Doug
Portland OR
For the life of me, I don't understand why anyone would enter L I N E instead of - - - -. None of the down words work without the hyphen, and just look at the title of the puzzle. MULTI HYPHENATES!!! Good puzzle and lots of fun.
@Mike Mike, I don't comment very often, but I just have to add my voice the chorus of positive comments about your wonderful puns. I look for them every day, and they give me a little lift, sometimes just when I need one. Thanks, and keep posting them.
@Andrzej Please don't take that break! You are one of the people whose comments I always look for. I really enjoy getting your viewpoint on these puzzles.
Unlike so many others, I have no problem with rarin. It was a gimme for me. I have heard, and used, the phrase many times in my life. I have never heard it with the unabbreviated raring. It's always been rarin to go, so I don't think the clue needed anything to indicate the dropped g.
I can't believe how many commenters hadn't heard of Bas Relief. For me, that was a gimmie, and really kickstarted my solve. That little three letter word made 24, 25, and 26 down no brainers, and I was "one off" to the races. Fun puzzle. Thanks Peter.
I see a lot of solvers were tripped by drum roll/drum solo. As a huge Beatles fan, and a former drummer, That was a gimme for me. That drum solo was the only drum solo Ringo ever had with the Beatles.
@Mike Your puns are always a pleaather
Wow! My brain must work differently than most other people's. I got the star rebus immediately, and then when I got to Starburst at 10 down, it became obvious what was going on with the other circled squares. Can a square be circled? Great puzzle. Also loved how they sneaked Sulu in too.
Once again an unnecessary pluralization of an acronym that is already plural. PSI stands for Pounds per Square Inch. Adding an s to it would be like saying Pounds per Square Inches. I hate when people do that. Like RBIs or RPMs or MPHs.
Am I the only one who found the clue for 18 across to be a bit odd? While it makes perfect sense, I find it to be a bit off. I ladle out soup, and scoop out ice cream. Would never use the term spoons out. Just sayin.
Loved this puzzle. Figured the theme when I got Wilmington and then had lots of fun getting the other theme answers. My one complaint is the clue for 31A. While there are several ways to say, You're welcome, in Spanish, No problemo isn't one of them. No problema is better, but not really correct either. No hay problema, is one of the correct ways to say You're welcome in Spanish. No problemo has become common here in the US, but that doesn't make it correct.
I rarely comment, but had to join the chorus of wows. What a great puzzle! Also, does it say something about me that my first thought when reading the clue for 1D was proctologist?
Seems like everybody hates the Smew. That one was a gimmie for me, which makes me feel soooo smart. Almost makes up for all the times I have felt soooo stupid because I didn't know something that it seemed everyone else did :)
@Francis I remember my brother and I watching Jack LaLanne on Sataurday mornings when we were young. I don't know why we watched, as neither of us was even remotely interested in physical fitness. I think it must have been on at a time when there were no cartoons to watch. We ony had three TV statiions to choose from, and sometimes we had to settle for the least objectiional choice. Good memories.
@Nora Me too. Solve by myself with a nice cup of tea.
@Grumpy So, if a drip isn't a sound, what does one call the sound a drip makes?
@Francis I could be wrong, but my understaneding of a dirty martini is one with the addition of some olive juice. One of Julia Childs favorite drinks is puported to have been an upside down martini, where the proportioins of gin and vermouth are reversed.
This one was fun, and brought to mind that bit of crosswordese I used to see quite often, but not so much anymore. That is the architectural element known as an OGee. Would have made a great reavealer.
Frankly my Dear, I don't give a damn! Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), Gone With The Wind
@Heidi I agree. Years ago a Bumble Bee somehow got itself trapped under my younger sister's shirt and repeatedly stung her. Yes, Bumble Bees can sting more than once, ulike Honey Bees. At the time she was very young, and I can still hear her screaming. No lasting damage though, as now she is an amateur bee keeper.
This was so much fun! I too used to enjoy the crosswords while flying, but, unlike so many other commenters, I rather enjoyed finding a partially filled out puzzle. They made me feel so superior to who ever made all of those silly mistakes.
This was a tough but enjoyable puzzle. I do have a problem with 2D though. I had never heard of an aerola piercing, and while I guess they do exist, they are very rare and quite risky. I guess the clue, site of some piercings, is valid as somewhere in the world, someone has one, but aerola would never come to mind for me. Nipple, navel, septum, lobe and several other places that I won't mention, sure, but not aerola.
@John Only in Slow Pitch softball is the pitch a lob. In Fast Pitch softball, the pitch is anything but a lob. There are some hilarious videos of MLB players trying to hit Fast Pitch pitches thrown by female pitchers.
@David Ramos I too have fond memories of doing the crossword in the local daily newspaper with my parents. They were pretty easy puzzles and we mostly did them for speed. They are both gone now, but I think of them every time I do a crossword puzzle.
@Nora I agree with you completely. We get those weather events occasionally, and I have never heard them refered to as ice rain. It's always freezing rain. Ice rain would be an oxymoron. Rain is liquid precipitation, and ice is, well, not liquid.
@David I know, sometimes all those short words can be annoying, but they are the glue that allows constructors to put in all the longer, sparkling entries that make doing crosswords so much fun.
@SBK Yes, in my experience, track and field.
@Andrzej Stop it! You are clearly both very intelligent and well informed. I'm sure there are plenty of Americans who found this puzzle to be really difficult, and I am one of them! This one pretty much beat me up. So many look-ups.
@Ms. Billie M. Spaight For the Mafia, it would be Don, not Dom, and I think almost everyone has heard of Dom Perignon, an expensive champagne suposedly invented by Dom Perignon, a Benedictine monk.
@Matt I like this place too. It's a nice place, filled with lots of nice people.
@History Teacher How would you describe a niqab for us solvers?
This was a fun puzzle. I found it a little more difficult than usual for a Sunday, but I really enjoyed it. I do have one nit to pick at 102 across though. A Porterhouse steak is a T-bone, not an alternative. It's just a specific type of T-bone.
This was a fun puzzle. For me, a little heavy on proper names, I didn't know any of them. One other nit is 13a. The clue, imho, should read, What you might give, after being taken for a ride, not what you might get. Thaks for a fun puzzle Willa!
Goodness gracious! I was falling into a Burning Ring of Fire until I got to 57A, and had to exchane my rings for balls.
@Anonymous, The instruction at 62 across tells us to take a penny, leave a penny. The sales promotion is buy one get one free, but we have to take the first one, and leave the second one.
@Wggwg Also, I believe, the bell lap is used in track and field. It lets the runners know they are on the last lap.
@Chris Anyone who works in a retail establishment would know the acronym UPC. So, like, only milliions of people.
I don't understand why anyone would consider rooks for 28 down. The clue is clearly asking for somethng there are eight of, and pawns are the only chess piece that their are eight of. Of course a quick look at the crosses immediately eliminates pawns. So, only ranks remains to fit the clue.
@Beth in Greenbelt My family had a black lab when I was growing up, and she would eat pretty much anything except lettuce. If we tossed her a piece of lettuce she would catch it, and then just spit it out. Never did figure out how she did that, but the piece of lettuce would just fly out of her mouth. She loved english pea pods, but would only just chew on them. She never swallowed them. She was a great dog!
@Seb I could be wrong, but I think APSES is the plural of apse, a pretty common crossword entry, and not a word that ends with S.
@sotto voce I can hardly wait for the exhibition match between Fonseca and Alcaraz on Dec 8. Will be interesting to see how Joao stacks up against Carlitos.
@Francis Right? Andrzej streaming a musical, hilarious!
@Red Carpet I'm a big Friends fan, but it took me a minute to get your Moo point. I'm still chuckling about it. Thanks for the reminder!
Really enjoyed this puzzle. Particularly liked 65 across. I was thinking that while you can sacrifice a fly with a swat, you can also swat a sacrifice fly...in baseball.
@HeathieJ I wonder how many people know that Prince wrote that catchy tune for the Bangles?
@DocP I had a similar expierence when my parents passed. They were inseperable, and after my dad died, my mother just gave up on life. She died six months later. The doctors gave several medical reasons for her death, but I know she just died of a broken heart. She didn't want to be here without her beloved partner of sixty-seven years.
@Andrzej Math was always my nemesis too, which is odd, because I am fascinated by physics. I can only imagine how confused I would be by what would be gimmies for you in a Polish crossword.
@Sam Lyons I've never understood why so many people seem to have so much trouble going to sleep while there's still daylight. I worked several years at a job where we changed shifts every two weeks, going from graveyards, to days, to evenings, in that order. I quickly learned to grab my sleep whenever the oportunity presented itself. I can still go to sleep pretty much whenever I want or need to.
@Dan I think Hinny is a mash-up of horse and jenny, a female donkey, although I don't know why that wouldn't be a henny.