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Yangtze river boat / TUE 2-16-10 / Sitcom diner waitress / Hipster's Understood / Idle repairman's employer in ads
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Constructor: Paul Hunsberger
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME: PROCESSED MEAT (59A: Spam or sausage ... or a hint to the starts of 20-, 35- and 42-Across) — three theme answers begin with anagrams of MEAT
Word of the Day: SAMPAN (50D: Yangtze River boat) —
A sampan (Chinese: 舢舨; pinyin: shānbǎn) is a relatively flat bottomed Chinese wooden boat from 3.5 to 4.5 m (approximately twelve to fifteen feet) long. Some sampans include a small shelter on board, and may be used as a permanent habitation on inland waters. Sampans are generally used for fishing or transportation, in coastal areas or rivers. It is unusual for a sampan to sail far from land as they do not have the means to survive rough weather. (wikipedia)
• • •
Recovering from a bad bout of stomach flu / food poisoning, so this will be brief. Didn't like the puzzle at all. The fact that PROCESSED MEAT was the last thing I wanted to think about yesterday is only a tiny part of the problem. Theme answers are dull and non-theme fill is overwhelmingly weak. Four partials, plus a bunch of boring "this'll do"-type short fill that suggests a computer filled this one out moreso than a human being. Just careless. Compare the fill in today's puzzle with yesterday's, and you'll see what I mean. It's a crosswordese smorgasbord today. One single section (in the west) contains: EOS, ALPE, EAT AT, OLEOS, AORTAS, EMT, and TSK. You're not even *trying* to be interesting! Ugh. I don't have the energy to go on. Thumbs down.Theme answers:
- 20A: Larva-to-adult transition (METAmorphosis)
- 35A: Be monogamous, among animals (MATE for life)
- 42A: Leader on the field (TEAM captain)
- 17A: Hipster's "Understood" ("I dig") — Today's hipsters would never say this. [Beatnik's "Understood"] might be better (I'm saying this as if I care — better never to see this answer again than to see it merely reclued)
- 23A: Idle repairman's employer, in ads (Maytag) — About the best answer in the grid, which is just sad. Oh, I also like SPARK PLUG (34D: Ignition system device)
30A: Sports show-off (hot dog) — read this as [Sports show-down], so took longer on it than I should have. Speaking of HOT DOG, really enjoying watching Olympic snowboard cross. 4 people, one track, mayhem. Far more exciting than watching, say, luge.- 62D: Sitcom diner waitress (Flo) — Love her, but am most impressed that her crosswordese status is so well established that you don't even have to put "Mel's" or "Alice" or "70s-80s TV" in the clue. Or "gum-chewing" or "Kiss my grits!" And answer is still obvious.
- 9D: Clip out, as a coupon (scissor) — ??? You know what you do to coupons? You clip them out. Or cut them out. "I'll be right there, I just have to finish scissoring this coupon!" No.
- 5D: Italian city after which a deli offering is named (Bologna) — aargh, more processed meat. Uncle!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
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87 comments:
Of bodies chang'd to various forms, I sing:
Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,
Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat;
'Till I my long laborious work compleat:
And add perpetual tenour to my rhimes,
Deduc'd from Nature's birth, to Caesar's times.
Easy Tuesday puzzle. Spam isn't bad. Brown it and eat with eggs.
@Rex feel better. Maybe take some of my captah
PEPTICIL maybe a relative of pepto-bismol
I liked the way that the cryptic clue was smuggled into the grid.
I'd almost trade my sinusitis for your stomach flu. I like the new look of the blog.
Rex, you never fail to entertain! Dick's Deli, indeed!
HOTDOG was more processed meat.
@Ovidius- Nice wordplay!
I just wasn't on the constructor's wavelength today. Felt sluggish for a Tuesday. And the cluing for NCAA was pretty weak--the NCAA doesn't govern athletic conferences, per se.
In hindsight, I do kinda like that he threw in CURED, BOLOGNA and HOT DOG, as others have mentioned. Otherwise, ho hum.
Maybe Sir Parker should refrain from rating when out of sorts.
Or not. Not so bad, and not at all medium difficulty for those of us who are not troubled by an upset tummy.
@Rex, I FEAR your sickness has made your criticism harsh today. Your points about the partials and crosswordese are well taken, but I think the theme is cute ... it's just repugnant to you today for very good reason. When have we seen PROCESSEDMEAT in the puzzle before? And along with the anagrams there's the extra BOLOGNA, HOTDOG and CURED as noted by @fikink and @HudsonHawk. Spam and sausage in the clues could only add to your queasiness. I do hope you feel better fast!
This was not a sparkling Tuesday, but it's not the worst we've had, either.
Thank you Paul. Today you might change your name to "Ham"berger.
@joho you should have said "It's not the wurst we've had"
The WordPlay blog indicated Paul HunsBERGER is new, and the puzzle is his debut. I think traditionally this merits gentler reception, but until Rex is CURED he is bound to feel pretty GRIMM.
I misread 35A as 'Be magnanimous, among animals,' which made me go, 'Hmmm,' until I looked more closely. I've been watching the birds at the feeder and suet; not a magnanimous one in the flock. More like, "Mine! All mine!"
Tried MUSHY for 9A--I think that is more sentimental than SAPPY... but I am pretty sure one might SCISSOR out a puzzle to save for later, or a botched news story to submit to 'Weekend Radio.'
Easy, and not bad IMHO.
Really, really sorry for Rex, as our daughter was prostrated last week with (apparently) Norwalk virus and required a shot to begin recovering. She was on the cream-of-wheat/white rice/canned pear diet when she finally graduated from Pedialyte. Bad scene. And then once she felt well enough to go back to work, she got snowed in.
@chefbea
You are bad.
Not so terrible
Some of Sunday's "fresh vocabulary" could have helped though...
I spent 12 years studying coupons. In that time, I used the verb scissor approximately zero (0) times.
EAT MY SHORTS.
It was the breast of times, in was the wurst of times. A tale of two delis.
Rex's write up reminds me of the phrase: "There is no I in team but there is plenty of U in f*ck yo*.
I liked the PROCESSEDMEAT theme. The rest... OHGEE was kinda lame. The dk grandparents used the phrase SCISSOR coupons. A local ice cream parlor was The Swan Pond where we learned of, and observed MATEFORLIFE and the earlier fill of cygnets.
My favorite is METAMORPHOSIS which is what ground meat bits do to become a HOTDOG.
*** (3 Stars)
Am I the only one who didn't enjoy thinking about a bris (60-D) while sipping his morning coffee?
@Joe...yes, you're the only one, but thanks so much for sharing.
I didn;t catch the theme until I came here. I was OK with the puzzle, but I sure needed a lot more crosses than is normal for an early-week puzzle. I've never heard of a SAMPAN, for instance. And I was quite confident about EINe at 28A, until 29D straightened me out (HA!).
I'm surprised more people weren't bothered by the double 8s at 15A and 22D.
Hope you get to feeling better, Rex. I got food poisoning a few weeks back from some carne adovada that tasted tangy when I was eating it, but I thought it might have been lime juice in the marinade. I now believe it was something more insidious. I find that large amounts of saltines and hot herbal tea do wonders to calm the guts.
Happy Tuesday, everyone! I love long weekends, but the catching up upon return? Not so much!
Exidsho! -- jesser
@dk: My man!
"Eins, zwei, drei" is one of the lesser-known Billy Wilder movies--has anyone seen it?
@chefbea & @dk ... your comments had me laughing and slapping my thigh! For a moment I thought I you were pulling my leg.
Ok, I'll hold my tongue now.
Went through this one like a ping-pong ball in a championship match: pop! pop! pop! pop!
Sorry for you Rex and thanks for the excellent Blossom Dearie clip. Went well with the Bartok clips on Wordplay.
Colectyl: what you take when your colitis acts up.
You are right, @Joe, "bar mitzvah or confirmation" would be a clue much more conducive to an enjoyable breakfast, but being a woman, "bris" went right over my head. ;)
@Ulrich, Unbelievable! One, Two, Three is one of my favorite James Cagney movies!
I misread the BOLOGNA clue as "Italian city after which delis are often names" and sat there stewing, thinking "I've NEVER heard of a deli named Bologna." Sigh.
In a non-connected bit of crosswordeese, today's NYTimes has a longish article on the demise of the Eel and how an entire occucation in the Netherlands is pretty much done for. Whatever will we do if there are no more Eels, or that that matter Eelers, to use as bad fill.
"named" for "names". How do you edit an entry? I can't figure it out.
I would put BRIS right up there with BOLOGNA and HOT DOG as another "processed meat" reference lurking about in the puzzle! ;-)
I thought the puzzle was good and I enjoyed its Tuesdayness. So, bravo to Paul Hunsberger.
What does Rex do with unsuspecting constructors? EAT'M UP ALIVE!
Thank you, Paul Hunsberger, for your contribution, and we look forward to ore in the future.
@Jim in Chicago
Highlight and copy your text; use the little garbage can to delete your old Comment with the typo. Paste into a new Comment window, make your corrections, and pass the captcha test--voila.
OR...just leave it. Most of us make (and miss) typos, and unless the error really interferes with comprehension, it's no big deal.
@Dough
D'oh!! I think today will be one long contest to see who can make the funniest 'processed meat' comment; you will be in the top 10 for sure!
prity--as in NOT
@Jim in Chicago - As with my "ore" when I meant "more", you can just post another comment, and then, as I haven't done yet, go back and click on the trash can in the comment with the mistake.
Sincere sympathy for our TEAM LEADER, feeling poorly yet keeping the FLO going. I hope he's not dubbing us all LOUTS as we RIDE A somewhat unfortunate theme. TSK, may it not EAT AT him further!
I liked Paul H's debut with the X in the middle, and find his IDEAS amusing from classical Ovid and exotic PRESIDIOS to the mundane MEAT hook for his theme. We'll be READY to welcome him again without further ADOS.
∑;)
I sprinted through the meat market today. Agree with Rex about the ton of crap fill, but that's my schtick. Or was. TSK!
Sorry you're not feeling well, RP. Enjoyed the write up and the puzzle.
I think I learned SAMPAN from a book that was read to me kindergarten, The Five Chinese Brothers. I don't think I ever used it before, but when I saw the clue, BAM! That made my day.
Rex, I had a feeling you weren't going to love this one, even before hearing about the stomach flu (hope you recover soon!). Maybe it's because I have a similar reaction to processed meat. And scrambling it, even conceptually, was not appealing.
But I told myself that this whole puzzle was tongue in cheek (gulp!). I wouldn't be shocked if Paul Hunsberger were vegetarian, just making us stop and think... If so, it was wildly successful. Or may be it's my inner vegetarian talking.
I have a colleague/friend who has studied the difference in the brains of two kinds of male voles, the prairie voles who MATE FOR LIFE and the mountain voles who make no such promises. What do you think is the difference between them?
@SethG "I spent 12 years studying coupons" ???
@Jim in Chicago - You have to have a blogger id to implement the suggestions as to editing profered above. If you just sign in with Name/Url, your typos are permanent. Just like my misspelling of proffered above.
@Rex: get well soon.
Another voice here for the view that this puzzle wasn't bad.
There often seem to be more negative reactions on Tuesdays.
Congrats, Paul!
Funny comments so far, and humorous write-up for this puzzle. I thought it (the puzzle) was okay.
There's nothing like having a touch of stomach flu to put a damper on solving fun; nothing, except perhaps the death of a hard drive that hasn't been backed up in a while. Yep, my MAIN LINE, the AORTA of my thinking machine, decided to give up. The computer HOT DOGS in the geek TEAM at our local retail outlet say this drive cannot be CURED, the files are irretrievable, and TSK for not being more diligent about backing it up. OH GEE, thanks for the sympathy. I was feeling the PANE of the SEARCH for a new machine; glad my MATE FOR LIFE (no LOUT is he) bought me this replacement. May the day bring a METAMORPHOSIS to my computing life, and mood.
Feel better, Rex.
I never sausage hysterical comments! You guys all make me laugh.
WADR to our host, I totally ate this up - I got the theme from the first two, allowing me to quickly fill in the third, which gave me a ton of traction, though I kept looking for TAME somewhere. Very nice, wholesome debut - congratulations!
Anyone else put HOAR for RIME? - these are two words I have never used or seen outside of puzzles, and for some reason, I can never remember which is which.
@tptsteve - I remember the book well, but I don't rember sampam. That is a great story, but pales in comparison to Ping the Duck!
I am fond of saying that I like my early week puzzles with a little meat to them so I certainly got my wish today!
I liked this one and wondered at the by-line if it was a debut.
I say Well done Paul H.
I knew scissor as a verb would cause some discussion but I was okay with it and even appreciated the boldness.
An OK puzzle with priceless commentary! I'm sorry for all the poor folks who haven't discovered this blog.
Am I becoming Rex or is he becoming me? I loathed this absolute barking dog of a puzzle. I finished it, no Gooooogles, no joy.
Examples of no joy, this puzzle was like being force-fed
SCISSOR this coupon? triple yuck If this was bold, what is real boldness Operate as a clue for SCALPEL?
AORTAS main lines? I hope I don't have more than one, Jeeeeez
MAIM does NOT! equal incapacitate, it might be a methodology (as a former traumatologist, this I can vouch
TSK is so cruddy that rebuke seems dignified by comparison
HTEST? just an awful, failed attempt at pseudo-cleverness
An odd combination of way too easy gimmes (COEN, EINS, OCTA, MAYTAG, NCAA) to the above horrid stuff.
Never mind that the 'theme answers were just straight fills-in.
Count me 'not a fan', try harder next time but at least they got the right OLEO - surely another "happy food thought" for Rex ...
:-)))
@Rex, the use of SCISSOR as a verb brings up yet again the “legit clue” vs. the “good clue” discussion of a day or two ago. OK, so it’s in the dictionary. But I’m with you—who among us has ever heard of anybody scissoring anything but water in a swimming pool?
The question this morning seems to be not so much “Where’s the meat?” as “Why?” Thinking about it though, it occurs to me that, however uninteresting most of us may have found this very simple anagram puzzle, it represents a serviceable Tuesday’ish intro to “Hi, beginners, welcome to Real Crosswords 101, and hope to see you tomorrow”.
Hard for me to imagine a gentler introduction to this sort of puzzle, and easy for me to imagine the newly cross-curious finding it clever and intriguing.
@HudsonHawk: I didn't like the NCAA cluing, either. Especially the "or": both the Big 10 and Big 12 are part of the NCAA, so the "or" makes no sense at all. Not to mention, the clue implies that they're branches of the NCAA, which, as you alluded, they are not.
I liked PROCESSEDMEAT as the theme revealer. Thought the theme itself was just "eh". And nothing much else jumped out at me on this one. Didn't hate it, didn't like it. Pretty apathetic about it, really.
My captcha is SCRIZED, which, coincidentally, means "clipped coupons".
RE: "...who among us has ever heard of anybody scissoring anything but water in a swimming pool?"
Raising my hand. Grandmother and aunts both used this as a verb meaning "to cut out". Perhaps due to ESL?
Once again, "I never heard of" morphing to "who among us ..." on it's way to "nobody ever ...".
Opinions not to be disuaded by facts.
Learning opportunity dismissed with a harumph.
.../Glitch
And I was trying so hard not to go there. But now that I've read everyone else's comments, I can't resist nominating as the official theme of today's comments "Nobody Beats Our Meat Jokes".
"lamis" is, I believe, Latin for "lamitude"
I would imagine that Edward Scissorhands did a lot of scissoring!!!
Seemed like a pretty darn good Tuesday puz to me. SCISSOR might have been clued better, but definitely a legit (and fresh) word. Partials didn't bother me much, but am sure Paul H., as a newbie, is taking note of the less than enthused solver greeting for them. Ditto on the crosswordese -- a somewhat elusive term, alas -- I mean, eventually just about every 3- or 4- letter word is doomed to become "crosswordese" in someone's book. Obscure is another kettle of fish; this puz seemed to avoid my obscure-o-meter detection, for the most part.
Congrats on the debut, Paul H. Feel better, Rex.
What? No one taking up @CoolPapaD's query about how to remember an old hoar?! ;)
I like this exact kind of puzzle, had one with almost identical theme rejected (tho I had TAME for META (as META can't stand alone like MEAT, TEAM and MATE...
I think my anagrammed words were at the end of the phrases...so the final clue was not MEAT, but that you had to TAME/untangle them...so altho META is a bit inconsistent, METAMORPHOSIS a pretty lovely and sophisticated word to have in a puzzle....
Processed fill... one more reason to be a vegetarian!
Feel better, Rex, Dearie.
FWIW I liked this one — not the Crossword of the Month but it supplied the desired Tuesday amusement — and I didn't even notice the pattern of bonus meat entries (most of the good puns about this have been claimed already, so I'm reduced to "bar MEATS-vah" in the clue for 60D:RITE); nor did I realize this is a début puzzle (welcome!). I did notice 15A:OCTA and 22D:OCHO (pity that old emperor OTTO didn't join the parade of crosswordese), plus [sic] 28A:EINS for a multilingual counting lesson.
NDE
Yay, @chefbea and @andrea
Being nearly snowed in for the first time this season in Albany NY(!) , I hope the neat meat jokes keep coming -- even if I've actually become more vegetarian as time goes on...
∑;(
captcha = surappy, apt with my French toast!
To be frank, answers like OOH crossing OHGEE were not great. But face it, they can't all be wieners!
@CoolPapaD- I had a hoar/rime writeover too.
Taking up the challenge from ACM, here's a link that explains the difference between the two
Hey, it's Tuesday. I liked seeing the words metamorphosis, scissor and presidios and caboose in the grid. Scissoring I do, in Pilates.
I liked coming up with sampan. Need to thank Somerset Maugham for that, I suspect.
More snow... Hope it stops soon, have to drive to NY tomorrow! Get better, Rex, you need to defend your position this weekend!
@foodie: In 2007, the average coupon for a canned-meat product expired 14 weeks after it was distributed, and 20% of those coupons required purchase of multiple units for redemption (i.e. "Save $1 when you buy 2 cans of Spam"). In 2008, over half of all canned-meat coupons included multiple-purchase requirements and average validity shrunk to 11 weeks.
Yes, 12 years.
This is one of the funnest days in memory on this site.
I am still having the same problem with the page since the update - I can only see avatars when I go to the comment section on blogger. On Rex's site, I cannot see any of them. My security settings are no different than they were. Could it be because I'm still running XP, and using an old version of Explorer?
Otherwise, I have no BEEF with the new layout (sorry 'bout that)!
@NDE - bar-meats-va was great. I don't think I'll ever ear a piece of bris-ket!
Sorry - that's eat bris-ket...
Hey Rex, how about luge with four people on the course at once?
Protocol question: busby asked about a response of mine in yesterday's comments. I'd prefer not to violate the three-comment rule (I was maxed out), but I also understand that commenting on other than today's puzzle is frowned upon in today's comment section. Is there an acceptable way to continue the conversation? Or is the whole point to let things drop?
Shame you can't bank comments like rollover minutes.
I filled in 59A pretty early as PROCESSEDFOOD, so it was a while before I got the theme, and could correct it.
Hands up on Somerset Maugham for SAMPAN
As far as editing typos, at the bottom of my window are the choices, PUBLISH, and PREVIEW. I am such a hut and peck typist that I have to proof read pretty carefully.
Agree with those who liked the puzzle.
@Foodie ... what is the difference between the brains of prairie and mountain voles as to who will be a MATEFORLIFE?
@CoolPapaD, can confirm it's not an XP problem, as both my school and home dinosaurs run it.
60D - I really wanted SIMCHA to fit.
--------> Jew in NYC
"The Metamorphosis" == Kafka
"Metamorphoses" == Ovid
GRRR!
@CoolPapD: Unless I'm missing something obvious, the avatars aren't displaying by design in the new pages (they do display in the comments popup). Looking at the page's source code (well, not the real source code, but what is sent to the browser to display), I don't see any code calling for display of the avatar images. I suspect it's a deliberate design choice Rex made.
@tptsteve: your link for the difference between hoar and rime isn't working. I've always understood that they describe the same thing, but "hoar" rarely stands alone (but is used as part of "hoarfrost").
Have nothing to add about the puzzle, just O.K. in my book, however, the comments are priceless and will keep a big 'ol grin on my face today. Thanks all!
@ Steve J - Thanks - that makes me feel better that there are no avatars on Rex's page (only on the comments pop-up). I thought it was just me.
Here is the link about hoar - rime that tptsteve sent to me - more than you will ever want to know:
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/almanac/arc_1999/alm99nov.htm
Just stopping in to say congrats on the redesign, feel better soon, and look forward to seeing you this weekend!
@Joho, the hormones that are important in "mating for life" or bonding are called Oxytocin and the closely related Vasopressin. Oxytocin is a hormone typically associated with female reproduction, pregnancy, nursing, maternal behavior, and mother-infant bonding. But it has been discovered that in many animals, oxytocin plays a role in so-called "Pair Bonding" or establishing a lifelong relation following mating. It works in the males as well, along with vasopressin. So, monogamy has a biology!
Genetic variations in these hormones even affect whether a male vole will continue to investigate new females after he has bonded with a particular one. So, OGLE and LEER have a biology!
Midday report of relative difficulty (see my 7/30/2009 post for an explanation of my method):
All solvers (median solve time, average for day of week, ratio, percentile, rating)
Tue 7:50, 8:42, 0.90, 24%, Easy-Medium
Top 100 solvers
Tue 4:07, 4:27, 0.93, 30%, Easy-Medium
Fun with captchas ... kariti = Martial arts practiced on a South Pacific island
@Rex, a mixture of LOL and OMG, as I didn't notice your Parker House Roll [Call] wordplay at the top of the side bar till just now.
@LurkerO, don't let the "Ovid-to-Kafka transition" bug you.
Rex -- Get well fast. I think being sick might have turned me off to a meat puzzle. One day when I was a kid my mom was cooking a roast beef, there was a huge bouquet of lilacs in the house, and that same day I happened to come down with the stomach flu. It took me about 15 years to be able to stand the smell of either lilacs or roast beef.
@Dan: see you there, and hope you will do as well as you did at the Lollapuzzoola!
@Foodie: Now where can we get us some oxytocin, and how do we administer it to the husbands? Just askin'. ;-)!
I got RIME off the R in GRIMM, so I never considered another choice. However, that was an interesting article about the difference between RIME and HOAR frost; who knew? Well, someone did, and thanks for sharing the link.
My captcha is "shnetin"-- "scissoring" in an obscure Germanic dialect
@Bob Kerfuffle I forgot to ask-Are you going to change your blogger name to BobAdos in honor of 68A today?
@Andrea Meta Michaels, CoolPapaD
Apparently, the HOAR is the pretty one.
So, our elders should be glad they have 'hoary heads' instead of 'rimed pates' or just plain OLD GRAY heads.
Not enough controversy to get to 100 today, but an impressive array of processed meat jokes.
Am w the thumbs-down group, eg @hudsonhawk (wasn't anywhere near constructor's wavelength), @sethg (will I "scissor" this completed puzzle? Nyet), @redanman. @Rex: feel better. Thanks for the read on SAMPAN...did have some very nice words: SAPPY, ADOS, LOUTS, AMITY, ASCOT...am visiting Tucson, went an hour's drive to Tubac to see the PRESIDIO ruind/museum before AZ shuts it down. Why it wasn't moth-balled years ago is a mystery..there's virtually nothing of the ruins and no unusual artifacts. But, it made 11D a gimme
@ foodie -- Interesting about oxytocin and male moles, thanks! Biospace today happened to have a note about oxytocin showing some beneficial effect on children with autism too -- any advance in treating that sad affliction would be wonderful!
@ plantie bea -- Condolences on the demise of your computer. It's happened to me too, yet I'm still not protected against another crash one day. I need a kid or grandkid to get me up to snuff, as the local HOTDOG specialist shop closed down.
∑;(
p.s. thanks to Lurker0 too for pointing out the title differences re Ovid and Kafka works. I did know that, but wanted to salute the first responder on today's blog comments... I enjoy the contributions of the Bard and others too, when they appear here. Food for thought!
∑;)
Kafka = The Metamorphosis
The clue = result, a noun
Ovid = Metamorphoses
Theme = described by directly above , a verb
Can't get oxytocin around here... there's a big sign behind the counter in most pharmacies.
@ Gregor Samsa -- "Les Metamorphoses d'Ovide Traduites en Prose Francoise" -- Example of the French translation shows that the title is normally understood as a plural noun.
@mac, well the best way is to pick the guy with the right genes and hope the right (brain) juices are flowing at the critical moment. But barring that, one could always spritz some inhalable oxytocin up his nose (it crosses into the brain that way) and hope his brain is capable of responding : )
@Artlvr, right... the studies on moles strengthened the idea that this stuff is relevant to all social behavior, in both genders. The recent study, published in a prestigious journal, showed that it helps in people with Asperger syndrome, a so-called autism spectrum disorder, who are very high functioning but lacking in social skills. It helped!
SCISSOR is a noun, but... oh, why not. English has a long history of using nouns as verbs.
BOLOGNA (pr. buLOHnya) isn't chopped liver. It contains the oldest university in the world (1088). One of hubster's 17 1st cuzzins went there for medical school. It also made slavery and serfdom illegal in the 13th century.
I had "loan" before LEND.
@Chefbea - We always call Pepto Bismol "Pesmo."
@Hudson Hawk - See. Some people just know too much about sports and this actually can interfere with their crossword puzzle.
@Stan - keep the puns coming!
MadMagazine
@Sfingi, true dat. But it's fun when the comments are peppered with disdain for baseball fill in the grid. Nevertheless, I doubt sports knowledge will give me an edge this weekend in Brooklyn.
On Tuesday we tend to process these things like butchers with their ordindary rounds of meat.
Today, late admittedly, with a beer or two around my belt, this puzzle almost solved itself.
The amanuensis is me; the solver is who Clued this.
Ms Foodie, your thoughts on reproductive optimization are fasscinating. I don't want to interpret them in the wrong way, and since I haven't been following along the whole way, I will agree without any historically negative eugenic tones.
I'm early for wed puzzle and the blog isn't up yet. Hope Rex is ok
chefbea
Had to look up on-line dictionaries to see if scissor was a legitimate verb in anyone's world.
Interesting finding is that SCISSORS as a noun is always a plural, never the singular SCISSOR, so the constructor was, yes, wait for it ... "technically correct".
Still - little joy from this Tuesday barker even with this wondrous new knowledge.
signed (captcha) flukolas - must be a new prescription brand containing cocaine to make you not give a durn about the influenza MAIMing you
@fergus, no, no, nothing about reproductive optimization! All about bonding or "mating for life" optimization... And tongue in cheek at that.
Very puzzle related!
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