The Chairman's still "en vacances," so you're stuck with me for one last Friday. C-Moe promises to be back in two weeks, rested and refreshed.
Some folks get crabby over cutesy-poo clues. Others have nits over too many proper names. Still others object to too many abbreviations. Well, settle back, today's your day. Zero cutesy clues, only a few proper names (two first, four last, and one manufacturer), and I count only seven abbreviations (I may be proven wrong). Most of what you'll encounter today are straight-forward definitions. Well, it is Friday, so they're not too straight-forward. There's not a lot to complain about here. But I didn't find a lot to like, either. There's nothing too original. The longest non-themers are only eight characters, and there's only two of those. C.C. says that's the nature of this type of layered-up theme. Sorry, Winston, I usually like your offerings, but this one fell flat. Never noticed the theme while solving, and thought perhaps this was one of those rare Friday themeless puzzles. Then I went hunting and found the reveal:
59. "Enough of the pity party!" ... and what appears four times in this puzzle?: GET OVER IT. Only in the reveal do you "hear" the hard-G sound.
Across:
4. Show of affection, in Acapulco: BESO. Paul Anka
8. Chuck and others: CUTS. of meat. Bet you were expecting a link to Shirley Ellis' The Name Game.
12. Word that agrees with you: ARE. I am, he is..
14. Fireplace collection: ASHES. TOOLS also fit...until it didn't.
16. Cabbage, e.g.: VEGETABLE. Seems too obvious for a Friday. The other day it was MONEY.
18. Get the point: SCORE.
19. Move like a startled chipmunk: SKITTER. Good name for a nervous cat.
20. Extent: DEGREE. There are lotsa synonyms for "extent."
21. Expression of recognition: OHO. Seems more like an expression of "Gotcha!" Dw says her German grandfather, (13D) OTTO, was always called OHO.
22. Maker of Tundra coolers: YETI. The Tundra 45 will set you back a "cool" $300.
26. Grounded: SANE. SSTs came to mind.
28. Engage in some risky evasion: DODGE TAXES. It's downright patriotic to avoid taxes, but it's a felony to evade taxes. What a difference a couple of vowels make.
31. Not seen a lot: SCARCE.
33. Tiny arachnids: MITES.
34. Free: RELEASE. Many have recorded it, but Esther Phillips did it best.
36. Bad way to swear: FALSELY. Is there a good way? I keep
practicing but don't seem to be getting any better at it. I've read
that Mark Twain was a master.
40. Film director Kurosawa: AKIRA. The first of our first names today. Seven Samurai is rated his best film.
42. Reacted to a blow: REELED. Barfed would also fit, but would probably fail the breakfast test.
43. All-out effort some might call old: COLLEGE TRY. Let's give it the old college try...
47. 1969 MLB upstarts: METS. Why "upstarts?" They started up in '62.
48. Big swinger: APE.
49. Silents star Naldi: NITA. Winston struggled to find a good "IT" word for this spot. Starting under the E, it breaks pattern with the other themers.
50. Original "Peaky Blinders" airer: BBC. With that B from ASSEMBLE, this could've been ABC, NBC, or CBS, but it wasn't.
51. Condition: STATUS.
54. Protected space: SHELTER.
58. Longtime photo lab supplier: KODAK. How the mighty have fallen.
61. "I was wrong. So what": SUE ME.
62. Slovenia neighbor: ITALY. Not the first country I thought of, but they do meet at the north end of the Adriatic Sea.
63. Valuable deposit: ORE.
64. Very French?: TRES. French for short hair -- instead of tress, tres.:)
65. Sometimes least, sometimes not: LAST. And now, last but not least...
66. Super __: NES. Ninetendo Entertainment System, complete with 16-bit operating system.
Down:
2. Level for 4-yr-olds: PRE-K. At least it's not the dreaded ELHI.
3. Local tournament: REGIONAL. That doesn't sound all that "local" to me.
4. Highland hillside: BRAE. Gimme for d-o. Before moving up to redneck land, we lived on BRAEwick Dr.
5. Early life stage: EMBRYO. Very early.
6. Cantina condiment: SAL. Lucina got this one immediately -- Spanish for salt.
7. Eight bits bill: ONE. I was thinking computers, not that there
are eight bits to a dollar. For those of you under 60, a quarter is
two bits. Remember "Shave and a haircut, two bits?"
8. Good argument: CASE. Good lawyers make their CASE, case you didn't get that reference.
9. Mil. branch: USCG. Let's see hands for those of you who tried USMC first.
10. Chest: THORAX. Technically, the part of the vertebrate body between the neck and the abdomen. Now isn't that esoteric?
11. Chill: SERENE. In this case, "Chill" is an adjective:
She looked just like Joey Potter … Really young and super chill. — Emma Pearse
13. Enzo's eight: OTTO. Italian eight, and dw's grandfather, and an SO to moi.
15. Bed starters: SEEDS. Oh, that kind of bed.
17. Otherworldly: ETHEREAL.
20. Like many supplements: DIETARY.
23. Gretzky's original NHL team: EDM. I'm guessin' that means Edmonton. Stopped at the airport there many years ago on my way to Ft. McMurray.
24. Weary worker's sigh: TGIF. Why "weary?" Why not happy?
26. Lith., once: SSR. Lithuania was once a Soviet Socialist Republic.
27. It has a big heart: ACE. Suits me. No need to take a spade and club me over the head.
28. Self-serving intent: DESIGNS. Is that why the TV show was called Designing Women?
29. Distant prefix: TELE.Telegraph, telephone, telescope.
30. Gather: ASSEMBLE.
32. Candle holder: CAKE. Only on birthdays.
35. "I'll speak a prophecy __ go": "King Lear": ERE I. When there's nae Shakespeare quote there's nae crossword. The fool makes the prophecy in Act 3, Scene 2.
37. Basic particle: ELECTRON. Also proton and neutron -- beyond that they become even more basic.
38. Word with fly or go: LET.
39. NFL stats: YDS. Yards.
41. ABA member: ATT. Attorney of the American Bar Association. I've never seen the ATT abbreviation outside of cw's.
43. Wine holders: CASKS.
The Limeliters:
"Have some madeira, m'dear,
I have a small cask of it here.
And once it's been opened,
well, you know it won't keep.
Do finish it up.
It will help you to sleep." [Evil chuckle]
44. Skip it: OPT OUT. Amy on TBBT as an OP Tout
45. Chief: LEADER.
46. Dreadlocks wearers: RASTAS. Can't be all bad. They believe that marijuana is a sacrament.
50. Quail gathering: BEVY.When does a covey become a bevy? Or is it the other way round?
52. Not threatening: TAME.
53. Luau strings: UKES.In my ute I was shocked to learn that my MouseGetar was really a ukulele.
 |
55. Gothic romance novelist Victoria: HOLT. Just one of many literary aliases of Eleanor Alice Hibbert.
56. Word on Irish stamps: EIRE.
57. GPS recommendations: RTES.
59. Jazz pianist Evans: GIL.The second of our first names.
60. Due-in hr.: ETA. Estimated Time of Arrival.
I'm looking forward to hearing what you thought about this one. Desper-otto out.
56 comments:
The worth of a DEGREE may be ETHEREAL,
Knowledge and oaths, but not much material.
But a Freemason's word
Can be trusted, not blurred,
AND the STATUS that gives is magisterial.
When you break up, it's hard to GET OVER IT.
It didn't LAST, now you feel such regret.
But the time has come,
It must be done --
Jigsaw in the box, all the pieces you had fit!
{B, B+.}
FIW, giving SeL the stinkeye, but not changing it before coming here. Erased my smugly-filled "go on the lam" for DODGE TAXES, mavs for CAVS, ocho for OTTO, sane for CASE, and usaf for USCG. But USCG isn't a branch of the military (DOD), it is a branch of Homeland Security. That narrowed it down to usaf or usmc as correct options.
Didn't like the "big heart" clue for ACE. Maybe "could have" instead of "it has" would be better.
But it is the fifth Friday of the week, and I got a lot further than I usually do. So I've got THAT goin' for me.
Thanks for the interesting puzzle, Winston. Except for the clunky clues I thought it was fun, with handy perps for all those proper names. And thanks to D-O for another fine tour.
I take it back. The DHS web site declares "the United States Coast Guard is one of our nation's five military services..". So stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it, Jinx!
Still seems weird that they realigned it out of DOD and into DHS. Maybe weird that we created DHS to begin with.
Firstly, not smooth nor quick. L*, METS were a cellar dweller through 68 then "Amazed" the world in 69
Oops, cancel that FIR. I had SeL. I should have caught the mistake on ORMeN, I'm familiar with her but via radio.
Yep, mc was w/o** to CG.
*And here I was thinking it was Lemonade on the write-up. Thx D-O
Theme might have been helpful especially with DOD__TAXES 'over' MITES. I had wanted alas until, with a sigh, I grok'ed TGIF
Those two names were as obscure as we get.
WC
**In this case a Write-over
And USMC is 'under' the Navy
Good morning.
Nope, not today. Messed up the NW corner, but good.
Too many first guess answers up there that turned out to be wrong. Recovered from aha to OHO, from med to CPR and mAVS to CAVS. But never changed the h I had in ocho to the second needed T in OTTO. Didn't notice that I had SKIThER.
Got the reveal and then noticed that GET was over IT in one of the theme answers. That helped speed the solve by applying it to the missing letters in other theme areas.
Also recovered from a coVY of quail to BEVY and FALSifY to FALSELY.
The Mets were the MLB upstarts in 69 because they won the World Series. They had a terrible record from 62 through 68, but it all changed in 69, when they surprised just about everyone in the baseball world by making the playoffs and then winning the World Series. They were dubbed the Amazing Mets. So that sudden rise to the very top would qualify them as being upstarts, as used in the clue.
Nice job, D-O. That has to be a record for the most images and links that you haver ever packed into a review.
Good Morning:
I liked the hidden theme, the tricky cluing, and the surprise reveal. It took me above average time to complete but I attribute that to said tricky cluing, as the only real unknown was Gil Evans. I did do a lot of stumbling, though: Octo/Otto, Sparse/Scarce, Amoeba/Embryo, TDS/YDs, and Ape/Ace, with Ape showing up later. As DO pointed out, there were 7 abbreviations but there were a total of 18 three letter entries. Too many for my taste, but that’s my personal nit. I liked the duos of Ace/Ape, One/Ore, Are/Ore, Ere I/Eire, and the hat trick, Case/Cask(s)/Cake. Lots of CSOs today: Lucina (Sal, Beso), Ray O and Inanehiker (CPR), Lemony and Hahtoolah (Att, Case), DO (Otto), CEh (Edm), and Anon T, Anon PVX, and Ray O (Italy and Otto).
Thanks, Winston, for a fun, challenging Friday and thanks, DO, for pinch hitting again. The Mets were 1969 MLB upstarts because they won the World Series after only 7 years in the Majors. Ergo, The Amazin’ Mets! (I’m still a dyed in the wool Yankees fan!)
Have a great day.
I really struggled with this one, although all the cluing was completely fair. But I just wasn't on Winston's wavelength. I had problems all over the place, but particularly in the NE, where I had the incorrect USMC and nothing else for a very long time.
I eventually FIR, but this was the longest time for me by far on a non-Sunday puzzle for several months.
Actually Casey Stengel said in one of his first press conference that the Mets would be Amazin', the term was used ironically and affectionately for seven years before it became true in 1969.
Toshiro Mifune, a recent answer, played one of the Seven Samurai; the film has been called a Japanese Western and was remade in America as The Magnificent Seven.
I don't think DESIGNS (as plans) are necessarily self-serving.
Went with MAVS and couldn't figure out what MPR was.
Good morning. Did I GET IT? Yes. Was it easy to FIR? No. It was a foreign language tour this morning. BESO, TELE, OTTO, TRES, EIRE, AKIRA, & the BBC. Okay I perped BBC but it's 'foreign'. RASTAS & YETI don't count as foreign. With only two unknowns - HOLT & BBC- I still found the puzzle tough to finish but I gave it the old COLLEGE TRY and did it. Great confusing clues.
Had to change COVY to BEVY to get the BBC & SHELTER. Had to wait for perps for the SPARSE-SCARCE and OCHO-OTTO fills.
NITA Naldi- an old crossword fill from years ago.
High school cheer- " Two bits, four bits, six bits, a DOLLAR, all for "my team" stand up and Holler."
" Sorry, Winston, I usually like your offerings, but this one fell flat. Never noticed the theme while solving, and thought perhaps this was one of those rare Friday themeless puzzles." GET OVER IT.
Personally I like themeless puzzles.
This one was a challenge, especially in the NE and just below there. The theme helped with the DODGE TAXES bit. SERENE for Chill eventually emerged along with it not being USAF. A slog t FIR but, hey, it is Friday and it's supposed to be challenging so Let Us Not Talk FALSELY Now The Hour's Getting Late. Today's ear worm and one of the few covers that was better than the original.
I finally got over the hump of this one in 14:15.
I also prefer theme-less puzzles, because otherwise you get more of the non-sparkly fill, e.g., foreign words (otto, tres, & sal), someone named Gil, some silent movie star, and a "gothic romance novelist."
MM: Nice Hendrix/Dylan reference, and I agree on which is better.
Good morning everyone.
Thanks D-O for pinch hitting again. Good comments, too.
Got it all but never sussed how the theme worked. No matter. FIR. Agree REGIONAL is not local. More local than global, though.
No issue with USCG clue. Overall, thought it was relatively easy for a Friday.
TELE - Got it easily. When "television" first entered the language in the late forties, my Mom's German ear equated it to "wiping dishes'. Teller = dishes; wischen = wipe. (German 'w' has a 'v' sound.)
Enjoy the day.
got it all but never sussed how the theme worked.
One of my favorite Don Henley Eagles tunes: Get Over It!
FIW. Had to cheat. Google eventually finished the CW in an embarrassing 43 minutes. (Bad boy, Google! Go sit in the corner with a dunce cap on your head!) I had too many unknowns to list, and not getting CUTS left that whole NE corner a world of white for the longest time. 9D ARMY? NAVY? USAF? USMC? USCG? W/O CUTS it coulda been any of them. Finally DEGREE and SCORE got me USCG which at last lit the lightbulb for CUTS. This was actually a very good CW, but like STAILI, I was totally not on the same wavelength as WE. Lots of difficult clues, starting with 1A, which also had me baffled for the longest time. MGR? MBA? HMO? PRE-K finally occurred to me, and the lightbulb lit for CPR. Tough clue!! When I finally perped in 12A ARE, I couldn’t see what that had to do with the clue, until D.O. ‘splained it. Also did not see the theme until I came here. It’s a real toughie when I struggle to fill even with multiple Google cheats. You defeated me with this one, WE. Wonderful write-up, D.O., thanx so much. If this was a Friday level CW, I don’t know what I’m gonna to tomorrow. Geez!
A very tough slog today with lots of bad guesses, but finished eventually.
I actually liked ACES for having a big heart, and CAKE as the candle holder.
Also nice was EREI and ERIE.
Once I got most of the bottom and saw GET OVER IT, it (very slowly) helped me with the rest of the puzzle.
I did NOT like Word that agrees with you which gave me AYE and confused the whole NW.
I played football as a kid, my sister was a cheerleader, and my Mom was the cheerleader mother who made up all the cheers, so that's why I know as Big Easy said: "Two bits, four bits, six bits, a DOLLAR, everyone for "my team" stand up and Holler."
Hi everyone. I thought this was a great puzzle, lots of fun clues and answers. Didn’t know Nita or Gil.
Speaking of shelter, my husband and I both got tornado alerts on our phones yesterday AM. Warning us to seek shelter immediately! in the basement or an interior room, away from windows, etc, We went to the basement at around 4AM hung out there for about an hour and a half or so until the alerts were canceled. No property damage or car damage we were concerned about. Just a ton of rain.
Thank You Mr. Emmons on a rather difficult, but Friday appropriate puzzle, ot was challenging. Thank you Desp-Otto for the review .... I saw the CC name at the bottom credits, so I thought CC had reviewed the blog...
I even had a tough time with CAVS, ( we had MAVS earlier in the week...).. and I live in Cleveland ! I don't follow the teams much ... altho the original nickname for the stadium was, 'The Q' after the Quicken Loans owner, Dan Gilbert. I guess Quicken was not fast enough, so he had to make it a Rocket Mortgage. In any case, I am neither into sports, nor loans, having settled my mortgage 5 years, after I bot my house.
The cluing was not easy, but I worked at it til the end. I got the GET, but not the IT.
A Get is also a formal orthodox jewish decree that the man, the ex-husband, has to give his ex-wife to formally 'release her' from her marital obligations, so she can marry again. This apparently has been much abused by men, especially in Israel, to reduce alimony etc., ... and there was even a movie made on this subject, and the desultory impotency of the rabbinical courts to remedy the matter.
The movie was Gett: The Trial of Vivian Amsalem (2014 ) , with the fabulous actress, the Late Ronit Elkabets, who also directed the movie. The 'ex-husband' in the movie was her real life husband. Very well acted, and sobering.
EVADE Taxes and AVOID taxes ... the difference according to IRS Regs., is if you didn't declare more than 20 percent of your gross income.... ( unless the regs have been amended recently.)
have a nice day, and a good weekend.
From WEES (what everyone else said), I feel lucky to have gotten a FIR today. When I got down to the reveal, understanding what the trick was helped me with the middle, putting NITA instead of Nina which I had been considering, for example. I had DO the TAXES first and ego/NES. Changing aHa to OHO cleared the way to filling in the NW. All in all it was a skip-around-here-and-there experience that worked out well.
Thanks, Winston, for the challenge today, and many thanks, D OTTO, for a masterful review! Hope everyone has a good day. TGIF!
Thank you Winston for a Saturday challenge. Oops, make that Friday! Gave this one the OLD COLLEGE TRY, but only got a horseshoe - despite knowing that OTTO was Italian for 8, I stuck with OHI at 21A. It just sounded RIGHTER (crosswordese for BETTER) than OHO.
And thanks D-O for pinch hitting for our MIA, slap happy, Friday Sherpa. Ya done good and I like the simple way you handle videos via links. Embedding them bug free is a royal pain in the A**!
I liked the theme and saw the GETS, but not the ITS. Should have taken the REVEAL literally.
Lots of good stuff in this puzzle, despite the crunchiness.
16A Cabbage is a VEGETABLE? Who knew? Remind me to post my COLCANNON recipe.
22A YETIS are not as STEEP if you buy them on the slopes of the HIMALAYAS. Of course you have to pay shipping charges to GET them back to the US.
40A AKIRA seems to be "Making a comeback". So he's back AT IT?
17D ETHEREAL is also the name of a "packet sniffer". Get Anon -T to splain it.
9D THOUGHT of USMC, but filled only US and waited for perps to get USCG. I have a second niece who was literally a "poster girl" for the USCG years back. I think she's an officer by now.
32D We have all kinds of candle holders in Church, but this answer took the CAKE!.
45A CASKS. As POE is buried in Baltimore, one of the DJ's at local station WBJC does a reading of "The Cask of Amontillado" each Halloween. TRES macabre!
55D DW gets credit for Victoria HOLT.
Cheers,
Bill
Musings
-TGIF after three days of subbing with great kids!
-A fun and challenging puzzle for me
-Dang, me too! MAVS not CAVS and ignored MPR for CPR (very clever!)
-We’ve had BESO or forms of it quite often of late
-A SCORE in soccer is pretty SCARCE
-I mentioned the Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven connection last Saturday
-Buying KODAK film, installing it in a camera and waiting for it to be developed seems so “last century”! :-)
-The NCAA likes to have their VB REGIONALS in Omaha because this VB-crazy state puts butts in the seats
-When a VB player runs a long way to successfully hit a ball back into play, she is said to have done A nice GET
My Italian BFF from the 7th grade recently sent me this video in response to Anon -T's video of Sabato Simon Rodia - more things Italians are good at. No room for any mistakes!
From Last night ... Thank you Anon-T for that video on Synchroni-city. It is amazing, and though it defies belief, nature is truly remarkable in its Order. ( Entropy can go to hell ...)
Here is an old video on 32 Metronome synchrony
No ads, no comments, just enjoy the 'vibes' for 4 minutes.
Remember, these are inanimate machines, tuned to random frequencies, and set off at different times, and yet they communicate, like the Millenium Bridge in London.
Bill W. ... Your video is 'unavailable'. ( Maybe, somebody doesn't like us ...)
This Friday XWord was tough, with some misleading clues.
One bad cell, my fault…
Write-overs…OCTO/OTTO, SPARSE/SPARCE* (*but forgot to change the P to C, a quick check showed APE, they have big hearts..), POLA/NITA, TDS/YDS.
See you tomorrow.
I thought it a clever theme.
Wow, shortest run ever as "permanent" Jeopardy! host!
Hola!
Yes, I knew SAL y pimienta, too. Salt and pepper.
This seemed more like a Saturday puzzle than Friday and I actually had to LU an answer, which I hate to do. I could not recall AKIRA Kurosaki though we have seen the name many times. My son-in-law is fascinated with Japanese culture. He told me last night that he has hired a tutor to help him learn Japanese, mostly because of the pronunciation. He has requested many Japanese books as gifts.
Hand up for USMC before USCG. That whole NE corner gave me fits. Finally getting THORAX help to finish DODGE TAXES which I do not consider patriotic.
I liked that SAL crossed BESO, two Spanish words.
SKITTER is fun to say.
I loved Victoria HOLT's books and likely read all of them. I may even have one or two on the self.
Though I don't know of pianist GIL Evans, the name perped itself.
Thank you, Desper-OTTO. You excel at analyzing so I hope you do it more often.
Have an amazing day, everyone!
Hi Y'all! Theme? There was a theme? Didn't GET IT until my hero Desper-OTTO pointed it out in living color. By the way, did you know OTTO was Italian for 8 when you chose that name, D-O. Desper-eight sounds about right.
Thanks, Winston, for 38 minutes of intense mind involvement. I think the theme is cute even if I was too dense to see it.
Hang in there, Fred. You are not alone. I had to do a lot of red-letter runs in the middle area. Never heard of NITA or GIL but WAGd NITA like I knew her.
My DIL teaches 4 yr. old PREK classes. Couldn't come up with PRE-K without perps. DUH!
PK, no I was initially going for a desperado sound-alike, but Desper-eight is cute. Could even be descriptive
Hi All!
Thanks, Winston, for the puzzle. Played like a Saturday, it did. I needed a cheat for extra-play.
Mighty fine expo, D-O! Though I do have a nit - I'm under 60yrs old and I know Shave and a Haircut is $0.25
WOs: Put PRE-K in 4d's squares, I Flew OUT b/f I LET it Fly.
ESPs: Hard to say - I filled gimme squares (e.g. this is plural: 'S'; military is 'US[wait for it]; Miracle METS*) and inked bit-by-bit. I can certainly say I didn't know GIL, NITA, nor HOLT.
Cheat: AKIRA
Fav: KODAK. Last night, I couldn't get Kodachrome out of my head... and now I have a reason to link it ;-)
{A, B+}
Waseeley - before it was Wireshark, ETHEREAL** was Sniffing the glue that holds the Internet together".
//BTW - the video is marked 'private.' It no play for me
I neither evade nor avoid TAXES - Others' money was very good to me: When Mom was divorced & on food-stamps, we ate. I got a Pell Grant (and Army student-loan re-payments) for some COLLEGE tuition. While in school, DW & I lived in subsidized housing. Heck, the DOD even paid for my Masters Degree while I served Uncle Sam (as a civilian this time) at Tinker AFB.
I gladly pay it back (and forward) through my annual filing (and I pay more per year than many folks even make).
Someone mentioned some Eagles and now we know how our host got his name. So, it only follows... Desper-OTTO. :-)
Enjoyed reading y'all! (your video is next,Vidwan)
Cheers, -T
*also, where they not an expansion team? An 'upstart' in the era of the Yankees & Sox(es)...
**I always pronounced it ETHER (as in Ethernet) REAL. You can REALly see the packets SYN'cing up :-)
All along the Watchtower*
Lucina, my son is heavy into Japanese language and culture. He wanted the video games untranslated. A tutor is a good Idea
Reading? I just finished "The Chamber " by Grisham. 1995 book. Was he thinking of a sequel? Mow back to Anna K
Around 8am (9 EDT) several of us commented on "Amazin" METS at the same time
WC
For Anon-T
Anon-T: "I'm under 60yrs old and I know Shave and a Haircut is $0.25" I'm guessing that's because you have parents who are older than you are. :) Please tell me you don't pronounce "sidereal" as Side-Real.
Back in the day when I could still remember how to play a piano, Desperado was one of the few songs I could play from memory. Another was Bridge Over Troubled Water. Oh, and then there was Scott Joplin's Solace and Pineapple Rag. I guess there were several. Haven't touched a piano in more than 15 years. Music lovers thank me for that.
Vidwan @11:57 AM Or maybe I'm a YouTube newbie. I changed the permissions to "Public" and published it. Give it another try.
Anon -T @ 2:08 PM Try sniffing it again! My loss of YouTube virginity didn't go well the first time.
Fabulous Friday! Thanks for the fun, Winston and d’otto.
I finished in good time for a Friday, got the theme, and thought I FIRed. But arrived here to discover that I must put my hand up for using the French Sel instead of the Spanish SAL (and not knowing whether it was Normen or NORMAN. OHO.
And I have to thank d’otto for helping me to say OHO to ACE and ARE.
Do we all know BESO by now?🤔😁
This Canadian thought of USCG first (friend’s daughter is married to a CG member), and decided on CAVS over Mavs. Even DH did not know that Fieldhouse.
Hand up for alphabet-run of ABC, CBC ( yes Canada was in the running with Covy misspelling ), NBC before the Beeb appeared today as BBC.
Hand up for TDS before YDS, and Neta before NITA.
We call it Junior Kindergarten, not PRE K for those 4-year-olds (I have two grandchildren that age who start in September).
Yes, EDM is for Edmonton Oilers and their Stanley Cup dynasty. I will take a CSO even though they are on the other side of the country, since Gretzky was born and raised not far from here in Brantford.
Glad you are safe Lizza.
Wishing you all a great day.
I enjoyed this puzzle very much. The reveal and theme placement is lovely, imo. Also impressed by the lack of IT strings throughout the grid except where they're supposed to be.
Also? I've gotta give a shout-out to the clue for 5 Down...beautiful!
Bill, weirder than cabbage being a vegetable is that jalapenos and watermelons are berries.
I was roused to post today when I saw the SWEAR reference.
Here is an amusing but real reference I saw at an MIT construction site on my last visit there.
I enjoyed the clever clues and the GET OVER IT theme. The theme helped me with some of the solves, including the unknown NITA.
But I was sure it was an APE who had a BIG HEART so I ended up with ApE/SpARsE/sAKE to FIW. I thought SAKE was some obscure word for a CANDLE HOLDER.
TTP I was also intrigued that one of the theme answers was the them reveal. Rare, but this happened recently.
OMaxiN I also immediately thought of the Eagles song.
Here are the Eagles singing how some people really do need to GET OVER IT in life.
From Yesterday:
WA Seeley Thank you for the shout out about science and math!
Lizza - I thought your story was going to be "one of those 'alerts' that apply half-the-state away." Sorry it was real but glad you're safe & sound.
Vidwan - the metronomes looked like soldiers marking time with rifles. The pink one in the 8th file, 2nd rank was the last to fall in line. Musta been Air Force :-)
*dons asbestos underwear*
Picard - When I first heard Henley/Frey sing those lyrics back in '94 I thought "what an ass." Now?, I think it was prescient; lots of 'Karens' who play victim and point fingers; doesn't seem they have a mirror(?).
Waseeley - The video plays! And it was beautiful. I think I'll forgo my Astros hat at tonight's game [7:05 start against Seattle] and don my ITALIA one.
D-O: While I've long'd to travel time... Yes, my parents are older than me. :-)
Cheers, -T
Took me a coupla cheats, but did it mainly on my own.
Thanks for the pleasure, Mr. Emmons!
Clue: What is 1/3 of our creator's name? Ans. EMS !
Plus many thanks to our own C.C. for today's finely fleshed-out follow-up!
USCG. Very fond of the Coast Guard. A service devoted to defense, to helping people, not to flexing our muscles around the world.
My Dad served with them in WWII. As a phone company employee, he was not permitted to join an overseas combat service. But like all "red-blooded American men" he was eager to don a uniform, and the USCG was happy to have guys like him who would spend one night a week sailing through SF Bay, detonating old mines and laying new ones.
Again, no diagonals...
~ OMK
OMK, that was desperate * on the write-up
*aka Desper-Otto, alias desper-eight
D-O, I'd never heard the Ester Phillips version of "Release Me" before. Englebert and others, yes. Thanks.
I'd also never heard of "Shave and a haircut, two bits" that I can recall. At first I thought the video cut out or that I lost internet. But that was the extent of it. I read the Wikipedia on it. Neat. I did however, know that two bits meant 25 cents.
Bill, your video works fine now. The US Navy Blue Angels are practicing today over Lake Michigan for the down-scaled Chicago Air & Water Show tomorrow. Back in the day, it was a treat to watch them practice from my vantage point on the 40th floor of one of the skyscrapers downtown.
Dash T, for the "inside-baseball", search on Foxy Ned and read the Wikipedia. :-) Then maybe one on the Amazing Mets or on Casey Stengel.
Picard, unlike some others, I don't avoid solving the reveal if I should come upon it early. Some times I pattern solve, so I'll only do all the perimeter answers first, and then every other row or column. Or both. Sometimes I'll solve diagonal sections to pattern fill. Other times I try to start in the closest point to the center, and go whatever paths the easiest answers take me.
Finding and filling the easy answers is "picking off the Low Hanging Fruit" (LHF) as one of C.C.'s long time bloggers (Marti (HeartRx))used to remark (and perhaps dubbed) frequently. Today it led me to the reveal GET OVER IT, and my "aha moment" was to look for places where GET was spelled out over IT. Yes, it helped with other answers by giving me the needed letters to see an answer or two. Fun stuff. I only wish I'd seen my mistake.
Canadian Eh, I forgot to comment that when I had CBC for a minute or so, I thought that you would be so happy to get something other than the usual ESSO answer. Alas, it wasn't to be. :-(
But, you'll c CC tomorrow or should I say Ms Mischievous considering her clueing which after the FIR can be best "designated": DELIGHTFUL
Note, if Wilbur and his warm-hearted , constant companion Mr S can FIR it is thoroughly doable.
I just loved seeing the CC moniker although halfway through ...
WC
Yep, this was a toughie all right, but fair. I didn't solve this one by going across and down as I usually do; I skipped around like a startled chipmunk. A little here and a little there, and 55 pleasant, head-scratching minutes later I finished the solve. Some real sneaky cluing goin' on. I really liked it.
Jayce - I think you meant SKITTERED around :-)
Spitzboov, yeah, skittered :-)
Had CBC, but not enough spaces for covey. Never heard of "Peaky Blinders." Looked it up; Netflix broadcasts it in the US-not me.
"Bad way to swear": I had perjury until perps.
Remembered AKIRA and NITA, but waited for the perps to be sure.
Found the GETs after the reveal, but didn't look for the ITs.
Enjoyable Friday puzzle and I FIR!
>> Roy
We were privileged to have two great jazz pianists during the midcentury. Gil Evans was a Canadian and Bill Evans was from the USA. Both died too young.
I really liked this puzzle. Didn't notice the nits of NITA's placement or "hard G's". Misspelled "covey" (hi, TTP), before correcting to BEVY. Liked the misdirection of CPR.
D-O - loved your write-up and especially the unicorn cartoon - made perfect sense. Hey, Tom, have you seen the "insurance salesman soliciting without a permit around the city [Roman Forest] today"? This description was taken from the PD's bulletin about an emu roamin' in Roman Forest. On-line Chronicle article had a 4-minute video taken by a daughter who went to visit her mom, with Big Bird hiding in the lady's garage. After escaping, LIMU was last seen trotting down a street.
TTP @4:08 PM After Ester RELEASED ME, I let her USE ME, another track further down in the YouTube set.
The Blue Angels sometimes fly over the Baltimore Harbor on their way South. Happened to be on a pier downtown once and could literally see the color of the wingman's eyes as one of them pitched starboard less then a 100 feet over our heads.
WC @4:09 PM My guess is that D-O did the writeup and then turned it over to C.C., who has an account authorized to post on the LA Times Crossword Puzzle blog.
Curmudgeon @5:08 PM It's a UK crime drama about a multigenerational 1920s family of gangsters who wear razor blades in their hats for use during fights. Never seen it (sounds pretty violent) but follow British actors, some of whom have appeared in it.
P.S., and not FALSELY, great job D.O. I might just have to go en vacance, aussi.
Houston dealt with Seattle 12-3 in 8 & 1/2 innings. Youngest & I stuck around for the "'90's Night!" fireworks show. I never did like much of '90's music :-)
TxMS - You made me LIU. Roman Forrest Emu. LOL "at least it's not a tiger."
Cheers, -T
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