LA Times Daily Crossword

Tribune Media Service (TMS) has replaced the TMS Daily puzzle with LA Times Daily Crossword edited by Rich Norris starting March 23, 2008. The puzzle is printable from their website if you prefer solving on paper.

The puzzle is also available at Cruciverb.com in Across Lite format. You can download free Across Lite from NY Time's website.

The L.A. Times crossword appears in nearly 700 daily and Sunday newspapers in the U.S., India, Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Taiwan.

On a scale of 1-5, the level of difficulty for our Monday and Tuesday puzzle is 1, Wednesday is 2, Thursday and Friday 3, Saturday 4 and Sunday 3.

Updated on Sept 24, 2009: DIFFICULTY of daily puzzles can range from easy to moderate. In terms of The New York Times puzzle, that means no harder than Wednesday. Difficulty level of clues and fill for Saturday themeless should be similar to NYT Wednesday/Thursday. Sunday puzzles should be of moderate difficulty, similar to Tues/Weds NYT.

Please feel free to go to the Comments section at the end of each blog entry if you have any question.

C.C.

Added later: Besides LA Times and Chicago Tribune, these website carry LA Times Crossword as well. Feel free to email me if you find others.


1) American Mensa  (Ads free). Relatively stable. One glitch in the 2 times I tested.

2) Web Crossword. Not very reliable. Sometimes no new puzzles there.

Monday March 23, 2009 Pancho Harrison

Theme: Latin Numeral Prefixes

20A: All-in-one home entertainment gadget: UNIVERSAL REMOTE

38A: Pact between two countries: BILATERAL TREATY

57A: Geometric solid with five faces, ironically: TRIANGULAR PRISM

Four is quadri/quadr, five is quinque/quinqu. The corresponding Greek prefixes are: mono (1), di (2), tri (3), tetra/tetr (4) and penta/pent (5). See this list.

TRIANGULAR PRISM is new to me. If it's "ironically", why don't they change the name to Quartangular Prism or Pentangular Prism? I wonder who originally coined the term.

I am glad we are given a Monday puzzle to start with. I was able to fill in lots of blanks with authority. No "Shock and Awe" or "Shock and Oh". Feels like a nice round on a Par 3 executive course at the beginning of the season.

However, the real shocker for me was to see Newsday puzzle (edited by Stan Newman) in our Star Tribune this morning. It's authored by Gail Grabowski. There is only a short 2-line announcement saying "Today's Newsday puzzle replaces the TMS Daily Crossword Puzzle, which is no longer available".

I hope you guys get LA Times puzzle. If not, you can always go to LA Times website and print out the puzzle. I won't blog Newsday.

Oh, Carol asked why this puzzle is titled "Card for Two" yesterday. I don't understand myself. Can you help us?

Across:

13A: Crime scene find: CLUE. Thought of GUNS immediately. But the CLUE clue is singular.

24A: Coin of the __: legal currency: REALM. New to me. So our coin of the REALM is U.S. dollar?

25A: Mt. Rushmore's state: S. DAK. Have never been there. Wikipedia says Mt. Rushmore was originally known to the Lakota Sioux as Six Grandfathers and was later renamed after Charles E. Rushmore, a prominent New York lawyer, during an expedition in 1885. I wonder why the sculptor did not carve 6 presidents initially.

27A: Intelligence, slangily: SMARTS. I was thinking of CIA/NSA style intelligence. But of course, I don't really know what their slang for intelligence is. Any idea?

34A: Colorful quartz: AGATE

37A: Durable wood: TEAK. And water-resistant, right? Since it's used to build ship. I've never seen TEAK timber in person, is it really oily?

42A: "___ Almighty", 2007 Steve Carell film: EVAN. Have heard of the film. Not interested.

43A: Where sailors go: TO SEA. Yeah, true. But I think they also like to go TO BARS.

53A: Pound's 16: OUNCES. My mind is clearly foggy this morning. I don't know. But I was thinking of Ezra Pound. Who knows, he might have written 16 famous poems/letters to someone I was not aware of. Or he could have 16 LOVERS, which also has 6 letters.

65A: Busybody: YENTA. The matchmaker in "Fiddler on the Roof" is called YENTE. And the Barbra Steisand film is named YENTL. Is this YENT some kind of Hebrew prefix?

66A: Exam for future Drs.: MCAT. (Medical College Admission Test). No idea. I thought it would be ?SAT like LSAT for "Exam for future attys".

68A: Netherworld river: STYX. Achilles' mom forgot to dip his heel here. Another Netherworld river is Lethe, the river of forgetfulness.

Down:

1D: Clean using elbow grease: SCRUB. I like this clue.

2D: 1985 Malkovich film: ELENI. I crossed the River Lethe on the name of this film. Saw identical clue somewhere before.

3D: See 10-Down: RUBIK. And ERNO (10D: With 3-Down, inventor of a puzzling cube). Reminds me of Will Smith playing RUBIK's cube in "The Pursuit of Happyness".

4D: "___ and Butt-head": MTV cartoon: BEAVIS. Obtained the answer from across fills.

9D: Fellow Dodger, e.g.: TEAMMATE. Ah, now we are solving LA Times puzzle. I expect plenty of Dodgers reference in the future.

29D: Westminster art gallery: TATE. Named after Henry TATE, a sugar tycoon & art collector.

30D: Terrier named for a Scottish isle: SKYE. And don't forget actress Ione SKYE. Really liked her role in "Say Anything" with John Cusack.

35D: Chinese way: TAO. Japanese corruption of our TAO is do. Judo is literally "Soft way". Kendo (Japanese fencing) is "Way of the sword".

39D: Like many Disney film: ANIMATED

40D: Bill Clinton's instrument: TENOR SAX. Or TENOR SEX to me, since there is no difference in my SAX and SEX pronunciations. I thought of SAXOPHONE first. But it did not fit.

41D: Incurred, as debts: RAN UP

51D: Saharan hills: DUNES

54D: Home of the NFL's Bengals, casually: CINCY. Not a football fun. Did not know where exactly is the home of the Bengals. It's rumored that Vikings are moving to LA.

55D: To be, in Tijuana: ESTAR. No idea. Don't speak Spanish. Only know "To be, in Paris" is ETRE. So how do you say "To be, or not to be" in Spanish?

56D: Clobber, in the Bible: SMITE. So smitten is "Awe-clobbered"?

57D: Uno plus dos: TRES. "The theme is mirrored in this clue and answer pair", according to Orange.

59D: "Picnic" Pulitzer winner: INGE (William). No waffling between INGE and AGEE this time due to the crossing clues. AGEE is "A Death in the Family" Putlizer winner. Also the co-screenwriter for "The African Queen". Oh, another crossword Pulitzer winner is ALBEE, who wrote "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf".

Full answer grid.

C.C.