"Hit the Deck," 1/29/17

It's 10:30 on Sunday morning and I've already eaten breakfast, fed the baby and put him down for a nap, and finished the crossword puzzle. Feeling very productive!

Time to finish/time I gave up: 28:51
[Will put back the entries about how badly I failed when applicable.]

Commentary:
I thought this puzzle was pretty fun--it's like a little card game played out right before my very eyes! Rex thought it was boring. For any consistent Rex readers: does he ever enjoy Sunday puzzles? This is my 11th post on this blog and I don't think he has unequivocally liked a single one yet. I will cut him some slack, though, because his post addresses his depression about the current political climate, with which I can sympathize.

If the puzzle timer included the amount of extra time it took me to understand 7A Strip of buttons TOOLBAR then this puzzle would have taken us 35 minutes or so.

I liked the timing of the two tennis clues with the Australian Open (10D One may get smashed LOB and 28A It's unreturnable SERVICEACE).

I said "bofa" (rhymes with "sofa") out loud before I got my brain to B of A (40D Citi rival, informally). Yikes. Maybe another coffee needed?

80D Container that may have a sharpener CRAYONBOX simultaneously made me nostalgic for crayons and frustrated by those stupid sharpeners. They just make a mess and the crayon is still never as pointy as it was when it was new.

I'm too young for this $h*t

• Dyan Cannon belongs in this category, but puzzle authors Jim Hyres and David Steinberg are really lucky that she was also on Ally McBeal, which was one of my favorite shows when I was growing up. (After all, it featured another Allie/y.)
• Jami Gertz (of 106D and "Twister") was actually also on Ally McBeal, but not enough for me to remember her name. I looked her up after the puzzle and recognized her face.

Really?

• I'm not thrilled about 30A Musicianship EAR. I just don't feel like they quite match up.
• 52A Celebratory request GIVEMEFIVE. Not only should this phrase be "Gimme five," as Rex rightly complains, I also don't think anybody actually asks people to give them five unless the giver is a child or a dog, aka someone who doesn't necessarily respond to the universal signal for giving five, which is simply holding one's hand in the air. But I'm just nitpicking. This wasn't that hard of a clue.
• On the other hand, COOLBEANS is something that, seriously, no one says. (58A "Great!")
• Does anyone consider "six degrees of separation" to be a party game? If you answered yes to this question, remind me not to come to your parties.
• Speaking of which: the typical subject of this "game" is Kevin Bacon, of course. I am a fan of the blog Young House Love, and I recently learned from their podcast that Sherry met Kevin Bacon once. I met Sherry at a book signing in DC a few years ago, so that brings my degree to 2, and all of yours to 3. Congrats!
• 94A "Damn right!" YES. Couldn't we at least get "yas" instead?
• 39D Total SUMTO. Ugh. This feels like an Excel command. Something from the TOOLBAR perhaps.

Things I learned today:

• Taft was our last mustachioed president. That is a great fun fact! Thanks, crossword!
• Cash is king, apparently? I have a mild aspiration to get an MBA someday, I'll update this post with more info at that time.
• A.J. Foyt is a driver of...those kart things they drive in the Indy 500. As we learned last week, auto racing isn't really my thing.
• Unless it's Mario Kart.
• Salvador Dali said the excellent quote, "I don't do drugs. I am drugs." It takes a real baller to say something like that.
• Eric Heiden is a speed skater. Ok then.
• People call marijuana "endo" these days. I'm out of the loop, I guess.
• Max Steiner is "the father of film music." As a film soundtrack fan, I will have to look him up!
• Akron is home to the Firestone Country Club. It's a good thing there aren't that many cities that go into "_K___" or I would have been out of luck on this one. Guess I gotta get over to Akron more. Haha just kidding, no thanks.

Times I got to use my French major this week

• Oeuvre. This is also an imported word in English but studying French makes it easier to spell. 
• See also Yves.
• In theory, 102A Countenances MIENS but I didn't get this one. As an English word or a French one.
• Fifi? Poodles are French right?
• Also technically "sans" serif I guess. I just used my life knowledge for that one though.

Times I got to use my Rosetta Stone free trial of introductory German this week

• Drei
• Grau
• I didn't actually know this one. The colors I know are weiss, schwartz, blau, and grun.
• Blau + grun = grau in letters but not colors.

Fritz out!

"Mishmash," 1/22/17

I don't want to get too cocky, because some week coming up will probably be a disaster, but we nailed this puzzle. We've been pretty on top of things for a few weeks in a row now. Maybe it's time to try some Thursday/Friday/Saturdays? Then again, Rex says this puzzle was easy and I thought it was kind of hard, so again: check yourself, self. I have a lot of gripes with this puzzle, so let's get going.

Time to finish/time I gave up: 38:47
Did I finish it without help? Indeed
Did I check puzzle? If yes, how many letters were wrong? N/A

Commentary:
We got off to an extremely ugly start on this one. Nothing in the top half was immediately obvious. After almost 10 minutes this was all we had:


You'll note that several of those paltry few answers are wrong, so it wasn't promising. I'm proud to say that it was not long after this photo that I got the first of the theme clues (66A "America"? OFTHEEISINGSONG), which cracked open not only how to do the theme but a lot of the surrounding fill. Unfortunately, that was my favorite of the theme clues--the rest of them are either not funny or nonsense. I take particular issue with 81A Grant a girl permission to dis Drake? LETHERRIPRAP. "Drake" does not equal "rap." Drake is a rapper. Grant a girl permission to dis Drake's genre, I guess? Also, what is riprap? (Answer: this rock stuff. Thanks, internet.) Rex does a lovely job of complaining about 3 of the other themers.

I did think a couple of the clues were cute, especially 38D Half of a swinging couple? JANE and 52D One lifting spirits? TOASTER.

I'm too young for this $h*t

• I'm slightly too young for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but I have seen it, and also it's not that hard to guess that Daffy dueled with Donald, so this one is ok.
• Cale Yarborough is a NASCAR racer from the 60s to 80s. To be fair, I don't think I can name any current NASCAR drivers either.

Really?

By Isaiah Thomas - A Little Pretty Pocket-book, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3205574

• What is ONEACAT??? (19A Baseball-like game) The picture on Wikipedia is from 1767. And it's from the article called "Tip-cat." One-a-cat is the 4th name on the Wikipedia article for this stupid game. It's particularly cruel because it has the same number of letters as "cricket," which is something that people have actually heard of.
• 26A Copies, informally REPROS "Hey dude, those are some sweet repros you made of the Mona Lisa. How much you charging?"
• 27A It shows who's who or what's what IDTAG. Nametag, yes. ID card, maybe. ID tag, blech.
• 65A A- NINETY. I am still not sure what this is, even after googling. I guess probably this plane thing? That is the first hit for the search "a-90." However, first I searched "a-ninety," (which, let's recall, is what the puzzle actually says) and Google provided me with:
• the definition of the word ninety (a number that is ten times nine, in case you weren't sure)
• the definition of nonagenarian (a 90-year old person)
• an article called "45 Life Lessons Written by a 90-Year-Old Woman," from the esteemed PopSugar
• an article called "Trump and Clinton Get Ready for a Ninety-Minute Campaign," from The New Yorker. If only I could go back in time and tell Hillary to opt for a slightly longer campaign.
• EDIT (later that day): My loving father has explained this to me--not "A (dash)" but "A minus"! Aha! This is sadly ironic because I tried to fit "minus" into the spot for "ninety" at least once, even though that doesn't really make sense.
• 77D It lies between Cleveland, O., and Buffalo, N.Y. Having made this drive many times in my life, I didn't have any trouble coming up with Erie, PA. My question is--why O? Why not OH? I happen to live in O. and I can tell you that people don't call it that.
• 88D Relative of "Aargh!" ACK This clue brought to you by Cathy.

Things I learned today:

• An alienee is one to whom or to which ownership of property is transferred. Can someone explain the root of this to me? Is it alien? Lien? A cursory online dictionary search was unhelpful. (I get the -ee part.)

• Julie Chen is someone from TV.

• Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao (28 June 1921 – 23 December 2004) was an Indian lawyer and politician who served as the 9th Prime Minister of India, from 1991–1996.

• "Rostra" is the plural of "rostrum," which is a platform or stage for public speaking.

• That T (crossed with 119D Poland's main airline LOT) was the last letter we filled in, and a good guess by my husband. Can't wait to fly LOT air sometime!

• Terri Lyne Carrington (born August 4, 1965) is a three-time Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer, composer, singer, record producer and entrepreneur.

• Lorna Doone is not just a cookie.

• Thyroids need iodine. I know both of these words, but I'm so tired of looking things up that someone will just have to tell me the science about this later.

Times I got to use my French major this week

• Semaine
• 104A French ___ FRY. Just kidding.

Fritz out!

"Grammar Lesson," 1/15/17

O Best Beloveds, I am sorry I didn't post last week. We were on a long road trip and I was too tired. It's a shame, too, because we did do the puzzle and I really enjoyed it. (And, it had SEGO lily in it, which, you may recall from a past post, I formerly didn't know about, but now I know it forever.)

Time to finish/time I gave up: 29:59 BOO YAH
Did I finish it without help? Sure did
Did I check puzzle? If yes, how many letters were wrong? N/A

Commentary:
I enjoyed this puzzle because I like grammar. I actually found the theme clues were easier than the fill in some cases, which helped us blaze through this one. PASSIVEVOICE helped me back into SOFTTACO--I am a big fan of both of those answers. Rex gripes about the theme clues a little (ok, a lot, like he does), but they didn't bother me. He also gripes about being forced to think about ANNCOULTER, but I'm with him on that one, as typing her name made me actually shudder.

We struggled with the NE corner, partly because of that FIGWASP (F_GW___ was not looking good), and partly because we went the wrong way with 15A Apple product and had "cores" for a while, and also "corer," before getting to CIDER. We also had "Tse" instead of TZE for 59D Chinese philosopher Mo-, which, let's be honest, we were just guessing anyway, but it just added to the whole mess.

I gotta say, I was pretty bummed by the amount of work-related clues in here. Come on, NYT, just give me Sunday. 23A Source of stress for many modern workers INBOXES, 39D Something set in a meeting AGENDA, 80A Result of a year-end review, maybe RAISE. I guess we could also throw in 92A ____ pad MEMO, but it's not 1990.

I'm too young for this $h*t

• See above memo pad.
• 122A ____ Aquino, Time's Woman of the Year in 1986. I understand that perhaps I ought to know about CORAZON for other reasons, but this clue just made me laugh at its unabashed 30 year old reference.
• And, I am reluctant to admit this, but I can't stop thinking about that commercial that used to run during football all the time, where the guy says, "It's a quee-no!"

Really?

• 74A ___ department REC. I'm all about some Parks and Recreation (shoutout to 38D Foe of the Cheyenne PAWNEE) but this could have been basically anything. How is department supposed to help clue REC in any way? Am I missing something?
• Rex explains this one: "102A: Specimen, for example: Abbr. (SYN.) — "Specimen" is a SYN(onym) of "example"; tricky." Ok now I at least understand what is going on but I still don't like "specimen" and "example" as synonyms.
• 82D Lacks HASNT. Too old British-y. This clue hasn't my approval.

Things I learned today:

• 75A Uber-owned company that makes self-driving trucks OTTO. I both appreciate the pun and am terrified that we live in this future world.
• The word "panegyric." Husband with a better vocabulary than mine to the rescue again.
• Hint: it's not pronounced "pain jai rick," and if you say that out loud, some husbands might laugh at you.

Times I got to use my French major this week

• Voila
• Heure
• Ici
• En garde

Fritz out!

"Rolling in the Aisles," 1/1/17

Happy New Year! I just typed "17" in the date for the first time, always a thrill.

Time to finish/time I gave up: 1:01:49
Did I finish it without help? Yeah, but it was a struggle.
Did I check puzzle? If yes, how many letters were wrong? N/A

Commentary:
I suffered from serious crossword newb syndrome today, as I did not understand until we thought we were done and it said "wrong" that you had to put 2 letters in those boxes with the circles. Is this more obvious in the print version? Or do people just know these things?

I knew that the circles were the theme clues, but we kept trying to make it work as "missing h" or "extra a" and it didn't quite gel. Especially because the "ha" goes in the down clues on the edges and the across clues for all the other ones. It was very confusing. Struggled a lot with the SE corner also. But we prevailed in the end! 

A few side notes: 
There are 2 Star Wars clues in here (29A Companion of Han in "The Force Awakens" and 48A Calrissian of "The Empire Strikes Back," REY and LANDO, respectively. I assume these puzzles are finalized earlier than a few days before, but a nice reminder of Carrie Fisher nonetheless.

Also several French language clues in here. Completing crosswords is probably now the 2nd most useful thing my college major has done for me.

42A Home of the Triple-A Mud Hens TOLEDO. As a loyal supporter of the Columbus Clippers (and formerly the Buffalo Bisons), I've seen my fair share of the Mud Hens. They're no Clippers or Bisons, I'll tell you that much.

80A It comes in tubes. The answer to this is RIGATONI, but that's not why I remark on it--any time the construction "it comes in ___" is deployed, I think of:

I'm too young for this $h*t

• I have nothing for this category this week! But don't get too excited, crossword author Matthew Sewell, I'm gonna nail you on some other categories.

Really?

• 60A Pulled off DID. Did. Yup. Yeah sometimes you have to put "did" in your puzzle, but I'm sure there's a better clue out there somewhere.
• 99A Beverage with a floral bouquet ROSETEA. Ok, I guess that I will grant that this is probably a flavor of tea that people have, but I find this to be lame and "bouquet" to be deliberately misleading. (I'm still salty that this didn't turn out to be "moscato," which is what I triumphantly filled in when we had OS.) (Although, I will also grant that moscato is probably not floral. I don't do sweet wine so I'm not quite sure.)
• 110A Miles away NOTNEAR. "Not near" is NOTAPHRASE.
• 90D Vital lines AORTAE. Is this an optional jerkface way to say "aortas?" These are the same people who correct other people when they say "alumni" when they mean "alumnus."

Things I learned today:

• Adrian I was an old pope. I'm not interested enough to find out more about him.
• Dcon (DCON? D-con?) is a glue trap brand. I try not to look at the boxes in the store because they always have dead mice on them. Poor little upside down mice with X's for eyes!
• A petard is a small bomb/explosive. Of course I know that petards are for hoisting oneself, but I always thought they were swords. I don't know why. I guess I conflate the image in my mind with "falling on one's sword." 
• Also, for a long time I thought the phrase was "foisted by one's own petard." To foist is to put something unwanted into/onto something else. One thing you really don't want in you is a sword. (Or a bomb!) It works.
• "Slue" is a violent or uncontrollable sliding movement. Thankfully Jamie knew this one was the answer to 38D Zig or zag, otherwise I would have been annoyed enough to put this in one of my other scoff-worthy categories. First of all, I don't know the word "slue," (well, now I do) but secondly, I wouldn't call zigging or zagging violent/uncontrollable. I think zig or zag is more like a wide receiver's route. Which, now that I think about, does often end violently.

Crosswordese fails

• Eero Saarinen was a Finnish American architect known for his neofuturistic styles. I'm sure he's very important and all, but his father is named Eliel and when you google his name, "eero saarinen father crossword" is one of the suggested searches. Clearly Eliel was so used to being in crosswords, he wanted his son to achieve the same level of long-lasting fame, and so named him Eero.
• See also Xaiver Cugat, whose Google hits are actually all from sites like "crosswordanswers.com"
• See also also "Elephant pluckers of myth" ROCS. 3 strikes here--1 strike for when you start typing elephant pluckers in Google it suggests "of myth"--that's when you know you're in trouble. Second strike for all the hits being "crosswordsolver.com." Third strike for the roc in question being the 4th hit in the results, falling behind 3 different pages for ROCS Staffing and Recruiting Services for Entry-Level Jobs in Virginia. I bet they get a lot of crossword solvers who apply.

Fritz out!