as the man who would be President.
{A, A.}
Key & Peele seems like a pretty obscure clue to anybody who doesn't watch the Comedy Channel much, when there must be dozens or hundreds of choices.
Good morning and Happy New Year!
No PARTY for us. We managed to stay awake until 9, assuming the new year would arrive without our assistance. It did.
Whew (not Phew)! I almost scored a DNF right out of the starting gate. SOCAL stayed white until ZEDS came to me, and finally that section filled in. Thanx, Ross and Argyle.
TUBAS: CSO to Abejo.
Fifth TOP GEAR: That's the top gear in my 12-year-old pickup. I'm not sure you can still get a pickup with a manual transmission.
PK, how was the parade in London?
Time to put up my 2018 year-at-a-glance wall calendar...
Rabbit Rabbit
Happy New Year, Puzzlers!
Good morning. Happy New Year.
Thank you Ross Trudeau and thank you Argyle.
What D-O said about the SW corner. Double checked each of the answers and then mentally walked the alphabet to get to the Z.
Brrr. Baby it's cold outside. Hope today turns out to be the coldest day of the year. It's 12 below nil.
D-O, I only made it until 8 PM. My how my times have changed.
It's the first day of 2018, and I already have a Monday FIW. I had nAH x nBOGO, with "nah" seeming like a better fit to the clue and not knowing a thing about "Game of Thrones". I assume that "Thrones" is a show and not a game. Like D-O I had trouble getting ZEDS, and ZERO G gave me trouble until the V8 can finally hit.
Emended EATcRyYLOVE. Didn't know HARARE or RUGRAT (in this context). I liked the puzzle, although it seemed more like a Wednesday-level challenge. I thought Scrabble cluing for ONE was especially imaginative. Thanks Ross and Santa.
I was often buzzed by H. ROSS PEROT's helicopter while I was relaxing on my anchored sailboat in Lake Texoma's Butterfly Cove. PEROT had a beautiful estate near the dam. BTW, the lake is on the border of TEXas and oklahOMA, and the name sounds much better than it would had the states been reversed (OAKASS).
May all Cornerites have a better 2018 than 2017.
Happy Mooning you Corner Lunatics.
Did you see the full "Wolf" Moon last night. It appears larger than normal because it is at it's perigee which makes it as close to the Earth as possible. What a way to start the year. Also this month, on Jan.31 there will be a Blue Moon. These only happen "Once in a Blue Moon." Don't take my word for this. Check out The Full Moon.
Thank you Ross and A+ for such a nice CW and review. I FIR with my last letter G at 55A ZEROG and 49D RUGRAT. Thanks A+ for moving the "G" out so I could see Zero.
BTW Dudley please explain "Rabbit Rabbit."
Dave 2, 2, 2 full Moons in January.
Good Morning:
Happy New Year to all!
This was easy, peasy with the only unknown being Harare. Zerog had me befuddled until I parsed it as Zero G. Acura appearing so soon after Toranado gave me a chuckle as my husband sold his Toranado and bought an Acura. (Soon after the purchase, he experienced a temporary short-term memory loss for several hours during which he would not believe me when I told him he had just bought a new car. I had to bring him to the condo's parking area so he could see it for himself.)
Thanks, Ross, for a fun start to the week and the new year and thanks, Argyle for being our faithful guide, from one year to the next. (I wonder if Ross Perot's similarity to Ross Trudeau played any part in coming up with this theme.)
I stayed up to watch the ball drop but I was watching FNC and, while I heard "Auld Lang Syne in the background, the camera never homed in on the actual ball dropping. Does that mean that NBC had the exclusive coverage for that scene, or did I miss something?
Stay warm all!
Have a great day.
Rabbit, rabbit.
Good morning and Happy New Year to all of you!
I haven't solved crosswords for quite some time, but I read that the clues I stumbled over, bothered some others too.
This was a DNF for me on a Monday!
I'm only barely familiar with Game of Thrones-I know it's a tv show. The NE corner took perps to fill in.
When I got to the SW corner, my iPad froze while I mentally went through alphabet for Z.
I did get the theme.
It's -23°F (wind chill -38°) this morning, but supposed to get above freezing in a few days. Lots & lots & lots of snow. It finally quit piling up yesterday.
Does anyone using an iPad, have suggestions for a better place to solve this crossword than the LA site?
Or, if I keep trying, I'll get used to it?
May we all have a good 2018!
Montana
Cripes....start out a New Year with as DNF thanks to the SW corner. ZEROG, ZEDS & NANO were the culprits. Missing the Z & O.
Ran through the alphabet, but nothing made sense..
Well, so much for a perfect 2018!
Happy New year to every one, hope it is happy and healthy
Thanks for Ross and Argyle for a welcome treat to begin the new year.
January 1st came at -1F here in Rhode Island. Can't top Montana's negatives though. I have never seen such cold for such an extended length of time, into the foreseeable future. Like the north pole is off center.
The puzzle was challenging for a Monday. Inventive. No real struggles except for ZEROG. I wrote that down and studied it. I never heard of a word like that, zerog. Must be some new form of fog or smog combo. Then I got hit with that V-8 can too. And I've come across a clue like that before.
Irish Miss, French Perot and Trudeau, Ross and Ross, like Hitchcock.
"...even her ZIT is a cutie." Owen, where did you come up with that? I think I might have used that once as an opening line at a bar to a girl and I can still remember the worried look on her face.
Happy New Year everyone.
It's -3.5° here this morning, but I imagine it is a lot colder further north.
It's a Monday puzzle. Thanks Ross and Argyle.
Only a few hold-ups for a while. The Z in ZEROG and ZEDS was the last to fall. I also didn't get DRAB and FAB for a while, but they filled in.
IM @ 8:16am: ABC had the ball drop last night also.
Stay warm.
Thanks for an entertaining start to 2018! ZEROG and ZEDS was a nice corner.
Howdy, Montana! Good to learn you’re not freeze-dried yet. :-) Here’s the scoop as I understand it. First, the LA Times offers their puzzles online through just two outlets: their own LAT site, and Cruciverb. The LAT platform was upgraded a few years ago, which brought the user experience from terrible to not as bad. There are certainly better platforms, so no, you don’t have to get used to it.
Cruciverb is a quirky multi-purpose resource (it has its roots in helping constructors) but I use it only to access the daily puzzle files. Each day’s puzzle becomes available at 10 PM the night before its publication date. Cruciverb only serves up the raw puzzle file, so you have to get your own app to actually read and solve the puzzle. That’s a good thing, because you get to pick one you like, and the good ones are pretty nice. I use Crosswords from Standalone Software; it was $10 at the App Store.
Cruciverb requires that you sign up for an account, which is free. Apparently it has a durable log-in process because I haven’t needed to sign on for years. Each day, once you select the file you want from a calendar-like resource, you just open your crossword app and start puzzling. Every once in a while Cruciverb gets a hiccup and the current day’s puzzle is missing, this usually corrects itself within a day. (By coincidence, this happened today)
Dave 2 - legend has it that if the very first thing you utter on the first day of a month is Rabbit Rabbit, then you’ll have good luck the whole month. Other Cornerites exercise variations on the thing, such as white rabbit or others, depending I suppose on how they learned it.
We must assume it works online too...
Musings
-A wonderful 2018 kickoff puzzle!
-My LAP TRAY has to have newsprint wiped off occasionally because it is what I use to participate here everyday
-SIRI gave me an answer in 5 seconds at a nursery as to whether a certain plant would harm our kitty. It could so…
-This guy and his DRAB mate are welcome at our house everyday
-As the BOSS, I had to sign 300 detasseling checks twice every summer
-Some fun cargo transfers in ZERO-G
-A former student posts DRONE pix from all over town on his Facebook page
-Should we start this discussion again?
-IT’S YOUR TURN - Fast Eddie: “I'm shooting pool, Fats. When I miss, you can shoot.” Movie name?
-A BEST Oscar winning movie nobody went to see
-Ann Landers’ “MYOB”, ranks up there with her “Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.”
Hi y'all! Bunny, Bunny! Got the PARTY theme which was good for a New Year's puzzle and was the only PARTY I had a midnight. Thanks, Ross. Thanks, Argyle, our PARTY host extraordinare.
New to me: HBO GO, HARARE. Tried to spell PEROT as PioROT. nAH before HAH.
MJ from last night: Glad to hear you are getting over such a long spell of pneumonia. Take good care of yourself. Sometimes it hangs around longer than you would think it should.
Jinx: I honeymooned at Lake Texoma in 1963. My kids love the pictures of my slim graceful young self cavorting in the water with my new husband.
I just finished sitting through 3 1/2 hrs. of the London NY Parade. Very interesting & enjoyable. The link I had been given had a countdown to the parade then nothing happened for 25 minutes. I was so afraid I'd missed my two grandsons. Then others on a chat site were griping about not getting the parade and someone posted where to go. I got to clicking around and finally found a beautifully clear site with good camera people.
My grandsons' band was third from last of the bands for a grand finale. I even saw my kids. One playing trumpet had longish red hair and the other one played the only euphonium. Did not see their faces, but the music was good and I was proud of the group. Lots of HS & college bands from the U.S. Long parade. Parade included huge groups of American cheerleaders who were jumping around and shaking their pom pons among other things. Great experience for them all. They were all hyped up. I was exhausted by the end and I sat the whole way.
Did you know that England does NOT have any marching high school bands? Marching bands were developed to perform at American football games, the announcer said. I would think they have military bands. Need to ask Steve. Oh well, at least they had the Beatles.
My furnace got lazy and the house was 66 degrees before I got so frigid I went and tweaked it. Thankfully, it is putting out heat now. I'm off to bed after staying up so I wouldn't sleep thru the parade.
Rabbit rabbit....or should it be Hare, Hare since it is also the begining on a new year?
Good puzzle to start the year with just enough crunch to keep me awake. The Z in ZED was the last to fall and I'm still not sure I understand . Thanks, Ross . And thanks Argyle, for walking us through it.
Owen, I appreciate the explanation of Ides of March. I had heard that years ago but forgot I knew it. Loved both poems today .
I really feel for all of you in frigid temperatures. It was 29 here this morning when I went out and we were all bundled up to the eyebrows. Cold is relative!
Have a great 2018!
Good Morning, Argyle and friends. Not a good way to start the new year. I am not keen on circle puzzles, and couldn’t get the “H” in HAH and HBO GO. And my internet server was not working properly this morning, so couldn’t access the blog.
Enough negativity! The Sitcom Title Bar = CHEERS brought back memories. I lived in Boston when that show began.
I was also amused by Pizza Pieces in London = ZEDS.
HARARE revealed itself through the perps.
I had heard of Key and Peele from an article in The New Yorker a few years back.
It has “warmed up” here since I awakened. It is now 26F. It was only 22F when I got up. While that may not seem cold to most of you, for southern Louisiana it is down right frigid. Montana, come here and bring your bathing suit! I can’t remember the last time we had a sustained cold spell. The faucets are all dripping to prevent the pipes from freezing.
PK: Glad you got to see your grandsons in the London parade. Interesting, too, about the history of the marching bands. Speaking of which, GO TIGERS!
QOD: The cure for crime is not the electric chair, but the high chair. J. Edgar Hoover (Jan. 1, 1895 ~ May 2, 1972)
I saw the scrambled PARTY with the first long fill. My mind was still on last night's party, not politics. It was a lovely time, with a few old friends. We watched the ball drop on ABC News which was not spectacular. I wish the camera had focused more on the ball itself.
Sadly my 87 year old hostess and long time friend is showing her age. She seemed lost, so we ladies had to help her cook. Five years ago she was on top of her game.
Going home my GPS went wacky. When I started it said I would arrive home in 20 minutes, but it is a 40 minute drive, at best. The GPS was constantly telling me to go in the opposite direction of home and adding minutes the nearer I got to my house. In my driveway, it said I was 50 minutes from home. I am glad I decided to ignore it and go back the way I came. I left it on to laugh at it.
Dave 2, lovely moon last night. I heard we will have a blue moon this month, two full moons in one month. My mom used to say "once in a blue moon" for infrequently.
Jinx, me, too. I choose NAH over HAH because I never heard of HBOGO. Drat! No other unknowns.
I wondered what environments where you can walk on air could end in ROG. ZEDS quickly remedied that.
I have not heard BEAUTY PARLOR used in real life in decades.
Rabbit, rabbit. Happy New Year, dear friends. I wish you all good health and much happiness in 2018.
Ripped through the puzzle as fast as I could write until the SW as well. In fact had only the final "zed" remained. I don't even know which clue triggered the right answer. Two of my least favorite fills. Words that aren't really words and fills that are the letters in the clue. oh well..still a TADA !
Happy New year All. Today brings a lot of football and the memory of my first trip from California to Michigan. Watched football and ate basically an entire cheese cake ! Landing back in CA my homesickness disappeared when greeted by 65 deg weather. Trips to Detroit got fewer and fewer and as soon as I had a few bucks I had my parents visit me here.
Went to a TAX cut New Years party at the CC last night. I keep my mouth shut but the very rich guys are as giddy as teenagers. The pro shop should do well. I did get a laugh when I asked if they were giving their gardener(s) a raise. They then spent an hour or so bitching that the dues went up because California minimum wage increased today as well. The sort of rich were more subdued because of the deduction changes. Should be an interesting year. I'll probably open my mouth and get kicked out for being a closet ...oops no politics!
In fact, my full name is Richard Ross Trudeau, or R. Ross Trudeau, making H. Ross Perot even more apt a subject for homage. Auld lang syne, crossworld!
Rabbit. Rabbit.
As the mom in "Harrison Bergerson" (K Vonnegut) says, "That was a doozy!" Is it Monday yet? I'm not sure where I left my wheelhouse, but it's not here. AND I, too, went to bed early last night. . . . Thanks, Ross and Argyle.
Happy New Year, everyone!
As if Mondays aren't easy enough, do we really need circled answers? Make it a little bit of a challenge. We are getting circled answer puzzles at least once a week. Get rid of them!
Montana,
I also use Cruciverb.com and work it on my IPad. The site recently went through an update and offers several more features. Solving is usually smooth as I can see the entire page with puzzle and clues so I can fill in like I solve with pencil. You can also access the archived puzzles if you happen to miss one.
The downside, as previously stated, is the domain owner isn’t always on top of things and “forgets” to upload the puzzles (like today) but usually gets things corrected within a day or two.
Try the site. I think you’ll like the solving process!
Dudley: interesting comments -- the LATcw is available many places online, but the LAT site has a unique Arcadium interface, and Cruciverb is the only place we can get the .puz file versions. SFAIK, all the others use the Tribune Media interface, which isn't the best, but is playable. I don't know how well it fares on a tablet tho. I've noticed comments by tablet users seem to always mention only the two sites you referenced.
I also wasn't aware that there were other software programs that could access the .puz files! I use the free Across Lite program, and love it, it has so many options!
In the U.S., PIZZA is spelt P-I-Zee-Zee-A. In the U.K., it's spelt P-I-Zed-Zed-A. [And my spell checker just flagged the U.S. version but not the U.K. -- curious!]
HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone!
This puzzle solve does not bode well for me in 2018. Since I had no idea where Game of Thrones is shown, NBOGO/NAH seemed right. Drat!
Otherwise no bumps appeared on the road and I got the theme (yea!) right away. Recently I mentioned having read EAT,PRAY,LOVE and why I knew ASHRAM. Was that my lost post yesterday? Maybe.
XERO G. My last fill, too. It took a few SECs but I got it. Even though I don't know Key & Peele, the fact that they are two together made DUO plausible. HARARE? Can't say I've heard of it.
My granddaughter spent the night with me and since she went to bed at 10 I stayed with her, we read her book, and I intended to get up and watch the PARTY, but that didn't happen and I fell asleep; I didn't even hear all the commotion around me.
Okay. I won't mention the weather but I do feel bad for those of you in the northern climes who are in freezing conditions. Stay warm!
MJ:
FLN: It was good to hear from you and I hope you take good care of yourself. Pneumonia can be dangerous.
Have a Fabulous day, everyone and I hope 2018 abounds with blessings for you!
Yesterday one of my neighbors was at the pool in her swim suit taking selfies, presumably to send to someone in a colder region. She didn't go into the water, though!
Ross Trudeau:
Thank you for stopping at our Corner!
Dudley 945A
Thanks for your Hare raising 'splan. PF 1006A said it best with the always understated "Bunny, Bunny!"
HG 948A
First, thank you once again for introducing me to Anna Netrebko. I watch her videos often now.
Is this your kitty I see at cats-zero-postrwoahdude?
Have we droned on about drones in the past?
PK 1006A
Sometimes I have to read all the words. You wrote "My kids love the pictures..."
I read "My kids TOOK the pictures..."
Hatoolah 1036A
Zeds, pizza pieces in London? Your amusement sent me to the 'net which knows everything. I was unable to confirm the tie in. Help Pizza eaters in England!
OKL 1056A
Thanks for your A to Zed 'splan. I'm leaving the note in.
Dave Due, Italian, with all this talk about pizza
Aaarrgghh. I messed up on a Monday puzzle on the first day of the New Year. What a rotten way to start 2018. Like others, I've never seen "Game of Thrones" and so had NBOGO instead of HBO GO. Well, maybe I should have figured that one out. But what drove me crazy was the southwest corner. I even tried the alphabet thing for the pizzas but gave up before I got to Z because I was so discouraged. And I feel like a fool, but I still don't understand ZERO G. Aaaarrggh. At least the sun came out after a very foggy morning to give me a little bit of sunshine. I'll try to cheer up a little later. Anyway, thank you, Argyle. And I have to remember that I had a fun cocktail party at the house across the street last night to end the year.
C.C. I hope you're feeling better today and that you have a wonderful day today.
Owen, you got the corner off to a good start this morning.
Have a good Monday, a good week, and a good year, everybody!
A nice Monday puzzle with a bit of crunch.
Happy New Year to one and all.
Dudley, PK, and all Playmates,
I had better luck with Rabbit, Rabbit!
Quoting from the site, "The tradition was extended on the first day of the new year, which called for walking backwards down the stairs and saying Rabbit at the same time." How many of you went to that extent?
Count me out. I can barely go dowmn stairs forward. I left my typo 'cause it reminds me of another word that starts with d, and ends with mn. damn! Spell check that!
Dave, Hare here!
Happy New Year to all, and thanks to Ross for a mostly doable puzzle. No TADA today due to zeds/zerog... the ABC method did not even work. Yet, it was fun...even the unknown HARARE sounds fun. Thanks to each one of you who add little tid bits of information and a splash of laughter each day. Alas, I have no nuggets to add.
D4: I sorta go downstairs sideways if I can't avoid it entirely and I want a strong man with a good shoulder below me to steady my balance or (2nd choice) a strong railing. I said Bunny bunny to be a little funny funny. I had never heard the saying before I came here.
Misty: Zero G is Zero gravity or weightlessness. My Oklahoma grandkids recently went to a place with a special ZERO G enclosure where they experience weightlessness and fly like they were sky diving. Fun!
After I posted earlier, my son sent me a link to see the whole parade. If I'd known he would do that, I wouldn't have stayed up all night to ensure I wouldn't miss it. His link had the grand finale on it that I didn't see. The two bands from Edmund, OK & 2 bands from California joined together and played a concert then cheerleaders joined. Quit a spectacle.
,
Dave2: Owen explained that the Pizza Pieces in London are the two letters "Z". In the US we say ZEE, but in England it is Zed.
HG,
Skimming through the blog, it appears no one answered your question. Movie was THE HUSTLER. Minnesota Fats was played by Art Carneys best bud, Ralph Kradem, aka Jackie Gleason.
Corner cooks & cronies,
I just had my first lunch of 2018, black eyed peas, and a ham sandwich. I will be blessed in the new year with all goodness.
Here is the 'splan.
PK 1242P
Can you copy / paste the site info to a comment so we can all share in your excitement? "Quit a spectacle."
Dave Too - ting, black eyed peas ya' know
A little crunch to start the year. Thanks for the fun Ross and Argyle. (Ross, is there any relationship to our Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau?)
Of course, I did not have the circles on Mensa but they were not required.
When I am on my IPad, I use Cruciverb on AcrossLite which I downloaded (no charge) a few years ago.
Like others, I finished in the SW and required some red letter help. This Canadian should have known the ZEDS but I wasn't looking for the letters.
I thought I had some Canadian disadvantage with AFLAC (I started with AETNA), HBO GO, ARCO, Key & Peele, but I see that others had problems too.
I smiled at the champagne flute clue at 50D for our New Year's PARTY.
Thanks OwenKL for the info re Julian calendar and Ides of March.
We had FETAs today not Goat cheese.
Like YR, I have not heard BEAUTY PARLO(U)R lately. Modern term is Beauty Salon which I tried to use but it was too short.
PK - glad that you could see your grandsons in their parade. I was happy to see a Canadian band, the Burlington Teen Tour Band (celebrating their 70th year) in the Tournament of Roses Parade today. Like England, Canadian schools do not have bands for their football games either.
BurlingtonTeenTourBand
Speaking of cold, although places like Toronto and Ottawa scaled back their New Year's Eve celebrations, Niagara Falls went ahead with their music and fireworks even though it was -27C (-17F). Not quite as cold as Montana's -23F!
Click through the photos to see the parkas and hats. Do Americans know Rick Mercer?
NYEinFalls
C.C.- hope you feel better soon.
MJ - glad to see you back after your long bout of pneumonia.
Happy New Year to all here at the Corner.
(Our Canada 150 year is over and I changed my Avatar back to our official flag.)
Thank you, PK--I really appreciate the explanation which now makes sense of the clue and answer.
Nope, CanadianEh!, not familiar with Rick Mercer. Is he the Canadian Dick Clark? (Except that he's still alive, of course.)
Hand up with Jinx, Yellowrocks and Lucina. FIW with NAH/NBOGO which seemed about as good.
Oh, well. Happy New Year!
Amusing notes about ROSS PEROT and OAK ASS, Jinx! I was surprised that with all his wealth and power he did not choose a more beautiful place to live. We need grownups like him to remind us to stay within our budget. But we also need leaders who can envision a big, bold future and invest in that vision to make it happen.
There is a big difference between a debt and an investment!
Never bought an Apple product and never plan to. But NANO is easy for me. Our company Digital Instruments was the first NANO technology company before the term existed. Our instrument was the NANOscope which was the most powerful microscope in the world.
This was one of our early NANO images of atoms in a lattice.
That image is still my favorite! Made by my friend Bruce Schardt.
Good afternoon, folks. Thank you, Ross Trudeau, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Argyle, for a fine review.
D-O, thanks for the TUBA shout out. That was my favorite answer.
Took me a while, but I picked up on the ZEDS clue. Excellent one.
ARCO stands for Atlantic Richfield Co., I think.
I always like Latin in the puzzle, ET TU BTUTE, or Roman Numerals. I hate French stuff.
Liked H. Ross Perot and REFORM PARTY. I voted twice for him.
Never watched Game of Thrones, but I assumed that HBOGO meant HBO GO, as in HBO the TV channel. Just a guess.
Hahtoolah, I liked your QOD. Excellent.
-3 Degrees as we speak in Chicago area. 2:00 PM. Oh well.
See you tomorrow. I have to report in on yesterday's puzzle now.
Abejo
( )
The same experience many of you had: had NAH and NBOGO. Had to turn on red letter help to discover it. Knowing ZERO G helped me figure out the ZEDS. Felt HARARE is not a Monday-level word, but okay. I sorta recall once asking the server at a local Ethiopian restaurant what the name of the popular beer they serve there is and she said the brand name is Harar. It's not bad for a pale lager.
Speaking of alcoholic beverages, I was wondering if you are familiar at all with the Tom Gore wine that Steve mentioned last Thursday, Chairman Moe.
Interesting information and nice verses, OwenKL.
LW and I did stay up til midnight. Today she and I agree it wasn't worth it. We'll have some sparkling wine later today.
Good wishes to you all for an uneventful and satisfying 2018. My we all enjoy reasonably good health. Cheers!
Owen 10:56 -
Thanks for clarifying. My information is probably out of date. On rare occasions, I’ve used the Arkadium interface on a desktop PC, and so far as I can recall it’s a smoother experience than it is on a tablet; the latter is simply un-fun. During today’s Arkadium solve, my tablet was twice hijacked by that annoying “You’ve Won...!” fakery. That really zeros out the fun-meter.
Husker - always love that zero G video! I bet it required more than one take to fit the astronaut through the hatch.
Looking forward to today’s Vienna Philharmonic broadcast! It’s tape delayed to 9:00 PM in my time zone; I wish it were available earlier (as I think it used to be) because it’s a daytime event. I’d love to be there in person. Tickets have been impossible to get for decades, but now the orchestra has an online lottery for some seats, making it a trifle more democratic.
D4E4H:
Our New Year's tradition is posole or menudo which I actually haven't had much of lately. We used to go to my mother's house for that treat. If you don't know, posole is made from hominy and beef while menudo is hominy and tripe, garnished with cilantro and hot sauce. It's supposed to be a cure for the hangover, too.
PK, I'm so glad that my Texoma reference brought you some warm and fuzzy memories. It is indeed a beautiful lake.
YR, I have learned to double-check the GPS. My first bad experience was when it had me turn right through a shady trailer park in Clearwater when I could have gone directly to the store by turning left. I've found that campgrounds are usually in the boondocks, and it is VERY common for GPS routing to be wrong. I always call first if the directions aren't on the web site. The campground management always know if GPS directions don't work, because every RVer complains when they check in. When I'm towing my Honda behind my motor home I can't back up, so hitting a dead end is simply not acceptable.
Also, "beauty parlor" is heard in my household every month. DW says she's going to the hairdresser; I say I'm going to the beauty parlor when I take my nearly-bald pate for a #2 crew cut ($5 plus tip).
The lowest Scrabble tile is ZERO, not ONE! Blanks are worth ZERO! So "ONE" is wrong, should be NIL
Happy New Year everybody!
Barbara was watching the Rose Parade on television. I've never wanted the inconvenience of traffic and crowds to make the effort of going to the parade. However, when my parents came west to visit us over the Christmas holidays years ago, we drove with them to Pasadena and saw the massed floats after they were parked following the parade. They smelled and looked beautiful.
Lucina, I'd always heard of menudo but never had any. We happened to drive past a Mexican eatery with a sign in the window saying that they had menudo every Sunday. So we stopped in and had a bowl. I liked it pretty well. I've never heard of posole but I might like it even better.
I often heard "Beauty Parlor" growing up in northern Virginia.
After a perfect weekend I DNFed on the Monday. I thought I had entered WET FOG. Shows me the brain was foggy. This was late week difficulty.
IM, I heard folks talking about missing the ball drop.
I could've wrote "Drink, PARTY, love" in my 1965-75 period.
WC
Tim @2:57 "Blanks are worth ZERO!" So that would have no value and the lowest tile with value is ONE. Blanks are still priceless tho.
Happy New Year, One & All!
May this one not be another annus horribilis, but let it be the annus admirabilis we so sorely need - and surely deserve!
I don't want to become political, but do wish to prompt our countrymen's better instincts. To that end, I trust 2017 was a wake-up call for everyone who assumed our enlightened and progressive republic could take care of itself - without much tampering from the citizenry.
Turns out we could coast for a while, but a year of floating in a dubious and much-criticized direction should convince us that we need to marshal our energies and apply them to fixing whatever we want to see changed. I certainly trust the members of this Corner to take care of business, and I hope they will encourage family, friends, and acquaintances to take a fully active role in our democracy.
OK, enough mouthing off. Let me thank Mr. Trudeau for a sweet start to our new year in cruciverbal land, and Argyle for doing the honors on the receiving end. There were lots and lots of gimmes today, and the only chewy moment for me was at 55A, for ZERO G. I was troubled by the clue's mention of "air," when so much of ZERO G space walking is in the absence of air.
But, hey ... It all came to a happy Ta- DA!
(Complete with a neat diagonal.)
While on the subject of ZERO G, I was reminded of the metrics of space exploration by watching Apollo 13 on cable recently.
What struck me this time was the incredible speed of rocketry in the absence of air friction. It is almost as if there is no limitation at all to how fast we can go with no atmosphere to slow us down. In one scene Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) mentioned they were approaching the outer atmosphere at over 38,400 feet per second.
Did I hear that right?
That translates to over 7 miles a second.
For those who remember our recent chat about running marathons, an astronaut doing EVA would complete the meanest course in just over 3 seconds.
Happy New Year!
I enjoyed today's RE-FORM PARTY puzzle very much. Fun clue for ZERO G. Perps took care of HARARE and HBO GO, both unknowns. Congratulations on your LAT debut, Ross Trudeau.
PK-- How exciting that you were able to see your grandsons in the London Parade, and that you've been able to "look in" on them over the past few days.
PK, Lucina, and Canadian Eh!--Thanks for the well wishes for my health. Thank goodness for modern medications.
Best Wishes to all in the year to come!
Bill G, my point exactly, beauty parlor was a term from our growing up years, passe today. In our small town there were plenty of beauty parlors, bars and churches.
My sister is serving pork and sauerkraut tonight, the PA Dutch New Year's tradition from our youth.
"The formerly green cabbage of the sauerkraut and the abundant fat of the pig symbolize riches and prosperity for the coming year, the pig doing double duty to stand for progress as a forward-rooting and forward-thinking animal (its four hooves all point toward the front). Slavic superstition also dictates that you should eat the long, skinny threads of sauerkraut to give you a long life —smart thinking when you consider the probiotics and other wonderfully healthy byproducts of the fermented cabbage."
Dudley, thanks for the reminder of the Vienna Philharmonic broadcast tonight. I watch it every year, but it slipped my mind today.
No religion? OMG! The puzzle has taken the Lord's name in vain again!
I like good sauerkraut. There's a local German restaurant that has wonderful sauerkraut; I usually order schweinshaxe, which is roasted ham hock (or “pork knuckle”). It comes with sauerkraut and potatoes on the side. Good stuff.
d-otto @1:40
Rick Mercer is a Canadian comedian with his own show, the Mercer Report on the CBC (this is his last season as he decided after 15 years to step away). He does comedy, rants, visits different areas of Canada, and is just generally interesting and funny.
He was the emcee of the Niagara Falls New Year's Eve program.
wikiRickMercer
RickMercerWebsite
Thank you, Ol Man Keith. A democracy works only when the citizens are informed and engaged and want the best for everyone. Thank you for the reminder.
You wrote:
I trust 2017 was a wake-up call for everyone who assumed our enlightened and progressive republic could take care of itself - without much tampering from the citizenry.
Turns out we could coast for a while, but a year of floating in a dubious and much-criticized direction should convince us that we need to marshal our energies and apply them to fixing whatever we want to see changed. I certainly trust the members of this Corner to take care of business, and I hope they will encourage family, friends, and acquaintances to take a fully active role in our democracy.
Dear World (and Husker @ 0948),
A Sousaphone is a tuba, shaped to be easier to carry for marching. The original design had the bell pointing up, as it was basically an improvement of the Helicon; Sousa later had the bell turned forward so everyone in front of them could better hear the stupendous sounds. Sorry if TMI for most; if interested in more, Wikipedia has volumes. Anyway, thanks for posting this.
As an almost lifelong serious musician who happens to play the tuba, it’s very nice to see the instrument I love clued other than as “oom-pah maker” or some such. I’ll take “brass band heavyweights” with pleasure!
PK - that British announcer was dead wrong - there have been marching bands since time immemorial; possibly picked up by Europeans from their Islamic occupiers, along with shawms, cymbals, etc. during the Middle Ages.
I’m at GMT-10, so I get the puzzle at 8pm the night before on Mensa, and I like the interface more than the new(isn) LAT format, with the ads, colors and all the junk surrounding the puzzle - the old style is cleaner - just the grid and clues, and you can still see it all when finished. Then I do it again in the paper (Hawaii Tribune-Herald) the next morning.
I usually need red letters Thurs-Sun to finish. Today I needed them for the Z - it just never occurred to me that the clue was for the name of the letters, and Zero G wouldn’t materialize for a long time, probably because I was being impatient and hadn't filled in 51a yet and wanted ARENA for 51d. I don’t believe the end justifies the means, so that cross didn’t come easily. I think -T has posted Key and Peele clips, so I’ve heard of them, and even if not DUO can be inferred - as Lucina said, but SEC didn't flow naturally from "gimme a" for me either.
Often I really don’t know something, or even anything about it, but at least have heard of it or read about it - or seen it in crosswords (HBO GO; HARARE; EGGO; AFLAC; EAT, PRAY, LOVE; SIRI). Zimbabwe has been in the news quite a bit lately, as long time dictator Mugabe finally allowed a peaceful transition of power to an elected president - albeit his former right hand man.
A very happy new year to all, from the other tuba player here (hi, Abejo).
Ol' Man Keith, we read your 3:45 comments, bit our tongues and respected the blog guidelines.
No need to comment again and quote yourself at 6:29 as Anonymous. This isn't a forum to stir political conversations. Write those comments somewhere else.
Anon at 7:10. Thanks for the advice. Please leave your e-mail address so we can get in touch with you whenever we need our blog policed.
HARARE was unknown; good to see you RRT. Happy New Year; as suggested HARE, HARE
Mike, I'm sure there have always been marching bands. However, the announcer qualified that "invented" remark by saying there are "No HIGH SCHOOL marching bands in England." Marching bands in many American high schools and colleges are very expensive as are the football programs but people will pay to get in to see them which helps defray the costs.
D4, YouTube has the London New Years Day Parade, I think, if you can get that. May be under LNYDP. I must have inadvertently erased the email my son sent with the link info. Can't find it.
Keith, I didn't consider your statements as political at all. Just a call for SANER citizen action.
Thanks, PK and whoever the first Anonymous (at 6:29) was, for understanding that I did not want to ruffle any political feathers, but aimed to urge fellow Xwders to pass the word to anyone they know who is not yet making sure their voice is heard.
I was moved to write by the plight of my mother-in-law. She moved out here to join us in SoCal this year after expressing dismay at the outcome of a recent election in her home state. Then I learned in conversation that she hadn't bothered to vote.
Needless to say, we promptly got her registered.
PK - I guess if so qualified it could be right. Unfortunately public schools are shutting down their music programs at all levels, so nobody's learning anything about music except what they hear on commercial pop radio.
Bill G @2:57 --
Speaking as a Pasadena by birth, the Rose Parade has always been somewhat of a nuisance. To put a million people in a city only licensed for 100,000 makes for tight quarters, and worse, for a day or two. I remember driving down Colorado Blvd. about 2 in the afternoon, and being stunned by the amount of trash generated. The poor Public Works crews really earn their money on January 1.
The best way to see the floats -- which can be truly works of art -- is to go to Victory Park after the crowds are down, and there is time to appreciate each entry, without the float disappearing in 20 seconds, as the next horse group or whatever moves into focus.
Post a Comment