Theme: And the award goes to ...
17. John McClane in "Die Hard," e.g.: ONE
MAN ARMY.
28. Promise not to prosecute: GRANT IMMUNITY.
43. "The Jungle" author: UPTON
SINCLAIR.
55. What an X may mean: ADULTS
ONLY.
And the reveal ...
64. Showbiz "grand slam" comprising the awards found in the circled
letters: EGOT.
This required some serious thinking to construct. I did not remember the
term, but the reveal clue made it clear what would be hiding in the
circles.
EGOT, an acronym for the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards, is
the designation given to people who have won all four awards.
Respectively, these awards honor outstanding achievements in television,
recording, film, and theatre. Achieving the EGOT has been referred to as
the "grand slam" of show business. All 16 EGOT Winners.
Across:
1. "We'll tak __ o' kindness yet": Burns: A CUP.
Interesting history
of the Robert Burns song. Surprising the closing scene from
It's a Wonderful Life is not listed in the section "Use in films,"
as it's what comes to mind for me every time I hear it. In the film they
sing "We'll drink a cup [...]." "Tak" is from Burns's original
Scottish lyrics (see link above).
5. Made, as a tunnel: DUG.
8. "Oh, no you __!": DIDN'T.
13. Item inspected with a flashlight, perhaps: FUSE. Nice
clue.
14. Commute but not pollute: BIKE. Strange phrasing, seems like it
should be "Commute without polluting."
15. "We're broadcasting" sign: ON AIR. Shhhhh!
16. Remaining: LEFT.
19. Have something: AIL.
20. Ont. neighbor: QUE.
21. Lips sound: SMACK.
22. B sharp equivalent: C NATURAL.
25. Weapon that stuns: PHASER.
30. Peeper: EYE.
31. RSVP facilitator: SASE. Self-addressed, stamped envelope. My
non-profit receives a lot of these from prisoners requesting information.
Saves us lots of postage.
32. Junk __: DNA.
What is junk DNA?
33. The Game of Life pieces: PEGS. See the little pegs that go
into the cars?
36. Wreck room?: STY. Fun clue.
37. Rely (on) for support: LEAN.
38. Kitchen tool brand: OXO.
39. "You got it": SURE.
41. Brown or pale order: ALE.
47. Friend of Natalie, Jo and Blair on "The Facts of Life":
TOOTIE.
48. Indication of a Realtor's success: SOLD SIGN. It is a seller's
market, at least in CA right now. My daughter and SIL had nearly 30
showings of their home in Clovis a day and a half, and received 8+ offers
all over asking price. They're moving to Arizona before the end of the
year.
51. Put back in the hot oil: REFRY.
53. Article in the L.A. Times?: LOS. Nice. In English there are
three articles, a, an, and the. Los is Spanish for the.
54. Email address part: DOT. As in, blogger dot com.
58. Sea level shift: TIDE. Caused by the gravitational pull of the moon as it orbits the
earth.
59. Con artist's asset: GUILE.
60. Speaker's spot: DAIS. What is the difference between
podium, lectern, and dais?
61. Homey lodgings: INNS.
62. Don Josรจ in "Carmen," e.g.: TENOR.
63. Vote of agreement: AYE.
Down:
1. Allstate competitor: AFLAC. Just one area of overlap though -
Allstate
offers auto, renter's, home, motorcycle and life insurance, while
AFLAC
offers supplemental health and life insurance.
2. Bring up to speed: CUE IN. Usually hear clue in.
3. Govt. building flier: US FLAG.
4. Vet's patient: PET.
5. Enjoy, as a restaurant: DINE AT.
6. Monroe plays one in "Some Like It Hot": UKE.
8. Daytime talk pioneer: DONAHUE.
9. Like much beer: IN A CAN. Did you know there is such a thing as
a whole chicken in a can? Not even if I were starving. (See
here
for taste test.)
10. Seductive aspect of the Force: DARK SIDE.
11. Strategic math game: NIM.
How to play Nim.
12. Sample: TRY.
14. Ludlum spy Jason: BOURNE. Robert Ludlum wrote the popular
series.
18. 24-hr. stores next to many BP stations: AMPMS.
20. Wharf: QUAY.
23. Half of seis: TRES. Pretty common crossword clue. Spanish
numbers: seis = six; TRES = three.
24. Does as told: LISTENS. I was looking for something like
obeys.
26. Sicilian smoker: ETNA.
Volcano in Italy.
27. Seacrest of morning talk: RYAN.
29. Mother's Day month: MAY.
33. Annoyed look: POUT.
34. Trade show: EXPO.
35. Totally collapse: GO TO RUIN.
36. Hindu title: SRI.
37. Island garlands: LEIS.
39. Short-stemmed brandy glass: SNIFTER.
40. App buyers: USERS.
41. White gold et al.: ALLOYS.
42. Glasgow guys: LADS.
44. Verdi's penultimate opera: OTELLO. Based on Shakespeare's
Othello.
45. Lassie, for one: COLLIE.
46. Emulating cavalry members: RIDING.
49. "That's awful!": GOD NO.
50. A-bomb tryout: N TEST.
52. Movie guru with his own grammar: YODA. Talk like others, I
don't!
55. Sports rep.: AGT.
56. To be paid: DUE.
57. Vote of disagreement: NAY.
58. Game no one wins: TIE.
47 comments:
EMMY in her red hood went to visit dear old GRAMMY.
TONY the Wolf made some suggestions smarmy.
But OSCAR the Axe-man
Fired him for harassment!
In charge of H.R., he was a ONE-MAN ARMY!
In the quaint old INNS they had ALE on tap.
If you wanted porter or stout, they had that.
But if you wanted beer
There was no bottle of cheer.
They kept it IN A CAN for the AmeriCAN chap!
Marilyn Monroe, in "Some Like It Hot"
Played Sugar Kane, by all liked a lot!
She played on the emotions
Of the guy's devotions.
(Oh, and also played UKULELE, did she not?)
{A-, B, A.}
Nice challenge today. I got the theme right away and filled in the awards before moving on through the grid. I always try AFLAC with a K first. I was looking for DONimUs until I couldn’t keep him. Great to see the PHASERs locked on stun. I’ve been in many BP stations without knowing that I was peeing in a AMPM.
Happy Hump Day. I begin by wishing safety for all in the path of our hurricanes, our wildfires, and the pandemic. 2020 has been a year.
Thanks, Jake (you're not from State Farm are you) and Melissa.
mb, it was the rhyme that was the reason for Commute but not pollute I would guess.
The circles made this a straight forward solve, but your write-up once again broadened my knowledge, first about AULD LANG SYNE and then the concept of JUNK DNA . The more I learn, the more I need to learn.
I also did not the music CNATURAL or the game NIM neither inpsired me to use up brain cells to keep.
We are now more than halfway through September closing in on the Autumnal Equinox. Be safe
Good morning!
Wite-Out got a workout changing NEW YORK COP to ONE MAN ARMY. Forgot to look at the circles until I was finished; obviously didn't help with the solve. So do EGOTs have big EGOs? I didn't recognize 4 of the 16 winners: Tunick, Rudin, Lopez, Menken. Nicely done, Jake and Melissa Bee.
AMPM: Appears to be a west coast chain. Not sure I've ever seen one.
BIKE: My replacement bike pedals are scheduled to arrive today. The original "promise" date was Sept 29 - Oct 22. We "march" Mon-Fri and pedal our bikes on the weekend, provided the temp is above 40°.
Hi Y'all! Great puzzle, Jake! Thanks for answering some questions I had, Melissa. Good job.
Caught theme on GRAMMY which then helped fill the others with minimal perps.
Last fill: A & M in ONE MAN ARMY -- DNK: NIM or AMPM or John McClane in the movie seen too long ago.
Next to last fill: "P" in PEGS/POUT cross. Never played the game of LIFE so did not know its pieces (thanks, Melissa). Annoyed look = POUT? Meh! I don't POUT when annoyed.
Didn't we just have OTELLO with an "H" in it?
Since I was off line a couple weeks, I had to go back and search to find out Abejo was in the hospital after the well-wishers yesterday. My prayers go out to him for healing.
Good morning everyone.
Puzzle didn't really move me, but I did like the theme. 2 wrong cells. C NATURAL was a learning.
LIU'd but Othello is the Shakespeare play; OTELLO is the Italian opera (Verdi was hint in the clue.
QUAY - German Kai, Dutch kaai. (both pronounced as 'chi' the Greek letter.). They all seem to have come from ancient Celtic.
Junk DNA - the term junk DNA refers to regions of DNA that are noncoding.. Guess I don't know how we were supposed to know that. At least perps were friendly.
Good Morning:
Although I liked the theme very much, I would have preferred no circles and amped up cluing to make it a Thursday or Friday level-challenge. The theme was evident way too early in the solve, IMO. Unknowns were AM PMs, Nim, and Phaser, a complete unknown to me. C Natural sounds odd to me, but I’ll let the musicians decide. I enjoyed the pairings of Eye/Sty, Eye/Aye, Nay/No, and, especially, Aye crossing Nay. Nice CSO to CEh at Que.
Thanks, Jake, for a fun Friday and thanks, Melissa, for an entertaining review. I enjoyed hearing Auld Lang Syne and seeing Marilyn Monroe, but that canned chicken wins the most disgusting sight award for 2020! It doesn’t even looked cooked! Why on earth would anyone even buy such a thing?
Owen, you and your Muse are definitely on a roll! Bravo.
I hope everyone is safe and sound. Have a good day.
My brain sure wasn't firing on the left coast clues. FIR but took much longer than a usual Wednesday. Never heard of junk dna and nim was perps.
Stay safe and well everyone.
JB2
A sloppy start today so FIW, sigh.... Doing the puzzle on my phone, I forgot if no "Tada," something is wrong. I had successfully worked out my problem of GRANT aMmNesTY (sloppy spelling too) and corrected that area, but overlooked the bottom where I left NAe crossing yes. Of course taking time to check the perps would have fixed that easily but I rushed off to read MB's blog instead. Thanks MB for pointing out my errors. Enjoyed your contribution today very much. I had seen the theme and prefilled GRAMMY and OSCAR, waiting for more information to see which of the remaining ones was to be EMMY and TONY. Nice puzzle, Jake. I don't blame my FIW on you!
The leftover rain from Sally is approaching us, so it's time to locate umbrellas and rain gear before going out. No bike ride today but maybe a walk.
Musings
-Gimmick was obvious but the separation of the letters had nothing to do with it wasn’t
-Rita Moreno is my first thought when I see EGOT
-“Oh no, you DIDN’T!” “I didn’t realize we were ON AIR!”
-Canadian Eh – Do you say “Qwa bec” or “Kuh bek?”
-Which do you like better? LEAN On Me or Stand By Me
-SOLD SIGNS - Our town had a huge home building boom started just before COVID hit.
-Lassie – I love my kitty but she’s not fetching help if I fall into a well!
I knew the reveal which helped a great deal since I do the puzzle on line and it doesn't provide the circles. After finishing, I could then go back and find the four awards.
FIW. Did not know M M played a ukulele. Circle clues were very necessary for the remainder of the puzzle.
MO
Because I use the Merriam-Webster site, there were no circles, but I got it done anyway even though it did make it a little harder. Felt more like a Friday level to me. Perps were my savior again.
Melissa bee, I enjoyed your tour through the grid and wonder how you came up with the canned chicken photo. I didn't know they still sold canned chicken. I remember that my mother always had a canned chicken in the pantry. It was sort of the meal of last resort when the larder was empty. She would reheat it and shred the meat and heat it up in gravy for hot chicken sandwiches or chicken and waffles. I don't remember it tasting bad, but as a child I ate most everything put in front of me. Like Bill G and a few others, I like scrapple too.
A few "erasures" needed today. I wanted TASERS but it looks like Jake went back to Star Trek days for PHASER.
Like Desper-otto, I had to change NEW YORK COP to ONE MAN ARMY (Yippee ki-yay). The first Die Hard movie was the best of the franchise IMO.
When I was trying to exert my independence as a youngster I got a "Oh, no you AREN'T! from my parents. However that wasn't what Jake was looking for today. AREN'T was wrong and DIDN'T was the right answer.
My first thought for Ontario neighbor was MINN, but it was only three letters so QUE it was, but it could have been MANitoba also. CSO to Canadian-Eh.
I wanted Junk MAIL (another 4 letter answer) but had to wait for perps to fill in the 3 letter answer, DNA, something I did not know.
I hope all in the path of Sally have made it to high ground. I heard this morning that Tallahassee had over 30 inches of rain in addition to the storm surge.
Be safe everyone and wear your masks.
After finishing this I thought it was a toughie for a Tuesday. But wait! It's Wednesday. Duh. And IM it's not Friday either. I had moue before pout at 33D and Rourke before Bourne at 14D. Never heard of the game Nim despite being a math guy. Last to fall was the "k" at the crossing of bike and uke. A FIR is always the start of a good day. Be safe everyone.
Shankers @ 10:51 ~ My comment was suggesting that if there were no circles and the cluing was amped up, it could be a Thursday or Friday-level challenge, to appear on a Thursday or Friday, instead of Wednesday. Sorry if my meaning wasn’t clear.
I enjoyed this puzzle. Just right for a Wed. Although the circles made the theme easy to spot early on, the theme was clever. I thought the clues were just a tad more difficult than those on a Monday, so no nit about them. We need early week puzzles, too.
My last fill was the K in UKE. BIKE had to be the perp. I was thinking the clue referred to a person, not an instrument. DUH!
I thought of DON IMUS for a second. The E in SASE nixed that. I like DONAHUE better anyway.
I thought of MOUE but -EGS had to be PEGS which are used in many types of games.
C NATURAL was a gimme.
Although I know nothing about junk DNA or the game called NIM, I have heard of them, so a suggestive perp was sufficient. Often this is enough to suss the answer.
I have never seen an AM PM store. Most Hess gas stations were rebranded as Speedway gas stations by the end of 2017. Ours is long gone.
Hand up for liking scrapple. When my dad was a rural pastor among the PA Dutch the farmers gifted us with scrapple, summer sausage (like Lebanon bologna), bushels of peaches, tomatoes, cherries, etc. Mom, my older sister and I did a lot of canning. We had scrapple for supper every week for years. I finally became tired of it. But now I get hungry for it sometimes. It is popular in at our coffee shop. I have seen it served only in this one place. And we can buy it frozen in the supermarket.
It is popular in our....not in at our....
Thank you Melissa, for the write-up and thank you, Jake for what was, for me, a challenging Wednesday puzzle. FIR but it took longer than usual for this day of the week. I did not get the theme until after the reveal. This was likely due to my forgetting to look at the circled letters as I progressed through the CW.
For whatever reasons, the NW is often the area of a CW with which I have the most difficulty. Today, I immediately got A CUP but neither US Flag, nor FUSE came quicly to mind. To make matters worse, I use the idiom Clue In and not CUE IN. Eventually, the proper synapses fired and I was able to FIR.
Being an old trumpet player I am very familiar with B flat and familiar with B natural but I do not recall ever having come across B Shap except in the old Gillette jingle:
Gilette Look Sharp Feel Sharp Be Sharp March
Learned EGOT from previous puzzles. I am in awe of someone who can win any of these prizes. To win the three acting ones is truly impressive. But to also win a GRAMMY. Wow. Perhaps MARILYN MONROE would have done so if she lived a bit longer, playing her UKE.
Jake Halperin thank you for a fun challenge and a challenging construction for you. Always glad to see a Star Trek reference even if it is a PHASER weapon. The coolest thing about Star Trek was how they usually could use diplomacy instead of violence. But the PHASER offered a way to STUN rather than to kill.
Melissa Bee I agree with Lemonade that COMMUTE BUT NOT POLLUTE features a rhyme. I have always made it a point to COMMUTE BUT NOT POLLUTE as much as possible on my BIKE. Sometimes combined with bus for part of my COMMUTE. As president of the Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition I worked to promote others to BIKE in creative ways.
Here is the BIKE Fashion Show created by my friend Christa.
Christa's brilliant and creative idea drew in young women to BIKE in a way that my efforts never would have done.
I dunno...
Yeah, I finished it, but,,,
13. Item inspected with a flashlight, perhaps: FUSE.
I had Flue, perhaps because winter is coming & I am afraid
my chimney is going to set my house on fire...
Under the subject of Thumperisms I just have to spit out,
because they leave a bad taste in my mouth:
AMPM is clued to a BP Station?
Not in my neck of the woods!
This reeks of Monday answer trying to be clued as a Thursday
Friday teaser by a lazy constructor/Editor.
(There has got to be a better clue for this!)
(Any ideas?)
Reason being it crossed "Phaser" as a stun weapon,
which the last time I checked was a fictional Natick.
& just to spout off more stuff I probably should have kept my
mouth shut about, Junk DNA?
People! Just because they can't read it, the assume it's Junk!
What a bunch of EGOTiscal Morons!
They should win an award!
Disclaimer:
The above post was purely for entertainment purposes only...
(I am not a Troll...)
This was a near disaster. Ready to give up numerous times. Fistfuls of gray hair. Forehead bruises. ..The upper half filled with mocking empty white squares for the longest time....Finally FIR but an inky mess.
Errors started with AETNA for 1D , then eave for the flaslight clue. Then ride for BIKE. When ETNA appeared finally got me to change to AFLAC... the flashlight answer then changed to the erroneous flue. I should have know BOURNE immediately. Great films but didn't recognize the novels' author. Was looking for a soldier type word for Don Josรฉ. Finally TENOR, then the O and L led me to another operatic answer OTELLO. (The play as well..there's no TH sound in Italian)....NAY crosses AYE, yea!!
The theme? My brain is too fried to bother.
Has anyone before now heard of junk DNA? (I took genetics courses in college...but then again so long ago we still believed in Alchemy) GODNO! (not my fav.clue). Govt bld flier (flyer?..wiki says the spellings are interchangeable) thought was a pigeon or a pamphlet: too long. Who pays for APPs? and a PHASER doesn't necessarily stun.(you mean taser). NIM! huh?.wha?
X in science was used for an unknown entity. When Wilhelm Roentgen (Rรถntgen for Spitz) discovered his "ray" he called it X because its composition was unknown. Although we now understand the physics even rads call the images "X-Rays". The term "radiograph" and "roentgenogram" never caught on. And calling us Roentgenologists never caught on either (thank God)
The alternative fact is that Willy got dumped by a girlfriend at the same time he made his discovery and called it eX as a sad reminder. Also contrary to popular belief he was not responsible for the first X-rated images.
Canadian Eh. Almost put our NYS as Ontario neighbor.
I'm not responsible for...
A mantel full of statues means ______ every entertainment award....EGOT.
My blasรฉ DW burned the cake but it didn't _____ PHASER.
That ______ scam you every time. He's a con artist. GUILE.
Cรฆsar sรฆd, "The ____ is cast".....DAIS.
Can Thor's day be any worse?
Fun Wednesday puzzle with a delightful theme, Jake--many thanks for that. So thankful for the circles because they first helped me get OSCAR and then TONY, and that got me started on the awards. Quite a lot of unknowns for me--never heard of TOOTIE--but some items just cracked me up. Laughed out loud when YODA turned out to be the movie guru with his own grammar--how true. And also enjoyed seeing ADULTS ONLY turn up as the solution for X. Anyway very, enjoyable, thanks again, Jake--and I always appreciate your commentary, Melissa.
Great poem, Owen--I agree with Irish Miss on that.
Have a good mid-week, everybody,
I had tried to fit amnesty where IMMUNITY finally. Popped. Solving early in the week I just recall this being hard for a Wednesday. If I'd checked the circles I'd have been able to fill the EGOTs.
Les quebecois dis, kay-back
"as a child I ate most everything put in front of me. Like Bill G and a few others, I like scrapple too.". The second part says it all. As a child I ate little that was put in front of me.
Picard I recognized the shirt but not the white beard. It's nice to compete in a fashion show ' come as you are'.
I've heard of junk DNA but could only guess at dead code.
"Can Thor's day be any worse?". Oh, yeah. It felt like Saturday but theme helped a lot
Straight W's Owen. Vintage.
WC (I did manage FIR)
Q - - When learning the NATO alphabet, we were taught to pronounce Quebec as 'kay-beck'.
Thumper and I will sit this one out, but thanks for the effort it took to construct and explain it.
Enjoyable run through this puzzle - the theme was caught after the first 2 so filling the the last two gave an advantage on solving
I had AETNA (crossword's official insurance company) before AFLAC and CARS before PEGS for the game pieces for the Life game.
Junk DNA is definitely in my wheelhouse - but at first I didn't think it would be the answer because this would be a new term for many solvers - more of a Fri/Sat type clue.
Most of the EGOT winners are in the music field - hard to get the Grammy with the 4 - not many spoken word albums being produced these days when you can listen to people on podcast. if they start having Grammys for spoken word podcasts then maybe a few more EGOTs will be added to the list!
Thanks Melissa and Jake!
I thought this puzzle just fit wednesday. It was ok. No probs. Good job.
Right on there, Dave.
Besides the "Sicilian smoker" another famous Italian volcano!
As I mentioned in my weekly preview, the end of this week has a different set of instructors that I facetiously termed The Will Shortz B team. ie. A different type of clueing. Lots of new clues. More to come.
As with tomorrow the plethora of boxes (perps) filled by gettable themes leads to successful FIR..
WC
I guess that I should have paid more attention to the weekly preview!
Thank you Melissa for the helpful article on "junk DNA".
For those of you whose knowledge of DNA is limited to high school or college biology, it is not surprising that you might not have heard of "junk DNA" (notice my scare quotes). Biology is currently in the middle of a massive "paradigm shift" (see Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions) which has resulted from ever accelerating advances in molecular biology in the last 30 or 40 years. The term "junk DNA" was originally coined in the early 1970's to explain why only a 1% of DNA in the human genome coded for proteins (the actual components of bodily tissues and processes), whereas the rest of it is "non-coding". This apparent anomaly was explained at the time as resulting from the accumulation of all of the obsolete genes that resulted from the genetic mutations thought to be the chief drivers of evolution. This explanation was exploded in 2012 with the completion of the ENCODE Project, in which over 400 researchers collaborating from centers around the world found that at least 80% of the "non-coding" DNA had some function (leading to the suspicion that the remaining 19% might just be functional as well!). These finding were immediately contested by "old school" academics, many of whom had been teaching this "fact" for years and were reluctant to retool. To paraphrase Kuhn, "New scientific theories aren't accepted by the previous generation of scientists in the face of new facts, they are accepted when that generation dies".
For an excellent story on the ENCODE Project and its subsequent impact on molecular biology, I would highly recommend The Deeper Genome, John Parrington, Oxford University Press, 2015. Parrington is not only a molecular biologist at Oxford, but a scientific journalist as well, and an excellent writer.
I wonder why two of the strangest spellings in English are watery terms...?
I refer of course to QUAY, but also to "buoy." Could it be from the ship's logs of foreign skippers?
Enjoyed today's pzl from Mr. Halperin. Thanks for the EGOT game. I should have paid more attention. My last fill was GRANT IMMUNITY, which would have come to me quicker if I had been looking for the double "M."
Mmm.
~ OMK
____________
DR: We have a 3-way today on the far side.
The central diagonal offers an anagram of the fish food that's more likely to draw bites...
-or-
A friend who is more loyal?
Why, the answer is EZ. This must be your...
"TRUSTIER CHUM"!
Waseeley: Thanks for the explanation. Sounds like ENCODE is implying there likely is no such thing as junk DNA.
More important: will a future crossword fool us as it often does with Junk RNA instead of DNA...
Wonderful Wednesday. Thanks for the fun, Craig and melissa bee.
I got the theme after EMMY and quickly filled in the other circles. But I officially DNFed because of a personal Natick in the Midwest. My brain could not remember UPTON or TOOTIE, be in RUIN was preventing PEGS from appearing, and "annoyed look" was making me think of frown not POUT. One Google search to find Upton cleared up the mess.
Hand up for Aetna before AFLAC. Glad to see that some Americans fell for it too.
ONE MAN show changed to ARMY.
SSAE changed to SASE with perps.
I thought of "Oh know you don't" before DIDN'T. And Taser before PHASER.
I smiled at AYE crossing NAY (hello IM); then just to the right, we have a TIE because one vote crossed out the other.
Yes, that "Ont. neighbor" should have been NYS, because in MAN, ONT and QUE, we would spell it "neighbour". Voisin in French.
Re Quebec pronunciation, Spitz has the Quebecois version correct as "kay-beck" (with the accent on the first syllable). There seem to be a multitude of English pronunciations, but I say Kwi-bek (accent on the last syllable).
Wishing you all a good day.
Kudos to Jake for having the EGOT theme in order in the theme entries. That couldn't have been easy.
Re: Me @ 11:55...
I was hoping people would come back with wittier clues for Thurs/Fri "AMPM."
Maybe it is too tough a nut to crack.
I was thinking "A switch that doesn't know if it's day or night?"
(yeah, I know, Lame...)
How about: 12 hour switch
How bout: Day & Night
as a stand alone clue, that might be a headscratcher...
I came away from this puzzle with a vague feeling of "meh." I was unable to solve it without cheating, but that's not why I felt that way. Dunno. Like CED said. So, which part could I not solve? That FUSE/LEFT/CUEIN part. Hand up for wanting DON IMUS at first. "Junk ___"? "Oh, no you _____"? Sheesh. At least, like Yellowrocks, I got CNATURAL right away but that aforementioned CUEIN part put a lot of doubt about it in my mind. Puzzling, yes, which, I know, is the whole point of a puzzle, but this one just seemed too far fetched in too many places. I do appreciate the effort you must have put in constructing it, Mr. Halperin, but it just didn't float my boat.
I, too, love scrapple, and now that I know, thanks to Bill G, you can get it at Ralph's, I am trying to convince my wife, who hates scrapple, to buy me some.
OwenKL, I loved your verses today. Good stuff.
Good wishes to you all.
Hi All!
NW beat me up. Ok, really I just shot myself in the foot (a lot!). A condition (AIL) not property (Own) and rIdE not BIKE (that really messed up Monroe's role (oh, an instrument)).
//Speaking of music - C NATURAL? I've heard of B NATURAL; doesn't matter - I was going for ???TonAL
Thanks Jake for the puzzle. Cute theme that helped with 17 & 28 across.
Thanks for the expo mb; I still have more links to click later.
WOs: Beer IN CANS, DINE in, DiaS [dyslexia!], spelling DONAHUE ~ 3 different ways.
ESPs: DNF - doesn't apply //AM PMs, certainly.
Fav: COLLIE - made me think of Colline, maternal-grandparent's PET.
No one wanted GEICO @1d? Oh, I see, y'all already knew Burns' quote.
{LOL - A, B, A}
Re: DR - GUILEs will get your TRUSTIER CHUM :-)
Ray - O: I've heard of Junk DNA (and the rebuttal - "we just don't know what it's for!") but, then again, I listen to Science Friday every week.
Wasn't my first thought at Junk and two perps were needed.
//and waseeley just school'd us! Thanks waseeley.
CED @11:55a - I thought it was funny.
//Alarm clock switch. Oh, you said witty
Facts of Life - ADULTS ONLY [1:41 - no, it's not X-rated].
Cheers, -T
What's all this fuss about Scrapple?
Aren't crossword puzzles difficult enough without tackling a board game trying to spell words using tiles with numbers on them?
oh...aha...aah...heh
Letters on them
Numbers and letters on them.
Thanks Ray. I've not heard the term "junk RNA" before, so I can't really answer your question. I think that the ENCODE project led to the discovery of additional functions for RNA. Its classic function is to serve as a "messenger" between DNA and a "molecular machine" that handles the details of the actual synthesis of proteins. I doubt that most Xword constructors are going to dabble with that.
Dang, no Ralph’s anywhere near me.
waseeley - Thanks for the prรฉcis on junk DNA. I always learn something from this blog. Lotsa talent here.
Our DD served scrapple from time to time. Never did like it much. SOS was incrementally better IMO.
RIDING - - In Canadian politics, "riding" is a colloquial term for a constituency or electoral district.
Thank you Jake, for a very nice and interesting puzzle, and a learning moment on EGOTs and NIM. Thank you Melissa Bee for an engrossing and fascinating commentary.
I only knew of Rita Moreno who won an EGOT, and happy to know there were many others.
Well done, Others !!
Re: NIM .. I had never heard of this mathematical game before, but after the long read, I realized that it's a "fixed" game, like TICTACTOE.**
Once you can remember the algorithm, either you can always win, or you've already lost to a smart opponent ... depending on how many balls you started the game with.
If the TOTAL number of balls, in the three piles, are ODD, BEFORE you begin your move, you MUST Win. Just even them up for your opponent, and then just emulate your opponent's moves.
If the total number of balls before you move, are an EVEN number, You've already LOST !! ;-/)
I really must play this with my grandkids .... and let them win once in a while, or they'll lose interest . ;-)
** Actually, NIM is a little more complicated than that ... Look up NIM in Wiki, and it invoves Odd and even NIM numbers ....
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