google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Saturday, November 19, 2022, Kate Chin Park, Brooke Husic

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Nov 19, 2022

Saturday, November 19, 2022, Kate Chin Park, Brooke Husic

 Saturday Themeless by Kate Chin Park and Brooke Husic


Let's start on this fun puzzle with 23 Down - 23. Column crossers: ROWS 


Across:

1. Certain pronouncement?: THAT'S FACTS - "That's a fact, Jack!" The actual fill is also a title to a rap song with "explicit" lyrics

11. Some scanners: HP'S - I'm sure Hewlett Packard makes nice scanners but this is what I do:


14. Pity parties?: SORE LOSERS - The NHL is the only North American sports league that makes players shake hands after a game 

15. Tender in Tehran: RIAL - $1.00 = ﷼42,484


16. "Don't I know it": ALL TOO TRUE. 

17. Survey opción: OTRO

         ¿Comida rápida favorita? 

     A) McDonalds 
     B) Burger King 
     C) OTRO

18. Brazilian city: RIO - Extreme poverty exists very close to extreme wealth in RIO de Janeiro 


19. Ballet bends: PLIES - You can find them working out in the gym or watching The Nutcracker 


20. Act big, so to speak: EMOTE.

21. Mud: JOE and 34. Noggin: BEAN. - Slang names for coffee and head respectively 

22. Like wrap heels: STRAPPY - It appears that she 24. Tolerates: STANDS the pain


27. Neither partner: NOR.


28. Rx overseer: FDA and 58. Rx items: MEDS.

30. See-__: THRU - The Glass Frog of Ecuador. 

 
31. Some high-occupancy vehicles: CLOWN CARS.


35. Greek city that's one of the oldest in Europe: ARGOS Evidence of a settlement going back 7,000 years has been found at the foot of Aspida Hill in ARGOS shown here.


36. Mid-month day: IDES The passage from Julius Caesar


37. Resident of the highest-altitude U.S. capital: SANTAFEAN- Yeah, I'm the only one who thought of Denverite

39. Assessment: TEST.

40. "Arthur" network: PBS.


41. Heated state: IRE.

42. Way out: EGRESS - At the top of Launch Pad 39 A & 39 B, NASA has what they call an "Emergency EGRESS System" that is a basket on a wire that can carry the astronauts to safety in the event of a malfunction at the top of the pad


45. Opposite of coy: UPFRONT.

48. Swift album with "All Too Well": RED.


49. One with a clipped ear, perhaps: STRAY - Cat fight souvenir 

50. Talking point: TOPIC.

52. Swiatek who won the French Open in 2020 and 2022: IGA Our familiar grocery store chain cluing gives way to Polish tennis champion IGA 
Natalia Świątek


55. Busy, busy, busy: AT IT.

56. One doing spit takes?: WINE TASTER - This allows the TASTER to remain sober and better sample the wine. Not this.


59. Technology swiped by millions: SMART PHONE - 😀 No intellectual property thievery, just the motion we use for cellular navigation.

60. "__ we good?": ARE.

61. Retro footwear made from PVC: JELLY SHOES.




Down:

1. Pre-revolution ruler: TSAR - It did not end well for the Romanovs 

2. Spring celebration with colored powder: HOLI - I was happy to learn that Holi (pronounced how-lee) is a Hindi festival  that celebrates the end of winter and the arrival of spring. 


3. "Collapsed in Sunbeams" singer Parks: ARLO Here ya go. Arlo Guthrie joins the IGA Grocery chain on the Saturday crossword bench.


4. New Year celebrated with thit kho trung: TET - Vietnamese caramelized braised pork ribs with eggs. Speaking of Saturday cluing for familiar crossword fill...


5. Apply generously: SLOP ON.

6. Got: FOOLED - Gotcha!


7. Bubbly locale: ASTI - The producers dropped the name Spumante when they reformulated the wine in 1993 to differentiate it from being called "the poor man's champagne".


8. Demeter's Roman counterpart: CERES - Goddesses of agriculture

9. Advice for a plant: TRUST NO ONE - This plant is an undercover agent placed in the enemy's camp 😀

10. Dir. from Beverly Hills to Long Beach: SSE - It appears to be a 38 minute 21. Day trip, maybe: JAUNT on the 405. I wonder if our California posters think that is a realistic time.


11. Some flat caps?: HI TOP FADES.


12. Eye-catching number: PARTY DRESS.

13. Gin berry: SLOE.

15. Frolic: ROMP.

20. Get well?: EARN - Obtain legitimately? 😀

24. Ingredient in many L'Occitane creams: SHEA BUTTER - The Butyrospermum ParkII (Shea Butter) is listed as the fourth ingredient.



25. Movement celebrated with a blue, pink, and white flag: TRANSPRIDE - These participants at a TRANS PRIDE event in Las Vegas wore shirts instead of carrying flags.


26. Hours limited by parents: SCREEN TIME - It is possible to set a passcode-protected SCREEN TIME limit on your child's phone.


29. PDA part: Abbr.: ASST - The Personal Data ASSisatanT has been largely supplanted by cell phones

30. Largest of a certain kitchen set, for short: TBSP.

32. NYC hub: LGA - The cost of a one-way flight from OMAha to LaGuardiA today


33. Gave credit: CITED.

35. Hairstyle for Misty Knight: AFRO - A Marvel Comics character


38. Open, in a way: AIRY.

43. Philadelphia Flyers mascot: GRITTY - Gritty makes an entrance


44. Short accounts: RECAPS.

46. Domino's starter?: FATS - ANNO did not work because I read Domoni instead of DOMINO.


47. Like many Asian languages: TONAL - We English speakers have some of this like when we say, "Dude". However this is a lesson about Mandarin Chines and TONAL language. 


49. "For __": Oscar-nominated documentary set in Aleppo: SAMA.


51. Programming language named for a gem: PERL.


52. "Am __ late?": I TOO.

53. Hand-me-down piece?: GENE 😀

54. Truculent god: ARES.


56. Financial daily, initially: WSJ.

57. Silent bid?: SHH.


46 comments:

Wilbur Charles said...

After everything I FIW because I carelessly inked CITEs and it was past tense. RED was gettable though I wouldn't know a Swifty from an Adelizer

My best guess on the mascot and the shoes actually was GRITTY and JELLO. AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!@!!

NW was killing me after NE and SE and SW. goo/JOE,????/TBSP,HOLI was all perps. SLaPON/SLOPON etc etc. NTSO* STRAPPY ???

I was trying to fit ain't it TRUE but actually groked the NW. Once perped HPS made sense and thanks to Anon-T I guessed PERL

I just noticed I had SuRe LOSERS so two squares and I don't feel quite as bad.

This seemed right up there with classic difficulty as Saturday goes. YMMV

With a few perps I worked out CLOWN CARS and SHEA BUTTER . I had disp(lay) / ASST

This was an all-nighter for me.
BTW, dumb name for a mascot

I should have gone to sleep and carefully checked in the morning. I had switched to online never realizing that RED and SORE were my errors.

BTW, fln: -T, I just can't do AL nor Rush. Generation gap(two actually, I'm a war baby not technically a Boomer. 44 and 45 need a special classification (rationing?)

WC

* Not to speak of

unclefred said...

Nope. Big DNF. Not at all on this wavelength. Total failure. 30 minutes wasted trying. Oh well.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

FERAL gave way to STRAY and ABIDES to STANDS. Those ten 10s were very nice, though THAT'S FACTS, HITOP FADES, and JELLY SHOES were learning moments. Still, this one goes into the loss column. SuRE LOSER and HuLI looked OK (Hi, Wilbur). Thanx, Kate and Brooke for a worthy Saturday challenge. Husker, nice recap. (Yes, I thought of Denver first.)

Jinx in Norfolk said...

DNF, but I did get 35 of 38 fills right including PERL, so I got that goin' for me. If it wasn't hard enough, for "Swiatek" my printout had [some weird character that looks like a truncated number sign]wi[superscript 1]tek. I first thought that someone was channeling the late Prince.

Like me, you may not know Swift's albums, but you need to pay attention. She's the first artist to hold all of the top 10 spots on the Billboard Hot 100, and she broke Ticketmaster. (C'mon, Ticketmaster. You had ONE job.) Beatles, Shmeadles.

Glad the more advanced solvers got a good workout today. For a change, I'm glad I spent some time trying.

Subgenius said...

The most difficult fill for me to get was “Hi-top fades” for obvious reasons. I also had trouble with a number of small words such as “Iga” and “HPs” as well as “Sama.” Nevertheless, I persevered and ended up FIR, so I’m happy.

TTP said...


SubG said, "The most difficult fill for me to get was “Hi-top fades” for obvious reasons."


So, SubG, what are the obvious reasons ?

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

I almost threw in the towel after my first pass yielded so much white I thought I had been teleported to Buffalo. But, stubbornness and perseverance led to completion w/o help in a nothing-to-brag-about 46 minutes. I appreciated much of the clever and misleading cluing but found several too cute by half, which caused much teeth gnashing and hair pulling. Adding to said angst were the usual suspects, those dreaded unknown proper names/nouns: Argos, Iga, Gritty, Perl, Ceres, Holi, Sama, Arlo, Jelly Shoes, and Santa Fean, as clued. The fill was above average in liveliness, IMO, with the exception of That’s Facts, which reads /sounds off kilter.

Thanks for the challenge, Kate and Brooke, and thanks, HG, for the fact-filled review and eye-popping visuals and for the interesting mini bios on the constructors. Yes, I wanted Denverite, too, but I knew Screen Time was correct, so I just waited until some hard-earned perps led me to Santa Fean.

FLN

Moe, I hope your symptoms are mild and your discomfort short lived. Feel better soon! 😷

Lucina, stop swooning, Cary is already taken. Besides, you have already chosen Omar and Idris! 🤣

Have a great day.

Anonymous said...

Sorry for negative thoughts, but this was a horrible puzzle. No enjoyment whatsoever. I don’t know what to say. I’m speechless.
Good day to everyone, nonetheless.

Big Easy said...

Not being a SORE LOSER for blowing the last few Saturday puzzles I finally finished one today. The NE was the last to fall after changing CTS to HPs. HI-TOP FADES and OTRO were unknown WAGs after enough perps were in place, The NW wasn't much easier. Had to change SLAP to SLOP ON and both HOLI & ARLO unknown.

The cross of two unknowns- GRITTY & RED- finished the SE for me.

SAMA, PERL and GRITTY- new to me; total unknowns.
HPS- I have a Brother laser printer-FAX-flat-bed scanner
TRUST NO ONE- especially with your MONEY
Big Easy has a NO-TOP FADE, also known as no hair.

LGA- worst major airport I've ever had to use. The WSJ's major airport rankings were out this week and LGA in 54th place out of 5, just behind JFK and NWK and ahead of San Juan, P.R. But it's convenient to Manhattan so you use it.

Anonymous said...

Today's puzzle took me 23:16, and it felt longer than that.

I second what our esteemed Ms. Irish Miss said about this puzzle, but I do enjoy a challenge.

Like Jinx, I thought one of my cats typed the clue for this "Iga" woman.

"Get well" is a poor clue for "earn", even with the question mark and even on a Saturday.
I resisted "hi top" because I assumed it would be "high" not "hi."

TTP said...


Good morning. Thank you, Kate, Brooke and Husker Gary.

I actually solved this one yesterday while watching TV. Found all of the low hanging fruit and got a pretty decent amount of footholds. I'm taller than you, so I can reach a few more than you :-)

Some of the longer answers took a bit of concentration to work out, but Mecum's Auto Auction was on Motortrend TV. The auction was in nearby Schaumburg. A '69 SS w/ a 496, no trademark hood stripes, and no power steering sold for either $115K or $120K. Add 15 minutes to the time Irish Miss posted, and you'll know mine.

In the end, a one letter error. My original SLaP ON never got checked against the perping ALL TaO TRUE.

I had a heck of a hard time making sense of "Get well?" = EARN but it had to be. Gary, I think you captured it perfectly with your explanation of "Obtain legitimately"

Never heard of JELLY SHOES, but they look to be much more comfortable than those STRAPPY wrap heels in the image that HG added at 22A


Here's the famous (and faceless) CERES atop the Chicago Board of Trade building. Below the image, in the right column is a link to "Watch the Show" with docent Geoffrey Baer. It's a walking tour of the Loop. It's about 1.5 hours, but IMO, well worth the time.

billocohoes said...

Yes, Polish has several letters with extra marks on them that change pronunciation. IGA's last name is pronounced approximately SH-Vee-awn-tek. Or as I like to say about other Polish names (like mine), just the way it's spelled.

Lee said...

All might note that stray cats have their ear clipped when they are spayed and released so as not to recapture them. Went with STRAPon but perps didn't agree when PARTYDRESS appeared. I too tried AinTitTRUE. Also wanted denverian.
Did ot know IGA. Did pick up SHEABUTTER after abideS changed to STANDS, since I had THRU.
All in all a real slog. DNF.

KS said...

DNF. The NE flummoxed me, partly due to "strappy". There were several clues I took exception to, starting with 1A and 11D for example. Overall I did not like this puzzle.

Malodorous Manatee said...

Eventually, FIR but there were quite a few WAGS on the proper nouns. Favorite clues were the Spit Take, Advice to a Plant and the Parties to Pity.

inanehiker said...

This was challenging but eventually doable with perps. I had heard of STRAPPY usually in the context of sandals. My daughter wore a lot of jelly shoes as a tyke - very cheap to buy with growing feet and super easy to clean if she stepped in mud, etc.

CERES is also the bronze statue on the top of the Missouri capitol building - they refurbished the entire capitol over a few years in anticipation of our Bicentennial in 2021. Lots of people came out to watch them remove the statue with a 550 ton crane - then it was sent off for refurbishment - then when returned people could look at it in an exhibit on the ground before it went back up.
https://themissouritimes.com/ceres-returning-to-missouri-capitol-what-she-means-for-the-state-and-women/

IGA Swiatek also won the US Open this year - when Ash Barty retired she became #1

Thanks HG for the amusing blog and Kate & Brooke for the challenging puzzle!


Anonymous said...

I loved this puzzle.

AnonymousPVX said...


Got the solve, but no joy.

“That’s facts” huh? Who says that, ever?

That’s a fact.

That a fact?

Face facts.

When do we again get decent clueing?

NaomiZ said...

Whew! FIR with two cheats: had to ask DH for help with Red and gRitty. And had to come here for HG to explain what kind of plant should TRUST NO ONE. Enjoyed all your comments. Thanks for the fun!

waseeley said...

Thank you Kate and Brooke for a SO SAD SATURDAY SLOG, a TITT that looks like the detritus of an ICE FLOE about the time that it crosses the Equator.

I'm only commenting because I'm such a POOR LOOSER that I had to stop by to rain a parade on the answer to 51D PERL. There is in fact a programming language called PEARL, but of course it's too long and wasn't derived from NOR resembles PERL. OTOH the latter was not named for a gem, and in fact doesn't stand for anything, although it's often claimed to be an acronym for "Practical Extraction and Rubbish Lister" (at least that was what I believed while spending 20 years in IT slinging the stuff).

ABASED in Baltimore 🙃,
Bill

p.s. Forgive me if -T, TTP, or one of the other Corner geeks has pointed this out.

Monkey said...

I FIR, but not because I knew what I was doing. There were so many unknowns to me, that I completed the puzzle mostly through guess work. In addition my printer (I print the puzzle) gave me gibberish instead of the name of the French Open winner.
For JELLY SHOES, at first I wanted Jesus sandals, but of course they were made of leather and wouldn’t have been the “right size”. . Does anyone remember those?

I’ll be UP FRONT, not my favorite puzzle.

I shouldn’t have assumed that Denver was the highest altitude capital in the US. Nice to know about Santa Fe.

Malodorous Manatee said...

FLN, Anonymous/Eddy Duarte, Los Angeles: Are you Eddy Duarte from Los Angeles or Eddy from the Duarte suburb east of Los Angeles?

Anonymous said...

Tossed this mess after two hours of struggle and only eight fills! My reference library was no help since clues were SOOOO arcane. I realize that Saturday puzzles are tough, but this was IMPOSSIBLE. Come on, editors ...be reasonable! When a majority of comments here are complaints, there's something amiss in your editing! DO YOUR JOB!

Anonymous said...

In the print version of the LA Times, 17 and 52 across had some odd incorrect symbol font going on …

Ol' Man Keith said...

Thanks, Husker G, for giving us your take on the Park/Husic team's Saturday PZL.

I lost count of the cheats I needed to finish this one. At least it was not so many that I didn't feel satisfaction by the end.

Misty and I (and maybe some others) can attest to impossible typos in today's L.A. Times crossword--at 17A and 52A.
The latter was especially Kee-razee!
The winner of the French Open appeared like this: "xöw1/2Ötek"!

37A was probably the clue most of us found the trickiest.
Having been to and through SANTA FE several times, it never occurred to me that it was at all "altitudenous"!
But when one stops to think about it--Yeah! it would have to be one of the tallest spots on earth, considering that it is now surrounded by desert, yet was once beneath the sea.
(The prehistoric Permian Sea, that is.)
It would have had to push itself wa-ay up to get out of the water and into the parching sun.

~ OMK
____________
DR:
Three diagonals on the far end.
The central diag gives us an upbeat anagram (12 of 15 letters), an apt label for an especially jolly account of Odin, Tyr, Loki and the whole Norse gang.
I refer to the...

"MERRIEST SAGA"!

YooperPhil said...

Brooke has really established herself as a top quality constructor of Saturday worthy puzzles! This collaboration with Kate was a very fine pice of work IMO, just the way a themeless should be, thought provoking and a challenge. Hard to believe Kate only started solving in 2019 and can help create a grid like this. Thank you both for today’s mind bender, took me 45:45 for the FIR, but as usual sticktoitiveness got me through it. Yeah the clue for 52A was definitely a discombobulated typo.

HG ~ another stellar write up replete with graphics and information. Always an education on Saturdays, but then again you are an educator!

Anonymous @2:58 ~~. I’m guessing you’re not a seasoned CW solver? Yes the editor has recently changed but so have the times, best to keep up than be left in the dust.

sumdaze said...

DNF due to snow flurries in the NE.
Several FAVs:
Column crossers (spreadsheets rule!)
Short accounts (I've been watching the Jeopardy TOC RECAPS to see how Sam has been doing. #SamsClub)
Domino starter (Is FATS sporting a HITOPFADE on that album cover?)

Thank you, H-Gary, for explaining what type of "plant" it was and how JOE was Mud. I also liked watching the TONAL video you gave us. Very interesting!

Thank you, Lee @ 10:40, for your note about STRAY cats. Good gouge!

Chairman Moe said...

Puzzling thoughts:

Irish Miss - I WAS feeling better until I started to solve today's puzzle ;^)

But thanks for asking!

Thumper (for the puzzle and clues)

HG, informative RECAP (as always). I was unaware that the word Spumante was dropped from sparkling wines from ASTI. ASTI is a region in the Piedmont region of Italy known for several varietals of grapes, both red and white. Spumante (in Italian) means "sparkling wine". Spumante from ASTI is just that; sparkling wine from that region. The moscato grape is typically used to make ASTI Spumante, and depending on how much residual sugar is left in the must, it can taste very sweet or moderately dry. BTW, don't know where you got that picture for the WINE TASTER (doing a "spit take") but he could be my twin ... seriously

Moody Moe

Anonymous T said...

Hi All!

Fun Saturday puzzle, Kate & Brooke. I DNF'd it (needed a few cheats) but overall I did well for a Saturday grid.

Thanks, HG, for the expo. I always love reading the bios and/or interviews you post. That and there's always a NASA reference (I assume you stayed up late to watch Artemis I Launch Live. I did :-)
Here's the 5 hour version.

WOs: eSE -> SSE, Ruby -> PERL
Cheats: I had 'best' 'cuz I didn’t read past "Oscar-nominated" (Googled SAMA), Googled ARLO, and flat-out peeked at HG's grid for SANTA FEAN (any more news re: OKL?)
FIW (too!): CITEs [Hi WC!]
Fav: PERL - my main tool for quick & dirty doings. I've also used it for some pretty sophisticated web rendering before there were things like Blogger.
I'm dragging myself kicking & screaming to use Python - It's been a 5 year journey but I'm getting pretty adept.
//Fun FACT: The "shell" of the daily Corner expo is produced from .puz files by my Python code. TTP was Project Manager & Quality Control ;-).

Waseeley - Practical Extraction and Reporting Language is supposedly what PERL stands for. Larry Wall wanted to call it pearl but found out there was already a language called that so he called it PERL. I started programming in it in (IIRC) '96 for automating Windows NT 3.5 builds. Most find the language to be Write Once-Read Zero (if comments aren't >70% of the code - no one (even the coder) will ever understand it again :-) ). I loved the obfuscated perl contest SysAdmin Magazine ran.

Who else went through, EKG?, EEG, OCR (Optical Character Recognition), before settling on HPs (which is funny 'cuz I have an HP multi-function colour ink-jet sitting next to me). //that's to make up from the lack of 'u's yesterday, C, Eh! :-)

My little Sis loved her "JELLY Belly" SHOES when she was 5 yrs old.
PVX - THAT'S FACTS is said by the younger crowd. Eldest has said it to me more than once :-)
Fun DR, OMK.

I learned of HALI in the show Outsourced That and the Girls celebrated a milder version in Montessori.

C.Moe the Moody - I thought of you at both ASTI & WINE TASTER. I knew you'd add some color-commentary. So, is that you in HG's spit-take?

Jinx - LOL Ticketmaster had ONE job. Pearl Jam couldn't take down the monopoly; maybe The Swifties can. *fingers-crossed*

This little toy came in last weekend. I'm getting ready to play and re-learn 1/2 the practicum I learned in EE :-)

Y'all have a great eve.

Cheers, -T

Lucina said...

Hola!
Even though I started this monster at about 6:30 A.M., went back to bed, worked on it a little more, then did some Saturday things, i.e., went to get my nails done and other errands, and finally came back to it and finished. I had so many issues! HIT TO FADES????? That was the big one. I agree, who says THAT'S FACTS? Neither I NOR anyone I know.

I hate to be a SORE LOSER but that's how I feel.

HOLI jumped out from some far off recess in my mind remembering that I'd seen it in some previous puzzle long, long ago.

Hah! Irish Miss. You're right. I have no rights over (sigh) Cary Grant, but it's impossible to avoid, I'm sorry to tell you. He's so darned suave and handsome and he speaks with such a charming accent. Your instincts are spot on!

My daughter also had JELLY SHOES at about age 8 or 9.

I, too, am shocked to learn of SANTA FE's altitude.

Today I learned why the nail salon had been closed for a week. It was completely remodeled and now has a trendy appearance, sparkling white overall, very smart. higher prices, too, of course.

I hope you are all enjoying your Saturday and hungrily anticipating the coming holiday!
CSO to my daughter and my oldest granddaughter at PLIES. Both studied ballet.



Malodorous Manatee said...

While there are many significant things about the Artemis I launch, this is my favorite:

European Space Agency Astronaut Aboard Artemis I

Jayce said...

Gave up on this puzzle after 20 minutes. Just plain stopped caring. Now I will read Gary's recap and all your comments.

Anonymous said...

Goodbye. I'm done. You have lost another loyal LAT crossword fan. Goodluck to everyone.

waseeley said...

-T @5:29 PM "Reporting" -> "Rubbish" was an oft used riff on PERL back in the day. I first learned to extract and report network performance data. DNK that Wall was inspired by PEARL (never 'eard of it until today). Looks like a block structured multi-tasking language. I'm impressed that PERL is a part of the Corner. I used to wallow in it. Now I'm reduced to snippets for extracting my daily blood pressure measurements from emails I send myself.

BTW "DNF" is a lot like "RBI". The inflexion is built in ('d and s) respectively) (your friendly acronymic grammar Nazi).

Cheers.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

-T, I want one of them thar Lost in Space imagineering kits. Reminds me of the breadboard kits we used for labs in my Number Systems and Logic course when GTE first started implementing electronic switching systems, some 45 years ago. Except your kit looks many orders of magnitude more fun.

waseeley said...

-T @5:29 PM Oh yeah, I too had RUBY before PERL.

Jayce said...

I rate yesterday's puzzle 1,000,000 times better than today's.

waseeley said...

MM @5:51 PM Shaun the sheep! I'd know him anywhere. A stowaway?

Malodorous Manatee said...

No, Bill, not a stowaway. Although the flight is "unmanned", Shaun is officially representing the European Space Agency and Snoopy is representing NASA. If I understand correctly, they are even involved in some on-board experiments.

waseeley said...

Anonymous @6:52 We hardly knew ye! Please stop back next Thursday. If you like action comics you'll love the puzzle.

TTP said...



Dash T, thanks for the shout out and credit, but it was all you and your Python skills. Each of us truly appreciate the program you created to make blogging the crossword so much easier. But thanks for giving me the opportunity to do your beta testing (and calling it quality control).

Enjoyed the repartee between Lucina and Irish Miss in re Cary Grant.

Also, the article that Inanehiker referenced about MO's Ceres was interesting.

Speaking of MOes, I thought that image of the wine taster was our Chairman! :-)

Watching CFB. How about those Sooners taking it to the Cowboys early ? #Instate Rivalry

Ticketmaster's handling of the Taylor Swift ticket sales ? One job ? They got Mossed

PK said...

Hi Y'all! "Brooke Husic is doing post doc work in Berlin in computational chemistry" etc. Does anyone here think they could sit down and have a conversation with this genius? Then why would we be expected to be able to conquer one of her puzzles? Yep, I'm a SORE LOSER. Took me 48:33 minutes to fill this monster. Probably 2/3 of the fills had to have one or several red-letter runs online to get any toe hold. Patti Varol is such an elitist, it is disheartening.

THAT'S FACTS as I see it, altho I've never heard anyone say that.

I'm reading a series of books by Michael Garrity set in SANTA FE & elsewhere in New Mexico. Alas, he didn't inform me SANTA FE was the highest city. I've been there too. Loved it.

Very wary about tomorrow's puzzle. I'm SORE about being angry about so many of my favorite passtimes.

ATLGranny said...

This was one of those Saturday puzzles that benefited from taking breaks. Gradually it filled so I didn't have a DNF or need hints from Husker Gary to make progress. I thought it was a fair Saturday puzzle and I don't blame my FIW on Kate and Brooke. I thank them for a learning experience.

I too thought of Denver as the highest state capital. I too had weird symbols in the Polish name as printed in our paper. No problem with that or with the Spanish spelling of option (opción) indicating the Spanish word OTRO is needed.

My problems were leaving uPS in place of HPS, making gobbledygook of HI TOP FADES. I kept trying to fit UP in place of HI, but that didn't work with RIAL. My other bad square was writing SOmE LOSERS, not knowing the crossing perp would be ARLO, a familiar name, not AmLO. Thanks, HG, for the helpful review today.

Moody Moe, I hope you soon are feeling better. So many people keep getting COVID still.

Late posting tonight because I watched my favorite Saturday evening PBS shows first: Midsomer Murders and Broadchurch. See you all tomorrow!



Michael said...

-T @ 5:29 -- Another sale, so that I won't be lost in space anymore. Thanks (Hope you're getting a commission -- you've earned one!)

Lucina said...

Irish Miss:
Yes, I do love the tall, dark and handsome ones.

I'm really enjoying watching The History of Sitcoms on CNN and just took a short break from it.

Anonymous T said...

Michael - I have no connection to Inventr. I was on a vendor technical call a few weeks ago. As we were going through some of the configs (and waiting for things to update) the guy I was talking with mentioned the Lost in Space kit. I think it was 'cuz I mentioned I had gotten one of these but nothing to play with to really burn my fingers properly :-)

MM - Shaun & Snoopy? Lost in Space? No, not with NASA's JSC on Ground Control.
Thanks for the info, MM. I didn't know that and I love it!

TTP - You're the one who inspired the project and pushed me to learn Python GUI programming so C.C. didn't have to use a CLI (Command Line Interface). You get the props for imagination.

IM & Lucina - I think there's enough Cary Grant to go around. Even to share with Alim (Touch of Pink).

Cheers, -T