google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Thursday, April 11th 2019 Julian Kwan

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Apr 11, 2019

Thursday, April 11th 2019 Julian Kwan

Theme: Piscine Puzzle - The theme answers conceal a type of fish, as hinted at by the reveal:

68A. Kids' card game ... and a directive pertaining to the four longest puzzle answers: GO FISH!

20A. Drawer in the court: SKETCH ARTIST

28A. "You overreact when you're hungry" candy bar: SNICKERS ALMOND. I was going to grumble about this, as the campaign is usually known as "You're not you when you're hungry", but BBDO made a slight change for the Snickers Almond ads as I discovered on YouTube.

45A. It may contain curls and crunches: WORKOUT ROUTINE

52A. Clinic technician: LAB ASSISTANT

Straighforward enough theme here - go and look for the fish in the theme entries when you reach the reveal, which was the very last across entry, which I like - it keeps you guessing. All the fish span the two-word entries, which is nice, and three of the four theme entries have not appeared in any of the major puzzles according to the ever-helpful Cruciverb database. IRIS SCAN is new too, so some freshness in the puzzle which is always nice to see.

Again, I think we have a debutant in the LAT today, according to our blog records anyway, this is Julian's first, so congratulations! If it's the same chap, he competed as a rookie in the 42nd Annual American Crossword Puzzle tournament just a few weeks back.

Let's go ahead see what else pops out:

Across:

1. Sizzling Tex-Mex meat: FAJITA. Food! Usually skirt steak, chicken or shrimp. There are veggie options too.

7. Polling results: Abbr.: PCTS. Percentages.

11. Adams of "Vice": AMY

14. Boy whose wings melted in the sun: ICARUS

15. Four-star review: RAVE

16. Forest female: DOE

17. Gently used: NEWISH. Something could be newish, but trashed, I wouldn't all that "gentle" usage.

18. Salinger title teen: ESMÉ. The short story was "For Esmé—with Love and Squalor"

19. "Let's get out of here!": RUN

23. Isn't feeling 100%: AILS

26. Grafton's "__ for Alibi": A IS. You might as well print this one with the grid.

27. Ship stabilizer: KEEL

33. Brand of suit Bania gave Jerry in a memorable "Seinfeld" episode: ARMANI

34. Lamb's alias: ELIA

35. Indiana state flowers: PEONIES

37. Cast a spell on: ENCHANT

42. Banking biggie: CITI

44. Acrobatic dive: GAINER. I had to look this one up, I've never heard of it. It's a backwards somersault.

49. Nice dad?: PÉRE. The old Mediterranean resort misdirection. French city, French father.

50. MADD ad, e.g.: PSA

51. Holly genus: ILEX. Dug deep for this one, but dug it I did.

57. Singer DiFranco: ANI

58. Opera set in Egypt: AIDA

59. Ex-Met pitcher known as "Dr. K": GOODEN. With 2,293 Major League career strikeouts, you can see where the nickname comes from.

63. __ profit: NET

64. Pitch indicator: CLEF. These things. I only learned about the alto clef relatively recently. The piano and guitar music that I've seen use only the bass and treble clefs.


65. One way to travel: ON FOOT

66. Carpentry tool: ADZ

67. __ loser: SORE

Down:

1. Shark tip-off: FIN. Cue John William's iconic "Jaws" music!

2. Bandage brand: ACE

3. Boxer's target: JAW

4. Biometric identification technique: IRIS SCAN

5. Narwhal feature: TUSK

6. Queens tennis stadium: ASHE. Not convinced about this clue. It's "Arthur Ashe Stadium", I've never heard it called anything else. Take the Cincinnati Bengals - they play at Paul Brown Stadium, no one calls it "Brown".

7. Sharply defined: PRECISE

8. Transaction without financing: CASH SALE

9. "South Park" rating: TV-MA

10. Magic 8 Ball, some hope: SEER

11. Brody of "The Pianist": ADRIEN

12. Revealed the function of, with "over": MOUSED. Only if you've got a tool tip pop-up. You can mouse over the other stuff all day and it's not going to help you figure out what that particular control does.

13. Streisand title role: YENTL

21. La Brea __ Pits: TAR

22. Ref's ruling: TKO. Boxing's Technical Knock Out. The fighter cannot continue, according to the referee.

23. Quickly, quickly: ASAP

24. Memo lead-in: IN RE - "In the matter of" or "Regarding". I first came across this when I was reading a volume of collected letters from and to the great Hunter S. Thompson. There was some lively reading in there, as you can imagine.

25. Wheels for a celeb: LIMO

29. New York cager: KNICK. In the early days of professional basketball, the court was enclosed by a cage, and therefore never went out-of-bounds, hence "cager".

30. Farm follower?: E-I-E-I-O. "... and on that farm he had some ducks ...."

31. Jargon: LINGO

32. Former Portuguese colony in China: MACAU. A big gambling destination. Most of the famous Las Vegas casino brands have properties here, including Sands, The Rio, The Venetian and the Wynn. The finale of the recent season of Top Chef was filmed in Macau.


36. More senseless: STUPIDER

38. Had a great first date: HIT IT OFF

39. Deep blue dye: ANIL

40. Aloha State bird: NENE

41. "Jurassic World" predator, for short: T. REX

43. "The coast is clear": IT'S SAFE

45. Withdrew gradually: WEANED

46. Kayak alternative: ORBITZ. Orbitz is owned by Expedia, as are Travelocity, Trivago, Hotels.com, Hotwire and others. Kayak seems to be the only one to escape their clutches so far!

47. Actor Stephen who is a UNICEF Ireland Ambassador: REA

48. Traitor: RAT

49. Course before contingencies: PLAN A. Then comes Plan B.

53. Anatomical pouches: SACS

54. Storage cylinder: SILO

55. Excited: AGOG

56. Words said with a finger wag: NO NO. Dikembe Mutombo was famous for his "no no" finger wag when he blocked a shot:


60. "__ know you?": DO I

61. Canon SLR: EOS. Depending on the model, these can run you around $3,000, and that's just for the body.

62. Unspecified degree: NTH

And with that, my cruciverbalist chums, here's the grid:

Steve



56 comments:

OwenKL said...

FIWrong. Two naticks ORBnTZ + ANn & GOODiN + iOS.
Also needed the reveal, but then saw the fish names right away.

WARNING; I don't know why, but all l'icks today are obscene, sacrilegious, and/or in just plain bad taste. Proceed at your own risk!

I just ate a Tex-Mex FAJITA.
It's much like an internal heata.
If folks in the Bible
Ate fajitas, we're liable
Today, to have a farting Pieta.

A CHAR, a SALMON, a TROUT, and a BASS
Were having a conclave. Why? you might ask.
To decide by a fight
Which had the best right.
To go by the title of The Most Bad-ass!

Is it true that a suit by ARMANI
Can ENCHANT a girl out of her panty?
It's not really the suit,
But the inner galoot
Can charm one to showing her fanny!

{B, B, B+.}

D4E4H said...

Great morning Cornies.

Thank you Julian Kwan for this impossible CW which I eventually FIR in 54:49 min.

Thank you Steve for your excellent review. I didn't fry fish until you found them for me. Muchas gracia!

Ðave

TTP said...

Good morning. Thank you Julian Kwan and thank you Steve.

Congrats on your debut, Julian ! After the first two long answers I was thinking SA something, but then WORKOUT ROUTINE suggested that was probably the wrong tack.

As with Steve, I found the puzzle fresh while solving, and didn't see the embedded fish until the reveal. No real trouble spots today, other than the self-inflicted one when I read "___ you know ?" instead of "___ know you ?" With the D in place from Gooden, I entered DID, but that left with DSH as the last three letters of the reveal. Soon corrected when I reread the clue correctly and changed it to DO I.

Even after filling in the reveal and looking for the fish, I only got three of them. I looked up ketch thinking it might be a fish, but it's a sailing boat that Jinx probably knows about.

It took reading Steve's review to get the CHAR. I'm not a fisherman and don't eat much fish. But we love FAJITAs. That reminds me that I need to pull the skirt steak from the freezer and put it in the fridge to thaw for this weekend.

Hahtoolah said...

Good Morning, Steve and friends. This was a good Thursday puzzle. I hadn't thought about GO FISH in years. Getting the reveal helped with looking for the different types of fish. TROUT was the first fish I "caught".

MACAU must be the word of the week, but in this puzzle it is spelled "right"!

I learned that Jargon is not Slang, but LINGO.

I also learned that it's not a Born Loser, but a SORE Loser!

QOD: The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time. ~ Dean Acheson (né Dean Gooderham Acheson; Apr. 10, 1893 ~ Oct. 12, 1971), United States Secretary of State

Lemonade714 said...

ACPT rookie and LAT debut, that is a nice month Julian. Hidden words appearing in run-on fill have always been the hardest themes for me to spot and this was no exception, made harder by the CHAR at the beginning. When I used to do the London Times puzzles with my mother, it was the imbedded fill that was hardest then also. Which is frustrating because it should be the easiest - it is right before your eyes.

ILEX came only by perps and MOUSED and ARMANI as clued were very tough. It is interesting that we have MACAU in consecutive days, though as Hahtoolah points out, speeld differently.

Thank you, Julian and Steve.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

12d was piscine me off this morning. I finally WAGged an M for AMY and let MOUSED stand, even though it made no sense to me. Thanx for 'splainin', Steve. Didn't know there was such a thing as SNICKERS ALMOND. I still don't understand the "Dr. K" business. Back in the day, probably the day of Esther Williams, they talked of GAINERs. Not recently. Nice debut, Julian. This one appears to be just a Q short of a pangram.

Last taxing day!

Jinx in Norfolk said...

FIW, with ICARaS x TaSK & KEEa x YENTa. Geeze, can't spell and in too big of a hurry to leave for golf.

We used to call "go fish" "gimmie allyers", as in "give me all your threes".

Microsoft trademarked their version of mouseovers as ScreenTips.

TTP, you are right that I know about ketches. Great for cruising couples and singlehanders because they have two smaller aft sails on two masts instead of a large one attached to a single mast. It is much easier to handle small sails. They are no longer competitive for racing (sloops are faster), but are some of the most beautiful vessels on the ocean.

OKL, your last four 'licks (to last night) are among my favorites.

Thanks to Julian for the fun puzzle. Favorites were "drawer in the court" for SKETCH ARTIST and "farm follower" for EIEIO. And thanks to Steve for the fine tour. I too like FIJITAs but eat mine with a fork, using a tortilla just as a pusher.

Mendy said...

Learning moment of the day for this rabid Seinfeld?

The annoying fellow comic Kenny spells his last name as BANIA. Obviously it was never shown in print on the show but I guess I just assumed it was Banya.

The clue was gold, Julian. Gold!

Get the soup said...

Lol! ...rabid Seinfeld FAN.

inanehiker said...

Nice steady fill-in today - but I , like TTP, thought we were headed for an S A theme after Sketch Artist and Snickers Almond. The last two blew that theory "out of the water" ironically
since it was about fish!

I confidently put in MACAO because I in error had put MACAU earlier in the week, and as EES then had to go back to the original spelling!

Thanks Steve! and congrats Julian!

Neuman said...

Fyi. You could use a Seinfeld themed clue for 3 of the theme answers and at least 2 of the other answers in the grid. But that is not unusual for the wide ranging subjects broached by the foursome from the show

SKETCH ARTIST. Kramer and George go to a police station to have a sketch artist draw a picture of a blind date candidate they dont have a photo of.

WORKOUT ROUTINE. Elaine gets placed behind JFK Jr. during a workout routine at her gym.

LAB ASSISTANT. Kramer becomes enamored by a lab assistant who is integral to discovering whether or not the new fat free frozen yogurt actually has any fat in it.

ASHE. George is caught on national TV inhaling a hot fudge sundae. Hilarity ensues. Both Jerry and George grew up in Queens.

LIMO. Not much needed here. One of the classic episodes. George and Jerry scam their way into a limo where Elaine and Kramer eventually join them. George is attracted to the nazi. Lmao.

Yellowrocks said...

Good puzzle, just right for a Thursday.
I played many rounds of GO FISH with my grandson when he was little. In a few weeks he will be 21. Time flies. I play it with Alan sometimes.
I needed the reveal, then found the fish easily. Steve, I laughed when you called us CHUMS, because CHUM is chopped up fish, used as bait. It fits right in.
I thought of FAJITA right away because I love steak FAJITAS. The platter is usually too large to finish in one sitting.
I was just wondering why basket ball players are called cagers. I was about to LIU.Thanks, Steve.
I have often heard of char, but never tasted it.
To me, gently used articles are newish and mostly are keepers.
Macao: Google says, "The English spelling is traditionally Macao (an archaic Portuguese spelling) and the modern Portuguese Macau. ... Both spellings are official, though the central government consistently spells it Macao, the English way..."
When I first saw nene in crosswords I began calling it NEEN. Last year I looked it up and saw that it is pronounced nay-nay. I must keep reminding myself.
AMY and ADRIEN were the only hangups. Then I got RUN and MOUSED, leaving only the A to wag.
I got ASHE right away, but agree it is always called Arthur Ashe stadium.
Thank you, Julian and Steve.
Off to the doctor again. So many forms to fill out.

Oas said...

Good morning all.

CC & Boomer - according to the weather channel condolences are in order.

Great puzzle and review Julian and Steve .
Slugged thru this one with one bad natik at ESME TV MA.

Owenkl nice to see you’re still alive and kicking .

Cheers

Spitzboov said...

Good morning everyone.

Great puzzle from Julian today. Liked the whimsical 'fish' theme. It allowed me to prefill the B in BASSISTANT but LAB quickly followed. FIR; no searches were needed.
STUPIDER - The hurrierder I go, the behinder I get.
ENCHANT - Was the radio voice call sign of our ship.
TUSK - Donald TUSK is the President of the European Council and former Polish prime minister. He is an ethnic Kashubian.

One last tidbit said...

Just remembered:

The reason Bania gave Jerry a brand new ARMANI suit is because his new WORKOUT ROUTINE had caused his muscles to be "huge!" and the suit no longer fit him. Kudos to Julian for working that together. ;)

Big Easy said...

Was I ever misdirected. After filling SKETCH ARTIST nd SNICKERS ALMOND (which I'd never heard of) I knew it would be a S-A theme. Not to be. It was a FISHing trip and I missed it. ARMANI was a semi-WAG

The NE gave me the most trouble because AMY & ADRIEN were complete unknowns and I'd never heard the term MOUSED used when describing moving the cursor over a word or photo.

Did anybody else that there were four straight clues that had abbreviations as answers? TKO, ASAP, IN RE, LIMO for 22-25D. And if you want to get technical KNICK is an abbr. for knickerbocker, so it's FIVE in a row.

Sore LOSER- just watch Congress in action
ORBITZ-owned by Expedia, I knew that but did you know that it was started by Microsoft?

Steve- I'd never heard of an alto CLEF either until I started doing crossword puzzle. And my other was a music teacher. I wonder which instrument uses it. B-flat instruments such as trumpet and clarinet play from music that shows 'C' is actually a B-flat. Maybe some scores have the actual true notes. But it would definitely be hard unlearning ingrained finger movements.
Treble- lines- Every Good Boy Does Fine (or Bird Does Fly); spaces-FACE
Bass-lines-Great Big Dogs Fight Animals; Spaces-All Cars Eat Gas

Madame Defarge said...

Good Morning.

I had a good time here today. This was a bit easier than many Thursdays for me. Thanks, Julian.

Steve, thank you for providing your chums with another fine tour. Piscine. . . . That's swimming pool in French. I never thought about the pisc- until today--what I really love about this place. Forced to think about it without LIU, I wonder if it's French origin has to do with long ago artificial fish ponds. I can certainly imagine them at some palatial residence, for example. Hmmm.

Today's theme eluded me, natch. I easily scored on SKETCH ARTIST, but when I came to the reveal, I only saw KETCH not CHAR, so I focused on water vessels. Close, but not. Eh, TTP?

Love today's quote, Hattoolah.

YR: I'm with you on spelling of words from other languages. Not all letter sounds, especially vowels, translate easily. Hence the transliteration. MACAO one day, MACAU the next doesn't bother me that much. I do, however, correct people when they pronounce the final S in Illinois. It's not Illi-NOISE; it's Illi-NOY. Tee Hee! The noisy politics here must confuse so many. ;-)

Hi, IM. Have a grand day today as you continue to recover!

I hope you can grab some sunshine today, whatever your weather. As Dean Acheson reminds us (via Hattoolah) the future comes to us one day at a time. Have a good one today.

Anonymous said...

What does FIR mean?

Jerome said...

There's something fishy going on here...

Mollycoddle

Fortunate Son (CCR hit song)

Upper chamber (senate)

Fay Wray

Sorry, Julian, for co-opting your puzzle. I was being selfish.

Husker Gary said...

Musings
-I read right over the reveal.
-Jethro Gibbs get an IRIS SCAN
-Radio financial adviser Dave Ramsey says never buy anything if you can’t pay CASH
-What’s your PLAN B?

Abejo said...

Good morning, folks. thank you, Julian Kwan, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Steve, for a fine review.

I was able to get started in the NW corner due to FIN and ACE. ASHE helped. Then the blanks filled in easily. The North was easy too with PCTS, RAVE, and ESME. SEER I do not get. Perps defined it.

The NE was tougher. Took me a while and had to wait for a few perps. Got it eventually.

Had some of the theme answers before i got GO FISH. Then I saw the fish in them. CHAR was unknown to me.

Tried AWL before ADZ became the word at 66A. Never heard of ANI DiFranco.

Got PERE from the PERE Marquette Hotel in Peoria. I have stayed there many times.

I am aware of ORBITZ for buying airline tickets, etc. I never heard of KAYAK. Therefore, when I got ORBITZ with perps I did not understand. The perps were solid so I accepted it. In the write-up it seems that KAYAK is another travel service. Live and Learn.

I wanted Canon AE1 for 61D. EOS filled in. That was my favorite camera years ago. It was stolen when our house was robbed many years ago. That is when I went digital. I now have over 16,000 pictures on my computer and my phone.

Funny seeing MACAU so soon. I spelled it the way we did the other day and had to fix it with the U in ROUTINE.

Anyhow, see you tomorrow. I have a meeting at church in a half hour and have to get ready.

Abejo

( )



Hi my name is Chad and I'll be you server today said...

I've seen CHAR on the menu, usually as a seasonal special, but is always specified as Artic CHAR. Its flesh is pink like SALMON. Tasty too.

CanadianEh! said...

Terrific Thursday. Thanks for the fun, Julian (congrats on your debut) and Steve.
This was a WORKOUT ROUTINE for me; I had a DNF today because of the Natick (for me) of TVMA and RAVE. (I got ESME!) Since I also thought Magic 8 Ball was some kind of Lotto, that area was not very PRECISE.

Hand up for thinking the theme was going to be associated with S and A after the first two theme entries. (That thought even gave me ASSISTANT and I confidently entered the S at 52. Oh, we are going fishing. And we even had a NET at 63A.

Arctic CHAR is delicious but usually expensive on the restaurant menu. It is a cold-water fish but can be farmed. Some debate as to which is preferable.
TrulyWild
EggToPlate

Perps were required for ILEX, ADRIEN, GOODEN, and ANI.
Favourite today was EIEIO. Plus a SILO for the farm right below it.
I was misled by Kayak but Canoe was a letter short. Lightbulb moment with ORBITZ.

I had never heard of a GAINER. I wondered if it referred to Gaining extra points in a diving competition for a difficult dive. . . but one entry on English Language & Usage Stack Exchange states: "The idea behind a gainer is that the diver is doing an action that would move backwards from a stationary stance (like a backflip or backward somersault), but the jumper is moving forward throughout the move rather than jumping backward off the board. In other words, it requires gaining forward distance and momentum (as if for a forward flip) and flipping against the direction of motion."

Enjoy the day. (Thanks for the QOD, Hahtoolah.)

CanadianEh! said...

Anon@9:39
FIR is our blog abbreviation for "finished it right" (or I think of "filled in right"). Change the R to W for "finished it wrong".
See the main LA Times Crossword Corner right hand column - under OLIO, Comments Section Abbrs for more definitions.
CommentsSectionAbbreviations

Chad@10am - I see that you fell for the common misspelling of ArCtic 🙂
ArcticSpa

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

Like some others, I though the S A combo was the theme but it turned out to be much more tricky and well hidden until the reveal. The fish were easy to spot (after the reveal) as my husband fished for all of them, plus numerous others like Grouper, Bone Fish, Pike, Blue Fish, etc. I had no w/os but needed perps for Ilex, Tusk, and Orbitz. I never heard of Kayak in that sense and why did I think Orbitz was a chewing gum brand? Is it Orbit? I, like Steve, thought the Snickers Almond fill was bogus until I YouTubed it and then remembered seeing that God-awful, inane commercial. Macau jumped right out after seeing it just yesterday and I thought 1D Fin fit the theme nicely, maybe an Easter egg?

Thanks and Congrats, Julian, for an entertaining solve and debut and thanks, Steve, for your usual fun and informative tour.

Hi back to you, Madame Defarge and I hope you have a grand day, too.

FLN

Spitz, no, no PT involved, just the passage of time for healing. Thanks for asking.

Keith, I'm happy to hear you're pain free and I will look forward to sharing that status.

YR, the news about Alan and his excitement is heartwarming and it's so special that a resident is already welcoming Alan into the fold, so to speak. You both have had a long, arduous journey these many years and deserve every ounce of peace, happiness, and contentment that this transition will provide. Best of luck!

Thanks, again, everyone, for your support and concern.

Have a great day.



Lucina said...

Hola!

Thank you, Julian Kwan and Steve! This was a fine kettle of fish reeled in by our trusty angler! Thank you for pointing out the names as I didn't look for them.

Yum! FAJITA meat to start off and the ill-fated ICARUS underneath.

AMY Adams is known to me from the movie Julie and Julia opposite Meryl Streep.

Like some of you I also spelled it MACAO until ROUTINE forced the change.

I love PEONIES; they are outstandingly beautiful.

ILEX is one of those words I learned from CWDs many years ago.

Natick for me at GOODEN/EOS. I went for IOS. Drat!

What does the MA mean in TVMA?

MOUSE over is new to me and just recently I saw GAINER as the clue and dive as the answer.

I don't like to use ORBITZ or any of those others as I've learned of too many problems. I go directly to the airline website and book flights from there. Online they offer good bargains.

Have a special day, everyone! Hasta la vista.

TTP said...

Anon @ 9:39, FIR is simply an initialism for Filled in Right.

If you are looking at the site on a desktop or laptop, you should see various links on the right side of the page. One of those links explains our abbreviations.

If you are looking at the site on your phone, I believe you have to scroll all the way down just past where the completed grid is displayed, and then take the link that says something to the effect of "load website version" to see all of those helpful links.

BTW, there's also a link that guides you on "How to Go Blue" if you would like to create a profile. You can share as much or as little about yourself as you like when creating your profile.



With myself, Madame DeFarge and Abejo not seeing CHAR, maybe it's a Chicago area thing.

It looks as if many of us were thinking SA something or another.

D4E4H said...

Anonymous T - FLN at 6:17 PM wrote "I'm partial to the likes of Billy Collins." Thanks for the introduction. I listened to "Cats, and aging" plus several more. I paused it to continue later.

Jinx in Norfolk at 7:25 AM, I heard that Minnie was in the salon for a complete mouseover when her beautician asked "Do you want just the "ScreenTips?"

Ðave

Misty said...

Fun puzzle, Julian--many thanks, and congratulations on your debut. Thanks for showing us how to GO FISH, Steve--I would not have found them in the long words without you. Nice to get ICARUS in a puzzle. I've been teaching James Joyce works at the Senior Center this spring, and since his young man character is DEDALUS, I know ICARUS. I also liked seeing ESME turn up. Got MOUSED but didn't understand it--thanks for explaining, Steve. Had GLIDER instead of GAINER and that gave me a bit of trouble for a while. But fun puzzle, thanks everybody.

Have a great day. I'm going to see a play called "Heisenberg" at the Laguna Playhouse today. No idea what that's about.

Sandyanon said...

I can't count the number of times I've heard tennis commentators at the U.S Open refer to "Ashe", as in "he's playing in Ashe today", etc. I assume it's just quicker.
And, yes, I do watch a lot of pro tennis, lol.

Ol' Man Keith said...

Ta ~DA!
Neat puzz from Mr. Kwan! Fun to do.
I stayed ahead of the cute cluing most of the way through, but a few had me guessing. "Farm follower" was one, and--silly me!--I balked at EOS, although I have a Canon EOS. Doh!

Irish Miss ~
Thanks for the good wishes. I'm sure it won't be long till you're joining me in the "Land of Healthy Extremities."

Noisy around here.
I have a guy tearing up the old cracked pavers on our patio. For three days we'll be hearing hammers ripping through rock--and then the thud of new stones being laid.
He's accompanied by three concerned dogs at doors and windows, protesting that they don't have the run of their own backyard!
~ OMK

Brian said...

Lucina, in TVMA, the MA stands for Mature Audience.

Yellowrocks said...

IM, did my ecard to you come through or did I goof? I also sent you an email. You are in my thoughts and prayers. It must be difficult not to be able to get around quickly, because you are so active. I hope you heal quickly. And i hope the pain has lessened.
OMK, I sympathize with you patio noise. I taught in a second grade classroom with a pile driver breaking rock for a new addition ten feet from my windows. This went on for several weeks. I let the class spend a few specified minutes every day gazing at the construction. Some afternoons we took our books and papers and sat in the hall to escape the noise. Sheeesh!

AnonymousPVX said...


From yesterday....”word for word”....could also have been “suffix for word” or similar.

This Thursday puzzle was cleverly clued.

MARKOVERS....I bit on MACAO/MACAU after guessing right yesterday....should have known.

Have a good one.

Irish Miss said...

YR, no, I haven't received either message. Thanks for thinking of me. The pain is bearable, if not desirable, but I'm managing. My freezer is getting a workout with the constant rotation of ice packs.

Chad said...

CanadianEh?

I had it correctly entered, but that damn autocorrect.

Or isn't that what everyone claims?

Jayce said...

A fun puzzle. WEES.

Lemonade714 said...

I am not surprised that you love peonies, Lucina, as they are magnificent. It always makes me just a little sad, as my father had one of his garden beds dedicated to the DOUBLE PEONIES . People would drive to our neighborhood in the late spring just to see them.

D4E4H said...

Lucina at 10:33 AM, wrote "I love PEONIES; they are outstandingly beautiful."

I love them also, but it is certainly a chore keeping ants off them.

Ðave

Wilbur Charles said...

For some reason I had conCISE before PRECISE. Sans circles I didn't know where Julian was going. I knew the Mets pitcher, naturally, but needed perps. Too bad Jeopardy doesn't have perps. His teammate Daryl Strawberry has done great work for addiction recovery.

Do I get a CSO for my constant companion, especially in xwords, (Mr)STUPIDity. c PETE <=> TETE from Sunday. BTW, I didn't "Lose" the xword that day, it was in the visor.

I never got ORBITZ until Steve's write-up.

WC

Yellowrocks said...

Lemonade and Lucina. I love peonies. They remind me of my mom and her father, my grandad, who was an avid gardener. Scroll down to see all the lovely varieties.
enjoy

OwenKL said...

The IRIS SCANer on TBBT -- two parts, so don't shut it off too quickly.

I got the themers out-of-order, so it didn't catch me, but looks like the S.A. initials were the 5th fish for a lot of you -- a red herring!

Lucina said...

Brian:
Thank you for the meaning of MA.

YR:
Since they don't grow here for lack of moisture I had no idea that many varieties of PEONIES existed! They are just lovely and it's one of the many things I look forward to and enjoy on a trip to the Midwest and eastern U.S.

Lemonade:
Thank you. Those are also beautiful.

Yellowrocks said...

I am embarrassed that I am sending some emails people do not receive and they are sending some emails I do not receive. Some get through and others do not. Sometimes it's the sending and sometimes it's the receiving. I called my sister. She got mine, but I didn't get hers. Grr!

Sandyanon said...

YR, I may have a problem related to yours, but unfortunately no solution. Some emails, especially from one of my friends and from a dictionary service, go into my junk folder from time to time. Other times they come to my inbox. So I always check my junk folder now.

That may not help you at all, but at least it's a possibility.

Alex Trebek's mustache said...

Just wondering if any of you all have any interest or commentary on the current Jeopardy! champion, James Holzhauer?

He is quirky(as many of the more successful champions have been) and very knowledgeable across a wide variety of subjects(of course). A couple of categories involving wordplay were avoided by him until the end of the round. I found that interesting.

His job is described as a "professional sports gambler" but his backstory suggests that he is also a professional game show contestant.

Will he win the hearts of the masses or annoy us with his strategy of starting with the most difficult clues and outsmarting his competitors.

Alex Trebek's mustache said...

Btw, I haven't seen today's episode, so if he lost tonight DO NOT TELL US!

Yellowrocks said...

Thanks, Sandy, but that was not it. I am fnding still more glitches.

I like when Jeopardy players use such strategies. Strategy is part of most other types of games. All along I have been pullng for James.

Lucina said...

I like the current Jeopardy! champion and have missed the bold, high stakes betting of some others in the past. His knowledge is also impressive across all the fields. I like looking forward to see where he will go; he is somewhat predictable but then occasionally he deviates from the pattern. I haven't seen tonight's show yet.

Big Easy said...

Sandyanon- the commentators usually say Ashe or Armstrong stadium. I think Ashe is way too big to be able to watch unless you are in one of the box seats. We are going in Sept. but are getting grounds passes and tickets to Armstrong stadium. I laugh when McEnroe mispronounces Louis Armstrong as 'Lewis Armstrong' instead of "Louie".

And I don't know who "Bigg Easy @8:13pm" is but it's not me.

PK said...

D4: You said it was hard to keep ants off peonies. My grandfather grew many varieties of peonies and said ants were beneficial to them in pollinating them, for instance. We always left the ants alone and had lovely flowers. Grandpop's peonies were dug and passed to my mother and her five children and are planted at many of homes of fourth generation descendants. Guess whatever he did made them hardy.

I saw the current Jeopardy champion James Holzhauer "beat the beast" on The Chase some time ago and it is one of the few that I still watch in re-runs. His pregnant wife was in the audience of The Chase. He mentioned his 3 yr. old daughter the other day so it may have been that long ago he was on The Chase.

PK said...

RE: James Holzhauer: wonder if he will have trouble placing sports bets if bookies learn how smart he is? How does that work?

Never heard of alto CLEF. I sang alto & played in high school band. I have seen choral music marked with lines of music for each singing part: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass. Didn't call them clefs. Piano music just had treble & bass clefs. Mother was a music teacher.

Sandyanon said...

Big Easy, I guess "usually" is a matter of perception. I'm sure I've heard tennis commentators say Ashe Stadium sometimes and also just Ashe sometimes.

Anonymous T said...

Hi All!

I don't know if I was just getting frustrated or what - this is my worst Thursday-showing in a while. But I won't be a SORE Loser [except about missing MOUSED-over. D'oh!]

Thanks Julian for an otherwise fun puzzle with, like Steve said, some fresh cluing.
Thanks Steve for the excellent expo and funny SNICKERS ALMOND commercial.

WO: KNICs
ESP: sadly, N/A
FIWs: NON Profit, aSME, IbEX, no E in ELIA; no NI in ANI @57a.
DNF - no AM in AMY, P--- @French papa
Fav: EIEIO tickled me.

{B, A, B+}

Looks like everyone was in good spirts today. I was at a hacker meetup tonight [my first time with this group] and it went long. It was fun and I met the guy who developed this puzzle (Front, Back, Side.)

Cheers, -T

Anonymous said...

Pk, no it doesn't work like that. Lol.
As far as I know(AFAIK), the house(called the sportsbook) sets the odds for everyone and anyone who wishes to bet. It's up to the bettor to decide which bet seems likely and to bet big on that one. Each game has several bets available and most do not necessarily depend on who wins the game.

For example, say L.A. is favored to beat NYC by 6. If you bet NYC to lose but by only 4, you have won even though you chose NYC and they lost. Clear?

The Las Vegas sportsbook doesn't really think about James Holzhauer when they are setting the parameters of the days odds.

Anonymous said...

PK

Also worth noting. Anyone can bet on sports and short of cheating, no one can stop you for being successful.

Just as in business and the stockmarket, if you are smarter than the competition... then more power to you. Just dont break the law because they'll be gunning for you.