Theme: "Inbox Zero" - IN is replaced by O in each common phrase.
24A. Mayhem that ensues when one tries to order a Big Mac at an Arby's?: FAST FOOD CHAOS. Fast food chains.
37A. Troubles in central France?: BURGUNDY WOES. Burgundy wines.
47A. Moment of brain freeze for a programmer?: CODER BLOCK. Cinder block.
70A. What a wizard panda might cast on its hungry enemies?: THE CURSE OF THE BAMBOO. The Curse of the Bambino.
93A. How a baby born in mid-September might behave?: LIKE A VIRGO. Like a Virgin.
100A. Entry on a canner's to-do list?: PROCESS PEACH. Princess Peach.
118A. Anticipation on a horse farm?: FOAL COUNTDOWN. Final countdown.
Not quite sure I get the title. Makes sense if this is a rebus puzzle where IN in the box is replaced by O. As it is, the box is lost on me.
Congratulations to Stacey on her LAT debut!
Across:
7. Hayek Pinault of "Magic Mike's Last Dance": SALMA. Here with Channing Tatum. She's married to ... OK, François-Henri Pinault.
12. Mink cousin: MARTEN.
18. Rummylike game: CANASTA.
20. Begs: PLEADS.
22. Arise: EMERGE.
23. Made aware: ALERTED.
26. Staple used in some sensory play activities: RICE.
27. Workday alternative: ADP. Automatic Data Processing,
29. Cuts it close?: SHEARS. Nice clue.
30. Otolaryngologists, for short: ENTS. Such a long name.
31. Lawyer's org.: ABA.
32. "Just relax!": BREATHE.
35. Significant period: ERA.
36. Some online convos: IMS.
40. __ mess: traditional English dessert: ETON. Learning moment
for me. No-bake dessert. Wikipedia says "it's commonly believed to
originate from Eton College and is served at the annual cricket match
against the pupils of Harrow School ..."
42. __ de deux: PAS.
45. Jack or jenny: ASS.
46. Drink gingerly: SIP.
50. Squeeze: SMUSH.
53. Gently object: DEMUR.
55. Port near Naples: SALERNO. My sister-in-law Connie has probably gone to all the cities in Italy.
56. Furry or feathered friend: PET.
57. Garden structure: SHED.
60. LaLiga chants: OLES.
62. Animal that often sleeps holding hands with its mate: OTTER. So they won't drift apart. So sweet!
63. Four seasons: YEAR.
65. Recovers: HEALS UP.
67. Saintly glows: HALOS.
75. Hard to sleep through, say: NOISY.
76. Go against: DISOBEY.
77. Some Outback sprinters: EMUS.
79. __ of undying: Minecraft item: TOTEM. No idea.
82. Trifling amount: A TAD.
84. Stack in a gym: MATS.
85. Kinda sorta: ISH.
86. Beef rib, to be brief: ANAGRAM. "Beef rib" is an anagram of "to be brief". Amazing clue.
89. Quickly: APACE.
91. Peppermint __: PATTY.
95. "__ Mubarak": holiday greeting: EID.
97. Summer Games org.: IOC.
98. Cell service initials: LTE.
99. Place to get blintzes: DELI. Have some!
106. Old-school weed whacker: HOE.
108. NYSE launch: IPO.
110. Advice when juggling knives: USE CARE.
111. __ Paulo: SAO.
112. Over again: ANEW.
114. Intensify: DEEPEN.
116. Soul maker: KIA.
117. Rabbitlike mammal with short hind legs: PIKA. Can't see clearly.
122. Target of some shaving: LEG HAIR.
124. Concurs: AGREES.
125. Like many valuable baseballs: SIGNED. Look at this one!
126. Heavy hammers: SLEDGES.
127. Lightning container, idiomatically: BOTTLE.
128. Jai alai basket: CESTA.
129. "Oof, everything hurts": I'M SORE.
Down:
2. Surfrider Beach city: MALIBU.
3. Like some garages: ONE CAR.
4. Like a blue lobster or a blue moon: RARE. Is it tasty?
5. Cutesy suffix with "most": EST.
6. Foster's partner: STEARNS. Stearns & Foster mattresses.
7. Coppertone stat: SPF.
8. In the manner of: ALA.
9. Mortgage-free resident, often: LESSEE.
10. Ruler's class: MATH.
11. Spot cost: AD FEE.
12. Prescribed stuff, for short: MEDS. The nurses helped me destroy Boomer's meds. Such a waste.
13. "Mayfair Witches" cable network: AMC.
14. Bring up again?: RE-HEM.
15. Convey: TRANSPORT.
16. Viola Davis accomplishment, briefly: EGOT. So talented.
17. Moray Firth river: NESS.
19. Extra: ADDED.
21. Flew without flapping: SOARED.
25. Speechifies: ORATES.
28. Doesn't dine and dash: PAYS.
32. "Running Up That Hill" singer Kate: BUSH.
33. __ one's thumbs: TWIDDLE.
34. Rhode Island's motto: HOPE.
36. Flowering: IN BLOOM. Rain/snow mix today, then a beautiful week ahead.
38. EV's lack: GAS.
39. Chisels: SCULPTS.
41. Singer Rita who is a judge on the U.K. edition of "The Masked Singer": ORA.
43. Clearasil target: ACNE.
44. Heath bar alternative: SKOR.
48. Valuable deposit: ORE.
49. Doesn't disturb: LETS BE.
50. Catch: SPY.
51. Converge: MEET.
52. State on the Colorado Plateau: UTAH.
54. Tunisian film director Tlatli: MOUFIDA. Unfamiliar to me.
57. Feng __: SHUI.
58. Towel set word: HERS.
59. Gut course: EASY A.
61. Biblical queen's land: SHEBA.
64. Go back (on): RENEGE.
66. Fountain beverage: SODA POP.
68. Lie for, say: ABET.
69. Big name in snacks: LAYS.
71. Cohort: COMRADE. Obit of Jiang Zimin, Comrade Jiang.
72. Hockey advantage: HOME ICE. One more great fill: 81. "Don't despair!": TAKE HEART.
73. Skip past: OMIT.
74. Bump from office: OUST.
78. Not likely to mingle: SHY.
79. __ tale: TALL.
80. "I've got that covered": ON IT.
83. Brand location: TAG.
87. Park in NYC: AVE.
88. Social atmosphere: MILIEU.
90. Corp. heads: CEOS.
91. Innocent, e.g.: POPE. Pope Innocent.
92. Air Force hotshot: ACE.
94. Gets ready to eat?: RIPENS. I like this clue also.
96. Trex construction: DECK.
97. Tel Aviv resident, e.g.: ISRAELI.
101. Flawed sentences: RUN-ONS.
102. Heads to sea: SAILS.
103. Italian cheese: ASIAGO.
104. Less powdery: CAKIER.
105. Raspy: HOARSE.
107. Little hooter: OWLET.
109. Eye-related: OPTIC.
112. Abbr. for some nonbinary people: AFAB. Assigned Female At Birth. Also remember AMAB.
113. Canceled, at NASA: NO GO.
114. Prescribed amount: DOSE.
115. Lip: EDGE.
117. Scholars' degs.: PHDS.
119. Animation studio souvenir: CEL.
120. Drenched: WET.
121. Promise not to tell, for short: NDA.
123. Ruby, for one: GEM.
Do any of you make your own yogurt? Do you know why they want you to have shelf-stable coconut? I started mine yesterday morning and set it for 12 hours. I put a bit of agar agar as thickener, the result was still watery. Not creamy. Not even sour. Tasted just like coconut milk.
(Added later: I just realized that I forgot to put the yogurt starter. D'oh!)
C.C.
S'MORES for all were in store,
ReplyDeleteAnd all the campers wanted more!
They played ANAGRAMS
For rain-day programs.
When they got home, they said "I'M SORE!"
There was a surfer in MALIBU
Who said "These LEG HAIRS will not do!
I look like a peach
When on the beach!"
So she braided them; wouldn't you?
{B+, A.} I noticed the first and last words across were one letter shy of being anagrams.
ReplyDeleteThe hardest themed fill for me was “process peach” because I’ve never heard of “Princess Peach” and I thought “innocent “ would be a “plea” before I finally remembered there were some popes with that name. Also , it took me a good while to suss the gimmick, but eventually I did. FIR, so I’m happy.
ReplyDeleteGood morning!
ReplyDeletePut "IN" in the box of "O" -- it's a stretch, but I guess that's it. D-o had almost finished the puzzle when the theme dawned. Cute, but too bad there were so many stray O's in the themers. My only knowledge of SALERNO involves butter cookies. Nobody around here has a ONE-CAR garage -- three-car is the new normal (with zero cars parked inside). Thanx, Matthew, Stacey, and C.C.
FIR, but it was a slog. Never heard of princess peach (and process peach?), so I struggled to make sense of that corner and it was the last to fall. I finally got the theme when I saw the curse of the Bambino and that really helped.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the lightbulb lit with LIKE A VIRGO. Duh!
Delete====>. Darren / L.A.
FIR. No, I didn't miss MARTEN x NESS, OLES x MOUFIDA, EID x DECK, or PIKA x CAKIER. Nooo, I missed BURGaNDY WOES x BaSH. Bad spelars of the world, UNTIE! (In my defense, I never developed a taste for Burgundy, even during the days when I drank wine like it was Kool-ade.)
ReplyDeleteI wanted Grant to be Foster's partner, but he was too short to meet the specs.
Didn't know Viola Davis, but EGOT is the new OREO (or maybe the new NDA.)
My mom and sisters played canasta. I was more of a Rook guy.
I need a hair cut. Just a crew cut using a #2 clipper guard for a close cut. My barber lost his shop because his landlord didn't pay the mortgage.
The Final Countdown.
Thanks to CC for the fun, informative review.
AFAB? If I have seen or heard of that I didn't remember it. That and the TOTEM of undying are making me feel old. Able to get them eventually. Anyway, this theme felt more contrived to me than I like, but I can accept that and still enjoy the puzzle.
ReplyDeleteTook 21:04 for me to get this in.
ReplyDeleteNever saw the theme, nor the fact that it had a title. I just thought it was general word play.
It's the last day of the month, and we have a new leader for worst clue of the month, "Tunisian film director Tlatli".
I had the same struggle SubG did with wanting plea and not recognizing Princess Peach (though I have heard of her from the Mario Bros.). Several other unknowns.
Second worse clue is Innocent, eg.
DeleteMusings
ReplyDelete-A pleasant treat that I solved LIKE A VIRGO
-Obscurities had good crosses – BUSH, MOUFIDA and ORA are prime examples
-ET_N/_RA was no problem as anything English will probably be ETON
-We caught the ferry in SALERNO for the 90 minute trip out to Capri
-Our PET is furry but we feed many feathered friends as well
-My neighbor’s two-car garage has no cars in it. All three sit out on the drive or sometimes the lawn
-FaceBook is blocked by the Wi-Fi at my school and so I have to go to LTE to get updates
-Unlike what I thought, it appears most European women shave their LEG HAIR
-Giving 12-yr-olds rulers in MATH class requires subsequent vigilance
-My DOSE of amoxicillin from my dentist is two/day and they knocked out my jaw pain in hours. It just prepares me for a big procedure next month.
-This puzzle seemed to have a lot of short words.
Well, I finished it. But I'm still a bit confused...
ReplyDeleteThere were a few clever clue/answers, but I dunno...
I never groked the theme, and there was a lot of "stuff" I just didn't understand.
Non binary people?
Afab? (Assigned gender at birth) I thought puzzles weren't allowed to get political?
Are all popes innocent?
I dunno.......
Nope. Nohow. No way. Not even close. TITT, even with CCs great review, I didn't think most of the clues were on target. Did the constructor just decide to go for obscurity for obscurities sake? No fun,
ReplyDeletefor me, anyway. A challenge is one thing, but this one left me cold.
Hola!
ReplyDeleteFinished and the only fill I really liked is CURSE OF THE BAMBOO. LIKE A VIRGO comes close, too.
Four seasons always reminds me of Vivaldi. His FOUR SEASONS music is extraordinary!
SODAPOP seems redundant.
FOAL crossing OWLET is cute since both are baby critters.
CANASTA takes me back to the year I spent living with some nuns who loved it and we played every night. At another place they loved Pinochle.
All the cacti and other plants are IN BLOOM right now due to the rain we had earlier in the year and it looks glorious, especially the palo verde trees.
Have a great day, everyone!
“sodapop”does seem redundant - and when I was a kind (mid-‘50s) everyone called it that - weird, right? … I love palo verde trees!
DeleteAll the creeks and rivers are full, too, as well as the reservoirs. Yea! We have water, however, there is a big controversy about renting land to the Saudis who have planted many, many acres of alfalfa to ship back to their homeland!
ReplyDeleteAlmost, but sloppy proofreading let two errors slip by. FIW. Like Jinx I misspelled BURGUNDY and I missed another easy word I had partly changed. Dang! But I got the rest just fine and figured out the theme with some effort. It was CHAOS for a while! Thanks Matthew and Stacey for the Sunday project.
ReplyDeleteThanks C.C. for leading us through the fill, explaining the unknowns and sharing your thoughts. Lots of learning moments.
Enjoy the rest of your day, everyone!
Sorry to hear about the alfafa grown in Arizona for export to the UAE. This is a crop like almonds and rice which require too much irrigation to be grown in dry areas with large populations.
ReplyDeleteDelightful Sunday puzzle, many thanks, Matthew and Stacey, for this weekend gift. And, C.C., it's always a huge pleasure to visit your wonderful and helpful commentary to go with the puzzle--thank you for that too.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I saw SMORES, I said, "Yeah! Food! My favorite puzzle item!" But all we got was a bit of FAST FOOD CHAOS, along with some RICE and some SODA POP in a BOTTLE. I got excited when I saw BURGUNDY, but when I looked up BURGUNDY WOES it looked like the vineyards started having serious problems last year, so I guess I'd best stick with my cheap Bogle.
Not much else to write about in the puzzle. TRANSPORT looked like it might give us some great vehicles, but all we got was ONE CAR. Hope it has enough GAS to get us to MALIBU for a brief tour--that would be fun. Well, TAKE CARE, everybody and have a good safe weekend.
And have a lovely Sunday!
I liked most of this puzzle. I would give it 9 out of 10, the clever cluing adding points where lousy cluing subtracts them.
ReplyDeleteClever (i.e. shows imagination) cluing, IMO:
Workday alternative
Cuts it close?
Jack or jenny
Furry or feathered friend
Four seasons
Hard to sleep through, say
Beef rib, to be brief (Amazing clue, as C.C. says)
Old-school weed whacker
Advice when juggling knives
Target of some shaving
Lightning container, idiomatically (This is my favorite clue)
Bring up again?
Doesn't dine and dash
Park in NYC
Innocent, e.g.
Air Force hotshot
Gets ready to eat? (I like this clue, too)
Lip
Promise not to tell, for short
Lousy (i.e. "gotcha", unimaginative, formulaic) cluing, IMO:
Hayek Pinault of "Magic Mike's Last Dance"
Staple used in some sensory play activities
__ of undying: Minecraft item
"Mayfair Witches" cable network
"Running Up That Hill" singer Kate
Singer Rita who is a judge on the U.K. edition of "The Masked Singer"
Tunisian film director Tlatli ("Gotcha!")
Abbr. for some nonbinary people
Not knowing Princess Peach and not understanding how "peach" is an entry on a to-do list made it difficult for me to solve CAKIER and PIKA even after hesitantly filling in PEACH.
Overall I enjoyed spending the hour to solve this puppy, and I congratulate Matthew Stock & Stacey Yaruss McCullough.
Good wishes to you all.
Hey, for 112D, that works for us binary people as well. I'm AMAB, assigned mail at birth.
ReplyDeleteGotta take issue with 'assignment' at birth -- it's not some cultural power play; merely a recognition of how the plumbing came out when we're born.
I gotta agree with Michael; our gender is not "assigned."
ReplyDeleteJayce @7:18 AM I'm with you and Michael on this. The vast majority of babies are either obviously female or male. However a very small number do have ambiguous gender. The challenge for society is to accept them for unique individuals.
DeleteWay too media centered for me! Tossed it after two hours of angst. As an avid Ice Hockey fan, your fill for "I'ce hockey advantage" was just plain DUMB. I'll continue to beg; "Editors: DO YOUR JOB?!"
ReplyDeleteHi Y'all! This took an hour to fill with red-letters lighting the way whenever I entered something it didn't like. Whew! Almost TITT when I was half-way done but persisted. Didn't understand the title "Inbox Zero". Didn't find a theme. Lots of unknowns. Why do I keep doing these puzzles? Well, it's the only exciting late-night activity I have anymore.
ReplyDeleteThank you, C.C., for the explanations.
I have a ONE CAR garage and the car hasn't been out of there in over two years. All the houses in this area were built for GI housing back in the '40s and have single garages full of junk. Only three in my block put their car in them.