Toys to Grow On...
Wait, she's only been constructing for 3 years?!? Color me impressed.
Today's puzzle gives us all the BLOCKS to BUILD a structure. Let's take a look:
20. Smile broadly because of one's own achievement, say: BEAM WITH PRIDE. BEAMs are horizontal structural bits that supports laterally to its axis. //I had one (1) CivE class :-)
33. New York City district that's home to the Fearless Girl statue: WALL STREET. Walls make it a room (or an office).
Respect Les' Walls
 |
| Fearless Girl |
41. Desirable feature of kids' clothing: ROOM TO GROW. ROOM - a 'block' in a house / building made of four walls.
51. Amino acid, vis-à-vis protein: BUILDING BLOCK. Seems right up Rebecca's ally.
 |
| Organic Chemistry |
How much fun was that? Bits, pieces, parts, and BLOCKs to create & BUILD something. You know, like a nice Tuesday puzzle.
I also like how the theme BUILDS from a beam to a wall to a room.
Across:
1. Country music sound: TWANG. The genre is not my cuppa (though Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, & Dolly Parton are exceptions to the rule).
6. Coordinating pillowcase: SHAM.
 |
| DW says I can't use them - the pillow is a sham! |
10. Roasting rod: SPIT.
14. "Yippee!": WAHOO! Woot! was too short.
15. Basketball commentator Rebecca: LOBO. Can't get your name in the grid?, put it in the clue ;-)
 |
| Rebecca (not our Constructor) played 6 years in the WNBA but only one for Houston's Comets |
16. Long-haired lap dog, familiarly: PEKE.
 |
| One missed hair-cut away from Cousin ITT? |
17. Change with the times: ADAPT. Adjust, ADAPT, and Overcome. Semper Fi! Right, WC?
18. Major composition: OPUS. Not to be confused with...
 |
| Bloom County's OPUS |
19. Working hard: AT IT. Working hard or hardly working? If you love your job, it's both.
20. [See: theme]
23. Place for a scrub: SPA.
 |
| Not to be confused with ER Scrubs |
24. Devoutness: PIETY.
25. Grabbed a bite: ATE.
28. Chicken __ king: ALA.
30. Red carpet walker: VIP.
31. Electric key: FOB.
 |
| RKE Hack |
33. [See: theme]
36. Soup du __: JOUR. Soup of the day.
 |
| French Onion - A Recipe |
37. Sign of spring: ARIES. Cute. Not a robin (come a bob-bob-bobbin') but Astrological.
38. Lead-in to Z or Alpha: GEN. Apparently they're already classifying kids born in the early to mid '10s?!?
Read what I found on the interwebs: Alpha children are permanently connected. Such is their attention to new technologies that it becomes a way of life. Independents. They are independent when it comes to making their own decisions and managing their digital identities, and they expect their individual needs and preferences to be taken into account. Bah!
39. Koalas and emus, in Australia: FAUNA. Fauna == animals; flora is the plants.
40. Novelist Atkinson: KATE. A CSO to Dr. DW.
41. [See: theme]
43. WSW opposite: ENE. Compass directions.
 |
| Compass Rose |
44. Prohibit: BAN.
45. Rowboat need: OAR.
46. Cap letters at Busch Stadium: STL.
 |
| I've seen games at Busch Stadiums II & III. Busch I was b/f my time. |
47. Get ready to drive?: TEE UP. Golf. Not seat-belt up #PSA
49. Mike and __: fruit-flavored candy: IKE.
 |
| Great at the movies 'cuz no one else likes them and they're all mine! |
51. [See: theme]
56. Aquarium growth: ALGA.
57. Void's partner: NULL.
58. "Ta-da!": VOILA. WAHOO!
61. Thai currency: BAHT.
 |
| 1 Baht ~= 2.9¢ |
62. Leave out: OMIT.
63. "Black-ish" star Tracee __ Ross: ELLIS.
Interview - Ross' Mom is Diana Ross!
64. East, in Spanish: ESTE.
65. Recedes: EBBS. And then it flows.
66. Pomelo peels: RINDS.
 |
| Read More |
Down:
1. Pan Am rival: TWA. Rival airlines - both, sadly(?), defunct. DW's Aunt was a flight attendant back in Pan Am's glory-days. She was on Nixon's plane to China - I KID YOU NOT(12d). Visit Leo III at 1940 Air Terminal Museum to see flying posh.
2. Roll of dough: WAD. Total Baller!
 |
| Put one Benjamin [$100] on top, one on bottom, and fill the middle with Bahts :-) |
3. Literary captain described as a "grand, ungodly, god-like man": AHAB. Herman Melville's Moby-Dick Cap'n.
4. Casual rejections: NOPES. Still, a hard-no.
5. Skated by, say: GOT A PASS. Until you get to grad-school, you can skate-by with a few DEEs outside of your major. Ask me how I know :-)
6. React to a yellow light, say: SLOW. Rebecca doesn't drive in Houston where 'yellow' means "floor-it!" //seriously, don't be the first off the line at Green or you'll get TEE-boned.
7. Indigenous language in Arizona: HOPI. Hopi is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Hopi people of northeastern Arizona, United States. The use of Hopi has gradually declined over the course of the 20th century. In 1990, it was estimated that more than 5,000 people could speak Hopi as a native language, but only 40 of them were monolingual in Hopi. [WikiP]. Language is culture and, unfortunately, HOPI is dying.
8. Touch borders with: ABUT. I'll let Ray-O handle this :-)
9. Slam-dancer's place: MOSH PIT. '90's Grunge music and slam-dancing.
10. Emergency tire: SPARE. The donut in your trunk.
11. Bite-sized treats whose name means "small ovens" in French: PETIT FOURS. Little tiny baby-cakes.
 |
| I Count 8 (not FOUR) of these :-) |
12. "Honest!": I KID YOU NOT.
13. Spot for un chapeau: TETE. More French - already? A French hat on your French head.
21. Home brewer's ingredient: MALT. Mmmm, beer.
22. Domino indent: PIP.
25. Up and about: AWAKE.
26. Some hairy pets: TARANTULAS. I'll refrain posting image citing The Breakfast Test.
27. Sweet Sixteen winners: ELITE EIGHT NCAA Basketball aka March Madness. I fill out the office-bracket every year but have no idea what I'm doing. This year, I should ask PK and then split the winnings ;-)
29. Alphabetically first noble gas: ARGON. Third lightest Noble Gas. In the Bohr model, noble gasses have a full valence shell of electrons in the outer ring and ergo, ARGON (et.al), is inert. Mendeleev, a Russian chemist, came up with this beautiful periodic-classification that makes inorganic chemistry calculations a snap.
 |
| Periodic Table |
30. Mobile payment app: VENMO. I don't use it but the kids today do to pass money to each other. I still don't know how VENMO makes money as it doesn't appear there's a vig associated with paying a buddy / PK for our March bracket. //My tangent made TTP (greatest proofreader, ever! [even caught no hyphen in proof-read ;-)]) give me this:
SNL's First CityWide Change Bank 2
32. Fighting chance?: BRAWL. I'll be honest, I filled it but I don't get it. Like, why the ?, huh? Where's the 'chance'?
34. Director Spike: LEE. We had Spike's Inside Man [movie] Wed, 12/28.
35. Fair-hiring initials: EEO. See also 12/28's memo: it's no longer EOE [Equal Opportunity Employer], apparently.
36. Spree: JAG. Binge.
39. Pay, reluctantly: FORK OVER. Can one FORK OVER a losing bet on VENMO or do they have a no gambling policy?
41. Soccer star and equal-pay advocate Megan: RAPINOE. Female soccer is more winning than males' and yet, until recently, were paid a heck of a lot less.
42. Donkey's need, in a party game: TAIL.
 |
| Eeyore's Tail-Pin |
44. Future flower: BUD. What to do?, what to do?...
 |
| Fast Times at Ridgemont High - this quote was not in AFI's Top 100(?!?) |
48. Overjoy: ELATE. Jeff Spicoli [Sean Penn - See: above] was always "elated."
50. Common lab culture: ECOLI. In the lab, there's a refrigerator for lunch and a refrigerator for samples; don't confuse them. //I bet Rebecca already knows this.
51. Paul Bunyan's blue ox: BABE. I did a consulting gig for IHS [Indian Health Service] in Bemidji, MN and I got to visit BABE.
 |
| Paul & Babe |
52. Feeling nothing: NUMB. Comfortably?
From Pink Floyd's The Wall [9m]
53. Smooth-talking: GLIB. Or Jive Talkin' with the Gibbs?
54. Nonkosher sammies: BLTS. I think the no pork rule had to do with trichinosis and was smart b/f meat-thermometers. My Jewish uncle (Mom's Sister's Hubby) ate ham - what say our Jewish Cornerites?
 |
| Yummers! |
55. Potter's oven: KILN. Waseeley will explain.
59. Jar topper: LID.
60. Donkey: ASS. Eeyore redux?
 |
| Can you help him with his TAIL? |
The Grid:
 |
| The Grid. Click to see mine (with blog scribble notes) |
WOs: N/A
ESPs: RAPINOE, ELLIS
Fav: I'll go w/ BLTs - goes great with Soup du JOUR. //Did I ever mention I love soup?
There you have it folks - my last pinch-hit for a while. I'll now return you to our regularly-scheduled programmed hosts.
I hope everyone had fun with the puzzle & post-game today.
Cheers, -T
FIR, but didn't much enjoy it. I need to make a short list of "don't bother" constructors. Great puzzle for Cosmo, but not for the general population, IMO.
ReplyDelete-T, one of my Jewish friends calls the ham products that he eats "pink chicken". I also have a Catholic friend who only eats kosher food, because she thinks it is healthy to do so.
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteFirst DNF of the new year -- not an auspicious moment. Instead of KATE/ELITE, d-o was sure that was somebody's name and went with KANE/ELIN. Bzzzzzt. Thanx for playing. Enjoy the ceramic Dalmation. I KID YOU NOT was a favorite phrase of nighttime host Jack Paar. Nicely done, Rebecca. Excellent tour, Dash-T. (At 32d BRAWL is a noun.)
SLOW -- Immediately brought to mind this moment between Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen as they drive cross-country in Starman (at 1:30-1:40)
A very doable Tuesday level CW with some nice clues. T, a brawl gives you a chance to get into a fight. Thanx for “Comfortably Numb”; it is my theme song. GREAT lyrics, especially if you are old. Of the 9 proper names I only knew AHAB. I counted WALLSTREET as a proper name, but did not know it as clued. Nice picture to illustrate, T, thanx. As usual, did not see the theme of the CW until T ‘splained it. Overall, I enjoyed this CW: thanx, RG, and keep up the anti-cancer work. Thanx too to T for the terrific write-up.
ReplyDeleteI mentioned the lyrics of “Comfortably Numb”. Here’s a sample:
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
I have become comfortably numb
My mother was Jewish. My father was Southern Baptist. We didn’t “keep kosher “ in my house but every Passover my mother would trot out such things as Matzoh bread, for instance. Other than that, I don’t have too much to say about this puzzle. FIR, so I’m happy.
ReplyDeleteFIR, but found the theme a bit of a stretch. And what's up with 32D? Fighting chance? I have a question mark about this clue too.
ReplyDeleteTook 4:54 to finish my build this morning.
ReplyDeleteLike the others, I found this puzzle a little disjointed, I guess. I'm not a fan of foreign words, especially 2 in 3 clues (petit fours and tete), but yet other parts felt fresh (Venmo, fork over).
As usual, I didn't know today's female novelist (Kate someone).
I remember when SNL first showed those bank commercials - very funny.
I took BRAWL as a chance to get into a fight?
ReplyDeleteAs for a yellow light, I thought only of Jim's driving test on "Taxi"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HvmtbZzA40
Well, back to work today, so it was good it was a quick solve! The drivers around here are similar to Houston - so I started out with 5D being sped which changed to SLOW.
ReplyDeleteLearning moment today - I got PETIT FOURS - but had now idea that FOURS meant oven in French
One of my baseball teams featured with the STL Cardinals - also the airport code for St. Louis's Lambert Field.
Rural accents in Kansas(where I grew up) aren't Southern but they have a definite Kansas TWANG. I'll give my Mike and IKEs to you Tony- if I'm going to eat a fruit flavored candy then I'll take Jujyfruits, Skittles, or Gummy bears before those
Thanks for subbing -T and thanks to Rebecca for a fun puzzle/theme!
ReplyDeleteGood morning. Thank you, Rebecca, and thank you, Dash T
Country music sound:TWANG. Wasn't there a Canadian country artist named Shania Twang ?
SHAM ? NOPE. I personally have no use for them. Or for bedskirts. Style over substance.
BAHT - I always want to spell it BHAT, but it never works with the perps.
NUMB - When I first solved, "Comfortably Numb" came to mind for me too.
I watch "Black-ish" on WGN and Freeform, so I'm familiar with Rainbow ("Bow") (Ellis Ross) and Dre (Anthony Anderson). We've had clues for both of their names before.
Fearless Girl faced down that Charging Bull and sent him all the way back to 2008.
I love French Onion Soup, but hate tending to the onions for hours. Going to try the crock pot recipe. Thx !
"Greatest proofreader ever" ? Hardly. I mainly look for speling errors. I coulda answered his 32D question, but I didn't want to change his content. His review, his voice.
I had never heard of vig. Or vigorish when Dash T explained it to me. Oh, the "cut" on the action. Now I get it.
So that's Barry GLIB singing "Jive Talking" ? :>)
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteI agree about the shaky theme but it is Tuesday, so it’s okay. No unknowns, no w/os, so an easy, quick solve.
Thanks, Rebecca, and thanks, Anon T, for a review that was far more interesting and lively than the solve was. You’re wearing your blogger’s hat quite well, to no one’s surprise, I might add!
Have a great day.
Yeah,
ReplyDeleteFighting chance=brawn makes more sense...
(But the perp won...)
Sweet sixteen made no sense either.
(Oh, it's basketball? Still makes no sense to me...)
T-Man! I can't believe you didn't link Taxi!
I gotta go back and check Billocohoes post to see if his was the longer version that "splains" the lead in...
An easy fill but BRAWL for 'Fighting chance?' made no sense.
ReplyDeleteLOBO, ELLIS, RAPINOE, ELLIS were filled by perps.
LOBO, PRIDE, RAPINOE, ELITE EIGHT, KATE, Fearless Girl, SPA, ELLIS- definitely a female themed puzzle. How did LEE, IKE, Capt. AHAB, and Gladys Knight's PIP get in the puzzle today?
BLTS- my Jewish boss (Fred)' rabbi ate the ham & cheese sandwiches that Fred had catered after his wife's funeral.
PETIT FOURS- at $5-6.00 for four FOURS- overpriced little squares of cake with icing on 5 side. DW loves them; they are too sweet for me.
FOB- before the electronic FOB it was easy to carry car keys and other keys on a ring. Not any more. The FOBs have grown too big.
DNF.... what I had in the Mid West didn't make sense. Wait..I see I originally FIR but deleted the T from what I thought was a nonsense word ELITEEIGHT crossed with the unknown author KATE. In other words... a TIWWBIWR (Thought I Was Wrong But I Was Right.) Theme BEAM, ROOM, WALL (building blocks for a house, ..I guess?).
ReplyDeleteAdd in the usual foreign language fillers. I ASSume that Spanish and French CW's have English answers to be fair. 🤔
Odd clue for DUMB, "feeling nothing"?...GEN Alpha? (In utero?).... Parisian dare: "You and what (small French) army!!; un PETITforce.
Inkover: tub/SPA, brimWITH/BEAM,
Shoes with ROOM TO GROW needed some empty space around my big toe.
A 1960's "sticky roll on"....BAN
What did you eat in Madrid?....GOTAPASS
Hey Anon T... remember: No "ifs", "ands", not even "____ "....ABUT.
Spent yesteray PM at camp ...What started out as a terrific snowmobile season for the Adirondack town businesses has come to a halt with with the snow almost all gone. The only upside is a respite/delay to the associated trauma due to recklessness that comes with the season. But it's early in the season.
Musings
ReplyDelete-No reveal (not really needed) was a surprise. Tony doing a good job, not a surprise.
-I was in my mother’s hospital room and Taxi was on her TV. When Rev. Jim’s SLOW dialogue came on, I had to fight back laughter.
-TWANG - I’ve heard it said that we Midwesterners have no accent and that’s why all TV anchors talk like us
-GOT A PASS – I did not have to do a thesis for my Master’s Degree.
-You know someone has money issues when their tiny donut spare has 10,000 miles on it
-Last year I got some Covid tests for my daughter here because she couldn’t get any in Lincoln. I met our son-in-law in WAHOO (halfway) and he asked if he could pay us with VENMO. He might as well have said BAHTS.
-BRAWL – Baseball players see a chance to fight when they see one on the field.
LOBO played for UConn I believe
ReplyDeleteI remember BAHT from my brief RnR visit to Thailand in 1970
I almost had a winner in the Yahoo NCAA Bracket pool until Kansas was upset
I didn't get BRAWL either
-T, Don't be a blogger stranger, I (we) greatly enjoy your write-ups
Enjoyed STARMAN. Didn't know at first he was an ET(still don't get BRAWL) OK, still don't like it
The only language useful for xwords is English simply because words have multiple meanings. C'est la vie
As a college bball former fanatic Sweet sixteen was a debutante or something. Even after EIGHT perped I need perps. I thought the NYC street was BEAL at first
WC
Aha, Gary's expo makes sense
CED, I hate to defend this thing, but the capital letters in Sweet Sixteen is a giveaway that it is the NCAA's basketball tourney. ELITE EIGHT is also spelled with both words capitalized. Ditto Final Four (the NCAA's hockey tournament equivalent is Frozen Four.) NCAA also owns trademarks to Big Dance, March Madness, Road to the Final Four, The Road to Atlanta, The Road to Frisco, The Road to Indianapolis, The Road to Minneapolis, The Road to New Orleans, The Road to Omaha, and The Road to Tampa Bay. (Source: https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2013/12/2/ncaa-trademarks.aspx)
ReplyDeleteThis is quite a start to the week. FIW again! Another brain slip at LOBO and MOSH PIT, putting an A and not questioning it. And that's after four FIRs on harder puzzles over the weekend.
ReplyDeleteHad a few WOs as I started BEAM WITH PRIDE (I'm not!) but soon saw the theme progression. Thanks, Rebecca, for providing today's Tuesday OPUS.
AND thanks, Anon-T, for subbing again. I enjoy your style and the learning moments you provide.
BRAWL surprised me too but then I got it. Maybe the trickiest clue?
I won't OMIT the chance to wish you all well today. Enjoy!
Hola!
ReplyDeleteI shall BEAM WITH PRIDE at finishing the puzzle quickly and easily. Thank you, Rebecca and Tony! Nice review!
What a surprise that IKE was not clued as the name of a president who was also a GENeral!
The only time I've seen TARANTULAS is at the Phoenix Zoo.
I have a friend who learned to TEE UP and golf to be with her husband who loved golfing and did so every day after he retired.
Hearing a TWANG is hard on my ears.
Most desert FAUNA are scorpions, lizards, Gila monsters and TARANTULAS as well as rattle snakes.
Have a fabulous Tuesday, everyone!
This was another leisurely stroll for me although there were several unknowns, so I can’t BEAM WITH PRIDE. Just perps and WAGS.
ReplyDeleteI love KATE Atkinson’s novels; I’m eagerly awaiting her new one.
So, does it mean there’s a GEN-alpha? I guess after Z we have to start over like that year there were more named hurricanes/ tropical storms than letters of the alphabet.
Why would anyone have a pet TARANTULA? No accounting for taste. When my grand niece was a teenager she had a python. Her dad had built a nice display case for it and she took it out to the backyard for its daily outing. I was never at their house when that occurred.
Hello Everyone:
ReplyDeleteA New Year resolution of mine is to visit this blog more often. Happy New Year to all!
Got this puzzle right, my troubles are all about the proper names.
I worked on Wall Street for many years prior to staying home to raise my children. My actual business address was OLP, One Liberty Plaza, across the street from the WTC. I worked for MLPF&S, great job.
Voila pronounced with a “w” is annoying to me, it t should be pronounced with the V.
Very saddened by the cardiac arrest the football player suffered last night. May God bless him with a full recovery. Only 24 years old. Oh God.
Hope you’re all doing well! Best wishes for a great day!
FLN. Lucina, it’s not the brain that fails, it’s the memory and when we’ve lived as long as we have, a lot of “stuff” has accumulated there.😜
ReplyDeleteTook me 7:55 to trim out this one, a couple minutes easier than Monday. I like the no reveal, no circles, figuring out the theme adds to the solve IMO. Thank you Rebecca.
ReplyDeleteAnon T ~ a well constructed blog, appreciate your time and effort and filling in in Hahtoolah’s absence.
ReplyDeleteFighting chance ? Skip if you don't want to read an anecdotal story.
One of my classmates and friends was Danny, who was the fourth out of six boys. Along with eight girls. The dad was a long haul trucker and was often gone. Mom did her best with the kids. They were the financially poorest family in an area that was devastated by the closing of steel mills and related jobs. Most families scraped to get by, but they were the poorest of the poor. Most of Danny's siblings were teased at school because of their tattered hand-me-down clothes and their backwoods manners. And some teenage kids being teenage kids, had to prove that they were better than others. Most of them had orangish to dark red hair. There were many of them and they stood out.
So they fought the bullies. The boys fought. The girls fought. Danny's sister knocked a guy out one day after school one day, and no one messed with her again. They even fought each other.
The next youngest brother was Eugene. He was the toughest of them all. Short and squat and strong, and always looking to fight. Just to prove that he was the toughest guy around in our hardscrabble town. He got kicked off the freshman football team for fighting with his teammates in the first week of preseason practice. He got suspended from school so many times he couldn't pass his classes, and spent two years as a freshman before dropping out. If he thought you insulted him, called him dumb, or heard you made fun of him in any way, he'd find you and hit you. Fist to the face. Just to get in a fight. If you looked at him sideways, he'd want to fight. Everyone knew his reputation, and most stayed clear of him. Except for some of the other kids that were bullied, and his sisters. Mess with any of them, and you were going to have to face Eugene.
Just thinking about it now brings back so many memories. One weekend night as I was at the town inn having a few beers and playing euchre, a couple of the PA boys got into a loud argument at the bar. We called anyone we didn't know as locals "PA boys". You had to be 21 to drink beer in PA, but only 18 in Ohio, so young guys would regularly cross the state line to drink beer at our little town inn.
Anyway, it turned into insulting each other, and they went outside and got into a pushing and shoving match. Of course almost everyone went outside to watch. It's what you did in a small town when there was going to be a fight. These guys were pushing and shoving each other and trading insults, but not really throwing fists and fighting. Until Eugene got involved. He insulted both of them for being sissies or something. Then, most likely because they did not know him, told him to stay out of it. Not his business. So he beat both of them up.
Last week I read the obit for one his older sisters. Just read it again. Two of the older brothers have passed as has Danny's sister that knocked the guy out. Eugene is married now. Maybe he has finally settled down. But as another guy back home used to say all of the time, "Probably, but I doubt it."
FLN: Wilbur, I believe the tin man got a colorful tin heart to wear and the lion got a medal for bravery.
ReplyDelete"The Road to New Orleans," trademarked? I'm sure it's only for merchandise. Just like the NFL, they want it all.
ReplyDeleteJinx, I take a 'Road to New Orleans' all the time and pay nothing to the NCAA.
I remember the NFL suing various entities for using the term "Who Dat", claiming rights. Well guess what? Somebody had already trademarked it years earlier and the last laugh was on the NFL.
BE - Just don't print shirts that say "The Road to New Orleans Goes Through LSU" with a basketball on it, even if they beat my UK Wildcats tonight. (Unfortunately, the Cats don't look too scary this year.) Also don't do up shirts that say "The Road to Houston Goes Through LSU", which would be more appropriate this year.
ReplyDeleteThe NFL guards their trademark "Super Bowl" too. National companies like Best Buy call it "the big game". Around here, local bars and restaurants use Super Bowl, thinking they are too small to be noticed by the League. You might be able to use Super Bowl to market one of those new-fangled toilets that rinses and blow dries your bottom when you're through.
FIR and it felt slightly on the harder side for a Tuesday, or maybe I just wasn't on the constructor's wavelength. I like to see the theme as a progression from BEAM to WALL to ROOM to an entire BUILDING.
ReplyDeleteThank you Rebecca for your CONSTRUCTION, although I kinda/sorta noticed that the puzzle maybe/mighta been themed, but I'm usually AT SEA without *'s, circles, or trailing ?'s.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you -T for your review. I really liked the vibe I KID YOU NOT!) . You're pretty good at these pinch hitting gigs. I'm going have to dream up an excuse for an excused absence.
Favs:
31A FOB. Very revealing exposé on the hack. [We can backchannel the specifics on the make of my new car], but I doubt that the hack would work on it because even my production FOB doesn't remote unlock or start it (one reason I paid extra for this particular model!). Might be a Bluetooth distance limitation - the car's probably about 15' from the living room and the signal would have to be able penetrate glass. When is Bluetooth2 coming out?
38A GEN. If Alphas are PERMANENTLY connected to the web, then the idea that they are independent decision makers is purely delusionary.
1D TWA. Wow! Did DW's aunt get to meet MAO? According to composer John Adams he was quite a dancer. Can she FOXTROT?
3D AHAB. I don't think we've heard the last of him this week.
7D HOPI. When WW III starts, where are we going to get our next gen CODE TALKERS? The Navajos did it last time and I'm sure their native speakers are dying off too.
11D PETIT FOURS. See 55D.
35D EEO. D*MNED if you weren't right about that.
52D NUMB. NUMB and NUMBER. If this keeps up we're not going to feel anything about REAL NUMBERS.
55D KILN. A device for baking PETIT FOURS. DNK the French for KILNETTE (see 11D).
Cheers,
Bill
Thanks for pinch hitting -T. I always enjoy your take on things.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of "takes" I never understood the Fearless Girl juxtaposition with the Wall Street bull. Personally, I like bull markets.
I raise my hand for liking Tony's review more than I liked the puzzle. Like inanehiker, I also had no idea that FOURS meant oven in French.
ReplyDeleteI was sort of appalled but not surprised that our local news anchor recently mispronounced Megan RAPINOE's name as something like "Rap Nope." When, still on air, her co-anchor corrected her, she shrugged and laughed and said something to the effect of "Well, it doesn't matter. Everyone knew who I was talking about." Sheesh, talk about sloppy reporting. And to simply laugh it off is appalling to me. Don't these so-called reporters review their "script" in advance of reading it on air? Obviously not. No rehearsal at all to prepare for their performances.
I think by now you all have discovered how little, if any, respect I have for most of the mainstream media. Negative respect, actually, i.e. distain.
If someone mispronounced my name I would expect an apology, not a "it doesn't matter" shrug.
Anyhoo, it's nice to be getting "back to normal" after these holidays. Good wishes to you all.
Many years ago one of my mother's teenaged neighbors had a python. How he got it I have no idea but he would parade around the neighborhood with the snake wrapped around his shoulders. I don't know what happened to him or it since they moved away but I suspect the local Nature Society might have claimed it.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter once had a snake for which we periodically (once a week I believe) had to buy a rat at the pet store and feed it to it. My mother never knew about it or she would have refused to enter the house. She was that terrified of snakes. I must ask my daaugahter what happened to it because I don't recall.
Well. We are done with Christmas decorations! The last of them and the holiday china went into the storage shed just a while ago. Only the decorative tablecloth remains to be changed and we'll do that after dinner tonight.
Hi All!
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone for explaining brawl as clued - not one for a fight, a brawl would be my cue to duck-out.
billocohoes, CED, & HG - yep, I totally failed to think of the Jim's driving test until billo mentioned it - Taxi was brilliant.
Waseeley - Navajo Code Talkers was my first thought too when I read there's only around 5,000 folks that speak Hopi.
Glad y'all enjoyed the expo - it was fun to put together and learn a few things I didn't know before.
Cheers, -T
Delightful puzzle, Rebecca, many thanks. And helpful commentary with great pictures, AnonT,
ReplyDeletethanks for that too.
Busy day with not much time for comments. But wish you all a wonderful first week of 2023.
Hi Y'all! I liked the puzzle & theme, despite unknowns, thanks, Rebecca. Always a good expo, thanks, Tony.
ReplyDeleteTony, also thanks for thinking I might be a basketball brain. However, this year I can't stay awake to watch enough of the games to even tune in. The other night I woke up in time to watch the last 3 minutes of a Kansas U game. But I do recognize all the March Madness terms like "Sweet 16" which just means there are 16 teams in the tournament who all think it is a sweet deal to make it that far. Sorry to not be able to help you with a bracket. Also I never heard of Venmo and have no idea how to use these new-fangled online payment schemes.
FIR, although I almost messed up by originally misspelling EIGHT! DUMMY!
ReplyDeleteThanks, -T for the shout out about the museum!
‘Twas a fine expo!
I enjoyed the puzzle, Rebecca Goldstein.
Yes, Rebecca Lobo was a UCONN Huskie.
I only knew BAHT because of the James Bond movie, “The Man With the Golden Gun,” some of which was filmed in Thailand. There was a little kid in it trying to sell trinkets for so many BAHT.
I forgot to look for the theme, but I wouldn’t have figured it out anyway.