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 😀

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? 😀

22. Oaf: CLOD.

24. CrossFit moves: BURPEES.

25. Neither early nor late: ON BEAT 😀 Rhythm!

28. Dark: MORBID.

29. Artistic hot spots: KILNS 😀

30. Products of deductive reasoning?: TAXES 😀

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 😀

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

52. Quarreling: AT IT.

53. Lao Gan Ma condiment: CHILI CRISP - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 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 😀

4. Overexposed?: INDECENT.

5. George Halas Trophy org.: NFC - 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 😀

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 è 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 😀

28. Soda shop treats: MALTS.

30. Spoon-fed line: TASTE THIS 😀

32. Profoundly bad: EVIL.

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

35. Southwest expanses?: TARMACS 😀

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 😀

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.

 

Saturday, June 29, 2024, Matthew Stock and Nate Cardin

 Saturday Themeless by Nate Cardin and Matthew Stock and Nate Cardin

Matthew

Nate

Matthew is a teacher from Gainesville, FL who has taken time out to work on his Masters.

Nate is a chemistry teacher in L.A.

    

What a struggle! Some of cluing was fiendish and my ignorance of a fictional soccer team made the middle a muddle. I could get AMERICA at the first and ICELAND in the partial fill at the end but alas neither were correct.

                                      

Across:

1. Make-up artist's talent: ADLIB - Nothing came to mind about applying make-up and so was thinking about a liar but no, it was more subtle than that.

6. __ store: DIME - Make that The Dollar Store today

10. Posts: JOBS.

14. Celine's "Beauty and the Beast" counterpart: PEABO.

15. "It's too much": I CAN'T EVEN.

17. Dining option: PATIO -  Alfresco 

18. The best of times: GOLDEN ERA - They don't make 'em like this any more and the box office decline shows it.

19. Star clusters: A-LISTS.  These people usually bring their 32. Height of one's ability: A-GAME 

21. "I like it": NICE.

22. Brief downtime: R 'N R.

23. 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom awardee Maya: LIN - She won the competition for designing the Vietnam Memorial. 

 

24. HBO's "__ Espookys": LOS.

26. Wailing figure of folklore: BANSHEE Irish Folklore

28. Relaxed: LOOSENED UP.

31. Hall __: PASS - You sure you have to go?

33. Employ: HIRE.

34. Fictional soccer club playable in FIFA 23: AFC RICHMOND - Ted Lasso's imaginary team was completely unknown to this solver and left a big hole in my early solving.

37. Colored outside the lines: BLED 😀

38. Animal whose name comes from the Dharug word for "no water": KOALA.

39. Derivative work, for short?: CALC 😀

40. "Fingers crossed!": WISH ME LUCK.

45. Postelection figure: ALSO RAN - I saw the L first and ELECTOR fit right in.

47. 2022 NBA Slam Dunk Contest champion __ Toppin: OBI - An old Japanese crossword regular gets bumped by an obscure athlete 

48. Symbol for magnetic flux: PHI.

49. Little tater: TOT.

50. "Wolf Like Me" actress Fisher: ISLA.

52. Molé peppers: ANCHOS - Ghost Peppers too.

54. Social media account?: SNAP STORY - A compilation of Snapchat pictures (we say pictures and not photos around here)

57. Snacks with limited-edition flavors: OREOS.

58. Personal gripes: PET PEEVES.

59. Like the sacred tree Yggdrasil: NORSE - The NORSE tree of life

60. Votes of affirmation: AYES.

61. Wax figure: SEAL.

62. Pointers for a fight choreographer?: EPEES 😀 The pointers were the fencing weapons not instructions

Down:

1. Floor: APPALL.

2. "What's the __?": DEALIO.

3. Like some winners of a Pura Belpré Award: LATINO.

4. Bird associated with the Egyptian god Thoth: IBIS.

5. Criminal record?: BOOTLEG CD.

6. Be into: DIG.

7. Menu image: ICON.

8. Topanga neighbor: MALIBU.

9. Sight before walking down the aisle: ENDCAP 😀 Gotta love it!

10. Podcaster/comedian Kirkman: JEN.

11. Scrambled alternative: OVER HARD.

12. __ mountain dog: BERNESE - They do grow into those paws

13. Toms' neighbors: SNARES 😀

16. __ Vogue: TEEN - This older edition autographed by a very young Taylor Swift can be had for $2,000

20. Help in finding subs: SONAR 😀

25. Prefix with permeable: SEMI.

27. __ fluid: SPINAL.

29. Mariners' realm, once: SAFECO 😀 - The Seattle Mariners played in SAFECO Field for about 20 years and then T-Mobile bought the naming rights and it is now T-Mobile Park. I saw the baseball connection right away but needed letters to help with SAFECO.

30. Starship Enterprise levels: DECKS.

33. Ace of clubs?: HOLE IN ONE 😀 I've had three of these. The first two had human witnesses and the third one only squirrels and barn swallows.

34. Progressive rival: ALL STATE - They all accuse the other insurance companies of overcharging. 

35. Hostess offering: HO HO.

36. Cobra kin: MAMBA.

37. "Horsefeathers!": BALONEY.

39. Siberian resort?: CAT SPA 😀

40. Runs through: WASTES - The amount of money our government runs through/WASTES is mind boggling!

41. One way to fall: IN LOVE 🥰

42. Message from on high?: UP HERE 😀 UP HERE, Stanley!

43. Go for: CHOOSE.

44. Pays lip service to?: KISSES 💋

46. Climb: RISE.

51. Sod buyer's calculation: AREA.

53. Take sides?: CROP - Here are some of our bird feeders on the left and the star of the show in the CROPPED version as he is eating Welch's Grape Jelly

55. Letter writer's addendum: PPS.

56. Couture initials: YSL - Our crossword couture 

Notes from C.C.:

Happy 58th birthday to Barry G, who was very active posting in the early days of our blog. Still with the same company, Barry? How's Joshua?