Saturday, March 31, 2018, Neville Fogarty

THEMELESS SATURDAY WITH NEVILLE FOGARTY

Today we celebrate National Bunsen Burner Day with a lovely offering from Neville Fogarty. Husker Gary reporting from the Great Plains where I have used many a bunsen burner over the years. Neville's puzzle progressed steadily but at the end I could not find the one bad cell the computer said I had and then I realized I had put a ZERO instead of an O at shoOt em up. The juxtaposition of those two keys is unfortunate for bad typists such as yours truly. That's just another reason I prefer using a pencil instead of a laptop.

Here is a 2007 premiere of a fun TV Crossword Game Show featuring a precocious 19 year-old Neville on the premiere of a Crossword game show:

Now let's see what our TV star/constructor has for us today:

Across

1. Dandies : FOPS - Henry IV, Part I, Act I, Scene 3, Hotspur and the FOP

5. Space Invaders genre : SHOOT 'EM UP - As so many games are. You shoot your blips at other blips

14. Blue dye : ANIL - Speaking of DYES, Granddaughter Elise has been blessed/cursed with Papa's affinity for crosswords and works them everyday. So for Easter, she DYED this crossword egg for me. Yeah, I'm proud!

15. Quintet that won a Grammy for their a cappella version of "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" : PENTATONIX - I had never seen this before and I just love it!

17. '20s tennis star Lacoste : RENE - Lacoste. The man and the eponymous clothing line he launched

18. 1996 McDonald's offering : ARCH DELUXE - A very expensive flop for McDonalds. Massive advertising couldn't save it

19. Gold mine : MONEY TREE - None in my yard

21. Shellac ingredient : RESIN

22. Egg, in Ecuador : HUEVO - HUEVOS Rancheros 

23. Former Monopoly token : IRON - The token in the middle replaces the IRON. Works for Dave and me!

25. Fair-hiring letters : EEO

26. Anthony of "black-ish" : ANDERSON - Okay

29. Cleaning staff members : MAIDS - We usually tip them $5/day

31. Sgt., e.g. : NCO - What movie featured Commissioned Officer Lieutenant Haulk and Non-Commissioned Officer Master Sergeant Dickerson?

32. Hawaii's __ Coast : KONA - Home of some very good coffee in the only American state that grows coffee

33. Split-resistant wood : ELM

34. Bit of progress : DENT - I have had 50 or more projects to grade at one sitting and it seemed to take forever to make even a DENT in the pile

36. Dynamite guy? : NOBEL - Alfred, the inventor of dynamite

38. It's administered by the College Board, briefly : PSAT

42. Brooding genre : EMO - Teenage angst is fertile ground for music

44. Welsh national emblem : LEEK - Traditionally worn on St. David's Day March 1

46. Downed : ATE - He ATE how many Nathan's Hot Dogs?

47. Mine countermeasure : SONAR 

49. Game with a disc : ULTIMATE - Previously known as ULTIMATE Frisbee but now just ULTIMATE

51. "The Lead With Jake Tapper" channel : CNN

52. Gutter locale : EAVE - _ A _ E turns out NOT to be LANE

54. Greek strings : LYRES

55. What Santa Claus makes and gets : LISTS - Santa is making LISTS and checking them twice and kids are sending him LISTS of what they want

57. Ornament : EMBELLISH - Merriam Webster's definitions of Ornament is 4.  The act of adorning or being adorned and 5. An embellishing note not belonging to the essential harmony or melody


60. Really easy to use : IDIOT PROOF - Why has no one ever thought of this before?

62. "Crash __ Me": Dave Matthews Band hit : INTO - Okay

63. Dwindled to nothing : PETERED OUT - Possibly originated in comparing Peter's fading faith in Jesus prior to the crucifixion 

64. Poetic units : FEET - An accented syllable with one or more unaccented syllables. Twas the NIGHT/be fore CHRIST/mas when ALL/ through the HOUSE = four FEET


65. Hospital employees : RESIDENTS - Miranda Bailey was the RESIDENT the interns called THE NAZI on Grey's Anatomy

66. Closes : ENDS

Down

1. Field worker : FARM HAND - High tech equipment has greatly reduced the need

2. Like the most valuable American Gold Eagle coins : ONE OUNCE

3. Attached, as a ribbon : PINNED ON - Last Saturday's puzzle discussed the perils of pinning and unpinning a corsage on today's prom dresses

4. Magical hiding place : SLEEVE 

5. Minor fight : SPAT

6. Berliner's address : HERR

7. Rarely : ONCE IN A BLUE MOON - Tonight there will be a second full moon in this month which happens quite rarely. This second full moon is called a BLUE MOON because of its rarity not its color

8. Survey question option : OTHER

9. Little bit : TAD

10. For all time : ETERNAL - JFK's ETERNAL Flame has been extinguished several times. The first was when a group of Catholic school children sprinkled it with holy water and the lid came off.

11. Insidious insider : MOLE - Every teacher's lounge has one. Anything said there will go straight to the administration. Kvetch with caution!

12. Idle : UNUSED - Idle acres was a phenomenon where farmers did not plant anything and were paid by the government for doing so

13. Short cuts : PIXIES - Big Bang Theory fans will recognize who has this PIXIE cut

16. Foreign opening? : XENO - XENO means stranger or guest

20. Pennsylvania city where Peppermint Pattie was first produced : YORK - Hence the name

24. Folded fare : OMELET

27. State bordering Arizona and New Mexico : SONORA - We were in the north end of the SONORAN Desert last week. The Mexican state of SONORA is south of Tucson

28. Wish Tree artist : ONO - I am not familiar with anything Yoko ONO has done and precious few others would if she hadn't married well and had such a lovely name for crosswords

30. "Here comes trouble" type : IMP

35. "Dancing With the Stars" achievement : TEN - Last Saturday the puzzle had 14. XXX, perhaps : TENS

37. Grown elver : EEL - An elever is a young EEL. Yeah, I knew that 😛

39. Gateway Arch designer : SAARINEN - Eero's mother certainly attended a sale on vowels when her son was born!

40. Bore witness : ATTESTED

41. They may be long drives : TEE SHOTS - This perfect form should get him a long drive

43. Musical chairs? : MAESTRI - A maestro is a symphony director and MAESTRI is a gaggle of them

45. Last word of two James Bond film titles : KILL - A View To A KILL and A License To KILL

47. Twisted Sister frontman Dee : SNIDER - He was not talking about your kid's money

48. In the plant, say : ON SITE

50. Billy Joel hit with the line "I don't want you to tell me it's time to come home" : MY LIFE

51. Cut : CLIP - The guy who CLIPS my hair isn't the best barber but he's a good guy




53. Salsa __ : VERDE - I know VERDE means green

56. Socks cover them : TOES

58. Set of rounds : BOUT

59. Young newts : EFTS - I sometimes can't tell my ENTS from my EFTS

61. X'ing one? : PED

We welcome all pertinent and impertinent remarks now:

DA GRID:

Saturday, March 24, 2018, Debbie Ellerin and Jeff Chen

A THEMELESS SATURDAY WITH DEBBIE AND JEFF

Debbie Ellerin and Jeff Chen have collaborated on this wonderful puzzle on National Chocolate Covered Raisin Day. Yum! Horizontal and vertical stacks are very impressive to me. There was also ample supply of Saturday subtleties such as the fabulous 45. Kvetching chorus : OYS.

Husker Gary here today saying OY Vey, let's hope we can make this a kvetching-free zone today as we are now officially in the season of spring!

Now let's see what else this wonderful duo has for us today:

Across

1. __ bar : TAPAS - Hispanic noshes

6. Line used when wrapping? : THAT'S THAT - What we bloggers might say after we wrap up reviewing a puzzle

15. Singer whose three studio albums have numerical titles : ADELE - A woman with a glorious voice and a plethora of vowels in her name

16. Was bugged : WORE A WIRE - Just speak into my shirt

17. Remove, as a corsage : UNPIN - Be careful how you're pinning and unpinning that corsage, Buster!

18. It has a climbing route called "The Nose" : EL CAPITAN 

19. Crude : TASTELESS - That may have been funny years ago but... 

21. Den denizens : CUBS - Saw them play the Royals in beautiful Sloan Stadium in Mesa, AZ on a beautiful 60F day last Sunday. The surrounding area is called Wrigleyville like it is in Chicago surrounding Wrigley Field. 

22. Nice assent : OUI - Yes in Nice, France!

23. League of Women Voters co-founder : CATT - Carrie Chapman CATT. Progress!

24. Assists a chef : PREPS - For me that would be, "Get out the ketchup, Gary!"

26. White House advisory gp. : NSC - JFK and his National Security Council in October 1961 during a very tense time in American history

27. Six-pack group : ABS - Here's how to work on your abdominal muscles 

28. Fighting chance : BOUT - What many consider the greatest and most brutal BOUT of all time. Joe Frazier's corner quit after the 14th round which gave Ali a TKO but Ali was begging his corner to "cut off his gloves" so he could quit but Joe beat him to it.

29. Comics shriek : YEOW

31. The African Queen, for one : STEAMBOAT - Bogie and Hepburn suffered many physical ailments making this movie in the brutal Belgian Congo

35. Former first daughter : MALIA and 2. To an annoying degree : AD NAUSEAM - I had _ U L I _ (JULIE Nixon) for the name for awhile because  I thought AD NAUSEAM ended in UM.

37. Make a call : OPT

38. Conqueror of Valencia in 1094 : EL CID

40. Brain in many an Asimov story : MAIN FRAME - Not exactly a MAIN FRAME but here is Isaac Asimov pitching a computer. Hey, authors have to eat too!

43. British title : DAME

44. Part of a flute : STEM - How 'bout a Champagne flute with a hollow STEM

47. __ shooter : PEA 

48. Buzzed : TIPSY

50. Pokémon that evolves to Kadabra : ABRA - Yeah, I knew that! 😛

51. Org. concerned with child support : PTA - Mrs. Johnson "socked it to the Harper Valley PTA"

52. Singer Vannelli : GINO - 65-yr-old GINO was performing in Scottsdale just after we left this week

53. 1995 AFI Life Achievement Award recipient : SPIELBERG - His first movie was Amblin' which he wrote, directed and edited with $15,000. I can't pick a favorite of his movies  but Apollo 13 is right up there.

55. Spidey sense, basically : ALARM BELL

58. Skateboard leap : OLLIE - Mass OLLIES

59. Stopped taking orders : WENT ROGUE - I did this at several points in my life which almost all turned out to be bad decisions 

60. Home of Armani and Prada : MILAN - Do they sell at Kohl's?

61. News credential : PRESS PASS - Where/when they wore them.

62. Place on a pedestal : EXALT


Down

1. Scientific name involving a repeated word : TAUTONYM - New word for me but you see an example at the bottom of this chart

3. What Brad's Drink became : PEPSI COLA - Invented in 1893 in New Bern, N.C. 

4. Settled down : ALIT

5. Elder or Younger Roman writer : SENECA - PLINY was not only wrong, it was one letter short

6. Modern-day eruption : TWEET STORM - Today everybody has an opinion and an electronic forum

7. "The Planets" composer : HOLST - It has seven movements - one for each planet except the one we inhabit

8. Story lines : ARCS - The ARC in the movie Apollo 13 quickly changed from getting to the Moon to getting back to Earth safely

9. It can be green, red or yellow : TEA - I'll bet a bunch that C.C.'s house does not contain a TEA bag 

10. Con's mark : SAP

11. Hyphenated word in a Hawthorne title : TWICE TOLD - An 1837 compilation of short stories he collected over the years

12. Put the bite on : HIT UP - Every year we get HIT UP for these delights. Gotta love the Thin Mints

13. Many Scheherazade characters : ARABS - A Rimsky-Korsakov symphonic suite based on The Arabian Knights

14. XXX, perhaps : TENS - Olympic judges at the Roman Colosseum? 

20. Big dogs : LABS and 24. Little dog : POM - Here's a cross of a Golden Lab and a Pomeranian. 

25. Self-Operating Napkin creator Goldberg : RUBE - Here it is!

28. Rides with wing-shaped tailfins : BAT MOBILES - There's more than one?

30. Game including golf and bowling : WII SPORTS

32. Taker of ppm measurements : EPA - The Environmental Protection Agency decides how many parts per million of any stuff can be in any other stuff

33. Barbershop quartet style : A CAPPELLA - A wonderful scene and fabulous music!

34. Race against the clock : TIME TRIAL - Omaha has been the site of the TIME TRIALS for the U.S. Olympic Swim Team for years.

36. Outdoor party crashers : ANTS

39. Buster? : DEA AGENT - Busting drug rings

41. "Bossypants" memoirist : FEY -Tina FEY is a funny woman

42. Fictional governess : EYRE - A mousy governess who softens the heart of her employer soon discovers that he's hiding a terrible secret. 

46. Rita Hayworth's title princess : SALOME - Her Salome dress recently sold at auction for $15,000. (Talk about contrast to Jane Eyre!)

48. Building subcontractor : TILER 

49. Just plain silly : INANE

50. Outstanding : A PLUS 

52. Be a looky-loo : GAWP - Of course I thought it was GAWK first



53. Genesis creator : SEGA

54. "Disarming Iraq" author Hans : BLIX - He was also the first western representative at the Chernobyl disaster site

56. Ceremonial title? : MRS - On What's My Line, Emcee John Daly's first question of a woman contestant after she signed in was, "Is it Miss or MRS. ______"?

57. Jazz genre : BOP- Or BEBOP 

What say you?

DA GRID