Peace Nobelist Cassin / SAT 6-8-13 / 1955 doo-wop hit / Title for Schwarzenegger / Leader of Silver Bullet Band / Child support payer in modern lingo / 6 is rare one

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Constructor: David Quarfoot

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium



THEME: none

Word of the Day: UNGAVA Peninsula (12D: Northern Quebec's ___ Peninsula) —

The Ungava Peninsula of NunavikQuebecCanada, is bounded by Hudson Bay to the west,Hudson Strait to the north, and Ungava Bay to the east.
The Ungava Peninsula is part of the Labrador Peninsula and covers about 252,000 km² (97,000 sq mi). Its northern-most point is Cape Wolstenholme, which is also the northern-most point of Quebec.
The Ungava Peninsula is a part of the Canadian Shield and consists entirely of treeless tundradissected by large numbers of rivers and glacial lakes, flowing generally east-west in a parallel fashion. The peninsula was not deglaciated until 6,500 years ago (11,500 years after the Last Glacial Maximum) and is believed to have been the prehistoric centre from which the vastLaurentide Ice Sheet spread over most of North America during the last glacial epoch. (wikipedia)
• • •

Always love seeing David Quarfoot's name. Usually means a ton of fresh entries and generally clean fill, and today was no exception—well, there was one crappy entry that irked me all out of proportion to its size. So I blazed through this, for the most part, so that in about six minutes I had everything done but the NW. I got HEIR, EMCEE, APHID, OLE and (around the corner) ERNE. But I had YEAH at 5D: When doubled, a taunt. I think I was thinking "Yeah, sure." as in "I bet," as in "b.s." I didn't like it, but it was four letters, it ended in "H," and it was a word I knew. I never should've written it in, though, because it kept me from being able to parse *any* of the Acrosses (*all* of which were a. phrases and b. phrases with abbrevs. in them—thus, not so easy to parse). Finally figured out DEER (34A: Game with points), which got me HOT STONE (3D: Item used in an exotic massage) (exotic?), and only then did I decide to pull YEAH. Then thought "is NYAH a word?" Apparently. So, sadly, the worst entry in the grid was the one that held me up. You never, ever, ever want that to be the case. Enjoyment levels plummet. But luckily, my enjoyment level coming into that corner was high, so things were still cool in the end.

Embarrassing how long it took me to get ED SULLIVAN (24A: "Toast of the Town" host), but I'm gonna blame that entirely on UNGAVA (!?), which was totally new to me. Oh, also, I thought LST was HST (27D: W.W. II inits.). That "V" could've been anything. "I.O.U.S.A." (48D: 2008 documentary about the national debt) is a little insidery hat tip to director Patrick Creadon, who directed the crossword documentary "Wordplay" (2006). I think it's junk fill, but I can't stay mad at it, since it's an actual title and not, say, a prefix or a var. or whatever. I was (typically) on DQ's wavelength today, throwing down the longer stuff w/ just a letter or two in place. BABY DADDY (63A: Child support payer, in modern lingo) went in off just the first "Y" and the rest of the corner was done before I could blink twice. Whole puzzle took me half as long as yesterday's death march. Good times.


I know "2008" was supposed to cue "iPHONE" for me, but it didn't (1A: One was first purchased in 2008 = iPHONE APP). I had MR. OLYMPIA (15A: Title for Schwarzenegger) as MR. OLYMPIC at first, til I noticed the resulting PCR at 9D: 6 is a rare one, which I assumed (rightly) was nonsense (it's PAR). I don't know doo-wop that well, but I had the YOU and figured, at four letters, that's gotta be ONLY (I could hear the song, which I mostly know from some long-forgotten jingle) (43A: 1955 doo-wop hit). I will admit that I actually considered VIC at 33D: Roman numeral that's also a name (LIV). I might also have considered CID ... it was a weird five seconds.
    Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

    95 comments:

    jae 12:09 AM  

    Long time no Quarfoot.  Nice to have one again.   Easy medium for me too with the most staring in the NW where access was a tad tight.  I needed to work the center and SW to finally get ENERGY DRINK which opened the NW back door.  And me too for yeaH before NYAH.   A lot of zippy stuff in-between I PHONE APP and BABY DADDY.

    Only WOE was UNGAVA.  

    Nice that all that time watching Teletubbies with the granddaughter 10 years ago finally paid off. 

    Probably not a good idea to put OLIVES in a RYE cocktail.

    Liked it a lot.  Hope we see DQ more often.

    Anonymous 12:13 AM  

    Enjoyed it but can't understand why the Friday and Saturday puzzles weren't swapped. I'd have to imagine almost everyone would find this significantly easier than yesterday's!

    Questinia 12:19 AM  

    Elegant Quarfoot except for the nyah. Isn't it nyeah?

    Anonymous 12:54 AM  

    Hmm . Could "banker ad" replace "banner ad"?

    retired_chemist 1:20 AM  

    Same feel as yesterday - some topnotch cluing and a ton of fun answers. LOL @ DCUPS.

    Thanks, Mr. Quarfoot.

    syndy 1:59 AM  

    Finished in a third of yesterday's time. Definitely on my GROOVE.NYAH was no problem-If OFL doesn't know it does that make it crap?I thoufght it was fresh and fun so NYAH NYAH NYAH! It was certainly VALID !Journey used it in song lyrics for gosh sakes !

    r.alphbunker 2:21 AM  

    A really smooth solve. Started with a dead-certain SEGER and kept going. It was not a speed solve by any means but there were no moments of desperation.

    1A {One was first purchased in 2008} brought to mind this BEQ puzzle from 2010 (http://fleetwoodwack.typepad.com/files/180CentralProcessor.puz) which is a truly amazing puzzle. I won't say more in case anybody wants to try it.

    I don't consider 44A {Cricket violation} to be a sports clue. It is more of a British slang clue. Wikipedia indicates that it is similar to a beanball or a balk in baseball but there are other ways it can happen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_ball

    Speaking of CURSE WORDS, I wonder if the OCR part of the CAPTCHA we have to type in ever displays one.

    Benko 2:23 AM  

    "Nyah" might seem like bad fill but I think every kid in America has been taunted with "NYAH NYAH". Get over it.

    chefwen 2:30 AM  

    I'm thanking the Puzzle Gods for a much easier outing than yesterdays puzzle that totally chewed me up and spit me out.

    Crooked bones was my favorite clue at 47A. Clever! Husband started singing ONLY YOU 43A up until dinner time. I almost lost it, you would understand if you ever heard the boy sing.

    Avatar is of the new kids on the block, named by our own ACME, Bosco and Cowabungo, their rescuer will be back in a few days.


    Anoa Bob 3:11 AM  

    Nice to see IBAR again. One hardly ever sees this chestnut outside of xword puzzles, certainly not at construction sites.

    I thought UNGAVA was the command that Tarzan gave when he wanted Cheetah to go to the next village, round up all the elephants, and bring them back so he could save some damsel in distress.

    I'm remembering the Platters' version of ONLY YOU. Never thought of it as doo-wop.

    Aphid Curseword Mites 4:17 AM  

    Agree with others yesterday's much harder.

    Not as ZQX-y as Quarfoot can be, so hard to know if i was on his wavelength or if it was just plain easier.

    "Crooked bones" -type clues makes me feel clever..DQ is good at making solver feel clever instead of look-at-him clever.

    Anonymous 5:51 AM  

    Amazing that you can count the seconds that it takes to think... it must be very tense...

    evil doug 7:52 AM  

    "DQ is good at making solver feel clever instead of look-at-him clever." Hallelujah! Andrea finally gets it! And I'm in total agreement---a constructor who puts the solvers in front of his/her own narcissistic needs is always welcome....

    Wanted HOT SaucE instead of STONE for my massage. As long as there's a happy ending, who cares?

    Too many baby daddy's are not child support payers. Thus, you and I---taxpayers---are:
    ****************
    "A Nashville, TN man says he's fathered 22 children with 14 women, but doesn't have the money to pay their child support.

    "'I was young and ambitious and I love women,' Orlando Shaw told WTVF-TV. You can't knock no man for loving women.'

    "Shaw was taken to court by the mothers who are seeking years of unpaid child support totaling tens of thousands of dollars. Tennessee pays more than $7,000 a month to help support all of Shaw's children."
    *********************

    Evil

    Notsofast 8:14 AM  

    Much easier and much more fun than yesterday's puzzle. New words throughout! I especially liked DCUPS, IMPUMPED and BABYDADDY. UMS, LAALAA, NYAH ( spelled the way we used to say to ) put me in a pretty good mood on this rainy Saturday morning. Thanks DQ and WS!

    Sallie (FullTime-Life) 8:16 AM  

    I loved this. My favorite puzzles mix old lady clues ..only you Ed Sullivan (from when i was in HS). .... And new ones that make me feel like I'm still with it! I knew I phone app...just bought one ! And baby daddy! And it was a Saturday with no google! What's not to like!

    Glimmerglass 8:18 AM  

    UNGAVA! The French colonial governor gave a speech in norther New France. After almost every sentence, the natives cheered UNGAVA! UNGAVA!. The translator explained it was a cry of approval. But on the way across the street, someone else warned the governor, "Careful. Don't step in the ungava."

    Sir Hillary 8:23 AM  

    Much easier than yesterday. Just a couple of brief errors -- RUM for RYE and SOLID for VALID -- both of which were quickly corrected.

    Really a fresh vibe to this one -- IPHONEAPP, IMPUMPED, BANNERAD, BABYDADDY, ENERGYDRINK, even CREDITSCORE all feel very 21st century.

    Don't understand the fuss over NYAH. UMS is far worse.

    Laughed out loud at 10A.

    Great work, DQ!

    Milford 8:33 AM  

    Fun Saturday, nice and difficult like yesterday, but played fair and was do-able. Took a lot of circling around, lots of write-overs, but it's Saturday and that is typical for me.

    I did DNF in an odd place - not just one letter, but a totally wrong word - SaLINes instead or SPLINTS. The WWII initials could have been anything to me, and I never even saw that aROUD was nonsense. I actually even had i.v. LINeS at first.

    The other hang-up I remember was having the meter site be a lAB before CAB. I thought lab was a clever answer, personally.

    Lots of fun, fresh phrases that others have mentioned. Shout outs to Michigan with SEGER and COBB. I had absolutely no problem spelling NYAH - looks right to me!

    Great puzzle! @chef wen- your new friends are very cute.

    Sean Dobbin 8:53 AM  

    Totally disagree with @Rex about NYAH and IOUSA as bad fill. I had never heard of IOUSA, but the clue was totally fair and it made great sense when I finally got it. It's unfortunate that NYAH is a partial, but I think it's still fine. Filled it in quickly.

    Oh, we're talking about narcissistic constructors again? Here here! Those awful, self-absorbed me-people! What's wrong with them!? How can they live with themselves!?

    Oh, right, they're probably just nice people trying to make your day for shit money.

    Mohair Sam 9:02 AM  

    Looks like Will Shortz mixed up his days. Clever clues but each area of the grid seemed to have a gimme that opened everything up.

    Never heard term BABYDADDY btw.

    Doris 9:14 AM  

    Speaking of not passing the Breakfast Test (not that we actually were), few expressions make me more nauseated than "baby daddy" or "baby mama." Is the U.S. getting as sickeningly cutsey as the U.K. with some of its expressions? In the words of Sheridan Whiteside's entrance line in "The Man Who Came to Dinner," "I may vomit."

    Jonathan 9:16 AM  

    NYAH is junk, because it's NAH and repeated 3 times.

    Doris 9:18 AM  

    Whoops! Typo! I meant CUTESY. Still may vomit.

    Slicimus 9:27 AM  

    medium hard for me, but pleasantly so. got just enough across and down to guess at the rest.
    My favorite was "Crooked bones", clever.
    I kept expecting a theme, like double letters, or the abbreviations in the NW or something, but I didn't get stuck on it.

    BTW, in my own mind, I call looking stuff up on google "research" and peeking at Rex's column as "cheating".

    chefbea 9:34 AM  

    I agree, much easier than yesterday. Still DNF Never heard of nyah.

    And why id 13 down plural? Isn't there just one Pieta in the Vatican.?

    mac 9:42 AM  

    Very good puzzle, a lot easier for me than yesterday's, but it may make a difference that I got to do it first thing in the morning after a great night's sleep.

    Very apt observation, @Andrea! Although I don't feel too smart. Had "von", then "van" at 10D, which worked well with Veeps, Allie, serene and pietas. Too bad Ungava and Seger did not co-operate. It made the NE slow going. In the NW only the -app part and Mr. Olympus (ia) gave me a hard time.

    I'm pretty sure we have a fawn in the tall grass on our property. I've seen the mother in the evening and the early morning. They'll love the big begonias I just planted in the pots.

    Latichever 9:43 AM  

    Today is as good a day as any to pose a question about something that has been perplexing me.

    I'm a decent solver. I used the ipad app. On a good day, I can solve a puzzle in less than 7 minutes. But today, the top scorer solved the puzzle in 1:40.

    How is that humanly possible?

    An Olympic sprinter can react to the starter's gun in .16 seconds. Average human reaction times to visual cues are slower--around .3 seconds.

    These are reactions that require a minimum of cognitive processing. When thinking enters the picture--such as when solving a crossword--even if the answer came immediately, today's top solver would have had to entered each letter in 1.91 seconds to achieve a total of 1:40.

    I thought that maybe these top solvers did the puzzle elsewhere--say, on paper--and then filled in the squares as rapidly as possible. But even this strains credulity. I picked out an old puzzle and simply tapped the letter "e" repeatedly, and it took a minute to fill all the squares. When I randomly entered a variety of letters it took longer.

    So even copying off a crib sheet seems to make it difficult to do even a Monday puzzle in 1:40.

    What am I missing?

    jberg 9:44 AM  

    Strangely, I looked at "crooked bones?" thought "cockED DICE," said, "no, that's not quite right," but never saw LOADED until I got it from the crosses.

    But never mind -- how can you not like a puzzle that sticks its thumbs in its ears, wiggles its fingers, sticks its tongue out at you, and jeers "NYAH NYAH!" Especially when it's basically friendly and fun, and brings us new information about the nesting habits of the ERNE (cliffs? Who knew!) My only real complaint is that I think Rum is a lot more common in cocktails than RYE, but what do I know? Nice job, Mr. Quarfoot!

    Tita 9:53 AM  

    Happy dance - this felt more than a MITE impossible for me, but I finished! Before 9:30!!! And And the only ENERGYDRINK I needed was a coffee.

    Had odE for Meter site (clever, no?), so didn't know what kind of DADDY...
    But when I got CAB, it quickly became BAnkDADDY. Also clever...

    Love Game with points - should be the entry in the OED to illustrate "misdirect".
    Also like clue because I just learned that not only do deer shed their rack and start over every year, but add one more point each year. Wow!
    Speaking of racks, DCUPS and UNGAVA were my last entries.

    Didn't realize OFL was enamored of Mr. Quarfoot. I thought he might complain about the old-timiness, what with EDSULLIVAN, 2 WWII refs, NASTASE, ONLYYOU...
    I guess they were offset by the IPHONEAPP and BANNERAD.

    Hey - isn't LIV short for OLIVE?
    Myself, loved it all.

    @chefwen - thx for the pic - talk about rescue pets!

    @Anoa - lol re: Tarzan - I think you're mixing it up with @Chefwen's new pet.

    @Milford - I had line, but at 53A Drying device.

    Thanks David - ONLYYOU could make me PROUD after being BLE[E}DDRY yesterday.

    Oh - and NYAH was my very first thought at5D, but I thought it was repeated 6 times, so I didn't put it in till near the end.

    Tita 9:56 AM  
    This comment has been removed by the author.
    Tita 10:06 AM  

    @chefbea...I figured that while there is only one "La Pieta" by Michelangelo, there probably were other works of art by painters, etc., around that subject in the Vatican Museum.

    Thanks for asking - you inspired me to google, so I learned that indeed there are, and the first two I came across are by Chagall and van Gogh!
    I didn't expect such modern examples.

    Bob Kerfuffle 10:25 AM  

    Enjoyed the puzzle, but only finished correctly after some by-guess and by-gosh in the NE, especially the cross of UNGAVA and SEGER, and, like @mac, I spent some time trying to decide if 10 D was VAN or VON.

    Anonymous 10:39 AM  

    Hmmm, could "from overseas" have been "ees" ?

    jackj 10:41 AM  

    Having no illusions about what was coming from David Quarfoot, I sighed deeply, flexed my puzzle pecs and entered the fray, determined to prevail in another battle of wits with one of our toughest constructors.

    But, a pleasant surprise was in store as David’s puzzle proved inexplicably mellow and a quick scan showed a most delightful starting point at BABYDADDY that was bringing up the rear. And, of course, then CAB, ESSAY, TEND and WPA all fell in line, opening the way for a favorite entry, LOADEDDICE, that ultimately jockeyed for “first billing” with EDSULLIVAN and BLEEDDRY.

    In a very unquarfoot-like manner, David sprinkled a few “gimmees” about the grid, bits like OLE, RYE, OLIVES and EMCEE and then posed an interesting Rorschach test of sorts when seeking the “Roman numeral that’s also a name”. To wit, when deciding the most likely answer is LIV, who did the solver first think of, LIV Tyler or LIV Ullmann?

    My first pass at the answer for “Can’t wait!” was IMPRIMED and that raised some anxieties until, the Gubernator’s MROLYMPIA provided the thought of PUMPED and then IOTA converted to MITE and MOAN to PEON and that quadrant was complete.

    There’s cleverness galore today, sending solvers fun, false signals with such as the cluing for DEER, PETEACHER, PAR, ERNIE and, of course, the Sophia, Gina, Jayne tribute entry, DCUPS. (Who could ask for anything more?)

    So, NYAH NYAH, LAA LAA, you UNGAVA ASIAN PEAR!

    An A-plus-plus puzzle from David Quarfoot!

    Sandy K 10:44 AM  

    Loved this puzzle!

    Had some great misdirects, but that was the fun of it- all gettable if you switched to DQ's wavelength eg Trix alternative, Game with points, 10A, 20A, etc.

    Hand up for never-heard of UNGAVA, there's more than one PIETA? And how many NYAHs comprise a taunt? But you go with the flow...

    Liked crossing of MR. OLYMPIA, I'M PUMPED and PE TEACHER.

    @Carola- We're due for a Diagramless!!




    Ellen S 10:44 AM  

    Haha! NYAH was the very first thing I entered. And pretty much the last thing I entered at the top until the very end. Last thing in was IPHONEAPP -- I thought it should be iPhone but took forever to figure out what to do with the extra letters.

    Agree with ACME, the puzzle made me feel clever despite lots of "research" (Thank you, @Slicimus!) and some plain cheating.

    I don't see any complaints about the cleverly clued partial, ENNE. Not that I'm complaining. I only got it from crosses and only figured out what it meant after coming here.

    @chefwen: great picture of the little ones. Does "Cowabungo" mean you've figured out the genders?

    @Latichever, people have been asking that question for ages; nobody knows the answer. Maybe the timed app is in error, like my indoor-outdoor thermometer that says it's 27 below zero here as we're going into triple digits. Maybe the NYT needs a new battery.

    joho 10:46 AM  

    What the crossword world needs is more Quarfoot!

    That's all I'm going to say.

    Ellen S 10:48 AM  

    Oh, and @r.alph, how come you didn't make your addresses into links?

    GILL I. 10:52 AM  

    I just finished this wonderful puzzle while sitting in our breezy cool balcony in Half Moon Bay. Poor Sacramento - expect around 110 heat today...
    Well, I had trouble getting started. I had maybe 4 or 5 answers splattered all over the place and that was it. Finally gave in and Googled IPHONEAPP and EDSULLIVAN. I was then off and running. Did get a bit hung up on MR OLYMPIA because I had Schwarz.....as the GOVINATOR. - that's what we called him here.
    LAALAA was Tinkle (I think that name is better)and LOADED DICE was new to me.
    I first heard BABY DADDY used on Judge Joe Brown. I thought I heard wrong but it kept being repeated. Why drop the S? too lazzzy I guesss.
    @chefwen...Yay. The cuties are posted...They look happy and fat. I GROOVES on them pictures.
    Stay cool...

    Tita 11:05 AM  

    @Ellen S, @r.alph - refresh GridFinger, then look for the BEQ puzzle. (As long as "tita" is your servanr - uh - server...
    Last one to finish is a rotten egg...NYAH, NYAH...

    @Gill I.P. such a beautiful place. If I'm ever out that way again, I'll look you up, and tell you a funny story from a guest book at a cottage at Half Moon Bay.

    Z 11:05 AM  

    Finished so definitely easier than yesterday's "death march."

    SEGER and the wrong icE and mays were all I had after going through the acrosses. That E in icE was right though, and LOADED DICE got me going. From the SW I got into the SE via IOUSA and the NW via ENERGY DRINK (no athletes I know drink them much). APHIDS replacing weeds left me with EDS-Lhi-A-N. EDSeL who I wondered. One head slap later I got it and thus PIETAS and finally D CUP. UNITE got me into Nebraska and I finally fixed RYE and OlLY YOU to finish.

    {non-puzzle related rant warning}'
    @Evil Doug - I must confess to some ambivalence about your example. WTH were these 14 women thinking. I really don't care who anybody sleeps with, but we have birth control, abortion, and adoption as options to us. But NOOOoooo, let 's try to get money from this boneheaded sperm donor. Could they not tell what kind of person they were having sex with? A pox on all their houses.

    Z 11:14 AM  

    @Latichever- Miguel Cabrera is able to track the flight of a small orb moving at 95+MPH from roughly 55 feet away. The orbs trajectory is different every time. Yet Miggy is able to strike it with a Cylinder made from an ash tree and hit it as far as 450 feet. Seems impossible, yet I've seen him do it.

    Carola 11:30 AM  

    When I saw David Quarfoot's name, I thought "Uh-oh": if being older was a help yesterday, I figured being younger would be the only way to survive today. And I'm old enough to own a Platters LP with "ONLY YOU" on it. But then he gave me ED SuLLIVAN, and I was on my way. Very fun.

    @acme - I really liked your "clever" comment. Today I had a "clever but not enough" moment - I knew right away that "Game with points" was "buck" - whoops, not. Never thought of DEER until I had crosses.

    @chefwen - Thanks for the pic of the DOGIES!

    @Tita - In Wisconsin, we run out of taunting steam after 5 NYAHs :)

    @Sandy K - Huzzah! See you there.

    Michael Stich 11:39 AM  

    Look for bonus tennis puzzle in the sports section of the Times today, by BEQ and Mary Salter.

    Found today's harder than Friday', but finally finished.

    Anonymous 11:47 AM  

    Can someone please explain how ENNE is "Trix alternative?" (51A)? Thanks

    Helpful guy 11:53 AM  

    @Anon 11:47 - Both are suffixes to indicate a woman. Dominatrix, Doyenne.

    chefbea 12:01 PM  

    @michael stitch how do I find the tennis puzzle on line to print out??

    Latichever 12:04 PM  

    @Z. Actually, it's 60 ft 6 in. from mound to home plate, which means it takes .4 seconds at 95mph. Since the average reaction time to a visual stimulus--depending on the research protocol--is .25 to .30 seconds, it is well within non-impossible parameters for Cabrera to hit that pitch. Moreover, if he gets a visual fix on it when the ball is about 25 feet from the plate--typical for a major leaguer--he will still have .25 seconds to hit it. So Cabrera's hitting is no impossible.

    But suppose Cabrera was a master crossword solver, solving a puzzle in 1:40 strains credulity.

    @anonymous. Both enne and trix are feminine suffixes. E.g., equestrienne and dominatrix.

    Z 12:37 PM  

    @Latichever- the mound is 60'6" but the ball leaves the pitcher's hand roughly 5 or 6 feet in front of the mound. Miggy hitting a ball over the centerfield fence in Comerica is a rarer feat than a 1:40 crossword solve. If you've never done it, go try to make some good contact in the 80 MPH batting cages. I'm a seven minute tops solver on a Monday, but can easily fathom a touch typist who does daily crosswords, can type as they read the next clue, makes cross-educated guesses about short fill (i.e. why bother to read entire clues - three letter musician = ENO) solving in these sorts of times. Your question comes up often enough that someone will almost assuredly post a link to a video of someone doing the "impossible" at some point today.

    Michael Stich 12:42 PM  

    @chefbea et al

    Sorry for not being clear - it's in the print edition - "section" was ambiguous. Page D5, below the jump on the Nadal-Djokovic story.

    A Google search for NY Times tennis crossword turns up the site, though then I get a message saying my browser does not support Java applets.

    r.alphbunker 1:01 PM  

    @tita
    I have done that puzzle at least three times.

    @Ellen S
    Sometimes links aren't what they seem.

    evil doug 1:01 PM  

    Mitzie: "Oh, we're talking about narcissistic constructors again? Here here! Those awful, self-absorbed me-people! What's wrong with them!? How can they live with themselves!? Oh, right, they're probably just nice people trying to make your day for shit money."

    No, wrong; they're probably just nice people trying to make their day for shit money.

    Z: "A pox on all their houses."

    Yes, I agree---except that those houses presumably include the children fated to be raised without a father, and with uneducated/uncaring mothers as you describe. The cycle, sadly, continues. So the parents get their moment of unprotected pleasure, the kids become unknowing victims, and you and I get to underwrite the whole mess.

    Evil

    chefbea 1:10 PM  

    @Michael stitch etal. I Found the tennis puzzle am about to print it out. I will be glad to e-mail it to anyone. Just E-mail me

    Anonymous 1:11 PM  

    Could someone please explain what WOEs are. Saw it here yesterday. Thank you.

    Z 1:11 PM  

    @ED - This is four so I'm definitely done after this - the more or less modern invention of "you and me" underwriting the whole mess is the best idea so far that society has had to break the cycle for the kids (who had no say in their circumstances).

    joho 2:05 PM  

    @Anonymous 1:11 ... I think WOE stands for "What on earth!" and is a kinder, gentler version of WTF!

    Chip Hilton 2:48 PM  

    No problem with NYAH as I heard kids use it more often than I cared to in 33 years of teaching. EDSULLIVAN first to fall and MROLYMPIA came to me quickly, too, for some reason. Great clue on LOADEDDICE. Surprised to see a cricket clue in this Times rather than the London one but I was familiar with it, so, all in all, a great Friday/Saturday tandem for this man Jack.

    John V 2:49 PM  

    Always happy with a perfect Saturday solve. About on par with yesterday, apart from yesterday's NW.

    @rex has talked about the advantage of being a "constant solver" Since I started this Albany gig, been doing more puzzles. It makes a difference. I used to have no chance at a Quarfoot puzzle; this felt easy for a Saturday.

    Fun stuff.

    Unknown 2:58 PM  

    @Latichever -- with MY iPad app, at any time, you can click "Reveal Puzzle" and it will not only give you the time at which you click the button, it will put you on the leader board in the "solved without hints" category. I suspect something like that is going on.

    It's been irritating me for a while.

    Solved today's in 9 minutes, which is very good for me on a Saturday, and suspect a few of the times above me were false positives due to something like this.

    So it's been difficult for me to track any improvement I've had.

    Anonymous 3:39 PM  

    @joho
    Thanks again! lol

    Anonymous 3:40 PM  

    DCUPS up high. 4 sets of DDs (Double Ds) hanging low. Or is it just me?

    Chip Hilton 4:49 PM  

    @Anonymous at 3:40 - A couple of EEs down low, too. I wonder . . .

    michael 5:20 PM  

    Easy Saturday for me except for Seger/Ungava.

    I had del instead of des and after googling Ungava ended up wondering why I had never hear of Leger...

    sanfranman59 6:03 PM  

    This week's relative difficulty ratings. See my 8/1/2009 post for an explanation and my 10/15/2012 post for an explanation of a tweak I've made to my method. In a nutshell, the higher the ratio, the higher this week's median solve time is relative to the average for the corresponding day of the week.

    All solvers (this week's median solve time, average for day of week, ratio, percentile, rating)

    Mon 5:58, 6:09, 0.97, 35%, Easy-Medium
    Tue 8:25, 8:14, 1.02, 59%, Medium
    Wed 9:44, 9:54, 0.98, 46%, Medium
    Thu 12:31, 17:11, 0.73, 7%, Easy
    Fri 28:18, 21:35, 1.31, 94%, Challenging
    Sat 21:46, 25:16, 0.86, 19%, Easy

    Top 100 solvers

    Mon 3:37, 3:46, 0.96, 23%, Easy-Medium
    Tue 4:52, 4:53, 1.00, 49%, Medium
    Wed 5:34, 5:40, 0.98, 46%, Medium
    Thu 7:21, 9:49, 0.75, 8%, Easy
    Fri 16:35, 12:19, 1.35, 91%, Challenging
    Sat 12:45, 15:08, 0.84, 20%, Easy-Medium

    Dirigonzo 7:02 PM  

    I spent about an hour of unmitigated pleasure doing this to unwind after a long day at work. IPHONExxx and DCUPS went in at the top and everything just flowed down from there. The last 15 minutes or so was spent staring at the area under the xxx until APP finally materialized to give me the downs. It took about another 5 minutes to parse PETEACHER, since pete acher made no sense whatsoever.

    Ellen S 8:44 PM  

    @Tita -- I refreshed the grid page, went to get puzzle, refreshed that, refreshed everything except myself (yup, it's at least 108 here in Sacramento and not even summer yet), and "Get Puzzle" showed only the Monday-Sunday NYT options. And yes, my "servant" is "Tita".

    @r.alph, sometimes links are what they seem, just the URL, not coded. Or so it seems.

    Kurisu 10:41 PM  

    The one that bothered me was RYE as a "common" cocktail ingredient -- "common" in what decade/century? I've never heard of anybody drinking rye-based cocktails, or even rye itself.

    Tita 10:54 PM  

    @Ellen S - try again pls.

    mac 10:55 PM  
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    mac 10:56 PM  

    I agree with you, Chris. I started out with ice but thought gin would be a better option.

    Rgrant50 11:30 PM  


    Being a Canadian I got Ungava.
    Usually I get tripped up by manhattancentric stuff.
    Every dog has his day.

    Rgrant50 11:32 PM  

    Ironically a Manhattan is rye with sweet vermouth.
    That is a great cocktail.

    syndy 11:38 PM  

    Rye wild turkey and anything yum!

    Anonymous 8:51 PM  

    .

    HEY REX

    THIS wasn't the ONLY puzzle in today's NYTs !!

    go look at the sports section

    frankD

    In Honor of Michael Stich 8:55 PM  

    HEY FRANK D - Did you happen to notice Michael's comment at 11:39 AM?

    Joseph B 12:46 AM  

    I got NYAH with no crosses, though I've always heard it quintupled. I've heard it as NAH as well, so I imagine there are regional differences.

    Being a tennis fan in the '70s saved my bacon with Nastase, without which I surely would have guessed wrong on UNGAVA and LST (which I never can remember). Nice to see his last name in a puzzle instead of the first.

    Anonymous 6:29 PM  
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    spacecraft 11:49 AM  

    Thank you, Ms. Valdez, for WAY TMI. Where are the filters? WHY THE HELL AM I STRUGGLING WITH THESE RIDICULOUS CAPTCHAS if we have to let THIS shit in???? SOMEBODY, DO YOUR JOB!!

    On to the puzzle. Lots of you seem to think this was easier--in some cases WAY easier--than yesterday's. Not so here. An hour then, an hour now. As to single-digit minutes, I'm with @Latichever. You have to sit this person down in front of me and let me watch it in real time, then I'll believe.

    I filled the grid in a couple places with guesses. Didn't know beans about the province; after finally getting ERNIE I had _NGAVA. Assuming an A, I tried to think what LCAPS or maybe DCAPS could be, before the aha! of DCUPS (!). So the NE took its 15 minutes, even with opening gimmes SEGER, EDSULLIVAN and NASTASE.

    BABYDADDY? Never heard that. Makes no sense; why not just DADDY? Had to run the alphabet with I_USA and the "Drying device." Had to run it a second time before catching the O of OAST, good ol' xword word. But IOUSA? Weird. I can see the idea, fused acronyms, but it's still weird.

    I could've sworn COBB was an infielder. My bad; had to reject the "gimme" MAYS. Those delays meant 15 more for SE. The SW filled in very easiy. I still laugh over the M*A*S*H episode in which Radar is fascinated with the word SLAKE--he thinks it's the dirtiest word ever. Funny stuff.

    The NW took the rest of the hour. "Game with points," huh? Wow, I thought, that really narrows it down! Took me forever to work out that west section; "Cave dweller" is certainly a new way, though perfectly correct, to clue ERNE. Then at last: Oh, THAT kind of game! THOSE "points!" Okay, David. Very clever. So, HOTSTONE at a spa, eh? If you say so.

    I did once play on a course, in the Altoona area, that had a hole named "Sixes Wild." Hole #6, 666 yards, par, you guessed it, 6. Took three of the best woods I ever hit and I was still short.

    Okay, now I'm guilty of TMI.

    Texas Syndy Solver 1:47 PM  

    Baby Daddy is very common slang. The unwed father. I guess it would be non-PC to say it started as "ghetto" slang.

    rain forest 2:55 PM  

    OK, a twofer today. I really liked both yesterday's puzzle and today's. However, yesterday was DNF with several WTFs, while today's was PDQ.

    By getting most of the downs, I finished everything but the SE in very quick time (for me). I briefly had MAYS as the outfielder, but BLEEDDRY fixed that. From that, I assume that the entire outfield is Cobb, Ruth, and Mays, though I'd love to have Mantle in there.

    Not only quick, for a Saturday, but an enjoyable romp as wsll. NYAH was my first thought for 5D, and so Rex is out to lunch on that one.

    Nice to have two excellent puzzles on the weekend, one of which I can finish.

    DMGrandma 4:01 PM  

    First go through things looked hopeless, except for the gimme ( for one of my generation) EDSULLIVAN. But I stuck with it, and eventually all fell except the NE. A total Natick at the peninsula/Silver Bullet cross, and now I see I also had DEr where DES was wanted. Toiled longest over that corner where I originally had AfroS for the big top things, and SIlent as the word for 14D still.. Loved DEER when it appeared to replace my "I knew it was wrong" epEe. All in all a fun challenge!

    Syndi Solver 4:01 PM  

    Wow, today was so much easier for me! From the comments (and the stats from @sanfranman59) it seems it was much easier for others, too. As the old song says, What A Diff'rence A Day Makes! (from before I was born but I still like the song)

    Yet I agree with @rain forest that both puzzles were fun even though yesterday's was so much harder.

    NYAH was easy for me and made me smile. Somehow (don't ask me how! partly I guessed that 1 Down must start with I or I'M) I already had IPHONE APP. Having the first letters of all the downs really helps.

    I know a bit of tennis so I got Ilie ("Nasty") NASTASE from the N. On most other sports I have trouble. My husband helped me with "Cricket violation" (NO BALL).

    And I knew IOUSA (haven't seen it, just read about it somewhere) so I'm surprised it's considered junk fill (because it's not well known, I guess?). Guess I was lucky that I knew about it.

    Fun puzzle and fairly easy for me for a change. Thanks David Quarfoot!

    Waxy in Montreal 10:30 PM  

    Age and residence quickly provided EDSULLIVAN and UNGAVA but IPHONEAPP and MROLYMPIA left me in LAALAA land for far too long. Overall - the usual DQ delight.

    captcha = arryma which sounds a lot like marryma which, alas, is what a BABYDADDY don't do.

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    Prune 3:54 PM  

    Why does the blog administrator allow all of these scam postings?!

    I had an experience inverted from Rex's endpoints: NYAH was my first entry, but the SE took a fair amount of back-and forth, finally cemented when I got OPENTOED from O____OE_. I ended the puzzles when I got critical mass in the center to finish SPLINTS and the GROOVES. "LIV" was a gimme in there, while the other answers were still ambiguous enough for pleasurable difficulty.

    This is what Mr. Q does for me almost every time, nearly solo justification for my legacy subscription.

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