google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Saturday, December 21, 2024, Stacey Yaruss McCullough & Matthew Stock

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Dec 21, 2024

Saturday, December 21, 2024, Stacey Yaruss McCullough & Matthew Stock

 Saturday by Stacy Yaruss McCullough & Matthew Stock

 

Today is the Winter Solstice which means Nebraska will only get 9 hrs 11 minutes and 47 seconds of daylight. Tomorrow we will add four seconds to that total as we head towards spring. 

This puzzle kept me in the dark most of the way through. What a slog!






On a personal note, this week marks the beginning of my eighth year of blogging Saturday themeless puzzles for C.C. at her wonderful site.

Across:

1. Bad Bunny genre: LATIN TRAP - I found out it is not LATINO RAP. Here is what it is.


10. Maker of Cleansing Melts soap pads: OLAY.


14. "There's a storm brewing": I CAN FEEL IT - As seen from Nebraska Memorial Stadium last spring


16. Traffic sign: CONE ๐Ÿ˜€

17. Digs at the beach: SAND CASTLE - I got "Digs" as a noun and eventually the rest came

18. New clothes hangers?: TAGS - Minnie Pearl's iconic TAG


19. Yurchenko double __: vault now called the Biles II: PIKE.


20. Stick in the water: POOL NOODLE - BOAT PADDLE worked for a long time! Is this really a stick? ๐Ÿ˜€


22. Oaf: CLOD.

24. CrossFit moves: BURPEES.


25. Neither early nor late: ON BEAT ๐Ÿ˜€ Rhythm!

28. Dark: MORBID.

29. Artistic hot spots: KILNS ๐Ÿ˜€

30. Products of deductive reasoning?: TAXES ๐Ÿ˜€



31. Study: DEN - Noun not verb

34. Loads: A LOT.

35. Yarns: TALES.

36. Exclamation of approval: VIVA - _ _ V _ turned out to not be RAVE

37. Bow wood: YEW 

38. Acts like a gobstopper: LASTS - We called them Jaw Breakers in my misspent yute 


39. Unspoken: TACIT.

40. News segment: SPORTS.

42. Grapefruit relative: POMELO.


43. "Do I look like I care?": SPARE ME


45. Word with freeze or fry: DEEP.

46. Precursor to getting one's just desserts?: CAKE BATTER ๐Ÿ˜€

48. "Well, that used to be true ... ": I WAS.


52. Quarreling: AT IT.

53. Lao Gan Ma condiment: CHILI CRISP - ¯\_(ใƒ„)_/¯ Lao Gan Ma (old grandmother in English) was invented in a small Chinese town by Tao Huambo. This has become very popular and made her very wealthy. All you'd want to know. From C.C.: 
This brand is hugely popular in China. [My brother] Andy puts it in everything. Cantonese food is mild. Not much chilis. But Sichuan food is super spicy.


55. Eerie spray: MIST.

56. One of three in the Girl Scouts logo: SILHOUETTE.


57. Bridesmaid's accessory: POSY - Today I learned a POSY is simply flowers joined together by stems or floral wire to make it easier to carry.


58. Entertainment on a carousel, once: SLIDE SHOW - This fabulous scene from Mad Men is great TV writing and would have made for amazing ad copy.



Down:

1. Condition whose therapy may include hissing like a snake: LISP.


2. __ palm: ACAI - A Swiss Army knife of cwds

3. School house?: TANK ๐Ÿ˜€


4. Overexposed?: INDECENT.

5. George Halas Trophy org.: NFC - Las year, the Philadelphia Eagles were champions of the National Football Conference of the NFL but lost to the AFC champion KC Chiefs in the Super Bowl.


6. Vessel at a teddy bear picnic: TEAPOT ๐Ÿ˜€

7. Task on a postseason to-do list: RESOD - We chose to merely RESEED and it worked out fine

8. High, in Italian: ALTO L'affitto รจ molto ALTO. (The rent is very high)

9. Some brimless hats: PILLBOXES - On 11/22/63 Jackie gave this hat to her secretary Mary Gallagher at Parkland Hospital but no one knows what happened to it after that.


10. Deep-ocean mollusks: OCTOPI.


11. Funny bones?: LOADED DICE.


12. Perspective: ANGLE.

13. Party planner's list: YESES.

15. Grants for researchers?: TENURES - Getting that grant can go a long way toward keeping your job

21. Contact juggler's props: ORBS Contact manipulation is a form of object manipulation that focuses on the movement of objects such as balls in contact with the body.


23. __ Vegas Raiders: LAS - To some of us, they will always be the Oakland Raiders. My dad always referred to the Brooklyn Dodgers not the LA ones.

25. 3 out of 5, say: OKAY.

26. __ Valley sunbird: Middle Eastern species: NILE.


27. Air busses?: BLOWS A KISS ๐Ÿ˜€

28. Soda shop treats: MALTS.

30. Spoon-fed line: TASTE THIS ๐Ÿ˜€


32. Profoundly bad: EVIL.

33. Gp. with a compass rose emblem on its flag: NATO.


35. Southwest expanses?: TARMACS ๐Ÿ˜€


36. Many "What We Do in the Shadows" characters: VAMPIRES.


38. First unsigned artist to record a Billboard No. 1 hit: LOEB.



39. Golf club part: TOE - Not where you want to hit the ball


41. Sort of: PRETTY.


42. Stopping point: PERIOD ๐Ÿ˜€

43. Rascal: SCAMP.

44. Grillmaster's domain: PATIO.

45. Territory nearly surrounded by Haryana: DELHI - As you can see, DELHI is mostly in the state of Haryana (yellow below) but extends into Uttar Pradesh

47. Contribute to grass roots movements?: TILL - I had seed as the first verb

49. "__ pleasure!": WITH.


50. Regarding: AS TO.

51. Be effusive: SPEW.

54. Prompt: CUE.






 




9 comments:

Subgenius said...

This one eluded me.
I won’t go into all the reasons why, but suffice to say I couldn’t even complete one across ( or one down ) !
I’m not particularly happy about that. But it am happy to be on this site and see how the rest of you did. Blessings!

Jinx in Norfolk said...

DNF, filling 15, a dozen correctly. Spent very little time in deciding this one wasn't for me.

I see that Gary got the joke at traffic sign->CONE. I don't get it. I had "stop." Is it that sometimes cones cause traffic snags?

Congrats to H.Gary for your tenure at the Saturday helm.

Anonymous said...

This was the kind of puzzle where I didn’t understand many of the clues or answers even when I filled them correctly. I finished only with substantial help from red letters and seemingly endless alphabet runs.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

This one took me only five minutes. Reading Husker's recap, I can see I was smart to throw in the towel.

YooperPhil said...

Encountering clues such as “Bad Bunny genre”, “Acts like a gobstopper”, “Yurchenko double _____”, and “Lao Gan Ma condiment” to name a few, I knew I didn’t stand a chance of a FIR. Never found a foothold to get any perp help, so after about 45 minutes I was still looking at a sea of white. I don’t remember a LAT puzzle that I could only fill about 25% which was the case today. Oh well, I lost today’s game, but there’s another one tomorrow! Kudos to those who can figure this one out. Thanks HG for making sense of it all.

Anonymous said...

Saturday puzzle. Couldn’t even find a Hail Mary in this one.! Fortunately didn’t waste a lot of time….threw in the towel.
Greet the day.

YooperPhil said...

HG ~ thanks for your efforts in your 8 years of the Saturday blog, always a good read! I’d guess that in your career days you were an outstanding teacher.

CrossEyedDave said...

Well, it was good for avoiding shovelling snow for a while...

From yest, I was wrong, I am familiar with spoonerisms. I had just forgotten.
I was indoctrinated by Benny Hill's "Arts and Farces..."

Yellowrocks said...

I passed on this one. I see I was wise in not wasting time on it.