Let the Good Times Roll!
Today veteran constructor Taylor Johnson (7 previous LAT and 4 NYT puzzles) presents us with an interesting challenge. It's not uncommon for puzzles to have clues that reference other clues, but I've never seen one where all the theme clues just referenced another clue, which of course had to be the reveal:
57A. "Time to go," and a phrase that could be uttered by a 15-, a 21-, a 32-, or a 48-Across?: LET'S ROLL. This is an idiom that can have at least four different meanings, depending on who the "utterer" is ...
15A. See 57-Across: DIRECTOR. This utterer is the one who says "Lights, camera, action". In this case LET'S ROLL means "start the film reels that record the action". This is an anachronism these days as most video is recorded digitally or generated by CGI. We see a few examples of the latter in the clues below.
21A. See 57-Across: CRAPS DEALER. The role of this utterer is not a simple one. As near as I can tell her/his job is to direct the activities at the craps table, determining who "shoots" next and how much, if any the players at the table will win or lose, depending on their bets prior to the roll. In this case the dealer might say LET'S ROLL to keep the action going and maximize the house's cash intake. This video explains it all (you've got nothing to lose, so good luck!) ...
32A. See 57-Across: SUSHI CHEF. This utterer might say LET'S ROLL to
his crew if a party of 8 has just placed a big order for
makizushi. Of course if the order is for
sashimi
or
nigiri
sushi, the chef might say LET'S SLICE.
48A. See 57-Across:
JAZZ DRUMMER. Actually I think the utterer in this case would be the band leader who would cue the
DRUMMER: "it's time for your solo",
LET'S ROLL. In this case he points to TWO of the greatest drummers of all time to show
their chops: Gene Krupa & Buddy Rich:
Here's the grid ...
Here's the rest ...
Across:
1. Oscar, __, Quebec: NATO sequence: PAPA. From the The International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, commonly known as the NATO phonetic alphabet. It's the most widely used set of clear code words for communicating the letters of the Roman alphabet.
5. Wand-waving org.: TSA. Transportation Security Administration.
8. Peas, for a peashooter: AMMO.
12. Thou: ONE G. One Grand. Parse this differently and you get O NEG, the blood type of 13% of blood donors.
13. Dated: OLD.
14. Scout group: TROOP.
15. [Theme clue]
17. Wears away: ERODES.
18. Dickens miser: SCROOGE. Ebenezer Scrooge is the protagonist of Charles Dickens's 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. He has been played by countless actors over the years in a wide variety of media. This one was neither filmed digitally nor via CGI (with apologies to any Scots on the Corner) ...
19. Silent performer: MIME.
20. SLC athlete: UTE. Salt Lake City athlete. That was easy. 😀
21. [Theme clue]
25. Season with heavy rainfall: MONSOON. A MONSOON is a seasonal change in the direction of the prevailing, or strongest, winds of a region. Monsoons cause wet and dry seasons throughout much of the tropics. Monsoons are most often associated with the Indian Ocean
27. Faux __: PAS. "False step" (pl. FAUX PAS), today's French lesson. I make a lot of FAUX PAS when creating reviews (as opposed to TYPOS, which Teri catches) and I rely on the early crew (you know who are), to point them out in their comments and give me a chance to fix them. It's likely that the Cornerites who get up at a reasonable hour don't even know I made them.
28. The Cavaliers of the NCAA: UVA. The Virginia Cavaliers football team represents the University of Virginia in the sport of American football (not the one played in most other parts of the World). Here's why they're called The Cavaliers.
30. Fated: DESTINED. See 64A.
32. [Theme clue]
36. Put the final touches on, say: POLISH UP. Sometimes I just don't know when to stop.
39. Some bros: SIBS.
43. Tan line cause: BRA. Colorful cue.
44. "Mangia!": EAT. Today's Italian lesson.
45. Core-sculpting apparatus: AB TONER. This is not a well-defined term. Presumably anything, whether it be machines, electrical stimulation, or stuff that you strap to your body to make your ABS look like a 6-pack of beer.
48. [Theme clue]
51. __ Paulo, Brazil: SAO. Saint Paul. Today's Portuguese lesson. A city in Brazil named for a famous letter writer.
52. Strong dark beer: BOCK. The dark lager known as BOCK beer was first brewed in the 14th century in the town of Einbeck in Lower Saxony. Definitely not a good way to get 6-pack ABS.
55. Palm leaves: FRONDS.
57. [Theme reveal]
59. "Oh, I remember now!": AH YES. Said by people all over the Corner every day.
60. "__ you serious?": ARE. R.U. Sirius is the name of the space station where most of the action takes place in the daily cartoon Brewster Rockit, drawn by Tim Rickard. Here's Dr. Mel Practice counseling Oldbot in the June 13th 2023 episode ...
62. Big cheese: BOSS.
63. Homer's "okily-dokily" neighbor: NED. Apparently NED has a lot of relatives ...
64. "Champagne Life" R&B singer: NE-YO. I'm not sure if he was DESTINED for this fill or it was just perped in by a Google search, but Champagne Life does qualify as Rhythm and Blues, and he can sing it. Here's NE-YO and his posse having a good time with some bubbly ...
Down:
1. "__ Save America": Crooked Media production: POD. In the review racket this clue is called a political "hot potato" and I'm punting.
2. Jennifer of "The Morning Show": ANISTON. The Morning Show, is an American comedy-drama television series starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carell, that premiered on Apple TV+ on November 1, 2019. The series is inspired by Brian Stelter's 2013 book Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV. The series has been renewed through 2023.
3. Degree of interest?: PERCENT.
4. Antiquing agent: AGER.
5. "My Neighbor __ ": 1988 Miyazaki film: TOTORO. This one was right on the tip of my tongue (where it stayed until perped). My Neighbor TOTORO is a 1988 Japanese animated fantasy film that was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and animated by Studio Ghibli. The film stars tells the story of a professor's young daughters Satsuki and Mei, and their interactions with friendly wood spirits in postwar rural Japan. Beautiful animation (English voice overs provided by the Fanning sisters, Dakota and Elle) ...
6. Branding words: SLOGAN.
7. Pro pitcher?: AD REP. EWER was too short.
8. Something in the air: AROMA.
9. Gp. with student diplomats: MODEL UN. MODEL UN is a popular activity for those interested in learning more about how the UN operates. Hundreds of thousands of students worldwide take part every year at all educational levels.
|
|
Model UN Assembly |
11. Curtailed missions?: OPS. "BLACK" was chopped off the front?
14. Italian port neighboring Slovenia: TRIESTE. TRIESTE is located at the head of the Gulf of Trieste, on a narrow strip of Italian territory lying between the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia; Slovenia lies approximately 8 km (5 mi) east and 10–15 km (6–9 mi) southeast of the city, while Croatia is about 30 km (19 mi) to the south of the city.
|
| Trieste |
17. Punctuation found in many Emily Dickinson poems: EM DASH. Here's a brief bio of the Bell of Amherst -- and a selection of her poems -- see if you agree with Taylor on that assessment.
|
|
Emily Dickinson |
22. Blueprint info: SPEC.
23. Part of NYE: EVE.
24. "Cool, man": RAD. A truncation of RADICAL -- Dude!
26. "Absolutamente": SI SI. Yes Yes. Italian lesson #2 (idiomatic).
30. Party bowlful: DIP.
31. "In that case ... ": IF SO.
33. Bargain bin stock at some music stores: USED CDS. Most music is streamed from the Cloud these days, free or with a fee -- e.g. Spotify -- so USED CDS can be had cheaply. Or you can listen on your favorite radio station -- e.g. WBJC -- streamable free from anywhere in the world (I assume you have Internet service or you wouldn't be reading this) -- I think Emily is starting to rub off on me.
34. San Jose team: SHARKS. The San Jose SHARKS are a professional ice hockey team based in San Jose, California. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference.
 |
| The Sharks website. |
35. Native Rwandan: HUTU. The HUTU, also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic or social group which is native to the African Great Lakes region. They mainly live in Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they form one of the principal ethnic groups alongside the Tutsi and the Great Lakes Twa.
 |
| Rwanda Burundi |
37. "Your Song" singer Rita: ORA. No automobiles were damaged in the making of this (rated PG13) video ...
38. Some recliners: LA-Z-BOYS.
40. Forthcoming: IN STORE.
41. "Moonlighting" actress Allyce: BEASLEY. Moonlighting is an American comedy drama television series that aired on ABC from March 3, 1985, to May 14, 1989, starring Cybill Shepherd (Maddie) and Bruce Willis (David) as private detectives, and Allyce Beasley (Agnes) as their quirky receptionist. In this scene Agnes has arrived early at the office, but David has arrived earlier ...
42. Full house indicator: SRO.
45. Electrical unit: AMPERE. The amount of current (AMPERES (I)) passing through a conductor of a given resistance (OHMS (R)), for a given voltage (VOLTS (V)), as defined by Ohm's Law.
46. Sang with gusto: BELTED. Here's the late, great Dimitri Hvorostovsky BELTING out the aria Largo al Factotum from Giaochino Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville ...
47. Swim/bike/run races, briefly: TRIS. Short for Triathlon, and a CSO to sumdaze, who has done several TRIS and 10 marathons!!!
|
|
The three legs of a Triathlon |
50. Disney retelling of a Chinese folk legend: MULAN. As it turns out, Disney made two versions of this legendary story: an animated version in 1998 and a live action version in 2020. As I avoid decisions wherever possible, here are trailers for both.
55. Groovy: FAB. A sibling of 24D.
56. Sigma preceder: RHO.
58. Asian language: LAO.
Cheers,
Bill
As always, thanks to Teri for proof reading, for her constructive criticism.
waseeley
43 comments:
Although this puzzle was by no means easy (“Totoro,” anyone?) it proved doable at the end. And, unlike our genial commentator, I HAVE seen this type of “blank clue” puzzle before, plenty of times, and it’s one of my least favorite ones to solve. It’s time-consuming, difficult to suss, and you pretty much have to do the reveal before you can get any traction on it. That being said, I
did manage to FIR, so in the long run I ended up happy, but what a slog!
Orion loved his karaoke.
He sang with GUSTO in a low key.
He was a star
At that bar --
He really BELTED songs out, you see!
The AD REP coined a SLOGAN
For a DEALER of USED toboggans.
He said it was RAD,
He said it was FAB --
"Would you rather toboggan or log in?"
{A-, B+.}
Good morning!
'Twas not to be. There wasn't more than the normal ration of things d-o didn't know, but they were all piled together in the NW. POD, COCO, TOTORO, I'm lookin' at you. DIRECTOR was gettable, but there were just too many holes in it to see it. Plus, d-o was very smug for getting ANTE as "Not behind," (antebellum, for example). That turned out to be wrong, too. Bzzzzzt! Some days the bear eats you, and this was one of those days. This one just wasn't TAYLORed to my skill level. Thanx for the tour, Waseeley.
Took 12:01 today, so I was not on a roll.
While I can appreciate the wit/cleverness of this theme, it does not enhance by solving experience. Neither does: Totoro, Trieste, and Hutu.
Struggled in the top-left. Ager? I wanted "red cent" instead of percent, as in, I don't give one red cent....
I enjoyed "The Morning Show". Season 1 was better, but both good.
Figuring out the LET'S ROLL kinda fell into place after I guessed JAZZ DRUMMER and SUSHI CHEF after enough perps were in place. But there were so many unknowns it scrambled my brain to guess them. I've never heard of TOTORO, MODEL UN,BEASLEY, or COCO. The only place I've ever seen the term EM DASH is on this blog- just a dash to me. Double dash--who cares. But having four them fills just referring to another fill referring to the four would be impossible to fill without WAGS for many perps.
NEYO, ANISTON, COCO, MULAN, ORA unknown as clued. POD Save America, BEASLEY- total unknowns.
POLISH UP or FINISH UP
USED CDS or LPS
HUTU because TUTSI wouldn't fit
AD REP or AD MAN
AB TONER- never heard it called a toner, just AB roller. You can try and build muscle in any particular part of your body (legs, arms, or core) through exercise but you can't tell your body where to remove FAT. It likes to stay where you don't want it to stay.
Chairman MOE and his vacation? Most of the people on this blog are ALWAYS on vacation.
DNF. The NW held too many unknowns like Pod and Totoro, then add Model UN and the first two theme answers escaped me completely. I'm not a gambler so I didn't know a craps table had a dealer?
This was a difficult puzzle for a Thursday with its share of proper names.
This was a fun puzzle which I started finishing the theme answers by perps before getting the reveal answer- so they then filled quickly
"My Neighbor Totoro" is one of the first anime films to become a big success world-wide with the dubbing in English. Studio Ghibli is probably the most famous Japanese anime film studio.
"Let's Roll" brought me back to the famous recording of Todd Beamer on Flight 93 on the Sept. 11 attacks, when he and others tried to take control back of the plane that was hijacked. No one survived the crash- but they were able to have it land in a field in Pennsylvania instead of the intended target of the Capitol in DC
https://www.history.com/videos/the-todd-beamer-story-lets-roll
Thanks Bill & Teri for the blog and Taylor for the puzzle
Nina @8:14 AM Thank you for mentioning Todd Beamer and and thanks for the link. That famous statement from Flight 93 occurred to me as soon as I'd solved the reveal, but I just couldn't bring myself to write about it. As I recollect that day I was helping install a new operations center in Miami and another tech walked into the room and had us bring up the Towers on our PCs. His prophetic words were "Things will never be the same again".
David Alfred Bywaters has this to say (tongue in cheek I'm sure) as he presents us with a pair of crosswords he calls language acquisition:
"As I’ve said before, like all the best crossword constructors these days, I see my task as primarily one of social reform and human betterment. And so, more than two years ago, in April 2020, I turned my attention to international affairs, with the purpose of promoting world peace (see Crossword 180). But then I let the better part of a year go by without any further world-peace-promotion efforts, and in February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. I ask myself now—why didn’t I do more? Am I not partly to blame? So today I’m doubling down with a two-part crossword (replacing the multi-part series of years past) promoting the cause of international communication. I just hope I’m not too late!"
Here are the puzzles:
Language Acquisition, Part 1.
Language Acquisition, Part 1.
Enjoy!
TITT. I don’t have time today to devote to this CW since it is the kind I dislike, I.e. full of proper names I don’t know and sport references. I did get LET’S ROLL. I hope I get credit for that, and the reference to our charming Chairman.
I did however read Waseely very nice recap.
DNF, not even close. Way too many obscure and trivial showbiz bits for my liking. But I did like BRA and UPLIFTS. Those were FAB -- or should I say RAD. Took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that NYE didn't have anything to do with the Big Apple or that TV pseudoscientist.
Thanks to Bill 'n' Teri for the fun visual review. I especially liked the clarification of MONSOON. Like Taylor I thought it meant heavy rainfall, until I moved to Phoenix and found out it was defined by the prevailing wind. There it is associated with high humidity, although it often brings afternoon and evening thunderstorms. Flying into Sky Harbor Airport during those storms can be simultaneously beautiful and terrifying.
Musings
-Where’s the Xanax? OCD me always does the puzzles top to bottom and leaves the reveal for last. I held out and did get LET’S ROLL before I filled in what was left above.
-Three “solid” fills turned out to be repairable speed bumps.
-Me too on Todd Beamer.
-For most people, life on Earth is 99.999…% spent in of ONE-G
-TCU eliminated UVA in the CWS in Omaha this week
-Oops, I put SIRS for SIBS and had no idea on REASLER or BEASLER. But wait, that was wrong on both ends as I also had no idea on someone named NEYO for still obscure BEASLEY. I would have known, “Mrs. ___, Buffy’s doll on Family Affair
-POLISH UP – A process that sometimes went on up to minutes before I presented a lesson
-UPLIFTS – Our kitty does that for us
-Aren’t OPS ongoing and not curtailed?
-BELTED out a song? Gotta be Ethel Merman.
-Gotta run for a noon tee time in the hometown of Johnny Carson.
Too many obscure clues/answers…. so a DNF today. Sigh…. I guess computer generated puzzles and an editor that is content with annoying her audience is the norm now. kkFlorida
Definitely a tough Thursday, but ultimately sussable. With some glaring exceptions.
Did anyone else know that part of NYE was referring to New Years Eve?
This crossing an obscure sports team abbreviation was not fun at all, quite the alphabet run...
(Would 1st woman as a clue be too easy for a Thursday, given the obscure perp?)
Wand waving org. "T"sa was a groaner of a reveal for the T in Totoro. Another alpha run...
Oh well, if you didn't like todays puzzle, you could always use it for something else...
Good Morning:
No offense meant to the constructor, but this is my least favorite type of theme, for the reasons expressed in SG’s penultimate sentence. I did finish in normal time w/o help, but felt no sense of satisfaction or enjoyment. The chopped up grid and the lack of any discernible word play, plus the many perp-dependent entries (Totoro, Coco, Ne Yo, Mulan, and Beasley), only increased my negative experience.
Thanks, Taylor, and thanks, Bill, for the usual enlightening summary and the many links and musical interludes. I’m with HG on Ethel Merman being synonymous with Belter when it comes to songs. I, too, thought of Todd Beamer at Let’s Roll. RIP to all those innocent lost souls of 9/11.
FLN
Picard, I could no more ride that tram than I could ride your unicycle, the first due to acrophobia and the second due to klutziness. Good luck on the Saturday Solstice Mushroom Maneuvers!
ATLGranny, belated best wishes on your cataract surgery recovery.
Have a great day.
Pretty much a disaster: Saturday-like puzzle. Lots of unknowns crossing each other that would require some fancy WAGging. At the half-completed mark I threw in the pen. (Ah..now I know why LAZyBOY and Jennifer ANIShTON would work. 🙄)
ARE "you serious"? (No I'm Lebanese)
Ethel Merman could BELT out a song. She sang with "Gusto" until he retired.😆
Unfinished puzzle but... no end to silliness...
673 km...TRIESTE _____....AROMA
Digital routes on a GPS....ERODES
Loses the high noon duel....SLOGAN
Opposite of Amazon purchases....INSTORE
Heading for the Jersey Shore next week, Cape May. After a tough day yesterday drove the hour to camp to mow the lawn and spruce up for guests staying while away. Nearly finished when the blade fell out the bottom of the ancient lawn mower. Spent the rest of the evening on the dock with a beer and a book. Ahhhh.
📖 🍺
This one came out of the gate in rapid fashion, as I thought "wow, sure is easy for a Thursday!" Bzzt. Nope. Came to a screeching halt. Finally got the themers after the reveal, but still wound up with a big DNF. Too many clues were just over my head today.
Thanks for the puzzle and the comprehensive review. The Marcel Marceau clip fired some neurons and caused me to recall an incident that occurred when I was in my mid-twenties. I was watching Mel Brooks' "Silent Movie" in a theater and when Monsieur Marceau uttered the only word spoken in the movie I uttered an audible gasp of amazement. Not a single other person in the theater reacted at all. Oh well, each one of them gets the same single vote that I do in our elections.
Husker @9:09 AM ... and for the other 0.001% it's spent at ZERO G?
CED @9:53 ROLLing On The FLOOR Laughing! 🤣
Didn't like the puzzle and blame the editor as much as the constructor.
JB2
I just finished DAB's "Language Acquisition, Part 1". All word play except for one name, clued as "Biblical baby in a basket", but you'll probably guess that. 😁
Just realized that, once again, I neglected to thank Teri. So sorry, Teri, many thanks to you for keeping an eye on Bill’s musings and meanderings. 🤗
Way too hard for a Thursday. Same as a lot of them lately. Obscure crossings of one unknown after another. The fun is going out of, I would say at least three out of seven per week. Feel like they are being written and edited by Torquemada. Too much pain! Somebody enjoys playing the sadist. Let’s get back to the English language (basic 500,000 words) and forget all the relatively unknown proper nouns. Nuff said.
Interesting Thursday puzzle, many thanks, Taylor. And always enjoy your helpful commentary, Bill and Teri, thanks for that too.
Well, like the puzzle said: LET'S ROLL. Got some music and entertainment, with a DIRECTOR leading a JAZZ DRUMMER and his TROOP performing while a singer BELTED out songs designed to UPLIFT us, along with a MIME acting out the performance. Pretty good show.
Afterwards we went to a cafe where a CRAPS DEALER was playing, and we got to EAT some food from the SUSHI CHEF that we could enjoy along with some BOSH beer, while listening to some USED CDs. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.
Have a great day, everybody.
Hola!
Well. I did not find this as difficult as some of you other solvers. In fact, I was on the constructor's wave length almost immediately.
MULAN is one of those films that my girls (daughter, granddaughters) loved, so of course, they watched it multiple times. I loved the ending.
I don't drink beer but learned BOCK from CWDS.
Thankfully NEYO emerged. I would not have known it.
TOTORO is completely unknown.
NED. Though I've never watched a single episode of the Simpsons, I've learned the characters' names from CWDS. Also Rapppers, popular singers, etc.
CSO to our own MOE!
Have a wonderful day, everyone!
Hand up not so happy about the crossed proper names. Notably unknowns BEASLEY, FRAN, NEYO. Successful WAG there to FIR. But I did enjoy the LET'S ROLL theme.
My friend Yumi gave us a lesson in how to be a SUSHI CHEF.
Unfortunately, she used spam instead of seafood. Apparently, some people like that.
Irish Miss Thank you for the good wishes and your feelings about the ROOSEVELT ISLAND Aerial TRAM. If it is any consolation, my confidence was boosted when I read the plaque that it was made in Switzerland.
From Yesterday:
Jinx, Lucina, AnonT, sumdaze I am honored that just seeing -CYCLE makes you think of me! And thank you for the kind words about my photos.
Yesterday I rode three miles with that crazy big morel mushroom head piece. I realized I could do it, but it was just not fun. When people called out to me, I could not turn my head. Two friends are generously working on a new head piece for me. I am just about to head back to the Workshop to see what they have created.
Re. FLW* The PFC in Mad Men? He was Dinkins
ONE G was all perps. Thou(sand); AH YES, I get it now
Easy? SLC was UNK until UTE perped
I was in ChuLai during the October MONSOON. Never stopped raining for one minute
Oops. FIW on ANTe(before vs against(ANTI) for 'Not behind')
Both are correct but SI SI should have been apparent
I thought "Champagne Life" singer could be Peter NErO but opted for BEASLEY
So… What exactly is an EM DASH?
TRIS could be for Redsox legend Speaker
FIR minus one, typical for One Box Wilbur
Yes, testy even for a Thursday although Thursday used to be tough
WC
** From Last Week
Picard @ 1:31 ~ No consolation for this acrophobic, not even if the plaque said Made in Heaven! 🤭
Tried to post a comment on my iPhone early this morning, but kept having it dropped. Finally gave up. The post was something like this: Nope! I don't enjoy CWs with obscure names, even less when the names intersect. Only thing worse than that in a CW is having multiple cross-referencing clues, which amount to no clue at all. "See 57 across"? This CW was FULL of them. It was no joy to work on and I finally gave up after about 1/2 hour and only having about 1/3 of the cells filled. I did not like this CW. Thanx for the very nice write-up, Bill
A neat Thursday Johnson XWD brought to us by waseeley...
I was on a ROLL, at least for a while. I didn't get the starting (NW) corner til the end, but found the last section (SE) to be fairly easy.
~ OMK
____________
DR Three diagonals, far side.
The center diag has a lot of vowels, but it offers at least one anagram (11 of 15).
This describes the attitude of the orchestra conductor who has no respect for the high reed chair, referring to the guy as "That...
DUMHEAD OBOE!
For those of you NOT GRUNTLED with today's puzzle, there's still time to do the DAB puzzles I linked in at 8:35 AM (actually I think they'll be there foreverish). He treats us to 8 DAD jokes re "Language Acquisition" spread across 2 grids with sparse P&P that was easily perped.
🤣👍🏽
Aaargh!! Braaack!! 🤬
OPS curtailed, as in “abbreviated” I think.
====>. Darren / L.A.
Wilbur , in typography, a hyphen is a hyphen, a dash is a dash. Unless it's longer, the width of an "n", that's an en dash. And if it's longer still, to match an "m", it's an EM DASH.
I didn't feel any sense of accomplishment or satisfaction after finishing up this puzzle. Like KS, I didn't know craps had a dealer; I thought he is called a croupier.
Hand up for thinking NYE had something to do with New York. At least I knew the answer had to start with the letter N, the letter Y, or the letter E. After getting CRAPS DEALER and DESTINED I knew the first and last letters were both E, but had no idea whatsoever the middle letter was, regardless of the clue.
I had to change ONE K to ONE G because AKER just didn't make sense.
So, the FAUX ___ today was PAS.
Before I had to stop consuming alcohol, I loved BOCK beer.
I have been to a few SHARKS games.
Nice to see AMPERE spelled out in full.
Good wishes to you all.
Thx Wardsworth
Waseeley
-I know there are some who have been in 0-g in space, theme park rides, parachuting or some such for a short period of time.
-Nice write-up!
-Hot day in Norfolk, NE!
This morning I didn't have to dash off early to an appointment so settled down with the crossword and coffee after breakfast. After a while I had gotten all but part of the NW, SW, and the E—E and U—A crossing. (See my use of the EM DASH?)
After a break fixing lunch and cleaning up, PAPA, ONE G, and AGER came to me. I had thought of "Thou" referring to thousand but couldn't get kilo to work. I wasn't familiar with that part of the NATO sequence but knew it had to start with P.
Learning moment was that LA-Z-BOYS doesn't have a Y in the middle. I was familiar with the brand as my parents had not only a LA-Z-BOY recliner but also a sofa. When I got BOSS, that corner was finished.
I too thought of New York as the start of NYE so that really slowed things down there until more perps filled in. V was my last square filled, thanks to an alphabet run. Oh sure, it's New Years Eve. Huzzah! FIR!!!
Thanks, Taylor, for a super challenging puzzle that gives me great satisfaction to fill in right with no help. (DH didn't remember that part of the NATO thing.)
And thanks, waseeley and Teri for your super review. I really liked the drum battle. It reminded me of marching band and the drum corps.
See you all bright and early tomorrow!
TITT in NW and also a wrong WAG at BEASLE?/NE?O.
Thank you, Taylor. FAV: Degree of interest.
IIRC, -T told us about his youngest doing a MODEL UN. So that was in the punchbowl....
Hand up for thinking of Todd Beamer. His widow wrote a book titled LET'S ROLL. I read it but I do not think I have it anymore. I probably I passed it on to a friend.
Thank you for your uber-comprehensive write-up, Waseeley! Now I know why you were asking me about TRIS.
An update on my cataract surgery results for those interested:
2 days after my second surgery I am enjoying clear pain-free vision and am getting used to using readers to look at my phone and small print that's closer than an arm's length away.
I had dreaded this surgery for 3 years when my original surgeries were cancelled because of the COVID shutdown.
I had already started using glasses to get ready for the surgeries, putting aside the hard contacts I had constantly worn for 58 years, the last 25 years having monovision. I dreaded putting in drops since I had never had to do that. I could put my finger on my eyeball but drops, no.
As my vision got worse even with my most recent glasses' prescription, I stopped driving; had three serious falls with two of them breaking bones, the last one breaking my glasses and giving me a black eye; and I had more and more trouble writing checks, threading needles, and reading actual books (as well as the Sunday puzzle's small print and squares) even with my glasses on to correct my vision. I didn't want to get a new prescription for glasses when the cataracts were also darkening and yellowing what I saw.
So I got brave and rescheduled my surgeries at last. The weeks before the first one I continued worrying about the eye drop requirement and that, God forbid, the surgery might leave me worse off than I was. I did my daily walks around the neighborhood thinking, "I can see OK, it's just that I can't see clearly very far."
Well, poppycock! Now I know what good vision is. Bright colors and white whites. Sharp letters on signs, words on the TV that I can read now, and thanks to the extra readers DH had around that he is letting me use until my follow up appt in a month when my eyes have settled down, I can clearly see small print and everything on my phone without straining. During the past two days I felt like I was back in my forties when my eyes changed and I got readers to use with my contacts (until I got monovision eventually which worked great for years).
Even my left eye, the one just done Tuesday, had a lot of darkening, yellowing and was blurry–which I finally noticed between the surgeries when I could compare it to the first eye, my right one, that had the new lens. ( My myopia came in handy between surgeries as I didn't wear glasses but had a kind of monovision with the unfixed eye seeing close pretty well during the two weeks.)
So, thanks to all who sent me good wishes. Thanks to all who went before me and gave encouraging reports. And if you are putting off getting your eyes fixed, take it from me: DON'T WAIT. IT'S GREAT!
Now it's time to go to bed and put in my last drop for the day. And yes, now I can usually get the drop in on the first try. Gute Nacht.
ATL Granny
Congratulations on having your cataracts removed! I know exactly how you feel having worn prescription glasses since I was 16. Now I only use readers and it's wonderful.
It's also gratifying to know I don't have to buy prescription glasses at $500 or more every three years or so.
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