Friday, Aug 7th, 2026 ~ Gali Ellenblum & Tal Wagner
"Park Drive is always jammed"
"I said THROUGH the park"
We're taking the scenic route today, a walk in, uh, drive through the park for yours truly. I do believe this is a debut construction for both authors - I did a Google search of the names, and the one thing I found they had in common ( if I picked the correct people ) is a "machine learning" education/understanding. We'd love to get some feedback from you - drop in & visit our Crossword Corner~! ( merge left here ) There were no delays today, just a cruise through the clues & answers, including several one-word types - twenty-one, in fact, which I like; that's how Fridays should be. Yet another "expanded" grid for your Friday host, two in a row now. The "ST" abbr. for 'street', tacked on to four in-language phrases, outside the box, on the "side", with humorous cluing - sounds like a coffee or restaurant order. Standard grid initially, a few names, no Twurds, a balance of 3-, 4-, and 5-letter words, with several car clues & Frawnche fill. The four themers and reveal;
25. "My peacock's tail is the best!," e.g.?: FEATHERBOAST
49. Record of one's attempts to enter a hedge maze?: STARTHISTORY
60. Promise made by a serial dater who aspires to commit?: ONEMORETRYST- "One More Try" is a unique fill
38. Features of some detours, or what four answers in this puzzle need in order to match their clues?: SIDE STREETS - and a unique fill, too~!
Grid Flow a low 24.9
🚧But Wait, ⛔There's More~!🏁
ACROSS:
1. Sheer: UTTER - One-word clue, one-word answer; letting me start with SHEER~? Priceless~!
Utterly beautiful
6. Walrus kin: SEAL
10. Waffle over in the freezer aisle: EGGO - Too easy for Friday
14. Bête __: NOIRE -Frawnche #1, "black beast"
15. Shoestring: LACE - Sunday dupe
16. Infuriate: ROIL
19. Explore Mars, perhaps: ROVE - As Spirit & Opportunity did for NASA; I love the science success stories these two travelers gave us
20. Ninth letter of the Hebrew alphabet: TET - new clue for this old answer; learning moment for me
21. Reaction to lions and tigers and bears: "OHMY~!" - never gets old - 😁
22. Vein of ore: LODE
23. Genesis locale: EDEN - AND - . . .
29. Genesis locale: SODOM - straight clecho
31. Accessory often tipped or used for tips: HAT
32. "Dee-lish!": "YUM~!"
33. French bean: HARICOT - straight Frawnche translation, #2, not a "?" clue for "tête"
37. "We are not alone" subj.: SETI - Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence
40. "Shoo!": "SCAT~!"
42. "Call Me" band: BLONDIE - name(ish) - they were just a hint before my time
Oui amie - more Frawnche, #3~!
43. Bud: PAL
44. Refuse to settle, perhaps: SUE - Last week, it was a "boy named SUE" . . .
45. Sticker: DECAL - Ah. There's where it goes - I had it here - 26D. Sticker: THORN. . . 😜
54. Mountain lion: PUMA
55. "Yer killin' me!": "C'MON..."
56. Utah city near two national parks: MOAB - mostly perps, I just had to fill in the "B"; geo-name #1
Click to enlarge and read the description
58. Fishing pole: ROD
59. Drops from above: RAIN - not the "bomb" kind of drop . . . 😏
63. Early Bond foe: DR. NO - The earliest, in movies, name #2
64. Actor Auberjonois: RENÉ - name #3, knew him from "Benson"
65. :-( : I'MSAD - The "original" way of using typed characters for emotions, a Thursday dupe, and plain sad is actually not available through the blogger, as R-Brain showed . . . now we're "égaliser" 😁
66. Fortuneteller: SEER - AND - 60D. Sphere consulted by a 66-Across: ORB
67. Spanish kiss: BESO
68. Touchscreen tappers: STYLI - FINGER was a 'digit' too much . . . 🙄
DOWN:
1. Marries: UNITES
2. Home of the El Greco Museum: TOLEDO - Spain, geo name #4, more here
3. Pitching: TILTED - Dah~! Not the SELLING, HAWKING or VENDING kind of pitching
4. Pitching stat: ERA- aaaand yet another definition of pitching - baseball
5. Make over: RE-DO - thanks for the Sunday shout-out, C.C. - I have finally gotten below 200lbs~!
6. Substance celebrated by the Sloomoo Institute: SLIME - Learning moment for me - more here
7. Smooth course: EASYA - crossword staple
8. Best club in Vegas?: ACE - But the best Ace is of Spades . . .
Motörhead - another "umlaut" band
9. Was up: LED - think sports, not out-of-bed
10. Bad move: ERROR
11. Peace offerings?: GOOD-BYES - I, and a couple of friends, usually sign off with "Peace."
12. Buckle: GIVEOUT - Like this bridge did - the verb, not the noun
give IN works, too, but doesn't fit
13. The Grand __ Opry: OLE
18. TV broadcast band: VHF - sssss, close, I tried UHF
22. Allow: LET
24. Like a 2024 Blake Snell game: NO-HIT - the only name I had no clue about, but in retrospect, the answer couldn't be much else, really. More baseball, name(ish)
27. Despised: HATED
28. French friend: AMI - Frawnche #4, the masculine friend
30. Steamed: MAD - Dah~! Not HOT
34. Symbolic puzzle that dates to the Middle Ages: REBUS - good WAG on my part
35. Key: ISLET - Didn't fool me this time - I count about two dozen definitions of the word "key"
37. Very much inclined: STEEP - I am one house, or about 500ft, from CT rte. 195, and I can tell when a semi is either lumbering up the 6% incline, or jake-braking on the down-side
Burrrr-bur-bur-bur-bu-bu-bur . . . .
38. Source of some pink seasoning: SALTMINE - I knew we were looking for "SALT", but "SEA" was not going to work . . .
39. Ramadan-ending holiday, informally: EID - filled via perps
40. Cocoa scrub venue: SPA - it's a "thing" - more on the benefits here
41. Auto maintenance: CARCARE - TUNE-UP was too short, OIL CHANGE too long
44. Transgression: SIN
46. Respectful dip: CURTSY
47. Virtually indifferent?: AMORAL - clever
48. "The People's Princess": LADYDI - killed in a car crash, Paris, 29yrs ago this month - no one was wearing a seat belt; name #5, Frawnche #5
SIDE STREETS and BLONDIE remained hidden until the very end. Changing CIO to CTO really helped. Another "fun" sequence was GIVEsin/GIVEsUp/GIVEOUT. Wite-Out, please.
VHF: Madison was supposed to be an experimental UHF-only TV market, but somebody with political "pull" managed to latch onto VHF channel 3. When I lived there Madison had 4 TV stations: WISC-3 CBS, WMTV-15 NBC, WHA-21 PBS, and WKOW-27 ABC. There are more channels today. Digital TV has leveled the playing field. A UHF channel assignment is no longer a disadvantage.
TV channels used to correlate with the broadcast frequency, but no more. WISC-TV Channel 3 actually broadcasts on VHF channel 11 these days. The vast majority of US TV stations use UHF channels, like Norfolk's WAVY-TV Channel 10 broadcasting on UHF channel 19. The broadcast signal "tells" the TV set what channel to display. The only time viewers need to know the actual broadcast channel is if/when an antenna needs to be pointed toward a station.
FIR, but rail->ROIL, orem->MOAB, gives up->GIVE OUT, and buso->BESO (desatar!)
I got three of the theme meanings, but not (ST)ART HISTORY. Wasn't the big bang the only START HISTORY?
For Splynter and the other young'uns, Jennifer Wood only posted the BLONDIE YouTube video. Debbie Harry was the one-and-only namesake for the band. (My favorite from them was Rapture.)
I know MOAB only because a neighbor used to participate in a bicycle race there every year. Supposed to be a big deal.
Thanks to Gali and Tal for the fun, easy-ish Friday puzzle, and to Splynter for the fine review. Great graphic at the start!
FIR. This was especially crunchy even for a Friday. But persistence paid off with the help of well placed perps. When I was done I stared at the reveal unable to get the theme. I kept trying to insert side or street in the long answers. When I saw it I had my aha moment. Why it took me so long is beside me. Overall an enjoyable puzzle.
It's not really your fault. This sort of theme is much easier to grasp if the "wacky" phrases are the actual answers in the grid. Getting ILL-ADVISED as the answer to that clue leads to a lot of head-scratching, but if you saw STILL ADVISED in a puzzle, it would be easy to spot the base phrase and recognize that there's an extra ST.
Not an easy puzzle, but
ReplyDeleteI got it. And eventually even figured out all the “ST’s” that the reveal referred to.
Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteSIDE STREETS and BLONDIE remained hidden until the very end. Changing CIO to CTO really helped. Another "fun" sequence was GIVEsin/GIVEsUp/GIVEOUT. Wite-Out, please.
VHF: Madison was supposed to be an experimental UHF-only TV market, but somebody with political "pull" managed to latch onto VHF channel 3. When I lived there Madison had 4 TV stations: WISC-3 CBS, WMTV-15 NBC, WHA-21 PBS, and WKOW-27 ABC. There are more channels today. Digital TV has leveled the playing field. A UHF channel assignment is no longer a disadvantage.
Today's another medical appt day. Fun!
TV channels used to correlate with the broadcast frequency, but no more. WISC-TV Channel 3 actually broadcasts on VHF channel 11 these days. The vast majority of US TV stations use UHF channels, like Norfolk's WAVY-TV Channel 10 broadcasting on UHF channel 19. The broadcast signal "tells" the TV set what channel to display. The only time viewers need to know the actual broadcast channel is if/when an antenna needs to be pointed toward a station.
Delete(You need to know the air channel when aligning an antenna so you can set up the meter to the correct signal.)
DeleteThey’re trying too hard. Very contrived but not in a good way.
ReplyDeleteFIR, but rail->ROIL, orem->MOAB, gives up->GIVE OUT, and buso->BESO (desatar!)
ReplyDeleteI got three of the theme meanings, but not (ST)ART HISTORY. Wasn't the big bang the only START HISTORY?
For Splynter and the other young'uns, Jennifer Wood only posted the BLONDIE YouTube video. Debbie Harry was the one-and-only namesake for the band. (My favorite from them was Rapture.)
I know MOAB only because a neighbor used to participate in a bicycle race there every year. Supposed to be a big deal.
Thanks to Gali and Tal for the fun, easy-ish Friday puzzle, and to Splynter for the fine review. Great graphic at the start!
Hi there~!
Delete. . . I'm not THAT old~!
Splynter
Oops, forgot to thank Gali, Tal, (TRYst was very clever) and Splynter for today's amusement.
ReplyDeleteLoved “Rapture”
ReplyDeleteFIR. This was especially crunchy even for a Friday. But persistence paid off with the help of well placed perps.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was done I stared at the reveal unable to get the theme. I kept trying to insert side or street in the long answers. When I saw it I had my aha moment. Why it took me so long is beside me.
Overall an enjoyable puzzle.
It's not really your fault. This sort of theme is much easier to grasp if the "wacky" phrases are the actual answers in the grid. Getting ILL-ADVISED as the answer to that clue leads to a lot of head-scratching, but if you saw STILL ADVISED in a puzzle, it would be easy to spot the base phrase and recognize that there's an extra ST.
DeleteTook 9:23 today to cross the street.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know the Actor of the Day (Rene), nor did I know the French lessons (haricot or ami).
I had no idea what the theme was about until all I had left was the top-left corner. Holy Toledo that was a rough section.
Just listened to some Blondie last week.
Is CAR CARE a thing? Also, MOAB x BRIS x STYLI? And TET as clued? I thought we were done with Hebrew letters except ALEPH as fill.
ReplyDeleteAnd what is VHF? If you're building a grid and your themers give you V-F... maybe it's best to change the layout a bit.