Wednesday April 29, 2009 Doug Peterson

Theme: How Food Processors Work

17A: Shady high roller's advantage: LOADED DICE

28A: Harbors ulterior motives: HAS AN AX TO GRIND

44A: Log holder: FIREPLACE GRATE

58A: Dojo blow: KARATE CHOP

Once again, I am not sure I got the theme right. I cook differently and hardly use our food processor or any other kitchen accessories. Peeler & knife are the only tools I use every day. I peel everything. And I use my knife to dice, slice, chop, mince etc. It's exotic for me to see others use grater for ginger.

I had fun fooling around with this very scrabbly puzzle (3 Z's, 2 X's, 1 J and several K's). Wrote down HAIR for 19A: "Manx cat's lack" (TAIL). What can I say? I am not a cat person and a hairless cat makes sense to me. Also, I wrote down SAID for 21A: "After all?" (LAST) immediately, thinking the sentence "After all is SAID and done". Theoretically I think I am right. If someone finishes last in the race, he is still part of all, not "After all", correct?

Having seen similar "Dictator's assistant' or "Dictation taker" for STENO before, the "Dictator's aid" clue yesterday gave me no trouble and I did not even bother to comment on. It's so fascinating for me to read your experience in yesterday's Comments section. Thanks for sharing.

Across:

1A: Betting setting: VEGAS. Rhyming clue. The first word that popped into my mind is CASINO.

6A: Oratory with lots of arm-waving: RANT. "Lots of arm-waving" RANT indeed. I used to like Kramer.

10A: Sloop pole: MAST. Perpendicular to the boom. Only learned a few weeks ago that sloop is a single-masted sailing boat.

14A: "Get __!": Relax: A GRIP

15A: Hamburg's river: ELBE. ELBE originates in Czech and flows northwest across German to the North Sea. Same pronunciation with Napoleon's ELBA.

16A: Award for a soap: EMMY. Oh well, I tried to find EMMY award logo, look at what Google gave to me.

22A: Garden hose feature: NOZZLE. Then later on HOSE as an answer to 55: Stockings. I don't know. I still don't like this dupe, even if they are within Rich Norris's 6-letter limit.

24A: Disney pooch: PLUTO. Great list of Disney dog names. GOOFY has 5 letter too.

26A: Islamabad's land: Abbr.: PAK. Just learned that Islamabad literally means "Abode of Islam". I suppose "bad" is a suffix for "abode"?

27A: Above, in odes: O'ER. Opposite 'neath.

32A: By surprise: ABACK. As in "Taken ABACK"

33A: "That is to say ....": I MEAN. I say this often, since I always have difficulty expressing myself. My oral English is very poor.

34A: Himalayan mystery: YETI. Exactly, it's a mystery. I like this better than "Mountain sighting" clue.

35A: Dark earth pigment: UMBER. Strange, it's rooted in umbra (shade/shadow), same as umbrella.

37A: Programming language with a coffee-cup logo: JAVA. It's still hot.

41A: Ho-hum state: ENNUI

43A: Ear-related: AURAL. Sometimes the answer is OTIC.

48A: It has a charge: ION. Yep, ION is charged particle.

49A: Space shuttle astronaut Jemison: MAE. Got the answer from down fills. Have difficulty remembering her name. Wikipedia says she was the first woman of African ancestry to travel in space when she went into orbit aboard the space shuttle Endeavor on September 12, 1992. What does this sentence mean? I wonder if Spirit is awake at this moment when I am typing.

50A: Seller of TV time, e.g.: AD REP. Mine was AD MAN.

51A: Resealable bag brand: ZIPLOC. Can't live without ZIPLOC. Don't like Glad.

53A: Cheese with an edible rind: BRIE. The cheese is named after the French region Brie. The Dutch cheese Edam is also named after the Edam town in Holland. I love Etam bra/thong. Don't know what/whom the heck it's named for.

62A: Leave the premises: EXIT

63A: "__who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it": Santayana: THOSE. Oh, George Santayana originated this line. It's from his book "The Life of Reason". I did not know that. Sometimes life has no reasons. You just fall in love, blindly. Or as Pascal said: The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.

64A: Florida attraction: KEYS. Have never been to FL. Is Miami part of Florida KEYS?

65A: D.C. Party: DEMS. Holy hot wick! I always thought the abbreviation for the Democratic Party is D or DEM.

66A: Caravan stops: OASES. Singular is oasis. Stop and find yourself some wet dates, so sweet!

Down:

1D: Depression between hills: VALE. Oh well, so many choices: VALE, DALE, GLEN, DELL.

2D: Bigheads have big ones: EGOS

3D: Goes for, as straws? GRASPS AT. I like this clue.

5D: Explore caves: SPELUNK. We had SPELUNK & spelunker discussions on the blog last summer.

6D: Team that ended a "curse" in 2004: RED SOX. Remember Curt Schilling's bloody sock? The "curse" refers to the selling of Babe Ruth to the Yankees. The "Curse of the Bambino".

7D: Hit the ground: ALIT. "Hit" is past tense. I was trapped.

8D: Home of "The Office": NBC. Have never watched "The Office".

8D: Fake ID user, often: TEENAGER

10D: Capital of Lorraine: METZ. No idea. Quite close to Germany. No wonder it has a letter Z in the end.

11D: E-tail giant: AMAZON. Have never bought any baseball card from AMAZON.

12D: Beamed: SMILED. When Chinese take photos, we say "qie zi" (eggplant) rather than "cheese".

13D: "Breathing Lessons" Pulitzer winner Anne: TYLER. No idea. Oh, "Breathing Lessons" is a novel. I thought the book is about breathing and meditation. Her face looks familiar. I remember those bangs.

18D: Info to crunch: DATA

23D: Creole vegetable: OKRA. "Fighting OKRA" is a very strange mascot.

25D: More doilylike: LACIER. Are you OK with this clue?

26D: Apple of quince: POME. OK, here is the defintion of POME fruit from dictionary: a fleshy fruit, such as an apple, pear, or quince, having several seed chambers and an outer fleshy part largely derived from the hypanthium. Also called false fruit. Strange, they are real fruit to me. Pomme is French for apple. Pomme de terre is potato.

29D: Face on a fin: ABE. Might be a stumper for those solvers who are not familiar with the American slang five-dollar bill (fin). LAT puzzle appears in more than 700 daily and Sunday papers in the world, including Mexico, Bermuda, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Indian, Japan, Taiwan, etc.

30D: Fibula neighbor: TIBIA. Ouch! Looks painful.

31D: Hurt: INJURE

35D: Emptied one's bags: UNPACKED

36D: Stubborn critter: MULE. And APES (56D: Long-armed critters). Monkeys have long arms too. I think mine are also very long too.

38D: Wyoming tribe members: ARAPAHOS. No idea. But Cheyenne does not fit. What does ARAPAHOS mean in their own language?

39D: Winery container: VAT

42D: Pixar fish: NEMO. Love "Finding NEMO" (Pixar 2003 film).

43D: Go along with: AGREE TO

44D: Minor failing: FOIBLE

45D: Not out-of-bounds, as a ball: IN PLAY

46D: Gem weight units: CARATS. No wobbling between CARATS and KARATS this time.

48D: "The Compleat Angler" author Walton: IZAAK. Is the book very famous? I got this guy from across fills. How am I supposed to know? He died in 1683. Anyone wrote down ISAAC first?

52D: Zoom, for one: LENS

53D: Panama border?: BRIM. Panama hat. Can't fool me.

59D: Dismiss: AXE. Strange to see AX & AXE in one grid.

Answer grid.

C.C.

Tuesday April 28, 2009 Joy C. Frank

Theme: And Keep the Wolf (from the door)

20A: Talk aimlessly: SHOOT THE BULL

31A: Blame someone else: PASS THE BUCK

41A: Dress to impress: PUT ON THE DOG

55A: Pass its peak, slangily, as a TV series: JUMP THE SHARK

I hope I got the theme right. They all seem to be idioms consisting of verb + the + animal name. I've never heard of PUT ON THE DOG. It's the only theme entry with a verb phrase.

Is PUT ON a basketball term as well? SHOOT, PASS & JUMP are.

I can't think of another verb + the + animal name common saying, can you? Wikipedia does "Hold the horses" is an alternative of "Hold your horses" though.

Shouldn't the SOOT clue (47A: chimney sweep's sweepings) be in singular form?

Felt today's puzzle is easier than yesterday's.

Across:

9A: Succeed: GO FAR. Multiple word answer still gives me trouble.

14A: Widespread: RIFE. Always clued as "Teeming (with)" in our old puzzle.

15A: Made fun of, in a way: APED. Only in crossword.

16A: Prefix meaning "vinegar": ACETO. Dictionary gives acetometer as an example. It's an instrument for measuring the amount of acetic acid present in a solution. I wanted acid? something. The bitter word ACRID is rooted in acid.

17A: Where the steeple is, vis-a-vis the church: ATOP. This simple word stumped me, as I had CRUDE rather than CRASS for 1D: Boorish.

18A: Composer Édouard: LALO. Got his name from the down fills. Found out that LALO is boy name meaning "To sing a lullaby". No wonder this guy was a composer.

19A: In-your-face challenge: SUE ME. Intersects FEE (11D: Lawyer's charge).

24A: Opposite of "All rise": BE SEATED

28A: Snowfall unit: INCH. One blank short for my FLAKE. I like the clue. "Rainfall unit" too.

30A: Ex-quarterback Dan: MARINO. Learned this guy's name from the Nutrisystem weight loss commercial. Oh, Wikipedia says he spent his whole career with the Dolphins, holding or having holding all kinds of records. Is MARINO pronounced the same as the sheep merino?

37A: MD's calendar listing: APPT

38A: Traveler's choice: AIR. Not BY AIR?

39A: Fluids in shots: SERA. Reminds me of Swine Flu. I suppose there is no such epidemic in those Arab countries?

40A: Brazilian port: RIO. Do you think the Brazil supermodel Adriana Lima is beautiful?

45A: Space along the page border: MARGIN

48A: Old things: ANTIQUES. Have to be at least 100 years old. Between 20 to 100, they are called vintage I think.

57A: Margaret Mead subject: SAMOA. I forgot who Margaret MEAD is. It's clued as "Mead's milieu" in Argyle's puzzle. She wrote "Coming of Age in SAMOA". Those girls remind me of Bloody Mary of "South Pacific".

66A: Where Homer drinks Duff Beer: MOE'S. Learned this name from doing Xword.

67A: Insect repellent ingredient: DEET. Oh, it actually stands for DT (Diethyl Toluamide). I did not know that.

Down:

2D: Supple: LITHE. Thought of limber.

3D: What the game is, to Holmes: AFOOT. No idea. "The game is AFOOT" originally came from Shakespeare's "King Henry IV".

4D: One hiring relatives: NEPOTIST. Had difficulty obtaining this word. I actually knew the meaning of nepotism.

5D: Pasadena science institute, familiarly: CALTECH

6D: Colorful fish: OPAH. Also called moonfish.

7D: Fanzine focus: CELEB. This word appears so often in Xword. Have only seen CALEB the Biblical spy once.

8D: Hacienda brick: ADOBE. You won't find ADOBE in tropical area, right? Since they are built of clay.

9D: Dangerous pipe problem: GAS LEAK. I was thinking of water pipe.

10D: Of the eye: OCULAR. Got it with adjacent help.

12D: Place to get bucks fast, briefly: ATM. Good clue.

22D: "Semper fi" military org.: USMC. Once a Marine, Always a Marine. I read somewhere that Army actually has the best equipment.

26A: Año starter: ENERO. Had no idea that ano and año are vastly different.

27D: Rapper's cap: DO-RAG. Learned from doing Xword as well. Wikipedia says a popular folk etymology claims that the term derives from Drive-On RAG, a term first used by U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War to refer to amuslin bandage often used as a head covering.

29D: Oven output: HEAT. I was picturing fresh bread.

31D: Italian city known for its cheese: PARMA. Ham too.

32D: Like beehives: APIAN. Wanted HOLED.

33D: Baseball or golf: SPORTS. Is this clue written for me?

34D: Much of an obit: BIO

35D: Java holders: URNS. Thought of Java Island. Can Java be clued as "Jakarta holder"?

39D: Adjust for daylight saving time: SET AHEAD. No daylight saving time in China. We only have one time zone. Beijing Time is the standard time.

41D: Pleasingly pungent: PIQUANT. Ha ha, I filled in this word immediately and surprised that it's actually correct.

43D: Bullfighters: TOREROS. Same as matador, correct?

46D: Military action toys: G.I. JOES. Manufactured by Hasbro. The original 1964 figures must cost a lot of money now, like the original 1959 barbie.

49D: English Derby site: EPSOM. Why most of the major horse races are for 3-year-old?

50D: Dictator's aid: STENO

52D: Mexico meat: CARNE. Same root as carnal?

53D: Cliched: TRITE

54D: Shooting contest with traps: SKEET. Got the answer from across fills. I did not know what kind of equipment is involved in SKEET shooting. It's actually an Olympic event.

57D: "By the way...": SAY

Answer grid.

C.C.