TO GO
A bottle of anything, and a glazed donut - to go~!
This is my second Jay Silverman puzzle this year, AND yet another 15 x 16 grid on a Wednesday . . . . The "4LWs" outnumbered the TLWs today, just a handful of names - but I knew them - and no circles. On to the reveal first;
41A. Speedy meal option, and what the answers to the starred clues literally are?: FAST FOOD
18A. *Speedy dinner option?: INSTANT RAMEN
31D. *Speedy side dish option?: MINUTE RICE
ACROSS:
1. Whisky, e.g.: SCOTCH
Indiana Jones is not particular about the type...
7. Business entities: FIRMS12. HSN alternative: QVC
15. Santa's laugh: HO-HO-HO - a timely clue; three weeks til Christmas~!
16. Wide open: AGAPE - I started with APART, but thought better of it
17. Dubai's fed.: UAE - United Arab Emirates
20. __-at-ease: ILL
21. Prefix with natal: NEO - neonatal
22. Bodies of water: SEAS
23. Didn't make the team's final roster: GOT CUT
25. Somewhat ruddy: REDDISH
28. Tools for fall guys?: RAKES - Har-har
29. Pop in for a scene, say: CAMEO
32. Hip-hop's __ Clan: WU TANG - One of their songs comes up on my Pandora station, but I cannot think of the title - and it's not Hip-Hop
34. Dover landmarks: CLIFFS - while listening to the radio waaay back in 1990, I heard this song in my headphones working for Grossmans Lumber, and prayed the FM radio DJ would mention the artist's name, and he did - Eric Johnson; I went out and immediately bought the record; here's the full track, and this is Juliana Wilson doing the ridiculously fast and difficult intro
Cliffs of Dover - note the finger stretches
37. Singer Kristofferson: KRIS - sadly passed Sep 28th, 2024 ( on my hiring anniversary date at the pipe organ company ); I remember him most for his role as the big boss in the movie Payback
44. Texter's "No clue": IDK - I Don't Know - Ozzy & Randy can tell you more . . . .
From the album Blizzard of Ozz, released in the US in 1981
after he was kicked out of Black Sabbath
47. Tidy: NEAT - ah, our friend Tinbeni took his 1A. this way . . . .
48. Strength of character: METTLE - I'm into Heavy Mettle
50. Wall Street figure: TRADER
52. Checked out before a heist: CASED - usually with "the joint"
53. Suffix with home or farm: STEAD - homestead, farmstead
55. Moisturizer target: DRY SKIN - AND - 30D. Ingredient in some 55-Across treatments: ALOE
61. "Just joshing!": "I KID~!" - I really do~!
62. Pampering place: SPA
65. Japanese sash: OBI
70. __-A-Fella Records: Jay-Z label: ROC - not the extinct bird
71. Goose-bumps-causing: EERIE
72. Minolta partner: KONICA - not just high-end cameras - their Wiki
73. Mama deer: DOE
74. Pedometer units: STEPS - I did a lot of dog walking while visiting my brother on Thanksgiving - his fiancée has an Australian Shepherd, and I want a dog now~!
75. Makes catty comments: SNARKS
DOWN:
1. Lower leg: SHIN - or CALF~? Had to wait on perps
3. Exceedingly: OH SO
4. Little one: TOT - little tater
5. Drive away: CHASE OFF
6. Made sharper: HONED
7. Iranian tongue: FARSI
8. Polish tennis star Swiatek: IGA - recently busted for doping - probably before the puzzle was submitted for publication - her Wiki
10. Video file format: MPEG - Moving Picture Experts Group - the format's website here
11. Spanish title: SEÑORA
13. Hold in esteem: VALUE
14. Boston NBA team, colloquially: CELTS - the Celtics - not a basketball fan, at all
19. Bit: TAD
24. Scuba necessity: TANK - I am thinking about installing an in-wall TANK for fish
26. Taylor who was Time's 2023 Person of the Year: SWIFT - I cannot watch the KC Chiefs because any broadcast of that team focuses way too much on her; I don't go to a Van Halen concert to see a football game on the big screen behind them . . . .
27. "Les Misérables" novelist Victor: HUGO
29. Included on an email: CCed
33. Yorke of Radiohead: THOM - Not a fan; the only song I know from them is "Creep"
35. __ dollar: SAND
38. Not busy: IDLE - Dah~! not FREE
39. List of appts.: SKED - abbr for schedule
42. Beginning of an idea: SEED - I had the "seed" for a song in a dream last week - what I heard was the lyric "the horses in the barn"
43. Opt for: DECIDE ON
46. Dentist's procedure: X-RAY
51. Some haciendas: ADOBES - I never actually read up on what a 'hacienda' really is - the Wiki
53. Excalibur, for one: SWORD
54. Beyond discouraged: TABOO
56. "Jeepers!": "YIKES~!"
57. Hit the slopes: SKI
58. Sneakers, informally: KICKS
60. Guitar part: FRET - body, neck, and head work, too
62. __ the pot: STIR - I have to restrain myself from "stirring the pot" at work
63. Brief kiss: PECK
64. Smallish batteries: AAAs - anything smaller, and we're into hearing aid/watch batteries
67. Wrath: IRE
68. Small intake: SIP
69. CSI sample: DNA
Splynter
33 comments:
I got through this one pretty quickly. I’m not sure I was familiar with “Konica” or a couple of the “musicians” but what I did not know perped easily.
FIR, so I’m happy.
You ain't a real Southerner if you have quick grits or minute rice in your kitchen.
Good morning!
Gak. DNF on a Wednesday. Tried a C for that T in the WUTANG/THOM cross. Bzzzzzt. I take exception at that "Brisk" themer. I also looked sideways at the "Whisky"/SCOTCH pairing, but decided the lack of an E should've tipped me off. GOT CUT is the short version of my H.S. athletic career. Thanx, Jay and Splynter.
KRIS: He wasn't much of a singer, but he sure wrote some great songs. Few people know he was a Rhodes Scholar.
XRAY: Dw broke a tooth over the weekend. $100 for evaluation, and it'll be another $1500 to crown it. Ufda.
Like
That was a fun and FAST solve. The theme answers came quickly, except for the BRISK part of ICED TEA.
Splynter, Randy Rhoads or Tony Iommi?
Yesterday was Ozzy's birthday. See # 13 in 20 Things You Might Not Know About Birthday Boy Ozzy
You can listen to the radio station while reading it. It's the station I listen to. Not happy that iHeartMedia laid off Angi Taylor in their massive cuts across the country on Nov 4th. She had the best morning rock show I've heard in years.
Also, at some point, I got the wires crossed and confused WU TANG with Wang Chung (Everybody Have Fun Tonight). Don't know that I have ever heard a Wu Tang song.
FIR, but calf->shin, and mpgs->MPEG.
Yeah, I knew that Kris was a Rhodes scholar. Fewer people know that he was once married to a Beer. Fran Beer, that is.
Never heard of a farmSTEAD, but it makes sense.
One of my switching systems was always spitting out "Path to be IDLEd not busy," meaning that a voice path through the network was on its list to tear down, but when it got around to it, the path was no longer there. Abejo would have known that one.
Atlanta radio blowhard Neil Boortz used to call folks who liked to STIR the pot "an outboard in the cesspool."
Never heard of WUTANG, but I'm willing to bet it's an urbanization of the derogatory "poontang."
Thanks to Jay for the fun puzzle. My favorite was "beyond discouraged" for TABOO, once the V8 can hit. And thanks to Splynter for the fine review and weekly leg shot. BTW - You know one more Radiohead tune than do I.
Wednesday puzzle, doable but sticky….greet the day.
Not too speedy on this one as it took me 14:48 for the FIR. KONICA and SNARKS were all perps, didn’t see them till the review. The T in the WUTANG/THOM cross was a WAG. I maybe vaguely heard of WU-TANG, I LIU and “WU” means “sword” in Chinese, “TANG” is the sound of swords clashing, (thanks Wikipedia), so maybe not exactly derived from what Jinx inferred. I didn’t know CAMEO could be a verb, but it sounds like one as clued. A good midweek puzzle, thank you Jay for that, and to Splynter for your informative commentary.
FIR. Typical Wednesday puzzle with the expected level of difficulty. I'm not sure I like taboo for "beyond discouraged ", but, oh well!
And to quote the movie, "My Cousin Vinny", no self-respecting southerner eats instant grits. (Hmmm, now I know what I'm having for breakfast today.)
So overall, an enjoyable mid-week challenge.
Took 4:54 today for me to finish my hasty pudding.
Is "quick grits" a thing?
Is "Swift" an Easter Egg with the theme?
I know of the Wu-Tang Clan, and am fascinated by the story of their album "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin". They made only one copy of it, which sold for $2M, which makes it the most expensive work of music sold.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_Shaolin
I also thought of Eric Johnson's "Cliffs of Dover". I'm not a huge fan of instrumentals, but that song jams.
Last month I was chewing some food and felt this hard substance in my mouth. I took it out and it was white--the tip of one of my bottom incisors. My appt. is next Wed.
It was a slow fill for a Wed. puzzle today. Of the four FAST FOOD items listed, the only one I've ever had was MINUTE RICE . The INSTANT RAMEN and QUICK GRITS WERE easy to guess but not BRISK ICED TEA. I'd never heard of it or KICKS for sneakers. ADOBES only made it by perps; I had no idea about the haciendas clue.
WUTANG & THOM-yeah, I know them---said nobody. Perps for both with a guess on the T.
GOT CUT? After "everybody gets a trophy", some kids are for a rude awakening.
DRY SKIN- a picture of me would be a good clue. Cera Ve and Lubriderm are staples at my house.
Time Mag was grasping at straws when their editors decided the "person who had the most influence in the world that year" was Taylor SWIFT to go along with presidents, dictators, scientists and popes.
Made me look. They took the name from the great movie classic Shaolin and Wu Tang, which must have escaped my attention. But looking it up exposed me to the term "backronym." which I have yet to see in Patti's cluing. It means to take an existing acronym and expand it to words that are different from its original meaning. For instance, MSNBC was backronymed by some wag on TV as Must Sell Network Before Christmas.
Ouch, in more ways than one
I suspect that Time did that for the same reason that Sports Illustrated has an annual swimsuit edition - to sell more copies. Time, Newsweek and US News and World Distort used to be relevant, but not so much now.
Good Morning! I had a slow start until SCOTCH appeared and then it flowed pretty smoothly. Good theme.
It’s only recently I have discovered RAMEN, and I like it! I’ve never had GRITS, and if I’m going to have ICED TEA, it’ll be raspberry or peach.
ESP: WUTANG, THOM
WO: my villain was CHASED out before it was OFF. Either way, it’s gone.
Thanks, Splynter. Loved your dog nephew, Cooper.
Good Morning:
This was a pretty easy solve, with the only unknowns of Thom and Wu Tang. I’m sure I’ve had Minute Rice at some point and I’m just as sure I’ve never had Instant Ramen, Quick Grits, or Brisk Ice Tea. Scotch (1A), on the other hand, is another story! Overall, a Wednesday-worthy theme and difficulty level.
Thanks, Jay, and thanks, Splynter, for the informative commentary. Keep us posted on the fish tank and dog wish list!
Have a great day.
From yest: thanks TTP, I will try the reply feature sequencing asap.
Didn't so it yesterday, because, well, it was already today, so...
The puzzle?
I enjoyed it, mostly, but rather than take a Thumper, quite honestly, this is the reason I do not construct puzzles. If I had a wuTang crossing Thom, rather than pulling obscurity out of the ether I would have rewritten the entire section. I could not live with myself inflicting such rot on unsuspecting innocent people... hmm, come to think of it,, that's probably what I do when I post silly links,,, I may have to rethink my philosophy on life...
(Dang it, I should have taken the Thumper...)
Sorry, I just be in a bad mood. sorta like most fast food today...
Musings
-Well, it finally happened. I am subbing for a guy who left absolutely NO PLANS for me at all. Thank Goodness for cell phones, a substitute’s best friend.
-My quick bkfst this morning was Belgian waffles that took 30 seconds in the microwave
-The sun will never rise on a day where C.C. uses instant tea or tea bags!
-Here it is Bob and KS: INSTANT GRITS?
-Telling a player she GOT CUT is not a fun thing to do.
-My mower is stored away. I’ll have some RAKING to do in one small section of the yard.
-Debarkation points for D-Day were west of the White Cliffs
-When I sub here, I spend my free period getting in STEPS in these very long hallways
-Any fan of the CELTS would know this Big Three
-My DW buys AAA’s in packs (yes, plural) of 60 for her Christmas decorating
-A good high school buddy of mine flew tourists into the Grand Canyon. He had Ozzy and Sharon Osborne on one trip and said they were normal, gracious people and good tippers.
-Nice job, Splynter! The NFL is also show biz and I don't mind the 10 seconds of SWIFT on the screen a few times during the game.
I have conflicted feelings about this CW. I really enjoyed the FAST FOOD theme and had no trouble with it, but still managed to not complete the puzzle.
The NE was a mess. Because I entered mAsK for TANK, I didn’t know HSN, CELTS, that area didn’t make the CUT. Then WUTANG crossing THOM got me. And finally, although in retrospect I realize I should have figured it out, I left C and K blank since I’ve never heard of BRISK ICED TEA, or sneakers being called KICKS.
No QUICK GRITS in this household. I’ve had INSTANT RAMEN. And I used to drink SCOTCH, and was an ardent fan of KRIS Kristofferson.
Thank you Splynter for the recap. Is Cooper your pooch?
***PSA***
Thank you Splynter for the entertaining write up! I enjoyed the splainin, it gave me "a leg up" on understanding...
One thing I have been bitterly complaining about, and I seem to be the only one affected, is that often the YouTube imbeds cannot be watched, because a "you must sign in" message was blocking access.
This had been going on for months for me, and it is probably because I do not have a lot of patience. But I did try to do all that was asked of me about signing in etc, only to find the video imbed locked once the message is displayed, with no way to go back and undo anything for a retry..
Very frustrating...
But thanks to Splynter, I may have found the cause, and solution to the problem.
The first three YouTube links gave me the lockout, so I moved on knowing from experience I would never be able to see them. But when I came to Monty Python's tart in the Water speech, I had to see it again... which made me discover what the cause is:
YouTube is Google...
Google uses Chrome as a browser...
I am using Safari on an IPad...
Google will lock you out !
Solution:
I opened the YouTube app on my iPad and I am already always signed in when using the app in an iPad. With YouTube app open, I went back to safaris open blog page, and was able to watch King Arthur abuse his subjects. However I could not scroll back and watch any of the previously locked out video imbeds. The solution to that was to close the blog app, and reopen it from the beginning (with all the ads slowing things down) with pathetic YouTube app running in the background. I was then able to finally watch all the YouTube imbeds.
If some one had kindly explained all this to me 3 months ago,
I might not have turned out like this guy...
Fun and easy with only a few unknowns, thank you JS, and Splynter, A=plus.
all/ILL, calf/SHIN, dry lips, DRY SKIN. I knew WU TANG but don’t know how I know it.
I took (not INSTANT) GRITS
Ugh! To continue: I took a (not INSTANT) GRITS dish to a New Years Day brunch here in the north and saw some eye rolling from other guests. All was eaten and I had 3 requests for the recipe. It goes way beyond the ground corn and water standard. It is delicious and I will share it with anyone.
Happy day, all!
I lived in LA when the big three were playing for Bastin. One interesting thing I noticed was that in addition to seeing a great game when those two met, they would, more times than not, lose the next game to an inferior team.
I think GRITS suffers from its name. They aren't gritty at all. Kinda like mainlanders shun the pupu platter visiting our 50th state.
...shun the pupu platter when visiting our 50th state.
Hand up MASK before TANK. Hand up never heard of QUICK GRITS. Never heard of SNARKS. I kept wondering if there was a deeper level to the theme. Enjoyed it and FIR.
I got this photo of the CLIFFS of DOVER from the DOVER to Calais Ferry.
This was in the 1990s, just before the Chunnel opened.
From Yesterday:
CanadianEh, YooperPhil Thank you for the kind words about my TAHOE photo with my Czech friends!
Wow! I admire your P &P.
Forgot to mention - My (crossword-favorite) SCUBA open water instructor had two pet peeves. The first was when students would put their MASKs on their foreheads when hanging out on the surface. He taught that a wave could knock the MASK of your head, and losing MASK and snorkel compromised your safety. The second was students who called that thing on their backs a TANK. He insisted that they be called cylinders.
Hola! it's so nice to be on line again! Thank you, Jay Silverman; I do enjoy your puzzles. This one filled leisurely as I was SIPping my coffee. Here in he desert I and every other resident suffer from DRY SKIN so lotion is much in demand. I always include some in my gift giving. I agree that KRIS Kristofferson was not much of a singer but he wrote some great songs and I'm not a fan of country music either. Also not a fan of RAMEN but my granddaughter buys it in bulk.
It was sad going back to my birthplace and seeing the ADOBES sinking into the ground. All the homes there were constructed of ADOBE bricks which were made by the residents. The town is mostly abandoned except for one or two ranches including my late uncles' property.
On that note I wish you all a great day!
Interesting story about your Czech friends, they sure went through some tumultuous times over there.
Interesting Wednesday puzzle with an enjoyable theme--many thanks, Jay. And thanks too for your helpful commentary, Splynter, also much appreciated.
Well, this morning's theme made it hard not to start off hungry with all that FAST FOOD showing up immediately. You INSTANTLY long for some RAMEN, and then, thankfully, are also offered some GRITS and RICE. Thank goodness, after all that we finally get some brisk ICED TEA to drink. And then it's time to go outside and get some exercise, maybe first with some STEPS at home before we go to the SPA. Once we go outside we can CHASE OFF some critters in the back yard, before visiting that DOE and that RAM on the cliffs. Makes for a pretty interesting and good morning, and we can certainly all VALUE that.
Have a pleasant day, everybody.
Struggled to an FIR, but didn't get a lot of enjoyment out of it today. The clues were just a tad off my radar, but that's probably just me. YMMV. I DID enjoy the recap by Splynter, as usual. Go for the dog! DW and I would be lost without at least one pup in residence. Used to have more than one, but age has slowed us both down. Our current Husky keeps us on our toes!
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