The Wood Wide Web
In 1995 ecologist Suzanne Simard discovered that trees communicate with one another via a vast underground network of FUNGI. Recently cruciverbalist and engineer Barbara Lin* has discovered that trees actually have FUN while they're doing this. Apparently they exchange PUNNY
homophones to amuse themselves while they carry out their essential
work of world-wide photosynthesis. Their real favorites of course are Stupid Ent Jokes 😀.
To construct this puzzle Barbara simply pressed her ears firmly to the ground and picked up these four themers -- exchanges of tree root straight lines and pun responses ...
To construct this puzzle Barbara simply pressed her ears firmly to the ground and picked up these four themers -- exchanges of tree root straight lines and pun responses ...
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| New mom Fizzy and two of her FUR BABIES |
27A. Shade tree that's been pruned too severely?: TOPLESS BEECH.
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| Topless beach voting |
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| A trio actually with her 2nd and 3rd runner up |
62. Recently developed conifer cultivar?: THE NEW YEW.
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| So how far are you going to take this new year, new ewe resolution? |
Here's the grid, sans reveal, sans stars, and sans circles (I hope at least one person is happy 😀) ...
Across:
1. Marketing target for K'nex Mighty Makers: GIRL. Targeted toys to get girls interested not just interested in STEM, but STEAM, with the inclusion of ARTS. I'd add to that ENGLISH and ETHICS. Creation is after all, a multi-disciplinary endeavor.
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| Intro to Structures K’NEX Education |
5. Mass transit option: RAIL.
9. Immature beetles: GRUBS.
14. Notion: IDEA.
15. White-bellied mammal: ORCA. ORCAS love to gobble up the cruciverbalist's other favorite white-bellied mammal, the Sea OTTER.
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| Sea Otter |
19. Meaningless, as a gesture: EMPTY.
20. Tangled: SNARLED.
21. Scratch (out): EKE.
23. __-Mex: TEX. My best friend lived in Texas for over 20 years and we visited him often. It was there that we first had Fajitas (yummy!). Here's a recipe ...
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| Steak Fajitas |
25. Medal metal: BRONZE.
27. [Theme clue]
32. Accords, e.g.: CARS. The CARS was also the name an American new wave band formed in Boston in 1976. Emerging from the new wave scene in the late 1970s, they consisted of Ric Ocasek (rhythm guitar), Benjamin Orr (bass guitar), Elliot Easton (lead guitar), Greg Hawkes (keyboards), and David Robinson (drums). Ocasek and Orr shared lead vocals, and Ocasek was the band's principal songwriter and leader. Here's My Best Friend's Girl (lyrics):
35. Irish __: SEA. A CSO to Agnes.
36. Writer Dillard: ANNIE. ANNIE Dillard (née Doak; born April 30, 1945)[1] is an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 1974 work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. From 1980, Dillard taught for 21 years in the English department of Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Connecticut. Here's some of her advice on writing.
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| Annie Dillard |
38. Cook quickly: STIR FRY. A year or so back a picture in one of C.C.'s reviews inspired me to come up with this recipe of a :Pine nut and Corn stir fry. It cooks quickly, but the prep time is about an hour. The recipe is still available on C.C.'s Ginger Roots blog.
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| Pine nuts and Corn Stir Fry |
42. Part of a network: MODEM. A MODulator-DEModulator or MODEM is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for analog transmission over a medium such as telephone, radio (WIFI), coaxial cable, or fiber optic cable (see 8D). They are most often used at the end-points of router networks (i.e. the Internet backbone) to connect to local area networks (LANS) in offices and homes. The first time I ever accessed a remote computer from my home was via an acoustically coupled MODEM, connected directly to the earpiece/speaker of an analogue phone. It was running at speed of 300 bits/sec (approximately 33 bytes/sec with parity checking).
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| Acoustically coupled MODEM |
45. Stern greeting?: AHOY.
46. [Theme clue]
50. Easy-to-wash carpet: RAG RUG.
51. Gumbo pod: OKRA.
54. Ctrl-__-Del: ALT.
56. As well: TOO.
57. "How We Do (Party)" singer: RITA ORA. Girls just want to have fun ...
60. Clean out: PURGE.
62. [Theme clue]
64. Checkups: EXAMS.
65. Help when one shouldn't: ABET. Not all such help is criminal, but it may still be harmful, e.g.when playing a game of I'm only trying to help you!
66. Proactiv target: ACNE.
67. Last stop, often: DEPOT.
68. "Star Wars" film starring Alden Ehrenreich: SOLO. Han looks a lot different since I saw him last, but Chewbacca hasn't changed a bit ...
69. Pro choices?: YEAS.
Down:
1. Some embedded images: GIFS. The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; /ɡɪf/ GHIF or /dʒɪf/ JIF, see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on June 15, 1987. This one makes the World go round ...
.gif)
2. Checking the age of, say: IDING. Three syllable word.
3. Aired again: RERAN.
4. Research subjects with whiskers: LAB RATS. MICE didn't perp.
5. Garment that may match slippers: ROBE.
6. Like Death Valley: ARID. But not as ARID as the Atacama Desert in Chile and the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica, at least according to this article about all things dry.
7. Old fashioned rocks?: ICE. A CSO to our friend Tinbeni
8. Elements of fiber optic communications: LASERS. An acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Fiber optic communications make use of fiber optic modems to transmit digital information via light pulses. I think Barbara is showing her engineering chops in this clue and 42A.
9. NFL city with the smallest population: GREEN BAY. GREEN BAY, Wisconsin, with a population of 107,395, home of the NFL Green Bay Packers. And here's where they play (looks like the whole town was there that night) ...
10. Sleep cycle: REM. Also a rock band. R.E.M. was from Athens, Georgia, and was formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. Here's Everybody Hurts from their 1992 album Automatic for the People ...
12. Sharp quality: BITE.
13. "Mr. Roboto" band: STYX. Here's their Come Sail Away ...
18. Quartet member: ALTO. Here's ALTO Barbara Streisand all by herself with The Music That Makes Me Dance (lyrics) ...
22. Levels, briefly: KOS.
25. Tight squeeze: BEAR HUG.
26. __ garden: ZEN. What are they and how can you create one?
28. Rose Parade setting?: PST. Pacific Standard Time.
29. Island floral arrangement: LEI.
30. "Later!": CIAO.
31. Lamarr in the National Inventors Hall of Fame: HEDY. Austrian actress HEDY Lamarr and her musician friend George Antheil were awarded a patent for an early form of encrypted radio communication that led to their posthumous induction in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.
Antheil's music was modernist and he liked to style himself as The Bad Boy of Music (the title of his memoir) -- e.g. at solo performances he would pull a revolver out of his pocket and lay it on his piano!. Here's his Airplane Sonata, which doesn't sound all that bad compared with much modern music ...
64. Checkups: EXAMS.
65. Help when one shouldn't: ABET. Not all such help is criminal, but it may still be harmful, e.g.when playing a game of I'm only trying to help you!
66. Proactiv target: ACNE.
67. Last stop, often: DEPOT.
68. "Star Wars" film starring Alden Ehrenreich: SOLO. Han looks a lot different since I saw him last, but Chewbacca hasn't changed a bit ...
69. Pro choices?: YEAS.
Down:
1. Some embedded images: GIFS. The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; /ɡɪf/ GHIF or /dʒɪf/ JIF, see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on June 15, 1987. This one makes the World go round ...
.gif)
2. Checking the age of, say: IDING. Three syllable word.
3. Aired again: RERAN.
4. Research subjects with whiskers: LAB RATS. MICE didn't perp.
5. Garment that may match slippers: ROBE.
6. Like Death Valley: ARID. But not as ARID as the Atacama Desert in Chile and the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica, at least according to this article about all things dry.
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| Chalbi Desert, North Kenya (not the driest) |
8. Elements of fiber optic communications: LASERS. An acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Fiber optic communications make use of fiber optic modems to transmit digital information via light pulses. I think Barbara is showing her engineering chops in this clue and 42A.
9. NFL city with the smallest population: GREEN BAY. GREEN BAY, Wisconsin, with a population of 107,395, home of the NFL Green Bay Packers. And here's where they play (looks like the whole town was there that night) ...
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| Lambeau Field |
11. Indefinite ordinal: UMPTEENTH. I think this is the UMPTEENTH time we've had REM in an LAT puzzle.
12. Sharp quality: BITE.
13. "Mr. Roboto" band: STYX. Here's their Come Sail Away ...
18. Quartet member: ALTO. Here's ALTO Barbara Streisand all by herself with The Music That Makes Me Dance (lyrics) ...
22. Levels, briefly: KOS.
25. Tight squeeze: BEAR HUG.
26. __ garden: ZEN. What are they and how can you create one?
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| Zen Garden No Koi allowed |
28. Rose Parade setting?: PST. Pacific Standard Time.
29. Island floral arrangement: LEI.
30. "Later!": CIAO.
31. Lamarr in the National Inventors Hall of Fame: HEDY. Austrian actress HEDY Lamarr and her musician friend George Antheil were awarded a patent for an early form of encrypted radio communication that led to their posthumous induction in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.
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| Hedy Lamarr |
32. Sleep in a tent: CAMP.
33. Lotion additive: ALOE.
34. Where a zipper may get caught?: RADAR TRAP. Clever clue!
38. Exhaust-ive check?: SMOG TEST. The SMOG coming out of your car's tailpipe during an emissions TEST?
39. Charge: FEE.
40. Whiskey choice: RYE.
43. MLB stat that's good when it's low: ERA.
45. "Glad to take questions": ASK AWAY. But please wait until after the review is finished ... 😀
47. To counterpart: FRO.
48. Target numbers: QUOTAS.
49. Bill: NOTE.
52. British automaker who partnered with Charles Rolls: ROYCE. How Rolls met Royce.
53. Olympic venue: ARENA.
54. Mirrored: APED.
55. Fancy-schmancy: LUXE.
57. Film spool: REEL.
58. Excited about: INTO.
59. Floors: AWES.
61. Frankenfood initials: GMO. Genetically Modified Organisms. The clue implies that foods containing GMOs are monsters. There is considerable controversy over GMOs, especially with regard to their release outside laboratory environments. The dispute involves consumers, producers, biotechnology companies, governmental regulators, non-governmental organizations, and scientists. Many of these concerns involve GM crops and whether food produced from them is safe and what impact growing them will have on the environment.
I'm not taking sides on this issue, but I'm reminded of this refrigerator magnetic that one of my granddaughters gave us ...
63. "Curb Your Enthusiasm" network: HBO. I'm not enthusiastic about this show.
That's it for the clues, but you're not out of the woods yet ...
Cheers,
Bill
33. Lotion additive: ALOE.
34. Where a zipper may get caught?: RADAR TRAP. Clever clue!
38. Exhaust-ive check?: SMOG TEST. The SMOG coming out of your car's tailpipe during an emissions TEST?
39. Charge: FEE.
40. Whiskey choice: RYE.
43. MLB stat that's good when it's low: ERA.
45. "Glad to take questions": ASK AWAY. But please wait until after the review is finished ... 😀
47. To counterpart: FRO.
48. Target numbers: QUOTAS.
49. Bill: NOTE.
52. British automaker who partnered with Charles Rolls: ROYCE. How Rolls met Royce.
53. Olympic venue: ARENA.
54. Mirrored: APED.
55. Fancy-schmancy: LUXE.
57. Film spool: REEL.
58. Excited about: INTO.
59. Floors: AWES.
61. Frankenfood initials: GMO. Genetically Modified Organisms. The clue implies that foods containing GMOs are monsters. There is considerable controversy over GMOs, especially with regard to their release outside laboratory environments. The dispute involves consumers, producers, biotechnology companies, governmental regulators, non-governmental organizations, and scientists. Many of these concerns involve GM crops and whether food produced from them is safe and what impact growing them will have on the environment.
I'm not taking sides on this issue, but I'm reminded of this refrigerator magnetic that one of my granddaughters gave us ...
That's it for the clues, but you're not out of the woods yet ...
Bill
And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.
waseeley
*I once subbed for חֲתוּלָה for a Barbara Lin puzzle. She's a constructor to keep an eye on. There is a very brief bio on Barbara you can search for on the Inkubator site.
waseeley
*I once subbed for חֲתוּלָה for a Barbara Lin puzzle. She's a constructor to keep an eye on. There is a very brief bio on Barbara you can search for on the Inkubator site.
40 comments:
Although this puzzle wasn’t TOO difficult, it did contain quite a bit of misdirection and double meanings. On the other hand, there were few proper name obscurities. Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
Smooth execution by Barbara. Tuneful expo by waseeley. Rain falling in redneckland. What's not to like?
STEAK FAJITAS -- We went out for Tex-Mex last night: chile relleno for her, tacos al carbon for him.
GREEN BAY -- It was our nearest "big city" when I was growing up, about half the size it is today. For quite some time WBAY was the only TV station we could get. We used to watch their test pattern in the afternoon, waiting for Howdy Doody to come on.
Took 9:50 today for me to spruce up.
Seemed like a Thursday level puzzle ... on a Thursday.
Yes, I am grateful for the lack of those dreaded circles.
(I am boldly assuming it was me that you were referring to.)
Anonymous @ 5:49 AM The thought never crossed my mind. 😁
waseeley@6:02 a.m. - Bill, I assume your last message was “tongue in cheek “ as they say. Obviously, my good friend Anonymous DNLC (who IM and I call “SS,” for “Speedy Solver”) must have been the person you were referring to in your off-hand comment about “circles” - it’s in his very designation! If that’s the case, very witty! I just love the clever “repartee” on this site! You guys are the best!
SG @6:52 AM IIRC correctly yours truly was the one who coined the AnonymousDNLC moniker and I love the guy (not that we always see O to O!). And I love the way that you always EMCEE the morning party with a little happiness. 😊
FIR without erasure - two days in a row!
Today is:
NATIONAL APPLE BETTY DAY (another delicious-sounding item that I’ve never tried)
NATIONAL DO SOMETHING NICE DAY (callback for the Put Another Log on the Fire link we just enjoyed a couple of days ago)
NATIONAL GET FUNKY DAY (apparently “funky” can mean anything from intercourse to firearm violence, and a lot of stuff in between)
I like Writer Dillard's department stores.
I'll CAMP again tonight, but hardly in a tent. Going home tomorrow, a day early, because there is a nasty-looking cold bringing wind Saturday. Gotta do a couple of laundry loads today in our little Splendide washer/dryer.
I'm getting old. I liked FIR BABIES better than TOPLESS BEECH, I guess if you've seen two, you've seen 'em all.
Everyone knows what a MODEM is, but how many know what a MULDEM is? (Multiplexer / demultiplexer; aggregates 28 T1 signals into a single T3 and vice versa.)
Thanks to Barbara for the fun, clever poser, and to Bill 'n' Teri for 'splainin' it all.
FIR. I didn't see Rita Ora and puzzled at the answer as ritaora? Had to come here to get it.
Last to fall for me was the cross of sea and PST. For some reason this just wouldn't come to me. And then it did!
Nice Thursday CW and a very clever theme.
A fairly easy offering for a Thursday. FIR. Nuff said.
THX, Barbara and Bill for your efforts.
UP, UP and AWAY!
Musings
-A lesser person would start by calling this a TREEMENDOUS puzzle, but not me!
-GRUBS are a horrible discovery if you turn over a piece of sod in your yard
-My golf partner is tired of Nebraska winters and may become a permanent Texican
-Internet issues? Go upstream and restart the computer, then the router and then the MODEM
-Inert helium can be used to PURGE a rocket engine system
-Like Lincoln, GREEN BAY is still hoping for a return of championship teams
-RADAR TRAP – I consider everyone who passes me to be a canary in the coal mine
-I think most movie theaters now consider REELS to be dinosaurs
Terrific Thursday. Thanks for the fun, Barbara, and waseeley and Teri.
I FIRed in good time and saw the vowel movement to create those trees.
Several inkblots.
I changed Emission to SMOG TEST. After wrinkling my nose to enter S’up at 44A, I had to change it to HEY.
I smiled at the misdirections with CARS, AWES, AHOY (favourite),
Unknown-to-me names and Americanisms perped. But even this Canadian knows the GREEN BAY Packers.
I noted ALT and ALTO.
A LA on tope of MODE(M) was cute.
Wishing you all a great day.
Not a bad Thursday challenge and a fun theme. NOTE x’ed with RITA and EKE x’ed KOS gave me 🐾 and the last to topple for the win.
Where a zipper may get caught? OWIE !!! 😨 (oooh….a speedster driving an “Accord”). Yesterday we had “Secret” deodorant today ARID. Don’t know what “Irish” TEA is, betcha there’s booze in the blender. I thought K’nex was an abbr. for Kleenex? I guess Hedy was a “Mighty Maker”
RAGRUG? Sounds like you should toss it not wash it. Almost tried Nymph for GRUBS but it hadda be plural. 🪲
WAZ found lotsa included and band names and added some of his own I see 😎
Having an original thought….IDING
Losing the first time the candidate _____ …..RERAN
Dorothy was floored to meet the Wizard of ___ …. AWES
Hadda lotta lawns to cut but ____ all….MODEM
CA city imps…. LABRATS
FLN Vid
I’m old so work part time. Hence lotsa vacay
HuskerG- great line with TREEMENDOUS puzzle!
Another misdirection was PST. There was nothing in the clue to indicate an abbreviation for that time setting. (Slight nit or allowable with the ?)
Good Morning! I didn’t know if I’d get to the finish line today. It felt like I clawed my way thru letter by letter. Noted exceptionally deceptive, but gettable, cluing. I loved the play on words theme. Thanks, Barbara, for a fun challenge.
And, thanks, Bill & Teri for your recap. I must postpone your opening clip and intro about trees – busy day to get to.
I will sadly have a Honey Locust removed from my front yard later this month. It’s covered with powdery mildew & I feel bad knowing they have communication skills. Now I’ll have to think of it as euthanasia. 😥
Not familiar with Annie or Rita but the puzzle was brilliant and Hedy’s picture is a work of art
FIR in about average time for me for a Thursday CW. Several DNKs, including RITAORA, but managed with perps. SW gave me problems for a while because I had stupidly written HMO where GMO was supposed to go. Not sure how that happened, I gnu better. 24A GNAT is indeed a tiny pest. A certain type of marsh grass is the favorite home of no-see-ums, even smaller critters that come out and eat you alive right around sunrise and sunset. So tiny I always wonder how they can manage to bite. Last cell in CW to fill was the “S” at 35A: coulda been SEA or TEA, as I didn’t catch the time misdirection at 28D. Lucky me guessed “S”, and I waited for Bill to ‘Splain how PST was Pasadena. 4D I thought RODENTS, but fortunately waited for perps. GIRL was all perps, as I DNK K’nex. Overall a nice Thursday level fun CW, thanx BL. And a big thanx to Bill, too, for the wonderful write-up. All the time and effort is appreciated. BTW Bill you have a typo near the beginning: you meant STEM and STEAM, but wrote STEAM and STEAM.
unclefred @ 9:29 AM Thanks for catching the typo Uncle. It's fixed.
PUNNY or misspelled words? But I learned a few NEW things today. RITA ORA seems to be replacing MEL OTT and Bobby ORR in Crossword Land. I'd never heard of a RAG RUG but as I write this there are four workers upstairs removing old carpet and installing new carpets in bedrooms that nobody sleeps in. SMOG TEST was an unknown; in LA, in order to get an inspection sticker a tailpipe test to see if your car has use LEADED gasoline.
Clues for RADAR TRAP and AHOY were great ones. First thoughts were definitely NOT cars or the back of a boat.
ANNIE Dillard, SOLO, GIRL- unknown as clued.
MODEM- a 300 baud modem. Ours was faster at 1200 baud that we had to rent from Ma Bell.
TOPLESS BEECH- the only nudist colony near NOLA closed up a couple of years ago BUT there is a Naked Bicycle Ride held yearly in the French Quarter. Never seen it but I'm sure it should be "clothing by popular vote" instead of optional.
Clever misdirection in today's effort, with a reasonable amount of crunch. Never heard of smog tests, and it's been awhile since our emissions were tested at the tailpipe. Nowadays they just plug in under the dash. Other than Hedy, the names were unknown, but perps took care of 'em. An enjoyable outing.
Real fun puzzle today. I hope we get more CWs from Barbara in the future. As soon as I got FIR BABIES, I knew i was in for a good time.
I was stumped however on the very first across clue because my mind kept seeing Kleenex. However since no letter other than G would fit once I got the other letters, I was able to FIR.
ANNIE Dillard is an extraordinarily talented writer whose work I’ve read over the years.
Waseely gave us a fine and fun review. Great morning.
Hola!
I have no idea about K'nex Mighty Makers and don't even know what kind of product it is but GIRL perped easily. Bah on I'DING. I just don't like it. But I will say that I was carded until I was about 35.
My best memory of my great-grandmother is of her in her rocking chair making RAG RUGS out of old socks and other discards. Every room in her home had one. I don't know what happened to them but I wish I had just one of them.
PEAR OF QUEENS really made me laugh. Stern greeting was good, too and then AHOY crossing CIAO. Well done, Barbara Lin!
HEDY LaMarr is a model of brains and beauty!
This was a really good Thursday puzzle!
Have a wonderful day, everyone!
Puzzling thoughts:
Cute puzzle and terrific write up
This puzzle took me about 1/3 longer (in time) to complete than the other puzzles of the week; primarily due to a number of words and phrases that required the perps to solve. As I've mentioned ad nauseam my ability to type in the words (on line) is much slower than solving by pen on paper
Still, I think that Thursday puzzles are the second hardest to solve (Saturday is still #1)
I didn't notice the ARID today with SECRET yesterday ... a lot of focus on our armpits it seems
With that in mind, I am going to revisit my blog for tomorrow and see if any other deodorant brands show up ...
Favorites of the bunch of homophones today were TOPLESS BEECH followed by PEAR OF QUEENS
Has anyone else noticed that Irish Miss hasn't posted in a few days? Hope she's ok
I forgot to mention: 9D GREENBAY was a gimme, me being a cheesehead. “Smallest population city to have an NFL team” is just one of the many unique things about the Packers. I just hope they have their key players back in the game soon. So many are out with injuries. Seems the same thing every year: great looking line-up, could go all the way, then most of their key players are out of the game with injuries early in the season. Oy.
Just looked it up: most injured team = Patriots; 2nd Colts; 3rd Packers. Least injured team = Dolphins.
Thanks, Barbara, for the treerific puzzle! Finally parsing THE NEW YEW wrapped it up for me but I needed waseeley's review to understand why it was PST. (Irish SEA seemed more likely than Irish tEA.)
Several fun FAVs: Old fashion rocks?, Medal metal, and Stern greeting?
Thanks, waseeley, for the fine review! Great start with the TedEd tree video!
H-G@8:58. I think you meant "wonderful discovery". How lucky to see such interesting critters and to know that you are supporting biodiversity right in your own backyard! #FoodChain
MOE @12:11 PM -- Just got this news from Agnes ...
Hi Bill,
Thank you for your concern. I have been under the weather since Monday's COVID shot. I had strong reactions including nausea, chills, fatigue, body aches, and a very sore arm. I'm just now feeling closer to normalcy and plan on posting tomorrow. This was my 6th shot and the only one that caused such distress. I hope it's as effective as it was discomforting!
Thanks, again and say hi to Teri!
Agnes ☘️
A zipper caught? Watch "Something About Mary" for that
Waseeley takes us through this Lin XWD.
Yay! Got 'em all, after a bit of a struggle. This was one in which interdependency really mattered; there were very few fills to be had in isolation. You had to use perps throughout.
Few freebies, like 51A...
~ OMK
____________
DR:. One diagonal, near side.
Its anagram (14 of 15) apparently honors a third-grade teaching pageant, a theatrical representation of where the children come from!
But what is this?!
Why are the young actors decked out in homemade costumes that look like spiral ladders?
Why, they must be...
"GENE PORTRAYERS"!
Musings 2
-I got in 18 today on a VERY windy day on the prairie.
-Sumdaze, I’m for supporting diversity but having a dead lawn is not one of them! I switched from blue grass to fescue and don’t have any issue any more.
-Agnes, what a story! I’m glad you are on the rebound! Joann and I got two shots and have not had any more. This place ain’t the same without you.
-Thanks for checking up on her, Bill.
To waseeley and HG:
I too received an email from Miss Irish Miss regarding her COVID shot experience; you are correct that it ain't the same without her comments ... she said she'd be back tomorrow
Hope to read IM☘️ tomorrow.
Thank You Barbara Lin for a cute and punny puzzle for the Thursday. I was not familiar with some of the names, and even the long answers ... but it seemed the reasonable guesses. Fortunately, they all turned out OK. ;-)
Thank You Waseely, and Teri, for your very interesting commentary on the puzzle. I was especially intrigued to find out ... why PST ? Okay, so thats why...
It was very curious and a learning experience to read through all the links you had so graciously provided. So much to learn !! Especially, since I dont play Poker...
Especially, The Secret Language, etc. Maybe, thats why, truffles are so difficult or even impossible to cultivate ....
I bought every device and game, I could think of, to get my two daughters to study STEM in high school, and take up Engineering as their major in college. They both did the first part, but didnt follow up for the second part ....
Onto Friday, the difficult day ...
Have a great Friday, and a wonderful weekend, you all.
I forgot to mention ...
: HuskerG's comment ....
Radar Trap :: ... I consider everybody who passes me to be a canary in a coal mine ....
I could not agree with you more ... except that, now that I'm even older and weaker, ... Everybody just passes me anyway.
OMK @4:05 PM Hold that thought - you be to recycle it next week.
Hi All!
Thanks Barbara for a fun Thursday puzzle - great theme!
Thanks Waseeley for an exhaustive Thursday review. Ent jokes were cute.
Oh, and thanks for the report on IM!
WOs: QUOTeS -> QuAOTAS
ESPs: PST, ANNIE, RITA ORA,
Fav: c/a at AHOY
Great DR, OMK.
I knew what K'nex were but confused why marketed to JUST GIRLS(?)
One year Secure World Houston gave out Hedy Lamarr coasters.
My first MODEM was 300 baud plugged into an Apple ][e. Well, it was actually a buddy's but we both wrote the dialer programs.
Enjoyed reading everyone!
Cheers, -T
Thank you, Barbara, and thank you, waseeley.
No real problems w/ the solve, but then I got to the review and the Tex-Mex image. We have chicken fajitas quite often, but it has been years since we've made beef fajitas. I put down the computer and went to the grocery store. That's what we had tonight. D-lish!
It's actually kind of surprising, because when I was making the marinade, I realized that I had put in two teaspoons of chili powder instead of the intended one. I didn't tell her of my error, and she thought the seasoning was really good. I think the pico and the guac toppings may have muted the extra chili powder! Whew!
Time for the football game.
-T @6:49 PM Way cool on the Hedy coasters. 👍
I appreciate you too, waseeley and many others here …
almost as much as I dislike those dreaded circles.
ExTREEmely enjoyable traipse through today’s cw; very clever theme gags, a lotta grins (fave was THENEWYEW) and nothing that was ridiculously obfuscated.
Yes, Lambeau Field looks full in that pic, Mr. Bill — because it always is! Cheeseheads are one fiercely loyal bunch. I may be a native CA dude, but the Packers are “my” team. Why? Because it’s the only team in the NFL that isn’t owned by some rich ego-maniac (well, there are a couple of decent owners…but I digress).
Also being from CA, I got a slam-dunk on SMOGTEST — the bane of every “car guy” in our state. Just try getting an older BMW to pass, after the state cut the allowed NOx emissions to half of what the car was allowed new… I need the word AAARGH! in our puzzle next to that entry. 😝
====> Darren / L.A.
Check tomorrow's NYT puzzle by CC.
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