Do You Want Fries
With That?
With That?
Today veteran Matthew Stock treats us to an embedded letter theme, and doubles our fun by embedding two consecutive letters, and then doubling them in the fill. And to add to our fun he has at least one Easter Egg, plus some sparkly fill -- and as we'll see very shortly, some of it may be too sparkly!
Here are the themers ...
20A. "Wait for meeeee!": I'M COMING I'M COMING. A preview of coming attractions? ...
25A. Harry and Sally from "When Harry Met Sally ...," e.g.: ROM COM COUPLE. I started with the iconic "I'll have what she's having" clip (just Google that phrase if you don't know what I'm referring to), but then stumbled on this video review, which has much more to say about Harry and Sally's long term relationship than the 3 minute scene in the restaurant. It also has a brief scene about the influence that the movie had on other ROM COMS, notably Heartburn another Nora Ephron film ...
49. Oscar-winning song from "Mary Poppins": CHIM CHIM CHEREE. Dick van Dyke at his finest ...
Here's the reveal ...
59A. Golden Arches order with two patties, and an apt title for this puzzle: MCDOUBLE. It would be easy to miss this if you mentally parsed the three themers, because the double MCs each span two words, as is the crossword convention. Feast your eyes on this ...
 |
| McDonald’s McDouble |
Here's the grid ...
Here's the rest ...Across:
1. Brand with a four-ring logo: AUDI.
9. D.C. ballplayers: NATS. The NLE Washington Nationals.
13. Small cut: SNIP.
14. __ Bock: dark beer from Texas: SHINER. Bock beer is a dark beer first brewed in the 14th century in the Hanseatic town of Einbeck in Lower Saxony. This one is brewed in Shiner, Texas ...
16. Dieciséis dividido por dos: OCHO. Today we get a Spanish lesson and a math lesson all rolled into to one: "16 ÷ 2 = 8"
17. Behind: TUSH. KEISTER or PATOOTIE were too long.
18. Hindu practice: TANTRA. Tantra (Sanskrit: तन्त्र, lit. 'expansion-device, salvation-spreader; loom, weave, warp') is an esoteric and quite complex tradition that developed on the Indian subcontinent from the middle of the 1st millennium CE onwards in both Hinduism and Buddhism. The term tantra, in the Indian traditions, also means any systematic broadly applicable "text, theory, system, method, instrument, technique or practice". A key feature of these traditions is the use of mantras, and mandalas. While Tantra is often associated in the West with eroticism, this connotation is not widespread in India.
 |
| Sri Yantra mandala |
19. Welcome downfall for a gardener: RAIN.
20. [Theme clue].
23. Kindergartener: TOT. A little TATER?
24. RV park chain: KOA. KOA (short for Kampgrounds [sic] of America) is an American franchise of privately owned campgrounds. Having more than 500 locations across the United States and Canada, it is the world's largest system of privately owned campgrounds.
31. Brewpub offering: ALE. A constructor's favorite brewski, but now it has competition -- see 14A.
33. Big changes: SHAKE UPS. We may be in for a few SHAKE UPS in the coming year.
34. Race unit: LAP.
37. Perjurer: LIAR.
39. Soft mineral: TALC. Number 1 on the Mohs Hardness Scale, talc is a clay mineral composed of hydrated magnesium silicate, with the chemical formula Mg3Si4O10(OH)2. Talc in powdered form, often combined with corn starch, is used as baby powder (⚠). This mineral is used as a thickening agent and lubricant. It is also an ingredient in ceramics (glazes and low-fire clay bodies), paints, and roofing material. It is a main ingredient in many cosmetics.
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| Talc |
.jpg) |
| King Charles III United Kingdom |
44. Bread flour: ATTA. Atta is a type of wheat flour, originated from the Indian subcontinent, used to make local flatbreads. Whole common wheat (Triticum aestivum) is generally used to make atta; it has a high gluten content, which provides elasticity, so the dough made out of atta flour is strong and can be rolled into thin sheets. Some of our favorite Indian dishes with atta flour are parathas (a portmanteau of from the Sanskrit "parat" and "atta" meaning literally "cooked dough"). The easiest to make are Aloo Parathas.
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| Aloo Parathas |
47. Some field journalists: EMBEDS. Today's constructor EMBEDDED MC into today's crossword fill -- definitely an Easter Egg.
49. [Theme clue]
54. African cackler: HYENA. The "Laughing Hyena" is also known as the "Spotted hyena". Not only are they funny, but they are highly intelligent. Here are a couple of the cacklers having a laugh ...
55. Traveling: AWAY.
56. Rule: REIGN. See also 40A.
58. "Helpful hardware folks" company: ACE. Ace Hardware Corporation is an American hardware retailers' cooperative based in Oak Brook, Illinois, United States. It is the largest non-grocery retail cooperative in the United States.
62. Higher ed hurdle: GRE. The Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) is a standardized test that is part of the admissions process for many graduate schools in the United States and Canada and a few other countries. The GRE is owned and administered by Educational Testing Service (ETS). The test was established in 1936 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
63. Not feeling so hot: ILL.
64. Passed (out): HANDED. METED was too short.
65. Put a spell on: HEX. Today's German lesson: "Witch = HEXE". This brings to mind one of my favorite songs by Robert Schumann: Waldesgespräch ("forest conversation") about an encounter in a forest between a hunter and a witch named Loreley -- things do not go well for our hunter. Here it's sung by Welsh mezzo-soprano Angharad Lyddon (with English subtitles) ...
66. In medias __: RES. Today's Latin lesson: "In the middle of things". Also today's literary lesson. This phrase is used to describe a narrative than begins in the middle, rather than beginning at the beginning. Some good examples are Hamlet, The Iliad, and the Odyssey.
67. Comes out with: UTTERS.
68. Vietnamese holiday whose full name translates to "festival of the first day": TET.
Down:
1. Italian wine town: ASTI.
2. E pluribus __: UNUM. Today's Latin lesson: "Out of Many, One", and the motto on the Great Seal of United States.
3. Shuffleboard piece: DISC. Shuffleboard is a game in which players use cues to push weighted discs, sending them gliding down a narrow court, with the purpose of having them come to rest within a marked scoring area ...
4. Onetime Apple media app: IPHOTO. iPhoto is a discontinued digital photograph manipulation software application developed by Apple Inc. It was included with every Mac computer from 2002 to 2015, when it was replaced with Apple's Photos application.
5. Larger __ life: THAN.
6. Take a toll?: RING.
7. Against: ANTI.
8. Long-lasting do: PERM.
9. Par for the course: NORMAL.
10. __ na tigela: Brazilian dish with berries: ACAI. Today's Portuguese lesson: "CROSSWORDESE = CROSSWORDESE". 😀
11. Like a stick: THIN.
12. Karaoke selection: SONG. I picked this one, but it might not be popular with some of our solvers ... 😀
14. Disney character initially called Experiment 626: STITCH. Experiment 626 was created on another planet and sent to destroy the Earth. After crash landing he is found by orphan girl Lilo, who names him STITCH. Lilo & Stitch have appeared in an animated film, and a TV series and are set to return in a new animated, real life movie scheduled for release in theaters on May 23, 2025 ...
15. Amass: RACK UP.
21. May honorees: MOMS.
22. "Silly me!": OOPS.
25. Rollers that might get stuck in the mud: REAR WHEELS. AKA RWD. There are actually 4 types of drivetrains: FWD, RWD, AWD and 4WD -- what's the difference?
26. Vow: OATH.
27. "Uh-huh ... ": MKAY. If I read this correctly it is a slurring of OKAY and a near clecho to 51D (this one doesn't have a bang (!)). This is supposed to tell us that the person quoted agrees with you. Don't you just love quote clues? 😀
28. Gaelic speaker: CELT. They are not only speakers, but great singers as well ...
30. Rare spot for a No. 12 seed: ELITE EIGHT. Like "March Madness," the phrase "Elite Eight" originally referred to the Illinois High School Boys Basketball Championship in 1956, the single-elimination high school basketball tournament run by the Illinois High School Association (IHSA).
31. Astronaut Shepard: ALAN. Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut. In 1961, he became the second person and the first American to travel into space and, in 1971, he became the fifth and oldest person to walk on the Moon, at age 47.
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| Alan Shepard, Jr. |
35. Creative's credential: ART DEGREE. An artist is not a special person, every person is a special kind of artist -- and we all color outside the lines now and then.
36. Matar paneer vegetables: PEAS. Today's Hindi lesson: "MATAR = PEAS" and "PANEER = CHEESE". Here's Swasthi's recipe.
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| Matar Paneer |
38. Songbird with an orange belly: ROBIN. They used to be a harbinger of Spring, but on the East Coast they seem be around all year ...
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| American Robin |
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| English Robin |
42. Suggestion, casually: REC. Nina and I strongly REC reading the book highlighted in 41A.
43. Nothing to write home about: MEH. Meh.
46. Prayer leader: IMAM. For Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a prayer leader of a mosque. For Shia Muslims an Imam is a rightful descendent of the Prophet Mohammed and exercises not only spiritual power, but political power as well.
48. Trifling: MERE. Or a 21D in France.
50. Tore into: HAD AT.
51. "Uh-uh!": I WON'T. A near clecho to 27D (this one has a bang (!)). This is supposed to tell us the the person quoted doesn't agree with you. Don't you just love quote clues? 😀
52. "Euphoria" actress Apatow: MAUDE. Maude Annabelle Apatow (born December 15, 1997) is an American actress. She is best known for portraying Lexi Howard in the HBO drama series Euphoria (2019–present) -- IMHO an alternate title might be Depression. 🙃
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| Maude Apatow |
54. Small margin of victory: HAIR. A hair can be anywhere between 17 to 181 microns (micrometers), but I don't think the cameras recording race results are that precise. 😀
57. On deck: NEXT. Mr. CHU ensues ...
60. "Wicked" director Jon M. __: CHU. Oz in an alternate universe -- Wicked is a 2024 American musical fantasy film directed by Jon M. Chu and written by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, with songs by Stephen Schwartz. It is the first installment of a two-part film adaptation of the stage musical of the same name based on the 1995 novel, which in turn is based on the L. Frank Baum's Oz books and the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. Here's the trailer ...
61. Mormon church inits.: LDS. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Their official logo
Cheers,
Bill
And as always, thanks to Teri for proofreading and for her constructive criticism.
waseeley
52 comments:
This was not an easy puzzle. There were SO many clues on the edge of obscurity; or, in some cases, over the edge (“M’kay,” really?). Nevertheless, I persevered through it. FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
It had to be a MANTRA, right? That gave me a Disney character named SMITCH. Hey, it could'a been. Bzzzzzt. Other than that debacle, d-o enjoyed the exercise and even caught the theme. It was a yay-boo experience. Thanx, Matthew, waseeley, and Teri.
BOCK: In my ute the breweries only offered BOCK beer for a short time each year -- when they drained the dregs from the vats for the annual cleaning. Different color, different taste. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
HYENA: Their jaws can create a pressure of 1100 PSI, almost twice that of a lion. They have the 7th strongest bite crush pressure of all animals, just behind #6, the polar bear.
4WD: In my ute the major employer in the area was the Four Wheel Drive Company, referred to locally as simply "the Drive." Many of our local residents commuted to work there daily. Most of their vehicles in those days were fire engines. Our little town bought one for our volunteer fire department.
Here's the bi-weekly DAB puzzle. Here's what David has to say about it ...
To undelete a thing is to put that thing back in, but . . . what if the thing deleted were the syllable “un”? Think about it! The mind reels! Doesn’t the word then refer simultaneously to an act and its opposite? And doesn’t the resulting aporia call in question the very possibility of meaning outside the infinite play of signification?
I think I’m on the verge of a crucial insight here, one that will forever change the way we think about thinking, and write about writing about writing. I’ll set it all out in a treatise as soon as I can find the time; meanwhile I’ve embodied it in this crossword. Solve it and join me on the forefront of post-philosophical inquiry.
I take exception to any clue that is In another language.
nobody cares
FIW, missing my WAG @ mANTRA x SmITCH. I might have gotten it with an alphabet run, but I used up all of my P&P convincing myself to leave in MKAY. No erasure today.
I sound like a broken record, but I really dislike clues or fills like "uh-huh" and "uh-uh."
Like D-O, I always thought of bock as being seasonal. When I moonlighted at a Pizza Hut, our beer selection was Budweiser, Michelob, and Michelon Dark (not bock.) That was before Big Beer figured out that they could water down their product and sell it as a low-calorie brew.
On down memory lane, my first job was at a McDonald's. The owner of our store refused to introduce Big Macs, because he could sell double cheeseburgers (before they got a fancy name) for $0.49, and Big Macs cost more to make and were more time consuming and only sold for $0.50. Corporate finally threatened to build new stores on the edges of our owner's franchise boundary, and he relented. The worst part was that as part of the deal, we stopped using fresh potatoes and migrated to the "official" frozen ones. Cheaper, but not nearly as good.
Remember when ZZ Top let us know they were goin' downtown, lookin' for some TUSH?
Today we speld a type of sword just to please C-Eh!
Thanks to Matthew for a fun puzzle that could have been much more fun with some good editing. And thanks to Bill 'n' Teri for the fun review. Good to start the day listening to my favorite jazz instrumental, Take Five.
OMG
TIL MKAY=OKAY K?
AYS
Y
IMO (FWIW) PEBCAK
IAE: DERB
DQMOT
PS: HAND
The middle was the last to fall because after I'M COMING I'COMING and CHIM CHIM I kept wanting ROM ROM but it wasn't. Until today I've never seen or heard of MKAY. Had to change MANTRA to TANTRA and guessed STITCH. I kept wanting CHER-I-E but knew ELITEIICHT wasn't right
MCDOUBLE-it took perps for that unknown hamburger. McDonald's breakfasts are okay, but their hamburgers? I haven't had one in 20 years.
SHINER bock is one of my favorites.
MAUDE and CHU were other unknowns filled by perps.
Left/right symmetry often means there is a graphic involved. In this case, I see a Big Mac with 2 burgers between 3 buns!
FIR but got tangled up on the clue for a Texas bear! I knew black bears but not bock bears? Skipped over it and circled back at the end. Things to do in 2025: get new reading glasses!
Retailer's cooperatives saved the local hardware stores. ACE and True Value gave the mom-and-pops national advertising and buying power. I wish the same had happened to the little music stores that I used to frequent...
Today's puzzle was certainly befitting of a Thursday challenge, with its tricky clues and clever theme.
And its structure was unusual: first, it's a 16 x 15 grid instead of the normal weekday 15 x 15; and second, its symmetry was not natural. Waseeley, do you know why the constructor set it up this way? I'm curious, because, for example, the only entry in the puzzle that required 16 spaces was the non-memorable IMCOMINGIMCOMING.
For me there were a plethora of annoying routine verbalisms like "Uh-huh" = MKAY, "Stop poking me!" = OUCH, "Uh-uh!" = IWONT, and "Silly me!" = OOPS. And of course the long theme answer of "Wait for meeee!" = IMCOMINGIMCOMING.
I always enjoy seeing Nora Ephron in puzzles, even if only peripherally as here, with the "Harry and Sally" clue.
The clues ranged from appealing, such as in the misdirections, to the occasionally peculiar, such as calling car tires "rollers." The overused ACAI had a novel and refreshing clue: it was in Portuguese!
I do not frequent McDonald's, so had not heard of a McDouble. Nonetheless, I applaud Matthew for persistently and cleverly giving us three different double MC phrases.
Thanks, Matthew, for providing an entertaining, thoughtful, and fun puzzle. I found it to be an enjoyable and satisfying solve, a pleasant Thursday diversion.
Thursday puzzle. Bill’s write up was an absolute delight and most entertaining…..not so to the puzzle itself. Just too edgy for me. Nothing clicked till Bill added depth to the clues.
Greet the day.
FIW. I too had mantra instead of tantra, and assumed there was a Smitch character. And I stared at mkay and thought it couldn't be right.
This was a Thursday hard puzzle with a vertical grid, which I greatly dislike.
I found the theme lame, especially after the first entry and then having rom com couple. How is that a double anything?
Not a very enjoyable puzzle.
KS @8:09AM ROM COM COUPLE has double MCs or MC DOUBLES, the revealed theme of the puzzle. They're hard to pick out as each spans two fill words.
Took 6:25 today for me to eMCee from my arMChair.
I didn't know today's actress (Maude), the Spanish math problem (ocho), the "res" clue, and "mkay." Also, I don't think I've heard of a "McDouble".
Thursday Trio (OOPS DOUBLE). Thanks for the fun, Matthew, and waseeley and Teri.
I FIRed and eventually saw the MC DOUBLE theme, but this was a workout. Theme wise, I was seeing the double COM,, ROM COM, CHIM before the reveal gave me the MC.
Unknowns-to-me included SHINER, ACE, MAUDE, CHU, AÇAI as clued.
I struggled with the spelling of CHEREE.
My race had a leg before a LAP, and my margin of victory was a Nose before a HAIR.
My Spanish was not up to “dieciseis”, but I WAGged OCHO after a perp or two.
MKAY was a big MEH.
TET was appropriate for this time of year (although it is actually January 25 to February 2 2025.
Wishing you all a great day.
Waseeley,
Do you know why the decision was made to go with a 16 x 15 grid? I realize that IMCOMINGIMCOMING is 16 letters, but a)
that's not exactly an irreplaceable or epic or memorable phrase, and b) there are hundreds of shorter phrases with doubled MCs in them.
Thanks!
I was stuck with a puzzle resembling someone with their front teeth missing, the Mid South a gaping empty space until Mc DOUBLE popped into my head and the rest perp-filled. (IM: isn’t a McDOUBLE two shots of Irish whiskey? 🥃 😀).
A still from an episode of South Park. Just a picture, the song is too graphic MKAY?
Didn’t know “Wicked” director Jon M. CHU or that he was evil. 👿
Our local brewery brews “bock” beer seasonally. “Na tigela”.: was gonna try Hava, but it’s a dessert, not a dance. 😇
“King Charles, SIRE, you REIGN but do not “rule”, so you can’t have Meghan, Dutchess of Sussex beheaded 😳
Actually our ROBIN has a red breast. Here’s an American Robin.
Gotta remember to sign dates as 2025 and not 24🙄
Quite crunchy for a Thursday. Mantra instead of tantra threw me off, but I have seen Tantra before. I had Smitch which I never heard of instead of Stitch which I know. I would have gotten Lilo's companion, STITCH.
I have not seen or heard REC and MKAY. LIU, they are both in the dictionary as informal, I do see and hear uh huh and uh uh.
REC for recommendation'
MKAY is nonstandard spelling of OK, representing a (typically used at the end of a statement to invite agreement, approval, or confirmation).
"come back in a few hours, mkay?"
I totally missed the double MCs.
Never the less, I found this fun and interesting.
BTW, I had a McDouble yesterday. The patties were much thinner than those in the illustration. Alan loves McDonalds.
Ken @ 9:36AM I'm not really very grid savvy but I suspect Matthew needed it solely it for the theme clue "I'M COMING I'M COMING", which has two MCs. Perhaps he hit upon this first and, being grid savvy, he found no need to look further.
DNF, unfortunately. I stuck with mfaDEGREE, didn’t know SABER nor could I come up with ELITE, though I had EIGHT.
I did see the DOUBLE MCs, but was troubled by ROMCOoCUPLE.
The only sandwich from McDonald’s I know of is á Big Mac. I will say though, the theme was clever but the whole CW didn’t work for me. Too many Uh huhs and quotes. An I wish someone would retire AÇAÍ, á berry I’ve yet to see in real life.
When I’m in Texas I invariably order á SHINER Bock.
Thank you waseeley for á stellar review. I hope I never meet á HYENA in the wild.
That should be COUPLE.
Clever puzzle, though I needed the reveal answer to look for the MC doubles
"When Harry met Sally" is one of my favorite ROMCOMs not only because of the skill of Nora Ephron, but because it spans the 20 years that I had post college . I think I had nearly every hairstyle, outfit, bridesmaid dress that they showed in it, so it is very nostalgic for me.
MAUDE Apatow is the daughter of well known director, producer, writer Judd Apatow
One of my sons went to college in Texas - so SHINER beers were popular among his crowd
Thanks Bill & Teri for the blog (and the shout out for the book we both enjoyed) and to Matthew for the McPuzzle
Texas was infested with Naticks.
What with the McDonald’s product, Judd Apatow’s daughter, the “Wicked” director, and the unhelpful clue for UTTERS, I was lucky to FIR. I figured out HAD AT, a phrase I’ve seen more in crossword puzzles than all other places combined, but if DW hadn’t known the director’s name, I might have TITT.
Other impediments: I’ve seen M’KAY in the comic strip LuAnn, and nowhere else. Kindergarteners are too old to be TOTs. I’ll never shorten “recommendation” to REC.
My favorite entry was SHINER, with the clue I thought of when that word appeared in a puzzle a few days ago (speaking of Texas).
Jinx, in late 60's and early 70's a college handout sold SCHLITZ DARK draught by the yard or half-yard in a glass that looked like a blunderbuss. In the early 60's a Texas beer advertised their "Lone Star Draft" that had to discontinue advertising it as LSD when LSD became a hippie drug and a movie called "The Trip" came out.
MEH. MKAY? "Quote" clues="Too lazy to think up a REAL clue?" Enough, already! (Rant ends) A nice recap by Bill & Teri saves the day.
Ach! I should have read the comments before posting. I missed my error, since I had mANTRA and SmITCH too.
We saw and heard HYENAS on a night safari in Kenya. Horrible creatures IMHO and their eyes shine in the dark.
LOL Jinx! I wondered why an American team had a British spelling for their name. When I LIUed, I found that there was a contest to pick the name, and the winning choice came from Harry Cole, a Toronto filmmaker. The SABRES kept the spelling he submitted. Plus, Buffalo is just across the river from Canada. Many Niagara-area hockey fans travel to Buffalo when there is a game against the Maple Leafs, as it is closer and less expensive for tickets.
In Canada, we have a similar cooperative - Home Hardware.
I am familiar with two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce cheese etc etc, but I have never heard of a McDouble...
Mkay is not Okay...
Personally, I think these hamburgers are just a PR stunt...
This makes my brain hurt😳
Musings
-The last time I communicated with Matt, he was an 8th grade math teacher in Gainesville, FL. -
-This just in, I just got this from Matt:
Hi Gary,
Glad you enjoyed the [MCDOUBLE] puzzle. I’m now in a masters program in counseling - no longer teaching but still doing school things! Hope you have a great new year.
Cheers,
Matthew
-OMG, I started as an 8th grade math teacher and then got a Masters in counseling too!
-A satisfying struggle at the southern border.
-My son-in-law and grandson love AUDI and will never had a car with an American nameplate
-My worst nightmares are when I am in a TRAP where no verbal or physical actions can help me escape
-Knowing Spanish for ten and six and two helped me get OCHO
-We had a welcome .78 of RAIN this week that soaked into “yet to be frozen” ground
-RHYTHM is a great word to use in a game where letters must be guessed
-Would you get the fill for this clue: “____ boy, Luther!”
-In meida RES: The first scene in Better Call Saul is of Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman/Gene Takovic in Omaha after everything fell apart in Albuquerque in the previous years and the end was near.
-Ohio State kept RACKING UP points from kickoff against Oregon in Pasadena yesterday
-I would add MAUDE to this list
Hand up this was tough with some crossed names and obscurities. Enjoyed the amusing theme. Wanted SPEED before RHYTHM. STITCH we have seen before but it took a lot of digging to find it.
I like MCDonalds burgers, but don't like all the glop on them. They are not friendly when I ask for just the burger and bun. Last to fill was that mess with SABRE, ATTA, ELITE EIGHT, EMBEDS to FIR.
Last Friday we were STUCK mired in MUD.
We were hiking the Bishop's Peak trail in San Luis Obispo on our way back from San Francisco. Between the MUD and the dense fog we turned back half way up.
From Yesterday:
unclefred Thanks for the guess about the mysteriously odd price paid for the old APPLE of Jinx
✋ for getting stuck in the MANTRA/SMITCH cross before I made a WAG and switched the M to a T for my last fill. FIR in 16:52. After I filled the top themer I thought it may be a repeating phrase format, but ROM COM COUPLE ruled that out. Like others, a little roadblock in the south till I finally sussed the reveal. I hadn’t heard of a MC DOUBLE, but I very occasionally have a single cheeseburger from there, in fact I had one today when I was running a few errands, maybe subliminally led there by today’s puzzle? A four letter flour is either ATTA or Roti. DNK what Matar Panar was or who MAUDE and CHU are, perps got me those. Perps also solved the foreign math problem for me, almost 40 years ago I did honeymoon in OCHO Rios Jamaica. All in all, a good Thursday level puzzle, thank you Matthew, and also to Bill and Teri for your in-depth review!
Re "When Harry Met Sally," it has one of the best lines ever: "I'll have what she's having."
Hola!
Lucky for me, I am bilingual and OCHO is in my vocabulary but ATTA is not and I needed all perps for that. Also I am not a beer drinker so I would never think of SHINER. Thank you, perps! However, I had MANTRA not TANTRA and so FIW. Drat! I forgot about Lilo and STITCH.
I love Nora Ephron's movies and "When Harry Met Sally" is among my favorites. "Sleepless in Seattle" is another.
MKAY? it doesn't even make sense!
CSO to Yellowrocks' ALAN.
I had no idea about "matar paneer" vegetables but with four letters I guessed PEAS. In Spanish "matar" means "to kill."
MKAY could also be Mary KAY cosmetics.
I did not know CHU so had to ask ALEXA.
Have a wonderful day, eveyone!
Big Easy, I remember the yard and half-yard blunderbuss - great description. Don't remember LSD beer, but one couldn't live in Texas without hearing Shiner BOCK beer radio commercials.
Ca-Eh! I had no idea how the name originated. Great story! It would never occur to me to cross the border to see my team play.
Lucina, think of it as "um-kay," sloppy pronunciation of "okay."
"...you REIGN but do not “rule”, so you can’t have Meghan, Dutchess of Sussex beheaded." But I'll bet he thought about it and longed for the merry old days.
MKAY reminds me of Gardner McKay, the lead in one of my favorite TV shows as a kid “Adventures in Paradise 🌴
M’kay is right out of South Park.
Thoroughly Thursday tough, 15 names, DNK 5, which included STITCH. As many mentioned, I had MANTRA, but SMITCH didn't look right. After staring at it for quite a while I recalled there is such a thing as a TANTRA (although I DNK what exactly it is) so changed the M to a T and STITCH looked more likely. Also DNK ATTA, or RES (66A). Passed (out) = UNCONSCIOUS didn't fit, needed several perps to finally get HANDED. Overall a FIR but took 16. Tough CW, but clever, thanx MS. And thanx too to Bill for the terrific write-up. I loved all the video clips you embedded, Bill. Yesterday I posted so late I suspect few saw my latest "Namie": "If my last name was Borden and I had a daughter, I'd name her Elizabeth. She'd grow up to be quite proficient with an axe." Anybody else think of any?
I am not familiar with this game, but is it along the lines of the following?
Since "Jack" is a common nickname for "John," Mr. And Mrs. Ripper should perhaps reconsider their decision to name their son John.
Thanks for clearing up something I've wondered about - who was Gardner McKay?
As the late Jimmy Buffett song goes:
We are the people they couldn't figure out
We are the people our parents warned us about
Hey hey, Gardner McKay
Take us on the Leaky Tiki with you
Clear skies, bound for Shanghai
Sailing cross the ocean blue
Hi All!
The Texas area was my holdup today. CHU & MAUDE where unknown but a few WAGs finished it off. Thanks Matthew, Bill, & Teri.
WO: mANTRA
ESPs: spelling CHIM CHIM CHEREE, CHU, MAUDE
Fav: SHINER Bock. Pretty good beer, IMHO.
Drugs are Bad, MKAY? [2:18]
Pro Tip: If you're tummy is achy and you're having trouble keeping things down, a McD's cheeseburger is the perfect bland food with more bread than anything.
IT SECTOR humor: I wish they would have called "zip" "feather", then one could tar and feather their files :-)
Cheers, -T
d-otto:
Thank you. I cannot tell you how much I dislike no, hate, those lazy language abbreviations!
When I took my project management game from customer products and service to IT, I had a lot to learn. The Configuration Management folks agreed to meet with me to walk me through the process of bringing up a server. They referred to TAR files, and not being ashamed to expose my vast ignorance, I asked what they were. Without missing a beat, the lead CM guy explained that it was a slang for a file that was made up of a bunch of smaller files. The big file was like a big ball of tar, sticking all those small files together, so that was how it got its name. Didn't sound quite right, but he didn't show a tell. Neither did the other CM guys who were in the briefing. A couple of weeks later someone told me that it was a proprietary archiving format. I was embarrassed but couldn't get mad, because I would have done the same given the opportunity. I was a little chagrined because I had gone out of my way to get hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts for the session, and that's the thanks I got.
In my time at McDonalds, I was surprised to find out that the hamburger meat was very low fat. Some vendor tried to get us to buy our meat from him, and dropped off a 10 pound box of patties. The boss used one patty to evaluate, then gave the rest of the box for me to take home. I put some of the patties together to put on the grill, but couldn't make thicker patties by hand. The boss explained that the fat content was too low, then showed me how to evaluate the ground beef content. He had a apparatus that was in essence a heat lamp, a patty holder, and a fat collection beaker. The test heated the patty until it was dry. Don't remember all the specifications it tested, but there were color pictures showing several defects. I do remember that holes in the crispy patty indicated too much heart in the mix.
Seeing so many comments about troubles with STITCH makes me think I have failed you. I thought I included too many Experiment 626 references, but I'm happy to step it up in future blogs.
= )
Thanks to Matthew for his Thursday challenge and to waseeley for all the extras -- especially the WHMS analysis!
The problem is *which* language is used, and how completely. Recently, the Powers-That-Be have taken as their fad Indian (Hindu?), as in 'matar paneer' and 'bread flour (44A).' This foible is repulsive, along with junk like 27D.
Although I caught on to the MC business, this was still an uphill battle! Besides the MKAY and MEH goofiness, the foreign word collection in this puzzle was all over the map — literally! Hindi, Spanish, Yiddish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, German, Sanskrit, Latin, Gaelic, Arabic…even a French twist (MERE). It’s a wonder there was room for any English words…
Along with a bunch of ya, I fell in the mANTRA/SmITCH hole, due primarily to brain-fade. Didn’t even think of Lilo and STITCH, despite having seen the flick; “Hello? Brain??” (crickets…)
At least Waseeley’s review gave me some uplift — the “When Harry Met Sally” clips were priceless, and yes, the “I’ll have…” line became an overnight classic, right up there with “Frankly, my dear…”, “I’m sorry, Dave…” and “You call that a knife?…”. Well played, Mr. Bill 🤙🏽😎
Happy Gnu Ear, y’all!
====> Darren / L.A.
And thanks also for the trailers ... I might even go see some of H'wood's gems....
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