Saturday Themeless by Joe Deeney
This is my eighth Joe Deeney Saturday Themeless puzzle and I had a lovely 16 minute solving experience! His impressive pinwheeled stacks of ten letter fills resulted in having only 68 blocks and a lot of wide-open spaces. Wow!
Joe has left the corporate world and is now freelancing at home while he figures out what is next for him. Above is a lovely picture of Joe doing an LA Times puzzle on his tablet while his daughter is offering her assistance.
1. Takes badly?: ROBS 😀
5. Leroy Anderson holiday tune that includes a trumpet "whinny": SLEIGH RIDE - That seasonal song also uses these percussion instruments.
15. Possibly a lot?: ACRE 😀
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| Before After |
16. Sphynx producer: CAT BREEDER 40. Litter peeps: MEWS - I'm sure Mama SPHYNX is hearing a lot of MEWS from her litter.
17. Top suits: CEO'S - Recently we saw that they belong in the C Suites with the CFO, COO, et al.
18. Natalie Dormer's "Elementary" role: IRENE ADLER - An adversary for Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes in this BBC series.
19. New Zealand birds also known as owl parrots: KAKAPOS - Also called the world's fattest parrot.
21. Glue brand that owns X-Acto: ELMERS.
22. Show leader?: ONE MAN - A great one!
23. Toot: SPREE - As in "on a toot!"
25. Take a __: FLIER - The Jets did just that on Aaron Rodgers and he got hurt on the season's first series and was lost for the year.
26. "J to __ L-O!": 2002 remix album: THA.
27. Knock on: RAP AT
While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently RAPping,
RAPping AT my chamber door.
31. Civil Rights Memorial architect: LIN - Her work has such grace and elegance
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| Located in Montgomery, Alabama |
32. Crash support: IT HELP -
35. Fatty tuna, to a sushi chef: TORO.
37. Like some store-bought nuts: SHELLED.
39. Ready for the dryer: WET.
42. Museum adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria: UFFIZI.
43. Member of a peer group?: EYE 😀
44. French physician for whom a part of the brain is named: BROCA.
46. Offer: BID.
47. Oft-burned medium: CD ROM - Burning a CD used to be very common
49. 2004 remake starring Jude Law: ALFIE - What's it all about, ALFIE?
51. Prepares for a drive: TEES UP- If you can't bend over, this device will help you TEE UP the ball and take it out of the hole. Not for me yet.
52. "Fly!": BE FREE.
55. Stayed home: DIDN'T GO - They had tickets for the Titanic but didn't make it onboard
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| Milton Hershey J Pierpont Morgan Henry Clay Frick |
56. "No need to wait": I'LL CATCH UP.
59. Central Asia's North __ Sea: ARAL.
60. Nickelodeon show with a paw print logo: BLUES CLUES - We watched a lot of BLUES CLUES with the original host Steve.
61. Cost of a dozen?: DIME 😀
62. Time for happy hour?: BEER THIRTY 😀
63. Gibbons, e.g.: APES.
Down:
1. Crown roast half: RACK OF LAMB and 11. 1-Down, e.g.: RED MEAT.
2. Carnival ride: OCEAN LINER - Their ships have grown considerably
3. Halved: BROKE IN TWO - Speaking of the Titanic
4. __ oil: SESAME.
5. Heir: SCION.
6. Metallica drummer Ulrich: LARS - Don't know the man but he's here in cwds a lot
7. Bastille Day saison: ETE.
9. "Archer" voice actress Judy: GREER.
10. Shaman: HEALER - In an episode of Grey's Anatomy, a Hmong father would not let the surgeons operate until the Shaman arrived.
12. Run in place: IDLE - I can start my car from any where in the world with this iPhone app. The car will IDLE for 15 minutes while running the heater or a/c and then shut off unless someone with the key fob gets into the car to finish the starting process.
13. Does: DEER - We had Does cluing SHES recently
14. Does wrong: ERRS.
20. "Ratatouille" city: PARIS.
23. Photo that speaks volumes?: SHELFIE - Below is one of mine. Send me a picture of your SHELFIE at gschlapfer@gmail.com and I'll post them next week.
24. Wan: PALLID - I have no idea why I remember this from Mrs. Thomsen's 11th grade English Class.
Why so pale and wan fond lover?
Prithee why so pale?
Will, when looking well can’t move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee why so pale?
26. DOJ division: THE FBI.
28. Juice bar?: POWER STRIP 😀 This might be drawing too much juice
29. In question?: ARE YOU GAME? - Do you think these peeps asked this of each other in Pamplona?
30. Pacific Northwest tribal carvings: TOTEM POLES.
33. Pt. of the week: THU.
34. __ dispenser: PEZ.
38. Like the ingredients in pico de gallo (translates to rooster's beak - hg), typically: DICED.
41. Harder to come by: SCARCER.
45. Div. that has produced 16 World Series champs since 1969: AL EAST - The Yankees have the most (7) but haven't won in 14 years. Chart
48. "Gracias" response: DE NADA.
50. Go get: FETCH - I remember FETCH from my early Macs.
51. Buzzed: TIPSY.
52. Salad option: BIBB.
53. Catherine portrayer in "The Great": ELLE.
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| An interesting picture! |
54. Exhaust pipe: FLUE.
55. Tune two croon: DUET - Not only were their DUETs my favorite but The Beatles and many others patterned themselves after them.
57. 10% of MDX: CLI - I'm surprised Joe didn't use X% of MDX (10% of 1510 = 151)
58. "Ben-__": HUR - Hollywood made versions in 1907, 1925, 1959 and 2016. The 1959 version starring Charlton Heston was the most successful version. I saw it on the Cinema 70 Big Screen as a 13-yr-old when it came out.
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Notes from C.C.:
1) Happy 71st birthday to our witty Chairman Moe (Chris). Here is a picture of Chris, his girlfriend Margaret,
MM and MM's girlfriend Valerie. They finally met last August. Chris
travels extensively every summer. Hope he can meet more of our blog
regulars in the future.
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| Margaret, Chris, Joseph and Valerie |
2) Happy 58th anniversary to the sweetest couple I've ever met: Husker Gary and his wife
Joann. Here's a picture of us from 2014 when Gary attended a wedding here in Minnesota.
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| Left to Right: Boomer, Gary, C.C. & Joann |
52 comments:
Wow! Tough puzzle!
But I wasn’t fooled by the first three attempts at misdirection, which were (was?) basically the first three clues. And it didn’t get much easier from there. Nevertheless, through P&P I “slogged” my way to a victory. FIR, so I’m not only happy, I’m relieved!
Good morning!
Finally, a Saturday puzzle that's within d-o's grasp. Doesn't happen often lately. My pico was FRESH before it was DICED, and I waited on perps to solve the AL__ST division. The dozen gettable tens were a big help. The toughest area was that central diamond. UFFIZI finally broke it open, and the rest is history. Thanx, Joe and Husker.
This was an extremely rare Saturday FIR for me. Finished it in 30 minutes and 31 seconds with no Red Letters or outside sources required.
Help me understand.
What is the reference: FIR in some solvers comments?
Thanks.
Took 18:16 to finished behind HG today. I wonder if YooperPhil got me again too.
This puzzle went fast for a Saturday, until the brakes locked up. Probably took me 1/2 the time to get the last 20%.
I didn't know today's actresses (Elle, the Elementary one, nor the voice actress), the French physician, the New Zealand birds, or what this "Sphynx" was. But, I knew the Roman math problem and today's Spanish lesson.
FIR = Finished It Right.
FIW = Finished It Wrong.
OJC = Oh Joy, Circles! [It's worth a shot.]
DD, see "Please click on Comments Section Abbrs for some blog-specific terms." below.
Finished it right
FIR. As usual on a Saturday I spent some time staring at white squares but finally got a foothold in the SW and I was off to the races. I loved the misdirection of some of the clues, like Sphynx producer and cost of a dozen.
Didn't know Elle, Irene Adler, Broca, or kakapos, but managed with the perps to fill them in.
As Saturday puzzles go, this was tough but very doable.
Either a really EZ Saturday or I got super smart over night. Some fun misdirected clues.
Anyone following the recent season’s episodes of John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” knows he launched a hilarious international campaign to have the Puteketeke (not the KAKAPO) voted as New Zealand’s “Bird of the Century”
I watched BLUES CLUES with my grandkids.
UFFIZI (variant of “uffici”, offices).
Monsieur Cérébellum? 😃Nope… BROCA (didn’t realize he was of the French persuasion) FLIER not flyer (Bri-ish). “toot” = SPREE? Once again I’ve seen most seasons of “Archer” but don’t remember the cast, except for the late Jessica Walter who played his Mom.
“Oft burnt medium” (fortune teller who’s frequently wrong? 😄)
Burgled a pair of homes….BROKEINTWO
Vaccine target …… FLUE
If yer gonna be sloppy with that Cobb salad ask for a ____ …..BIBB
Happy Anniversary to Husker G and wife Joanne on 🍾🥂
Happy B day C moe, you’re officially on the wrong side of 70😄
Off to Massachusetts for a few days where the grand kids have next week off.
Anon SS ~ nope, things are back to normal as it took me 36:27, double your impressive time which is par for the course. 👊🏼 HG coming in at 16 minutes is quite amazing on what I thought was a fairly difficult puzzle for me anyway. The SW and SE tenners fell pretty easy but the rest took some time, DNK’s too numerous to mention. Anyone else think of Tilt-a-Whirl for Carnival ride? All in all I thought it was a finely constructed grid with some great cluing, thanks Joe and Patti for the Saturday challenge!
HG ~ impressive time! And thanks for the enjoyable synopsis.
Thanks, Joe and Gary. Happy Anniversary. Happy Birthday, Chairman Moe.
Nope, not today.
Had sparser. Never thought of SCARCER.
Didn't know UFFIZI and couldn't wag it. Might have, if SHELFIE would have come to me, but it didn't.
No idea on THA.
Have never heard of "Take a FLIER." I got it from the perps, but had to look it up later.
This was a faster Saturday for me and looking to the comments so far - many others. Like Anon @ 7:41 I flew through the first half (for a Saturday) and the last half slowed down considerably.
The community choir I'm in has "Sleigh Ride" regularly in our rotation over the years with all the percussion instruments Gary showed - along with the whinny played by a trumpet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNsUtqR2gjM
In the movie "Sherlock Holmes" IRENE ADLER is portrayed by Rachel McAdams opposite Robert Downey, Jr as Sherlock.
BLUES CLUES was my youngest's favorite show when he was 4
The UFFIZI has some key works of the Renaissance like Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" but not Michelangelo's "David" which is nearby. Florence was a favorite city when I visited long ago - but I've heard it has gotten crazy crowded in the more recent decades.
Unknowns were KAKAPOS and TORO as clued. Like D-0 I had fresh before DICED for the pico, and Cobb changed to BIBB for the salad.
Thanks HG for the fun blog and Joe for the puzzle
Happy Anniversary to Gary & Joann and HBD to CM!
Good Morning:
This was a Goldilocks puzzle: HG 16 minutes, Easy; Yooper Phil 36 minutes, Hard; and Yours Truly, 23 minutes, Just Right! This was one of the most enjoyable and satisfying Saturday solves in quite a while. The cluing was outstanding and the fill was extra-lively and fresh. I think the Broca area of my brain was temporarily off-duty because I kept thinking that Ocean Liner must be some new, exotic Carnival ride, something you'd see at a Water Park. Gary's write-up cleared up that far-fetched foolishness. Other puzzling entries, to me, were Shelfie, Blues Clues, Beer Thirty (I had After Party!), and Kakapos. Sleigh Ride and Rack Of Lamb* started the ball rolling and the easy to discern long fill of Are You Game, I'll Catch Up, etc. yielded numerous and very helpful toeholds. A few of the many great clues were Show Leader=One Man, Member Of A Peer Group=Eye, and Juice Bar=Power Strip.
Thanks, Joe, for a delightful solving experience and for sharing the photo of you and your sweet, little daughter; I remember when she was born. Thanks, HG, for a great review, as always, and for the dazzling, eye-pleasing photos, especially those of the Cornerites meeting other Cornerites.
Happy Birthday, Chris, hope you celebrate in style with a glass (or two!) of your favorite Vino! 🎂🎉🎊🎁🎈 🍷🍷
Happy 58th Anniversary to Gary and Joann, the sweetest couple I've never met, yet I feel like I know them! 💞
*Rack of Lamb always reminds me of a long-ago dinner engagement with friends, when my husband, after a wee too much Scotch, ordered a Lack of Ram!
Have a great day.
IM ☘️ ~ “far-fetched foolishness”, nice alliteration, and an apt description where my thought processes go on a tough puzzle. 😂
Truly enjoyable CW. The misdirections were just tough enough but doable with some thought.
However I can’t say FIR because I crashed in the SW. But no matter I had a great time.
Hapyy birthday to the Chairman. 🎂🎉🎊🍷
Happy anniversary to HG and his wife.
Today I’m having lunch with a high school friend I haven’t seen in over 40 years.
My post disappeared - I was just adding some FLN's. Here goes Take 2:
Today is:
NATIONAL RED SOCK DAY (not a big fan, but I like them better than the Yankees)
NATIONAL CABBAGE DAY (I loves me some cole slaw)
NATIONAL RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS DAY (just yesterday I slammed on the brakes to avoid backing over a couple of eldery pedestrians in The Villages)
FIW, missing raw meat instead of RED MEAT. Erased 7, plus one twice: jlo->the->THA.
I've been to the UFFIZI, but don't remember too much about the art. I remember standing in line for a couple of hours, and how much my back hurt from a too-soft mattress.
I actually knew one of the show biz entries today. I saw Ben-HUR at a drive-in. Yes, I actually saw a movie at a drive-in. I was about 5, and mom took me to see it.
FLN - Bayou Tony, the only things I know about Mary Jane is that Pop and I used the name to mean marijuana, and that Tom Petty sang about her last dance. I also know Bobby Brooks only from John Cougar Mellencamp's Jack & Diane.
FLN - TTP, In A Gadda A Vida was a radio DJs best friend. You can always run out to tinkle while a song is playing, but a more serious trip required a L-O-N-G song. Just had to be sure not to lock yourself out of the control room.
Thanks to Joe for the fun exam, even though I couldn't (crossword-favorite) ace it. And thanks to H.Gary for another great review, and congrats on your 58th.
I really liked this puzzle. Great clues...OCEAN LINER, BROKEINTWO, POWER STRIP, all tickled my fancy. Alas however. It was just a tad above my pay grade today, and the unknowns led me to a DNF. Ah. Well. Not an unusual occurrence for me on a Saturday! I often wonder about the reactions of the folks who missed their trip on Titanic? Lost to history, now.
Whoa! While some of you raced to the finish line, I sweated it out to FIR. Thank goodness for the things I did know! The first time I visited our daughter in her adopted home of Florence, Italy, I texted DH at home and said she was taking me to the Uffizi Gallery. DH texted back: "Buy anything you want." That was before he knew it was full of national art treasures. Thanks to Joe, Gary, and Patti for today's workout.
Thanks Joe for a surprisingly smooth Saturday FIR. Nice pic - you can't start a budding cruciverbalist too early!
Thanks for your usual excellent review Husker.
A few favs:
5A SLEIGH RIDE. You know it's going to be a good day when you get the first 10 letter clue on a Saturday puzzle. All the short perps made the other two long fills pretty easy.
18A IRENE ADLER. ACTUALLY Elementary was an American series on CBS. I've not seen it, but Dormer did in fact play IRENE ADLER -- and Moriarity to boot! Cumberbatch's BBC Adler was played by Lara Pulver, who in one scene created quite a stir by stripping completely nude in an attempt to seduce Sherlock -- who to his credit resisted her charms!
31A LIN. MLK is quoting from Amos 5:21-24. God was not very happy with Jerusalem at that point!
42A UFFIZI. Italian for "Offices" (a former use for the building) this museum houses some of the greatest art in the world, most notably Botticelli's Birth of Venus. The statue of David shown in the courtyard is actually a knock off of the original, up the road a mile or so in the Galleria de Academia.
60A BLUES CLUES. We used to watch a lot of this series, but as the grandchildren have gotten older they're more partial to Wild Kratts. Speaking of kids, there is an invasion scheduled for tomorrow morning.
28D POWER STRIP. Favorite clue. The better POWER STRIPS these days are equipped with circuit breakers and may even have USB ports. Contemporary electrical codes have mandated closer spacings of wall outlets and lessen the need for extension cords, another common use for a power strip.
58D HUR. In my teens an older buddy and I hiked 10 miles downtown on a snow day to see the Charles Heston BEN HUR. It was spectacular.
Cheers,
Bill
This took me longer than most, but I FIR. Raw meat for RED MEAT, go free - BE FREE, tap at - RAP AT, broken into - BROKE IN TWO all slowed me down. Many times at the UFFIZI but still misspelled it.
“Ratatouille” set in PARIS has wonderful animation, clever story, and wonderful voice actors including Will Arnett and Paton Oswald. It allnost makes you like rats—-uh, no!
We played a lot of LeRoy Anderson music in our high school band. SLEIGH RIDE was a favorite along with “The Typewriter” and “Syncopated Clock”. Anything to get a bored audience to sit up and listen.
Thank you for the fun JD and Patti (?) too for the clues to OCEAN LINER, POWER STRIP, and ARE YOU GAME.
Informative recap and happy celebrating to HG and Joann and also CMoe, you young fellow!
AnonPVX from last week - It’s a 3 series and my mechanic does not want to put in a used CC because of unreliability. He also has concerns about meeting NY emissions requirement. Any thoughts?
Happy weekend, all!
Jinx, I would imagine a lot of DJs used that song for an extended break away from the mic. :>) Though I doubt that DJ D-O used it while spinning the vinyl back in Cedar Rapids. :>)
The other long song from that time frame that I couldn't think of last night was Get Ready by Rare Earth. Top 40 stations like WHOT never played that song in its entirety, but WDVE would. I knew it took up one album side because I had the album, but I just looked it up too see how long it was. 21:30.
Also FLN, I figured out why Amazon isn't charging me for those pay movies on Prime. In mid December, I'd returned a pair of Skechers that weren't what I ordered.* They issued a gift card to my account rather than issuing a credit on my charge card. Not sure why that happened. Perhaps it's an option when processing a return and I accidentally selected it. Don't know, but that mystery is now solved.
* I ordered brown. The box indicated Light Brown. Inside the box, the shoes were Charcoal Gray. They were also the wrong size.
Fairly tame Saturday puzzle for me. The best misdirection to me was Carnival ride. I was thinking of every fair ride I could before I figured it started with ocean. Oh, ocean liner. Never heard of kakapos. No interest at all in Pez dispensers but then others wouldn't understand my baseball card collection. To each their own. GC
WIMS. (What Irish Miss Said...)
Very sussable puzzlement, that you had to work for.
In addition to many other gems, I had Rib Meat instead of red meat for crown roast clecho.
(Why on earth would you think "raw", Yuck!)
I was reminded of a dinner recently with when daughter #1 exclaimed that it was national pizza day, over her slices.
My thought was, "it can't be." "Jinx didn't say so!" But thought better of starting an argument in the restaurant.
happy birthday to Husker Gary!
Note that every part of this Saturn 5 is edible! I originally went looking for a lunar excursion module cake after viewing your "Shelfie," but it seems no one has been able to support a cake over those spindly legs. honorable mention...
And, of course, you all know what kind of cake I would pick to say Happy Birthday Chairman Moe!
Hmm, come to think of it, it might have worked for HG too...
Oops! No actor likes his name misspelled. It’s Patton Oswald. Did I do that or the dreaded snooper?
IM @9:38 - Funny husband story!
NaomiZ @11:34 - your story was funny too!
Monkey @10:27 - What a wonderful chance to catch up with an old friend! I hope it was as pleasant as you anticipated.
Hola!
Yea! My test worked and I did not have to prove my identity! At least, not this time.
Thank you, Joe Deeney, for a solvable Saturday puzzle! Many times they are so tough it takes me more than one day to finish but today the entire eastern swath filled quickly with nothing to LU. IRENE ADLER perped itself and what teacher doesn't know ELMER'S glue?
SPLIT IN TWO soon gave way to BROKE IN TWO but BROCA waited for perps.
BEER THIRTY? Really? And I do know that THA is Spanglish. DE NADA, however, is not; it's good Spanish usage.
Happy birthday, Chairman! And happy anniversary, Gary and Joann!
Enjoy a wonderful day, everyone! Here goes Google!
As usual, I had no major quarrels with a Joe Deeney puzzle. He’s one of the fairest of the frequent Saturday constructors. Today’s was a challenge, but I brought in an FIR fairly easily. I did have some issues with labored cluing, but I decided four of those efforts were pretty clever.
OCEAN LINER should have come to me more quickly. The NW was the last area to fill for me. SHELFIE hit the spot. Although I was unfamiliar with the term, it was easy to suss. I needed a couple of perps for JUICE BAR, but it worked. I had a harder time accepting the DUET clue, because it sounded like gibberish without the implied “that,” but I ended up liking it.
“Peer group” for EYEs was not clever. ELMER’S is a mere subsidiary, not the “owner,” of the corporation that owns X-Acto. The AL EAST champions entry was tainted by the Detroit Tigers’ 1984 championship. The Tigers have been in the AL Central since 1994. MEWS are not “peeps.” There was no indication of an abbrev. in the CEOS clue. Two of the dreaded dialogue entries Patti thinks she does well – BE FREE and I’LL CATCH UP -- were totally dependent on perps.
THA, UFIZZI, KAKAPOS, and BROCA were unknowns, but SLEIGH RIDE was a quick gimme for me. The older I get, the more I admire Leroy Anderson, one of the most underrated American composers of the 20th century.
PARSAN…sure, but which 3 series? 320/323/325/328/330/335?
Different models have different motors and thus, different catalytics.
However, you’re gonna need one to meet emissions…gimme the year AND model and I’ll try to find one for you.
Still thinking a new cat with install will be your best bet.
Interesting that some found this easy. I thought this might be the first time where I totally gave up. The entire NE region was a morass of crossed names and name references. Stuck with BIN before IBN. Hand up stuck with RIB before RED MEAT. Never heard of TOOT to mean SPREE. Google doesn't know it either.
SW another cluster of unknowns. BLUES CLUES? ELLE? Never heard of BIBB salad. Tried COBB salad. Just as I was about to give up, FIR.
Here I photographed a TOTEM POLE on a building at the University of British Columbia.
Perhaps not as impressive as your image, Husker Gary but I thought the location was rather unique. I was staying with friends who were professors there at the time. They are now in Montreal.
Learning moment that song is called SLEIGH RIDE and that there is a trumpet whinny. Cool.
Learning moment about SHELFIE. I will have to see if I can create a worthy photo.
Chairman Moe Happy Birthday
Husker Gary Happy Anniversary
Lucina Perhaps you can copy what you plan to post before you submit it? I always do that.
Patton OswalT - Do not change this again, for the 3rd time!
I enjoyed this puzzle. I found it to have a nice balance of footholds (gimmees), clues/answers that made me think (rather than simply guess), and some things in between. Thank you, Joe Deeny, for making a puzzle from which I got pleasure in solving. Thank you, Husker Gary, for your informative and interesting write-up. Thank you, C.C., for the photos and birthday announcements.
My pico was also fresh first😉
Wow, I am so impressed, Joe, that in all four corners you were able to stack three 10-letter words a NMdjacent to/ atop each other. In the entire puzzle there were nearly 200 white spaces, out of 225!
I do need to raise an issue, though, with either Joe or Patti: it's in regard to 2D, Carnival ride, with the answer of cruise ship.
There is a difference between a cruise ship--like one of Carnival's vessels--and an ocean liner. The latter is designed for transportation and speed, and is built to go transcontinental distances, which means it remains seaworthy even in the winter in the North Atlantic. Think Queen Mary II.
A Carnival cruise ship, on the other hand, is designed for recreation and tourism. Cruise ships, unlike streamlined ocean liners, are massive and top-heavy. So except for brief summertime repositioning, a cruise ship would not dare try to cross the Atlantic on a regular basis.
Hand up for Tilt-A-Whirl!
I enjoyed this puzzle so much. Challenging and gratifying at the same time. 🫶🏼 so much. Only “tha” x “shelfie” was totally lost to me. And - now I have a new hobby❣️—snapping pic of all my chotzke shelves and photo-bombing my friends 🙄😂🫶🏼
Sorry I misspelled Joe's last name.
If I recall correctly, Carl Sagan wrote a book called Broca's Brain.
Toyota used to make a car brand called Scion. Cute boxy-shaped things, similar to the Honda Element.
Parsan @12:27. Thank you. It was indeed a great lunch with ann old friend and it felt like no time had elapsed since our last visit some 40 years ago.
Got about 75% of it. Maybe could have finished with a few more hours but.. too much soccer to watch today. For a Saturday I’ll take it.
Lots of clever clues. Can’t believe a 4-letter salad option ending in BB wasn’t COBB…
9 question-mark clues!
Hi All!
Thanks, Joe, for a fun Saturday grid. I got ~70% on my own (which is "good" for me) before leaning on HG's grid to flush out the NE.
Thanks for the wonderful expo, HG. You always help salve the wounds.
(of what I got)
WOs: ARE YOU hoME, Beet salad before BEER THIRTY came around.
ESPs: DNF
Fav: POWER STRIP as clued was cute.
UFFIZI - I've been there! DW had been before & kinda got ANTsy to leave about 2/3rds of my way through - I could have stayed another 2 hours. BTW, there's another museum a street behind it that has early science stuff - Telescopes, Dr. tools, clocks. We spent about 90 min in there waiting for our Uffizi entry time.
Happy Birthday, C.Moe! A toast to you today!
And I'll raise another glass to HG & Joann.
I saw Heston's Ben HUR on a little TV/VCR in a HS History(?) class (maybe we had a sub?). I only remember a) there was a lot of fast-forwarding b) the chariot race.
Jinx - all those Mary Janes went through my head but never shoes nor T-Straps (which maybe I forgot from The Patty Duke Show??).
TTP - RUSH's Working Man was Cleveland's WMMS's DJ Donna Halper's "bathroom music."
LOL Lack of Ram, IM.
Cheers, -T
CED, National Pizza Day was on February 9th. I was confused about that as well, since my web reference had a header for YouTube's Destination Celebration show about National Pizza Day, and that episode apparently debuts today. But it wasn't listed the the list of "days" on the same source. I confirmed the date from a CNN resource, but in spite of that, I'm standing by the 2/9 date. I do omit some stuff, mostly days that honor a specific state.
IM, when I was a kid there was some wag (maybe Foster Brooks) who did an inebriated takeoff on kid's tales. "Cinderella, you slopped your dripper" was our favorite, and "I slopped my dripper" became our equivalent of today's "my bad."
Okay! My post went through but my photo disappeared. Google is conspiring against me!
Interesting that some did not know Mary Janes, but then shoes are more of a feminine area whereas tools belong to the male realm. However, I had a late friend who knew and could handle tools on a par with any man. She was unusual, though.
I struggled more with the SW corner but BIBB finally pulled me to the finish line. I have used BIBB lettuce in salads at times. It has an interesting taste as opposed to other lettuce but I find head lettuce to be more crisp and prefer it.
Oops. I meant to say ICEBERG lettuce.
What a rare, delightful Saturday puzzle (when they are often so tough and problematic)--many thanks, Joe Deeney for this gift. And thank you too, HG, for your helpful commentary with so many delightful pictures--also very enjoyable.
Never thought of an "ocean liner" as a Carnival cruise, but then I haven't been out to sea in decades. But I got Elmer's glue, though I'm not sure I've ever used it. Those Does and Deer show up pretty often these days, don't they? Took me a while to figure out 'Buzzed' since I haven't been 'tipsy' since my teens (a lot of decades ago).
One of the most delightful Saturday puzzles in a while--many thanks again, Joe. And happy birthday, Chairman Moe. And happy anniversary, Gary and Joann.
Have a great weekend, everyone.
Thanks to Joe for an impressive grid! I "enjoyed" another Saturday DNF.
FAVs: Juice bar?, Carnival ride, and sphynx. Also, a very impressive grid!
Did anyone else have splitINTWO until they didn't?
I pulled Judy GREER out of the punchbowl. She was a guest on WWDTM a couple of years back.
Thanks to H-Gary for another impressive review. I needed your help to see why CLI worked. I was thinking it was some sort of NYSE reference. Oof!
Happy Anniversary!
Happy Birthday to C-Moe!
Thanks to CC for the pics!
sumdaze - Not Catholic much? Roman Numerals are drilled into us at the Stations of The Cross.
//and Van Halen's MCMLXXXIV didn't hurt in reinforcing them.
Lucina - I too noticed your lovely avatar was missing. Perchance you're signed in under a different Google account? How many do you have for your hacking alibis? :-)
Cheers, -T
Tough one, I counted sixteen clues based on facts I didn't know. I dithered between Uffizi and Ufrizi and finally guessed that Shelfie might be a thing but Shelrie probably wasn't.
My formal English skills aren't good enough to answer this but: wouldn't 'halved' be 'broken in two' rather than 'broke in two'?
-T @ 6:07. The math clue was in my wheelhouse but, alas, my brain got stuck on the wrong possibility.
Anonymous@ 6:27. Think of "halved" as a verb (action) as opposed to an adjective (description).
sumdaze - I was only joshin' but I can see how MDX could be a MeDia special efectX co. on the market's ticker and CLI owned 10% of it.
When I see CLI, I think Command Line Interface and then Bacardi 151 :-)
Nite! -T
AnonT
No. I have only one Google account and though I would like to have my photo there I'm glad the comments are posting. I have no idea what the problem is. Obviously it's lost somewhere in cyberspace.
Wow. I see that my entire profile is missing!
Not if “halved” is being used as a verb, sir…
====> Darren/ L.A.
Was outta town on a gig and am catching up on all the CWs my lovely weef saved for me…
Waidaminit — here we have THE FBI at 26d…and yesterday at 5d! Strange but weird.
Toughie today with the dearth of black squares, but the snazzy misdirections made for some good “ahHAAH!” moments. My only gripes: MEWS are not “peeps” (cats don’t peep; birds peep) and SPREE for “toot” is pretty weak. C’mon, Ed., we can do better’n’that 😎 Otherwise, it was a challenging but fun run!
====> Darren / L.A.
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