Themeless Saturday by Wayne Bergman and Gary Otting
About 67% of our original clues were left in as is or with minimal changes. It’s always interesting to see what clues puzzle editors change or don’t change. It’s not always clear to us if they change a clue to make it harder or to make it easier. For instance, our clue at 37A (PRISM) was [Object on a Pink Floyd album cover]. Rich changed it to [Light refractor]. Was our clue too easy because the Dark Side of the Moon album cover is so iconic, or was our clue too obscure?
Rich also changed our clue for ALEXTREBEK (27D). Our original clue was [“Wheel of Fortune” host on April 1, 1997]. We thought this was an interesting bit of trivia; one that was new to us. (Apparently Pat Sajak hosted Jeopardy that day, while Alex hosted Wheel, as an April Fools’ Day gimmick.) However, we do like the quote Rich ended up using in the clue. We also liked Rich’s clue for 33A REESE: [Piece maker?]. We had considered writing a clue related to the candymaker, something like [Creator of “Not Sorry” candy], but we ended up submitting it with the oft-used reference to Reese Witherspoon.
Here are some of our other clues that didn’t make the cut: 44A MACHINES [Cotton gin and spinning jenny, for two] 60A TARGETAREA [Pimples, vis-à-vis Clearasil] 6D UPROAR [Public reaction to New Coke, e.g.] 37D PREDICTS [Uses a Magic 8-Ball, maybe]
Thanks, and we hope everyone enjoys the puzzle!
1. "Friends" catchphrase: HOW YOU DOIN' - Joey's pickup line
11. Auctioned wheels: REPO - This TV series ran for eleven years telling of the vagaries of repossessing cars which could then be auctioned off
15. Far from perfect: ERROR PRONE - D-Otto will find 'em!
16. European capital with more than 340 lakes: OSLO - Here are some of them but there doesn't seem to be a Lake Olav
18. Convertible option: T-TOP.
19. City downriver from Las Cruces: EL PASO - Susan, Owen and constructor Pawel Fludzinski live in this "Land Of Enchantment"
20. Temporary fixes: STOP GAPS.
22. Ctrl + I, in much software: Abbr.: ITALics
24. Draft pick: STOUT.
25. Early product promotion with few details: TEASER AD.
32. Cruise controls: HELMS - Captain Kate McCue was the first woman to take the HELM of a Celebrity Line Super Cruiser
33. Piece maker?: REESE - REESE'S pieces were a tie-in to E.T.
35. Vietnamese soup: PHO.
36. Hawkish god: ARES.
37. Light refractor: PRISM - Wayne and Gary's initial cluing would have worked for me
38. Coagulate: CLOT
40. Secret meeting: TRYST - C'mon, no one will ever know...
41. Vocation: TRADE - TRADE schools around here are full
44. Factory equipment: MACHINES - OSHA might want a word with the owner here
46. 19th-century English novelist Charles: READE - His most famous work in a less formal medium
48. __ Jim: SLIM - One is edible convenience store fare and the other can get your car open if you lock yourself out in the parking lot at that convenience store
49. Like a "pony" with limited skills: ONE TRICK - Tyson's ONE TRICK was good enough to knock out a lot of boxers but not Lennox
52. Dyson alternatives: ORECKS.
56. Beginning to call?: ROBO - During the campaign they started at 9 a.m. on the dot
57. One may be part of a fresh start: CLEAN SLATE -
60. Campaign focus: TARGET AREA - My granddaughter is the data director for an organization that works on TARGET AREAS
|
| Emma Craig |
61. Sources of furniture wood: OAKS.
62. Relative of a fidget spinner: STRESS BALL - A unique one
Down:
1. Present: HERE - Roll call answer
2. Only unanimous Cy Young Award winner between Dwight and Randy: OREL - Baseball's Hershiser fits between Dwight Gooden and Randy Johnson. In Craig Stowe's puzzle last Saturday, OREL was a Russian city SSW of Moscow
3. Finish (up): WRAP.
4. "Always in motion is the future" and others: YODAISMS - This YODAISM tells you Yoda would not favor "Participation Trophies" on Dagobah
5. Electra's brother: ORESTES - Here 'ya go
6. Hullabaloo: UPROAR.
7. Oz and Howser: Abbr.: DRS - Dr. Oz is a contemporary figure but Wayne and Gary (or Rich) used the "way back machine" for the other Dr.
8. Sounds heard at an unveiling: OOHS.
9. JFK and LBJ, e.g.: INITS - Here are mine. Make yours here too
11. Some moonshine: ROTGUT - "Grape wine in a mason jar, homemade and brought to school" Roger Miller 1964
12. One may include large gifts: ESTATE PLAN
13. Ripple preceder: PLOP.
14. Cry over spilt milk: OOPS.
21. Corn bread: PONE.
23. Jerry's "Seinfeld" co-creator: LARRY - LARRY David and Jerry long before "the show about nothing"
25. "__ So Raven": 2000s sitcom: THAT'S - A Disney TV entry
26. Like meeting one's doppelgänger, probably: EERIE - W and his doppelgänger Steve Bridges
27. "I'm curious about everything--even things that don't interest me" speaker: ALEX TREBEK - That seems to fit this lovely, humble man who left us way too early
28. Belief in a hands-off god: DEISM - Thomas Jefferson's philosophy
30. __ Island: RHODE.
31. Observes: NOTES.
34. "¿Cómo __?": ESTAS - ¿Cómo ESTAS en este día de invierno? (How are you this winter day?)
37. Forecasts: PREDICTS.
38. Forensic analysis site: CRIME LAB - My grandnephew's wife just finished her training to be a Forensic analyst. She will start at $93,000/yr in Sioux City, Iowa
40. Berlin Wall Speech word: TEAR - No part of "Ich bin ein Berliner" had four letters
41. Ardent desires: THIRSTS.
43. Wyoming range: TETONS - This sight greeted us the morning when we awoke at the KOA Campground in the TETONS
45. "Jurassic Park" dinosaurs, e.g.: CLONES - I never tire of watching this
47. Brilliance: ECLAT - KC Chiefs QB Patrick Mahommes exhibited ECLAT in Super Bowl LIV
49. Snack manufactured in 18 countries: OREO.
50. Super star: NOVA.
51. Broadway's Walter __ Theatre: KERR.
53. "Flashdance... What a Feeling" singer: CARA - The famous Irene CARA scene in the movie Flashdance
55. Navy __: SEAL - SEAL Team 6 met up with Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan in 2011
58. Mature: AGE
Does ROTGUT hangover do you in?
ReplyDeleteTHIRST for RIPPLE make your head spin?
PLOP, plop, fizz, fizz
Oh, what a relief it is
To go on the wagon and give up gin!
Edvard Munch was an artist in OSLO
Who painted a scream of "Oh, no!"
The face is scary
To make one wary
Of paintings from east of EL PASO!
{C, C+}
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteI think Saturday puzzles are my absolute favorites -- no theme for me not to get. This one came together very fast. Loved it, especially the stacked 10s in the NW and SE. My only missteps were MDS/DRS and CLEAN pLATE, but Wite-Out prevailed. I'm sure I-M will call out the ESTAS/ESTATE PLAN pseudo twins. Thanx, Wayne and Gary² (Are you saying I'm nit-picky? Guilty. I prefer to think of myself as a "careful reader.")
READERSHIP: When I got P-O'd and quit The Barnacle, the retaliated by changing my Wed-Sun dead-tree subscription to 7-day delivery. When I went online to report their error, I was informed that I no longer get home delivery so I can't complain about it. In just a short two years they figured out the error on their own. I've maintained an online only subscription -- $203.40/year is plenty steep. I keep it only for the CWs. I could get the online NYT or WAPO for considerably less.
So no lawyer jokes today. The NW and West were the last to fall today. I've never seen "Friends" HOW YOU DOIN had to gradually get filled after AAHS or OHHS, MDS or DRS, GIFT or HERE, and a WAG for OREL.
ReplyDeleteThen there was another show-RAVEN- I didn't know. Tried I AM SO Raven before I realized SO was part of the clue. The WAG of ALEX TREBEK fixed that area.
Paying READERSHIP of newspapers is nosediving. I only subscribe for the comics section and the crossword puzzle.
NEPOTISM- always has been and always will be. People are genetically programmed to take care of their own progeny. Illegal in public jobs but unless somebody is super rich they make sure their children get the good jobs. Need to look any farther? Ivy League spots are reserved for the children of professors.
5D, Alternate clue: Minnie Minoso, formerly.
ReplyDeleteWe had that Alka Seltzer clue for PLOP recently. Owen, your C is at least a B+
So much for your baseball expert. It took perps to pickup OREL. I was thinking unanimous HoF.
TRYST - Where lovers 'plight their troth'(Tolkien: vis a vis Aragorn and Arwen)
Didn't we have the NBA'er Steve KERR recently?
This started as a typical Saturday, a sea of white followed by a fill or two. Then the "I'll never solve this" feeling, to "hmm, I'm making progress' to TADA!. Finally looking back, 'That's easy for a Saturday'.
NEPOTISM was rampant in NewEng. Tel and ilk of the day.
I think I inked Presages/DICTS. I solved this Tuesday at the VA and afterwards at Panera waiting for traffic to clear.
WC
BigE, in Boston and other "Great Metropolitan Cities" there was extensive and very well written Sports coverage. The Boston Globe even had a Yachting reporter (and Harvard rowing)
ReplyDeleteI had a print version of TB-Times for years and their Sports page was awful. Btw, Bud Collins used to write a Tennis column in the Globe.
WC
Good Morning.
ReplyDeleteI had a more successful Saturday than usual because I too the time to mosey along slow and steady to win this race. I filled in the shorter answers first and didn't even think about the longer ones until I had some fill to move me along. Nicely done, Wayne and Gary.
DO--As you know by now, I'm in your league with the themes. I just don't pay much attention to them.
Gary, Thanks for the informative tour. I really appreciate your interviews with constructors.
I think we have a sunny day on deck here. Yay! I hope you have one also.
I see the clue for 2D ("Only unanimous Cy Young Award winner between Dwight and Randy") as being a poor clue, even wrong, as there are two unanimous Cy Young winners between the two pitchers.
ReplyDeleteDwight Gooden won the Cy Young unanimously in 1985.
Orel won the Cy Young unanimously in 1988.
Greg Maddux won the Cy Young unanimously in 1994 and 1995.
Randy Johnson won the Cy Young unanimously in 2002.
Scott - Constructor here... this was NOT our clue, and I'm a little distraught that there's now a wrong clue in our puzzle! If you look at the list of Cy Young winners on Wiki, there's a section listing the unanimous winners. Orel is listed between Dwight and Randy but the list is NOT chronological. Perhaps that was the source of the error? Ugh!
DeleteI remembering once asking Artie my university bud who hailed from RHODE Island.."What do you for fun?".."I play dots"..."Dots?" I asked.
ReplyDelete"Yep, dots, I've gotten pretty good at it"
ITAL. Joey Tribianni: still the typical stereotype: inarticulate, uneducated, and dumb
Inkovers tied/EVEN (but "tied" works better with the clue knotted up). Diva/NOVA. Scout/STOUT? Great clue..Seemed the former would be correct, latter wrong..oh THAT kind of draft (draught). OREOs like mini REESES: "Betcha can't eat just one." I can't
To the constructors comments re: PRISM, I prefer a general clue rather than a specific proper name reference favoring trivia known to a just a few. Puts all of us on a level playing field.
Northwest was the real challenge...started with only... READERSHIP....Hullabaloo: started to write in furor too short...(Canadian Eh spelling furour?) FInally WAGed EL PASO, my aahs turned into OOHS, (😬) with enough perps to FIR.
But I digest I mean digress...
To those who thought I couldn't be any more annoying than yesterday....😃
Work this summer, and _____ get a permanent position...INTERN
Those years before the Nixon era ______ PREDICTS
Shut down a clothier.....STOPGAPS
The Dysons all accidentally sucked up some marbles, now they're all _____ ORECKS.
Finally have time today to take down the outside Christmas decorations. 19 degrees 🥶
Hola!
ReplyDeleteTo quote Misty, "Woohoo!" Twenty minutes to solve a Saturday puzzle. For me, that's a record.
Thank you, Wayne and Gary! This was superb in its cleanliness and lack of dreck. Sports clues are lost on me but I learn something and occasionally something actually sticks with me. E.g., OREL simply because it's such an unusual name.
Sigh. I shall miss ALEX TREBEK. I'm sure he is resting in peace in a special place; he was such a good person and so gentle but he could be aggressive when required.
TRYSTS always reminds me of my parents who were forbidden to see each other as teenagers but used the excuse of going to church to light candles and meet there.
NEPOTISM? In modern times? Really? Shocking! Really shocking!
CSO to all of us newspaper subscribers at READERSHIP. I can't believe the prices some of you are quoting. Mine just increased to $50. Yikes!
Gary, are you fluent in Spanish or do you have a source for your quotes? Bien hecho.
Time to refill my coffee cup.
Have a lovely day, everyone!
Owen:
ReplyDeleteBoth As IMO, I laughed heartily.
Good morning everyone.
ReplyDeleteHad 'reader ad'; so, 2 letters wrong. TEASER AD is a much better answer. So that bolluxed up the central west. Got everything else, though, including all the 10-letter stacked fills, 4-letter capital was Riga or OSLO. Perps quickly made it OSLO. Other fork in the road which I took was 'lager' or STOUT? PONE selected STOUT. Liked the REESE clue.
CLOT - Hand up for taking warfarin due to A-Fib concerns.
READERSHIP - Agree with other commenters. I tolerate getting our local paper because it has the LAT puzzle (except on Sunday), and Prince Valiant in the Sunday comics. BH likes it so she can see who has made it to the obits. I get WSJ for news content, and it's subscription price is less than the local paper.
Thanks Gary for another stellar re-cap.
Getting readership immediately certainly helped fill the NW quickly. The NE down to the SE was somewhat slow, but sure. Then going back up from the SW I had sheis for 25D which gave in to that's. So apropos to have a clue giving tribute to Alex Trebek. I'm assuming most here watched the last episode of Jeopardy last night with Alex. At the very end of the show there was a touching video tribute that almost brought me to tears. He will be missed sorely and there won't be another like him. The end of an era.
ReplyDeleteGood Morning:
ReplyDeleteThis was one of the most satisfying Saturday solves I have ever had. Clean, snappy fill, no “glue” or dreck, and, most appreciated, only four three letter words. I finished in faster time than most Saturdays, (not as fast as Lucina, though), but I struggled a bit in the NW corner. I enjoyed seeing Alex Trebek and his most fitting quote. Also liked the Orel/Oreo, Oohs/Oops, Estas/Estate (Hi, DO), and the Top/Plop/Stop trio. The Tix/Tryst/Trade row caught my eye, as did the O parade: Repo, Oslo, El Paso, Pho, Robo, and crossword cookie of choice, Oreo. Actually, there were oodles of Os scattered throughout the grid.
Thanks, Wayne and Gary, for an auspicious LA Times debut and for creating this gem of a puzzle; thanks, also, for sharing the various construction/cluing choices. (I, personally, prefer Rich’s clue for Prism, as I wouldn’t know Pink Floyd if I fell over him.) Thanks, HG, for another outstanding write-up and visuals. Half of the visuals didn’t show up, so a return trip is in order.
Have a great day.
"(I, personally, prefer Rich’s clue for Prism, as I wouldn’t know Pink Floyd if I fell over him.)"
ReplyDeleteAnon-T, just did fall over. I know PF but wouldn't cross the street for a concert by him or his ilk.
But a Buddy Holly avatar concert would interest me
WC
"...if I fell over him." -- Funny, IM.
ReplyDeleteGood morning, Valerie here, enjoyed the puzzle from the first clue to the last. MM helped with a couple of entries but I got most of it...on a Saturday! One of my most successful Saturday outings. No ROTGUT in this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteLucina, My "knowledge" of Spanish is https://translate.google.com
ReplyDeleteI also use my granddaughter for particular French phrasing since one of her majors was French.
Took a while to find a foothold but then things came together pretty quickly. Fun puzzle! And another wonderful write-up HG.
ReplyDeleteA little sun today in Chicago! And still a very mild winter.
Have a great and safe day everyone.
A very nice puzzle, Wayne and Gary! Special thanks today to Rich, without whom the clues would have been impossible! The NE gave me a foothold, and my final steps to solving were in the NW. For those of a Judaic persuasion, an "unveiling" involves visiting the cemetery about 11 months after burial to see the newly erected tombstone, and is more likely to elicit sobs than OOHS. Luckily, I also speak goyish! Re: the print newspaper, DH and I manage it like Mr and Mrs Sprat. He consumes all the news and editorial content while I polish off the comics and crossword. Husker Gary, thanks for the tour. Cornerites, enjoy the day!
ReplyDeleteThis was fast for a Saturday for me- but enjoyed the creativity involved. Congrats to Wayne & Gary on their LA debut!
ReplyDeleteAnother fun blog Gary- and I always enjoy the constructor comments. Just one nit - Irene Cara both sang "Fame" and acted in the movie. But in "Flashdance" - she sang the song - but the pic you have is of Jennifer Beals who was the actor/dancer in that movie!
I'm still standing after my week of a new electronic medical record system at work! A lot slower learning curve at age 61 then when I learned the last one at age 45!
I hope we get to have another puzzle from Wayne and Gary soon because this one was such a pleasure.
ReplyDeleteI too agree with Rich that ‘light refractor’ beats out a reference to an obscure record album cover as a clue. Yodaisms worked for me.
Am I the only one to write Oedipus before ORESTES?
Regarding sports, we have a wonderful sports writer here in the LA Times named Plaschke. He writes so well that it can overcome my basic lack of interest in reading about that topic.
Inanehiker
ReplyDeleteAre you using the EPIC system for EMR? It's as if a tech took a handful of tiny icons and just threw them at the screen
I have 30 something colleagues who have never handled a piece of film nor used any thing but a word recognition dictating system. (What's a transcriptionist?)
Alice, with just the O in place, I thought of Oedipus, but waited for another letter or two before committing. Lucky.
ReplyDeleteHo ho! A surprise FIR today. I struggled long in the SE, nearly giving up as squares filled with inked guesses. My big slowdowns were putting PREvIewS first and just not seeing MACHINES and CLONES. These three caused collateral damage in the perps crossing them. Finally things started clicking when I saw one mistake, putting DEISt for DEISM. Must start reading clues more carefully! Alice, I thought briefly of Oedipus for 5D, but already had EL PASO so didn't write it in. I appreciated the new clue for OREO.
ReplyDeleteA good Saturday pastime, this puzzle kept me interested. Thanks for your excellent first appearance, Wayne and Gary, and for stopping by. Thanks, Husker Gary, for your excellent and entertaining guidance. Much appreciated. You graded yourself too low today, OwenKl. And please keep up the silliness, Ray-O! Hope everyone is having a good start to the weekend.
@Ray-O-Sunshine -no, I have used EPIC at the hospital - the big companies like EPIC and CERNER are too expensive for anyone but big hospital health systems to use, I am at a private practice doctor owned clinic. We had been on ALLSCRIPTS for 16 years (with upgrades) but now we are on EClinicalWorks. I had a similar experience when I was at the free clinic I volunteer at - one of the new docs I was orienting to the clinic had never written a SOAP note with a pen- he didn't know what to do with a blank progress note paper!
ReplyDeleteFIR, with one write-over: ROBO 4 ROll. Not a fan of all of the names; I still think it’s a sign of laziness and lack of imagination. Some days I wonder if I should just stick to SB, with its lack of trivia.
ReplyDeleteNo "Woohoo" from Misty this morning, but congratulations to you for such a quick solve, Lucina!
ReplyDeleteSaturdays are always toughies for me, but enjoyed the discussion, and this is an amazing and clever puzzle.
My favorite item, of course, was ALEX TREBEK. Last night was his last "Jeopardy," and I will miss him so much after all these years of watching him every night. I've been careful not to erase all of the shows of the last weeks so I can go back once in a while for a kind of virtual cemetery visit.
Have a good weekend, everybody!
Puzzling thoughts:
ReplyDeleteOnly write-overs were DEIST/DEISM and CLEAN PLATE/CLEAN SLATE.
WEES, this was a gettable puzzle; good CLEAN fill. My only eyebrow raiser was YODAISMS. Although I guess every clue/solve has to have an origin ... as I’ve been working on a recent puzzle of my own, I keep finding that ONE WORD that seems out of place. Thanks to Wayne Bergman and Gary Otting for your clever construction
Thanks CC - oops, I mean HG (🤡) - for the thorough recap. The Jurassic Park clip was a good one ... I liken my brain and thoughts sometimes to the mosquito entombed in amber ... 😀
Whoot! Nailed a Saturday w/o any outside help! 2021 is getting better (puzzle-wise).
ReplyDelete//OK, sure it took me a few hours on-and-off but...
Hi All!
Thanks Wayne & Gary for a fun Saturday puzzle. Congrats on the LAT debut.
Thanks Wayne for droppin' in. //HOW YOU DOIN'?
Wonderful expo HG. Again, thanks for reaching out to the constructors for a little inside-baseball. And, your Grands sound like grand people.
WO: DEISt (Hi C.Moe!)
ESPs: ORESTES, READE, KERR, DRs [oh, I get it <now> //used HTML not Ctrl-I :-)]
Fav: HELMS' clue was cute.
{B+, B+}
D-O: I still have two subscriptions to the Chronicle - one for me and one for MIL. This week's news was much to fast for the paper to report so I didn't read it much (plus Eldest was home).
Speaking of MIL, I loaned her my book on ALEX TREBEK. She liked it too. With just a few perps, I (think?) remembered 27d's quote from the book.
IM - Pink Floyd is not a person but a band who took their name from Blues artists Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.
The Brits took our Blues and gave us back Rock and Roll.
WC - I had TIX and saw Pink Floyd in Dallas (not cheap!) in the mid '90s. As the lights went down, it seemed everyone lit-up; talk about a contact-high. Buddy Holly [Weezer at Arnold's 4:01 #DeepFake]
Ray-O: Ever watch Mark Rober's YouTubes? He's good at Darts [5:35] :-)
//Mark was a NASA JPL engineer who worked on the Mars rover.
I didn't show at The Corner (puzzled and then lurked) for the last few days 'cuz Eldest & I were playing. We built this book-binding MACHINE that she wanted using red OAK.
Eldest's on her way back to OU now. But, actually, I'm a little worried 'cuz her iPhone went dead while we were talking and I can't get back hold of her. Been a few hours now...
Cheers, -T
Although this looked daunting at first, this Saturday pzl turned out to be a winner for Yrs Trly.
ReplyDeleteORESTES was my entry ticket.
What old drama student doesn't know the dramatis personae of ancient tragedy?
Thanks to Mssrs. Bergman & Otting!
This was one of those challenges that kept yielding to answers I didn't know I knew.
Fun.
~ OMK
____________
DR: Two diagonals, one to a customer.
The near side diagonal's anagram uses ALL 15 letters! Hoo-RAH! (WooHoo to Misty!)
It identifies the most recent manner by which dramatic performances (live theater as distinct from cinema) are able to reach a consumer audience. A format such as Zoom or FaceTime is now serving as a...
"THEATRICAL AIRER,"
certainly a help during the pandemic, and yet
a poor substitute for the real thing.
Well, I came really close today. I didn’t know LARRY, couldn’t figure out REESE, and didn’t see all of TEASERAD. I got the TEASE part, and I’ve forgotten exactly what I had at the end, before Mr Wite-Out got rid of it. I also wasn’t sure about ORESTES or which ISM should go in 28D, and perps got READE. Would have also helped if the stupid Comical had spelled Como correctly in 34D. It just had “Cmo_?” Sometimes, I’m too much of a literalist. Might or might not have cleaned up that area for me. We’ll never know.
ReplyDeleteThere are those who claim Ripple (Fred Sanford’s beverage of choice) is ROTGUT too. I, on the other hand, stuck with $5.00 a bottle Wild Irish Rose from a DC liquor store in my ute. Sorry, Chairman Moe.
Anon T...the Dart vid was incredible. Now if only my pool table could be rigged the same way. 🎱
ReplyDeleteFLN
ReplyDeleteOver/Under --- From Wiki: “An over–under or over/under (O/U) bet is a wager in which a sportsbook will predict a number for a statistic in a given game (usually the combined score of the two teams), and bettors wager that the actual number in the game will be either higher or lower than that number. For example, in Super Bowl XXXIX, most Las Vegas casinos set the over–under for the score of the game at 46.0. A bettor could wager that the combined score of the two teams would be either more than or less than that number. Since the combined score of that game was 45, anyone who had bet on ‘under’ won.”
In American and Canadian football wagering, you can bet on either the over/under or bet on the point spread or bet on both. For the point spread bet, the games are handicapped in Vegas according to the relative strengths of the two teams and home field advantage. If your team COVERS the spread (you've bet on the favorite team's winning by more than the spread, or you've bet on the underdog team's losing by less than the spread), you win.
Impediment/Cluster – I took it to mean that for us old folk, a CLUSTER of junk would definitely be an impediment to walking down a hallway --- ESPECIALLY if it’s a cluster of CATS.
Didn't do the puzzle on Wednesday; LW and I were riveted to the TV all day. Both of us busy busy busy on Thursday and Friday, so no time to do those puzzles either. Today's was fun.
ReplyDeleteRay O Sunshine -- Pool tables are incredibly heavy, but I know what you mean.
ReplyDeleteBecky
Leo III- Wild Irish Rose? That was expensive stuff compared to Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill (which was actually apple) or Annie Green Springs. If you want to go really LOW go for THUNDERBIRD- red or blue label.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Over/Under explanation. IMHO that's just silly for people who have money to blow. Not caring who wins, just the total points scored.
Wilbur Charles- There are many fine sports reporters but most of them are just that- writers. I go to grandchildren's football, basketball, baseball, softball, and tennis matches but have no interest in a sports writer's opinion. They might have participated in sports in their youth but the retired athletes are the ones who know what's really happening. The broadcast loudmouths on ESPN are a reason that their viewership continues to drop. ESPN is always on the weight room at my gym and it can't be turned off.
Super Saturday. Thanks for the fun, Wayne and Gary, and HuskerG.
ReplyDeleteNW corner was the last to fall and required Google help to get ORESTES, plus a visit to Google Maps to find EL PASO (isn’t that in Texas?).
I also wanted Gift before HERE.
ORECKS in the SE gave me problems too. Not as well known a brand in Canada.
I wagged ESTAS because the clue as printed in my Newspaper was “Cmo___?”. Another case of “if it is a foreign language symbol or letter with accent, then we will just not print it at all”!😮
This Canadian thought immediately of hockey with “Draft pick”.
The usual CW favourites of Ado or Todo were too short; UPROAR today.
Yes, we had PLOP and KERR yesterday.
The new clue for OREOS held me up for a minute.
We had DRS and an INTERN, but no RNs or LPNs today.
ALEX TREBEK was appropriate for today. DH and I just watched the 2020 tribute. Much of the info I knew from reading his book, but it was touching to hear him speak. Such a kind self-effacing man.
AnonT- hope you have heard from your daughter so you can sleep. What did my parents do when I would only call (collect at that) from dorm once a week while at school in Toronto? Different days.
LOL Ray-O, our Canadian English is not consistent enough to add U’s to everything😁. Furor and terror get a pass.
Wishing you all a good night.
I am not only a Cubs fan but also a Greg Maddux fan! Greg won a CY his last year with the Cubs but that was before his two unanimous #1 vote CY's with the Braves in '94 and '95. That was an unfortunate clue - I put in Greg since he was the first one I thought of and if chosen by number of unanimous CY's, he would clearly be the winner as Orel only had one! A flawed puzzle!
ReplyDeleteC, Eh! - Thanks. She is safe in her dorm. The phone lost contact with her SIM card and took a full reboot(?). I guess she wanted her music more than rebooting the phone :-)
ReplyDeleteCheers, -T
-T, good news on daughter but don't you use Google maps tracking? My son was coming back from Dunellon lat night (100 miles) and I tracked the whole way and walked out as they were pulling in the driveway. Of course the object has to give permission.
ReplyDeleteBigE, it's worse than that. Media doesn't even opine anymore but writes off of what they can get the players to say. A lot of media coverage is scripted beforehand.
OVER-UNDER… re. Spread. College baskets had a split spread. I hated UCLA but was sick of losing money and bet them vs Villanova in 1971. Problem was split spread. V got 4 but I gave 6. The game ended with UCLA up 4. But… The refs then pulled Henry Bibby from the showers to shoot two foul shots with fans on the court etc. He sank them both and I got MY PUSH.
WC