On the last Saturday in February we celebrate National Tongue Twister Contest Day. So let's see how you would do with these two beauties. For this contest let us know which you think, the Guinness or MIT nomination, is the winner of hardest limerick ever.
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| Guiness Candidate M.I.T Candidate |
Today's constructor is Jim Quinlan. I could not find much about him on the web but did run across this "musing" from him that sounds like something that crosses my mind on many occasions:
I can't help but anagram and make wordplay with stop signs when I'm driving. It's annoying. Those big white letters just ask to be messed with. POTS, TOPS, SPOT, OPTS. Am I alone in this? I hope so. Anyway, "Stop Sign" sounds an awful lot like "Stop Sighin'!" ["Quit feeling sorry for yourself!"] or "Stop lyin! [Quit telling falsehoods!]
Four speed bumps for me:
33. Strauss creation: LEVIS - I wasted time with OPERA before LEVI's riveted blue jeans came to mind
32. Start to stop?: NON - I wasted time with ESS
51. "Wow!": OOH - I wasted time with GEE
Let's what else Jim has for us before I have to go see Sally selling seashells by the seashore.
Across:
1. Like some VIP treatment: ALL ACCESS - I think I'd rather have gone to Crystal's party
10. Global Chic designer: IMAN - The now 63-yr-old widow of David Bowie
14. Dog trainer's hand signal, say: VISUAL CUE - Awww15. It'll blow over soon: CRAZE - Cabbage Patch Kids, fidget spinners, hula hoops, etc.
16. Running smoothly: IN A GROOVE - I'm sure Boomer has been in one of these frequently for his many high scores in bowling
17. Schindler with a list: OSKAR - I've said it before, it's a movie where I couldn't stay until the end
18. Stings: SET UPS - Real movie fans will remember when Johnny Hooker and Henry Gondorff SET UP Doyle Lonnegan Give me my money back! (4 min.)
19. Academic acronym: STEM.
22. Beat but good: ROUT and 58. Shut out, in a game: BLANK
24. Absorption processes: OSMOSES
29. Algerian seaport: ORAN - Where America started WWII in across the Atlantic in November of 1942 during Operation Torch
31. __ Pig: British preschool TV show: PEPPA - I landed on this show once as it is near ESPN on our channels. It is a syrupy departure from the Looney Tunes, et al of my ute
35. Mexican president after Calderón: NIETO.
37. Gets all mushy: BREAKS INTO TEARS.
40. Kipling's "Lone Wolf": AKELA.
41. Feudal servants: SERFS - Not peons this round
42. Daffy depiction?: CEL - hurry, only one left!
43. Can't get enough of: ADORE.
45. Abounding: RIFE.
46. Anti-discrimination initials: EEO.
47. Mexico's largest lake: CHAPALA - Just south of Guadalajara
49. Cunning: ARCH - Iterations of Batman's most attractive ARCHENEMY (Halle Berry's my fav)
52. Passed on: OKED - _ _ E D was not DIED. I then OKED the correct fill
54. Very little: A TASTE.
60. "Pardon, sir ... ": SAY MISTER - "SAY MISTER Burnikel, did you get this one?"
62. Salon option: RINSE.
63. Counting-out rhyme opening: ONE POTATO - ONE POTATO, two potato, three potato, four...
64. Flexible, in a way: AC/DC - We have this radio and it can go either way65. Secretly communicate in class, pre-texting: PASS NOTES - I see very little of this in 2019 schools post-texting
Down:
1. Dollar competitor: AVIS - EURO currency gave way to a rental car company
2. Feature of a busy amusement park: LINE - Everyone says how they "hate" the It's A Small World Ride at Magic Kingdom, but even it has very long LINES
3. What needs to be passed on the way to the bar, briefly?: LSAT.
4. Foretell: AUGUR - Shakespeare's Sonnet CVII - "And the sad AUGURS mock their own presage; Incertainties now crown themselves assured" says these foretellers aren't always successful
5. Musical "Late Late" segment: CARPOOL KARAOKE - A lovely 23 minute version with Sir Paul singing his timeless music in the car while touring Liverpool with a big finish!
6. Snowstorm news: CLOSURES - This last big show is going to happen today on a weekend so NO CLOSURE. Sorry teachers, er, kids!😏
7. Prefix with tourism: ECO - ECOtourists and ECOwarriors are frequent puzzle visitors
8. Explorers, e.g.: SUVS - Ford's version
9. Manage: SEE TO
10. Gp. concerned with cheaters: IRS
11. Stops the fight: MAKES PEACE - Teddy won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping MAKE PEACE and end the Russo-Japanese War in 1906
12. Rhododendron family bloomer: AZALEA TREE - AZALEAS ring the famous 12th hole at the Master's and are a sure harbinger of spring
13. __ out: gets excited in a geeky way, in slang: NERDS
15. Popular place for lurking trolls: COMMENT SECTION - Our COMMENT SECTION follows my diatribe. Trolls should remain under the bridge
23. Former TV talk show host Smiley: TAVIS - TAVIS has some issues these days
25. Taylor tot: OPIE - That's sheriff Andy's boy
26. Sun and Sky org.: WNBA - I just blogged these two teams two weeks ago and still got fooled for a while. Arrrggghhh!
28. "Little help?": I NEED A HAND - The clue is short for, "Can I get a little help here?"
30. Pilot's digit: NINER - Can you see the 29 on the runway amid the tire marks. Runway 29 is short for a heading of 290 (WNW) where the 0 is dropped and we get Runway Two-NINER
34. Narrow furrow: STRIA - Nourison's twilight, twister, STRIA carpet
36. 2017 Tony winner about the '90s Israel-PLO accords: OSLO The Playbill
38. Somewhat off: ALOP - Merriam Webster Dictionary says, "Huh?" Oxford English says, "Lopsided"
39. Cloverleaf segments: OFF RAMPS.
44. Mammal with a rack: ELK - That's one...
47. G.I. Joe nemesis: COBRA.
50. Lacks choices: HAS TO.
53. Perfumery that created Tabu: DANA - DW's fragrance when we were dating. Ahhh...
55. Bit of sports trivia: STAT - "Whose home run record did Babe Ruth break when he hit 60 in 1927?" (*Answer at the bottom)
56. French bean?: TETE.
57. Winged god: EROS.
59. Situation Room gp.: NSC - The National Security Council was formed by President Harry Truman
61. Assent: YES.
Time for you to toot your own horn:
* Babe broke his own record of 59 home runs in 1921
Note from C.C.:
Happy 80th Birthday to dear Keith Fowler (Ol' Man Keith), longest-living Fowler on record. How are you celebrating this milestone, Keith?
This picture is more recent.
50 comments:
FIWrong. mAVIS>TAVIS (I thought it was tRavis, and when that didn't fit went with the only other name that would. I knew ROUm was wrong, but didn't realize the m was the problem.), KAReOKE>KARAOKE, OSMOSiS>OSMOSES. These and their crosses were simple spelling errors.
A teen-aged girl from ORAN
Bought GLOBAL CHIC by IMAN!
She was amazed
With her latest CRAZE
Her credit card she o'er-ran
My wife BREAKS INTO TEARS
When our kids go off to careers.
While I, by the way
Did the same each day
I paid for their collage years!
I thought a plural noun was NERDS
But according these crosswords
Language changes NON-STOP,
So this meaning hops,
And words like this have been verbed!
{B+, B+,B.}
Wake up, everyone! Hi Gary and Jim.
The Saturday themeless is never easy but this had many footholds. I did not know PEPPA STRIA as clued, and the Mexican twins NIETO and CHAPALA .
Enjoy the weekend and if you want to warm up, we will be in the low 80s for the next 10 days or so.
Ufda!
Fell into the EURO trap at 1d, and I was well on my way to a Wite-Out workout. CARPOOL began life as BAR ROOM. Never watched Late, Late, much too late; I've only seen James Corden in video clips. Husker your list of Mexican presidents must've been issued pre-Obrador. Didn't care for ALOP; AWRY was working until it wasn't. With everything filled in, I still failed. I was sure of OSMOSIS and figured AZALIA was an alternate spelling. Bzzzzt! DNF. Dang! I enjoyed the punishment, Jim. Husker, excellent expo as always.
It's been drizzly here the past couple of days, and the trees have decided it's time to wake up. Little bits of green are starting to appear, and it'll be pollen season in just a few days. I don't care for winter, so that's good news in my book.
Who ever created the Godfather meme got the title graphic wrong. Don Fanucci didnt appear until The Godfather, Part II.
The correct spelling is OK'D not OKED.
Are you kidding me! Just quit and went on to the Sudoku.
Hi All!
HG's grid was my poor-man's red-letters today. Yep, I hit the EURO trap and successfully crossed it with UNSAID-CUE. Double-Bzzt.
I eventually got IN A GROVE but was still SETUP for fail. 47a/38d, 25d (oh crap, I was thinking Taylor Swift, D'uh!)/35a, and 39d/49a cells were still BLANK (and cell 49 had a 'P' from STRIp) when I wave'd the white flag.
Thanks, Jim, for the puzzle. Thanks HG for the HAND I NEED'd (and the fantastic write-up; I've watched Sir Paul's CARPOOL segment at least 9x in the last few months). WNBA didn't fool me because I read it at The Corner.
PEPPA Pig I learned from Colbert [but won't link #Politics #GoogleIt] last week talking about tot's w/ British accents.
{B+, A+ (I feel ya'), B}
D-O - YES, everything is damp! The trees just fell their leaves; soon comes the sneeze.
Big day ahead; play later. Cheers, -T
Don Fanucci was portrayed by Italian character actor Gastone Moschin. He passed away in 2017 at the age of 88.
I had to wrack my brain to finish this one to make a comment in C.C.'s COMMENT SECTION. Wow! I wasn't IN A GROOVE for the first 15 minutes. NW & SW were BLANK. The center had ORAN & OSMOSES and that was about it. So many unknowns had to be completed by perps after multiple false starts on fills that had to be changed.
TAKES A DIVE, ESS, STORM, NO SCHOOL, CNN, & WALTZ had to change to MAKES PEACE, NON, CRAZE, CLOSURES, NSC, & LEVIS. The hardest fill was the CARPOOL KARAOKE-CHAPALA-COBRA area- all unknowns.
Gary, I was also thinking GEE for 'Wow' because OOH doesn't have the 'wow factor'.
d-otto, I was thinking EURO or AVIS and left it blank for a while
PEPPA, ARCH (still doesn't make sense), OSLO, DANA, IMAN- filled by perps.
AZALEA TREE- yesterday I trimmed 12 AZALEA shrubs in front of my house after their winter blooms fell off. They will get out of hand if you let them get too big. I just wish the front yard and back yard would get in sync. The shrubs in the back yard just started to bloom LAST WEEK.
I see we have an Anonymous@8:04 TROLL early today. Get a life.
No doubt Anon @ 8:04 would insist on an answer of stay'd to be clued as remain'd
Slogged thru to a near-finish except for the AKELA/CHAPALA/ALOP(?) crossings.
Dior before DADA, Nike before EROS. Briefly considered WALTZ for LEVIS
Didn't know that meaning for ARCH. But the prefix arch- in the writeup has the meaning of principal or primary, just like in archbishop.
Good Morning.
I'm an early commenter today, yet I pretty much feel WEES-y. Thanks, for the fun and the double takes, Jim. I wanted waltz for Strauss' LEVIS and some sort of botanical term for clover leaf segment. Um, I read it as two words not the compound noun signaling highway on and OFF RAMPS. However, I like being fooled by wordplay.
Thanks for the tour, Gary. I was glad we were able to let our kids experience Disney World; however, Disney no longer cares that they have priced lots of families out of the experience. Small World, by the way, is my DH's solution to doing away with terrorists. Just tie 'em to the boats and keep 'em on the ride. ;)
Enjoy a sunny day even if you have to make your own sunshine.
I had a good time today with this puzzle and just wanted to stop by and say so! Eagerly waiting for spring because I can't see the Prius for the snowdrift. Someday it will melt; it can't come soon enough. Thanks for a fun puzzle and write up! TTFN
I found the eastern section not too difficult for a Saturday. Even relying heavily on red letters, I found the western half almost impossible. Seeing the answers I admit it is a fair puzzle and not that obscure. My P&P failed. Good one, Jim. Gary, great expo, as always. You made up for a disappointing solve.
I had karaoke, but I never heard of carpool karaoke.
I suppose all access is an all access pass. I never heard it without the word pass.
LEVIS was a great misdirections which fooled me.
ECO TOURISM reminds me of our delightful Costa Rica visit. Got that one, also break and Akela, but not enough to get off the ground in the west.
I think that the ARCH in the puzzle means:
a : MISCHIEVOUS, SAUCY
b : marked by a deliberate and often forced playfulness, irony, or impudence
Got this one. It is found in many novels. It seems that it is always women who are described as arch.
LIU. Free Dictionary says, "OK, Used to express approval or agreement.
tr.v. OK'ed or OK'd, OK'·ing, OK's or o·kayed or o·kay·ing or o·kays"
Again there is more than one right answer. A tip to anons. LIU before you post a definitive answer, just to be sure.
I am surprised I haven't come across Chapala.
So much end of the year paper work right now. I finished the guardianship report. I am gathering my tax info for David to do my taxes. Now Medicaid wants extensive proofs for the last three years. Not my cuppa. I am fooling around here to avoid it. But it is a case of Lack of choices/has to.
When Feudal Master
Needs help, does he get it by
SERF-ing on Craig’s List?
Yes Jerome, but ask Mario who Fanucci portrays.
Good morning everyone.
Happy Birthday to OMK. All the best.
Tough one to get started and set some anchors. Five O's helped: ORAN, OSKAR, OSLO, OSMOSES, and OK'ED. Fleshed out the SE and NW and then part of the center. Had 'ride' before LINE. Needed help with NIETO, IMAN, and WNBA. Had 'ess' before NON, as HG did. RIFE is a favorite word for me.
AZALEA - TREE this time. AZALEA bushes and Rhododendron / Laurel blooms are among my favorites. AZALEA Gardens near the Norfolk Airport are a must-see if you are ever in that area.
NINER - Is used in radio communication just like the (voiced) NATO alphabet. (I thought the clue was needlessly vague. 'Pilot's digit' made me want to enter 'pinky toe' but it wouldn't fit.)
Tough but fair puzzle. Fun to work on.
Pretty much WEES. Good write-up by HG.
Red letters were the only thing that gave me a chance a filling in the puzzle. Officially a DNF. I didn't know IMAN, CHAPALA, TAVIS, or ARCH, but I did know NIETO and OSKAR (with a K). Perps helped fill in the long clues.
Nuff said. Have good one everybody.
Good Morning:
I'm happy to say that I finished w/o help but unhappy that it took 1:16 minutes to do so. It seems like it took forever to fill in the long answers, which leaves one floundering all over the place. Upon completion, though, everything was very neat and tidy and plausible. Proper names are my bane on Saturday and Sunday because they're so plentiful, and if you don't know the answer, you need lots of perps. Today's sticklers were: Peppa, Akela, Cobra, Chapala, Nieto, and Iman and Oslo, as clued. I had Aden before Oman and Waltz before Levis. (Hi, billocohoes!) Nerds out is new to me but Alop is not my cup of tea. My favorite C/A was Taylor tot=Opie, which took longer to suss out than it should have.
Thanks, Jim, for a very tough but doable challenge and thanks, HG, for your bright, cheerful and informative commentary. I would choose the Guiness tongue twister.
Happy Birthday, Keith. 80 is quite a milestone and you've reached it as dapper and dashing as ever! 🎂🎁🎉🍾🎈
FLN
Pat, thanks for that video of Maggie munching on lettuce. A dog liking lettuce is odd but two dogs loving grapefruit is even more so. Our beloved Fluffy loved pizza crusts. Actually, Fluffy loved every kind of food except dog food.
Anonymous T, I wish that video had English sub-titles. The dog, whose breed is unknown to me, was beautiful and lovable, except when he bared his teeth and took on the look of a wild animal.
Thanks to all who indulged me with the canine clips. I appreciate everyone's kindness.
Have a great day.
Good morning.
I think Jim Quinlan has only been here a handful of times. Today he gave us a real test. At least he did for me. STRIA and ARCH did me in. Didn't know the first and never knew of the second definition of the latter. That P in CHAPALA and ALOP was the other error.
Thanks for the great tour Husker Gary. The Dobe gif made me think of a friend's therapy dog Dobe that would smile on command. He was apparently quite the celebrity at the senior center.
I guess the guidance is to "Make acronyms and initialisms past tense by adding an apostrophe and a d: OK'd", but it doesn't bother me to see the ed ending. For years I abbreviated Instant Messaged as IM'ed, and am probably guilty of other grievous grammatical sins. And hey, it's a crossword puzzle.
I'm with you Madame. I'll make it a bright and sunshiny day in spite of the weather.
We haven't heard from WikWak in quite some time. I hope he's ok and just busy with other activities.
Thanks for the write up and comments all!
Grammar Girl and the AP Style Book prefer just ('d) in OK'd IM'd, etc. I have found quite a few sites that say OKed and IMed are correct. Personally I would not use either in a formal piece of writing. Informally (just my opinion) it doesn't seem to matter.
Happy birthday, Keith. I like hearing about your theater experiences.
I have one of the three years of proofs for Medicaid under my belt. I am trying to send less than I used to.
Years ago for one reporting period I included every single piece of paper asked for going back five years. I needed to make all the copies at Staples and the huge pile cost $10 or more to mail. I believe they didn't look at more than the summary pages. I doubt that many other people have such voluminous proofs.
The next year I went in person to let the social worker fill it out. She skipped many of the questions and asked for minimal documentation. Seeing the year end W2 she didn't ask for or need every single pay stub, for instance. The same for the Social Security W2.
This time I am sending a much smaller amount. Let them ask for more if they wish.
As you can see, I have little P&P today. I hate paperwork and red tape.
We are back to reasonable winter temps. The snow is melting and tomorrow's rain at 50 degrees such melt all the rest, except for the biggest mounds of snow in the mall parking lots. It is lightnow when I wake up and in the early evening. Yay, spring is coming.
Stop malingering, YR, and get back to work.
I got clobbered by this one. I learned that what blows over soon is not a STORM, that to shut out, in a game, is not SKUNK, that it was neither Richard Strauss nor Johann Strauss, but LEVI Strauss, that it was PASS NOTES not PASS A NOTE, and that it was EEO, not EOE. And many things I simply did not know, such as Lake CHAPALA, PEPPA the pig, and the Tony-winning OSLO. At least I was 100% sure of OSKAR and ESP. I wanted NINER but having OPERA and WALTZ for that Strauss guy hindered me too long. In sum, red letters and lookups were needed and I still got it wrong because I spelled AZALIA and OSMOSIS wrong. FIW, whew!
Sorry, but I still don't buy ARCH as even remotely meaning cunning. And I haven't yet cleared my nostrils of the stench of ALOP.
Gonna go brew up another pot of "English Breakfast" tea and soothe myself by listening to the last 20 minutes of the 2nd act of Die Walküre. Such a beautiful song of a father's love for his daughter.
Good wishes to you all.
Happy birthday, Keith!
Happy Birthday, Keith. I turned 80 myself a few days ago, and after getting over the shock of becoming an octegenarian, I feel happy to be relatively healthy and enjoying an active life. You too, I hope.
3rd act. Duh.
I'm not really keen on SERFS as "servants". Serfs were tied to the noble's land, and performed work for him besides their own farming, but there were many more serfs than what I'd call house servants.
Well, I filled in all the cells, though I had a real tough time in the NE and the lake Chapala area. Was so relieved I got those I neglected to check my work elsewhere and had 3 incorrect cells in the SE.
Many markovers as well....EURO/AVIS, SILENTCLUE/VISUALCLUE, STORM/CRAZE, SPA/WWI, BURSTSINTO.../BREAKESINTO...,ARTY/ARCH, GEE/OOH, DIED/OKED, DIOR/DANA, HEYMISTER/SAYMISTER.
Incorrect....hasNo/hasTo, atastA/atastE, ArEs/ErOs.
Plus it took quite some time to fill. Can’t win them all, I guess.
Musings
-The “It’s A Small World” ride ranks up there with Disco in that they are two things people think they must dislike to be hip. All right, I always rode that boat during my many visits and once is enough but still... :-)
-OMK - “What light beyond yonder window breaks? It is a candle. Blow it out and make a wish!”
-YR, keep on keepin’ on!
-You’re welcome Jim! Thanks for the puzzle and stopping by our little word stand.
Super Saturday. Thanks for the fun, Jim and Husker Gary.
Well, this CW was slightly above my pay grade and required red-letter help to complete. But it is Saturday!
Hand up for changing Euro to AVIS, Waltz to Valse to LEVIS, ESS before NON, EUR to WWI, Skunk to BLANK, and being misdirected by the cloverleaf. Unknowns included NIETO, CHAPALA, AKELA, IMAN (as clued).
I did get OSLO as it is currently playing at one of the Mirvish theatres in Toronto.
Snowstorm CLOSURES was timely; some of our local school boards have had four days of school CLOSURES in February due to snow or ice. I see that even Arizona has had snow this week (and I suspect that they are not used to driving in it!).
I think of ARCH as pert (more like YR's saucy, impudent), rather than cunning; but dictionary lists it as a possible definition.
I smiled to see 4D "foretell=AUGUR" and 20D "Psychic's claim=ESP", as well as 9D SEE TO and 50D HAS TO.
ALOP is another of those A words that many of us hate.
Situation Room gp.=NSC was easy today because I am reading The President is Missing by Bill Clinton & James Patterson. Quite a good story and hard to put down.
Enjoy the day.
Forgot to wish OMK a Happy 80th Birthday.
Happy birthday, OMK.
ACK / OMG! HBD OMK. 80, eh? Crikey. Cheers, -T
Happy 80th OMK and many more; happy 80th to you as well Wendybird and many more.
Jim Q thank you for stopping by and saying hello. I blogged his DEBUT back in 2015 and another along the way. This is his 5th LAT and he has 2 NYT publications.
Thank you, thank you C.C., and everybody for the kind birthday wishes.
I know that 80 is not uncommon these days, but it's true that nobody in my branch of the Fowler family has ever lived this long. I feel like I'm teetering atop a pile of calendars.
Or doctors' bills.
Not planning on much in the way of celebration. We'll go out to dinner, but I prefer things quiet. (Shh... Don't tell the waiter!)
My wife gave me a lovely model Viking dragon ship for my birthday. Reminds me of when we visited the full scale one at the Viking Museum outside OSLO in '05 or '06.
Mr. Quinlan's pzl was too rich for my blood. I knocked off about half of it before crying for help.
I'm still too young for some of these Friday and/or Saturday creations! Give me a couple more decades.
Thank you all again--and enjoy your weekends!
~ OMK
____________
DR: We have a three-way today on the front end.
There is a rich supply of possible anagrams. The word "VACATION" crops up in several of them. But I am opting for a commentary on today's political scene. (Hey, it's my birthday!)
I just won't say to which side the following appellation belongs. You be the judge. Which party, left wing or right, contains more...
"RAT FANATICS"?!
Hi Y'all! What a slog. Definitely not on Jim's wave-length. Did a shameful amount of red-letter runs. WEES. I don't want to talk about it.
One I got right: PEPPA pig was a red-light challenge answer on Cash Cab recently. The contestants didn't get it either, but it set me up nicely for this.
AZALEA is a TREE? I tried bush & shrub which was too long.
As for compulsive anagrams: I usually can't even do anagrams when I need to.
"It'll blow over soon" wasn't the current weather craze of snows. Lot of rain for two days here + thunder in the night. Now blizzard conditions and highways closed west of here.
Happy 80th Birthday, Keith!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEITH!
I'm listening to a podcast from Joe Rogan and Neil Degrasse Tyson. Fun and interesting.
Just a couple things I had different:
Dollar competitor: YUAN > EURO > YUAN > AVIS,
Rhododendron family bloomer: ACACIA > AZALEA,
It'll blow over soon: CHILL > CRAZE,
The past, in the past: NOW > ELD,
Pilot's digit: THUMB > NINER, (clicking a pen)
Plus a lot of WEES.
I thought IMAN was a model, not a designer.
OMK: Just came by to check in. I must have missed Cc 's note on your big day! A very happy birthday to one oh our great assts here on the Corner. Your posts are so welcome. Have a joyful celebration. Quiet or not, hooray for you! Enjoy your evening, Keith!
TTP, I was just thinking then same thing this morning. Where are you hiding, WIK WAK?
OMK, YOU KNOW THAT WOULD BE ONE OF OUR GREAT ASSETS!
Well,, this one completely did me in! But I don't care, because I got to watch that totally awesome 23 minute long carpool karaoke!
gosh, I bet that made people's day, not to mention week, month year. Isn't it wonderful that McCartney has such a great sense of humor?
Becky
Belated but hearty birthday wishes, Ol'Man Keith. You don't look anywhere near 80 on those great pictures. Hope you had a wonderful day!
Wow! OOH! I almost missed the party!
Happy birthday, Keith! I hope you celebrated in grand style! I so enjoy your posts.
Today I was gone a good part of the day but not before I finished the entire eastern end of the grid. When I returned and after dinner I was stuck behind a seemingly impenetrable wall right down the middle. LAKE CHAPALA finally occurred to me though it's about 40 years since I was there and it's beautiful! Mexicans spend many Sunday afternoons there with their families. We were visiting in Guadalajara at the time.
There is no way I would have known COBRA without LIU nor WNBA. I hate to LIU but no choice. COMMENT SECTION seemed familiar! And that led to other connections though TRAVIS was another unknown and had to LIU.
My Strauss created waltzes but didn't work out. Then EURO gave way to AVIS and all the other blank cells were filled.
And so it went for me. Thank you, Gary and Mr. Collins.
Today some friends from my former school district held a dinner to raise funds for one of the teachers who is suffering from cancer and is undergoing treatments. It was an elaborate set up with a tent, excellent food, raffles and other prizes. Teachers know how to organize!
I missed you all and now shall go back to read your comments. I hope all had a beautiful day!
Oops. That should be thank you, Jim Quinlan.
I see I was in good company today with all the writeovers and misdirection. However, I looked up only three items.
Good job, Owen!
Wilbur in the ether again. I had the same misdirections and misspellings as Jayce.
And..
HBD OMK. I thought you said you were old?
I tossed and turned all night knowing I had only half of this Xword done. I never do lookups and never give up but I thought I might be a month finishing.
In the end only the two misspellings of KAReOKE and AZALiA .
The clue and answer: Flexible/ACDC is quite ARCH.
If red letters were available to this ink-man I doubt I could resist. Speaking of ink: I had inked CRAVE < ADORE which made me wish I'd break down and buy wite-out
WC
Are you actually reading this? Ok , I'll diverge...
To paraphrase Watson (eg Sherlock Holmes)..."The conversation [in the walking pool with Phillip] ranged from .." NPCs to the odd twist of the Mueller investigation. ie. All the stuff and lingo a TBTimes reader never knows
FLN. In case anybody read my late(early) post...
From the Urban dictionary
NPC
And re. Mueller/Israel
Haaretz.com
On second thought I'll leave this in the ether
WC
Happy Birthday Old Man Keith !
Again, many thanks to C. C. and to all for your kind birthday messages.
I am always impressed by the Corner's care in celebrating one another. What a warm & welcoming place!
~ OMK
Again, many thanks to C. C. and to all for your kind birthday wishes!
I am always impressed by the Corner's care in celebrating one another. What a warm & welcoming place!
~ OMK
Again, many thanks to C. C. and to all for your kind birthday wishes!
I am always impressed by the Corner's care in celebrating one another. What a warm & welcoming place!
~ OMK
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