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Alternatives to GIFs / FRI 3-17-23 / Slangy lunch fare / Gel-ocity maker / Join a boxer rebellion / Dense buildup in makeup powder containers / Queen with a protege
Friday, March 17, 2023
Constructor: Carter Cobb
Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: BITMAPS (23D: Alternatives to GIFs) —
A bitmap (also called "raster") graphic is created from rows of different colored pixels that together form an image. In their simplest form, bitmaps have only two colors, with each pixel being either black or white. With increasing complexity, an image can include more colors; photograph-quality images may have millions. Examples of bitmap graphic formats include GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, XBM, BMP, and PCX as well as bitmap (i.e., screen) fonts. The image displayed on a computer monitor is also a bitmap, as are the outputs of printers, scanners, and similar devices. They are created using paint programs like Adobe Photoshop. (Indiana University)
• • •
So I have no idea why or when you'd use BITMAPS in place of GIFs. GIFs are everywhere on social media. JPGS are a very common image file format. And even after looking it up I still don't quite understand BITMAPS, or know what they look like. Is it really just pixel art? Shrug. Definitely struggled with that answer, a struggle compounded by the fact that I thought the slangy lunch fare was SAMMIES (a term I hear all the time) not SAMMICH (a term maybe Popeye says?). SAMMICH abuts BITMAPS, so ugh. And those answers occur right at a passageway from one section (NW) to another (SE), so they really gummed up the works. The whole grid was very quadranted, so the whoosh-whoosh flow never happened. Nice answers here and there, and a pretty clean grid overall.
The "?" clues eventually got irritating. Turns out there aren't *that* many of them (six), but *five* of them come on long answers, so it somehow felt like there were a lot, possibly because I had to spend more time with them. No idea what a PHARAOH ANT is (had PHARAOH CAT there for a bit, before I read the clue more closely) (15A: Pest so named because it was originally found in royal tombs). I thought HARDPAN was something related to the earth (it is); no idea it had make-up relevance (it apparently just means any kind of "hardened, impervious layer") (41D: Dense buildup in makeup powder containers). So lots of stuff today that was just outside my familiarity. But then even the stuff I know well I was a bit slow with today. Took me a minute to get English LIT, a subject I ostensibly teach. Only other thing I struggled with was TESTY (31A: Easily put out), which I had as TENSE, and later TECHY (not "tecky" but with the "ch" pronounced like in "touchy"). Looks like TECHY *is* an obsolete form of TETCHY, which would very much have fit the clue (it means "touchy; irritable; peevish"). Not knowing that answer made seeing the Downs in the NE tough. I had TEASETS before TEAWARE but fixed it quick by way of WAVE (38A: It can mean hello or goodbye). Oh, and I definitely had ROLL A JOINT at 29D: Prepare some leaves for burning? (ROLL A CIGAR). I mean that answer *really* wanted to be ROLL A JOINT. See, ROLL A JOINT, that's a good answer, whereas ROLL A CIGAR ... well, that's closer to "EAT A SAMMICH" category of answer. Weird how some "[verb] A [noun]" phrases feel stand-alone perfect and others ... don't.
I like this puzzle's commitment to sleep. As an EARLY RISER who needs his BEAUTY REST, I share that commitment, which is why I despise Daylight Saving Time, which is a lie on its face, as you cannot "save" daylight, as I explain here in this Twitter RANT:
you cannot “save” daylight there’s just daylight and there’s as much of it as there is, you just relabeled it, I mean we should reject DST based on that fraudulent advertising language alone, it’s some Freedom Fries bullshit
— Rex Parker 🐈🐾☕️🐾🐈 (@rexparker) March 15, 2023
Anything else need explaining? JUMP SCARES are the reason I avoid most horror movies (being scared like that just makes me angry). These are the moments designed to make you jump. Loud non-diegetic noise or music (which always feels like a cheat) combined with things coming out of nowhere. Pass. A DRAG MOTHER is mentor to an aspiring drag queen. [Just for kicks and giggles] is a bowdlerized version of what people actually say (when you google "just for kicks and giggles" you get a lot of sites referring to this puzzle, which is how you know it's not the real thing). Replace "kicks" with something more scatological and you're there. [It's past due] is a Methuselah-old clue for TRE that plays on the fact that "due" is Italian for "two" (and TRE is "three," so one more than or "past" due). DAVE Grohl (formerly of Nirvana) has fronted Foo Fighters for decades now (16A: Rocker Grohl).
I hope I covered all the stuff that might need explaining. Take care, see you tomorrow.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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96 comments:
I struggled mightily on this but 17A [Join a boxer rebellion?] made it all worthwhile. Great clue; great answer!
When I have only a couple of items at the grocery store and the cashier asks me if I want a bag, I usually respond, "No thanks. I'll GO COMMANDO."
Yes, I am the world’s oldest juvenile.
Medium-difficult for me. Like @Rex, I never got a flow going and survived by going for the threes and fours, and a little help from Sergey and Larry.
iN jeopaRdy before ENDANGERED at 9D
Peon before PLEB at 11A
Considered but didn't actually enter clevelaNdS for "Browns, e.g." at 32A
TEAcups before TEAWARE at 25D, confirmed by ciao before WAVE at 38A
SAMMICH ruined my whole experience and kept me up half the night.
GOCOMMANDO is fabulous, worth the entire price of admission.
Great puzzle. Thanks! Lots of tough, misdirecting clues. More like a Saturday for me.
Bitmap jpg and gif are all simply image formats. You may remember files from the 90s ending in .bmp.
I thought this was really hard, much more like a Saturday than a Friday in my book.
Tale of two grids here - the whole north section was extremely difficult (in fact I really had no chance up there) as I’m probably one of the last people on the planet to learn what a SAMMICH is and what GO COMMANDO means. I had much better luck in the south with AGOROAPHOBE AND PARASAILED, at least a couple of words I had actually heard of before.
I don’t know anything about Mr. or Ms. Woodard, but ALFRE is classic NYT trivia - arcane, very elusive even with the crosses if you don’t know it, and basically Dark Matter - you know there is an answer there, but it is only discernible via its interaction with its surroundings.
That little circle of black squares in the middle of the grid, with BLUE in it and neighbored by EARTH, with ASHY not far away, made me think of “pale blue dot”.
Now I will think that every time I’m in the same situation!
I found this super challenging, the hardest in a long time and a DNF. I’m not a fan of exclamation answers, they just don’t feel universal enough or something like that So the NE, with UHOH and AHAS was hard enough, but having JPeg instead of JPGS was enough to drive me to look up answers. Not familiar with SHE helped me not be able to get a toehold there.
Elsewhere Peon for PLEB, IsFUN for INFUN and ciao for WAVE mistakes also contributed to my woes and struggles.
FOREcastle? Woe?
Not only triple-10-stacks in every corner, but each one had another 10-letter word going through it. That’s 16 tens, most of them with pizzazz – skill and art rolled into one. Oh, did I mention that this grid has nine NYT debut answers? All this is a wow, even if it weren’t a first-time NYT debut puzzle.
But more importantly, how was the solve? For me, Friday prime time. Many vague clues. Clever “Hah!”-inducing clues. My brain whirring, occasionally tapping me on the shoulder to bring my attention to another part of the grid with an answer it just figured out. Thus, a profusion of lightbulb moments. Some dig and claw. Some splat-fill. For me, a Friday feast. Enjoyment on a LARGE SCALE.
I liked seeing BEAUTY REST over BEDS, and GNU in the same corner as WAVE.
A most satisfying fill-in. Thank you for this, Carter. High congratulations on your debut. Your notes indicate that you are always seeking to get better at your craft. Well, better than today’s puzzle will be something to behold. More, please!
This was a little more difficult than the average Friday. I've heard the term SAMMICH for years but I don't
Know that I've ever seen it spelled out. I think it's something they serve in county.
I had ALFIE before ALFRE cause I often screw that up. It certainly delayed ENDANGERED.
TEAwhat? I didn't fall into the SETS trap but I expected 38A to be a foreign word based on the clue. WAVE had to be forced on me and it was.
HAVEACIGAR and ROLLAJOINT are phrases. ROLLACIGAR is just crossword nonsense. However CIGAR and the PAN half of HARDPAN gave that SE the resistance it otherwise lacked.
I hesitated on the MA portion of BITMAP and the AG of DRAGMOTHER. It's not often that I nearly fill that much of a section and still find a four square block to seem so unfillable. But what else could they be?
All was clear as a bell in the end so just another fun Friday with a little extra crunch.
Sun-Thu -0, yd pg-2 Scrabble Dic cherry picking
I like this more than Rex did, but I like anything that poses a challenge that does not include a whole bunch of proper names and references I do not know. Anything I can figure out is fun!
I did this puzzle when I couldn’t get back to sleep at 4 am this morning and then somehow miraculously was able to fall back asleep.
So, recollections are a little hazy, but I enjoyed it. A bit of clunky fill in a few places but generally clever cluing, really lovely answers. The question clues were so good that they didn’t bug me. Loved to learn about PHARAOH ANTs, especially given how often the more PLEBeian “ANT” comes our way. I was especially fond of the southwest, as this EARLY RISER did the puzzle looking out at the stars behind the ridge line.
In general I found this to be a medium puzzle in some places and easier in others, starting with a hard time in the northwest. I forget what I had to overwrite, but I know that what I thought was a foothold actually got in my way. Eventually got back to it and had JUMP SCARES jump out at me, and finally the magnificence of GO COMMANDO was revealed. What a triumph that one is, I can only imagine how good it would feel to come up with for the constructor.
Seeing a BLUE WHALE in the wild is on my bucket list, having grown up in awe of and in love with the model at the Museum of Natural History. They’re truly incredible.
I absolutely loved this. Rex gets annoyed by too many ? (Read, clever) clues, but I can’t get enough of them. Yes to the boxer rebellion, one that could make @Lewis’ year-end best list. Many more, including ROLL A CIGAR, which is not at all “eat a SAMMICH”-like. I have eaten a jillion sandwiches, but I have only once rolled a cigar, on a horseback tour of the Viñales Valley in Cuba, where we visited the guide’s tobacco drying shed and made our own stogies.
The clue for BEAUTY REST was so intricately worded that it took me a second to decide whether it was brilliant or convoluted. I vote brilliant.
I didn’t have much on the first pass, but seeing DRAG MOTHERS (I loved “Pose”) opened up the SW, and then I did have whoosh-whoosh until I got to the NE. I had Peon instead of PLEB, and that slowed me way down. I finally saw EVEN STEVEN, changed Peon to PLEB and zipped through to the end.
Do they really measure hotel capacity by BEDS instead of rooms? Seems odd since you pay the same whether you’re a solo traveler or a family of seven squeezing into one room - which we did when I was a kid.
“Examined, as a dog might” -I just fed Annabelle, who gets a mix of canned wet food and dry kibble. Every meal, I spoon out some glop, cover it with kibble and let her lick the spoon. She always SNIFFs the spoon before licking, as if she has no idea what’s on it. As if I’m going to poison her or trick her with something gross, like vegetables.
I looked at this last night and got like two answers. Then this morning it was just what Rex calls a “Whoosh,” even though there was a great deal I didn’t know — it just fell into place very smoothly. Nice!
I’m sure many will point out that BITMAPS are not (simply?) those little ASCII images. A BMP file has like a gazillion more pixels and bytes than a JPG. (Which is probably why JPGs are more commonly used — BMPs can be huge.)
Learning opportunities
Cigar roller is an actual job. You can hire a cigar roller for your wedding or other large-scale event. I scoffed at TEAWARE, but it's an actual word. Idiotic clue of the day: "Locking lips by the lockers, e.g., for short"
Not a thrilling Friday puzzle. A little bit prosaic.
Also from 1967: A Little Bitmap, A Little JPG
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! (I’m wearing my shamrock pin on my pajamas.) (Yes, yes, I will eventually get dressed.)
Wow, I’m not sure how I finished this one. I was almost completely stumped by the NW, which is where I ended up. I didn’t know JUMP SCARES were a thing, and when I had SCARES, I didn’t know how to start it. I didn’t know GO COMMANDO was a thing, and only got it when crosses showed it couldn’t be anything else (that expression is hilarious). I didn’t know The Monkees’ song SHE, although I feel I remember most of their music pretty well. I thought JPGS absolutely needed an E after the P. And I didn’t really know PHARAOH ANT either, although when a combination of crosses and that “royal tomb” business gave it to me, I thought it had a tinge of familiarity. I did badly with the down answers in the NW, too, which is why I was stuck for so long: oHno for UHOH, out for PRO, strIp for COMIC, sour for RANT. Anyway, I think it finally came together when I spelled JPGS without the E and figured JUMP could precede SCARES. Man, oh, man!
SAMMICH was another WOE although in retrospect I was a bit dense there. SAMMICH is something we used to say when I was a kid. Like Rex, I splatzed in “ROLL A joint” although I almost immediately splatzed it out again because I thought [Unimaginative] was very unlikely to end with J. I was briefly flummoxed by the WARE part of TEAWARE, although crosses sorted it out. For [Well, essentially] I initially had HALE, which I think is defensible, but knowing AGORAPHOBE changed the A to O.
I just have to get pedantic for a moment about the crosswordly GNU, also known as the wildebeest. Just before solving this puzzle I watched a documentary on the PBS series Nature about “keystone” species around the world. And guess what! On the Serengeti, our old friends, the GNU, are a keystone, one of those crucial animals that maintain the health of the ecosystem. GNU numbers really plummeted when they started getting infected by a disease that was affecting cattle. But when that disease was eliminated, their population rebounded. Here’s ecologist/zoologist Tony Sinclair (University of British Columbia) in an excerpt from the program:
“To our surprise, we found that, all of a sudden, things started to reconnect with each other because [the increased numbers of] wildebeest were eating up the grass, there was less fuel, and therefore less burning. That allows young trees to grow. Wildebeest, of course, do not eat trees. And that allowed the tree populations to increase, tree populations that probably hadn't occurred since the 1800s. Those trees provided more food for elephants, for giraffes and habitat for many, many bird species. And then there are many more predators because there's more food for those, too. The wildebeest in their huge numbers were determining everything else inside the park. I realized that wildebeest was a keystone. We had always assumed that keystones had to be a predator. But we realize that a keystone could actually be herbivores. We were seeing a recovery, an upgrading of the whole ecosystem for the first time.”
[SB: Wed -2; Thu 0. I was really pleased about yesterday – big list. And at least I was admirably consistent in my misses on Wed. I was also rooting for EPTITUDE that day, but alas…]
Being a part-time potter helped me out twice: filled in the WARE part of TEAWARE early because, well, we have greenWARE, bisqueWARE, swirlWARE, WAREboards, etc.; that word shows up in combined form all over the place and so is floating in an accessible part of my brain. And, HARDPAN, I have no experience with makeup (other than nail polish, because having one's hands in clay destroys fingernails and they sometimes need reinforcement) but HARDPAN tends to form in the bottom of a bucket of glaze if you leave it unstirred for too long, so I was able to pop that into place with just a couple of crosses.
I also had SAMMIES (I even took out MEDIC to make room for it), never heard of SAMMICH, was eventually rescued by EARTHTONES. steeLPLATE also helped to gum up that section. Assumed Gel-ocity was a brand of running shoe but, fortunately, could not think of any three-letter shoe manufacturer.
Struggled to get a foothold at first, but I put SAMMICH and DRAG MOTHER in with no crosses, and that opened up the lower two-thirds of the west. The northwest corner was the last to fall.
BITMAPS does make sense as an alternative to GIFS. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP_file_format
Nice puzzle - although kind of agree with the big guy that some of the cluing tried too hard. I like the entire starting corner. The center is where it started to strain - METAL PLATE x LYMPH is rough as is TEA WARE and IN APP. The central AND is awkward.
EARLY Morning RISER
I am a borderline AGORAPHOBE. Like Rex I wanted “joint” in lieu of CIGAR but the j just didn’t work. Do like PROSAIC and BLUE WHALES.
Enjoyable Friday solve.
SHE & Him
@Barbara, I also was disappointed when EPTITUDE was rejected. Jeez, even my browser's spell checker doesn't like it!
BITMAPS wasn’t actually clued well. The bitmap file *format* BMP is a genuine alternative to the GIF format, but even GIFs store bitmapped images; but they use a different (superior) internal format that allows for much smaller file sizes.
Agree that ROLL A CIGAR seems an awful ‘eat a sandwich’-ish. And I, too, wanted sammies before SAMMICH.
The hardest thing about stack puzzles is avoiding terrible 3- and 4-letter fill. Nice job today.
Hard for a Friday.
The impulse to use that clue for SHE should have been suppressed.
Even Steven is not a race outcome. It means settled up. You repay a debt, you’re even Steven.
Never heard of hardpan re makeup.Sounds like some term from a fashion mag article on best foundations for 2023, or whatever.
And obv when you prepare some leaves for burning, you roll a joint. Someone somewhere maybe rolls a cigar, in a James Bond movie or something, but it’s pretty precious.
Found the puzzle precious overall.
UNICLUES:
1. Laidback tomb bug who smokes weed and enjoys a brew.
2. Colonoscopy test facility.
3. Someone who hides in the fireplace to avoid going out.
4. Thought on discovering that your houseguest gets up at 5 and bangs around the kitchen for an hour making cappuccino and frying eggs.
5. Which kid food’s got the thickest layer of peanut butter that can be applied to any surface according to the laws of physics?
6. Meteor crater.
7. Reposing places for Princess Aurora and Snow White.
1. PHARAOH ANT DAVE
2. GO COMMANDO AREA
3. ASHY AGORAPHOBE
4. “UH-OH, EARLY RISER.”
5. SAMMICH HAS.
6. LARGE-SCALE HOLE
7. BEAUTYREST BEDS
Aren't you whippersnappers lucky to know all about things like GIFS and JPGS and BITMAPS. Must be nice. When you don't you can get stuck for (checks watch) a long time.
Had to start at the bottom and work my way to the mysterious NW, where I was totally stuck until I took out STRIP and put it COMIC, a tentative MACE when I couldn't think of another four-letter spice, remembered JUMPSCARES from somewhere, and even though I was once a champion speller, struggled to get PHARAOH in correctly. The NW beast was finally slain, oh frabjous day, and a mighty huzzah for mine own self.
Hello ALFRE and DAVE as clued, nice to meet you. Trusting that neither of you is a PEON or a PLEB, which was my other area of confusion.
Congrats on the debut, CC. Could Certainly have been the work of an old pro, and I look forward to more from you. Thanks for all the fun.
Late to the party but a comment about Thursday. SPOILER ALERT? An observation, not quite a nit. The WEEDs tumbled nicely but the W-E-E-D progression occurs in order only in TWEEDLEDUM.
A bitmap is both a concept and a file format. Think of it this way: Imagine a painting that is paint by numbers, in a way, that is a bitmap. The kind of painting you imagine making with paint by numbers is very simplistic, but it doesn't HAVE to be. You can scale it up with more complexity by introducing smaller sections with more nuanced color differences. You could still accomplish painting the Mona Lisa with pain by numbers, right? So a bitmap is the idea behind how graphics work and the original simplistic version of them were used frequently in the past as the file format (which is what the puzzle is getting at here). A gif and jpg are (in a way) bitmaps themselves, just more advanced and more colorful
Hey All !
Some neat clues in this one, like for BLUE WHALES and PARASAILED. Funny they are both "over" waters.
TEAsets like Rex first, along with probably 95% of everyone, unless you got the back half first.
Started out tough everywhere, but eventually started to get answers in bit by bit, and managed to finish with the Happy Music. Typical FriPuz solve.
Puz has all-way rotational symmetry, as in, turn puz any orientation, and all the Blockers stay the same. Please tilt your head if doing on a computer!
Am I an AGORAPHOBE, or do I just hate people? Har.
My BEAUTY REST doesn't seem to be working...
Any, Happy St Patrick's Day!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
GO COMMANDO -- which I got just off the "A" -- was my big coup today, and it also told me that perhaps I've been solving puzzles for too long. This being Friday, however, I waited for a confirmation before writing it in -- and I got that with the "M" from COMIC.
Despite gritting my teeth over the two GIFs-related answers since I don't know what GIFS even are, I absolutely loved this lively, challenging puzzle and was sorry when it was over. There was nothing PROSAIC about it: the long stacks going in two directions were gorgeous and many of those long answers -- like GO COMMANDO; EARLY RISER; and BEAUTY REST -- were gorgeously clued.
Writeovers: CIAO/TEACUPS before WAVE/TEAWARE. Can't say I've ever heard of TEAWARE since it seems to me that TEAWARE would just be a part of DINNERWARE and you'd have to buy and pay for all of it in one fell swoop. But my funniest writeover:
I had "INAP?" and when I saw "Like some online purchases" I wrote in INAPT with no hesitation. (Let me tell you about those "soft cotton" pants I ordered online that when they arrived turned out to be in a scratchy brittle fabric that you could easily make desert tents out of...)
A terrific and enjoyable puzzle that gave me a good run for my money.
Bitmaps are an alternative to vector-based images, which contain no pixel information, are infinitely resizeable, and have smaller file size.
Amy: one of my favorite actors, ALFRE Woodard, gave me the way into the puzzle, pshew! Very fine Friday. Agree with Rex: not only did I try JOINT (realizing the J was an issue at the end of what would be PROSAIC), went on to try Blunt. CIGAR is fine: my Aunt Rose put herself through nursing school working at a cigar factory in Philly.
Lots to like today. 🍀
Stealing!
Indians love it, rez dogs hate it
MACE
Prosaic end of ADHD
DEATHBYBOREDOM
Dave asks, “Where ’s Kurt?”
NIRVANA
Browns with same number of protons but different number of neutrons
ISOTAUPES
Pallid Monkees’ song, 1967
SHADESOFGREY
Ashy cries from the deep
GREYWHALES
One fearful of ordinary folks
NORMOPHOBE
Nirvana text
RIGVEDA
Poe pest found in Ken Russell film, 2002
LOUSEOFHUSHER
Mother of a caterpillar protégé that feeds on Acer trees
DRAGONMOTH
1976 earworm cure?
DANCINGQUEEN
Tidy white pride
NOCOMMANDO
42 Across: Colorless bodily fluid * Noting that in 'most tissues' lymph is colorless, but lymph from the small intestine is 'milky white' due to the presence of absorbed fats.
Without yet looking at anyone else's:
Uniclues:
1) A place for being au natural and for getting a bit chafed
2) One who sits home by the fire all day
3) Airport patrolled by drunken labrador retriever
4) "A damned alarm clock going off in the hotel room next door??!!!"
5) "III" has so much more cachet
1) GO COMMANDO AREA
2) ASHY AGORAPHOBE
3) LIT SNIFFED HUB
4) UH OH, EARLY RISER!
5) PROSAIC TRE
Thx, Carter; excellent Fri. puz! :)
Med.
Just a tad over avg time, but felt tougher.
Bubkes in the NW, so started with MISTAKE (clued in a way my Dad would've loved): 'Learning opportunity'). Moved from there to EAT & NEATEST, and the rest was slow and steady going.
JPGS / JUMP SCARES were unknowns (do know JPeGS, tho), but what else could it be, but a 'J'.
"JPGs and JPEGs are the same file format. JPG and JPEG both stand for Joint Photographic Experts Group and are both raster image file types. The only reason JPG is three characters long as opposed to four is that early versions of Windows required a three-letter extension for file names." (Adobe.com)
Being an EARLY RISER, I enjoy the pre-dawn quietness, including occasional views of the 'stars' and moon.
Fun solve; loved the challenge! :)
Happy Saint Patrick's Day! ☘️
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
This one had 23 mystery clue/entries for me, putting me solidly in DNF territory. And yet I did it with only one lookup (ACER). Feel good about that. But it took me too long. Not fun.
@Barbara S. Good stuff about GNUS and ecosystems. Please come down to this corner of the playground. We have a nice piece of cake for you.
Don't like BEAUTYREST. It's the name of a mattress. The term is "beauty sleep."
I've been done with JUMP SCARES for 54 years, since the night of a blind date in the law auditorium at Vanderbilt (go, 'Dores) my freshman year--watching Wait Until Dark. The "thing" coming out of nowhere (hello, @Rex) was Alan Arkin and my reaction was, to put it kindly, not the kind of move that might impress a first date. Never again. For me there needs to be one more movie rating--DGC (Don't GO COMMANDO).
That same fall, I visited a friend in New Orleans for a college football game and learned that members of one of the "Greek organizations" at Tulane had decided to streak enmasse thru the courtyard of a convent at nearby Loyola U. And you know what that made them, right? An ENDANGERED FRAT.
Excellent Friday puzzle. Delighted to have stuck with it for the 68 plus minutes required to finish it without cheats or errors.
Happy St. Patty's day to all!
The phase EVEN STEVEN can be used in a variety of contexts , one of which (frequently the first citation) include the way it is used in this puzzle.
NW Natick: Never heard of GO COMMANDO; I definitely know what MACE is, but had no idea that it's actually a "garam masala [?!] spice," so the clue was worthless.
NE Natick: Didn't know the name DAVE Grohl, still have no idea what PDA means.
Absolute laborious slog for me, felt much more like a Saturday. I have a dental appointment later and compared to this, I’m looking forward to a pleasant stress-free interlude. DRAG MOTHER and HARD PAN were both WOEs, as was FORE with castle. Many erasures, possibly a record: OUT>PRO, PEON>PLEB, CIAO>WAVE, TEA>LIT, HERD>TEED, CUPS>WARE. I’ve heard of tea sets but TEAWARE??? Is there also COFFEEWARE? SODAWARE? MARGARITAWARE?
@Weezie (8:14) I mix vegetables in with my dogs’ food at every meal. Primarily green beans or carrots, peas or white potatoes and occasionally even pasta, but sweet potatoes are by far their favorite.
🥬 Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to all who celebrate. 🍺
Tough for me. clip before ALGA, @Rex joint before CIGAR and SAMMIes before SAMMICH, plus TEAcups before WARE and ciao before WAVE...we’re just a few of the things that made this a challenge. Also, JUMP SCARE and HARD PAN were WOEs.
Delightful debut, liked it a bunch!
What the heck is PDA?
AI Blue Eyes sings earworm cure, yesteryear or yesterday?
DANCINGQUEEN
Toxic by Brittany
BEATLEKILLER
Pest found in the West, harbinger of death
BARKBEETLE
Kurt Cobain's favorite Beatles' song
NORWEGIANWOOD
So many things to like about this puzzle! As for the PPP, I loved seeing DAVE Grohl and ALFRE Woodard. I’m probably an ultra-weird outlier, but DAVE and the above commenter prompted me to listen again to Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. It might sound like noise but I find it mesmerizing. Here we are now, entertain us!
BITMAP gave me fond memories of my husband and I wasting time on our first home desktop computer (after the kids went to bed) playing Sid Meier’s Civilization. So yeah…that was BITMAP city, prompting us to futz with the DOS to free up RAM (well, I THINK it was RAM. At any rate, due to the walks down memory lane, I enjoyed the puzzle! Thanks Carter Cobb!
It’s popular to disparage Daylight Savings Time but those who do have it wrong. On June 21, 2023, in NYC, the sun will set at 8:30pm. Without Daylight Savings it would set at 7:30pm. That would too early for me and for most people (I think). On Dec. 21, 2023, the sun will rise at 7:16am. If Daylight Savings were year round the sun would rise at 8:16am. That is too late and dangerous for children who walk to school. Woodrow Wilson was a terrible President . Daylight Savings is one thing he got right.
I expected Rex to comment on the total dearth of names in this puzzle, just ALFRE and DAVE in the whole puzzle. Which made this puzzle one of the easiest Fridays for me ever, since names are my big Woe. Really enjoyed this one.
Where's my little impish leprechaun today? Oh, look! Instead I get a hellacious hell pig who SCARES the JUMP out of me.
Mumble, mumble, mumble said I with 1A and 1D. Do I cheat right off the bat? I did with JPGS because it was just bugging me. Oh look again! The J gave me a JUMP, the P gave me my misspelled PHARAOH, the G gave me the Go something or other and the S sat there. I am pig headed...I want to fill things in their proper order. Today was a skip all over the map, hold your breath, take some time and unscramble the little brain cells. To some extent, it worked.
My first longie was ENDANGERED...my second was the lovely GO COMMANDO. AHAS popped out of. my mouth with SCARES. I can do this.
I, too, had SAMMIES. I think that was one of the irritating catchphrases that Rachel Ray uses. It was wrong. Thanks to the MEDIC re-starting my thought wave, I changed it to SAMMICH...(another irritating catchphrase)...
And so it went.
Was I the only one who thought BATTLE SCAR might be a souvenir from surgery? Erase, erase. AND...did anyone else write in TISN'T for 45A? Erase, erase.
My whoosh whoosh came at the end. I got ROLL A CIGAR without problems* and those letters were enough to give me a start and end with AGORAPHOBE PARASAILED and PRETENDER.
Although I had to cheat with spelling and the other GIF and DAVE whatshisname, I didn't give up and I felt good when I finally finished.
I'd say this was a pretty good Friday work-out. It was my hell pig JUMP SCARES wrapped up like a burrito with stuffing getting all over the place. Picking it up with my fork and enjoying all the bites....I did!
Will I fall off the wagon on Saturday?
*My ROLL A CIGAR story alert:
We lived in the outskirts of Havana in a small little town called Mulgoba. We had lots of horses, a goat named ChiChi , a mule with various names, lots of dogs, and mango and avocado trees and, well, it was a little paradise.
My dad hired a man named Segundino to bring hay in for the horses. He also sporadically lived on our little finquita when ever he needed a place to sleep.
Segundino was toothless and he mumbled when he talked. He'd do all kinds of chores just to make ends meet. His favorite was gathering up tobacco leaves and rolling cigars for anyone who'd buy them. People felt sorry for him because he was really a child dressed up like a man with a heart as big as this earth and wouldn't hurt a soul. He'd sit on his favorite stoop and sing and mumble while he rolled. I was his constant companion. He'd sing to me while he rolled and his toothless laugh was a loud cackling that I loved.
Anyway....Dad was always trying to help him earn extra money. They weren't exactly H.Upmann's; i'm pretty sure he stuffed the leaves with some horse and donkey manure along with mango and avocado tree bark, but no one cared. He was a gentle soul and to this day, I miss him.
And that's my ROLL A CIGAR story!
Public display of affliction
AGORAPHOBIA
NFL derision, for one
BROWNS
Callings across Cleveland each January?
BROWNWAILS
@Becky L.
It seems that your entire argument for keeping Daylight Savings Time is: "On June 21, 2023, in NYC, the sun will set at 8:30pm. Without Daylight Savings it would set at 7:30pm. That would too early for me and for most people (I think)."
That doesn't seem like a very strong argument for arbitrarily shifting our entire concept of time by one hour, twice a year, some places, but not other places like Hawaii or Arizona, causing confusion, and disrupting some people's sleep patterns. It's an archaic concept. We should just go back to standard time, all the time. Noon is when the sun is directly overhead and midnight is when the sun is the furthest away from us, on the other side of the planet. Simple. Then we're all consistent. And we can all make our schedules around whatever time the sun rises or sets. If it's dangerous for kids to walk to school in the dark, set the start time for when the sun is up.
Congratulations Carter! I’m a big fan of your cluing misdirection today. On a first pass through the grid I had only a blank stare until falling into that HOLE/HUB corner. And then began the PROSAIC spelunking climb toward daylight—saving time I hoped like that PHARAOH ANT emerging, covered in EARTH TONES , but with no MISTAKEs.
Thanks too to @Barbara for the prompt to take a break from NCAA madness for a Nature break, truly the best green if one can avoid the Leprechauns. And David Attenborough has a new series 🥳
BITMAPS vs GIFS ... as someone else alluded, there are .BMP and .GIF file types, both of which contain data that can be interpreted as an image. Big difference is that BITMAPS are by definition "lossless" - every colored dot is specifically addressed and colored. GIFs (and JPGs) are "lossy" - to save space, images are approximated, so that chromatically proximate colors may be rendeded as identical to save the space of defining a wholly new (but close) varient. I could go on (and on and on) on this subject but I'll spare you. The point is, BITMAPS and GIFS are different, and there's a place in the universe for both. I'll also note that when it comes time actually to goose the hardware to display the picture on the screen, the underlying memory structure also is called a "bitmap," but that's a horse of a 'nother - er - color.
PDA = Public Display of Affection
@Becky (11:13) The argument about the safety of kids going to school runs two ways. City kids have traffic to contend with but many kids in rural areas end up waiting for the bus before sunrise when DST begins and ends. And I hate that it gets dark at 5:00 in the winter but it doesn’t do that for long. People lived their lives and managed just fine before anyone ever heard of DST and they will again if it’s ever discontinued. My preference would be standard time year around but the best idea I ever heard was to move it ahead 30 minutes and leave it there permanently.
@mathgent (10:34)
Thanks, I'm looking forward to my cake. I really should have entitled that section of my post "Good GNUs Story."
My only complaint about DST is I get a 47 hour weekend once a year so I just show up to work an hour late the following Monday.
A gif is a form of bitmap image. They're synonyms. When I'm putting a .gif image on the screen I might name my variable 'gif' or alternatively 'bitmap'.
I'm also very likely to convert from .gif to .bmp to work with a generic API. The clue makes perfect sense on a surface level.
As if GO COMMANDO wasn’t worth the price of admission, we get PHARAOH ANT, EVEN STEVEN, BEAUTY REST, and DRAG MOTHER. I loved this. Can’t wait for another Carter Cobb puzzle.
Stepping gingerly into the DST fray I would just say that whether you are for or against it often depends on how close you live to the beginning and end of a time zone mixed in with whether or not you are a “morning” person or like to engage in outside sport activities after work. Going back and forth is annoying for sure but I can see pros and cons for having it and not having it. However, for @Rex to equate it with “Freedom Fries” borders on ridiculous. I am not a morning person and have always liked to play tennis in the evening AND live on the western-most side of the Eastern time zone. I just cross my fingers every year when the inevitable “stay on standard time” OR “we need to be in the Central time zone” brouhaha occurs.
Your GIF, JPG, PNG, etc. formats all use some form of compression to reduce the size of the image file, so you can’t point at a byte in the file and correlate it directly to a pixel in the image without a lot of extra steps. In a BITMAP the image pixels are laid out in a linear fashion without any effort to compress the size. BITMAPs were the earliest and simplest formats for images and today are rarely used.
Got a DNF because of the NE. Don't understand JUMPSCARES or GOCOMMANDO. And 1-DOWN is indecipherable to me; an abbreviation of an abbreviation?.
When you cheat, and still can't finish a puzzle, it's a bad day all around.
When Browns streak?
GOCOMMANDO
Tough one for M&A to get started on. Only thing nailed in the NW early was PRO. Eventually sought sanctuary in the NE, where I got PDA/PLEB/DAVE & GNU, for my toehold.
staff weeject pick: RIG. The one from the central weeject ring of four that I got off the top.
Always thoroughly appreciate the ?-marker clues, cuz they usually inject some welcome humor into a themeless puz. GOCOMMANDO was a primo example, today.
Some of this puz was hard cuz it had stuff I didn't know, that was still made up of parts that were familiar, like: JUMPSCARE. PHARAOHANT. BITMAPS. DRAGMOTHER.
Other helpins of the puz were hard, cuz the clues got kinda evasive. One word clues often do that, like {Epic} did. So does stuff like: {Not fast} = EAT or {Well, essentially} = HOLE. And many many others.
Anyhoo, thanx for the cleverly feisty FriPuz, Carter Cobb. And congratz on yer fine debut. Nice spinner puzgrid symmetry, btw.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
**gruntz**
@Barbara, wow, thank you so much for sharing that story about the GNUs - GNUs to me that keystone species could be herbivorous, and fascinating. I'll definitely watch that doc.
Folks on the East Coast unfortunately seem to be increasingly up in arms over the growing population of Eastern coyotes, which are larger and shyer than Western coyotes, because they are in fact the progeny of crossbreeding between Western coyotes and the Ontario wolf. Eastern coyotes in rural and suburban areas are doing very important ecosystem work in keeping the deer population in check. I know they're not *great* for chickens and chihuahuas, but I think we need to become better neighbors to our canid friends.
@Whatsername, while I very often find myself in good company when @Wanderlust and I have similar takes on things (i.e., I also like the TV show Pose, and my friend Cecilia Gentili plays the depraved Ms. Orlando!), the comment about the dog food was from them! My pup has been deprived of his favorite veggie peelings lately as his stomach adjusts to various supplements and meds for his osteoarthritis, but hopefully we can get back to it soon.
@Gill, amazing story about Segundino and so engagingly told. Thank you.
I have to agree with Rex on SAMMIes which is the term heard in our house. Although the clue for 26A pointed to MEDIC, the E of SAMMIes made me put in nurse which was completely unhelpful.
Along with 4D being all or turn "out" before PRO and Peon before PLEB was my error at 38A of which I was so proud. Needing a four-letter word there, I splatzed in "ciao", confirmed by 25D's TEA cups. Oh well, I got some Italian in with the 48A TRE which didn't misdirect me for a moment.
Carter was successful in misdirecting me at 17A though. I was so sure we were looking at a dog-related clue that I was tempted to put in "GO dog crazy" which doesn't Google well at all because it is a mondegreen my husband and I heard, from Backward Dog by the Soup Dragons. GO COMMANDO is such a great answer for that boxer rebellion clue.
Thanks Carter, and congrats on your debut!
Neurosurgical retirement gift for a Brown
METALPLATE
Strangely I found this one super easy and had I not put in peon before pleb and in fun before as fun would have flown through!
Bitmap is just an image file format. It's the .bmp you may remember from yesteryear. I think Paint often liked to make .bmp files.
I spent quite a while trying to remember how to spell PHARAOH. I seem to remember some controversy about a horse a few years ago.
Typeovers: SAMMIE, ROLL A JOINT / SMOKE, PEON, and TEA CUPS which led to CIAO for "It can mean hello or goodbye" and quite a mess there for a while.
[Spelling Bee: yd -1, missed this 6er which I'm sure I've never seen and just looks made up. Barbara S, I don't know how you know these words!]
Thanks to @Leeis for letting me know that this is a debut puzzle. I suspected, but am mightily impressed. This was so Friday-worthy, and in my half-brain-speed state nearly got me. It has been hint and think and wander and guess and oops and erase and try again and again and again.
Wandering in the wilderness was the solving theme for what seemed such a long time. I nearly had snow blindness from the acres of nothing but white for what seemed hours. I finally saw ALFRE Woodard’s name (a favorite actor of mine) and had a wisp of hope.
Later, I SNIFFED the scent of hope and like an AGORAPHOBE avoiding humanity, I PARASAILED through the SE section avoiding the PRETENDERS and sussing out some pay dirt at last.
Having a toehold (along with a second pot off coffee) helped wake up my wordplay alarm and I began to connect with our very clever constructor. Seems like it has been quite a while since we had so many clever clues. BEAUTY REST was my favorite.
Because I (like @Rex and others), I have never heard SAMMICH, but began to use SAMMIes in my daily after being introduced to it by our dear Canadian friends in about 2001 when they came her for DMA work in piano pedagogy. I’d never heard the term before that and may have been living under a rock. Whatever the reason, this caused me to have to leave that portion until the bitter and I do mean bitter end.
Kudos Carter Cobb! A Friday debut full of grit and cleverness. More please!
That's Public Display of Affection for you.
I thought this rather poorly clued.
Ingredient for a Big Mac. Go ahead. Sing the song. Which one am I thinking of? These Friday-style clues make some of y'all happy, but they're not for me.
The long stuff is great, and I outright laughed at [boxer rebellion] but tortured cluing for the short stuff was no fun.
This puzzle couldn't try any harder to put clues in the way of solving. See: SHE, TAB, TRE, LIT, HUB, and the one that capped my emotional end-of-patience... HAS. M&A was lotsa weejects to celebrate.
ALGA is way up there on the ugly fill list. Sort of like a cheap guitar, the glue marred an otherwise ambitious delightful production today.
Uniclues:
1 Honoree of the ode: "He was strong, a team player, and oh so brave / descended from kings the handsome sweet knave / until Phyllis in 3B sent him to his grave / by stepping on him with a slipper in our laundry room enclave."
2 The locker room (but please don't).
3 Took in the aroma of the book stacks.
4 Untanned homebody.
5 My feelings on meeting yet another ambitious old dude.
6 That little area you click to see crossword stats.
7 Decent dudes, disappointingly.
8 What I've dug on this blog.
9 The sidewalks in my neighborhood according to urban camping advocates.
1 PHAROAH ANT DAVE
2 GO COMMANDO AREA
3 SNIFFED LIT HUB (~)
4 ASHY AGORAPHOBE
5 UH OH, EARLY RISER
6 COMIC TAB IN APP
7 ENDANGERED FRAT
8 LARGE SCALE HOLE
9 BEAUTY REST BEDS
Friday is my usually favorite day of the week for xword puzzles and this one did not disappoint. Like most of yous, I thought it was a fun workout with lots of nice stuff in every section.
I know from the living in the tropics and, nowadays, in the subtropics that wearing as few clothes as possible is the way to go. Not sure why GO COMMANDO is related to being sans underpants. I liked the clue "Join the boxer rebellion?" but wearing no undies seems a little too casual for special forces type military people.
My first thought for 40A "Ones calling across the ocean?" was Humpback WHALES. I remember listening to them from my days as a sonar technician in the Navy. I still have a vinyl LP of their songs. Some of these were incorporated into American composer Alan Hovhaness's symphonic poem "And God Created Great Whales". Hauntingly beautiful music and sounds.
The 1960 film "Psycho" had several JUMP SACARE scenes that to this day I still can't unsee. SCAREd the pee water out of me! Last horror film I ever watched. That was enough, thank you.
Thumbs up for this puzzle. PROSAIC, BEAUTYREST, EVENSTEVEN, GOCOMMANDO and DRAGMOTHER stood out for me.
The ACER section kept me pondering for a long time. Didn’t know DAVE either.
My smartphone just informed me that today, March 17, 2023, is World Sleep Day. It's right, I looked it up. So EARLY RISER seems cruel to have in the puzzle. Anyway, nobody sleeps on St. Patrick's Day. They should have made it the day after.
Also, I'd have to carefully consider being friends with any "adult" who calls sandwiches "sammies" or "sammiches".
Public Display of Affection. In other words, not behind the bleachers.
I will repeat Wanderlust from this morning: "I had Peon instead of PLEB, and that slowed me way down."
Not only was PEON the more obvious choice, but isn't PLEB a variant of the much more common PLEBE? So that misdirection made the NE corner very tricky for me.
Otherwise, a thoroughly enjoyable puzzle.
Tough for me, and very rewarding to figure out. It sure was all about the clues! The hardest one for me, and my favorite: BEAUTY REST.
Extremely tough for me, one of the most difficult in awhile.
@okanaganer 2:06 PM
When it comes to the Spelling Bee (and, indeed, every other aspect of my life), my mind is a bizarre combination of sieve and steel trap. I learned your 6er from SB and I like it, so it was one of the first words I entered. But I'm totally capable of turning around and missing a word like TATTOO in the next puzzle.
Uniclues:
@Nancy: I laughed at #1 and then roared at #3.
@Gary J: I wept at #1 (poor departed DAVE) and cackled at #6 (COMIC, for sure).
Daylight savings is not as in tune with human circadian rhythms as regular time.
Rexplaining
serf Peon PLEB
I would prefer DST year round compared to standard time year round. Dump standard time if one has to go.
Enough clever clues and livewire answers to make up for some of the
blah (METALPLATES) and the overwrought (PDA).
I was introduced to DOD--and today's way in--ALFRE Woodard via "Star Trek: First Contact." If a war starts, I want that woman on MY side.
This played medium-challenging for me, on account of some techy stuff I didn't know. The last square I filled in was the natick at #1! The term JUMPSCARES is not familiar to me as such, but I get the idea. Best example: "Wait Until Dark," when Roat makes that leap from behind.
NW was again toughest because of the follower of all or turn, which I thought was "out." Perfectly fitting, but I didn't write it in since there may be others. Turns out there was. The big AHA: GOCOMMANDO, easily the #1 star in today's grid (clue as well as answer).
One helluva debut work, C.C. This could be good. Birdie.
Wordle par on a palindrome. Toughie.
Medium challenging. Congrats to CC on his fine NYTXW debut.
Medium challenging. Nice open grid. Not much junk (YDS, PDA, JPGS). Decent debut NYTXW.
test
Purposely obtuse. Rejected.
HARD-WARE ERRS
STEVEN is a SEW AND SEW,
ALFRE said he'd TEASE AND SNIFF,
SHE knew he'd GOCOMMANDO,
his MISTAKE was he went LYMPH.
--- DAVE STOKE
Plenty of write-overs TEAcups before TEAWARE, Peon before PLEB, cLip before ALGA, but the biggie was emperOrANT before PHARAOHANT. Inkfest. Ever PARASAILED? I have, not freely but tethered. Much fun to be out on the end of a quarter-mile long rope.
Wordle birdie, maybe because I own 2.
Little kids say sammich, especially if they're missing their 2 front baby teeth
Going commando was huge in the hippie era (too much chafing for me).
Cigar rolling is a thing; I've seen it live and in person(eschewed tobacco decades ago).
One more thing: Please put pda in your cerebral rolodex! It has been used in NYTXword puzzles alone, 75 times since its inception. That is more than once a year.
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