Happy Monday, everyone! sumdaze here to review Micah Sommersmith's fourth LAT puzzle.
Title:
We'll begin with the three themed clues:
17 Across. Backyard vegetable patch, e.g.: GARDEN PLOT.
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| I know you did not need an illustration for GARDEN PLOT but tidy veggie patches are my happy places. |
26 Across. Configuration before customization: DEFAULT SETTING. If you restore your electronic device to its DEFAULT SETTINGs, it will reset to the point where it was when it was first taken out of the box.
47 Across. Element of early internet art: ASCII CHARACTER. American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a common character encoding format for text data in computers on the internet. ASCII (pronounced "a-skee", where the "a" is like the "a" in "has") is a 7-bit character set containing 128 characters, including the numbers from 0-9, the upper and lower case English letters from A to Z, symbols, and punctuation marks.
 |
| Remember ASCII Art (left)? We've come a long way! |
Next, let's read the reveal:
63 Across. Brainstorming breakthroughs, and the ends of 17-, 26-, and 47-Across?: NOVEL IDEAS.
The ends of the themed clues are PLOT, SETTING, and CHARACTER. These are the three main elements of a story. An author combines these IDEAS to write a NOVEL.
As a former library teacher I recognized today's theme early on. These are the ABC's for writing. I like how Micah found meanings for PLOT, SETTING, and CHARACTER that were completely different from their literature meanings. He deserves a gold star! ⭐
Across:1. Activist Brockovich played by Julia Roberts: ERIN. We begin with the first of eight names in today's grid. All, except for one (see below), are clued at a Monday level. Most solvers know them well -- even if they never saw the referenced shows.
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| This thriller/documentary was release in 2000. |
14. High-fat, low-carb diet, casually: KETO.
15. Merits: EARNS.
16. Falco of "Nurse Jackie": EDIE.
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| Nurse Jackie aired on Showtime from 2009-2015. |
19. "__ Enchanted": Anne Hathaway film: ELLA.
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| Anne was in her early twenties when she made Ella. Memory trick: Switch ends on the A and E. |
20. Surveil secretly: SPY ON.
21. Socialized at leisure: SAT A SPELL.
Forrest's leisurely chat ended when he learned
he did not have to take the bus to go visit Jenny.
23. Stretch the truth: FIB.
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| (I am going with the NOVEL theme here.) |
25. Prefix with pod: TRI-. Has anyone owned a tri-pod dog? I always smile when I see one. They have the best attitudes! Here is a 60-sec. dogumentary.34. Tiny criticism: NIT. Is someone who is a wit at pointing out NITs a nitwit? 😜
35. 24-Down soother: CREAM. and 24-Down. Unwanted beach souvenir: BURN.
36. Hearing-related: AURAL.
37. Tennis great Arthur posthumously awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom: ASHE.
39. Titled: NAMED. She titled her book ___. / She NAMED her book ___.
41. Mani-__: PEDI.
42. Hops along happily: SKIPS.
35. 24-Down soother: CREAM. and 24-Down. Unwanted beach souvenir: BURN.
 |
| Ouch!! |
37. Tennis great Arthur posthumously awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom: ASHE.
39. Titled: NAMED. She titled her book ___. / She NAMED her book ___.
41. Mani-__: PEDI.
42. Hops along happily: SKIPS.
This clue make me think of the track event hop, skip and jump. The inaugural modern Olympic Games in 1896 had a track event which consisted of two hops and a jump. By 1908 the format was standardized to a hop, a skip, and a jump. Today the event is usually referred to as the triple jump. 
44. Shadowboxes: SPARS. Were you thinking of the verb or the noun?
44. Shadowboxes: SPARS. Were you thinking of the verb or the noun?
Shadowbox the verb is to SPAR with an imaginary opponent as a form of training.
Shadowbox the noun is similar to a frame used for art but it is extra thick so as to display memorabilia, jewelry, coins, or other small objects. 
46. Pen tip: NIB. I only know this from doing crosswords.
50. Lifesaving skill, for short: CPR. If you've ever taken a CardioPulmonary Resuscitation class then you know you can sing this (appropriately titled) song in your head to get the timing right.
51. Gaming console with a gesture-based controller: WII. 
52. Leafy bowlful with hard-boiled eggs: CHEF SALAD.
58. Bub: FELLA.
62. Civil rights icon Parks: ROSA.
65. Opposed to: ANTI.
66. Bring to mind: EVOKE. One of the fun things about a good XWD puzzle is it can EVOKE a fond memory.
67. Pull sharply: YANK.
68. Breakfast for dinner, say: MEAL. Here is the ultimate Venn Diagram for breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner.
69. Used needle and thread: SEWED.
70. Concludes: ENDS. Bonus points to Micah for the position of ENDS in his grid!!
Down:
46. Pen tip: NIB. I only know this from doing crosswords.
50. Lifesaving skill, for short: CPR. If you've ever taken a CardioPulmonary Resuscitation class then you know you can sing this (appropriately titled) song in your head to get the timing right.
Bee Gee's Stayin' Alive (1977)
52. Leafy bowlful with hard-boiled eggs: CHEF SALAD.
 |
| Where are the leaves? |
62. Civil rights icon Parks: ROSA.
65. Opposed to: ANTI.
66. Bring to mind: EVOKE. One of the fun things about a good XWD puzzle is it can EVOKE a fond memory.
67. Pull sharply: YANK.
 |
| YANKee Babe Ruth seldom pulled his swings. (Yeah, I know this one is a stretch but you got it, right?) |
68. Breakfast for dinner, say: MEAL. Here is the ultimate Venn Diagram for breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner.
 |
| This looks a bit like an 8-Down. 😃 |
69. Used needle and thread: SEWED.
70. Concludes: ENDS. Bonus points to Micah for the position of ENDS in his grid!!
Down:
1. Cardiac readouts, briefly: EKGS. An electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) is a test to record the electrical signals in the heart. It shows how the heart is beating.
2. Gather crops: REAP. Jack Johnson offers some social commentary on television in his song Good People (2005).
We got heaps and heaps of what we sow.
3. Coy response to a compliment: I TRY. My high school Government class teacher's first name was Coy...but coy he was not.
4. Drift into dreamland: NOD OFF.
5. Actor/director Stiller: BEN. Ben was born November 30, 1956 in New York. He is known for starring in movies such as There's Something About Mary (1998), Meet the Parents (2000, 2004, and 2010), and Zoolander (2001).
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| Here is Ben with his famous parents. Not only did he follow his mother, Ann Meara, into show business, he also followed her into in XWD puzzles. |
6. Many Megan Thee Stallion songs: RAPS.
7. "Derry Girls" girl played by Louisa Harland: ORLA. This is "the one" I alluded to in 1-Across.
7. "Derry Girls" girl played by Louisa Harland: ORLA. This is "the one" I alluded to in 1-Across.
The TV show Derry Girls is a coming-of-age story set in 1990s Northern Ireland. It aired from 2018 to 2022.
8. Celtic artwork feature: KNOT.
9. North Carolina's Biltmore __: ESTATE. 10 Facts about Biltmore
10. "Don't stop now!": KEEP IT UP.
11. Unoccupied: IDLE. To be IDLE is to be not occupied or employed; inactive.
12. Pickle herb: DILL. I love fresh DILL in my summer sandwiches.
13. Official emblem: SEAL.
18. Giant computer of the 1940s: ENIAC. Computer History Museum
22. Miss, in Mex.: SRTA. "Mexico" is abbreviated, so it "SeñoRiTA".
26. Once-common storage media: DISKS.
8. Celtic artwork feature: KNOT.
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| I did not realize there were so many. |
9. North Carolina's Biltmore __: ESTATE. 10 Facts about Biltmore
10. "Don't stop now!": KEEP IT UP.
11. Unoccupied: IDLE. To be IDLE is to be not occupied or employed; inactive.
12. Pickle herb: DILL. I love fresh DILL in my summer sandwiches.
18. Giant computer of the 1940s: ENIAC. Computer History Museum
22. Miss, in Mex.: SRTA. "Mexico" is abbreviated, so it "SeñoRiTA".
26. Once-common storage media: DISKS.
DISK with a K is the preferred spelling in American English. It is also the spelling used for computer-related objects (like this clue).
DISc with a C is the preferred spelling in British English. It is also the spelling for devices carrying sound.
I see my confusion now. I used to load music discs into my computer.
27. Moral principle: ETHIC.
28. Dog walker's line: LEASH. Here's another line, "Your dog is cute. Can I have his number?"
29. __ Bay Buccaneers: TAMPA. football
30. Lipstick mishap: SMEAR.
31. "Fame" star Cara: IRENE. (1959 - 2022) her IMDb page
32. Lowest point: NADIR.
33. Silver-tongued: GLIB.
34. Astronauts' gp.: NASA. DH's boss is a former astronaut. He flew on four Space Shuttle missions. Wow!
38. Dumpster fire-level blunder: EPIC FAIL. Dumpster fire is slang used to describe a catastrophically bad situation.
27. Moral principle: ETHIC.
28. Dog walker's line: LEASH. Here's another line, "Your dog is cute. Can I have his number?"
29. __ Bay Buccaneers: TAMPA. football
30. Lipstick mishap: SMEAR.
31. "Fame" star Cara: IRENE. (1959 - 2022) her IMDb page
32. Lowest point: NADIR.
33. Silver-tongued: GLIB.
34. Astronauts' gp.: NASA. DH's boss is a former astronaut. He flew on four Space Shuttle missions. Wow!
38. Dumpster fire-level blunder: EPIC FAIL. Dumpster fire is slang used to describe a catastrophically bad situation.
This was my favorite clue/fill today! I like how the slang in the clue matched the slang in the answer.
40. __ a blank: DRAW. I could not remember this one.
43. Tentative tastes: SIPS.
45. Space series genre: SCI-FI. We could have an interesting discussion here on The Corner as to your favorite television space series. I will start off by nominating Babylon 5 (1993-1998)...but I could also go with Firefly.
48. Building site sights: CRANES.
49. Camp project with rubber bands: TIE DYE.
52. Make up for procrastination, perhaps: CRAM. Think "prepare for a big test".
53. Sharpen, as a blade: HONE.
54. " Cómo __ usted?": ESTÁ.
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| Spanish 101 |
55. Adoration: LOVE. like Pepe La Pew's feelings for Penelope Pussycat 
56. Declare publicly: AVOW.
57. Hockey feint: DEKE. another one I learned from solving XWDs
59. Incline: LEAN. We can think of this as a physical slope. We can also think of it figuratively. If one is inclined to do something, he is leaning towards that action. Similar to 44-Across, it is noun and verb situation.
60. Terra firma: LAND. Terra firma was first used in English print in 1638 to mean "solid land". Here are other words that entered English print in 1638.
61. Requests: ASKS. Let's squeeze in one more musical number. This is All I Ask Of You from The Phantom of The Opera. 64. Went first: LED. Ironically, this clue for LED went last.
57. Hockey feint: DEKE. another one I learned from solving XWDs
59. Incline: LEAN. We can think of this as a physical slope. We can also think of it figuratively. If one is inclined to do something, he is leaning towards that action. Similar to 44-Across, it is noun and verb situation.
60. Terra firma: LAND. Terra firma was first used in English print in 1638 to mean "solid land". Here are other words that entered English print in 1638.
61. Requests: ASKS. Let's squeeze in one more musical number. This is All I Ask Of You from The Phantom of The Opera. 64. Went first: LED. Ironically, this clue for LED went last.
And the grid:
Well, we are now at the end of our book-themed puzzle. It was bound to happen!
Except for the fact that “Orla” seems kind of a weird name, everything else went swimmingly and easily, so this puzzle was another Monday “walk in the park.” FIR, so I’m happy.
ReplyDeleteGood morning!
ReplyDeleteTook me some time to find the theme after finishing the grid...and missing the reveal. I had a tripod dog on one of my M-o-W routes. His name was Tripod. Learned that DISKS/DISCS are not just alternate spellings. Interesting. Thanx Micah and sumdaze for a pleasant Monday romp. (My SCIFI vote would go to Firefly.)
DISKS: We had a power spike on Saturday morning that wiped out the hard-drive in my music server. Replacing that drive is today's project. Fortunately, I've got a complete backup on a removable drive.
Took 5:03 today with very little conflict.
ReplyDeleteOrla? I hadn't heard of the actress, the character, or the show/movie.
But, I knew today's other actresses (Irene & Edie).
I passed today's Spanish test (esta).
"sat a spell" seems like a weird answer for "socialized at leisure".
Have a great week, everyone.
This is almost a perfect introduction to puzzle solving (Orla I am looking at you) as the grid design and cluing are very representative of a Monday puzzle. A hint of deception made it charming.
ReplyDeleteThanks Micah and sumdaze
FIR. Orla was a mystery to me and as a result that section was the last to fall.
ReplyDeleteThe theme, in my opinion, was lame. As was the use of ASCII in the puzzle.
I got'er done, but for a Monday this had some bite to it.
FIW, missing ORLi x SiT A SPELL. Read the clue, Jinx!
ReplyDeleteToday is:
NATIONAL TAX DAY
NATIONAL TITANIC REMEMBRANCE DAY (it was the ship’s maiden voyage)
PURPLE UP! DAY (honors military children. Not to be confused with National Military Brats day, which is later this month)
NATIONAL RUBBER ERASER DAY (in 1770, Joseph Priestly created a vegetable gum to remove pencil marks. He dubbed the substance "rubber”)
NATIONAL TAKE A WILD GUESS DAY (take a guess at where my sophomoric mind went for “rubber eraser”)
NATIONAL LAUNDRY DAY (the only people who celebrate doing laundry are laundromat owners)
NATIONAL GLAZED SPIRAL HAM DAY (oh yummy)
Not on the list, but a big deal around here: This is the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. If you've never been across it, you should put it in your bucket list.
I struggled with the area up around Micah's Wisconsin home. I was nearly certain of KilT, and didn't know ORLA, Megan Bagadoughnuts, Derry Girls, or Louisa Harland. I erased cobb SALAD, which I also don't often eat.
Visitors gone, linens in the wash, dishes in the dishwasher, puzzles on the clipboard. Back to normal; tired, but happy.
Thanks to Micah and sumdaze for the fun.
Ooh! Two words with the unusual ending of 2 “I” ASCII and WII. But that didn’t deter me from FIR.
ReplyDeleteI too didn’t know ORLANDO, but perps were kind.
Interesting theme. So no problems.
Sumdaze thanks for neat recap.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteThe theme, if not the exact reveal, should have been obvious immediately, but I erroneously thought Sat A Spell was a themer and was, therefore, thrown off the track until the themers were specified in the reveal clue. Aha, then the connections were as plain as the nose on my face! Although Default Setting and ASCII Character filled in readily because of surrounding fill, I didn't know either off the top of my head. Orla was an unknown, as well, but, again, perps did the trick.
Thanks, Micah, and thanks, sumdaze, for the very informative and interesting review. You always present us with a wide variety of subjects and learning moments and just plain fun and today's content had lots to appreciate. I really enjoyed seeing Nurse Jackie mentioned, as Edie Falco was outstanding in that role, as was Tom Hanks portraying the lovable Forest Gump. The tripod canine video was heartwarming, the Biltmore Estates factoids were mind-boggling, and All I Ask Of You from The Phantom was soul-soothingly beautiful! Thank you for brightening my day!
Just got a text from my niece, Laura, who said she's going to see Bruce Springsteen tonight in Albany. Due to health issues, tonight is the third re-scheduled performance of the original show date.
FLN, hope Jayce and DW are feeling better.
Have a great day.
NaomiZ, yes, your comment went to spam because you used the word escort. It's one of the words that can't be used or blogger will send the comment to spam. Typically, the comment will post, be visible on the blogspot for a short time (under 5 min), and then disappear. So nothing to do with whether you post a comment via phone or computer, even if you switch from one to the other from one comment to the next.
ReplyDeleteI didn't see the same issue with any of the other comments.
Comments that went to spam
They were sent to spam for no apparent reason.
Here's one that is in the spam filter this morning:
Jinx in Norfolk commented on "Thursday, April 4, 2024, Rich Katz, Katy Steinmetz"
CED, now you've done it. I gotta watch that movie after all these years.
No telling why Blogger is filtering these comments as spam.
Jinx, in honor of National Laundry Day, WGN feature reporter Ana Belaval is reporting this morning from the Chicago suburb of Berwyn, home of the World's Largest Laundromat. It's over 13,500 sq. ft, has over 300 machines, a dropoff service, a bird aviary, large screen TV's, a child's play area, free coffee and donuts, and free pizza on Wednesday nights, periodic bike raffles for kids, a July 4th fireworks show, a seasonal Santa's celebration and more. Sounds like good clean fun.
ReplyDeleteOh, thank you, Micah, and thank you, Sumdaze!
TTP @ 9:15
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think that “Blogger” (whatever that is) should be disabled so that no comments should EVER be sent to “spam.”
In case of an obviously blatant “commercial,” etc., it seems to me that it wouldn’t be difficult for the SysOp (a human being) to delete it. Just my opinion!
That sneaky spell check went behind my back and changed ORLA to ORLANDO.
ReplyDeleteYes, Jayce, I hope you and dear wife are getting better.
Thank you Micah for an INTRIGUING start to the week.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you sumdaze for another dazzling review! Is that your GARDEN? My BEETS usually don't make it the table as I pick all of the greens for salads.
Some favs:
26A DEFAULT SETTINGS. Think twice before selecting answers to POP-UPS. The processes asking you questions like that may be emanating from different sources (OS, BROWSER, SECURITY PGMS, etc.), which are often in competition with one another.
47A ASCII CHARACTER. Back before graphic screens I coined the term ASCOEE (ASCII CODE for the EXPRESSION of of EMOTION) but Emojis won out. :-(
35A BURN. Ouch!
67A YANK. In addition to the YANKEES, BABE RUTH played for the Boston Red Sox and Boston Braves. He was born in Baltimore, but never played for the Orioles. The city does have a museum dedicated to him though.
7D ORLA. An Irish name, which could be deduced from "Derry Girls" who were from Northern Ireland.
8D KNOT. A specialty of sailors, who had a lot of rope and time on their hands. There are a lot of them.
45D SCI-FI. I'd go with Blake's 7 (circa 1978 - 1981). One of the actors was Paul Darrow, a bad guy who looked familiar to us in a (not particularly good) 1983 Dickens adaptation we recently saw called Dombey and Son.
Cheers,
Bill
A fun Monday offering from Micah.
ReplyDeleteThanks
….. kkFlorida
Good Morning! A good start to the week. Thanks, Micah.
ReplyDeletePerps for ORLA, ELLA, ASCII.
One WO: Laud -> LOVE.
I have the Claddagh in the tile behind my stove with a border of Celtic KNOTs around it.
I had to laugh at KEEP IT UP… what KID hasn’t heard that! 🤣🤣🤣. Certainty it was said as a DO stop now rather than DON’T stop now.
I had to wait to see if the SALAD would be Cobb or CHEF.
Thanks, sumdaze. Always a pleasure to read your blog. From the Bee Gees to Phantom. Loved it!
Musings
ReplyDelete-We had a leaky faucet under a sink this morning. I called our plumbing company and they were here 10 minutes later, fixed everything and left. I had planned to wait for them all day but didn’t need to and so I was able to get here to sub.
-LADS, TOTS, BOYS, nope. KIDS
-I could have the math job here for next year where I would EARN $80,000. Nope.
-Our cwd friend Elia Kazan NAMED NAMES for HUAC in 1952.
-Why do some KIDS get NAMED such that nobody will ever spell them correctly. Today: Malory
-Babe (Maris, Mantle, et al.) pulled a lot of pitches for home runs over old Yankee Stadium’s short right field fence.. When a left handed batter hits the ball to the right side of the field, it’s called pulling the ball.
-Our Chef Wendy lived next to BEN on Kauai
-A fav program on a 3.5” DISK
-As I age, I DRAW more and more blanks
Good IDEAS in today's puzzle! Neat theme and easy clues. I liked the series "Derry Girls" enough to watch it twice.
ReplyDeleteTTP and Jayce, I had to go back to the archives to see whether I had really used a forbidden word. I did, even though I only meant I had to accompany my little dogs to the yard.
Subgenius, I know that my email spam filter keeps a LOT of junk -- some of it malicious -- out of my inbox. I suspect that the Corner's filter does much the same. TTP will know the answer.
Many thanks to Micah, Patti, and Sumdaze for this morning's entertainment. I loved ASCII art in the early days of the internet. Here's one of my little dogs (but not my artwork).
Hope it displays correctly.
__ _
o'')}____//
`_/ )
(_(_/-(_/
OOPS! That didn't work. First and last attempt at ASCII art in the comments.
ReplyDeleteEasy, breezy start to the week with a great recap (as usual!) from Sumdaze. What's not to like? I thought of Kristofferson at SILVER TONGUE (devil), and the Spy VS Spy brought back memories. SciFi? I'll take "2001" or "Forbidden Planet".
ReplyDeleteWell I can’t say it was a brobdingnagian challenge today as I closed the book on this one in 9 flat, but it was a nice lead-in to the CW week. DEFAULT SETTING and ASCII CHARACTER initially had me thinking the theme was computer related till the reveal. WEES about ORLA. Thanks Micah for your fine piece of work!
ReplyDeletesumdaze ~ thanks for your (as always) sparkling synopsis, I learn things on your Monday blogs 😊. A friend of mine had a big dog
that was hit by a car and needed his badly maimed leg amputated, I was at his house the day the dog came home from the surgery, not a pretty sight as he was groggy and in pain. My friend was beside himself thinking he had done the wrong thing and should have euthanized him. The next day, it was like nothing happened, the new TRIpod adapted amazingly quick, like he didn’t have a missing limb, and lived a long life after that.
NaomiZ ~ I actually thought your “character” art resembled the aforementioned TRIpod 😂
Enjoyable Monday level puzzle today with enough crunch to keep it from being boring.. As a former literacy teacher, I loved the theme. Thanks, Micah, and thanks, Sumdaze, for the great tour. “Imagine” is a great anthem for today’s chaos.
ReplyDeleteNaomi, maybe through your experience, my own mystery can be explained. I wrote a comment on Rebecca Goldstein’s puzzle last week, and when I later went to review it, it wasn’t there. I have no idea what error I committed, but I’d love to know. I absolutely can’t understand why Naomi’s word, used in ordinary context, bounced her entire entry. I don’t repeat it here for fear this comment will also disappear. Who or what is “the Blogger”?
We loved watching The Masters golf tournament. Enough suspense to keep it interesting, and a satisfying win for Scottie Scheffler. Hated to see Tiger struggle, though.
IM @ 9:06. Thank you for your kind words. I have to give the credit to the interesting fill. Some grids are just full of, as you said, "learning moments and just plain fun."
ReplyDeletewaseeley @ 9:36. I wish that were my garden! I know what you mean about the beet greens. When I thin them out, I use the "discards" in salads and smoothies. I guess you'll just have to plant more.
= )
YP @ 11:22. Thanks for the happy-ending tripod story!
Hola!
ReplyDeleteAlthough I solved this puzzle at 5:30 A.M. I went back to bed and when I awoke at 8:45 had to rush and go to church for my volunteer work. We have such a nice team of ladies and one gentleman, it's a pleasure to work with them.
It seems that I am learning the contemporary lingo through these recent puzzles. I had no idea a bout ORLA or The Derry Girls and I'm grateful for a little more understanding of what ASCII is. And I've seen DEKE enough times that I can instantly fill it.
ESTA as Spanish always does, makes me smile when I fill it.
R.I P. Irene Cara who entertained us with her lovely voice.
As an avid reader and lover of novels I loved this theme! At present, though, I'm re-reading a true account of how much Indians and their culture have contributed to North and South American civilization in INDIAN GIVERS written by an anthropologist. It's well written and fascinating.
I hope your Monday is happy and joyful!
TTP - That place in Berwyn must must be the Buc-ee's of laundromats.
ReplyDeleteAmazing that Blogger banishes e-scort, but SNAFU, BUFF (nickname for the mighty B-52) and FUBAR (among others) are just fine.
Delightful Monday puzzle, Micah-many thanks. And your commentary is always helpful and interesting, Sumdaze, thanks for that too,=.
ReplyDeleteAlways nice to get a sort of literary theme, like the one today with PLOT, SPELL, SETTING, CHARACTER and NOVEL IDEAS. Makes you want to go and pick up a novel and read it. But I'd rather just do morning puzzles, and this one was a pleasure.
Time to see if I can get a CHEF SALAD for lunch,
Have a good rest of the day, everybody.
Wendybird & SubGenius : Blogger is a blog posting platform owned/operated by Google. It's the platform that hosts Crossword Corner.
ReplyDeleteBlogger is the Google program that gives us this website. The daily bloggers write up the reviews, then we all comment on the puzzle, the review, and other comments.
ReplyDeleteThe Blogger program also has algorithms and most likely AI coding that filter user comments for spam, as well as for content that is not suitable for the blog's ratings. Crossword Corner Blogspot is rated "All Ages," so the most stringent rules are applied. Certain words are going to trigger the program to filter comments as spam.
Comments in the spam filter wait for "moderation" from a blog administrator. That is either C.C. or me. A person has to check the word usage in context. The program is not yet smart enough to check usage in context.
It appears that the screening program has gone a little bit awry lately. It has been working just fine for the longest time, so this is new. Probably a code change somewhere.
When I read NaomiZ's comment that her comment disappeared, I checked the spam filter. There were 20 entries in the spam filter. 10 of them were really spam. The filter did it's job. 10 of them were not spam. NaomiZ's comment used a trigger word. The other 9 should not have been filtered.
I deleted the 10 spam comments and approved the other 10 for publishing. The 10 comments that approved were listed in my comment at 3:44 AM Sunday morning. I linked to the list of comments again today 9:15 AM. Any legitimate comments that were missing have posted on the days shown in my link. I also approved Jinx's comment from April 4th (11 days ago!) that appeared in the spam filter last night or this morning.
Wendybird, looking back at your posting on April 12th, the only things I can guess might have triggered the deletion of it were your use of the phrase "Patti will probably k*!! us tomorrow to make up for it" or perhaps "Loved the Sinatra clip and the M*n*ge a Trois Mo-Ku."
ReplyDeleteI also looked at Monkey's postings on April 10th but can't see anything that might possibly trigger a deletion.
Thank you for your good wishes for our recovery. Both of us feel much better but still at only about maybe 85%. I tested myself again just now and am surprised I still test positive. LW doesn't want to take a test, and even if she does it will probably be positive because she's still feeling as bad as I did 2 days ago. I just called to postpone a dental appointment until after mid-May.
ReplyDeleteGood reading you all.
Hi All!
ReplyDeleteNo tragedy in this grid, Micah's Monday read smoothly. Thanks for the puzzle, Micah.
And thanks, sumdaze, for the fun margin-notes.
WOs: N/A
ESPs: ELLA, ORLA (I've seen the show w/ Eldest but couldn't tell you any of their names)
Fav: ENIAC
Runner-ups: ASCII Art (is that really Monday fodder?) and EPIC FAIL c/a for what sumdaze said.
Never seen Firefly but I can agree on Babylon 5. I'll add VR.5 and Resident Alien. The latter is also funny; DW & I are currently binging it.
HG - since NIT is in the grid... That's a 5.25" DISK :-)
I'll give it a go, NaomiZ:
__ _
o'')}____//
` _/ )
(_(_/-(_/
Cheers, -T
Hey, Dash T! Your dog looks a lot like my dog.
ReplyDelete:-)
NaomiZ - The ASCII dog is the sixth one down. It's just hard to replicate if in a non-monospaced font. I kept trying to count the number of HTML I'd need. EPIC FAIL :-)
ReplyDeleteCheers, -T
Ok, I guess it's too late to comment on the puzzle, ( I don't remember much anyway...) but I was shocked to learn Anon-T has never seen Firefly! If I may, may I recommend you watch the recap movie, "Serenity." It sums up everyth8ng in two hours and is a great story to watch. Unfortunately (spoiler alert) fav characters get killed. But I guarantee, if you watch Serenity, you will go back and watch the individual Firefly episodes, because you will want to see more...
ReplyDeleteTo make an admission, I have never seen an episode of Babylon 5. It might be because "The Big Bang Theory" panned it constantly. But, if Anon-T likes it, maybe I should give it a try...
Speaking of giving it a try, I just got hooked on the Orville, funny moments.
Apparently,
ReplyDeleteThe Orville introduces you to new alien experiences...
CED @ 6:09. Did you mean to say, "if Anon-T and sumdaze like it"? (Just teasing.) The thing I liked about B-5 is it dealt with difficult political and cultural issues using alien species instead of getting hung up on direct human references. (Actually, that is probably my favorite thing about SciFi in general.) The B-5 trailer tried to play up the battles but the thing I liked was imagining a big UN in space.
ReplyDeleteJayce. I'm happy to hear that you and DW are on the mend! Be sure to get plenty of rest.
TTP @ 0420 14 Apr 24: Thanks for the explanation on the 'repeated' posts. I'm using a desktop, so the three different posts looked like a latency response. That's why I try to respond with posting time for response, just because.
ReplyDeleteThat was interesting to read about the laundromat! Apparently no one in that town owns a washing machine. Years ago before I had my own washer, I had to go to the laundromat and invariably I would forget something. I lost many articles of clothing that way and was so pleased when I finally bought my own washer. At first I did not have a dryer but hung all the clothes outside to dry and that is a practice I still do today because we have wonderfully warm sunshine and it saves electricity.
ReplyDelete