Good Morning, Cruciverbalists, Malodorous Manatee here with the post-puzzle summary. Today marks my first puzzle recap featuring a puzzle for which Patti Varol served as the Editor instead of as the Assistant Editor and I am looking forward to taking a look at this puzzle. Here is a link to the Tribune syndicate announcement:
Patti obviously has a wealth of experience as does today's puzzle setter, Stella Zawistowski. Here is a link to an August 2021 interview with Stella:
Browser Interview With Stella Zawistowski
We'll go with Ernie Banks' oft' cited quote to introduce today's puzzle:
LET'S PLAY TWO.
At three places within the grid our constructor has placed the names of two popular tabletop games back-to-back. The reveal employs a baseball reference - Doubleheader (two games played on the same day) - to clue us in as to what is going on. The reveal:
58 Across: Doubleheader feature, and what are literally found in 17-, 23-, and 44-Across: BACK TO BACK GAMES.
...and the application of this clever theme:
17 Across: Mission to go after imaginary germs?: COOTIE OPERATION. Cooties being imaginary germs and operation being a synonym (more or less) for mission.
23 Across: Military vessel in terrible condition?: SORRY BATTLESHIP. A warship in a SORRY state. I always think of Bill and Ted when the Battleship game is mentioned.
44 Across: Antitrust lawsuit, perhaps?: MONOPOLY TROUBLE.
And now for the rest of the story:
Across:
1. Epic __: FAIL. A relatively modern bit of slang.
5. Family unit: CLAN.
9. App with Social and Promotions tabs: GMAIL. The clue is a bit obscure but, hey, it's Thursday. Adding Primary to the two listed categories would have made things a bit less obscure. GMAIL sorts email into various piles.
14. Instrument for a Swiss mountaineer: ALPENHORN. A clever bit of misdirection. Not gear for a mountain climber. A musical instrument.
16. "The Big Bang Theory" co-creator Chuck: LORRE. The first of (too?) many proper nouns used in this puzzle (YMMV). The prolific Mr. Lorre also created Mom, Two and A Half Men, Dharma & Greg, Young Sheldon, Bob Hearts Abishola, Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Disjointed and The Kominsky Method. If you take a meeting with him, allow him to pick up the lunch tab.
19. Perfume samples: TESTERS. The small spray bottles. Not the people checking out the scents.
20. Loads: OCEANS. Not the transitive verb.
21. Old French coin: ECU. A rare coin that turns up (more often than rarely) in crossword puzzles.
22. "I'm so mean, I make medicine sick" boxer: ALI. Muhammad ALI. A pugilist often seen in crossword puzzles.
32. Calendar col.: TUE. A bit of a punt. One of seven days.
33. Sporty Camaro: IROC. International Race Of Champions. My auto racing friend, Eric, uses Iroc in lieu of his name as his online "handle".
34. Huge herbivore: RHINO. Elephant would not fit. Hippo would fit but would not work out . . . except for the last letter.
35. Site to find a handmade wedding dress, perhaps: ETSY. Site to find a handmade anything. We've seen this type of cluing before where the clue refers to something very specific but the answer demands something far less so.
37. Powerful sharks: MAKOS.
39. Ventura County tourist town: OJAI. Obscure, perhaps, unless you're familiar with SoCal geography. Sometimes we see "Oh, Hi" as an answer to a clue such as "greeting upon running into someone unexpectedly."
40. Parting word: ADIOS. We had to consider, and then discard, ADIEU although the first three letters worked just fine.
42. Epic party: BASH. GALA RAVE BALL FEST FETE
43. __ Toy Barn: "Toy Story 2" shop: AL'S.
48. Hard water?: ICE. Nice (not Nice, France) wordplay.
49. Abbr. on a pill bottle: USP. A unit of potency. United States Pharmacopeia.
50. Crowning point: ZENITH. Also, a brand of electronics.
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Tom Petty - Live At The Wiltern Theater Los Angeles, 1985
61. Benefit: AVAIL. A computer teacher asks the class to turn to page 404. The students search feverishly. To no AVAIL.
62. Feature of many a TV show summary: SCREENCAP. Screen Capture.
63. Aptly named novelist Charles: READE. Born 08 June 1814 - Died 11 April 1884. Having failed to recall his appearance ten days ago (in precisely the same location within that grid) I was forced to suss this one out. Fortunately, doing so was not difficult.
64. "I feel __": "It's like you know me!": SEEN. A new idiom to this marine mammal. Quite zen.
65. "Madam Secretary" actor Tim: DALY. Sister of Tyne.
65. "Madam Secretary" actor Tim: DALY. Sister of Tyne.
Down:
1. No mere opinion: FACT. Where do facts come from? The factory.
2. Part of a sunburn treatment, often: ALOE. Often, indeed.
3. Deprivatization events, for short: IPOS. Initial Public OfferingS. Selling shares of stock in a company. I had never before come across the word deprivatization but it was self defining. Reminded me of antidisestablishmentarianism. Another instance of a pluralized abbreviation.
4. Alphabet soup bite: LETTER.
5. Guardians of the Tree of Life: CHERUBIM. The Tree of Life is a motif referenced by multiple cultures.
6. "Gigi" playwright Anita: LOOS. A true pioneer.
7. Dada pioneer Jean: ARP.
Head With Mustache - 1926
8. 22.5 deg.: NNE. North North East on the 360 degree compass.
9. Montana's __ National Park: GLACIER. I have been lucky enough to ride the Going to the Sun Road on a motorcycle.
10. Sunbeam speck: MOTE. Not photon.
11. Number for soprano Pretty Yende: ARIA. An opera reference.
12. Hemoglobin mineral: IRON. The combination of this answer and ORGAN MUSIC (as an answer last Saturday) brought this to mind:
The Simpsons - "In The Garden of Eden" by . . .
13. Optometrist's concern: LENS. Hand up for first thinking EYES.
15. Nash of "When They See Us": NIECY. Unfamiliar with her. Thanks perps.
18. Hand __: sushi order: ROLL. An option other than a cut roll.
Cut Roll and Hand Roll
22. With no overhead added: AT COST.
23. Cook, as bao buns: STEAM.
23. Cook, as bao buns: STEAM.
24. One-up: OUTDO.
25. Piney ooze: RESIN.
26. Good for farming: ARABLE. By definition.
27. Hungarian wine: TOKAY. Also spelled TOKAJI. A naturally sweet wine from the Tokaj district of northeastern Hungary.
28. "The Chi" airer, briefly: SHO. A television/streaming reference.
29. Traditional religious garment: HIJAB.
30. As a whole: IN ALL.
31. Composure: POISE.
36. Fashion designer Jenny: YOO. Who? Seems to be big in bridal gowns.
38. No longer large: SHRUNKEN. Perhaps no longer as large. Whatever was SHRUNKEN could still be quite large. A star with a mass equal to our sun will leave behind a remnant white dwarf about the size of Earth. Bigger than a bread box.
41. Angry speaker's droplet: SPITTLE. Discomforting imagery to start the day.
45. Tres y cinco: OCHO. Our combined Spanish and mathematics lesson for the day.
46. "August: __ County": OSAGE. A book. A play. A motion picture.
47. Plateau: UPLAND. Also a city in San Bernardino County, CA.
50. Energy snack brand for kids: ZBAR.
51. Nesting site: EAVE. A bit of not-quite-misdirection. Tree? Limb? Often clued with a reference to wasps.
52. Frozen Four org.: NCAA. The Final Four refers to the NCAA basketball playoffs. Frozen Four riffs on that for the NCAA ice hockey championship.
53. "Joke, joke": I KID.
Triumph The Insult Comic Dog
54. Hobby farm measure: ACRE. Or a "real" farm measure.
55. Where it's fun to stay, per the Village People: YMCA. I will pass on posting an audio/video clip of this bit of Americana.
56. Evangelist's quality: ZEAL.
57. 2021 award for Naomi Osaka: ESPY. An award frequently handed out in crossword puzzles. It helped if you knew that Naomi is a tennis player.
59. Degrees for EEs: BSS. I didn't get this one. I took EE to mean electrical engineer. BSS most often refers to Bachelor of Specialized Studies or Bachelor of Social Studies or Bachelor of Social Sciences. There are, I am sure, people here who are far more familiar with the application of the BSS designation than I am.
60. Unreturned serve: ACE. A tennis reference.
I hope everyone had a good Easter week and/or is having a good seven (or eight) days of pesach or month of Ramadan.
____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
- This Year's Seder Plate -
Exhibiting A Bit Of Improvisation
From the X (word) Files: Last night I picked a NYT puzzle book off the bookshelf. The collection contained 250 puzzles originally published in 2000. I randomly opened it to puzzle number 199. The constructor? Rich Norris.
... and on that note
DNF. It's Thursday.
ReplyDeleteNatick: Ecu + NIEnY
Misspelt: CHERuBIM
Natick: TOkAY + MAkAY
Natick: UsP + OsAGE
Misspelt: ANALYzE
I did spot the theme with the first themer for once, although not knowing the game TROUBLE slowed me down a tad.
The Moskva ruled the Black Sea fleet,
A BATTLESHIP in a war to compete!
But a Ukraine rocket
Found a pocket,
Now the once-proud ship sleeps in the deep!
Across the OCEAN, we watch aghast
At what in a friendly land has passed!
Patriotic ZEAL
Ukrainians wield,
That will sustain them until the last!
{A-, A-.}
I initially read "deprivitization" event as "deprivation" event. Finally (is it D-O who says it?) The old "v-8 can" hit and I realized it was "IPO." Also, I didn't know what "USP" meant but that's what the perps indicated. Finally, from somewhere deep in my subconscious I came up with "hijab." Whew! FIR, and I'm more than happy, I'm relieved!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun puzzle and write-up featuring the ever creative Stella Z our deadlift champion who is being published in many venues, and our own dinosaur descendant MM who brings his personal perspective to the table.
ReplyDeleteI don't know YOO unless it is visiting with its other half HOO , or Pretty Yende but the soprano gave the answer. I recalled from RENO 911 a sophomoric but funny show my youngest boy loved.
Beyond that I will defer to our pair spotters to discuss all the 4 letter matches and continue to laugh at the fabulous Alphabet Soup link.
Thank you Joseph and Stella
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteStella took it easy on us -- no heavy lifting required this morning. The theme came bubbling up, unsummoned. Lucky, because I never read the clue for the already-filled-in 58a. ZEAL because SLEAZE was too long. Cute theme. (Have you noticed that d-o compliments a theme on the rare occasions when he's able to get one?) Thanx, Stella and Mal-Man. (It's a plural -- BSs. Tim Daly -- sister?)
OJAI: Learned of this as the hometown of Jaime Sommers, The Bionic Woman.
ZENITH: Back in the '70s-'80s Zenith was the parent corp of HeathKit which swallowed up lots of d-o's spare cash.
59 down - more than one Bachelor of Science (BS) degree are BSs.
ReplyDeleteVery tough slog to FIR in an agonizing 44. Almost threw in the towel many times, as I don’t really enjoy a CW that is this difficult (for me). DNK LOOS, CHERUBIM, LORRE, NIECY, OJAI, YOO, or SCREENCAP. W/O ADIEU:ADIOS, TREE:EAVE. You almost had me, SZ. Thanx for the terrific write-up, MalMan. Especially enjoyed the Simpsons clip. Tim is a sister, MalMan?
ReplyDeleteTook 11:26 today.
ReplyDeleteSeemed like a lot of proper nouns (even without counting the theme).
I didn't know Alpenhorn, Tokay, USP, Pretty Yende, Ecu, & Ojai.
I did not like these intersections: Ojai v. Hijab; USP v. Osage; and, Cherubim v. Ecu.
Glacier National Park is beautiful, and traveling on the Going-To-The-Sun Road offers great views (but you now need to obtain a pass weeks in advance). If you go to Glacier, I recommend staying for a night at the "Many Glacier Hotel" - pristine setting.
DNF. NW corner stumped me. Tried to rationalize Alpine horn instead of Alpenhorn in that spot, and never heard of Niecy or ever watched the show. So I had an "epic fail".
ReplyDeleteMy count 14 or more proper names. Also had issues with 61 across benefit:avail. And 54 down , Hobby farm measure:acre. Not fun.
ReplyDeleteAs Stanley Kowalski would yell to Ms. Zawistowski---STELLA!!! Don't touch me; I don't want your COOTIES. And you kicked my butt in the NW. I'd never heard of either NIECY, TESTERS or CHERUBIM and couldn't get ALPINE out of my head. The COOTIE game never came to mind even with FACT and ALOE in place. To add insult to my self-inflected injury I misread 'Deprivatization events' as 'deprivation events'. I see Subgenius also did that. IPOS wouldn't finish even with the IP in place.
ReplyDeleteThe DNF today was an Epic FAIL, with the LORRE, DALY, OSAGE, and ZBAR filled by perps. The other BACK TO BACK GAMES were easier to fill.
ESPY- Naomi Osaka is a great tennis player who would be even better if she got rid of her POS wannabe rapper boyfriend, who she is supporting. After she won the US Open she posed for a photo with him while he proudly shot the bird at his shirt that had 'F**k the police'.
Well, I did FIW today with one bad square: MAcOS crossing TOcAY. I should have thought about MAKOS, but TOKAY was unknown and didn't alert me to a problem. I had several questions about fill but lucked out with them, so I am not too sad. I did get the themers although COOTIE came slowly. And I read deprivatization wrong too, Subgenius and Big Easy, and needed MalMan to explain that fill. All in all, not too bad today. Thanks Stella and MalMan!
ReplyDeleteNot many WOs today. Just ahead/OUTDO and soU/ECU. Oh, and I started to put BSE instead of BSS before I saw it needed to be plural. I enjoyed the twists and turns of this puzzle as well as the vocabulary, Stella. And of course your embellishments, MalMan! (I understood what you meant about Tyne being Tim's sister. Just a slip of the pen.)
Hope you all are doing well this morning.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteI believe we’ve seen this theme before, but the reveal seems fresh enough. I finished in below average Thursday time, but that was probably a result of the obvious theme. I needed perps for Tokay, Yoo, Screen Cap and USP. Ojai was a gimme, as it was a constant reference in the Brothers and Sisters series many years ago, as was the repeat appearance of Reade. Our daily duos include: Mail/Fail, Ali/Als, Ace/Ice, and Ship/Oceans. The lone specific CSO I spotted was Lucina (Ocho). But I guess Upland for Mesa counts, too, for Lucina and Moe.
Thanks, Stella, for a Thursday challenge and thanks, MalMan, for the fun and factual summary.
FLN
Bill G, good luck with your fern and as Anon T said, don’t be a stranger, we miss you!
Re Toe Ring, I bought one once, not knowing it was for a toe. It fit my pinky finger perfectly, though.
Have a great day.
cpnilo @ 6:20 - Thanks for pointing out the pluralized abbreviation. I commented on another one yet missed this one entirely!
ReplyDeleteA fun puzzle, and I've played all of those board games at one time or another.
ReplyDeleteI can't forget COOTIE! As a kid, I used to have nightmares of those creatures attacking me. Of course, it didn't help that the Outer Limits episode, "The Zanti Misfits" had similar large insects (they were alien criminals exiled on Earth) who attacked us humans. I still remember the buzzing sound they made!
If EE is not Electrical Engineer, what then?
ReplyDeleteDNF,
Niecy crossing Alpen was a personal Natick crossing the never heard before "game of Cooties?"
Nuts!
I never got a chance to put all the pieces together...
FLN,
I may be showing my age, but I remember Johnny Carson's tailbone accident quite clearly.
It is suspiciously absent from the YouTube record when Johnny announced on live TV that he was sh*tfaced from pain meds but would try to continue on with the show anyway. The result was hilarious...
Oops, I forgot to mention Bill G's welcome appearance yesterday. Good luck with your fern. All of our ferns happily grow outdoors. I have other houseplants that like my care better.
ReplyDeleteMusings
ReplyDelete-My fav weightlifter Stella gave me a lot to bench press today! Theme was fun and very helpful!
-Are an Ocean of name a natural tradeoff for Four grid-spanners?
-Most every algebra teacher has used Battleship when teaching the coordinate plane
-My wife refused to play MONOPOLY again with a former neighbor
-Of course, MA_O and TO_AY crossed at my tossup letter
-Farmers around here call anything less than 640 ACRES a garden
-His show was sponsored by this product that had a lot of IRON as a remedy for “tired blood”.
-C.C. told me she uses a STEAMER a lot in her kitchen
-“Can’t wait for GI JANE 2 to come out. I KID!” Too late…
CED @ 9:21, it was Electrical Engineers. As cpnilo pointed out, above, because the clue was EEs the answer was BSs - as in more than one BS degree. I didn't pick up on that originally. Few of us seem to like pluralized abbreviations. Further, I find it intriguing that EEs and BAs seem to be okay with me but BSs is far less so. Perhaps it is because of that preceding vowel.
ReplyDeleteLORRE does produce hilarious sit-coms- Season One of 2 1/2 Men especially
ReplyDeleteFinally got the U to fill TUE - Same with J in OJAI. I'll bet many pronounce it O-Jay
For others like me: "Deprivatization is the act of transferring ownership from the private sector to the public sector."
For the simple alphabet soup fill I had LEnTIl and it took awhile to straighten out
NIECY was a complete WAG, as was YOO. 46,47,50D needed perps too.
Maloman, I simply interpret the final S as plural of Bachelor of Science(As I see others agrer)
I had lots of TROUBLE with the Wednesday xword as board games escaped me and some of them(half) are foreign to me.
I pieced together the FIR but had ZEst/ZEAL and forgot to change the L for DALY.
Are obscure pop-cul names going to be the new trend here? Actually, Stella's probably had this in the can long prior to Rich's ret.
WC
Great paeans to Ukraine, Owen.
SS@7:24 - I didn't like "Ojai" crossing "hijab" either. It took me FOREVER to pierce that together. And you'd think a crossword constructor would throw us a bone once in a while, and clue "yoo" with "hoo" as MalMan (perhaps ironically) said, instead of referencing some obscure fashion designer. Geez Louise!
ReplyDeleteThursday toughie, but with some fun moments here and there--thanks, Stella. And always enjoy your pictures and comments, MalMan--thanks for those too.
ReplyDeleteI usually start off in the northeast corner, but today it was the top middle that got me going. Got CLAN, and then surprisingly remembered both Anita LOOS and Jean ARP.
Nice to see ALI showing up in puzzles a lot these days.
ICE for 'hard water' made me laugh--got that one in a split second.
Also liked SPITTLE for that angry speaker's droplet.
Have a great Thursday, everybody.
At a conference all week. But they are having a minor disaster with Sir Roger Penrose who is supposed to be the star presenter now so I have a brief break. He is OK, but there is a Zoom SNAFU across the continents.
ReplyDeleteHand up this was a clever theme, but the execution was horrible with way too many crossed proper names. For me the impossible Natick was NIECY, ECU. WAG to FIR. But it was a total WAG.
Part of the challenge was knowing how plurals are made in other languages. I know enough Hebrew to know that "IM" ending is plural. And enough German to know that "EN" is plural. That allowed me to WAG CHERUBIM and ALPEN HORN.
Yes, OJAI is well known to me, but would be very obscure to most people. It is our favorite getaway for the day.
Here is my article about an OJAI event we attended in November.
From Tuesday:
XMEN Theme filled with WAGS. Know zero about XMEN who are not even all MEN. I suppose it was a learning moment.
From Monday:
Sorry I was not clear. Yes, a Google search told me about FRESH PRINCE. I was curious if others had heard of this before searching it out.
Wilbur Charles Thank you for taking the time to look at my THAI New Year chanting monks video. Quite a unique experience and quite a surprise to find this hidden in a nearby orchid farm!
Although I managed for once to dredge up from my CW memory OJAI, TOKAY, ARP, et. al. The top 2/3 filled but except for a smattering of obvious clue/answers the bottom was mostly white. Many clues I simply didn't understand. 🙄
ReplyDeleteI came up with COOPERATION by subtracting "TIEO" so wasn't looking for a board game theme.
You can't "duck" SPITTLE
Started to pen in Matterhorn but too long (was I the only one?) so not a true inkover. Other Inkovers, for what it's worth: Mon(month)/ TUE, email/GMAIL, ball/BASH, adieu/ADIOS... SCREENCAP, NIECY? "joke, joke", I KID?, "EEs" BSS? ..et al..Hobby farm measure?
If you use RESIN and not rosin on a violin bow it would stick to the strings. (but it's made from RESIN)🤔
....Sou or ÉCU?...hadda wait for the perps. Never heard the "Medicine" quote but who else could it be but ALI. Eerily I had heard the same quote last night on episode 1/season 2 of "Russian Doll" on Netflix.😳
Playing fast and ____ ...LOOS
GOP fake... RHINO
How a Brit keeps on truckin'...LORRE.
Balboa autobiography IROC
I wonder if it's possible to indicate to what degree Ms Varol has edited a puzzle once it gets beyond a sizable number of replacements. IMHO After a certain point the puzzle is no longer the work of the constructor but of the editor. 🙊
Hola!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to Patti Varol on her new role!
Fun puzzle from Stella! Thank you! It filled fairly quickly and I saw the GAMES, some of which I have played, especially MONOPLY. My daughter liked the others though I don't know about COOTIE. My only change was ECU from SOU.
I love the Village People! They exude so much energy when singing YMCA.
OJAI used to appear often in past crosswords. I'm not exactly sure but I believe we pass it when driving on I-5. Maybe the Californians can correct me.
The only time I have seen a GLACIER is when visiting Alaska we took a boat ride along the southern edge. It was exceedingly cold even from a distance!
I have the movie OSAGE but only started watching it and did not care to finish it.
Bill G: I am sure your ferns will thrive and hope they do as well as mine. I have three in my patio and they have survived about 20 years. They are gorgeous!
Have a lovely Thursday, everyone! ADIOS for now.
FIW. I had COOTer, ElO, and MAcOS. I felt like I was an all-day sucker. At least I usually give up early on Saturday unsolvables.
ReplyDeleteKnew LORRE from "Mom", never saw any of the other shows listed. DW loves Mom, and since she can't remember seeing any of the reruns, I know most of them line-by-line.
Our first choice for our wedding venue was OAJI, but we had so much difficulty with sites and accommodations we decided to hold it in her back yard, about an hour south of OJAI. Great choice. Highlight was a 12 foot inflatable dinghy covered with aluminum foil and filled with Champaign bottles on ICE. Amazingly, no one fell / was pushed into the pool.
SHO was also one of Ford's responses to Chevy's IROC-Z. Others included the Shelby GT and SVO Mustangs.
CED, whippersnappers like -T know that if it can't be found on YouTube or Google, it didn't happen.
Thanks to MalMan for another fun review.
Puzzling thoughts:
ReplyDeleteFIR
MalMan - enjoyed the visuals and recap, as always
Thumper
Fun puzzle, Stella, interesting expo MM. Getting the reveal really sped things up. I have played all of these board games.
ReplyDeleteAssociating deprivatization with stocks immediately led to IPO.
Niecy needed every single perp.
These days Charles Reade seems obscure except for regular appearances here.
I learned READE, BAO and OJAI from crosswords.
Someone washed one of my sweaters without reading the label. My shrunken sweater was no longer large. It could fit a toddler.
Jenny Yoo's wedding gowns sell in the $1000 category.
Has anyone seen a YMCA where you could rent a room? The ones I know of are all for exercising and health classes. My dad liked Tokay wine, too sweet for my taste. I abhor sweet drinks. If all that is served is sweet tea, I choose water. I like my tea and coffee
barefoot. I also like Barefoot Merlot. LOL
Hi Y'all! Interesting challenge, Stella, thanks. Thanks for the enlightening expo, MalMan.
ReplyDeleteI had TROUBLE with at least half of all the game names. Haven't played a board game since my college student grandson was about 8 yrs. old. He got furious because I accidently won so I refused to play with someone who had such a temper tantrum again. Never saw his temper thereafter.
One son lives in OSAGE Co. but don't think they are as dramatic as the movie.
Have never watched any LORRE sit-com.
Guardians of the Tree of Life weren't Disney animals? CHERUBIM, how quaint.
DNK: 22.5 degree, TOKAY, USP, YOO, ZBAR, LOOS (despite just having that name). But I did know OJAI, HAJAB, & NIECY Nash (just saw the trailer for that show).
Tough for a Thursday, but do-able. Thank you, Ms. Zawistowski.
ReplyDelete(I shouldda studied your name longer instead of trying to cram a version of "Tooth" or "Teeth" into 50A. I mighta settled on [Z]ENITH sooner!)
TOKAY, Okay?
I agree-- too sweet! But then, I don't care for any sweet wines. If I want a sweet drink, I'll stick with lemonade or a soft drink, a diet soda.
I think I relied on perps more than usual today.
~ OMK
____________
DR: Four diagonals, three of them on the near side.
The central-near diag is short on vowels, nevertheless yields an anagram of fair length (11 of 15 letters) referring to a house buzzer that has lived beyond its usual expectation of a mere month.
I refer to a...
"MOSSBACK FLY"!
I was a bit distracted this morning as on Thursdays the review team gets next week's puzzles and I was in a hurry to solve next Thursday's to see what I'm up against review-wise. The puzzle turned out to be delightful for reasons to be revealed in seven days.
ReplyDeleteAnywho, after solving it I turned my attention to Stella's puzzle (not knowing it was hers because the Bmore Sun doesn't list the constructor or title or anything). But I should have known it was Stella's because of all the HEAVY LIFTING involved. Suffice it to say that I had difficulty and it started to look like game one was going into extra innings, what with all the empty spaces down South, all the erasures, and the unperpable perps, so I called in my reliever Teri to see if she could stop the bleeding. I then proceeded to take a nap.
When I awoke, my Ace had sussed the theme, filled all the unfillables, and perped the perps. When the dust had settled, the score was Bill FIW, Teri FIR. What a team!
Thank you Stella and thank you MalMan for a Stellar review!
Cheers,
Bill
I didn't do very well with this Trivial Pursuit puzzle.
ReplyDeleteOwen, superlative verses!
Good wishes to you all.
YR, it's hard to believe that Barefoot and Turning Leaf wines come from the same folks that bring us Boone's Farm and Thunderbird. Nice wines for the price. In my imbibing days, a drank a LOT of Pacific Peak wines, about the same price as the E&J Gallo offerings. 'Course I also drank Inglenook from a 5 litre (hi, C-Eh!) box sold by a restaurant supply house, so what do I know.
ReplyDeleteI figured "BSS" was simply the plural, per the clue, of BS or Bachelor of Science. EEs worth their salt have earned a MSEE, Master of Science in Electrical Engineering.
ReplyDeleteThank you Stella Z. for a very challenging puzzle, and Thank you MailMan for a riveting review.
ReplyDeleteI did complete the puzzle, but did not enjoy it. Plus, this morning, I've had too many emergent situations in my life, at home and at work, in my mind ... so concentration is also a problem. Fortunately, most of got eventually resolved....
.... USP ..... United States Pharmocoepia ..... is not a level of Potency ( which would be weight ... like mcg micrograms or Mg Milligrams ..) ...
.... but standards of Purity of the Chemicals involved.
There are of course, much higher standards, like Analar or Analytical Reagent std. which is one of the highest stds of purity, for chemicals used in research etc.,
In most of the world, other than the US, EEs .. Electrical ( or Electronic ) engineer degrees are B.E.s, or BEE's or BTech's ... BS generally in the British commonwealth, refers to pure science, not engineering or technology. Engineering degrees , as a norm, generally take one or two years more to complete the course work for the degree.
FWIW, I too, read Deprivitization as deprivation, and thought the theme might have something to do with the ongoing Ramadan / Ramzan month of fasting... which ends on the 30th or the first of the next month... this year, 2022. Because of the lag of the solar year cycle, compared to the Lunar year, the enxt year, the lunar month. moves forward about 15 days or so ...
Speaking from recent personal experience .... (!!) ...
For an emergent or urgent increase of Iron in the blood, or specifically, increase in the number of Red Blood Cells,,,... there is an injection, available, of one c.c., or more, of Erythro Poietin ( ...Think, ... Putin, like the current russian Tsar ...)
UNfortunately, it is expensive, a controlled drug, and requires a Med Prescription, because its been used too often in doping athletes, like steroids .... especially, decades of use by the French Tour De France etc., ... See Wiki article, if interested.... too many articles to link. It is now routinely tested for in the Olympics.
Like other drugs, like Propofol ( an anesthetic ) ... it can only be administered in a hospital setting, after an RN has filled out an interview and a questionnaire, before each injection.
Have a good Thursday and the rest of the week. you all.
Testing Thursday. Thanks for the fun, Stella (you always give me a workout) and MalMan.
ReplyDeleteI finished and got the theme games, but arrived here to discover that I FIWed.
My personal Natick (like some of you also)was the cross of TOKAY and MAKOS. I chose a C instead of the K.
WEES by this hour.
But I did note an unusual number of LE endings - BATTLE, ARABLE, TROUBLE, SPITTLE.
Canada uses BSc as abbreviation not BS. DH has BSc Eng but not electrical. I have BSc Phm, but USP was not my first thought on that pill bottle. I had the US and was toying with Use as directed on prescription label(but not abbr., plus a lousy incomplete instruction for label!).
Wishing you all a good evening.
A funny thing happened while I was solving the Friday* xword. I told my constant companion, Mr S, that it seemed tough for a Friday, more like a Saturday. Then I said "No theme?, Must be a Patti V thing". Finally, with one box left I looked up and lo and behold I solved Saturday after all.
ReplyDeleteDon't you hate when Mr Stupidity visits?
WC
* As I've previously noted, the Sunday TBtimes has an insert with the week's xwords. Now to solve the real Friday
Ps, Where's Anon-T?
I know it didn't take an hour but I just finished Friday. Just a typical Friday xword. And yes, there is a theme.
ReplyDeleteWC
Aha, CDT vs EDT. Twenty minutes I'll buy
DeleteHi All!
ReplyDelete//another long day WC. I'm here now ;-)
DNF - E_U xing NIE_Y Nash.
Thanks Stella for the puzzle. I like the theme (which filled easily 'cuz the reveal was solved b/f most anything else) but the too many (for me) names made this a slog.
Excellent Expo, MManatee. Loved IRON Butterfly & Tom Petty.
WOs: COOTIEs & I started Hippo b/f Hp @29d made me stop.
ESPs: Did someone mention names?
Fav: Started off strong w/ Epic FAIL. ICE's clue was cute too.
{A++, A}
Reg @6:15p said "EEs worth their salt..." a) welcome to The Corner. b) OK, I'm not a real EE (don't have a PE cert) but I do have a BS EE and MS CompSci. I wanted to build AI robots but ended up playing whack-a-mole against bad-guy hackers.
Regardless, I would have preferred BSes for the plural.
Picard - I watched some episodes of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the '90s so no problem there.
Really? Sir Penrose? How'd you get the invite?!?
YR @2:58 - my buddy from Algiers spent his first month (or so) in Houston / USofA in a room at the downtown Y. They didn't seem to mind he is Muslim.
Jinx @1:04 - Oh, it happened 'cuz I remember (well, not the Carson bit) but finding clips for our Jr. Analysts (in their early 20's) in my attempt to explain a joke from a roast...
or even Triumph the Insult-Comic Dog that MManatee cited ;-)
Speaking of our Jr. Analysts... Those poor kids don't know music b/f AUTO TUNE. I introduced ONE to Chicago and she loved it. Tonight, at our Happy Hour, she heard BTO for the first time. She was amazed at the rawness of the music (and the humour in the lyrics).
Well, another day in the books. Play tomorrow.
Cheers, -T
DNF. I had a bunch of blank squares in Minnesota, mostly due to not knowing the game OPERATION. I had no problem figuring out the theme and the rest of the games.
ReplyDeleteI’m not even sure I would figured everything out, even if I had known OPERATION. To further add to my pain, I confused 22.5 degrees (NNE) with the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, which are actually ~23.5 degrees north and south of the equator. Of course, there was no way I could make sense out of that error.
I also couldn’t remember MAKOS nor BSS, although I am quite accomplished at the latter.
Hey, I can’t remember EVERYTHING I’ve forgotten!
Thanks, Stella Z and MalMan!
Being the contrarian that I am, OJAI crossing HIJAB was the only way I got either one of them.