Saturday, March 2, 2024

Saturday, March 2, 2024, Stella Zawistowski

Themeless Saturday by Stella Zawistowski

The look the face of our weightlifting constructor Stella reflects some of the anguish I felt as I worked my way through the latest of her always always challenging puzzles. After bobbing and weaving through the grid, I had enough letters to start to make sense of her ten-letter fills and finish up. Her top two ten-letter fills were fun to learn. 

As you can see in the grid, I did have one cell where my coin flip failed. My lack of knowledge of three-string Japanese instruments and Rhianna's music was my undoing.

Across:

1. Unplanned adoption: FOSTER FAIL - FAILING at being a FOSTER parent for a pet and then falling in love with and adopting that pet hardly seems like a FAILING to me. 😀


11. Adoption org.: SPCA.

15. Intended to prevent a torrent, perhaps: ANTI-PIRACY 


16. Name on the highest-grossing concert film in history: ERAS.


17. Certain Central American: SALVADORAN - The lovely custodian at our school is COSTA RICAN and that went in first.

18. Natural traps: WEBS.

19. Olympic badminton team, e.g.: DUO.


20. Victor Hugo's world: MONDE - MONDE is French for world


22. Sea bream, in a sushi bar: TAI - ... and my culinary education continues


23. Sushi bar list: SAKES - As long as we're here...


25. Snooty creatures?: ANTEATERS. 😀

27. Divine: PREDICT - Carnac's gift was to be able to divine the answers without first seeing the questions.


29. "Awesome!": SWEET.


30. "Awesome!": YES.


31. Cheer (up): BUOY.


33. Working days?: STINTS.

34. Practitioner of traditional medicine: HERBALIST.


36. Burlesque: SATIRE
A BURLESQUE is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.


39. Smallest ratite: KIWI - Ratite: A bird having a flat breastbone without a keel, and so unable to fly.


40. Elle King's "Ex's & __": OHS - A Top Ten album


43. Subject of the 2014 documentary "Game Over": ATARI.


44. Jam: BAD SPOT.

46. Get rich: MAKE A PILE.

50. Melancholy work: ELEGY - Sadly, dirge didn't work

51. Salt target: ICE.😀


52. Levi's Stadium player: NINER.


53. Word with Days and Holiday: INN. 😀 Motels 

54. Well-thought-out: SANE.

56. "Hubba hubba!": VA VA VA VOOM - We had this recently with only two VA's but I remember it better with three

60. Let out: EMIT.

61. Feature of non-eco-friendly containers: ONE TIME USE - Why our landfills get full

62. Syllables in Rihanna's "What's My Name?": NANA If you need some raunchy lyrics

63. Moved mindfully?: TELEPORTED - Star Trek did this a lot. Kirk never actually said, "Beam me up Scotty."


Down:

1. Scale tones: FAS - Do, Re, Me, FA, So, La, Ti, Do

2. Rashly: ON A DARE.

3. Name on some church-run hospitals: ST LUKES.


4. Saved to watch later: TIVOED.

5. Org. that regulates HFCs: EPA.


6. Free (of): RID.

7. Step one: FROM A TO B. 😀

8. Noted New York Judge: AARON - Judge is capitalized so...


9. "It's all too much": I CAN'T.

10. Paul of "Hollywood Squares": LYNDE - The center square


11. Compete on "Project Runway," say: SEW.


12. Many a fan of "The Baby-Sitters Club": PRE-TEEN.


13. "Willkommen" musical: CABARET.


14. Sue Bird's WNBA record 3,234: ASSISTS.

21. Home of New York's Museum Mile: EAST SIDE.


23. Northern __ apples: SPY Here ya go


24. Like the Chukchi people of Russia: SIBERIAN.




26. Fool: TWIT.

28. Fix: CURE.

32. Yona of "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic," for one: YAK - No idea.


33. Media personality JoJo: SIWA - No idea.


34. Bring on: HIRE.

35. Let out: LIBERATE.

36. Instrument played with a bachi: SAMISEN A one minute sample


37. Region of Chile used by NASA to test equipment for Mars missions: ATACAMA.


38. Fooled: TAKEN IN.

40. Expand, in a way: OPEN OUT.


41. Upturned feature of some snakes: HOG NOSE.


42. Pen: STY.

45. Shard: SLIVER.

47. Pirouette, essentially: PIVOT.

48. Unworthy of consideration: INANE.

49. Tool box item: LEVEL.

55. Text to someone who's late: ETA.


57. Velvet rope crosser: VIP.

58. "O Deus ego __ te": Catholic hymn: AMO My God, I love Thee, 


59. Scrip spec: MED.



BTW, our newspaper carries this puzzle and a second puzzle they call The Daily Commuter Crossword that is much easier. For years this puzzle has had Jacqueline Mathews listed as the constructor. Ms. Mathews of Spokane has retired and now the daily constructor has been Stella Zawistowski for several weeks (see Created by under the puzzle).









Saturday, February 10, 2024

Saturday, February, 10, 2024, Rafael Musa

Saturday Themeless by Rafael Musa 

After exactly 364 days, I got another Rafael Musa themeless puzzle to blog. This one was a delightful slog as little pieces of it came together to earn me a "got 'er done". I felt like I was in QUITE A PICKLE for a while as I struggled with his clever cluing and other reasonable, though wrong, options. A prime example of the latter is entering SITS for Poses at 1 Down.

Rafael did not litter his puzzle with obscure names that are the bane of my solving existence. Like Sisyphus, I just kept moving the boulder up, the hill, slid back and eventually I ran out of blank cells. AMATEUR was my last fill and I got the Congratulations icon and felt relieved. 

Across:

1. The worst: AWFUL.

6. Clicking sounds?: AHAS.
                

10. "Um, sure": OH OK.

14. Excelled: SHONE.

15. Firm message?: MEMO 😀

16. First woman to serve as attorney general: RENO - Janet RENO was appointed after two other women withdrew because of issues with gov't regs over the nannies they hired. Ms. RENO immediately was confronted with the horrible standoff with David Koresh and his followers in Waco, TX.


17. Kangaroo Island critter: KOALA - As you might expect in the land down under. It is 11 hrs WNW from Melbourne by car and ferry.



18. __ argument: ORAL.
 
19. Something to draw before bedtime: BATH - 😀 Oh, that use of the word draw.

20. Basis of some bonuses: SALES QUOTA.


22. FedEx rival: DHL.


23. Startling revelation: STUNNER and 41. Startling revelation: EYE OPENER.

They didn't fit!
24. 'Tis in the past: TWAS 😀 
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                                 ’TWAS brillig, and the slithy toves
                                 Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
                                 All mimsy were the borogoves,
                                And the mome raths outgrabe.

25. Chiding clicks: TSKS.

28. Aid in avoiding viruses: IT SUPPORT - I quickly got off the medical idea and finally the correct answer appeared.
30. AP competitor: UPI.

31. Decisive periods, briefly: OTS - No OverTimeS: Unlike the regular season, during the NFL playoffs  and tomorrow's Super Bowl play will be continued until someone wins.

32. On the move: ROLLING.

34. Scientific journal that published the initial sequencing of the human genome: NATURE.


36. Name on the business school at the University of Arkansas: WALTON - The family of Wal~Mart founder Sam Walton donated fifty million dollars to the University's business school and henceforth it was named The Sam M. WALTON school of business.


37. Mopes: ACTS SAD.

39. Lead-in to X, Y, and Z: GEN - Am I the only one who tried TUV? 😗


40. Uber stat: ETA.

43. All hands on deck: CREW.

44. Nonhumans that quickly buy up concert tickets: BOTS -  Ticketmaster uses BOTS to get so many tickets to resell at their markup, it makes it very hard and/or very expensive to get tickets.


45. Some flavored drinks: ICE TEAS.

47. Earth Day mo.: APR.


48. Gets carried away at a concert?: CROWD SURFS.


52. Consider: DEEM.

54. Flat-topped hat: KEPI - Captain Renault is wearing his KEPI in this famous scene near the end of Casablanca 


55. Keep busy: TIE UP - Soldiers of the French First Army kept the Germans TIED UP until over 300,000 men were evacuated at "The Miracle Of Dunkirk".


56. __ school: GRAD - All my drives to The University Of Omaha to get my GRAD degree could have been eliminated today by doing most of the work online. 

57. Cask sediment: LEES.
58. Rock memoir with the chapters "Nut Bush" and "River Deep": I TINA - BTW, she was born in Nut Bush, TN


59. "Good __": Alton Brown series: EATS.


60. Ciudad del __: Paraguay's second-largest city: ESTE.


61. Splits: RENDS.


Down:

1. Poses: ASKS.

2. "Stop right there": WHOA and 49. Means of control: REIN.


3. Stable baby: FOAL - Not colt

4. "What if ... ": UNLESS - UNLESS we work together, we are doomed. What if we cooperate? 

5. LCD component?: LEAST - We all learned in grade school that to add 1/2 + 1/3 we have to use the Least Common Denominator or 6, thus 3/6 + 2/6 = 5/6.

6. Comes (to): AMOUNTS.

7. Bitterns, e.g.: HERONS.

8. "You clearly have no idea what you're doing": AMATEUR 😀

9. Light run?: SOLAR POWERED - These huge SOLAR cells POWER the International Space Station


10. __-weaver spider: ORB.

11. Lead role in a TV show: HEAD WRITER - The actors get the credit but it takes smart writing to make a show a hit

12. Transition phrase: ON THAT NOTE.


13. Retailer that began as a grocery store in Milwaukee: KOHL'S.


21. Spot of bother: QUITE A PICKLE.

24. Congestion pricing charge: TOLL.


25. Product auctioned at Tokyo's historic Tsukiji Market: TUNA.


26. Sci-fi subgenre: SPACE OPERA.


27. Burmese food?: KITTY TREAT - Not as bad as feared and even cute!


29. "What's the __?": PLAN.

31. Ish: OR SO - I am seventyish 

33. Nibble: GNAW.

35. Finds a place for: USES.

38. Pronounces: DECREES.


39. Mouth off: GET WISE - Sometimes you should GET WISE not to GET WISE

42. Virtual companion: NEO PET.


43. Executive level: C-SUITE.


44. Access card: BADGE
46. Buzzing: ASTIR.

50. Back: FUND.

51. Spring break destinations?: SPAS - Uh, not bars?

53. Anatomy experts, briefly: MDS.