Saturday, February 10, 2018, Michael Wiesenberg

A SURE BET

Today's constructor is a man  from Calgary who wears many hats in the world of games. Michael is not only a masterful puzzle maker, he is also a renowned expert in poker. He made his living playing poker for 10 years before turning to technical writing in the computer field. C.C.'s 2009 interview with Michael

Here are some long fills that are always helpful on a Saturday excursion:

1. Empathetic words : I CAN RELATE

12. Disappointed observation : IT'S NOT HERE - and now a "I CAN RELATE" for my lovely bride

16. Revelation setting : ARMAGEDDON - One of its portents in Rev. 17  is a prostitute riding a seven-headed monster. Yikes!

10. Sitcom sidekick whose wife sometimes calls him by his last name : ED NORTON - You can hear Ralph call him NORTON throughout this all-time funny scene. You won't spend a funnier four minutes today!

11. Bit of bun flavoring : SESAME SEED - C'mon, you all know the words to this ad with SESAME SEED at the end. Go ahead and see how fast you can say/chant it!

Now let's sit in to see what else Michael has dealt us this week:

Across

11. RSVP part : SIL - Répondez S’IL vous plaít. Some say that nowadays no response to this implies you are attending

14. One may run for a week : PERSONAL AD - Yeah, they're lined up around the block!

15. Townshend of The Who : PETE

17. Olympus neighbor : OSSA (alternate name Kissova) - A four-hour drive

18. Put forth : SAY

19. Metro __ : AREA

20. Grounded : ON LAND - Huh?

22. Horoscope heading : SIGN

23. Wish for : DREAM OF

24. Subject for Linnaeus : BOTANY - His classification system works for animals too like our Lily

27. Relocate in, as after one's career : RETIRE TO - We are RETIRED TO where we grew up with no regrets. Dorothy was right.

28. Maternally related : ENATE - My love of crosswords is directly related to the ENATE side of my family 

29. "Dead Souls" novelist : GOGOL - A remorseless satire of imperial Russian venality, vulgarity and pomp. Ok, raise your hand if you have read this and let me get a count...

30. "Billions" network, briefly : SHO - Showtime 

31. Fake out : DEKE - The old "hidden ball" fake out

32. __ legend : URBAN - Nope, an URBAN legend according to Snopes.com 

33. Sugar source : BEET

34. Sugar suffix : OSE

35. Some pretenders : SNOBS - Prius owners? 😊

36. Membre de la famille : FRERE - Did anyone ever find out if Brother John was asleep  (Frère Jacques, Dormez-vous?)

37. Celebration honoring a saint : FEAST DAY - Feb. 10th is the FEAST DAY for St. Scholastica, Virgin

39. Crossed at a shallow spot : FORDED - Juilius Caesar FORDING the Rubicon

40. Rocky of song : RACCOON - A silly Beatle song

41. Munich title : HERR 

42. Home of Canada's Parliament : OTTAWA

43. Secular : LAIC - Acts performed by the laity

44. Phased-out refrigerant compound : CFC - ChloroFluoroCarbon was said to be a danger to the ozone layer

47. "__Language": 1993 comedy best-seller : SEIN - Yeah, that makes sense

8. Pierce portrayer : ALDA - Another sitcom legend

48. Ecstatic : BLISSED OUT - I guess if you can be STRESSED OUT...

51. Amor counterpart : EROS

52. Game with wagering restrictions : LIMIT POKER - Gee I wonder where a POKER reference came from. 😏

53. Three-part fig. : SSN - Mine starts with 507. Yours?

54. Bit of rifle range debris : EMPTY SHELL - Shirt seen on some shooting ranges

Down

1. Draft orders : IPAS - India Pale Ale'S

2. "Juno" actor Michael : CERA - Michael's character Paulie and Juno had a situation to deal with

3. Fighting group : ARMY

4. Govt. employer of mathematicians : NSA

5. Treatment for losing one's head? : ROGAINE - Reviews I read said it works for only a small part of the population

6. Going concern? : ENERGY

7. Like a full hold : LADEN and 35. Put in a hold : STOW- Like here in the Mayflower

9. Eastern way : TAO

13. In danger of being ticketed : LEAD FOOTED - You are busted!

15. Magnetic? : POLAR - Poles on the Moon are not magnetic

21. First name in astronautics : NEIL - His biography I recently read revealed him to be  a much better astronaut than husband or father

22. Stuff : SATE - Maybe I didn't need the large box of popcorn

23. "The Dance Class" painter : DEGAS - Impressionism at its best

24. Easy Street kin : BED OF ROSES - Mena Suvari in American Beauty (repeat from Argyle's Monday's puzzle)

25. Most bicycles : ONE SEATERS - Unless you're dating this girl name Daisy

26. Do something : TAKE ACTION

27. "Forbidden Planet" robot : ROBBY - 98% on Rotten Tomatoes

29. Punster's reward? : GROAN - But, he's a GROAN man!

32. Impossible : UNDOABLE

33. Cold reaction : BRRR - Heard outside the Super Bowl last week!

36. Grasping pair : FORCEPS

38. Input methods : SCANS - Here's a SCANNER I always have with me

39. Full of pluck : FEISTY - FEISTY O's manager Buck Showalter meets an equally FEISTY umpire. Oh yeah, Buck also got tossed out of the game

41. "Rumor __ ... " : HAS IT

43. Favor one side over the other : LIMP - A lot of us here know a) the character below with a LIMP, b) who the other characters are and c) the name of the show

44. Fountain choice : COKE - You might have to ask a jerk for one

45. Drive : FUEL - These can FUEL dreams

46. PC key under Shift : CTRL

49. Airport in Peru's cap. : LIM

50. [Head slap] : DOH

All in, I'll bet that you liked Michael's puzzle. Call? 

DA GRID

Saturday, February 3, 2018, Pawel Fludzinski

DR. FLUDZINSKI IS ON CALL TODAY

After having Alex Bajcz Ph.D. as our constructor two weeks ago, our Saturday environs today are blessed with Pawel Fludzinski Ph.D (Pah' vel   Flu gin' ski). After some pleasant email exchanges I found  his doctorate and post doctorate work was in organic chemistry and he has just retired to Santa Fe, NM after 31 years of working for Eli Lilly in Pharmaceutical R and D. Eight of those years included stints in England and Japan. 
He had a friend who knew Will Shortz, introduced Pawel to Will and after that Dr. Fludzinski took up the challenge of constructing crosswords with his first one being a 9/18/11 Sunday LA Times puzzle. Pretty impressive.

Pawel's license plate tells you both where he lives and about what one of his passions is.

I earned a "got 'er done" in Pawel's challenging weekend offering but those of you familiar with The Family Circus, might recognize that the path I took resembled this circuitous route as the boys in the cartoon frequently take in getting from point A to point B. BTW, this also resembles my path in the grocery store.

Pawel's puzzle was anything but a, uh, bitter pill to swallow and I am going to start with his long fills which were so helpful once a few of their cells were filled.

19. Jesse Owens, e.g. : OLYMPIC ATHLETE - HOAX ALERT! Hitler never did congratulate Jesse for his 1936 Olympic wins, as Jesse expected, but this 2013 photoshopped image made the internet rounds. Jesse did feel snubbed in that FDR never contacted him in any way to acknowledge his tremendous accomplishments. 

50. Canine epithet : MAN'S BEST FRIEND - 'Nuff said! 😀

5. Real estate investment strategy : FLIPPING HOUSES - Tarek and Christina starred in Flip or Flop on HGTV. His job was negotiations and labor and hers was some decorating but mainly simply looking photogenic. They're divorced but are still on the show together.

16. Voting bloc term used by Nixon and Trump : SILENT MAJORITY - Howard Beale's fabulous call to arms for this group in 1976's Network

Now let's see what Dr. Fludzinski has prescribed for us in the balance of his puzzle:

Across

1. Bundles together, as wheat : SHEAFS - One SHEAFS wheat into SHEAVES

7. EPA concern : AQI - Air Quality Index Current air quality across the USA

10. Cab alternative : UBER - I've sung their praises here 

14. Field meeting : HUDDLE - "Okay guys, 3 OUT, SLOT HAT - 73 GHOST TOSSER ON SET. BREAK!"

15. Choral extreme : BASS NOTE - The E♭Paul Robeson hits in Old Man River on the word "jail" is listed as a "Notable low note"

17. Predestine : ORDAIN - ...do ORDAIN and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

18. Countermeasure : ANTIDOTE - Milking venomous snakes is the first step to producing an ANTIDOTE

21. Advance : SPOT - Look kid, I'll SPOT you 10 points

22. Part of NAFTA: Abbr. : AMER - North AMERican Free Trade Agreement

23. Rats along the Rhine? : ACH - ACH du lieber! Ich habe gerade eine Ratte gesehen! (Oh my God, I just saw a rat!)

26. Rage : IRE

27. Where snowbirds flock in winter? : SUNBELT

31. Feller's tool? : CHAINSAW - Here's a pretty good feller!

34. Cheap smoke : STOGIE

35. Stick : CLING

36. Hamm from Alabama : MIA - An all time great soccer player born in Selma, AL

38. Windows predecessor : MS-DOS - Tedious forerunner of icons (GUI - Graphic User Interface)

39. Five-book collections : TORAHS - The first 5 books of the Jewish Bible are such a collection

41. Serious betrayals : TREASONS - Here is a famous group committing TREASON

 43. Henry VIII's third : SEYMOUR - Jane SEYMOUR came between Anne Boleyn and Ann of Cleves but died with her head intact.

45. Kunal Nayyar's role in "The Big Bang Theory" : RAJesh Koothrapali - You either know this or don't care 

46. Ultra-secret org. : NSA - National Security Agency

47. River to the Seine : AUBE - In the same vein as Where's Waldo, can you find the AUBE?

48. Winged figure of myth : EROS

56. Monthly subtitled "The Magazine of Maine" : DOWN EAST - Ya gotta love this cover and the topics

57. Portugal's capital, locally : LISBOA - Easier to find than the AUBE

a

58. Having an accent : STRESSED - "CON flict" is mostly a noun while "con FLICT" is mostly a verb

59. Speedily : AT A RUN

60. Astronomical dist. : LT YR  - LighT YeaR

61. Slight opening? : ESS - Slight

62. End zone quartet : PYLONS - If the ball is inside or touches one of the PYLONS at the corners of the end zone, it's six points!

Down

1. Wave off : SHOO

2. Fling : HURL

3. Result of pulling the plug? : EDDY - Circling the drain

4. __ apple : ADAM'S  

6. Year-ending ceremony participants : SENIORS 

7. Quatrain rhyme scheme : ABAA - Dylan Thomas's final stanza

8. Airline with a kangaroo on its logo : QANTAS - QANTAS on the left and on the right...? *Answer at the bottom of the write-up.

9. Common canal site : ISTHMUS 

10. Position near the top of some organizational structures : UNDER BOSS - Sotto Capo

11. Spare tyre site : BOOT - A spare TYRE (tire) in a Land Rover BOOT (trunk). Oh so British!

12. Kitchen finish? : ETTE

13. "Pioneer Woman" cookbook writer Drummond : REE - Ree's show is a favorite of my wife's

20. Backups' backups : C-TEAM

23. Bank nos. : ACCTS

24. Techie on "24" : CHLOE - Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub) and Jack (Kiefer Sutherland seem to be having a hard day on "24"

25. Hirsute : HAIRY

28. __ Heath: Thomas Hardy setting : EGDON - It is said that EGDON Heath was as much a part of The Return Of The Native as the characters

29. They have their pride : LIONS

30. Championship ice dancer __ Virtue : TESSA - Along with her partner Scott Moir 

32. So to speak : IN A MANNER 

33. Verbal deftness : WIT - A highly prized trait here

37. Rue stop? : ARRET - Here's an ARRET sign where Rue De Buade crosses Rue Jardins

40. Naval fortification : SUB BASE - The Nazi U-boat SUB BASE built in what was then occupied France

42. Winter cap feature : EAR FLAP - Found on a certain hunter of a "cwazy wabbit" 

44. Piece maker : REESES - M & M's turned down being in ET and REESES pieces cashed in 

49. Twine fiber : SISAL - 50# hay bales tied with SISAL twine - $6 apiece

50. Suffragist who co-founded Swarthmore : MOTT - A powerful trio

51. Off the mark : AWRY - Where best laid plans of men and mice can go

52. EPA issuances : STDS - STanDardS

53. Iberian river : EBRO - For 32€, you can be outfitted to do this on a five mile stretch of the EBRO River in northern Spain

54. Truth or consequences, e.g. : NOUN - Pretty tricky, Pawel!

55. Aykroyd and Patrick : DANS

56. Broadband choice, briefly : DSL - Digital Subscriber Line. Usually the slowest connection

If the puzzle made you uneasy, I'll bet Pawel can hook you up with an ANTIDOTE! 😀 Now tell us your symptoms by commenting:

DA GRID

*The logo on the right is from Alaska Airlines