Today is National Flip A Coin Day. For those of us who work crosswords this can be a decision making aid. For instance - AVER/AVOW, AYE/YEA, DNA/RNA, etc. This is what crossing answers and erasers are for.
Today's constructor is our former professional poker player from Calgary, Michael Wiesenberg. I suspect that at Michael's skill level, he did not have to resort to many coin flips to decide his strategy on a particular hand.
Michael's great puzzle today has four vertical and horizontal stacks of ten that yields only 28 blocks with 99 open squares
Sit in for a hand as we explore what Michael has dealt us today:
Across:
1. Luxurious ease: BED OF ROSES - Did anyone else also think of a Kevin Spacey movie?
11. Slangily admit, with "to": COP - Some will COP to a lesser crime rather than go to trial
14. See 3-Down: YOU WOULDN'T and 3. With 14-Across, "Bro, no!": DUDE - DUDE, YOU WOULDN'T...
15. What you see hear?: TYPO - "What you see hear (here)" has a TYPO
16. Plays the nice guy?: ENDS UP LAST - Leo's motto and book title
18. Mariner's hdg.: SSE - Mariners on the Edmund Fitzgerald had a SSE heading on its final leg toward Whitefish Point on that fateful day in 1975 when it sank in a horrible storm
19. Security issue: LEAK.
20. Eponymous diplomat Lord St __, friend of explorer George Vancouver: HELENS - His eponymous mountain blew its top in 1980
22. Peters out: DIES - DIES/EBBS was a "Flip A Coin" moment
23. Treading water, so to speak: NO WORSE - Not getting "aheader or behinder"
24. Quakers in forests?: ASPENS - Cottonwoods on the plains also make that sound
27. Harlequin output: ROMANCES.
28. '90s Rather co-anchor: CHUNG - They lasted three years together
29. Caribbean native: CUBAN.
30. Univ. mentors: RA'S - Another coin flip with TA'S
31. Chloé fragrance maker: COTY.
32. Angel in Venezuela?: FALLS.
33. Soup made with stock called dashi: MISO - Making MISO soup with dashi stock
34. Pollution monitoring gp.: EPA.
35. Blender button: PUREE - One of many verb options on this old Oster
36. Thing that's spread: RUMOR.
37. Dressed for the beach, perhaps: SANDALED - and 36. Least prudent: RASHEST. Any port in a word storm
39. Symbols seen in pairs, briefly: PARENS
40. How condemnation is expressed: SHARPLY - Even when tempered, "I respectfully submit that my friend from across the aisle is lying through his teeth!"
41. __ job: DESK - Technically, teaching is a DESK job but I rarely used mine
42. Set upon: COME AT - Google Mike Tyson
43. Jive: JOSH.
44. Show with a Miami spin-off: CSI - CSI, CSI Miami, CSI New York and CSI Cyber. 792 episodes of this franchise have aired.
47. Designer Cassini: OLEG.
48. Response to a con: I'VE BEEN HAD - I almost said that in a CraigsList 11. Phishing, e.g.: CYBER CRIME last month.
51. Morse sounds: DITS - My name in Morse Code is --. .- .-. -.-- or in PARENS - (dah dah DIT, DIT dah, DIT dah DIT, dah DIT dah dah)
52. Choose not to continue: LET IT SLIDE - I know Uncle Bob wants to debate politics but...
53. Prefix with conscious: ECO.
54. Close talks: TETE A TETES - Furniture so-named for those "head to head" talks
Down:
1. Passes at a tournament: BYES - Washington got a BYE because it had a better record
2. Long, long time: EONS - EONS/AGES coin flip
4. Cries of pain: OWS.
5. It may result in free throws: FOULING - In a past, rougher era, the Detroit Pistons got away with a lot of FOULING
6. Nepalese money: RUPEES - An ad for the KFC in Kathmandu, Nepal with prices in RUPEES
7. Widemouthed stewpots: OLLAS - Spanish, from Latin olla, aulla pot; akin to Sanskrit ukhā pot and probably to Goth auhns oven
8. Badlands Natl. Park's state: S DAK - It's about the only interesting thing between Rapid City and Sioux Falls.
9. Navy lt.'s subordinate: ENS - Did you think of ENSIGN Pulver too?
10. Charlotte Amalie's island: ST THOMAS - Charlotte Amalie (named in 1691 for wife of Danish King Christian V) is on ST THOMAS and is the capital of The American Virgin Islands
12. Time to hunt: OPEN SEASON
13. Owners: POSSESSORS.
15. Hawk's claw: TALON.
21. Obi-Wan portrayer: EWAN - Coin flip - My first fill of ALEC (Guinness) played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars. EWAN McGregor played a younger version of him in the prequels
22. Repudiate: DENY.
23. __ gas: NOBLE - NOBLE/Inert coin flip
24. It'll get you in: ACCESS CODE - We find it very convenient to have one on this doorknob
25. Mall portmanteau: SHOPAHOLIC.
26. Label, as feelings: PUT A NAME TO - It's hard PUT A NAME TO the feeling I have when a former student says something very nice about me (or something bad too)
27. Dominated: RULED.
29. 1990 Best New Artist Grammy winner: CAREY - Mariah's IMDB
32. At high speed: FULL TILT - Great running backs get to FULL TILT quickly
33. Gloom: MURK
35. __ John's Pizza: PAPA - Last year Peyton Manning sold his interest in 31 PAPA John's franchises just days before PAPA John withdrew as the NFL's official pizza
38. Settled matter: DREGS - Part of a lovely, poignant Sinatra lyric that has more meaning as birthdays pile up
39. Former Spanish coin: PESETA - Now on the Euro
41. Guard dog originally bred in Germany, familiarly: DOBIE - DOBERMANS were named for dog breeder Ludwig DOBERMAN in 1890 who was a tax collector and took this dog on his route for protection
43. Singer with The Blackhearts: JETT - My favorite
44. Gambler's marker: CHIT.
46. June 13, e.g.: IDES - In the ancient Roman calendar, the fifteenth day of March, May, July, or October, and the thirteenth day of the other months.
49. Migration flight pattern: VEE.
50. Marlins' MLB div.: NLE - You'll find the National League East Marlins at the bottom of this attendance list
No need to flip a coin, we'd love to hear your comments.
45 comments:
Ribbit, Ribbit!
Great start to a new month. Yes, I fell into the ALEC trap. My "Access..." ranged from CARD to PASS to CODE. Wite-Out was required. Still it was a quick, enjoyable solve with some really nice stacked tens. Thanx, Michael, and for the guided tour, Husker.
DREGS: Yes, Ole Blue Eyes recorded it, but my favorite version is was this one, recorded by Bob Shane five years earlier. It Was A Very Good Year [audio begins at 0:10]
Is was? Wha????
White Rabbit, Welsh Rarebit! (It's tradition, not superstition.)
FIWrong. All in the SE, but 5 cells. 2 across words and three down perps.
ruSh > DESK.
TET-au-TETES > TETE-A-TETES.
MURh > MURK.
PuSETu > PESETA.
rOBIa > DOBIE.
Hmm, I used ACCESS on Thursday. My prescience was a tad early.
Said ST.THOMAS to St.HELENS, "We should intersect!
My feet are in the gulf, the sailing here is perfect!"
She said, "You wouldn't like my head up in the air.
Nor my messy manner -- ash is everywhere."
And so the star-crossed lovers never had a TETE-A-TETE.
When a person DIES, then NO WORSE can come after.
A body in the MURK to the deceased is no matter.
So while in living poses,
Let's lie on a BED OF ROSES!
Have some wild ROMANCES and enjoy comic patter!
Masons know our passwords, our ACCESS CODES
To our Lodge endeavors in charitable mode.
When a distress call is heard
From a POSSESSOR of the Word
We Brothers rush to help him with his load!
{A, B, A-}
I have been struggling on Saturdays, but this one went quickly for a themeless. I had St. Helens so I did not fall for the Alec trap and was slowed down only by SHOPAHOLIC and ACCESS CODE .
Sounds like some insider trading violation by Peyton. Thank you for your always fun ride Gary and another Royal Flush Michael.
Good morning, folks. Thank you, Michael Wiesenberg, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Husker Gary, for a fine review.
Cruciverb worked last night so I started the puzzle then. Got about 2/3's done and went to bed. Got up at 5:30 and finished. Had to wait a little to get on here, but that's OK with me.
Puzzle was a tough Saturday. Got the South first, and finally finished in the NW.
Tried DEER SEASON before OPEN SEASON worked.
PARENS was a new word for me. Perps all the way.
Twelve ten-letter answers. Quite a puzzle. Wow!
Liked DOBIE and the history of the name. Interesting.
Liked 15A. hear vs here. Great clue. Took me a long while to get that one. Once I did it helped with the three long downs.
Anyhow, have to run. Got most of my lawn cut yesterday, then I petered out. Try to finish today if the rain holds off. Then work in my garden. I have about 160 seedlings to plant. Planting is the easy part. Getting the garden ready to plant is the tough part.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
( )
Had type before typo, Alec before Ewan, chip before chit, muck before murk.
Hi Y'all! I did a lot of hopping back and forth on this rabbit-rabbit day in an effort to fill the puzzle. Very interesting, Michael.
When the blog wasn't up at 6 a.m., I was concerned for Gary's well-being. Glad you are still functioning very well, Gary. Thanks.
DNK: PARENS. Forgot CHUNG was ever with Rather. Had trouble with MURK/MISO cross. Never can remember that soup.
Having been a multi-tasker FULL-TILT get 'er done personality, it is amazing to me how I can LET IT SLIDE now. Manana!
We had a DOBIE DOBERMAN. She was a FULL-TILT runner. Most famous for when she chased a pheasant and caught it by the tail feathers. Pheasant squawked and flew away unharmed but ran around the yard without its tail thereafter. Dog proudly came to the house with a mouth full of fancy feathers. When she didn't have room to run, she would work off nervous energy digging craters in her pen and a basement under her doghouse.
Good Morning:
I was on Michael's wavelength this morning, as I finished in 18:40 which might be a record. My only unknowns, as clued, were Jett and Carey. (Pop music references are almost as foreign to me as Roman numerals.) The long answers practically filled themselves in, so the solve was not only fast, but fun. A little nose wrinkling at Sandaled, Murk, and Parens, although I'm sure they're legit. I, too, fell into the Alex/Ewan trap. (I know less about the whole Star Wars series than I do about pop music stars and Roman numerals.)
Thanks, Michael, for a Saturday treat and thanks, HG, for the enjoyable and entertaining expo.
Have a great day.
After the easy NW I thought it would be a "BED OF ROSES" completing today's puzzle. Then there was the NE where I confidently filled ALEC Guinness for Obi-Wan and was stuck. OPEN SEASON for this sucker who made a wrong guess. I went FULL TILT from then on. The SE easily fell, as did the SW after changing ACCESS PASS to DOOR and finally to CODE.
After CUBAN fell the C for ALEC wouldn't work. I didn't know there was a Lord St. HELENS, only a mountain. I was guessing MISO soup but I've never heard the word MURK, only murky OR parentheses called PARENS OR a Doberman Pincer called a DOBIE.
Mariah CAREY- I had the misfortune of having to listen to her off key wailing for about 8 songs before Lionel Richie came on and performed a wonderful two hour show. To say that she was bad would be a compliment.
Musings
-Sorry for the late posting. Friday night is when I sit down for a final edit of the write-up and then suddenly last night “out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I rose my chair to see what was the matter”. Our kitty had somehow gotten the patio door open at 10 pm and had encountered a raccoon in the dark. Lily's howling made me run to the door and she ran inside. She was no worse for wear but my DW was frantic. Well, I did not get back to hit the Publish button and thankfully Lemon caught it this morning and had C.C. publish.
-The same kitty got me up at 5 a.m. for her breakfast and I thought it weird I had 0 views when I checked the blog then.
Good Morning,
I had a great time with this puzzle. Thank you, Michael. With so many long fills, I thought I would have no chance. I made immediate headway in the NW when the crosses for the long entry guesses made sense. I worked on paper again, and that needs to be my Saturday mantra. Didn't know PARENS either as I wasn't even close to thinking of a written symbol. My fave today was TYPO. Lots of fun.
Thanks for the tour, Gary. Another fine one, for sure. I think I'll Flip a Coin to decide whether to do laundry or move my printer to the main floor. Ehhh, it's raining. Luckily, I love Thunderstorms, but this is rather a bit much.
Good Luck with that garden Abejo!!!
I have a Manchester Terrier. They look exactly like a tiny Doberman Pinscher. People always ask me if she's a min-pin. No she's not. As small as they are, they are the breed that created the Dobie. Not the other way around. In fact Pinscher is Terrier in German. Google Manchester Terrier and you'll see that a Doberman is simply a massive Manchester. Lola weighs only fifteen pounds, but she's scary fearless. Nothing and no one messes with Lola. Not even me. They say that pound for pound the badger is the most ferocious of land animals. I beg to differ.
Husker, around here the cats ignore the coons, and vice-versa. The coons will stand up on their hind legs and wave at us through the window when the cat bowl on the patio is empty. I'm pretty sure they're concerned that the cats are going hungry.
I have no personal knowledge of the MANCHESTER TERRIER but they are fine looking dog. I did have the pleasure of helping a friend deliver 7 Dobie puppies many years ago and they looked the same as puppies.
Speaking of badgers, my favorite dog is the DACHSHUND and as Spitz would tell you, the name means "badger hound." They are also fearless and will go into tunnels or holes to catch the badger.
I used to have a one-eared possum who would come to my sliding door and stand-up and beg.
Gary, hope Lily has had her rabies shots. Coons can carry the disease.
Desper- I lived in the Sierras in the early 80's. In the winter I had two coons come every night and paw at my sliding glass door. I'd let them in and feed them. They loved chocolate chip cookies. They wouldn't look at me... just stand up, turn their heads away and put their paws out. Funny how their paws look like little human hands.
Lemony, Our dachshund attacked a malemute who growled at "his boy". Our boy had tugged the malemute's tail and startled it. The dachshund spent some painful days at the vets afterward. Didn't quash his courage at bit. He took on a German Shepherd a few years later and almost bled to death before we found him. Our best dog ever.
On the farm one year I had a racoon who came to eat cat food. One night I talked to her through the window. She stopped and listened to me, then left. A short time after, I heard little voices going, "brrrt, brrrt" and looked out. Mama had brought her four babies for me to see. Guess my voice convinced her I was safe to visit. Loved their little hands and antics.
My googling research shows what I had expected to be true. The doberman pinscher breed evolved from several breeds but it is not certain which. Some say it was the rottweiler, the black and tan terrier and smoothed haired German pinscher. Others say not. There was one reference I found that mentions the Manchester Terrier but believes they both came about around the same time. So the old adage said often by Abraham Lincoln rings true, don't believe everything you read on the internet just because there is a picture with a quote next to it.
Good morning everyone.
Needed just a teensy bit of help with MURK and JOSH. But I got the vertical and horizontal stacks of 10 w/o mishap; so I'm a happy camper. Wanted CRS (course) before SSE. Good intro, as always, HG.
CHIT - In the Navy it means "A small piece of paper, often a request for or granting of permission to do something (leave chit, for example."
Dachshund - Hi, Lemonade. Many Germans also use the word Teckel for the Dachshund breed. (Actually 'Hund' means 'dog', not just 'hound', although Hund and hound are obviously closely related.)
PK @ 1018 - - Good point. In 1993, when we still had a cat, she got into a fight with a racoom on our front porch. We got her inside and comforted her, but noticed she had some wounds and was partly covered with 'coon drool. We took her to the vet the next morning; she had had rabies shots but the vet advised us to get shots because of our contact with the cat which had been spat at by the raccoon. So 2 of my sons, my wife, and I all ended up getting the full course of rabies shots.
BED OF ROSES -- My thought was this song, didn't know about the movie. Doesn't sound like they had the same plot.
Can a fake TYPO really be a typo?
DImS > DIES
I'm never sure if anyone is Alec or Alex, or even Alek. Today it didn't matter.
d-o et al: loved the coon comments!
If at a like-gender wedding you arrive
The aisle down the middle will divide.
Which side you take
Depends on your mate --
Check the program for the PARENS of the (bride).
{A-.} (minus because it only used one word from the puzzle, not at least two.)
Husker: Even though I seldom (any more) solve the Saturday (or Sunday)
Crossword Puzzles ... I always enjoy checking out your write-up's.
Good Job today!
Cheers!
Hola!
I was on Michael's wave length pretty quickly today and that was at 5:30 A.M. Thank you, Michael and Gary!
Gary, I had the same coin flips as you did but it all worked out. When I returned to bed I was stuck in the NE but upon awakening I changed TAS to RAS and erased ACES then ABES and CYBERCRIME appeared. It was all fun!
Now I have to cut this short and read you all later. Today is my granddaughter's baby shower so I have to get a move on.
Did anyone see the GRAMMAR lady on last night's news? I'm sure it will be repeated on 60 Minutes Sunday or CBS Sunday Morning.
Have an absolutely beautiful day, everyone!
Well, I got a pretty good start on this Saturday puzzle, with OLEG, TALON, POSSESSORS, RUMORS, RASHEST, and a bunch of others. Then with a little help, the rest filled in slowly--a lot of pleasure with all those clever clues and answers (like TYPO). Drove me crazy that I couldn't remember Dan Rather's co-anchor CHUNG (still sad about the way his career ended). So, many thanks for a delightful puzzle, Michael. And what a busy night you had, Husker Gary. Great pictures, by the way, many thanks.
Owen, your poems are a lot of fun today, thanks.
Lemonade and others, my doxie Dusty thanks you for all your kind comments.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
Hi All!
Typical Saturday Stumper for the -T. I needed HG's help a bit in the SE with OLEG to keep going (and finally see 'went AT' wasn't going to work).
Thanks HG for the expo and thank you Michael for the grid to play while waiting at Youngest's orthodontist.
Speaking of Youngest, she caught one of my WOs. I knew I wanted CHIT but I had ALW for 50d. She said, "Dad, what's ALW" I responded referring to the Mariners and she said, "Dad, the clue is Marlins." D'Oh!
Fav: OPEN SEASON [Bugs & Daffy 4:56]
{A+, B+, A | A}
PK - DOBIEs like to dig. We had one (registered name Sinbad's Rival [Sinbad was our black lab]) and he'd make a mess digging under the deck. [I never liked that dog but it could be because I was scarred - When I was 3, my sitter's Doberman grabbed the hood of my coat and dragged me through his MUcKy back yard for what seemed like EONS.]
Anyone who's ever coded LISP knows their PARENS.
Sis had pet raccoons - they are cute and really smart. And yes, their little hands are almost too human.
These guys Jive'n' weren't JOSH'n'. [Airplane -- someone's gotta].
Have a wonderful Saturday!
Cheers, -T
Man oh man, what a terrific puzzle. A cool looking grid with so much white space. That big diagonal made me think of Ol'Man Keith. I admire how Michael Wiesenberg could come up with so many stacks of 10-letter entries. Usually I have to start out solving the shorter entries first because I usually can't think of what a long answer is based on its clue. That gets some of the letters in the long answers filled, which then leads to the light bulb coming on as to what the long answer is. I liked this puzzle very much and was able to solve it without having to turn on red letters or look anything up.
Very interesting about the dog breeds. I enjoyed learning that pinscher and dachs are simply the German words for terrier and badger, respectively. Dobermans always make me think of the original Magnum PI TV show. Higgins's "lads."
By chain of thought, John Hillerman, the actor who played Higgins, makes me think of Tony Hillerman, the author, and his series of novels that I enjoyed reading.
And that, in turn, reminds me of the interesting business trip to a little town in Arizona called Leupp, on the Navajo reservation, that I made years ago. Why Leupp, of all places? Because a business there, called Tooh Dineh Industries, had a good reputation as an inexpensive manufacturing facility that specialized in producing smaller quantities rather than requiring you to order a million pieces of something made. That was a very interesting trip. My wife went with me and afterwards we spent a night in Flagstaff and then drove our little rented Ford Tempo down the spectacular canyon (Oak Creek Canyon?) into Sedona.
And finally, my little train of thought brings me to the piece of trivia that "Dineh" is what the Navajo call themselves. It simply means "the people."
Good wishes to you all.
Lucina - Is this your link? COLON DASH PAREN :-) -T
Well, this Saturday puzzle was a toughie.
Many misleading clues, some unappreciated by me.
Markovers....ALEC/EWAN, DEERSEASON/OPENSEASON, CHANG/CHUNG.
The weather finally broke, no record heat yesterday. Went outside this morning and it actually felt cool, as opposed to blistering.
Have a nice weekend, see you Monday.
My mother used to feed the raccoons by hand on our back stoop the stale blueberry muffins we hadn't eaten. They were not critical.
Spitz thank you for the correction on Dachs Hund.
The female doxy we had was also fearless and when faced with an overly exuberant and belligerent German Shepard went underneath and bit him on his penis. He was nicer from then on.
Oh boy lemony, you've brought to mind the fun raccoon penis bone discussion of many years ago. I think it was either windy or bumppo who told us about that anatomy.
Lucina and AnonT, that was fun. I like thinking my grammar and usage is correct most of the time. If you see a mistake, please feel free to let me know. :>)
Jayce loved your train of thought. Tony Hillerman is one of my favorite authors, his novels bring back many memories of my time living in Albuquerque and trips up to the reservations. Clint Eastwood made several of his books into a made for TV movie.
Anonymous and Lucia thanks for the link to the Grammar Lady, I could sit and ask her a zillion questions.
Rabbit Rabbit, y'all.
Hmm. I always think a thing EBBS and EBBS (peters) until it DIES (out).
SHOPAHOLIC--because KLEPTOMANIAC wouldn't fit.
This was a tough one, fair game for Saturday, and yet I'm a bit P.O.'d (partly at myself!) for getting stuck on ALEC. I had ROMANCES in place, so it actually gave me ALAC.
ALAC?
This is how I'm treated for shunning all the later Star Wars rip-offs. How was I--a space sci-fi purist of the first order--to know anybody but Sir Alec played the role?!
Harumph.
So Uncivilized....
And the penny dropped.
Jayce, Lemonade, and all dog friends ~
I hadn't realized till now. Scooby-(Doobie)-Do is a DOBIE!
~ OMK
____________
DR: Yowzah! A 3-way of diags on the mirror end.
Yes, we have an anagram.
"Say when!" for the...
"PEPPER MILL"!
Owen ~
Yes, neat poetry today (as everyday)! Thank you, sir!
Your verse about the Masonic ACCESS CODE reminds me that my high school girlfriend told me her Rainbow Girls' secret word.
We were on sort of a hot date, and she didn't want it to end.
Is nothing sacred?
~ OMK
Scoobie Doo is a Great Dane.
Ah.
They shouldda named him "Scaby-Day"...
~ OMK
His name comes from the Sinatra song Stangers In The Night.
Scoobie doobie doo lah di dah de dah dah...
Jayce- I lived in the Navajo nation for two years. My biggest take away. If all humans were like Navajos we would have a peaceful, more wonderful world.
I also loved Tony Hillerman's novels. Though he has left us, his daughter, Anne hillerman, is filling the void. She's very good. Tony's characters are still with us.
AnonT:
Yes! That's the piece about the Grammar Lady. Thanks for the link.
Whew! The baby shower is now history and they have enough diapers, diaper bags, onesies and assorted other baby items to keep them stocked for at least, oh, maybe a month. I exaggerate. Babies outgrow their clothes so quickly!
Greetings!
Thanks to Michael and Gary!
Can't believe it! No cheats!
See you tomorrow, I hope!
I finished late. My mind cogitated this xword while in church. Then dinner. Finally I worked it and got the FIR. Then ran out of battery on the cell phone. Wow, look at the time.
I used to listen to George Feyer at the Cafe Carlisle. I'll always take his version. I've come to dislike Sinatra.
I, like PVX, had lots of trouble. I was afraid I had an all weekend affair. OLAY had to be written over. I like p&I for the challenge but thought of buying wite-out again.
In Florida, SANDALs are de rigueur even in church. The very far SE 12 boxes gave me a foothold. I suppose the 3d/14a is a form of JIVE.
I was thinking this was a classic example of the difficulty curve but others somehow found it relatively easy
WC
I believe that there is an error in this puzzle for 29 down. 1990 Grammy winner, CAREY. She won in 1991, not 1990. Had me confused until I filed in around it.
Joan JETT was not "with" the Blackhearts; Joan Jett IS the Blackhearts.
Anon@10:44
I had the same problem with CAREY. (The award given to Milli Vanilli at the 1990 ceremony was actually later rescinded.) But in previous CWs, we have had Oscar winners with the same discrepancy in year. Apparently you receive the award for your work done in the previous year. Thus a winner in 1991 is really winning for 1990. Confusing eh!
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