google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Thursday October 29, 2020 Michael A. Macdonald

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Oct 29, 2020

Thursday October 29, 2020 Michael A. Macdonald

Theme: In First - IN is inserted to the start of each common phrase.

 17. Anger at progress?: INROAD RAGE. Road rage.

 27. Embezzlements?: INSIDE SWIPES. Side swipes

 47. Bills' places?: INVOICE BOXES. Voice boxes.

 60. EMT assignment?: INJURY DUTY. Jury duty.

Boomer here again, filling IN another blog slot. MM will be back next Thursday. Hope all goes well today, MM.

Thank you for the birthday wishes. Oh well, 73 is not so bad. 7 + 3 +10.  The number of frames in a game of bowling and the number of pins in a strike. 

Across:

1. "__ Come Undone": Wally Lamb novel: SHE'S.



5. They're on the house: COMPS.  A few more at the bar and they may really end up on the house.

10. Sty fare: SLOP.

14. Guinness logo: HARP.


15. Extra rival: ORBIT.  I am sure there are a few satellites floating around up there.  So why is my DirecTV causing me trouble?

16. Info on a blood donor card: TYPE.  I am O-Neg.  Too old to donate now.

19. Writer Blyton: ENID.

20. See 56-Down: POETRY. And 56. With 20-Across, Homer's medium: EPIC.

21. Tops: APEXES.

23. Move laterally: SIDLE.

24. Human being, for one: MAMMAL.  I think you need warm blood also.

32. Did not participate: ABSTAINED.  We continue to wear masks and ABSTAIN from groups

35. All-star game side: EAST.  East is East and West is West and the wrong one I have chose.

36. Rank above maj.: COL.  Right above Major is a lieutenant colonel wearing a silver oak leaf.  The next up is a "full bird" Colonel with a silver eagle on the collar.

37. Place for a mineral scrub: SPA.

38. U.N. workers' rights gp.: ILO. International Labor Organization.

41. __ chi: TAI.

42. Amman native: ARAB.  Let me tell you about AHAB the ARAB.

44. National Storytelling Festival VIP: RACONTEUR.  I try to be one of these, even if I cannot spell it.

50. Flora and fauna of different regions: BIOTAS.  Didn't they wake up Sleeping Beauty?

51. Prepares, as leftovers: WARMS.

55. Some colas: PEPSIS.  Add DIET and its in our fridge.

58. "Groovy!": FAR OUT.  Lookin' for fun and feelin' GROOVY.  Simon and Garfunkel.

59. National gemstone of Australia: OPAL.

64. Apply with a tube, as frosting: PIPE.  When I first quit the nasty cigarettes, I leaned on a PIPE for about a year.  I have been tobacco free now for about 18 years.

65. Down source: GEESE.

66. Curved molding: OGEE.

67. Whole bunch: SCAD.  I have a SCAD of Baseball Cards.

68. Chic, to a Brit: NOBBY.

69. Challenge for the cleaning staff: MESS.  Where I ate for two years.

Down: 

1. They might be icebreakers: SHIPS.  Our driveway gets icy now and then but we never clear it with a ship.

2. Asian capital on the Red River: HANOI.  HANOI Hilton is a nasty place where John McCain spent about five years.

3. Flubbed a play: ERRED.

4. Drew attention to: SPOTLIT.

5. Buffalo Bill Museum city: CODY.  I think it's neat to have a city named after you.  I have driven through Wyoming on I-80 but the closest I got to CODY was Rock Springs. 


6. Two-time Art Ross Trophy winner Bobby: ORR.  The greatest hockey player on ice, and then Gretzky came along.

7. Deg. offered at Duke's Fuqua School: MBA.

8. Pua of "Moana," e.g.: PIG.

9. Cooks in a bamboo basket: STEAMS.  Nope, we use a stove top and an oven.

10. Metal marble: STEELIE.  I had many, along with agates, cat eyes, and peeries.

11. Forest cat: LYNX.  Minnesota's WNBA basketball team made famous by Lindsay Whalen, now coaching the lady Gophers. 



12. Ryan Hurst's "Sons of Anarchy" role: OPIE.  Never mind.  We all remember Ronnie Howard.

13. Sidewalk traffic, for short: PEDS.

18. Sports venues: ARENAS.  Now baseball and football are building enclosed venues but they call them domes. 

22. Fox foot: PAW.  Dad on the "Beverly Hillbillies"

24. Mosque tower: MINARET.

25. Drink suffix: ADE.

26. Docs: MEDICOS.  I saw six medical professionals in the past 6 weeks, and I think if you called them MEDICOS the injection might have gone a little deeper than planned. 

28. Sample: SIP.

29. Cracker topper: PATE.  I use cheese.

 

30. Old Testament twin: ESAU. Jacob sold his birthright to ESAU for a bowl of stew.  Too bad because I think ISAAC had a ton of Apple stock. 

31. Recipe verb: STIR.  Shake, but not STIR. James Bond.

32. Dark purple berry: ACAI.

33. First word of two Springsteen album titles: BORN. In the USA.

34. Balkan native: SLAV.

39. Salmon cured in brine: LOX.  Brine sounds like something that could shoot up my blood pressure.

40. Like some city streets: ONE-WAY.

43. "Cool Runnings" vehicle: BOBSLED. When I was a kid in Minnesota, of course I owned a sled. 
Of course we would slide down hills, but then watch the Olympics to see guys risk their lives on the BOBSLEDS. 

45. Court org.: ABA.

46. Russia, until 1917: TSARDOM.

48. Son of a son: III.  They all need the same first name.

49. Guarantee, as a loan: CO-SIGN.

52. Nice red: ROUGE.

53. Silences with a button: MUTES.  Silence is golden!

54. Lid woes: STYES.

55. Bursts: POPS.  DADS on "Leave it to Beaver."

57. Dad: PAPA.

58. Glenn of The Eagles: FREY.

61. New prefix: NEO.

62. Bush in Florida: JEB.  Former Governor of Florida, Brother of George W., and made a run for the oval office in 2016. 

63. Port letters: USB.

Boomer

Notes from C.C.:

1) Misty, we're so sad that you lost your sweet Dusty.

2) Big Easy sent me these pictures of his side yard after Hurricane Zeta. Thankfully the snapped oak tree did not hit his house.




62 comments:

Big Easy said...

I'm Waiting for daylight to see if any shingles flew off the house. I got a direct hit from that hurricane (Cat-2) yesterday. I do have a 22kw generator that kicked on so at least I have electricity. So I downloaded the puzzle last night and FIR with only PIPE as an unfamiliar term for applying icing.

I noticed the IN addition after INSIDE SWIPES.
1A- SHE'S Come Undone- the book was unknown but the song by the The Guess Who back in '69 or '70.

NOBBY-unknown. to this guy

Lots of cleaning up to do. Leaving the tree for the professionals, who I contacted last night. He said I was the 1st to call so I would be the 1st to have the downed tree taken care of. Price? I have no idea.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

B-E, good to hear that the downed tree may be the extent of your damage -- nobody hurt and hopefully no damage to the house. I'm surprised you could still get online. We also have a home generator, but it can take a week or so before internet service is restored after a storm.

That top center area stayed white until the bitter end. Needed Wite-Out to change aniMAL to MAMMAL. I finally noticed the INsert, and could see that RAGE was missing up top. That broke things open, and the train made it into the station. Yay. Thanx, Michael and Boomer.

MESS: On Guam we would head over to "Mom's" for meals.

Fuqua School: Houston has a Fuqua Street. I pronounced it wrong, with three syllables, when we first moved there.

CODY: If you're driving to Yellowstone, the CODY Entrance is probably the most scenic.

RACONTEUR: I enjoy the stories on the Moth Radio Hour weekends on NPR. Any other fans here?

Wilbur Charles said...

Perhaps Wally got his title from Guess Who

Lots of wo - rOofs/COMPS(and the one solid perp was ORR**),MortAL/MAMMAL…

Having done the week this was harder than Fri but nowhere near as hard as Saturday (JeffWesch)

NOBSY was esp. Aaarrrggghhh!!! It was a USB Port. I was thinking of This kind of ship

As Officer of the Day I looked forward to the enlisted MESS-best food around.
Cat's eye. Thanks Boomer. Not to be confused with Cat's paw


I see BigE(tough year for NOLA folk) thought of that song, too.

WC

* Still the GOAT

Wilbur Charles said...

At Marble Mountain Sunday night was steak night and at five pm the war would come to a screeching halt while all the chopper pilots made a beeline to the Officer's MESS. I was one of the few that liked Thursday night , corned beef, also referred to by the Southerners (or anybody West of Worcester) as "The Purple Death)

WC

waseeley said...

A big thank you to Hahtoolah and Anonymous T for touting "Wordplay" this past Tuesday - I've already watched it twice and will probably watch it again soon. A totally unique and remarkable film. I've been dabbling in crosswords for years, but it wasn't until retirement and my discovery of this wonderful blog that I began to solve them on a regular basis. I can only describe Wordplay as "joyously humbling". A beautiful film! And thank you all.

Anonymous said...


Happy Birthday to Boomer. Great Blog.
Sorry to hear of all the Hurricane damages. Condolences.
Question: What is the next Hurricane name after Zeta ? Do they go back to Alpha II?
Nobby was a character in Enid Blyton books ... or was it Noddy.
Mammals are always warm blooded, endothermic. With about 4 or 5 partial exceptions, all mammals are necessarily warm blooded. The exceptions are one type of lemur and the naked mole rat that lives underground, and a couple of mammalian newborns.
The term Medicos include medical students, paramedics, EMT and military medical nonphysician personnel.

Anonymous said...

This took me 13:31, as I had erred along the way.

Wouldn't Omega be the last hurricane with a Greek name?

inanehiker said...

I smiled at all the theme answers - having the IN at the beginning of them all made the later part of the solve faster!

Like WC - I had USS instead of USB for the "port" letters - NOBSY sounded just as good (and unknown) as NOBBY!

Just a FYI Boomer - ESAU sold his birthright to Jacob for the pot of stew!

Condolences to Misty.

Thanks Boomer for stepping in and to Michael for the fun puzzle!

SwampCat said...

Hurricane update: New Orleans is still here, by the hardest! But 100,000 power outages and 200 trees down. What a mess. We’ll survive. We always do.

SwampCat said...

Oops. Latest news is that 400,000 customers are without power, basically the whole area.

Hungry Mother said...

FIW today. Had USs instead of USB for port letters and was thinking of Clampett instead of Bush. I thought NodsY sounded like something a Brit would say. I was more concerned about the ENID/OPIE cross, a Natick if I’ve ever seen one.

Yellowrocks said...

Next hurricane will be named ETA. When all our alphabet letters are used, we turn to the Greek alphabet. We have used quite a few Greek letters this year.
Clever theme which helped the solve. FIW. USS instead of USB. I never heard of NOBBY. Red letter at P in PIG. I have not seen Moana. There were animals in it? The north central was the hardest region.
I still don't get extra rival/orbit.
My DIL. and I are the only family member who like PATE. Sometimes we have it on Christmas Eve.
Thanks, Boomer for always being willing to help out.

TTP said...



Good morning. Thank you, Michael Macdonald and Boomer.

Fun puzzle and review. Didn't know NOBBY but got it. As Abejo used to quip, "Five perps and I had it"

Typed in Arrid where ORBIT belonged, and took a few minutes to unscramble the ensuing mess. I thought Extra was an antiperspirant.

Cool Runnings BOBSLED. In case you overlooked this article in the Calgary Herald news, it just happened a few days ago: Cool Runnings sled stolen from vacant Ranchman's building

USS never occurred to me. USB is ingrained in my mind when it comes to ports.

Big Easy, good that the tree dropped on the lawn instead of the house. Still tough to lose a large tree like that.

Misty, FLN, sorry to hear about your dog. I feel for you.


Gotta run. GI'd the range hood yesterday. Looks almost new again and wife is pleased. Lost all those earned points when I was hunting for a recipe in the cabinet under the microwave. I have two full shelves of recipe books, recipe binders, recipe magazines, clipped recipe articles, recipe boxes, and recipe printouts, all spread out all over the place. Finally found the recipe I was looking for. It was bookmarked in my recipe folder on my computer.

desper-otto said...

YR, Extra and Orbit are brands of chewing gum.

Spitzboov said...

Good morning everyone.

Got the theme early and prefilled a couple 'IN's'. Checked my work with Boomer's and got it all except US_, USS made sense, but so does USB. Sigh. Luck with a couple WAGS helped, too.
SHIPS : icebreakers. I once attended a reception and smorgasbord aboard the Finnish icebreaker URHO, moored in Helsinki harbor. (The lingonberries and reindeer meat tasted really good.). At the time the Urho was considered a bit of a national treasure and appeared on their 5 Markkaa coin..
In 1975, Pres. Kekkonen hosted Pres. Ford aboard the Urho; during the time of the Helsinki Accords. (Urho means 'bear' in Finnish.)
TSARDOM - Flip the TS and you get 'stardom'. Might this be grist for a future theme?

Anonymous said...

Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Xi, Omicron, Pi, Rho, Sigma, Tau, Upsilon, Phi, Chi, Psi, Omega for Hurricane use.

Adele said...

I thought I FIR until I too was shot down with not knowing how to be chic in England. Anyway,, I have a question ... what do you think is harder..the LA Times crossword or NY Times for the same day? I don’t think I’ve ever done a NY Times puzzle since they’re not free to download (as far as I know). I tried googling it but didn’t come up with an answer.

Ray - O - Sunshine said...

Guessed "SHE'S Come Undone" like the song from Canada eh's The Guess Who who stayed away from an "American Woman".

Sheriff Taylor's son is an anarchist?

It's apices not APEXES. I dictate the term "lung apices" at least 20 times a day. EAVES on the house wouldn't work with the CODY museum (I've had the pleasure of visiting.) Amman: was tempted to write in Jord figuring it has probably showed up somewhere on google.

More "June honorees" POPS,.PAPA and PAW. Inkovers: eider(recent)/GEESE, Serb/SLAV, alot/SCAD, salt/PATÊ. Had tsarist.TSARDOM is well..dumb. Oh, ah..c'est la Nice française not a bottle of red wine.

WAGged FREY x NOBBY for the win.

Spilt ink on my "stomach" now I'm.....ABSTAINED.
Keeper of French mask-faced cat-sized MAMMALs....RACONTEUR .
Purloined marble....STEELIE
The forest cat escaped through the fence's missing ___ LYNX
A parent must ____ all trig homework...COSIGN.
Not enough sleep? ____ off more than you can chew?.....ORBIT
.
One more...

(Riffing on the song from "Dumbo"), I saw Pua, a PIG with awful ____ STYES

Ciao for Nao.

Husker Gary said...

Musings
-What a glorious and fun struggle where the clever gimmick helped once deciphered! Eraser had to eat a lot of red herrings.
-Almost FUQUA – My Earth Science kids giggled when I mentioned this tectonic plate
-My bad keyboard skills come from thinking faster than I can TYPE
-North Platte, NE didn’t fit for Buffalo Bill Museum City
-My first SIP of coffee convinced me I would never like it. Uh, that wore off…
-This chart shows how the last TSAR and most of all European Royalty were related before WWI. Hmmm…
-We did CO-SIGN for a loan to get our beautiful niece here from China. She was the only positive thing that came out of that transaction
-Nice red – Nice was not a common adjective and red was not a wine
-Port – not a wine, harbor or left on a ship but the place where I charge my iPhone on my MacBook Pro
-I offered Misty my condolences about her dog and told her how our kitty is helping us during the COVID crisis

CanadianEh! said...

Terrific Thursday. Thanks for the fun, Michael and Boomer (thanks for pitch-hitting -oops that's baseball not bowling!).
This was a crunchy workout for me but I FIRed and saw the Add-IN theme.

Let me count the inkblots:
I had Eaves on my house before COMPS.
I entered ENID at 5A, but it was needed for 19A. Wrong state, as CODY is in Wyoming. I think we visited it on our way to Yellowstone Park back in the 90s.

Biggest inkblot was at crosses of 47A,45D, 39D. Thinking of tennis court, I entered ATA.(I should have known we were in JURY DUTY mode today.) My salmon was Roe before LOX (hey, we had PATE and a SIP of port (oh it was a USB! or a French ROUGE -cab/merlot?) COMPS?).
Finally, BOXES appeared.

Down came from GEESE today, not Eider.
Perps decided SCAD vs. Slew.
NOBBY? Not used in Canada. Maybe Steve will comment.
Giving the first son his father's name in every generation and using I, II, III was never common in Canada. Seems like an elitist thing to me. Comments?

I smiled at PEPSIS crossing POPS; we also had PAPA, and PAW.
I also smiled at SIDLE and (IN)SIDESWIPES below it.

Not to be political, but this Canadian found the debate with the MUTE(S) button to be much more civil. No comment please so as to not contravene blog rules.

Best wishes to MM on procedure today.
Big Easy- thankful that downed tree did not do more damage. Hope others in the path of Zeta are okay. (SwampCat, love your survival attitude!)
More hugs for Misty.
Wishing you all a great day.

Anonymous T said...

D'Oh! COMPS not Roofs. FIW. (what's a Pua? - not a FIG I guess)

Hi All!

Thanks Michael for the puzzle. At first I wasn't locked-IN but then (most) everything fell into place.

Thank you Boomer for pulling double-duty this week. Nice expo (see what I did there?)

WOs: Thought maybe Pua was FOG until ORBIT dawned on me. Had Onyx b/f OPAL
ESPs: BIOTAS(?), NOBBY (I thought that was a male bit(?) with a K)
Fav: SHE'S Come Undone [The Guess Who] //had a link but WC beat me to the same one!
Also liked the Boss's BORN to Run and BORN in the USA.
And - TMBG MAMMALs [had to link a song]

BigE - You got lucky w/ that tree. That looks close.

Adele - same day of the week? I find the NYT harder. To me the LAT is a day later inre difficulty.
//I do NYT, LAT, WSJ on travel days. Pick up all the papers at the news stand, get a beer, and solve on my journey.

Fun RayO!

MManatee - hope all is well.

Back to work.

Cheers, -T

CanadianEh! said...

I see that Ray'o and HuskerG (who posted while I was TYPing) were on the same wavelength with Nice red! and several others.
Yes, Ray'o, I knew SHE'S from the Guess Who song, not from the novel.

Yellowrocks said...

Ray, the plural of apex is either. Dictionary: "plural apexes or apices" Apexes is mentioned first. In your context apices is likely more common.
I am at the point where Alan asks, "Where is my so and so? Did you pack it? "
I don't see it. It is probably in one of the boxes. I can't swear to it. I hope I didn't toss it. Everything is becoming a blur. Brain is overloaded.

With OPAL today I wonder where Kazie is?

waseeley said...

I'd say they are about the same, but only until Thursdays (because of their hyper-tricky themes that day (like 3 missing letters in a single box!!!)). After wàtching "Wordplay" I'm inclined to do them more often. CC would be our local authority on that question, as she has constructed CWs for both of them.

Misty said...

Delightful Thursday puzzle, many thanks, Michael. And thank you for helping out, Boomer.

I was so happy to get EPIC for Homer's medium, and that POETRY turned out to work on top. It was also fun to see the cue 'Son of a son' and then notice I_I as the answer. Oh, Henry III, or whatever--got it! The toughie for me though was putting KINGDOM for pre-1917 Russia--never heard of 'TSARDOM.' Learned the word ACAI only from puzzles, but it shows up pretty often, doesn't it? And, like others, never heard of NOBBY. Anyway, lots of fun, thanks again, Michael.

Thank you, C.C. and so many others for your kind condolences for losing Dusty. I can't tell you what a comfort it is to get sympathy for such an ordinary loss--but it is a big emotional help and I really appreciate it. Thank you, again.

Ray - O - Sunshine said...

Canada Eh

We had a terrific elderly rad attending from Ontario back in the mid 80s.

A conversation over lunch devolved into a Abbott & Costello Who's on first scenario one day at lunch concerning the Canadian band the Guess Who

US: "Dr. K. do you like the Guess who?"
Him: "Who?"
US: "The Canadian band, Guess Who."
Him: "I can't guess. Who are they?"
Us: "Thats the name of the band."
Him: "What's the name of the band."
Us: "Guess who."

Etc...😅

He used to call small things "wee" like a wee fracture. Is that a Canadian thing? (Doc is this orthopedics or urology? ��)



waseeley said...

48D - The middle names also have to match. My Mother ( still with us at 95!) gave me the middle name of "Arthur" for her twin brother, despite my Father William's middle name being "Andrew". He forgave me, but I'm not sure he ever forgave her. Hopefully she'll have that answered in the affirmative someday. I have a brother-in-law named Joseph with the middle name of "Rosario". He is the IIIrd. They've carried this tradition down to the present generation with the mother dutifully dubbing the first boy the VIth. However you can imagine that this can cause problems at large family gatherings, as they've long since run out of nicknames for Joseph. The mother came up with the brilliant idea (to me at least) of nicknaming him "Rio". This caused a minor scandal at first, but by now everyone had gotten over it. A beautiful nickname. A beautiful child.

waseeley said...

I think it's actually a Scots thing. Canada has a sizable population of Scottish descendents, e.g in the area around Guelph, SW of Toronto.

desper-otto said...

Adele, I agree with Waseeley@11:21. Early week they're comparable, late week the NYT is more difficult. I can usually solve the Saturday LAT. The NYT, not so much.

Lucina said...

Hola!

Many thanks, Michael, for this challenge today. Mostly it was quick and easy with the "IN" very noticeable. The only one that gave me trouble was INROADRAGE. For some reason it didn't click. It also didn't help that I had ROOFS (hi, anon-t) before COMPS then all fell in place.

Yes, ORBIT is a brand of chewing gum and my late sister-in-law's favorite along with Extra.

When Oprah's book club started I was an avid follower and I still have SHE's Come Undone. After a while I quit because all her recommended books involved women in some sort of abusive relationship and it got old.

I have seen a LYNX in the wild only once when we were at a picnic in northern AZ.

RECONTEUR. What a fun word! Yes, I occasionally listen to the stories on NPR.

TSARDOM is new for me, too. The USSR was usually known as a dictatorship.

Thankfully the MUTE button is handy for all those horrible political commercials.

Last night I finally used my heavy cover, not eider, but close to it.

Big Easy:
That looks like some serious damage though I'm glad it wasn't directly on top of your house.

Enjoy the day, everyone!

Anonymous said...

This Brit can't see the connection between 'chic' and 'nobby' either.

A 'nob' is slang for someone of high social status and/or wealth. I suppose 'nobby' could be an adjective. But I don't see how that ties to 'chic'?

The Enid Blyton character is indeed 'Noddy'.

AnonymousPVX said...


I had no idea you could be too old to donate blood.

Anonymous T said...

D-O: I missed your NPR question. Yes, Moth Radio Hour most every Sat AM.

@1:11 - Thank you. You just closed the loop for me. Chic isn't a girl/gal/babe but Chic as in fancy French. A Nob.

Cheers, -T

Anonymous said...

Anon at one eleven 1;111
Nob, may have been a contraction, or shortening, of the an original anglicized word , Nabob, from an original word, Nawab ... an old indian ( as from India etc.) title of minor royalty.

And then Nob moved on to a slang of Nobby. As meaning 'like that'. Maybe.
Thus meaning chic or whatever.

CanadianEh! said...

Ray’o@12:15- LOL re your Guess Who conversation.
I suspect that your Canadian was of British (or even more likely Scottish - thanks waseeley) origin with that “wee” usage.

Yes waseeley, Fergus, just N of Guelph has a Scottish Festival . . . with a caber toss!
This year it was a WEE Digital Ceilidh.
FergusScottishFestival

Chairman Moe said...

Puzzling thoughts:

First, to the constructor (Michael) and pinch-hitter (Boomer), thanks for an INteresting puzzle. My streak of two days without having ERRED has come to an end. Several write-overs and mistakes; so I FIW.

POWS instead of POPS and WIPE instead of PIPE was one Natick; INVOICE TAXES and MEDICAS was another; and last but not least, FRYE/NOBBE instead of FREY/NOBBY.

CSO to Owen KL at POETRY ... been way too long since he's posted one here

WC I had the YouTube link to the Guess Who song copied, ready to paste into my comments, until I saw you beat me to the punch! Great minds think alike, eh? And I agree that today's puzzle was slightly harder than tomorrow's; but stop by for the blog ...

Ray-O my limerick is somewhat akin to one of your puns:

Trigonometry teacher felt fine
About getting a loan while on-line.
But his credit is awful,
So to make this deal lawful,
They need somebody else to cosine.

Anonymous said...

The rules for donating blood in the US are the most complex in the world. There is a seriously invasive interview requirement. The questionnaire is five times longer than a TSA form. Even though the donation is strictly voluntary.
For instance, if you ever lived in England or Grt Britain prior to 1976, for more than 4 months, they don't want your blood, .... ever, because you might be carrying latent prions of the Mad Cow disease.

Age, per se, is not a barrier, but an older person is more likely to be anemic, low hematocrit, have prescription drugs in their blood stream, like for blood thinners, sodium ion control, blood pressure control medication, cholesterol or triglyceride control etc., and possibly herpes shots etc., so the American Red Cross. doesn't want your blood .... unless someones dying of a gunshot wound on the table, directly in front of you.

Anonymous said...

Adele - the Seattle Times carries NYT crosswords, free to download. I think they are a couple of weeks old, if that matters. Personally I find NYT more challenging, especially as the week goes on. Someone mentioned multiple letters in one square, this is easier to do online. More challenging but more satisfying to complete.

Adele said...

Thanks so much for the replies..and thanks anonymous 2:46 for the tip. Maybe I’ll just have to bite the bullet and go pick up a NY Times on a Friday or Saturday and see how I do!

Jayce said...

There are parts of this puzzle I liked and parts I didn't like so much.

I liked:
The theme of adding IN.
The words RACONTEUR, SIDLE, and MINARET.

I didn't like:
TSARDOM.
III. The son of a son is a grandson. He might have III after his name, just as many sons have "Jr." after their name. But a son is not a Jr.
How OPIE is clued.

I'm sorry you southern Louisianans were so clobbered by the storm. As Swamp Cat said yesterday, no fun. I'm glad the tree fell away from your house, Big Easy.

At least when you lose power it is due to an act of nature. When we lose power, more often than not it is shut off deliberately by the power company, in the name of our "safety." If they would spend as much money, effort, and time hardening their overly fragile power lines and in keeping the Rights of Way properly maintained as they do on getting the power turned back on, I believe that would contribute to our safety far more, um, safely. "Look how hard we are working for you! We bought new helicopters and hired hundreds of people to help get your power turned back on as quickly as possible! We are devoting hundreds of man-hours to micro-monitoring the weather to make sure you all are safe!" Yeah sure, safe, as in hospitals and firehouses having to fire up their emergency generators just to keep operating. Safe, as in people not opening their refrigerators and freezers too often lest their food spoil and make them sick if they eat it. Deliberately shutting off our power is not exactly the best way to keep us "safe," although the alternative, namely uncontrollable forest fires sparked by defective power lines is, admittedly, worse. It need not be this way.

End of rant.

Here's wishing you all better days to come.

Jayce said...

My blood type is also O-Negative and I used to donate regularly. Then, about 30 years ago, they (the Red Cross) discovered some sort of antibody or something in my blood and they would not accept it any more.

staili said...

I saw a graph once of LA Times crossword vs NY Times crossword difficulty. I don't remember exactly how it was calculated. But the upshot was that the LA Times puzzle is slightly easier than the NY Times puzzle in the beginning of the week, but the difference is not that large. But the NY Times puzzle gets dramatically harder as the week goes on. The LA Times puzzle gets harder, but not with such a dramatic change in difficulty.

I personally find this to be true. The Thu/Fri/Sat NY Times puzzles are much, much harder than the Thu/Fri/Sat LA Times puzzles. One difference also is that the Friday LA Times puzzle is themed, while the Fri NY Times one is not.

I like doing the LA Times end-of-week puzzles a lot more. The NY Times puzzles can sometimes just be frustrating and not really fun, while the LA Times ones are not nearly so frustrating at my skill level.

CrossEyedDave said...

inroad rage?

inside swipers are thinking ahead...

Invoice Boxes?

injury duty...

&, I must ask Yellowrocks about our poster @2:09,
Is an anonymous petition possible?

Anonymous T said...

Jayce: I'm B-Positive (ABO AND outlook on life!). Army gave me 2 of 3 (experimental?) hepatitis shots (war was over before shot #3(???)) before Desert Storm. Now no one wants my blood :-(
Also, I'd say bury your power lines(!) but I've been out there - to many mountains to go through.

@stali - that's why I hate Thursday or Friday travel days. I complete the LAT but look like a moron on the NYT :-)

CED - #1 LOL! You too C. Moe.

FLN - Becky: Wait, that's you?!? OMG! Such a crush when I was 9 or 10 watching you on SOAP with POP... (I think he was smitten too)

Eldest arrived from OU about 40 minutes ago and doing an class via Zoom now. So glad she's back.

Cheers, -T

Yellowrocks said...

CE Dave, Glad the 2:09 petition is anonymous and toothless. I like the LAT puzzles

sasses said...

Love the Mother! Also Terry Gross on Fresh Air! Lifesavers during this time of social distancing!

sasses said...

Oops, darn it. Moth!

Anonymous T said...

sasses - Love me some Fresh Air too.

This is why Canadians are fantastic [Burton Cummings]. No pretense - just real and self-deprecating -- in a fun way.

If you can't laugh at yourself, you can't really laugh.

Cheers, -T

LEO III said...

Well, surprise! I actually had a FIR on a Thursday puzzle!

There is also a Buffalo Bill Museum (and Gravesite) on Lookout Mountain in Golden, CO --- overlooking the Coors Refinery.

III --- In order for a person to be a Jr or a III, all the names must be identical. Had we had a son (instead of two wonderful daughters), he would have been IV. We joked that we would have called him Ivvy, which is only one of the reasons ‘tis better that we had girls.

Anonymous T said...

waseeley & Leo III:
Gramps(RIP), Pop, & I are all AJC. Our middles are J-something-else so Jr nor III doesn't prove out.

We're all Anthony - named after Great-Gramp's brother who sponsored G-GPa Bennie from Italy to IL in 1908 to meet up w/ his future wife (and dig coal) in Rochester, IL. [we're a short people and fit perfectly in the mines]

The 1908 penny in my collection is extra-special [Throw Mamma from the Train clip]

Cheers, -T

Michael said...

Who the heck would steal a bobsled? Not only is this particular sled obvious, but it weighs in pretty well.

Michael said...

Anonymous @ 2:07 wrote, "... have prescription drugs in their blood stream, like for blood thinners,...."

OTC drugs also disqualify you: after a coronary in 2001, taking 325mg of aspirin every day ruled me out.

Michael said...

Misty at noon: "I can't tell you what a comfort it is to get sympathy for such an ordinary loss-...."

But for you it was not an "ordinary loss" at all. Losing pets makes a horrid hole in our universes....

CrossEyedDave said...

Yellowrocks, (@4:13)

LAT Puzzles, toothless?

I dunno,

Several have bit me in the Ass...

(usually Saturdays...)

CrossEyedDave said...

Speaking of getting bit in inappropriate places...

I have seen many (cute) videos of foxes,
& lately been watching a Russian couple that took in
a Puma called Messi. It is fascinating to watch these (extremely)
wild animals become so tame and friendly...

However, Misty's experience made me wonder about Coyotes...

here is an unexpected experience...

CrossEyedDave said...

I (may) Digress,
but if anyone is interested in Messi's story,
here is an introduction....

Imagine, living with an animal that could eat you at a moments notice,
but chooses not to...

Makes you wonder if humanity is ...

(hmm, I don't know how to finish this sentence...)

CrossEyedDave said...

Personally,

If you dressed my up in that Harlequin outfit,
I would kill you...

waseeley said...

Yeah, it's why I'm always in hysterics!

waseeley said...

Ridi, pagliaccio ...!

Michael said...

Dear CED:

Since you're a YouTube "devotee". you may have seen that boldly fearless man in South Africa, who runs refuges for lions, panthers, and hyenas. To see some lion or panther that is bigger than him, or a hyena, lying in his lap and snuggling with him, shows how much I need to work on courage.

Of I find a URL, I'll post it here.

Becky said...

Yup, Anon T, that was me. Still is, but I don't look like that any more.
Actually, who does? Working on Soap was the most fun I ever had on T.V.

Becky

Yellowrocks said...

CE Dave, the petition to can the LAT puzzles is toothless without a name, not the puzzles.