coloradoz

Could have clued the FAY Wray movie as Kphing

Just returned from a two week trip which included a trip to Dallas. Two highlights in Dallas- 1) great view of the eclipse, which has the same number of letters as TRANSIT, so that took a while to fix 2) my nephew subscribes to the print edition of the NYT, so I solved the word in pen rather than computer for four days. Loved it-Nostalgia. I enjoyed this puzzle but had added time because I was 100% sure that the Portugal export was cork. In any case, since I didn't do the puzzle for a few days, I am starting a new streak on the first day of my 87th year on planet Earth.

Great to have EDEN in the fill. As we all know, it is the setting for the world's first palindrome- Madam, I'm Adam

HIP HIP HOORAY. I made it through another year to give my annual thank you to all who inhabit this kingdom. Happy New Year as I celebrate my 5 year anniversary of reading and commenting in Wordplay. I remember the day because it was New Year's Day evening, and for some reason, I had never noticed the column prior to that day. I appreciate the wit and knowledge of all of the commenters. And look forward to reading the columns by Deb, Caitlin,Sam, et al. Also, I learn some very interesting and important things in the comments and in the puzzle itself. This week I learned that Harry Potter has a friend WEASLEY, Japanese fried cutlet is KATSU, and there are WELSH dialects called Gwyndodeg and Powyseg. I will be able to astound my friends with such knowledge, if I can figure out how to work the info into conversations. I read Wordplay everyday, even though I don't comment often. Wishing all a safe and healthy 2024.

A bit of trivia as to OMAHANS being close to Iowa. In general, Iowa is east of Omaha , separated by the Missouri River. However, the town of Carter Lake, Iowa, is the only part of Iowa that is west of the Missouri and is completely surrounded by Nebraska. The Missouri River flooded and the channel moved, creating the Iowa enclave. So to go to Carter Lake, IA from Council Bluffs, IA, you have to go through Omaha. Since Carter Lake was isolated from Iowa law enforcement and Nebraska has no authority over an Iowa town, Carter Lake was known for gambling casinos in the 1930'sand 40's, which were illegal in both states.

Happy New Year to all. This is my annual thank you to all of you. I started reading Wordplay on New Year's Day 8 years ago, so I have had 7 full years of daily enjoying the wit and intelligence in the comments. I tend to go down the 'rabbit hole' when someone writes about some topic I didn't know about. Keeps me occupied. Today's puzzle brought back memories of my 5 years or so of being a PAPER BOY. The routine was to get up at 4 AM and go into the darkness to fold and deliver 50 papers at a profit of maybe 50 cents a day. I don't know how other newspapers handled it but the Des Moines Register charged the PAPER BOY 4 cents for each paper weekly. Then I had to collect a nickel for each paper from the subscriber, so it not only involved delivering in the morning but collecting at night. I survived the ordeal. And made my next job as a 'soda jerk' seem like heaven.

If I walk less than 10 minutes in 3 different directions from my home, I can buy a pupusa from an El Salvador native, an arepa made by a woman from Panama and an empanada from an Argentinian family. Each operates from a food kiosk and only sells their specialty plus soda. Each kiosk is in a parking lot adjacent to a liquor store. (The proximity of 3 liquor stores is not the reason I bought my house)

Mr. Schlossberg- if you are reading the negative comments, take heart. Even Aaron Judge, among the best players of the New York Yankees in recent years, got booed by the home crowd yesterday. It is human nature to diss something you don't like but not so much to praise it if you like it. Therefore, I think there are thousands, like me, who enjoyed your puzzle. Looking forward to more puzzles from you.

I slight modification to a clue. Captain Kirk will be born in IOWA in the future

My wife and I just this morning were reminiscing about CHANCE ENCOUNTERs we have had over the years. A couple in our Colorado hiking group moved back to their native Canada. 5 years later, they ended up on the same ferry trip from Picton, New Zealand to Wellington. Our neighbor from Des Moines before we moved to Colorado drove into the same gas station in Kearney, NE while we were filling up. We were headed to Iowa and they were going to Colorado. On a Canadian bike trip from Banff to Jasper, we stopped for lunch at a hotel restaurant. A man I had worked with for 10 years was seated at the table next to us. On a flight from Denver to Florida, we had a connection in Dallas. Making a connection to the same flight were friends from Cedar Rapids who we had not seen in years. We ended up staying in their condo for a couple of days. And probably more unusual than any of the above, yesterday I received a text from my sister-in-law that said "Art Pxxx says hi. I met him on the ferry to the Galapagos Island". Art is someone i worked with 25 years ago. It will be interesting to hear what conversation could possibly have taken place to discover they both know me.

I highly recommend walking in the Virgin River through The Narrows in ZION. Definitely among my all time favorite places to visit.

One of the occasional highlights of crosswords is the laugh I get from parsing incorrectly. Thought CONGA ME might be a dance step I hadn't heard of.

Because of my substantial hearing loss, this puzzle is like a typical day for me. Yesterday my wife came home about 1 PM. As she sat down, I heard her ask " jeet lunge?". After she repeated it and I still didn't understand, she asked very slowly " Did you eat lunch?"

Project GUTENBERG is a source for 74,000 free eboooks. I have found a couple of out-of-print books I wanted to read. The site also has audio books.

Many years ago I spent three weeks in Slovakia with engineering professors to try to heip them improve their English. Today's answer 'slough' brought back memories of an afternoon session which was filled with great laughter as we discussed the pronunciation of the following word list: bough ,rough, cough, dough,sough, hiccough, thought, bought, lough Enuf said about why English is difficult to master- especially the spelling

Happy New Year to all. And my annual thank you to all who contribute to the comment section. I have been reading and occasionally commenting for 5 years and have often been amused and/ or educated by the comments. Today is a good example. I did not know of the dreidle game. My teenage years focused on 'spinning the bottle', not 'spinning the dreidle ' , although there are probably some who did both. Also today, I commented how the answer 'slough' made me think of the various ways 'ough' is pronounced in English. There have been several replies indicating English is very easy to learn versus how difficult it is to learn. An interesting read. And with that, I will bow out- or 'bough' out.

Never before in my long life have I ever learned a piece of trivia and put it to use within 5 minutes. I watched a quiz show immediately prior to starting the crossword. The last question: what is the name given to a cat that has a black coat with white fur on its chest and throat? I had never heard of a TUXEDO cat prior to hearing the quiz answer.

A timely puzzle as tomorrow I am taking my car in for a TIREPLACEMENT

As someone who spends his life in 'shallow pursuits', I searched for slang terms for money. My new favorite, which I had not known,is 'Dead Presidents'. (Note: I owe 'shallow pursuits ' to the comment today by Andrzej , in which he described a life of 'idleness and shallow pursuits', which I now plan to use in my obituary)

A little bit of DENTALCHAIR history. John Naughton was my next door neighbor- until he became wealthy from his invention and moved to the ritzy part of town. Excerpt from dentalez.com: "Then in 1958, inventor John Naughton of Des Moines, Iowa, worked with Dr. John Anderson to create the Den-Tal-Ez J-Chair®. Widely regarded as the first modern dental chair, the J-Chair featured a split back that allowed the patient to be put in a supine position so the dentist could get as close to the patient’s head as possible . This invention set the stage for sit-down dentistry, the way dentists around the world still practice today."

Last week, flyspecking didn't reveal my KEBAB vs. KEBOB error. Based on last week's answer, I switched to KEBOB but the answer today is KEBAB. You say KEBAB, I say Kebob, let's call the whole thing off

DOG KISS. Brings back memories of Charles Schulz, Charlie Brown, Snoopy et al. Lucy: 'Ugh. I've been kissed by a dog'

I got the theme early on, so probably my fasted Thursday solve ever. However, I spent too much time post-solve trying to figure out how scores=LANDS. I guess maybe I figured it out: Scores (LANDS) a job

A young cruciverbalist in the year 2040 who solves this puzzle from the archives will try a rebus to fit in the GULF OF America.

When I was uneducated in across the Atlantic spelling, I checked into a London hotel and gave the desk clerk my name. He asked if my last name started with ZED and I replied " No, it starts with ZEE"

I'm not the fastest solver but 2:23:20 seems like a really long solve time. So I must have dozed off for 1 or 2 minutes.

Within the last week, there have been two athletes who performed years before most of the commenters here were born. I may be the only one who actually saw both Al OERTER and Warren SPAHN in action. I attended the Drake Relays every year for probably 40 years in a row starting in 1948. Al OERTER was a main draw at the Drake Relays in the late 1950's. It wasn't often that field events were a main attraction vis-a-vis track events. In the 1960s, I saw Warren SPAHN pitch three games in Milwaukee.

Many years ago, when the lottery was starting in Iowa, a Cedar Rapids disc jockey became well known throughout the state. For a few months, he had interviews daily with two people. He introduced them as a country singer named SLIM and a female nun. TODAY you will be hearing from two people who will discuss your chance of winning the lottery- SLIM and Nun

For four years in the 1930's, Ronald Reagan was the announcer for Chicago Cubs baseball games. He sat in the WHO radio studio in Des Moines and received information about the game from a wire service. The wire would indicate a pitch was a ball and the future President would add a flourish, such as, 'the pitch was low and outside'. 154 games a year for 4 years enhanced his storytelling ability. My father wasn't close friends with him but was an acquaintance from frequenting the same prohibition dives during1933. Prohibition ended and Reagan became a well-known man about town. I was not old enough to observe any of this-heard the stories from people like my father and others his age

FREE SOLO is certainly one of the best documentaries ever made. Even knowing ahead of time the climber lived while climbing El Capitan without ropes, it was nerve-wracking to watch.

I can still remember giving numerous nickels, dimes, quarters to my kids to throw money away to play the CLAW MACHINE. As rigged as any carnival games , they may have been the losingEST

SPOILER ALERT : GAMIFY, FIENDING and NUNHOOD are actual words. Fortunately, 'F' is early in the alphabet, so it didn't take too long to run the alphabet on my 8 A, 12D natick

After briefly considering Radar O'Reilly and Captain Kirk as the Two Iowans, AMERICAN GOTHIC came immediately to mind. If you are ever in the area, it is well worth a visit to Stone City, Iowa. Grant Wood had an art colony there but of greater interest is the limestone quarry and the limestone buildings in the town.

My granddaughter returned last week from a trip of 2 months to Tajikistan and 1 month in Uzbekistan. My granddaughter was adopted from Ethiopia. She was in those countries with a group of 20-year-olds. She said the TAJIKS were very friendly to all but she said she was the favorite- they were fascinated with her because most had never seen a Black person

I liked the clues were fair and I liked the puzzle. I find it interesting that a commenter refers to a Capital (LOME) they haven't heard of as 'obscure'. I tend to think of something I don't know as 'lack of knowledge on my part', not obscure. I doubt that the citizens of LOMÉ think they live in an obscure place. I do have a nit to pick. Utah is joining the Big 12. Shouldn't the clue indicate the answer is the nickname (UTES) of the school?

On my walk this morning, I listened to 'The Atlantic's Out Loud' podcast. The episode is titled 'The Ghost of Mrs. Murasaki". Mrs. Murakami wrote the 'The Tale of Genji' more than one thousand years ago. So I immediately knew the answer to the clue was JAPAN. The podcast is an interesting story I would recommend. Truly a piece of ancient history.

Sam's explanation of an albatross and a condor is not quite correct. They are not the same. An albatross is three under par, so on a PAR FIVE, it is not a hole-in-one but rather it is two strokes. A hole-in-one on a par four is an albatross. A condor is 4 under par, so it is a hole-in-one on a PAR FIVE- (or two strokes on a par six). In my golfing days, I never needed to know those terms. I mostly recorded bogey, double bogey( buzzard) and even double par quite often.

Today on ESPN: Shane Lowry makes remarkable albatross at Farmers Insurance Open not a 'double' albatross but fitting for today's puzzle

The TAJIKS donated a beautiful building to the city of Boulder. The building is used as a restaurant. <a href="https://www.boulderteahouse.com/history-of-the-teahouse" target="_blank">https://www.boulderteahouse.com/history-of-the-teahouse</a>

I thought all of the fill was very easy. However, I DOESN’T HAVE A CLUE about the key letters. Thought the SEA meant the letter C, and the END OF THE ROAD was the letter D. Did a head slap when I read the column providing the explanation. Great puzzle

I thought it might be interesting what AI could do with the ant theme. I requested a poem that included words with 'ant' , including Antwerp and Bantu. The result: A mutant ant with a curious plan, Packed up his bags and away he ran. “I’ll go to Antwerp, as fast as I can, To learn to speak Bantu—I know that I can!” The locals all stared at this bright little ant, So eager, so keen, and so adamant. He practiced each word with a marvelous chant, While eating a waffle beside a tall plant. An accountant nearby found it rather redundant, To learn Bantu phrases in ways so flamboyant. But the mutant ant twirled, so free and exultant, And soon spoke in Bantu—quite clear and jubilant!

There is actually a name for the string thingys in an orange? I guess I will have to live a few more years before I know everything.