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SATURDAY, Jun. 20 2009 — Dilbert character reincarnated as his own clone / Blackmailer in 1850 novel / 1924 co-defendant / Old Fenway nickname
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Constructor: Brad Wilber
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME: none
Word of the Day: EOLITH (31A: Prehistoric stone tool) —An eolith (from Greek "eos", dawn, and "lithos", stone) is a chipped flint nodule. Eoliths were once thought to have been artefacts, the earliest stone tools, but are now believed to be naturally produced by geological processes such as glaciation. (wikipedia)
This one was very easy for me, as Saturday puzzles go. Finished this one more than two minutes faster than I did yesterday's puzzle. There are the usual assortment of "???" answers that you typically find on a Saturday (esp. a Brad Wilber Saturday), but crosses took care of them all easily. Started with TIE GAME (13D: Outcome disallowed by the N.H.L. in 2005), which was so obvious that I was sure it was wrong. But then 16A: Bagels, essentially confirmed the "I" (TORI), and 10A: Not much confirmed the "T" (A BIT), and that was that. NE done in about fifteen seconds. When I didn't fly out of that corner, I tried the NW corner and wanted DIET PLATE right away at 1A: Reduced fare?, but wasn't sure if ERIS confirmed that final "E" or not (9D: Solar system discovery of 2003), so I didn't write it in. Then I noticed the Beatles clue and got it instantly: 19A: "_____ Blues" (track on the Beatles' "White Album") ("Yer"). The next part is weird. I thought, "if DIET PLATE is right, then ... could 1D: Certain hauling fee really be DRAYAGE???" Turns out it could, and was.
[intermittent explosions outside office window = scary electrical problem ... wife calling power company ... I'm outside now, writing from the laptop ... waiting for the explosions to happen again ... power company on the way]
I can see this puzzle giving solvers a proper noun headache. IONESCO is a name I know (2D: "The Bald Soprano" playwright, 1950). T.C. BOYLE is a name I know but not for the title in question today (45D: "Drop City" novelist, 2003). TENIERS, I didn't know at all (8D: Surname of three generations of Flemish old masters), which is depressing, given how many damned many of them there apparently are. They're like the @#$!ing Bachs, those guys. Yeesh. Longtime readers of this blog will not be surprised to hear that I dropped ASOK with one swift punch (22A: "Dilbert" character who was reincarnated as his own clone). ASOK and I had an encounter a while back that didn't go so well for me. Revenge! No idea who this LEMAT guy is (6D: Paul who won Golden Globe for "American Graffiti"). Had LUMET at first. The "Andrew" in MERRY ANDREW can apparently be capitalized or not. Also, OED says MERRYANDREW can be a verb. I'd never heard the term before today (55A: Clown). LOEB (54A: 1924 co-defendant) and HEEP (64A: Blackmailer in an 1850 novel) were no problems, given their shortness and fame. FT RILEY, on the other hand, took some scratching and clawing to get hold of (27D: Kansas mil. reservation with the U.S. Cavalry Museum).
[update: intermittent explosions are coming from power lines that cut through neighbor's enormous tree ... how are we the only ones in the neighborhood who appear to be noticing this? It sounds like a gang war, with odd stretches of silence]
Bullets:
- 17A: Going bonkers for the British? (Anglomania) — Beatle-mania I've heard of. Anglophilia, I've heard of. I don't know what this is.
- 20A: Response to being elbowed, maybe ("Was I snoring?") — excellent. I was proud when, with just the "-ING" in place, I wrote in STOP SNORING.
- 28A: Companion for Pan (Dryad) — fee for hauling a dead woodland creature out of the woods: DRYADAGE.
- 38A: Bruiser's display (machismo) — at first I thought "Bruiser" was a dog.
- 10D: Maker of the Lynx and Jaguar systems (Atari) — back-to-back days, one clue harder than the next.
- 15D: Victim of terrible teasing (Tantalus) — wow, that's some ruthless cluing. I was imagining some poor kid on a playground. Or having a flashback.
- 29D: Old Fenway nickname (Yaz) — Carl Yastrzemski, legendary Red Sox left-fielder. 18-time (!!!!) All-Star. Still, I suppose it's possible the YAZ / ZUNI crossing got a few people today (37A: Kachina doll makers).
- 53D: Option at Sleepy's (Serta) — like ATARI, SERTA returns.
- 61D: Interrogator's red-flag raiser (lie) — I didn't like this at first, but I think I understand now. If someone is lying, then that raises a red flag regarding the possibility of that person's culpability in whatever matter it is you are investigating. OK.
If you missed it yesterday, there's still time to check out my "Last-Minute Father's Day Gift Ideas" post here (or just scroll down if you are on the main page).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
PS Orange's write-up of today's LA Times puzzle can be found here.
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64 comments:
One of the most challenging Saturdays for me in a long time, especially since I started early this AM with no coffee.
Would have saved 10 minutes or more if I'd caught my typo with Inoesco. That made Roger Ebert impossible to see. Early on I tried film critic there, an odd sort of malapop.
So many rerights - just didn't trust my instincts. Are Hopi & Zuni synonymous? I first tried Hopi, then guessed Yaz, but took that all out several times. I was very HESITANT about most of my answers today hence a very slow solving time.
A good, solid puzzle. Enjoyed it all, but had to Google once.
It was as if Joe BFTSPLK was over Minnesota. Two proper names (6D, 8D) I had no hope on, 1A DIET ????? which could have been a lot of things, uncertainty for ERIS @ 9D (lucky guess), ABATED @ 7D (OK, it isn’t transitive, but close) instead of ABASED (transitive as needed), and ????SNORING @ 20A. Thought 5D ?RO? would be PROW (it was) but because of all the options I was AT SEA (or at least at Lake Superior). Googled LEMAT and immediately went D’oh! Everything else fell rapidly. 20A WAS I SNORING seems so obvious in retrospect and insisting 20A start with a 4 letter word so dumb. I estimate 20 minutes lost AT LAKE.
Nice ones: EOLITH (31A; my guess for WOTD was correct); MERRY ANDREW (55A); ZUNI (37A; had HOPI at first and mildly resent its cross YAZ @ 29D being called an old nickname; seems like yesterday to me); DRAYAGE (1D; was CARTAGE but not for too long). @ RP - if DRYADAGE isn’t a word, it should be.
Good clues for: SERTA (53A; Sleepy’s in the clue was a wtf that led to a microepiphany eventually); G CLEF (25A); 21D ORDINAL; 35A TREE (as a DRYAD home); 15D TANTALUS (didn’t know the myth; now I do. Got it from “tantalize” and the element tantalum.); 25A TRIVIA; TSO (58A Nice cover of an old standard - who knew?); and others, notably 16A TORI (no trouble SPELLING that).
Well done, Mr. Wilber.
correction: ABATE can be transitive, it just usually isn't.
This one was tough for me as well. Ionesco had the whole place to himself for quite a while. Filling in each quadrant was like chipping away with an EOLITH - slow and inexact. I had Pan hanging out with a satyr, nymph, and even a flute before I hit on the dryad. Finally getting to the last square, I waffled - draYage/Yer or draWage/Wer? Ultimately, the Y seemed more likely (and we'd recently had "dray"). This was one where I really LIT UP when I finished.
@retired (not ILLATEASE) chemist
Joe BFTSPLK is here in Minnesota and I rained on my own parade. Like Rex and TIEGAME I had several fills that I thought were so easy they could not be correct: not.
Let us review:
DIETPLATE, ASOK, NEUTRALITY (is beige the Switzerland of color), TIEGAME, TREE, OBIE and SERTA (again with the mattresses).
OUTDUEL was my only huh moment.
RE TCBOYLE: I liked Drop City. Visited a few communes in the summer of 68. My favorite commune name was The Family Dog, followed by the Ant Farm. There was also a great series in Rolling Stone (same 68 time frame) on acid cowboys. Err it seems I am rambling.
Great puzzle and as ladies above me posted, this one was tough IMHO.
Opposite of yesterday - found myself on Mr Wilber's wave length and good guesses did abound on this one - MERRYANDREW AAFAIR FTRILEY EOLITH. I'm not sure where these came from - dimly aware but reasonably certain if that makes any sense.
Paul LEMAT seemed on his way to stardom in the Lovable Lug category but American Graffiti was the high water mark of his career.
ANGLOMANIA struck me as a sort of made up word. I'm sure it is in the dictionary but it doesn't seem to have much currency.
I had a couple of trouble spots but they turned out just being speed bumps and and I did this one in two discrete bites. Not very difficult but enjoyable nonetheless. Thank you, Brad Wilber.
Well it had to happen. After I blew away the field yesterday I came crashing back to earth today. Needed two sittings to finally get this one cracked.
WAS I SO WRONG? Yes, it seems I was. WAS I SNORING? Nearly.
I was around for the great ASOK debate so that came easily. We’ll see how many veterans there are.
TIE GAME of course.
DRAYAGE? Not a word. I don’t care how many dictionaries it appears in. It’s not a word. I have spoken.
ANGLOMANIA was ENGLAND--- for a long time. FORT LEE fit nicely for FT RILEY. Is there a FORT LEE?
OUTDRAW for OUTDUEL. HOPI/YAZ – fought with these back and forth.
TATTOOS for EROTICA.
Quite the workout.
Thanks for the Saturday level misleads Mr. Wilber & Mr. Shortz. The clues on this one were fun.
Thanks RP for DRYADAGE, almost ruined my keyboard with spit-up coffee.
According to IMDB, Paul prefers Le Mat.
Great puzzle to struggle with. I finished with two mistakes I wasn't aware of until I read Rex's writeup: Had DRAWAGE (sounded reasonable) and IONASCO (didn't look right, but who knows?), giving the Beatles WAR Blues (not a big pop music fan.) and crossed TENIEAS with DAYAD (should have known better on that one.)
BTW, before any crosses were put in, just five letters, considered that Companion for Pan could have been WENDY.
Had to laugh at my one write-over. The previous two Saturdays I have done the puzzle at the beach, not possible today due to weather. But for 20 A, WAS I SNORING, I originally had WAS I STARING? Wonder if there's a connection!
@Crosscan - Fort Lee is in New Jersey. But it doesn't meet the abbr. requirement of "mil. reservation".
Is SLEEPY'S some sort of matterss emporium? Never heard of it. Thought briefly of the seven Dwarfs but they all lived togehther.
Had to laugh at Crosscan's "tattoos" as I'd thought of that too...
I was happy with my progress all around Wilber Wonderland, until returning to the NW at the end. I wanted 1A and 1D to be Cartage and Child Menu to start, or a CARTOONIST where ROGER EBERT ended up. IONESCO and ANGLOMANIA changed my view to DRAYAGE and DIET something? "Boom" rather than PROW made finishing even harder.
I had trouble with ASOK, dwelling on the ISAK of yesterday, and didn't guess LE MAT, yikes. I ought to have known TENIERS as I once had an alfresco Peasant's Picnic, (done in the manner of) -- an oil on copper plate, but so dry all the paint flaked off!
Anyway, I peeked to get the PLATE and ROGER EBERT, finally saw WAS I to go with my SNORING -- all too apt by then in the wee hours. Too bad I didn't save that for possible daylight revisiting...
∑;(
Must be coming down with brain fever, this one was impossible for me. Hated it.
Even some of the comments stumped me. Does rerights mean rewrites?
@ Crosscan - one of my goals is to do the puzzle in less than twice your time. But this is not the way I wanted to do it.
Count me in on the ASOK-wise side. Dilbert (could you guess?) is one of my two or three favorite strips. Off to read the paper (incl. Dilbert) now.....
Oh yeah. "Easy Medium"....If you GOOGLE all the clues.
Since he didn't know the Teniers, Paul LeMat and had to "peek" to see Roger Ebert, I'd say Rex is a liar.
@anonymous 10:35 "Rerights" means to take out the correct answer only to have to put it back in again
I just crushed this one. IONESCO - ASOK some kind of CLEF - EGGROLL - DIET something - ANGLO something. Just rolled around the whole grid clockwise finishing with the Y in DRAYAGE. Before looking at the clue, I almost wrote in TCBYINC off the TCB.
Sleepy's is one of those retailers who has a 'once a year' sale every week.
Off to the course (and t-storms, I'm afraid)
Also: Shout out to "Retired chemist"...
it was ABASED, not ABATED for "Brought down"
@Xcan -- If you work in a business with any serious freight & logistics, DRAYAGE is part of your daily vocab. Shipping terminology is as arcane as accounting!
Didn't care for this one today. You don't stuff an EGGROLL--You "roll" the ingredients up in the skin like a burrito. I wanted FAT FACE!
Had abated too before changing.
re drayage: if you've ever run a trade show, you know the term (and the fees they hit you w/).
Solid puzzle which I managed to finish - a coup for a Saturday IMO.
Rhea
Did I say "Ooooh" yesterday? I repeat myself,although this time had the NE pretty quickly and imagined this wouldn't be so tough. But it was. But it was.
Oh, and it was also a fine, fun, fair puzzle.
Fair from easy, but a great Saturday morning puzzle. Must have been channeling Crosscan, cuz I didn't hesitate to put TATTOOS as well. Had STOPSNORING for WASISNORING, which blocked me for a while, and I should have stuck with 7D ABASED rather than giving up on it. Loved so many of the answers: DRYAD, TANTALUS, MERRYANDREW (I have no idea what dregs of memory that one came from). Ah well, time to go write some memos before the Confed Cup comes on.
Good Puzzle. I always think they're good when I can do them. I had one google for TCBOYLE. Merry Andrew is a British expression BTW. I liked body art for EROTICA and high level staff GCLEF. BUT IRONIST. Really! First fills IONESCO and TIEGAME. I've played in both. The Bald Soprano and tie games, that is.
Thank you Brad Wilber.
Cool puzzle in that WAS I SNORING made me laugh so loud that my wife took notice from two rooms away. I've often asked that question after an elbow from my wife . .
We had the pleasure of meeting Brad at the Acpt. His puzzles are consistently intelligent and entertaining, thank you Mr. Wilber.
Took me forever to get some solid traction but the end result was worth it. My first entry was Heep. He was the only blackmailer that came to mind and the date seemed right.
Loved the misdirection.
This was one of those puzzles that had tough but doable answers if you drew on your knowledge of word origins and experience with puzzles.
Great Saturday.
Killed it. Loads of good stuff, nothing amazing, but that's still good right? Check that: TC BOYLE is a winner. Approved.
I have been away for a few days and haven't completed the puzzles and after this mornings effort, nothing has changed. What I did want to comment on was how entertaining the posts are today and admit ASOK came to me from the RP blog past. ArtLvr's 'Wilber Wonderland" provided a chuckle, but what made this one worth trying was the material I learned (I hope), but I would like to know if anyone out there has actually said or heard 'merryandrew' in a sentence other than Brad.
53 minutes and no googles -- worked it, and worked it. I too had IONESCO & that's about it for the longest time.
Have to check into that BOYLE book -- love his stuff.
I think "reright"is something that you do when a picture on the wall is crooked and you "reright"it. My friend's mom used to say -- "Let's place up this place." Like that.
"Merry Andrew" was a movie starring Danny Kaye as a jester.
I continue to be amazed at how things pop out of my head when I am doing a puzzle.
How can the clue for eolith be "Prehistoric stone tool" when eoliths are now known to be just rocks? If you call an eolith a tool than you may as well call any old ass rock a prehistoric tool, at which point the eolith classification loses all meaning.
I took out OBIE to insist on THEO, because it was Saturday, after all.
@Orange, don't you preach going with your first answer? Perhaps I should buy your book; maybe it contains a DRY ADAGE about same.
Seems I've been defeated by Mr. Wilber in the past.
W-I-L-L-L-L-LBER!
@chris - "any old ass rock" = LOL!
@ PhillySolver
I've never had audio experience with MERRYANDREW, but have encountered it in print--as I recall, British detective story(ies?) set in medieval/renaissance times.
This was ABIT easier than yesterday's for me but still a pretty good challenge. Much more medium than easy. I waffled between ZUNI and HOPI but realized it could only be YAZ which finally gave me DRYAD and TREE. I thought I knew all the Beatle's stuff but YER Blues did not ring a bell. So I broke out my original VINYL version of the White Album and played the track. It didn't ring a bell because that was probably my least favorite song on that album. I'm sure I repressed it.
Excellent puzzle Mr. Wilber!
Another slog for me. After a very good start, the NW through Montana down into Missouri just wouldn't fall.
I didn't fall for the "tattoos" trap because there was a '?' in the clue and tattoos are quite literally body art. It had to something punny.
Very good Saturday puzzle overall.
Interesting that eolith has nothing to do with the Eocene epoch, the Pliocene being some 30 million years after the Eocene. Eolith must refer (and, as RP and Chris said, it was a mistake) to the dawn (Eos) of tools. Thanks, Prof. Wikipedia!
Well, I managed the NW corner and made some great guesses in SE (SACO for the defendant crossed with LEONARD for the novelist -- Wrong!)
Somehow I liked this puzzle despite total defeat. Wish I had gotten TCBOYLE. Recommended Paul LeMat films (besides AG): Citizens' Band, Melvin and Howard.
I had a hard time with this puzzle, I thought it was maybe the hardest of the year so far...then I come to Rex's site and see he rated it easy-medium. What a blow to my ego! Though it was very tough for me, I thought it was really enjoyable. TANTALUS and MERRYANDREW and TCBOYLE and TORI are all new to me, which no doubt made it hard. You know you're stumped when you're a half hour into the puzzle and you think it might be a Rebus...I was lost when I put TAT in one square for HESI(TAT)ing, thinking that TANTALUS might somehow be TATTLE TALES, which at least made sense for me.
It just goes to show the magic of crosswords -- how some people just connect with certain puzzles and are able to get them with relative ease with others. How proud I was last week when I dominated a Patrick Berry themeless and came on here to see that Rex had a tougher go with it. Well, he gets his comeuppance today.
I was defeated by this one.....
I gave up, found my Waterloo in the North. The Asok discussion must have been before my time, I had cartoonist, then film critic at 14A, 1A diet....., Anglophile at 17, never heard of Yer Blues and to my shame I couldn't think of the Teniers boys. For 25A I had loaded, took it out again and put it back in... Had Hopi before Zuni, a couple of times.
All in all, I didn't have a great time so far. I'm putting my hope in the LAT and CrosSynergy today.
Hopi and Zuni tribes are different, The Zuni homeland is in New Mexico and the Hopi homeland is hundreds of miles away in Arizona. Both tribes are known for making authentic Kachina's, although they are each made of slightly different materials. Inauthentic Kachinas are made by the Navajo, and increasingly by offshore opportunists.
Ack, what a bear of a puzzle! My litany of errors:
stopsnoring (20A)
hairyandrew (55A)
eros (9D)
kidlet (50A) (yes, the SW was an utter mess)
Things got better when I erased the iffy's and I was able to come up with prow (5D) and amoebae (39D). Cheated with my Mac thesaurus to find a synonym for big (38D). Like @Stan, I appreciated the puzzle even though it won the game.
@Rex, thanks for embedding the solution in a larger size! My almost 50 y.o. eyes are happier.
@BobKerfuffle
Your "WAS I STARING?"
Reminds me of the Larry Miller routine (forgive me if I'm mangling this) about his girlfriend who catches him staring at the beach and says, "I know what you're thinking!!!"
and he says, "Women, you have NO idea...if you had even one-hundredth of an understanding what we (men) were thinking, you'd NEVER stop slapping us!"
This puzzle left me in a HEEP.
@Rex
Thanks for the Macho Man video, had never seen it...Love the incongruity of the skinny Village Man in feathers singing back up on this!
As a diehard Beatles fan, I too felt surprised I had NEVER heard of YER Blues!
"The worm he licks my bones???!!!"
ick! THis from the man who gave us "Girrrrrrl (sigh)"???
here is a link:
it features John singing with a cameo by Mick Jagger AND is translated into Spanish!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuDp5Ku1-mo
Full disclosure, yesterday was a breeze (save SANTEE) but today, for the first time, I googled more answers than I originally put in!!!!!!
I only knew IONESCO, KEITH, EMT and, bizarrely YAZ!
Didn't know a TON today...from FT RILEY to BOLIVIA, from TCBOYLE to Uriah HEEP, from ZUNI to HOPI, it just goes on and on!
I even had DRAYFEE till I realized that was in the clue!
Must have missed the ASOK discussion, but there were so many repeats from this past week or two: ATARI, SIESTAS, SERTA, AMOEBAE, NEHI even EGGROLL.
@edithb
re: Paul LEMAT
I could picture exactly whom they were talking about...cute! He sort of looks like that other guy who also made a splash and then sort of disappeared around the same time, um, let me google yet again, oh yes, Treat Williams (Smooth Talk).
Interesting that linguistically someone conflated him with Sidney LUMET!
ROGEREBERT finally got me close to to a correct solution (through TANTALUS which gave me MANIA, though I dodn't much like it), but LEMAT could have been Lemet, for all I knew. TENIERS could have been anything. Not only did I try stopSNORING, but also "quit" and, sadly, ended up with "less." I knew PROl had to be wrong, but took out PROW to make it work after ABASED seemed to confirm "less."
Like others, I had Hopi until YAZ straightened me out there. I was guessing at TCBOYLE but nothing else seemed wrong.
On the bright side, I think I would have finished quickly enough to submit a filled grid at the tourney, which would have been an accomplishment compared to this year's, despite the errors.
A fun exercise in the end. With a bonus TREE! Two thumbs up.
to be fair, just imdb'ed both Treat Wlliams and Paul Le Mat and both have been in dozens of things.
They just disappeared from my radar, I guess.
300 and out.
@Rex
I want to hear more about the wires in the trees.
I thought it was a medium-hard puzzle. I kept flipflopping CARTAGE and DRAYAGE. (answers.com also mentions 'haulage'.) EOLITH was the answer that broke open the NW for me, and WASISNORING broke the NE.
Looking up Drop City on wikipedia, there's an article about an early hippie commune in '60s Colorado, and a link to a page about Drop Art, performance art of dropping rocks onto the Kansas sidewalks.
Paul LeMat - lovable lug! Great description, edith. He followed up "American Grafitti" with an attempt to cash in on the CB craze in "Handle with Care" but it turned out, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, there was no there there.
His real shot at stardom was in
"Melvin and Howard" opposite Jason Robards as Howard Hughes. Johnathon Demme directed and it was critically acclaimed but failed to find an audience and that was it for him although he has worked pretty steady since the 80's.
Hello, Andrea. I guess Treat Williams career had roughly the same arc as Paul LeMat but he was a legitimate star with "Prince of the City" which he followed up with a movie about D B Cooper, the hijacker who bailed out of an airplane with a sizable ramsom and disappeared, but that one also failed to find an audience. I think he lacked looks and had an odd squeaky voice which contributed to his slow eclipse. I did like "Smooth Talk", though.
For those who are wondering about ASOK, see Rex's sidebar "Don't @#$# with Dilbert", a curious dissatisfaction from somone who feels [almost] everyone should know all the "Simpsons" characters ;)
.../Glitch
Oh, and Happy Birthday Bill from NJ.
andrea, you are such a merryandrew sometimes. Please, no offense meant, I am just trying to expand my vocabulary.
Easy-Medium, huh? Well, that's just depressing. I saw Brad Wilber's name and knew I was in for a fight. His puzzles are great, but for some reason I am Never on his wavelength.
My only gimmes were KEITH Urban, ASOK, TEE, EMT, NE-HI, YAZ, and ATARI. None of those did me Any good At All. One hour+ and EIGHT Googles. Yikes.
The sw did me in. I couldn't even get it with googling. Never heard of merry andrew.
Otherwise a typically challenging, but fair Saturday.
"For those who are wondering about ASOK, see Rex's sidebar "Don't @#$# with Dilbert", a curious dissatisfaction from somone who feels [almost] everyone should know all the "Simpsons" characters ;)
"
And Dilbert replaced the brilliant "Calvin and Hobbes".
I loved the macho man clip and forgive Rex for lying about this puzzle being easy to medium.
I feel the need, the need for...well speed would be great, but that's hopeless... so, validation that this was actually quite hard. I'm wondering what sanfranman's data is showing, and how it compares to other saturdays???
On Friday and Saturday, I always feel as if I am here to confess and to ask for forgiveness. Yes, I googled. Yes, I used my dictionary. Yes, I had errors. Yes, I spent more time than I want to admit. So there, I feel better.
Still I didn't think it was as hard as yesterdays and I didn't require as much help. I finished the southern half this morning and the northern this evening. I always find it more difficult to do in the evening.
PS - The answer to "was I snoring" will invariably be yes.
Well ... I went through the whole puzzle and wrote in one word: TEE.
It went downhill from there.
I had places to go and things to cook so came back later and wrote in few more words. Oh, @anon 10:35 regarding "reright." @Denise is correct ... it's when you write in the right answer, erase it, and end up putting back in again.
I will not Google anymore so I almost gave up. I just kept at it and, hey, it's only 9:30 p.m. and I'm just now coming to the blog! I am victorious!
@rex ... this wasn't easy medium to me .. it was near impossible!
An absolute killer, made worse by Rex calling it Easy-Medium. Got about half then became totally wedged until I gave in and Googled for some proper names. I haven't had so much trouble in a very long time. None of the answers were objectionable, but sometimes one just isn't on the same wavelength as the constructor.
@Bill in NJ: Hello and happy birthday, and thank you Philly for letting us know! Your name will be on my birthday calendar from now on. Anybody who wants to join, let me know your date.
I don't google anymore, but after today's debacle I think I might have felt better if I had found one or two answers that way and finished the rest. I now wait until I'm completely helpless, and then go to Rex's to look at the finished puzzle.
@Bill in NJ - so good to hear from you again. Hope you've had a very special birthday.
Damn it, after a very busy day I closed out the puzzle with Arthur Conan DOYLE down the SE coast ... and while I like TC BOYLE, I guess I just wanted to finish off a very discursively solved puzzle. Didn't check the 2003 date and thought SANESA was another form of Hindu enlightenment.
Did I miss something -- nobody commenting on PRE-OP? A matter of neutrality, or machismo ill at ease?
Please someone explain Tori to me-I jut don't get it.
And easy-medium? I took the puzzle everywhere with me yesterday. Went to the theater and the two people on either side of me had tried to do the puzzle and had really struggled-and often we don't on Saturday.
Finally solved (with only a few mistakes) this morning...
@Anonymous 12:52 - A torus (plural, tori) is A three-dimensional shape consisting of a ring with a circular cross-section. The shape of an inner tube or hollow doughnut.
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who found this puzzle a real [apply your favorite expletive]. I had to google several answers, and even then, the sucker stumped me. When I saw the "easy-medium" rating, I thought I was going to have to turn in my pencil! ;-)
Bob-
Thanks for the Tori explanation-I don't think I'll forget that one again
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