Saturday Themeless by Rafael Musa
Rafael did not litter his puzzle with obscure names that are the bane of my solving existence. Like Sisyphus, I just kept moving the boulder up, the hill, slid back and eventually I ran out of blank cells. AMATEUR was my last fill, I got the Congratulations icon and felt relieved.
1. The worst: AWFUL.
6. Clicking sounds?: AHAS.
10. "Um, sure": OH, OK.
14. Excelled: SHONE.
15. Firm message?: MEMO 😀
16. First woman to serve as attorney general: RENO - Janet RENO was appointed after two other women withdrew because of issues with gov't regs over nannies they hired. Ms. RENO immediately was confronted with the horrible standoff with David Koresh and his followers in Waco, TX.
17. Kangaroo Island critter: KOALA - As you might expect in the land down under. It is 11 hrs WNW from Melbourne by car and ferry.
18. __ argument: ORAL.
19. Something to draw before bedtime: BATH - 😀 Oh, that use of the word draw.
20. Basis of some bonuses: SALES QUOTA.
19. Something to draw before bedtime: BATH - 😀 Oh, that use of the word draw.
20. Basis of some bonuses: SALES QUOTA.
22. FedEx rival: DHL.
23. Startling revelation: STUNNER and 41. Startling revelation: EYE OPENER.
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| They didn't fit! |
24. 'Tis in the past: TWAS 😀
Jabberwocky
’TWAS brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
28. Aid in avoiding viruses: IT SUPPORT - I quickly got off the medical idea and finally the correct answer appeared.
30. AP competitor: UPI.
31. Decisive periods, briefly: OTS - Unlike the regular season, during the NFL playoffs and tomorrow's Super Bowl, play will be continued until someone wins in OverTime.
32. On the move: ROLLING.
34. Scientific journal that published the initial sequencing of the human genome: NATURE.
31. Decisive periods, briefly: OTS - Unlike the regular season, during the NFL playoffs and tomorrow's Super Bowl, play will be continued until someone wins in OverTime.
32. On the move: ROLLING.
34. Scientific journal that published the initial sequencing of the human genome: NATURE.
36. Name on the business school at the University of Arkansas: WALTON and 50. Back: FUND. The family of Wal~Mart founder Sam Walton donated fifty million dollars to the University's business school and henceforth it was named The Sam M. WALTON school of business.
37. Mopes: ACTS SAD.
39. Lead-in to X, Y, and Z: GEN - Am I the only one who tried UVW (correction-hg)? 😗
40. Uber stat: ETA.
43. All hands on deck: CREW - The CREW of the U.S.S. Arizona in 1928.
44. Nonhumans that quickly buy up concert tickets: BOTS - Ticketmaster et al. use BOTS to get so many tickets to resell at their markup, it makes it very hard and/or very expensive to get tickets.
45. Some flavored drinks: ICE TEAS.
47. Earth Day mo.: APR.
48. Gets carried away at a concert?: CROWD SURFS.
52. Consider: DEEM.
54. Flat-topped hat: KEPI - Captain Renault is wearing his KEPI in this famous scene near the end of Casablanca
55. Keep busy: TIE UP - Brave soldiers of the French First Army kept the Germans TIED UP until over 300,000 men were evacuated at "The Miracle Of Dunkirk".
56. __ school: GRAD - Most of my drives to The University Of Omaha to get my GRAD degree could have been eliminated today by doing most of the work online.
57. Cask sediment: LEES.
58. Rock memoir with the chapters "Nut Bush" and "River Deep": I TINA - BTW, she was born in Nut Bush, TN
59. "Good __": Alton Brown series: EATS.
60. Ciudad del __: Paraguay's second-largest city: ESTE.
61. Splits: RENDS.
Down:
1. Poses: ASKS.
2. "Stop right there": WHOA and 49. Means of control: REIN.
3. Stable baby: FOAL - Not colt
4. "What if ... ": UNLESS - "UNLESS we work together, we are doomed." "What if we cooperate?"
5. LCD component?: LEAST - We all learned in grade school that to add 1/2 + 1/3 we have to use the Least Common Denominator which is 6; thus 3/6 + 2/6 = 5/6.
6. Comes (to): AMOUNTS.
7. Bitterns, e.g.: HERONS.
7. Bitterns, e.g.: HERONS.
8. "You clearly have no idea what you're doing": AMATEUR 😀
9. Light run?: SOLAR POWERED - These huge SOLAR cells POWER the International Space Station
9. Light run?: SOLAR POWERED - These huge SOLAR cells POWER the International Space Station
10. __-weaver spider: ORB.
11. Lead role in a TV show: HEAD WRITER: Dick Van Dyke played the lead role in The Dick Van Dyke Show where he played the HEAD WRITER Rob Petrie.
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13. Retailer that began as a grocery store in Milwaukee: KOHL'S.
21. Spot of bother: QUITE A PICKLE.
24. Congestion pricing charge: TOLL.
25. Product auctioned at Tokyo's historic Tsukiji Market: TUNA.
26. Sci-fi subgenre: SPACE OPERA.
27. Burmese food?: KITTY TREAT - Not as difficult as I feared. Here's a cute Burmese KITTY having a TREAT!
29. "What's the __?": PLAN.
31. Ish: OR SO - I am seventyish
33. Nibble: GNAW.
35. Finds a place for: USES.
38. Pronounces: DECREES.
39. Mouth off: GET WISE - Sometimes you should GET WISE not to GET WISE
42. Virtual companion: NEO PET.
43. Executive level: C-SUITE.
44. Access card: BADGE
46. Buzzing: ASTIR.
51. Spring break destinations?: SPAS - Uh, not bars?
53. Anatomy experts, briefly: MDS.
51. Spring break destinations?: SPAS - Uh, not bars?
53. Anatomy experts, briefly: MDS.
36 comments:
Is this going to be one of those situations where I think the puzzle was difficult while everyone else finds it easy? Perhaps, but I doubt it. There were quite a few misleading clues , some of them quite lengthy, which gave this puzzle a bit of a “cryptic crossword” flavor. And I still don’t see how “light run” becomes “solar powered.” Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy, not to mention relieved!
Good morning!
Started solving the downs, and immediately inked in SITS, HALT, and DIODE. Soon discovered that this one was well beyond my abilities. Guess I'm just a well-meaning, elderly man with a bad memory. Too tough, Rafael. Thanx for 'splainin', Husker. (TUV? Are you anti-W?)
Contrary to what SubG stated I did think this was a relatively easy Saturday themeless, a good mental exercise that required some thought, but my FIR in 23:05 tells me the difficulty level was not too high. Not a plethora of obscure names and Naticks which can lead to frustration. A SALES QUOTA in itself won’t get one a bonus, but meeting or exceeding it may. Sub G ~ if you have a solar panel on your roof, your house’s electricity is “run” by the light of the sun. Thanks Rafael for the fun solve.
HG - always enjoy your Saturday expos, informative and illustrative! I too first thought of T,U,V, preceding X,Y,Z. I occasionally see bitterns where I live, cool birds, they’ll stand perfectly still with head and beak pointed straight up, looking like a piece of wood, camouflaged in the marsh.
Oops, I meant my first thought on X,Y,Z preceded was what D-O said, U,V,W, but that didn’t perp.
DNF. Filled 47, 41 of them correctly.
Today is:
NATIONAL UMBRELLA DAY (oh don’t be such a Mary Poppins)
NATIONAL CREAM CHEESE BROWNIE DAY (never had them – would love to try a plateful)
NATIONAL HOME WARRANTY DAY (seems like they usually find a way that your problem isn’t covered)
Really? I thought Ticketmaster had contracts with almost all the venues, then the BOTS buy up all the tickets from Ticketmaster.
Being in Florida, I had a somewhat macabre thought about a Burmese python receiving a KITTY TREAT.
Thanks to H.Gary for the fun and informative review.
Gary, I agree with you on the lack of obscure names. Janet RENO was AG for eight years. I-TINA filled itself in by perps. ESTE was a guess for the Spanish East City. I managed to FIR today with very few changes. Hind to FUND for 'Back', Deal to PLAN for "What's the___?", and UPS to DHL as a FDX rival. KOHL'S was a guess; no Kohl's in NOLA but I've seen them in other cities.
I'd never heard of a NEOPET but would it eat a KITTY TREAT?
I really didn't know WALTON but figured it would be. The Walton family is the richest in the world, more than Gates, Musk, or any other clan. The $50-million donation is less than .1% of the family wealth. It's a lot less, closer to .02%.
AMATEUR- that's what most people could be called these days when it comes to maintaining and repairing things. Plumbing, electricity, and especially car repair. Even changing the car's battery isn't that simple. Do it wrong and you lose all settings. Changing a tire- don't know where to put the jack without the manual- I just call AAA.
ON THAT NOTE, I'm outta here.
Took 13:04 to finish today.
Started out with very few footholds in the top half, but I ended up working my way upwards from the bottom.
I had "decries" before "decrees."
I didn't know what bitterns are, but see blue herons occasionally.
I didn't know, or care for, the "Paragauy's second-largest city" clue/answer.
I don't understand why spas are spring break destinations.
It seemed like this puzzle had much fewer proper names than most and didn't have the Saturday tradition of obscure foods and places (except for that Paraguay clue).
Overall, an enjoyable puzzle.
Good morning. Thank you, Rafael Musa, and thank you, HG.
That was a toughie for me, and one of the longer solves I've had lately. FIR, but I had to change quite a bit of tentative fill along the way. Among those were sits to ASKS, Wait to WHOA, diode to LEAST, web to ORB, deal to PLAN, chew to GNAW, dreg to LEES. That NW corner took the majority of the solve time, what with the all of the wrong fill to start with.
There were enough scattered gimmes to get plenty of toeholds, but the clever clueing required some out of the box thinking. For instance, the clues for AMOUNTS, AMATEUR, ON THAT NOTE, ROLLING...
I really liked the clues for BOTS (nonhumans that quickly buy up concert tickets), CROWD SURFS (gets carried away at a concert), and light run for SOLAR POWERED. I had to think about that one to understand why the clue works with the answer. Similarly, but clicking in an AHA moment was TOLL for "congestion pricing charge."
Didn't know Bitterns.
TOLL congestion - Illinois I-PASS transponders are being replaced with RFID stickers. They will work in the other states that currently honor I-PASS. You just can't move them from vehicle to vehicle.
CROWD SURFS - I watched my grand nephew put down his guitar, spread his arms up and outward, and then fall backwards off the stage into a mosh pit at a concert in Chicago . The crowd roared as they surfed him out and then back in and up to the stage. That's faith in your fans!
FIR, but I didn't start out thinking I would finish at all. Stared at a sea of white squares for some time before I opted for foal instead of colt. Then whoa, and awful, and then it started to come together.
Last to fall was amateur. Never heard of a neopet and disagree with spas being a spring break destination, but the there were several "eye openers" today.
Good Morning:
I finished w/o help in 59:03 (SS, you put me to shame!) but I can't say I enjoyed the solve. The majority of the cluing was too cute by half and, IMO, the difficulty level vs the fairness level was heavily weighted in favor of the former. I welcome a Saturday challenge, but one that tests my knowledge and solving experience, not one that tests my patience and frustration level.
Thanks, HG, for cheering me up with your usual fair, balanced and upbeat review and the dazzling, eye-pleasing graphics.
Have a great day.
Crying “Uncle!. Couldn’t get a foot or even a toe hold. Many of the smattering of answers were mostly wrong providing zero perpaid. 😟
Koodoze to all you smarties. 👏
(By the way Rafael you spell your name wrong 😉)
See you all on Monday
A machine that runs on electricity can be powered by a solar panel that uses light to create that electricity.
Finished but not without help. SPAS are spring break destinations?? Not that I know of. Never heard CSUITE tho I see how it is derived. Can't see splits as a clue for RENDS. Very circuitous logic if at all.
SOLARPOWERED unlocked a whole lot of the NE. As did KITTYTREAT when I realized that we were talking cat not nation.
I agree with IM that much of the cluing was meant to lead you astray. I wanted avatar for virtual companion. Never heard of NEOPET.
Always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns. Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash
Sweet.
I'm going to try to solve this grid after reading all the answers say...
NEO PETs is a GEN-Y thing. Eldest played with the online game & plushy toys with her BFF. NeoPets (online) was the only way the girls could communicate after the Green Revolution.
//Eldest's BFF moved back to Cairo w/ her fam and, um, that happened.
FLN (early am) - TTP: If you get back down to TX, hit me up. I have a welder's mask with which to view the eclipse through. I'm also thinking about a new telescope for giggles.
HG - that was a sparkling review. Now I'll try Rafael's (I hear you Ray-O!) grid :-)
Cheers, -T
It took me over an hour to finish this contemporary Saturday offering.
It was nice to not have a plethora of obscure names and foods.
However, Rafael got too cute with so many misdirections that it took away from the satisfaction of solving this puzzle. IMHO
….kkflorida
FIR without undue suffering. Misdirections led to some AHAS. Even in my all-electric home with a large array of solar panels, I resisted SOLAR POWERED for "light run." Like HG, I had UVW before GEN, and it took a while to get IT SUPPORT where I was looking for masks. DH was still reading the paper when I finished, so I DEEM the puzzle fair and fun. Thanks to Rafael, Patti, and Husker Gary.
Didn’t quite finish, and then what I got I had help, for instance I got out my trusty bird book for bitterns, then by the time I got to the SW I was too exhausted to continue.
Indeed very few proper names, but way too many clues ending in ?
A few of what could have been an obscure clue were easy to guess like WALTON. KOALA, TUNA,
NATURE and ESTE.
For much too long I kept halt for WHOA, UPS for DHL, u v w for GEN. I knew HEAD WRITER couldn’t be correct since that’s not a “role”.
NEO PET, CROWD SURFING, no clue on my part. How is SPAS spring break destination?
I too had horrific thoughts of kitties being fed to pythons.
Nice recap, HG.
I ment to say ITITT in the SE.
Just don’t run for public office and you’ll be just fine
Well I’m certainly very happy to have a fir, although as is normal for me on a Saturday, it took me around a couple hours and moving to other newspaper sections and coming back later to finish. I too had halt, diode, U,V,W, and also UPS instead of DHL to help lead me to quite a pickle for awhile. Some of the cleverness on weekends is quite a stretch (ahas, spas, …) and it took time for me to move on from medical thoughts to IT support. Fun though ultimately.
Hola!
GRRR. I don't know why but I have to verify my identity to post and then I lose what I have written. It's just frustrating!
I'll try to re-cap. I enjoyed this puzzle more than most Saturdays and only the SW corner gave me problems.
And please remember that spring break is for teachers, too, and a SPA is a great place to relax. I often went to Palm Springs for a SPA BREAK.
Oh, got it. Lucina @ 12:16, you clarified the SPAS spring break puzzle for me. I have to say, it’s quite a stretch, but makes sense.
I’m sorry you’re having posting problems. I hope you can solve them soon.
I DEEM this a themed puzzle titled “Aw, That’s Ridiculous!” I had so much red-letter-type help that I’ll have to call it a DNF.
I’ll take “too many” proper names over too-clever-by-half cluing any day. I tagged 29 entries as being either unknown, too complicatedly clued, or simply ridiculous, as in the nobody-said-ever QUITE A PICKLE. It’s easier to single out what I liked: the SOLAR-POWERED entry (though the clue should have been hyphenated to clear up Sub Genius’ question), HEAD WRITER (which also made me think of Rob Petrie), and, uh, well, that’s it.
I’ll focus on KITTY TREAT (Jinx has the right take on that one; LOL), because I figured out quickly that Burmese was a kitty, having already written in TSKS, but who actually uses the term KITTY TREATS? Too much of that in this puzzle.
Dash T, I can certainly do that.
Lucina, does your comments panel look like #1: Comments Panel
Or does it look like #2 ? Comments Panel 2
If it looks like #1, does it have your name selected with the dot, and does it say (Google Account) and the option to Sign Out? In other words, does it show you as Signed In?
Are you on an iMac or an iPhone?
What is the browser that you are using? Safari or something else?
Too Saturday for me! Could not get any traction this morning. Finally had to TITT, just not on my wavelength. Even after the great review, I had a lot of Huh???s.
Even the slow kid in class gets something first. A lot of spas are called SPRINGs: Palm SPRINGS, Hot SPRINGS (AR,) White Sulpher Springs (WV.)
So hoity toity spas in some place with SPRING in their name are likely to be a destination for a soothing break.
Puzzling thoughts:
FWH - had to do a "check grid" to see which letters were incorrect; most resided on the right side (east/ESTE) of the puzzle - oddly, the entire west coast of the grid was filled in with no errors or erasures
As Irish Miss said ... the clues were perhaps too tricky. I don't mind "poses" for ASKS, but the "clicking sounds" for AHAS was a head-scratcher ... maybe I am just an AMATEUR when it comes to solving Saturdays ...
Jinx ==> appropriate that today is National Umbrella Day. We are in the continuous cycle of El Nino / Pineapple Express storms. We have had nearly an inch of precipitation over the past day or so ... and last year, our ANNUAL rainfall was just over 3"
Very enjoyable, just hard enough.
It had some gimme's, and some toughies, and the perps were forgiving enough to keep you at it.
So, all in all, sussable good fun!
Any puzzle with good eats is alright in my book. Unfortunately, the orig8nal run of 285 episodes, 199l to 2012, has been bought by some one charging exorbitant prices to watch full episodes. My fav episode has to be season six, episode 9, dip madness, a recap episode where he is telling a reporter visiting him in an insane asylum how to make a dozen different dips, all the while escaping his captivity. This episode got where where I am am today. (Um, er, culinarily speaking...)
If you have YouTubetv, a search will bring up all episodes by season. This one erroneously labeled seas9n 6 episode "8". However when you click on it, a subscription to "MAX" is required involving a charge a $15.99\month... (extortion I say!)
In honor of Super Bowl Sunday, you can still find individual recipe videos from the show (usually 3-4 m8nutes) on food network. Yo7 just have to search, then filter your search by chef (alt9n brown) and then by the recipe you might be looking for.
Here is guacamole fr9m the dip madness episode. I hope this works...
Also, you may be wondering why some of my words have numbers in them, it's not the annoying key flicks enabled keyboard. This post was made up from letters I cut out from different magazines. A habit I picked up 8n my yout...
I gave this puzzle 5 minutes of my time and tossed it aside.
Yikes! This one was over my head. H-Gary perfectly explained my experience, "Reasonable though wrong". Examples include sitS for 1D, UVW, clinTON for the AK school, KITTenchow, and safestaRT for 28A.
FAVs: Firm message, Burmese food?, and the CTSS line-up in 37A.
Thanks to Rafael for the challenge and to H-Gary for explaining it all!
Thanks, also, to Jinx@1:37. I think you nailed the "spring" clue.
TTP
It's more like your Panel 1. And it only happens with my first post; after that I have no problem.
This process has been going on for about a week and I have been posting since at least 2010 (I think) with no problems so I don't know what changed.
You all enjoy watching the Super Bowl tomorrow. I'm going to go see the movie, Oppenheimer. As most of you know I am not a sports fan but I respect those of you who are.
Excellent puzzle in today's New York Times by our own C.C. Theme is the Chinese New Year! You will learn how to say it in Mandarin.
Lucina, tomorrow when you start to create your first comment, first look at the field under the comments box where it asks you to Choose an identity. Next to Google account, does it have your name Lucina, and the option to sign out?
If it does not have your name, then you are not signed into Google, and you will be asked to sign in before you comment.
Is it possible that you are signing out of some other Google account? For instance, if you have a Gmail account, and you sign out of it, you will also be signed out of Blogger and any other Google apps that you have.
Your computer is an iMac, correct? What browser are you using?
Also, do you leave your computer on overnight, or do you sometimes power it down? Does this only happen after you have powered on the computer?
I'm with Irish Miss on this puzzle. In addition, too many 'clues' and answers are just rubbish, today's avalanche crunching any good mood, in proof. (Spring break would be spent at Redondo, with care not to get burned by the UV, not a sissy spa.)
Can we ask the new regime to tone it down a bit?
Great puzzle!
Seems like ya either loved this puzzle or ya hated it; no fuzzies.
Thanks, Rafael, for keeping the proper names to a minimum! For the most part, I enjoyed the clues altho a few were stretttttcchhes of massive proportion 😎 While I can “get” a teacher going to a spa on break, anyone that went to one of those on Spring Break would be tagged a total dweeb!
But the clues for KITTYTREATS, CROWDSURFS et al were very snazzy in my book — once I got the angles Rafael was playing.
====> Darren / L.A.
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