google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Sunday March 11, 2018 Joe Kidd

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Mar 11, 2018

Sunday March 11, 2018 Joe Kidd

(For a correct PDF file of today's puzzle, email me: crosswordc@gmail.com)

Theme: "Commercial Break" - AD is added into each theme entry.

 23A. Skillful adventurers? : ESCAPADE ARTISTS. Escape artists.

 35A. Field for feline frolic? : THE CAT'S MEADOW. The cat's meow.

52A. Speech from a queen, maybe? : PROM ADDRESS. Prom dress.

76A. Unusually vicious nocturnal flier? : SUPER BAD OWL. Super Bowl. This one broke the original word into two.
 
90A. Burned-out hillbilly? : JADED CLAMPETT. Jed Clampett.

107A. Bedtime bugaboo? : LATE NIGHT SHADOW. Late night show.
 
15D. Sun worshiper's seasonal harangue? : WINTER TIRADE. Winter tire.

59D. Megalith inscribed with saws? : ROCK OF ADAGES. Rock of Ages.

Our blog labels shows that this is the debut Sunday for Joe Kidd. Congratulation! Sunday puzzles are that hard to make, and he gave us a 138-worder.

I grokked the gimmick immediately, as Don G and I once did a similar puzzle with AD IN as reveal. But it did not help my solving.

Across:
        
1. Huggers : ARMS. Thought of Lucina and her loving sisters. Here we are at Mall of America, 2012.

C.C., Lucina, Marge, Yoli & Juanita

5. Spectrum maker : PRISM

10. "The Winner Takes It All" group : ABBA

14. React to a pop idol, perhaps : SWOON

19. Haul : LOOT

20. Fall sign : LIBRA

21. They can be calm or rough : SEAS

22. Specialized vocab : LINGO. We have our own Corner lingo.

26. When rights may be prohibited : ON RED

27. Musical clacker : CASTANET. New term to me.



28. Chooser's words : THAT ONE

30. Pro shop buys : TEES Also 110. Golf selection : IRON

31. Attractive pitcher : EWER. Ah, the baseball reference is at  62. Diamond protector : TARP

32. __ Alley, supply source in the Harry Potter universe : DIAGON. Santa knows.

33. Effective use of lang. : RHET. OK, rhetoric.

39. Neck-to-waist body armor : CUIRASS. New to me also.


42. Laid into : HAD AT

43. Vermont tourist destinations : INNS

44. Stooges' specialty : SLAPSTICK. Great fill.

46. Lasting lead-in? : EVER. Everlasting.

47. __-Indian War : SINO. Have you been to China, Picard?

49. Sinus doc : ENT

50. About : IN RE

51. Pro __: for now : TEM

57. Recognize : READ

58. Chicken Little, memorably : ALARMIST

61. Least friendly : ICIEST

63. Granola bar bit : OAT

64. Ocean predators : ORCAS. Thanks for the nice words about my Orca award.

65. Where Tippecanoe Cty. is : IND

66. Ticket abbr. : SECT

68. Hellish : HADEAN. OK, adjective of Hades.

70. Competitions : CONTESTS

75. Savor, with "in" : BASK

78. Saigon holiday : TET. Same day as Chinese Spring Festival.

79. Northeast Nevada city : ELKO

80. Grand __ Opry : OLE

81. She, in Siena : ESSA

82. First name in gossip : RONA

83. "Whatever" : AS IF I CARE. Another great fill.

86. __ bit: slightly : A WEE

88. One with an IRA, say : SAVER

89. Reversible fabrics : DAMASKS

94. Jim Davis canine : ODIE

95. Name on a pricey handbag : HERMES. This is their famous Birkin bag.


96. Some Ivy Leaguers : ELIS

97. Kelly of talk : RIPA

99. Dapper accessory : TIE CLIP

101. Intrasemester exam : UNIT TEST. No such exam in our schools.

105. 1980s-'90s Commodore computer : AMIGA

109. One fit for a queen? : SHEET. Queen bed.

111. Large chamber group : NONET. Group of nine. We also have 5. Member of a noted octet : PLANET

112. Home repair option, briefly : RE-FI

113. Ad hoc hunters : POSSE. I only associate "ad hoc" with committee.

114. French 101 verb : ETRE

115. Hired hoods : GOONS

116. Sweater mishap : SNAG

Down:
  
1. Guinness of "Smiley's People" : ALEC

2. Bill awarded her a Presidential Medal of Freedom : ROSA (Parks)


3. Comfy footwear : MOCS

4. Governor's ride : STATE CAR

6. They're added to bills : RIDERS. Tidy dupe with 4D clue.

7. "Yeah, right!" : I BET

8. Span. title : SRA

9. "The War of the Worlds" attacker : MARTIAN

10. Bagel cheese : ASIAGO. Have any of you tried Super Target's sliced sourdough bread?

 
11. Confers (on) : BESTOWS

12. It's passed in a race : BATON

13. AAA member?: Abbr. : ASSN. Same cluing style as "Part of TBS: Abbr." for SYS.

14. __-mo : SLO

16. How some lawyers are paid : ON RETAINER. We had some disputes with our townhouse association last year. They hired a lawyer. We lost. When we got home, I got a jury duty notice.

17. Double-curve molding : OGEE

18. Auction actions : NODS
 
24. Play with, kitten-style : PAW AT

25. Mississippi senator Cochran and jazz trumpeter Jones : THADS

29. Lets off steam : ERUPTS

32. Luth. or Meth. : DENOM

34. __ Honor : HIS

35. Frat row letter : THETA

36. First president of the Czech Republic : HAVEL


37. Fluid buildup : EDEMA

38. North Dakota's "Magic City" : MINOT. Magic because of what?

39. Art able to : CANST

40. __ metal : SCRAP

41. Brief timetable : SKED. Schedule.

45. Some skinny jeans : LEES. My favorite at the moment is Mudd.

47. Roasting gadget : SPIT

48. Org. with forms : IRS

53. CBS or NBC : AIRER

54. 1983 taxi comedy : DC CAB


55. 20th-century princess : DIANA

56. Hi-__ image : RES

60. Welcoming sight : MAT
 
62. Blow-up aid : TNT

64. Hymn relative : ODE

65. Visiting Hollywood, say : IN LA. Steve hikes to the Hollywood sign from time to time.

66. Lively dance : SALSA

67. Ice cream treats : ESKIMO PIES. Try Nice Cream if you do not tolerate dairy products. Just frozen bananas, a little peanut butter, cocoa powder. Then blend.


68. Dances with graceful gestures : HULAS
 
69. Mimic : APER

70. Trig ratio : COSEC

71. They're rarely heard from skilled carpenters : OWS

72. Cook's need : STOVE. We have a GE stove. The "Hot Stovetop" light stays on forever.  GE used to stand for quality.

73. Bit of dogma : TENET

74. "Boo!" reaction : START. Shock.

75. Bit of sweat : BEAD

76. Place for a plug : SOCKET
 
77. Scouts do good ones : DEEDS

82. Jay-Z and others : RAP STARS

84. "Woe __": 1996 grammar book : IS I

85. Steam engine exhaust system : EJECTOR. Just learned from TTP last week that I had not been ejecting my USB devices properly.

86. Campus bldg. : ADMIN

87. Breaking down : WEEPING

88. Worker in a forge : SMITH. Ah, here is a nice Smith.


91. Garfield's gal pal : ARLENE. The pink cat.


92. Like the pre-Easter season : LENTEN

93. Elite slates : A-LISTS

95. Essence : HEART

97. Gravelly sound : RASP

98. Texting qualifier : IMHO

100. '70s tennis star Nastase : ILIE


101. "Hmm ... I doubt that" : UH NO

102. Churchill's 1955 successor : EDEN

103. Den piece : SOFA

104. Part of a pre-fire pile : TWIG

106. Had lunch, say : ATE

108. Gunk : GOO

C.C.


(For a correct PDF file of today's puzzle, please email me: crosswordc@gmail.com)

57 comments:

fermatprime said...

Greetings!

Thanks to Joe and C. C.!

Enjoyable puzzle! Easy theme!

Stuff that I did not know (or did not remember right off the bat): PRISM, CUIRASS, IND, HADEAN, DAMASKS, UNIT TEST (HUH?), MINOT, DC CAB, EJECTOR and ARLENE.

Lots of rain here today! Hooray!

Hope to see you all tomorrow!


Anonymous said...

Welcome to daylight savings time.

I set the time on the coffee maker, microwave, stove top, wall clock, and two clocks in the bedroom. Took all of about 5 mins. No biggie. Nice to feel the sun in the afternoon...

Dudley said...

Hello Puzzlers -

Hand way up for not knowing Cuirass. It came right up in my spelling checker, which suggests we’ve had it previously, but I’ll be darned if I recall it.

Nice to see Diagon Alley, one of zillions of clever names invented by J. K. Rowling. That’s one of my favorites, along with Quidditch.

Morning, C.C., that’s an interesting ice cream substitute you mentioned! Nice to see your photo with Lucina’s bunch again.

I notice that my local TV news station consistently recognizes there’s only one S in Daylight Saving Time. Elsewhere it seems to be kind of 50-50.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

Nice puzzle, Joe. Tried I DON'T CARE (what DW says just before she says, "Not that!") and AH NO, but otherwise finished with a clean grid. Got the theme, but erroneously tried to figure out how HADEAN was part of it. CUIRASS came bubbling up from somewhere. Thanx for the tour, C.C.

Got all the clocks reset (Well, two, actually. The rest are all "atomic," self-setters.) I never use an alarm, so this morning I woke up right on time...an hour late.

Believe I saw a WINTER TIRADE just the other day from one of our regular posters.

C.C., AD HOC refers to any group assembled for a specific purpose. I also immediately think of a committee. Looked up MINOT to see what the magic was about. Apparently, it refers to the Motor Magic drag racetrack there.

BobB said...

I had Siagon Alley for a long time, just didn't look right. I had a Commodore VIC 20 back in the day. Earlier model than the Commodore 64 or the Amiga.

Anonymous said...

Something is amiss in the LA times puzzle...the grid doesn't look like the one given in this column, and the numbers are interspersed or clues missing.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

Anon - The puzzle printed out fine from the LAT web site.

Carelessly FIW. Somehow ADMIl building and a LATE lIGHT SHADOW. We're out of V8, I guess.

Although I do like DST, the Florida legislature called their bill to have it nonstop the "Sunshine Protection Act of 2018". I like the bill, but that title could only come from a bunch of dopes.

Lucina can clarify, but I thought AD HOC is Latin for "for this". Could be a POSSE, committee, or in management, reports / data requests that aren't planned.

Bill awarded the medal to ROSA because Monica had too many letters. "Sweater mishap" brought flashbacks of an incriminating handprint inadvertently imposed on a date in my ute.

Florida is finally back to seasonal weather. Off to lunch with DW and Zoe.

Lemonade714 said...

I guess I am still out of practice because there was a lot I did not know -CUIRASS, HAVEL, THADS, and DIAGON for example. But the theme was very easy and helped fill the grid.
My favorite part was the write-up by C.C. with the great picture of Lucy and the CSO AMIGA.

Thanks, Joe, I enjoyed it - no kidding.

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

I caught the theme early on but was still challenged in many places: Diagon, Cuirass, and Amiga, among others. W/os were Argot/Lingo, Reno/Elko, Elaine/Arlene, and Tie Tack/Clip. My favorite themers were Super Bad Owl and The Cats Meadow (Hi, Mr. Meow!) I spent more time than usual solving but that's okay as I'm not into speed solving.

Thanks, Joe, for an ADventurous Sunday offering and thanks, CC, for the upbeat review. I enjoyed seeing your group picture with Lucina and sissies and also your co-constructor on the New York Times celebrity puzzle last year, Harry Smith.

YK, I'm glad you found some of the important papers but disappointed that the file box remains missing. Did you look under the beds? That may sound silly but sometimes it's an option. Good luck!

PK, please keep us informed of Aaron's progress. I hope the encouraging signs continue.

Dudley, do you watch the Albany TV stations and, if so, which one is your favorite? I watch NBC, Channel 13 for the news.

The shower was long and noisy but I survived. The venue was lovely, an historical barn, carefully restored but with modern amenities. It was decorated very attractively and was cozy but the food was, well, I'll turn that over to Thumper. Because of the lack of a liquor license (which I understand is prohibitively expensive in New York State), only beer and wine were served. But through the wiles of a niece who brought me airplane-sized bottles of Dewar's, I wasn't left out in the cold, so to speak!

So far, I've only adjusted 2 out of 7 clocks. What a pain!

Have a great day.

Husker Gary said...

Musings
-The gimmicks were fun but “Megalith inscribed with saws” is a fabulous clue!
-Times being what they are, I now offer air hugs
-Rodney Dangerfield buying TEES and more (:56)
-I am about a month into a CPAP machine and hearing aids thanks to my ENT
-Six CONTESTS in Lincoln yesterday yielded six boy’s BB state champions.
-What the Grand OLE Opry looked like when we were in Memphis
-When did “I could care less” start meaning “I couldn’t care less”?
-Nary a TIE CLIP in these two pix
-Could we say in Latin that Pluto is Planeta Non Grata?
-ROSA’s quiet dignity did more for civil rights than any RAP STARS
-Giving the governor’s CAR a parking ticket
-The 1938 radio broadcast of The War Of The Worlds generated many ALARMISTS
-The queen and flowers left for DIANA with whom she had a rocky relationship

billocohoes said...

Haven't seen CUIRASS by itself, but recently was reading about CUIRASSers, a type of Napoleon-era cavalry, along with dragoons, hussars, chasseurs, and lancers.

In the 1970s, when the start of DST started moving up from the end of April to now mid-March, Floridians (probably in the Panhandle) were complaining about students starting for school in the pitch-black early morning. Must be they've gotten used to it if they now want DST in January. Here in the North, with only 8 1/2 hours of daylight in January, the workday commute will be in the dark one way or the other whenever the clocks are set.

D4E4H said...

Good Morning! It's time for a "Commercial Break."

Shame on you Mr. Joe Kidd for making me groan when I took the "AD" out of ESCAPadEARTISTS. This allowed me to suss the other theemers, which helped me to eventually FIR. Once again P & P "Paid off."

C.C. I have yet to complete your review, but I want to thank you for it. Thanks for the PIC. You wrote "and he gave us a 138-worder." As I read it now, I see "worder" where I was reading "wonder." I thought you meant he had used 138 of 441 squares. Mea culpa.

I suss that grokk means "to understand completely and intuitively'"

Yellowrocks 1A Huggers -- is for you!

33A Effective use of lang. : RHET. OK, rhetoric. -- I thought RHET Butler used an effective use of lang. in"Frankly my dear..."

39A Neck-to-waist body armor CUIRASS -- New word -- Would you like to caress my CUIRASS?

80A Ole' to the Grand OLE Opry!

116A Sweater mishap: SNAG -- a wardrobe malfunction that are sooooooooooo common.

32. Luth. or Meth. : DENOM -- Why did I see "Demon" as I read the review?

37D Fluid buildup: EDEMA -- in my legs -- Pleas pass the Lasix so the fluid will pass.

38D MINOT is Magic.

39D Art able to : CANST -- the opposite of can't-st.

76D Place for a plug : SOCKET --My SOCKET holds a light bulb.

Today's Prostaglandin: Brought to you by DST where we are asked to "Spring" forward. All I have left is a slinky so --
Some people are like Slinkies … not really good for anything, but you can’t help smiling when you see one tumble down the stairs.

Dave

Elaine said...

I got the old fashioned print version and the grid is way off from the clue answers.

Unknown said...

The grid is completely off in my paper this morning . . . disappointment!

Big Easy said...

Good morning. I also 'grokked' (never use that word) immediately at ESCAP-AD-E ARTISTS. C.C., nice photo of you and Lucina and all you girls with your HERMES purses hanging from your shoulders. No real problems, with just a few unknowns- CUIRASS, AMIGA, ejector, HADEAN, DIAGON- and had to change DC COP to DC CAB and TIE TACK to TIE CLIP. I liked the puzzle a lot because there weren't many unknown people. Everybody's heard of ROSA and JED CLAMPETT.

SINO-Indian War? When was that? Ghengis Khan?
TEES- I've never bought any. I just pick them up on tee boxes; many golfers are too lazy to bend over and pick them up after they tee off.

ProfLinda said...

Minot got it “magic” designation when the railroad made its way to this part of the northern prairie. The town appeared as if by magic when the railroad brought settlers and commerce. Another notable: the conductor would cry out “Next stop, Minot. Prepare to meet your maker. “ The City has other boom times as a result of the Air Force establishing a base there and the more recent Bakker oil boom.

ProfLinda said...

Oops...Bakken wasn’t recognized by auto correct.

Madame Defarge said...

Good Morning,

Thanks, Joe, for some doable fun. I had some false starts until I realized the theme. Then I was able to go back and make lots of headway.

Thanks, C.C., for taking us through the puzzle. Love the photo of Lucina and her sisters. Very nice.

Last night's St. Paddy's dinner was a huge success. My MIL loved it. Fun to see her light up so! Started telling stories after one or two sips of her White Zinfandel.

Have a sunny day, everyone.

Lucina said...

Thank you, C.C., for posting that picture of me and my sisters. That was a great trip to Minnesota for my grand nephew's wedding and meeting you and Boomer was the icing on the cake!

As someone said, this puzzle had no obscure names so the solving was smooth and painless. It took a long time, however, to recall JED CLAMPETT so that area was A WEE bit of a slog.

I also wrote ELAINE instead of ARLENE so my eraser worked hard today. ODIE was easy, though.

ROCK OF ADAGES was my favorite themer and ON RED was cleverly clued.

Time to go. Thank you and congratulations to Joe Kidd on his Sunday debut. And thank you, C.C.; you make it all sound so easy.

Have a delightful day, everyone! Rain today!

NaomiZ said...

Agreed! The print paper gave us the wrong grid today. Impossible to solve.

NaomiZ said...

Nice to be able to check the blog and see that the grid in the print version looks nothing like the one y'all solved. It was a stumper! Oh, well, we sprang forward an hour, so no time for puzzles.

Zhouqin (C.C.) Burnikel said...

Sorry this happened again. I have the correct PDF file of today's puzzle. Please email me crosswordc@gmail.com

accountantgirl said...

Love a mental image of a super bad owl. Best answer in a long time.

Beaugency said...

Sat for an hour trying to figure out how to fit words into the grid. Thought it was a tricky grid!

Zhouqin (C.C.) Burnikel said...

I also uploaded it on the cloud. Please click below link to download or print. Download button is on the upper right.

Correct Grid in PDF

Zhouqin (C.C.) Burnikel said...

OK, Just to make Dave 2 happy.

Correct Grid in PDF

Bold and beautiful!

VirginiaSycamore said...

Happy DST to all!
Thanks to Joe for a great first puzzle and to CC for her write up!
It took lots of perps and some red letter runs to finish the puzzle. But I think there were enough easy clues to get the V8 moments for most of the hard clues. Such as, at first I couldn't see how saws could inscribe a stone/lith. Then the V8 moment, that kind of saws!

THE ESCAP[ad]E ARTIST is a new book by Brian Meltzer. I have heard the author twice last week giving radio interviews. I am planning to get the free 5 chapter sample on Kindle to see if I will buy it. Looked like an interesting and thrilling read.

Live Well and Prosper,
VS

Husker Gary said...

Musings
-AARRGGHH! Our priest today talked about the Cardinal Sin of SLOTH but pronounced it SLOHTH not SLAWTH and I winced every time he did. Should I have told him after church?
-On 72 Down - Cook's need - S _ _ _ _ and I thought about SPICE but didn't want to start up yesterday's debate again! :-)
-Lousy weather outside but Tiger is in contention in the golf tournament today! Ratings go sky high when he is playing.

Misty said...

Aaaarrgggghhh! Totally messed up grid in this morning's Los Angeles Times puzzle. Came to the blog and saw that Anonymous and Jinx had the same problem and used Jinx's suggestion and looked for the puzzle online. Found it, but couldn't print it--trying over and over again. Finally saw that its menu had a Print option, and thank goodness that worked. I was already an hour late starting the puzzle, thanks to DST, and now two hours late. And it was especially upsetting because once I got it started the puzzle was a delight and I did pretty well, with only a few cheats. Many thanks, Joe, and C.C. I'm glad you put up a site where others with my problem can get a correct copy, C.C.

Well, time to get breakfast and start the day. Have a good one, everybody!

Yellowrocks said...

AAH! I redeemed myself today. The only trouble I had was with WAILING instead of WEEPING, which messed up TIE CLIP and JADED for a while.
I was surprised to see tie clip clued as a dapper accessory. I have heard that tie clips and tie pins are passe, as Gary's picture showed.
DIAGON was all perps.
I knew CUIRASS from historical fiction, both in Roman times and in a different form in the Middle Ages. Dave, it would not be very satisfying to caress a cuirass.
Although the AW spelling of sloth is more common for idleness and the OH spelling is more common for the animal, I see that both are correct. Gary, it's good you didn't correct the priest. I pronounce it the way I just wrote, but don't mind if it is said otherwise.
I remember from elementary school "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" as the campaign song Harrison used in the presidential election of 1840, in which he beat Van Buren.
Tippecanoe
Learning about this in school I was fascinated by the name Tippecanoe. Late I learned what the name really means.
"Tippecanoe County (IN) was formed March 1, 1826, and named for the anglicization of "Kethtippecanoogi", a Miami people term meaning "place of the succor fish people.

Maci45 said...

Grid was incorrect in the L.A. Times.

Bobbi said...

Yep! The LAT took another whack at print readers today with the wrong grid. We of the dying breed of readers of a newsPAPER have seen a constant flow of "errors" in our print copies. Wonder if it's intentional??

Yellowrocks said...

Dear Cornerites, thank you for all the virtual hugs and encouragement yesterday. You wonderful friends made my day. I am back to my normal self, now. I will stop obsessing over something that can't be helped and, instead, set myself to remedying it. No use crying over split milk. Yes, I have looked in the car and Alan has looked under all the beds, since I can't get down that low. I am done looking. I will survive. As Splynter says, "ONWARD!"
Yellowrocks to all of you.

PK said...

Hi Y'all! Was JOE KIDDing us? Yep. But he's sure a great KIDDer! Very FPunny! 8 theme answers. Wow! Great expo, C.C.!

Read the title and got the theme on ESCAPADE which helped on the others if I could figure out just where to put the AD.

Forgot ARLENE (ESP). Did not know CUIRASS (D4 "caress my cuirass" - too funny), HAVEL, COSEC, DIAGON. "Jargon" was too long so LINGO it is. Wanted "cheer" before SWOON. Who does that in this day and age?

Madam DeFarge, sorry to hear about the loss of your dear neighbor. A good one can be so important in one's life.

Thanks everyone, I'll keep you posted on Aaron.

D4E4H said...

Yellowrocks

I wouldn't have jibed yesterday, but you can handle it today. So you were in elementary school singing "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" as the campaign song William H. Harrison and his running mate John Tyler used in the presidential election of 1840, in which he beat Van Buren.

How old were you in 1840?

William H. Harrison
Party: -----Whig
Home state: Ohio
Running mate:John Tyler

PK 232p

SWOON is alive, and "Well?", and living in the Urban Dictionary where it's meaning is adjusting for the times.

Dave

Picard said...

Mostly fun ride and theme! But had ASIAnO/DIAnON for the cross of those two unknowns. I only put CREAM Cheese on my bagels (with lox as a special treat today!) What is ASIAGO like?

Hand up for all those weird unknowns like CUIRASS, but they had fair crosses.

CC: Thanks for asking! I have been to plenty of weird places, but I have not yet been to some obvious places I very much want to visit. China, Japan, Greece, Spain and Portugal all come to mind. The conference with the CACTI was supposed to meet in China last year, but at the last minute there were nasty accusations by the Chinese hosts and the American organizers and it was relocated to the US. Very frustrating as I was all set to go.

What can you recommend to see in China (obvious places as well as those that are not obvious!)? Hope you saw my SINO West post a few days ago of our Chinese New Year celebration. Did you do anything special for the occasion?

Thanks for the photo of you, Lucina and her sisters. Lovely!

Here I am with my DW and her mother IN LA, including in HOLLYWOOD. Notice the HOLLYWOOD sign behind us from several different view points!

Even though it only takes us two hours to be IN LA, we are more often IN SF which is six hours away.

Once again here are some photos in SIENA. One of my favorite cities because there are no cars!

From yesterday:
Thanks for your interest in my blooming CACTI photo, AnonT and Lucina!

Here are a few more of my photos of blooming Saguaro CACTI from that convention outing.

I have plenty of other CACTI blooming photos, but I think of all the CACTI, the Saguaro is my favorite! We will be there again in a couple of weeks!

Jayce said...

I loved this puzzle. Excellent, entertaining theme and some terrific cluing. Thank you, Mr. Kidd.

One big advantage of being retired is not having to get up before you want to. LW and I both slept for our usual amount of time and got up when our bodies and brains were ready, as always. Today we adjusted our clocks. So we lose an hour of daytime rather than an hour of sleep. In a few weeks our natural circadian clocks will have synchronized with the mechanical ones. I vote for DST all year.

I see C.C. gave in to D4E4H's repeated harping on making links bold. He's hinted at it, requested it, demanded it, whined about it, and attempted to shame us into it a full nine times since joining this blog.

The Commodore Amiga was an advanced computer, extremely powerful, far ahead of its time. Even the Commodore 64 was advanced. I have programmed in assembly language for them, as well as the IBM PC which was actually quite primitive, limited, and slow in comparison. (The 6502 processor, used in the Commodore computers as well as the Apple II, running at 1 MHz could run rings around the 8088 processor, used in the IBM, running at 5 MHz.) Ah, what a difference good marketing can make, regardless of the quality of the product.

Best wishes to you all.

Picard said...

Jayce: Thanks for singing my rant!
Ah, what a difference good marketing can make, regardless of the quality of the product.
Yes, I also used to program the Motorola processors like the 6502 and 6809 and then on to the 68000 in assembly code. They were so elegant and logical.

I took one look at the Intel architecture and realized I would never even try to program such an awful, haphazard design. Your rant was my rant for years: While Motorola put all their effort into brilliant design, Intel put their effort into marketing and sales. Sad to see the latter won out.

Chairman Moe said...

Needed for too many perps; lots of wags and wo's. But I completed it.

A bit of a SO to yours truly with the Stooges clue = SLAPSTICK

My Moe-ku:

does lawyer who is
now an orthodontist, get
paid on RETAINER?

oc4beach said...


I did the puzzle today on paper from the Washington Post (I only get it on Sundays because it is too expensive to get everyday) which had the correct grid. I was able to slog through it without putting holes in the paper with my eraser. Good puzzle Joe and I enjoyed CC's write up.

Once I read the theme title I was able to fill in the theme answers without much problem. Adding AD to well known phrases and names made for a nice puzzle.

I had a few stumbles along the way. I had Princess GRACE before DIANA became obvious, MIDTERMS before UNITTEST, and I pondered over CLUB and WOOD before filling in IRON.

DIAGON didn't register because I've only seen the first Harry Potter movie and never read the book. CUIRASS was way out in left field and was only filled in by perps and my WAG at Canst.

I never heard of HERMES handbags, so again I only got it with perps. DW doesn't get designer handbags usually, but she does like Vera Bradley bags, and one other that I can't remember, or actually care about. I figure that what ever she wants she gets. For the most part we both get whatever we want if we can afford it. This makes gift shopping difficult sometimes. So, there have been many times when we each get something we want and just tell the other one that they bought a gift that we really like. It does take the surprise out of it though.

Luckily our ancient wind-up mantle clock stopped yesterday, so I just waited to wind it at the right time today rather than go through the process of resetting it. I have a few clocks that reset themselves and only had to set about four clocks and my watches. It will take a few days to get my body clock reset though.

I hope everyone enjoys the daylight.

Yellowrocks said...

Dave, we did not sing it. I heard the mention of the slogan in the fifth grade as a mere passing tidbit. It tickled my funnybone so I never forgot it. I am sure it did not register with anyone else. As I became older I was interested in the story. My odd tastes and curiosity have benefited me in crossword solving.
I like daylight saving time. The time change does not affect my biologocal clock in any way, nor does flying to and from Europe. Japan is another story, no prob going there, but coming home is hard. This makes me wonder how Steve adjusts to jet lag.
I would be happy with year round DST. I love having it light in the evening.

Anonymous T said...

Laughing out Loud Lurk say...

I was wondering how long it would take for an AMIGA fanboi to chime in :-). Jayce wins with Picard as a close second. I had a buddy @DOD who thought Amiga was THE CAT'S MEADOW - couldn't shut him up :-)

I do agree, however, RISC beats the snot out of CISC inre: architecture. I've done assembly on them all (and do HTML for my dog... ) [Weird Al; and I digress]. I love the purity of the registers in RISK; stacks is dumb; and pre-fetch-execute == Meltdown/Spectre. //end rant

My newsPAPER's grid was way off too... It has last week's NYT. Nothing match's C.C.'s answers!

Thanks C.C. for the vicarious solve. I like what JK did there. Super Bad Owl is my fav and will be my RAP ARTIST-name when I break outta this 'hood. :-)
Wonderful picture of you, Lucina and friends.

HG - Yes! Tell him. He's the authority to the flock and they, like watchers of Costas, will spread it far and wide. Nip it in the bud.

DST - I love it. It feels right for winter nights to get dark earlier. Inre: clocks, only the oven has to be manually changed -- everything else is magic. I was up at 2a and watch my iPad jump from 1:59a to 3a; same w/ PC & other iThings.
There's a book I heard about by Michael Downing (from 2005) that blames the golf and BBQ industries for lobbying DST. So stop buying TEEs if you you want to protest :-)

Cheers, -T

Me too said...

C.C. - thank you thank you thank you for the correct grid for printing and for "nice cream". You made my Sunday and sundae! 😊

Anonymous said...

Wow! Dealing with an hour less sleep and the wrong grid printed in the dead tree edition of the L.A. Times. The anguish further compounded by the puzzle's title as I tried to figure out how to "break" answers to fit the grid I had.

Rant:This is why I dislike 'clever' puzzles that break with standard crossword conventions. The possibility that this was one such puzzle kept me struggling to make the grid work for far longer than was warranted.

We should sue for pain and suffering! :-)

With a jury of crossword fans we'd win a judgement large enough to pay off the National Debt.

D4E4H said...

Jayce 310p

Thanks for keeping count for me. It's one thing for me to want something, but C.C. demonstrated the visual difference in her posts today at 1252P, and 1256P.

Which link was more "Bold and beautiful" and likely to be recognized easily.

Hiyo Silver, away! Come Tonto. My work here is done.

Tomorrow will start my fifth month at the corner. See --my first post.-- I do hope that by now I'm more Panera than Painerror. Don't ask me what this means? It just sounded good.

Dave

Yellowrocks said...

Anon,@ 5:02 I would not join your suit. I like many of the clever puzzles. Rich and Joe are not respnsible for the misprinted grid today. The grid in my paper was okay.
IMHO It is not kind to challenge someone for using an alternate pronunciation. We should save our criticism for more clear cut issues.
Dave 2,congrats on becoming a valued regular.

Cali-grandma said...

There were so many missing clues in my puzzle, it made it impossible to solve ... the entire bottom, both left and right, were missing ... how sad those that edit did not see this massive oversight ... Challenge is one thing, but no clues is just wrong.

Anonymous T said...

Found where I heard it... 5 things about DST. [Marketplace: 5m]. -T

Lucina said...

Surprise! Surprise! If there is a snafu in the print puzzle my newspaper usually participates but not today! Yea! A few weeks ago, not only did they print the wrong puzzle, it was the one from the day before with the answer grid instead of a blank one.

Of course it's frustrating, but luckily other sites, such as Mensa have a printable one.

Luckily my part of the state does not have DST though farther north on the Navajo Reservation I believe they do.

Picard said...

AnonT: Thanks for Weird Al's White and Nerdy! Yes, half the time that really is me. Did you notice Picard even gets a shout out in the song?

And thanks for the history bit on DST. People either love it or hate it. Count me as one who loves DST and wished it continued all year.

Here is the genuine LA Times Puzzle for free. Is there some reason people don't go straight to the source?

I print it as a PDF each day (and print that) and then fill it in with pen.

Here is my Grand Finale piece on PuppetPalooza for those who enjoyed that first teaser a week ago.

Lots more puppet videos and photos! And the Grand Finale of the Grand Finale Puppet Parade!


Anonymous said...

Dave @ 5:16. You miss the point.

SwampCat said...

Thanks, Anon T for the link to DST. I still hate it! Missed church this morning because I woke up too late. It takes me 6 months to adjust then it switches back again.

Bah humbug!

Wilbur Charles said...

Well here I am, late as usual. I started my shuttle gig late and finished late. Around 4 pm I finally started this xw. Fortunately the TBtimes had the right version. I then drove to Tin territory with the an OMK diagonal with the bottom left blank .

I came back to TPA and just finished before a Bradenton route . Somewhere, COSEC (Secant) came to me. I'm surprised that one escaped comment
Tippecanoe won the Presidency and then proceeded to deliver the longest inauguration address in history in a cold, pouring rain. He died a month later of pneumonia.

I loved your Ku Moe. And thanks joe K. For a doable and entertaining Sunday.
Rock of ADages was a great one

IMHO, I suspect the key to the Intel/MS prevailing was transparency eg. Big Brother needed to see what the masses were doing. DEC, fe.,had too much security .

WC

Btw. Bizarro had a CSO to Husker Gary today

Anonymous T said...

Picard - of course I know all the words - I'm White and Nerdy too. //I had a 12d at the ready for our disaster-recovery scenario table-top. :-)

C.Moe {cute}

Swamp - It is what it is. And I can't sleep at this 'hour'.

WC - Welcome to my world - may I offer you my tin-foil hat?
Gremlins are in the box.. [Bugs] #OurTeam(?)

Cheers, -T

The Accidental Tourist said...

Nebraska has tourists ? That, indeed, is bizarro, WC.

Michael said...

Aha! Thought I remembered something about this. From the site atlasobscura.com:

"From 1940 to 1947, the United Kingdom was not on its usual Greenwich Mean Time (UTC+0) at any point in the year. When British Summer Time ended in 1940, the clocks weren’t put back an hour, so the country remained on UTC+1 until the following spring, when…the clocks were still put ahead an hour, to UTC+2.

The change meant that Britain stayed outside of its normal time zone through the remainder of World War II, with up to two hours of extra daylight at the end of the day. According to The Week, the government made the switch to support the war effort—extra evening daylight saved fuel and, during the Blitz, gave workers extra time to get home before the blackout began."

PK said...

Accidental Tourist at 12:25 a.m.: Why wouldn't Nebraska have tourists? It is a pretty nice place to visit. Anyone who doesn't think so is just a bit bizarro themselves.