"A Century of Song," 4/23/17

Hello, readers! Did you miss me last week? I did not enjoy this puzzle, so if you read this blog primarily to get your own complaints validated, you'll be glad you came back. If you like Ella Fitzgerald so much that this puzzle was still ok for you, you might want to just quit now. Go read Rex, he thought it was average.

Time to finish/time I gave up: 34:04

Commentary:
This is my first of what Rex calls "once you've finished, draw on it!" puzzles. I was concerned, since we always do the puzzle on the computer, like normal people of our age bracket (and most others at this point perhaps?) (how else do you even know if you got it right??? what would you do, check an answer key? ew, too much work.) (let's be real, you would just assume you were right and move along with your day.) Luckily, the NYT website traces the shape for you. Less luckily, it starts with the wrong box.

Instead of "QUEEN OF JAZZ," I am led to believe the answer is "ZQUEEN OF JAZ." Maybe they are just trying to show me the crown shape, not the correct answer. Now, I won't be too picky about the shapes you can make by connecting the dots of a crossword puzzle, but I do have to point out that this crown looks very evil. More fitting for a Lannister (JAIME of 51A?) than Lady Ella.

Clues I especially liked! Yay!

• I kind of liked 87A Frank HOTDOG. We had the _OTD__ part first and were feeling really concerned about it, thinking of the adjective frank, of course. But it turned out we both hadn't made an error *and* got to think about hot dogs! Yummy!
• 34D Unlikely book club recommendation SMUT. Maybe it's unlikely in your book club...

I'm too young for this $h*t

• Dallas actress Sheree J. Wilson. Unless the clue is "Who shot ___?" I am going to be out of luck on Dallas-related clues. And I don't know the answer to that question, or who J.R. is.
• Record label KTEL. Lol records.
• Ok, we do have a record player, like good hipsters, but still.
• 3 things in one clue: Ovaltine, Little Orphan Annie, and radio shows.

Really?

• Agreed with Rex that ENNUIS is unacceptable, as well as ZTILES (as much as I like Bananagrams.)
• Also, did not know about ZLOTY. Did not like that section.
• 53A Stone Age relics NEOLITHS. As far as I can tell, a "Neolith" is something that is "Neolithic." This is a lame word.
• 60A Talk endlessly to JAWAT. We put in GABAT at first, because why not, when you are coming up with things no one ever says.
• TNUT. Just look at that. When that is in your puzzle, you know you've gone wrong.
• ARIOSI. Bleh. I guess this is the plural of "arioso," which is a word I am barely cognizant of to start with. I keep thinking of "wingardium leviosa" instead. (It's ari-OH-sa, not ario-SA.) 
• And, right next to ARIOSI, MISSEND, which is apparently what the rest of us call "reply all fail."
• 8D Close again, as a purse. RESNAP. Setting aside the annoyance of "RE-random verb" clues, is a purse really the snappiest thing you can think of?
• ACETAL. Not even acetyl, which I would have accepted.
• Skating champ Brian ORSER. Do people know this? Does this belong as something I learned, not to scoff at?
• Bubs = MACS. Whatever. But also, Lil Bub the cat:
  

Things I learned today:

• Et seq. I think it's kind of unfair that "et cet." also fits here. Come on, Latin. Although I do acknowledge that "et cet." is not a thing.
• Have we talked about Dad's on this blog before? Dad's is a root beer maker. I don't like root beer, and I don't know about Dad's. I do like my own dad though.
• "Sic parvis magna" means "greatness from small beginnings." I'm still not sure what "sic" means though--apparently not "always" or "tyrants," since there's not a lot of overlap between those two phrases.
• Reminding me of one of my favorite West Wing lines, regarding the meaning of "post hoc ergo propter hoc": "after hoc, therefore something else hoc."
• AGHA is a Turkish title. Although to be clear, it's from the Ottoman Empire and Turkish language, not modern Turkey. Now I know.

Things I have learned from previous crossword puzzles:

• ELHI
• EOS
• Rapa NUI

Times I got to use my French major this week 

• Nice is in the sud of France. I have been there and can attest that it is, in fact, nice.
• Edith Piaf songs, which I listened to as part of a teacher's lesson plan multiple times.

Fritz out!

"Having Nothing On," 4/9/17

I must say, I highly recommend puzzling at your local brewery. A tasty puzzle for a tasting flight! Milo came along in the stroller and we had a grand old time.

Time to finish/time I gave up: 48:27. We had to check the puzzle again this week after getting the dreaded "you're wrong" message around 36 minutes and spending 10 minutes failing to correct the problem. We had 2 mistakes--1, we had BEAT for 72D Overcome instead of BEST, leading to the "duh" moment that Elizabeth with some memoir was EDWARDS, not EDWARDA...whoops.
I feel less guilty about mistake #2, where we had ACTS for 50A Parliamentary procedures and VACUS for 31D Empty spaces...granted that "vacus" is not really a thing, but "vacua" is not a word that I use often either. We were already guessing on LARUSSA and AEREO so that whole section was a mess. (We also tried LAROSSA, LARUSSO, and various other combinations. Aereo seemed the most likely--I assume this is airmail-related?--but you never know with these dang foreign languages. Speak American, crossword.*)
*This is a joke.

Commentary:
It took reading Wordplay  column for me to really understand that "nothing on" means OON. We got the pattern within solving a few of the themers but the "nothing" = O part escaped me...I kept trying for "having no thin goon" as the key to the puzzle. That said, I thought the themers were pretty funny, for the most part. My favorite is probably SAUSAGEFESTOON.

Another funny mistake I made: for a little while I had TBJ for the Toronto Blue Jays instead of TOR (don't ask me why...probably those beers...) which led to the 2D Sign of spring being BLOB_. Ah, let us herald the return of the spring blobs.

Clues I especially liked! Yay!

• 22A Home for Bilbo Baggins HOBBITHOLE. What, not Bag End? #nerdalert
• Shout-out to Frances Bavier, Aunt Bee of The Andy Griffith Show. I spent many a half-hour watching reruns with my dad, who also taught me crosswording, so this was a happy confluence.
• OTOH, if this were any other tv show of its era, I would probably not know the answer and file this under the following category.

I'm too young for this $h*t

• Rene Clement is a French director whose famous movies are from the 50s-70s. I'm not sure if I'm too young for this or if it's just the puzzle reminding me of my lack of highbrow cinema knowledge.

Really?

• 10A Blood enemy? CRIP. I mean damn, NYT.
• SPLEENY! What is this delightful word?
• What is the cross-section of people who do the crossword and people who listen to shock jocks? Especially OPIE? If it's not Howard Stern, I'm out of ideas. Besides, if you have another Andy Griffith clue in the same section, why not go for the one-two punch?

Things I learned today:

• I did not know that My Gal Sal is a musical. Via my father and my husband, I think of myself as knowing more than the average bear about musicals, but not this time. This oversight made me think the themer might be punning at the sentence "My gal's a loon," which would have made me mad (don't call a woman crazy, hypothetical speaker!) so I'm glad for the existence of My Gal Sal.
• Romain de Tirtoff was a Russian-born French artist and designer known by the pseudonym Erté, from the French pronunciation of his initials.
• That is a great fun fact! Go French!
• Confession: sometimes I mix up Belgrade and Belfast. Thanks for stopping me before I destroyed a corner of the puzzle with "eire" or something instead of SERB, Jamie.
• Jean Adair is an actress from Arsenic and Old Lace. I haven't seen the movie, but I saw our high school's version of the play and even that was hilarious.
• Selma is the "butterfly capital of Alabama." Glad they have another claim to fame down there.
• Polo has "chukkers" instead of quarters/periods/halves/etc. 
• Apparently there are usually six of them and they last 7.5 minutes each.
• Polo, you're ridiculous.

Times I got to use my French major this week 

• Not a ton of French in this week's puzzle, besides La Loire, but we did have acht and ocho, so that was cute.

Fritz out!

"Initial Description," 4/2/17

Apologies if you have been feverishly awaiting this post. (Ha.) I got back from a little weekend trip with my girlfriends in the late morning and have been reuniting with my baby all day. Ah, parenthood.

Time to finish/time I gave up: 53:08. I guessed on some stuff at the end, checked the puzzle to see how bad it was, had 5 letters wrong (all in the SW corner), but managed to get them all without revealing. (Also without typing in every letter in the alphabet but not technically clicking "reveal," a strategy by which I have been tempted in the past but is definitely cheating.)

Commentary:
I did not enjoy this puzzle. I liked the concept of the theme, but I didn't like any of the actual answers. They weren't cute. Rex was less perturbed by this than I thought he would be, and I thought his examples were pretty funny actually. But when it came down to it...a swan is a "swimmer?" Three "rolled into" one? It all felt too stilted for not enough payoff.

Here's all the stuff I messed up in the SW:

• Michael Stich. I believe our first try was Smith. Which I thought was as good as anything else, as far as guesses about names.
• Egon Spengler.
• Dys. (Not dis.)
• Bad start? is a terrible clue.
• Therefore, we also had STEER and ACRONYM wrong, but I was guessing on Rene for Preval, and O. Henry, so I needed the Check Puzzle to guide me towards getting these right.

Also, I don't enjoy being reminded of Sean Spicer during my fun crossword time. Or Ayn Rand, for that matter.

Clues I especially liked! Yay!

• The line starting with 84A was a big win for me:
• Jose Cuervo
• Dora the Explorer
• I don't really care about Dora (yet?) but I was very confident I was right about this one.
• UNC (GO TAR HEELS!!! AHHHHHH!!!)
• Saga
• In context, not interesting, but I do really enjoy the graphic novel series by the same name.

I'm too young for this $h*t

• The song "Once in Love With Amy." Now that I have listened to it, it sounds vaguely familiar. However, if you are looking it up, you should know that there is a Muppet Show version, and while there does not seem to be any actual footage on Youtube (copyright issues?), someone has delightfully recreated the number with puppets, and the original audio in the background. Well done, sir/madam.
• Alan King, who spoke at Kennedy's inauguration, died in 2004. Wikipedia says he inspired Joan Rivers, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, and Billy Crystal, among others, so I guess he's worth looking up.
• "Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay." This is from vaudeville, so everyone would be too old for it, except I guess Howdy Doody kept it alive?
• Loni Anderson. WKRP in Cincinnati is before my time.

Really?

• 20A Togalike Roman cloak ABOLLA. Two issues here: 1. Togalike is not even a word, so we are off to a rough start. (Why not "toga-like"?) 2. No one knows ABOLLA. I think this is the only time I have ever seen Google so short on related searches, meaning not only does no one know this word, no one even cares to find out about it:
  
• That's it. 4 suggestions. You've reached the end of the internet.
• The cross of the largest city of Yemen (SANAA) and the capital of Uganda (KAMPALA). Help a sister who's bad at geography out! 
• I did guess at this, but I felt pretty good about it. I'm 99% sure Sanaa has already been in a Sunday puzzle I've done. Crosswords > high school.
• Things I am almost certain I have complained about before, but like a bad penny...
• Gists = NUBS. If you say so.
• Cole Porter's "Well, Did You Evah?"

Things I learned today:

• I don't think I knew the word dotard? I'm not sure I like it. Looks like the r-word for old people.
• Rapa Nui is a Polynesian name for Easter Island and its people. I'm glad to know this!
• VSOP (Very Superior Old Pale) is a brandy grade. I think we could have been a little more creative here, brandy-grading committee. Very superior?

Times I got to use my French major this week 

• La terre. That's all I got this time.

Fritz out!

"Mixed Results," 3/26/17

My sister- and mother-in-law are here! I won't have time to write a full post today since we are busy hanging out with the baby. But I did do the puzzle while they were at the grocery store buying food for our poor empty fridge, so here are the results:

Time I finished: 46:33

It took me FOR.EVER. to figure out the theme of this puzzle. The themers were almost the last part I finished. Finally broke it open with the blue+red=purple one (blue hearts, red people eater) when we had _LU_HEARTS. I thought this was a clever puzzle and the fill was fun for once. Rex disagrees with me, but there's no pleasing him.

What did you think, loyal readers? What were you too old or too young for? What made you say "really?" Did you use your college major this week?

What did you learn? I learned that ERSE is a European language (apparently it's Irish/Gaelic). Given that I work at a language services company and know the names of probably at least 300 languages, I was pretty concerned that I couldn't fill this in early on, but I feel a little better now that I know it's an alternative and/or old-fashioned name.

"111-Across!" 3/19/17

It's a joyous weekend for my family; my dad was inaugurated as the 31st president of Centenary College on Friday. Congrats, Dad! We have all converged on Shreveport, Louisiana and have had a ball. Including the very best of activities...family crossword. We had 4 deft solvers on this one, leading to a nice time of...

Time to finish/time I gave up: 39:33. Not too shabby, especially considering that includes the time it takes to read the clues out loud.

Commentary:
Hey all! Guest poster Fran here. It's always great to get a chance to puzzle with the family when we're together. It's also not always so great because it reminds me how much less crystallized intelligence I have than most other members of my family (but I do know what crystallized intelligence is, so school psychology for the win). I don't know what Allie is going to say about today's puzzle yet but I enjoyed the theme, especially the Harry Potter theme clue. 10 points to Hufflepuff for any puzzle with HP references. That said, 10 points from Slytherin for Snape killing Dumbledore (spoiler alert). Frannie out.

Allie in (?). I, too, thought that the theme was fun, and was glad that there were no spoilers that I didn't already know. I don't know what crystallized intelligence is, and Frannie is very smart, even though she's a Hufflepuff.

As I am writing this post and my list of complaints grows longer and longer, I realize that I quite liked this puzzle but maybe only because it's easy when 4 people are thinking about it at once. Some of this might well have frustrated me if I had been on my own.

Clues I especially liked! Yay!

• 35A Product of Boston or Chicago SONG. Cute. We spent a lot of time trying to make this Sox-related. (SOCK? SOKS? SOXS?)
• 44A "Phooey!" DANG. As we all know, I normally dislike these clues, but my lovely sister (see above) says "dang" so it gets a pass.
• "A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside" Small tear.

I'm too young for this $h*t

• I'll just leave this here:
  

Really?

• 7A Pale-faced ASHY. "Ashen" would be fine. "Ashy," when applied to skin tone, means (at least in modern parlance) white coloring on dark skin. Just Google it if you don't believe me. Therefore, I don't think this clue means what Thackray and Shortz think it means. Watch your privilege, NYT.
• I don't usually know the geography clues, which is often my own failing, but I do think it's a stretch to have Indonesian islands featured twice in the same puzzle. (BALI and ARU)
• 53A Bad luck, old-style UNHAP. What? Pretty sure this is like, medieval old-style, not weird 50's slang, saving it from the previous category. Urban Dictionary points out that "unhaps" is currently used as an abbrev for "unhappy," as in, "this clue makes me unhaps."
• 61A Peeping aid SPYHOLE. Gross.
• 90A Relating to the sun HELIACAL. The root helio is fair game, but this word was not familiar to our solver group, which would also be acceptable except that it crossed with 84D Interest for a limnologist, which turns out to be LAKES. It's a good thing that LOKES is not a word, or we would have been out of luck. Tough cross.
• 2D Tomboy HOYDEN. It's unhap that this word is no longer in use at all. When the dictionary lists it as "dated," maybe don't put it in your crossword.
• 12D Muddles MARESNESTS. I guess this means "muddle" as a noun, which I already dislike, but no one in my family knows this phrase, which means it doesn't exist. Also, "mare's nest crossword" is one of the Google auto-fill suggestions, so that's strike 3 for this one.

Things I learned today:

• Sir Basil Urwin Spence, OM, OBE, RA was a Scottish architect, most notably associated with Coventry Cathedral in England and the Beehive in New Zealand, but also responsible for numerous other buildings in the Modernist/Brutalist style.
• I also did not know there is a Brutalist style. I gotta say, I don't love it. The name isn't doing it any favors.
• Marshal Lon Nol was a Cambodian politician and general who served as Prime Minister of Cambodia twice, as well as serving repeatedly as Defense Minister.
• My dad knew this one (of course). From my end, all I know is that his name is a palindrome.
• A ferrule is a ring or cap, typically a metal one, that strengthens the end of a handle, stick, or tube and prevents it from splitting or wearing.
• File this in the crossword section of the brain next to aiglet. 
• Sometimes Shiva is spelled Siva.
• John Andre was a British Army officer hanged as a spy by the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War for assisting Benedict Arnold's attempted surrender of the fort at West Point, New York to the British.
• Again, good thing my dad was here for this one.

Times I got to use my French major this week 

• Eau flows in a riviere. (Sorry for the lack of accents, Blogger is pretty terrible.)
• La fin. How appropriate.

Fritz out!

"Taking the Fifth," 3/12/17

This puzzle was terrible! I felt very vindicated to see that Rex also thought it was bad, and then also a little ashamed because he said it was easy but we couldn't finish it. :(

Time to finish/time I gave up: 55:11. I really gave up on one letter and guessed on a few more. It was a sorry state of affairs.
When I checked puzzle there were...I want to say four wrong letters? I don't even remember, it was so unfortunate.

Commentary:
I ended up just throwing in the towel on the LEU (Romanian currency)/AUTORACE (500, e.g.) cross. I should have just stuck it out and tried every letter, but I was so exhausted from ODER (Baltic Sea feeder)/POTHERS (Commotions) that I just gave up instead. Are you kidding me with POTHERS??? Also, the reason I have heard of the word HEGIRA is Joni Mitchell's album, which she spells Hejira. So I was already annoyed with that whole box and ready to be done with this stinker.

The theme was a mixed bag for me. I enjoyed HOTCROSSBUNNY (Sweaty, irritable rabbit?) but really, really hated IRRESISTIBLEUIE (Turnaround too tempting to pass up?) Definitely not good enough to make up for the disaster that was the rest of the puzzle.

Clues I especially liked! Yay!

• I don't think there was any clue in this puzzle that I liked because of the cluing. Here are some things that were in this puzzle that I like as things:
• Roo, from Winnie the Pooh
• Jai alai (because it reminds me of the exchange from Archer where the guy says he's going to hunt "the most dangerous game," and Archer responds, "Jai alai?")
• Waldo
• Chicken wings
• Geese
• Just kidding, I hate geese. They're loud and messy.
• Sydney Poitier

I'm too young for this $h*t

• Nothing specifically here. Let's just move on to all the other terribleness.

Really?

Here are all the things that were at least questionable if not downright terrible, in addition to the stuff that I listed in the first section,

• STERNA (Chest protectors)
• NAUGHTS (The 2000s, with "the")
• YAW (Go off course)
• ISTH (Panama, e.g.: Abbr.)
• TOLDTO (Shared with, as a story)
• ADEE (Ending with chick)
• INOT (Playing a fifth NFL period, say)
• ULE (Suffix with nod-)
• ITER (Road to the forum, e.g.)
• RELO (Move, informally)--I've complained about this one before and I still don't like it.
• NINON (Curtain fabric)
• Exercitation (EFFORT)--in this case it's the clue word to which I object
• SAWII (2005 horror sequel)
• ABATER (Lessener)
• UTERI (Centers of early development)--see also sterna

Things I learned today:

• I learned this a few months ago--Fisher of fashion has reappeared, and her name is still Eileen. Every week I write down things I've "learned," but I wonder if I will really retain them. Here's one I stored away for good! Probably the least useful.
• Teena Marie also making a reappearance. That's two!
• Tampa is nicknamed "The Big Guava." A cursory read of the Wikipedia article on the subject tells me that there aren't actually guavas in Tampa at all. This is not helping Tampa's image in my mind.
• Sanaa is the capital of Yemen. How has this not come up before?
• "Alo" is a greeting in an unidentified South American language. I'm not sure this counts as learning something.
• Erno is Mr. Rubik's first name. "Erno's cube" didn't take off in marketing I guess.

Times I got to use my French major this week 

• Menthe. It's something that there is a creme of.
• Affaire is the French spelling of the English word affair. Which I think could just as easily have been the answer to Romantic liaison. Even the French part of this puzzle was no fun.

Fritz out!

"It's Elementary," 3/5/17

Happy first Sunday in March, loyal readers! Spring is in the air (sometimes) and the crosswords are fine.

Like, fine, but not great, as far as this week's puzzle.

Time to finish/time I gave up: 1:02:01

Commentary:
Another slow solve for us this week as we split puzzling and baby watching. I also thought this puzzle was pretty hard for two reasons:
1. The theme--which I enjoyed because I am always proud of myself when I remember things from high school chemistry like element symbols--was such that you couldn't really guess the answer until you had a decent number of letters filled in already.
2. A lot of the fill was hard for me...or, as Rex puts, it "dated/stuffy." That section on being too young is going to be a long one this week.

We got particularly stuck in the mid-SW corner around SCION, ILDUCE, LUCKYDOGS, GINSU, ECOLI [this one was troublesome because we had EBOLA for a while] and also in the NE at BABOON, BLOAT [we had BLOOM], BETHEL, ZORRO, ENCORE, etc. Complaints about some of these forthcoming.

Clues I especially liked! Yay!

• 65A Existentialist Kirkegaard SOREN As a philosophy wife I am always proud when I know the answer to phil-related questions.
• 75D Modern acronym for "Seize the day!" YOLO!!!! Mostly I like this because it broke open DAGUERREOTYPE for us, but also it made me laugh to yell out yolo.
• 101D Ballet school supporter BARRE. I kept trying to make, like, Ailey...or Medici...or something fit in here so the pun (if we can call it that) amused me once Jamie got it.
• 117D Image on a Wisconsin state quarter COW. Is this a shot from the author about how lame it is to put a cow on your quarter? Or just a statement of fact that I have shaded with my urban elitism?

I'm too young for this $h*t
This week, let me just prepare a list without a bunch of comments so as to keep this a readable length.

• CECIL the sea serpent of old cartoons
• EDSEL the bomb (I take it this means "bomb" for sales) developed in the 1950's
• ENL is presumably short for "enlargement," like an 8 by 10 photo. Haha photo labs, so retro.
• ZORRO rides a horse named Tornado (which I have learned from Wikipedia is usually pronounced "tor-NAH-do," i.e. in Spanish.)
• LILABNER married Daisy Mae in 1952
• The phrase SONNYBOY
• The phrase GALPAL
• GINSU infomercials
• Side note: I am exactly the right age for the Olsen twins. Fun fact: they are 3 days older than I am. And almost as successful.

Really?

• CAPRI is a chocolate-banana cocktail. I'm not much of a liqueur drinker to start with, but this sounds vile. (The "really?" in this case pertains to the existence of the drink, not the cluing per se.)
• Now hear this! SOUND. Like...a sound is something you could now hear? Or "Sound!" like an interjection that means "now hear this"? (Sound! We will be having Kraft macaroni and cheese for dinner!) I am missing the boat on this one.
• "That's great!" GOODY. I think the last person that said "goody" was Shirley Temple.
• Seaman's chapel BETHEL. This definition is not on the first page of Google results, therefore it's not real.
• Think piece? IDEA. This is lame and doesn't merit a ? clue as if it were cute.
• It's time to retire the word "muff" from non-slang usage. Too awkward. [If you, dear reader, are too old for this reference, just trust me.]

Things I learned today:

• TNOTE is...something about finance...yawn.
• NUN is a letter on a dreidel. I need to learn my Hebrew alphabet better if I'm ever going to be a true crossword expert.
• A PEWEE is a bird. Also, flycatchers are a type of bird. I learned both of these things at once. (My theory prior to googling was that this was "pee-wee" baseball and the kids were fly (ball) catchers. Cute, right? No? Allie, you're ridiculous? Ok.)
• The capital of Togo is LOME.
• KPMG hires CPAs, so I guess this is also something about finance. Zzzzzz.

Times I got to use my French major this week 

• DAGUERREOTYPE is French in origin, je crois.
• SARTRE wrote "I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating." That guy was always a barrel of laughs.
• Quatre halved is DEUX.

Fritz out!