google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Thursday, February 4th, 2016 Roland Huget

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Feb 4, 2016

Thursday, February 4th, 2016 Roland Huget

Theme: Words to the "wise" - the theme entries all comprise two words (both of three syllables) ending in "Y".

17A. Dishonest memoir, e.g. : LITERARY FORGERY. One of the most famous in my lifetime were the "Hitler Diaries" purchased by the German news magazine Stern which then sold serialization rights to many newspapers, most prominently the Sunday Times in Britain. The (then) respected historian Hugh Trevor-Roper declared them genuine. They weren't.

26A. Place for permanent storage : SECONDARY MEMORY. Permanent as long as the storage device doesn't fail, then it's a place for permanently-lost data. Hard drives, CD-Roms and the like are secondary memory.

46A. Part of West Point's curriculum : MILITARY HISTORY. Seems reasonable. Other parts include marching, being shouted at and hat-wearing.


58A. One of anatomy's great vessels : PULMONARY ARTERY. Carries de-oxygenated blood from the heart to the lungs. Quite important in the grand scheme of things.

Nice, rhythmic, no-reveal theme. My title doesn't really do justice to the -ARY -E/ORY echoes with the theme entries but I couldn't find a snappy way to explain it. My clumsy bad, but the best I could do.

Four grid-spanning 15's and some interesting fill. Quite a few unknown or couldn't-remember proper names for me - SEIJI, ERVIN, EDER, RADNER, BERG, IOLANI and GENA - but the crosses were fair and I managed to WAG the potential natick of RADNER/EDER so no harm, no foul. Let's see what else we've got going on:

Across:

1. It precedes Romans : ACTS. Both clue and answer refer to shortened names of the books in the Bible's New Testament - "Paul's Letters to the Romans" and "Acts of the Apostles". Paul was a prolific letter-writer, sending off his missives to the Romans, the Thessalonians, Corinthians, Galacians, Phillipians and many more. We'd probably call it spam today.

5. Maestro Ozawa : SEIJI. Chinese-born Japanese conductor with hall-of-fame hair:


10. __ de somme: beast of burden : BÊTE. Not the most common French word and only clued this way once before in the LAT.

14. "__ luck!" : WHAT

15. '50s-'70s senator who wrote "Humor of a Country Lawyer" : ERVIN. North Carolina senator Sam.

16. Shuffle, for one : IPOD

20. Ancient amulet : SCARAB. Symbolizing the holy beetle in Egypt.

21. Dark clouds, perhaps : OMENS

22. Pulitzer-winning book critic Richard : EDER

24. Bear's team : BAMA. Paul "Bear" Bryant, legendary head coach of the University of Alabama football team.

33. Dedicatee of an 1810 piano manuscript : ELISE. Beethoven's Für Elise.

34. Brand that includes N-Strike blasters : NERF

35. Sarah McLachlan song : ADIA. Let's have some of Sarah's lovely voice.

36. Gun : REV

37. Genre descended from the cakewalk : RAGTIME

40. Gift subject to skepticism : E.S.P. No abbreviation designation in the clue?

41. Aussie colleges : UNIS. Contraction of Universities. Brits use the same word.

43. "Lulu" composer : BERG

44. "__ Toward Tomorrow": 1996 TV movie with Christopher Reeve : A STEP. Thank you, crosses.

49. Merged news agency : TASS. The Russian news agency. I'm not sure about the "merged" definition here - ITAR-TASS, as the agency was known post-breakup of the Soviet Union is not two organizations, it's two names for the same organization. Wikipedia explains.

50. Convenient carrier : TOTE

51. Garden gadget : EDGER

54. Extent : LENGTH

63. Classical theaters : ODEA. I always want to put "ODEONS", then rapidly run out of room.

64. Southwestern New York city : OLEAN. Has a population of just over 14,000 which seems pretty small in "city" terms.

65. Linear : ONE-D. Took me a second to parse this one out - ONED looked a tad weird.

66. Filter : SEEP

67. "South Pacific" co-star Gaynor : MITZI

68. Bunker tool : RAKE. Here's Sergio Garcia raking his own bunker. Maybe he lost a bet with his caddy: "If I miss this putt I'll carry my own clubs and rake my own bunkers. If I make it, you buy dinner". "Doh!".


Down:

1. Leatherworker's set : AWLS

2. Smart : CHIC

3. Part of TTFN : TA TA. For now.

4. Man cave features : STEREOS. Probably would be a little dated now. If your man cave doesn't boast Dolby 7.1 surround sound connected to a bazillion gigawatt home theater system your friends probably don't want to come over and watch the game.

5. Wreckage resting place : SEA BED

6. Throw the ball away, say : ERR

7. Campus climber : IVY

8. Smucker's spread : JIF. Laura Scudder's Old-Fashioned Nutty for me in the PB stakes. I like the ritual of stirring the oil back in when you open a new jar.

9. Suffix with neutr- : INO

10. "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" matriarch : BIG MAMA. Thank you, crosses.

11. One-on-one sport : EPÉE. En garde! Touché!

12. Conflicted : TORN

13. Slow Churned ice cream : EDY'S. We call it Dreyer's out here in the west, but it's the same stuff.

18. 1978 "SNL" Emmy winner : RADNER. I always think of Rita Rudner, and forget Glida Radner. I'll try not to next time.

19. European capital : ROME. Not Oslo this time.

23. 1994 Stanley Cup winners : RANGERS. The New York team captained at the time by the legendary Mark Messier.

24. Properly : BY RIGHT

25. Radio toggle switch : AM/FM

26. Hospital supply : SERUM

27. Nicholas Gage memoir : ELENI. Thank you, crosses.

28. __ suit : CIVIL

29. Hear again : RETRY

30. Tribute title words : ODE TO

31. Flight segment : RISER. Part of a staircase. I got rebuked in the comments a little while ago for mentioning that stairs have many interestingly-named parts without naming them all. Oops, I did it again. What a recividist I am.

32. Like some small dogs : YAPPY

38. "__ le roi!": French Revolution cry : À BAS. Down with the King!

39. It's to dye for : EASTER

42. Website directory : SITE MAP

45. Loud speaker : STENTOR. I'd not heard the noun before, but I knew the adjective "stentorian" so it filled in quite easily.

47. Poi source : TARO. Food!

48. Honolulu's __ Palace : IOLANI. Residence of the Hawai'ian kings. Much poi was doubtless consumed here.

51. Long narrative poem : EPOS

52. Dandy : DUDE

53. High spirits : GLEE

55. Rowlands of "The Notebook" : GENA

56. 94-day undertaking in the Cheryl Strayed memoir "Wild" : TREK. Tried HIKE, then WALK and finally TREK. I enjoyed the book and admired the brutal honesty of the author confronting her fears and behaviors.

57. Classic fictional villain : HYDE

59. Nice handle? : NOM. When you see "Nice" at the start of a clue, it's often referring to the french city. Handle = name, thence "nom".

60. "Prince __": "Aladdin" song : ALI

61. U.S. Army rank qualifier : RET.

62. Bosox legend : YAZ. Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox. See, that's why "Bosox' Yaz" is much easier.

I think that wraps it up from me. I'll leave you with the grid and my WAG of the "D" to finish off:

Steve

63 comments:

OwenKL said...

FIW. :( ArIA+OrETO. Ah, well. Only one cell away with a puzzle I found difficult.

The android was unique, his brain revolutionary
Enhanced by the quantum SECONDARY MEMORY.
He could ape any author
Which caused him a bother,
Were robot writ books LITERARY FORGERY?

The General (RET.) taught a class at academy
Was there he burst his PULMONARY ARTERY.
His biggest regret,
He was a non-combat vet,
But now he's gone down in MILITARY HISTORY!

Barry G. said...

Morning, all!

Bit of a challenge today. Got SECONDARY MEMORY from the perps and had trouble figuring out what the gimmick was, since that wasn't a phrase I've encountered before and I assumed it was made up for the puzzle's theme. But, apparently not, since the rest of the theme answers were more common. The actual theme was a bit on the weak side, in my opinion, but I guess it got the job done.

Biggest struggle was up in the North Central section. I was completely unfamiliar with ERVIN and had to rely on the perps. Unfortunately, I started off with JAM before JIF and it took awhile to get SEA BED (mostly due to the crossing of the other unknown, EDER). Finally got it all figured out, though, all on my own.

NERF was a big fat gimme, since my son is obsessed with NERF guns right now and got a number of N-Strike Blasters (and accessories) for Christmas this year.

Argyle said...

This was one of those I had to walk away from a few times and even then, was surprised to find Mr. Happy Pencil on the last fill. Impressed with the four grid spanners but not as a theme.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

This one took some heavy lifting. Good thing. That'll have to do for my exercise today. "Sensed" the theme, but thought there had to be more to it. Apparently not.

Steve, you think 14,000 is small for a city? I live in an incorporated city of 1500. And thanks for the picture of the "bunker tool" -- had RAKE, but couldn't picture why Hitler would be using one.

Anybody else try VIVE before ABAS showed up? Thought we were looking for a country with the "Stanley cup" clue; __NG_R_ made me try HuNGaRy. Nope!

Barry, you must be too young to remember the Senate Watergate Hearings, Sam Ervin presiding. He had a sound bite on the TV news practically every night back then.

Busy day, so TTFN.

OwenKL said...

Pocket full of RY: I thought surely someone would mention by now, the first words all ended with -ARY, the second words made a pattern of -ERY and -ORY.

From Online Etymology Dictionary:

stentorian (adj.)
"of powerful voice," c. 1600, from STENTOR, legendary Greek herald in the Trojan War, whose voice (described in the "Iliad") was as loud as 50 men. His name is from Greek stenein "groan, moan," from PIE imitative root *(s)ten-, source of Old English þunor "thunder."

"Long live the king" during the French Revolution? I had "MORT le roi!"

billocohoes said...

Trouble in the north when I started with JAM instead of JIF

Praise for grand old theaters: ODE TO ODEA ?

Avg Joe said...

Quite the slog. Lots of wags, but most panned out. Like you Steve, I really wanted hike for 56 down. Like D-O, I expected there to be more to the theme. But I guess it is what it is. Final fill was the B in Berg and A Bas. Didn't really have a clue, but a mental ABC run said that had to be most likely. Phew. Thanks Roland (is this a debut?) and Steve.

Lemonade714 said...

I thought the symmetry of the -ARY-E/ORY which is E-O-O-E was well done. The puzzle had some very hard places and OLEAN was a potential NATICK. I am not sure why a worldwide puzzle solving audience would know of this city even if it is ten times the size of Tom's home. How many times has your city (RF,T) been in a puzzle here or in the NYT?

I still have seen the movie ELENI and while the connection to the LAT is interesting, Richard EDER was not easy. ADIA either but those perps were fin.

Thanks guys

Tinbeni said...

When I need ESP (Every Single Perp) to get a Crossword Answer I don't consider it a "Gift subject to skepticism.
I'm just glad the "perps" came to the rescue.

And I needed ESP to get SEIJI, EDER, ABAS, BERG and EPOS.

No booze in the grid, WHAT luck! There is some at Villa Incognito.

Cheers!

CrossEyedDave said...

Way out of my league...

DNF

Literary forgery?

Do you remember?

A sad day in military history?

Revenge on Zika?

Anonymous said...

OLEAN, with its many vowels and common consonants, seems like a fairly regular visitor to the crossword grid. Besides, I see it everyday etched on my set of Cutco knives and various other kitchen accessories. (Used my pizza cutter last night) My son gave me a Cutco gift box for Christmas which included a very impressive garden trowel. Looking forward to using it soon...

Yellowrocks said...

Tough one today. I was in no mood to struggle so I turned on the red letters half way through. I got a good bit on my own, but needed a few helps.
The theme didn't seem that special. Some interesting fill.
JAM before JIF.
Paul's letters were pastoral. I am sure Paul's far flung flock appreciated hearing from their pastor.
Thanks Jayce and Dave for the help with my computer sound. I still didn't hear the TA DA after I had correctly filled the puzzle.
All wires were connected and the sound turned up. The device manager said everything is working properly. The troubleshooter found no trouble. Still no sound and no patience to pursue it further today. Maybe later.

PK said...

Hi Y'all! This started well since I immediately got ACTS. Then there was a long period of nothing known. WEES. I could see SEIJI's hair but had no idea what his given name was. I caught on to the ARY, ERY, ORY theme early enough to help on most of the theme fills.

I knew IOLANI but it took a while for it to float to the brain surface.

Would never have guessed any kind of blaster was by NERF. ESP.

Shuffle = IPOD? What's that about? Filter didn't mean SEEP to me, although I guess it does.

Not "Vive Le roi" obviously, since it turned blood red. Where's my head? I failed to read "revolution". A BAS is new to me. BETE, I got because of watching "The Chase" game show. Mark Labett said his name came from French for "the beast" which is what they call this huge trivia champ on the show.

Hand up for "Jam". I didn't know Smuckers made anything else.

Thanks, Steve. Interesting puzzle, Roland.

Sometimes ya' gotta laugh to keep from crying. I've said more cuss words in the last month than in the prior ten years. Just when I think I'm getting good with the wheel chair, I got hung up in my cramped bathroom yesterday. The door I thought I'd pushed shut was standing halfway open when I backed up. Somehow the door jammed between the big wheel and the back push handle. When I tried to pull ahead, the four-inch wall partition was between my legs, tight up against the chair seat. Stuck, I was. I had my phone and was tempted to cry then call my SIL to come extract me. Nope. Managed to work out of this predicament, inches at a time, alternately cussing and laughing. (Well, actually more cussing than laughing.) Took a while. SIL offered to take the door off the hinges the first day I had the wheel chair. I should have let him.

Anonymous said...

Steve, why would we consider Paul's letters spam? Seems a little insulting.

C6D6 Peg said...

Really a difficult puzzle for a Thursday..... lots of unknowns, and ultimately, a FIW, with cross between OLEAN AND ALI. I had OREAN and ARI.

Thanks, Steve, for a great write-up!

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

This was a Finished With Help, FWH, for me. The SE did me in, mainly because I had A Coronary Artery and wouldn't let it go for way too long. Finally asked for a hint and then got edger, odea, seep, and then everything fell into place. As someone said, the 4 grid spinners are impressive but the theme is a little on the blah side.

Well done, Roland, and thanks, Steve, for the expo.

Have a great day.

Yellowrocks said...

PK, what a terrible predicament with your wheel chair. I'm glad you could extricate yourself. Removing the door may be a good option. Had you considered crutches as an adjunct to the wheel chair, maybe just to get into the bathroom, for instance. I shattered my foot some time ago and had to have it totally rebuilt, titanium arch, cadaver bone heel, etc. so I could put no weight on it for three and a half months. I used crutches the whole time. I think I could still handle crutches, except for the stairs.
Yellowrocks to you.

Jazzbumpa said...

Hi gang -

Really mixed feelings about this one. Not impressed with the theme, though the symmetry of the ERY/ORY endings on grid-spanners raises it a notch or two.

Had YIPPY for YAPPY, didn't recheck ADII, but don't know ADIA anyway. Got the rest.

PULMONARY ARTERY came easily enough. LITERARY FORGERY emerged very slowly. JIF and EDE'S didn't help. Noticing all the RY's did. Have known about SEIJI for decades. MITZI was a gimme.

SEEP seems wrong. OLEAN? Really?

Billo's ODE TO ODEA quip at 7:47 is the highpoint for me.

To much obscurity and fill requiring specialized knowledge. Not just French, but obscure French. EPOS for EPIC - obscure Greek.

It's quite a stretch to say that RAGTIME, a music genre, was descended from the cakewalk, a type of dance. Both had origins in the African-American community in the mid to late 19th century, and the dance is older. Ragtime generally has a form similar to that of a march - A LA Sousa - with syncopated melodic content that came form African poly-rhythms.

Are you all familiar with Alban BERG and his unfinished opera LULU? I call foul on BERG crossing ABAS.

Rather then go on carping at LENGTH, I'll just quit now.

Yesterday was warm and sunny. Snow and right around 30 today.

Cool regards!
JZB

Anonymous said...

What were you thinking???????????????????

CrossEyedDave said...

Yellowrocks,

Trying to fix audio from a distance
is like trying to do surgery in the dark...

(take a stab, & see if the patient makes a noise...)

Here is a stab, if you have Windows 8.
There seems to be a peculiar bug w/Windows 8 audio

Pls let me know what computer & operating system you have & I will try to stab some more.

(P.S. if you have MAC, I must plead ignorance...)

PK said...

YR, thanks for the mental hugs. I tried crutches first and couldn't make them work: slipped on my slick floors and got hung up in the carpet. Really alarmed my watching offspring. I used crutches successfully only to get down the 4-inch step out my door. Also since I had problems with my shoulder last year, crutches were going to exacerbate that again, I could tell. I used crutches in the 70's & 80's, but can't now. 12 days until I go back to the doctor and get a walking boot. Yippy!

Husker Gary said...

A real Thursday tester with IDEA/EPIC looking suspicious and ODEA emerged to wipe that out. Nice non-SCATTY summation, Steve.

Musings
-Rebecca Romney (2:53) assesses books and protects Rick against a LITERARY FORGERY
-Our data is backed up on an exterior hard drive, thumb drive and in the cloud
-One side can call their headlong flight a strategic retreat in their MILITARY HISTORY
-Yup, Otto, Why Sen. ERVIN is most remembered
-Nick Saban is outdoing the BEAR
-The movie Woodlawn is about Tony Nathan being one of the first black players the Bear recruited to BAMA
-LULU is an opera and not a cartoon or the girl who sang To Sir With Love? Who knew?
-Elections show to what LENGTHS candidates will go to win
-EPEE – What other sport has the same name as its main device?
-Sports and Conservative talk is the staple of AM radio not like music was in my yute
-Queen Lili’okalani was imprisoned for nine months is a small room on the upper floor of the ‘ILIONA Palace in 1895
-Oops, my car is ready (gas gauge only read E), gotta run!

kazie said...

Jazz,
Thanks for saving me the trouble. My carp would have been far more venomous.

Definitely too many titles, names and obscure references for me. The only proper nouns I knew and got were MITZI, TASS, IOLANI, EDY'S and ELISE. I should have got RADNER too, but having grokked none of the theme answers, and having more holes than fills, meant too few perps to be of help.

PK, that would have been extremely scary. I agree with YR--take the door off, and don't go anywhere without your phone! I hope things improve quickly!

Anonymous said...

HG: Not sure of your question regarding EPEE but how about baseball, football and basketball? Or skating, skiing and snowboarding?

Northwest Runner said...

Since this is the LA Times crossword, I have to ask. In the San Francisco Bay Area and the Pacific Northwest, Edy's ice cream is called Dreyer's. Is it different in LA? I've always wondered how this response is a staple of a West Coast puzzle.

Avg Joe said...

Skippy PB is my favorite, but we just happen to have a jar of Jif in the cabinet. Sho nuf, it's made by the J. M. Smucker Co of Orroville, OH. Perps,required that fill, but who knew?!

oc4beach said...


Officially a DNF because I had to rely on a lot of Red Letter help today. This was an interesting puzzle but tough. A lot of V-8 can head slaps while reading Steve's great expo.

PK: Definitely take the door off. We did for a temporarily wheelchair-bound relative and she was able to maneuver much better. She wanted a little privacy when using the Loo, so we hung a shower curtain on a rod that she could pull over the door opening, I guess a sheet or curtain would work also.

And definitely keep your cellphone with you. After she was out of the wheelchair, but still not getting around too well, she fell in her yard while walking to her neighbors and couldn't get up. If her neighbor hadn't looked out the window when she didn't show up, who knows how long she would have been there.

NR: Even though it's the LA Times, many of the constructors live in other parts of the country.

Have a great day everyone.

JD said...

Way too many unknowns for me...going both ways. Like PK's chair, I was stuck and couldn't move. I'm sure if I spent the morning with Mr. G I could have filled it all. Learned that Jif is made by Smucker.

Husker Gary said...

Musings 2
-I doubt if Paul’s letters would be considered spam, but I do love this passage he wrote to believers in Corinth, Greece apart from any religious connotation
-Me too on ABAS/BERG, Jazz
-When I call Apple Care, they ask permission to take over my machine remotely and I just sit back and watch someone just zip around the screen seeking out and repairing any issues I have
-Our cousin delivers mail in Eastern Wyoming and Tuesday he got caught in the blizzard on the side of a mountain buried in snow. He had to hike to the top of a large hill in 18” of snow to get a cell signal and a rancher finally rescued him. Cell phone – don’t leave home without it!
-Gas gauge is fixed - Cars don’t break down as often as they used to, but when they do…

Spitzboov said...

Good morning everyone.

Knotty one today. Eventually got the 4:3 and Y:Y cadence for the theme fill, but really didn't know what to make of it. Had help with RADNER and BERG. Many new learnings.
ELISE was an educated WAG.
Always liked Sam ERVIN. Headed the Watergate committee.
YAZ - Couldn't spell this morning. Had Jaz at first.

miss beckley said...

I thought it was rather a big deal not to have any part of the clue repeated in the answer. Re: 42 Down - Website directory = Sitemap. Yes? No?

Ol' Man Keith said...

Thanks for clarifying TA TA, Steve. I thought the initials stood for some high-end institute or international summit conference, not just a simple short goodbye.
A good pzl overall, although I kept expecting humorous theme answers, so was disappointed in long fills w/o a chuckle. But that's the price I pay for galloping anticipation. (Easy there, ol' man!)
LITERARY FORGERY is always an intriguing subject. Like art forgery, it takes real skill and a master's eye to bring off a convincing fraud. The Hitler Diaries might have succeeded except that the paper and bindings were anachronistic. The forgery I know best was Wm. Henry Ireland's faked MSS of Shakespeare. Ireland "discovered" several manuscripts by the Bard, including "original" scripts of King Lear and Henry II, plus a bonus play, Vortigern!
Ireland's deceit held for about a year. He was smart enough to use old parchment paper and his own process for "aging" the ink. He was undone by pushing too many extra documents, by using spelling that was not of the period, and most of all by his terrible literary quality.

Anonymous T said...

Hi all!

I started @1a and got going quickly thinking, "Oh, that's easy!" The thought lasted all of 2.8 msec. All of a sudden there were names, movies, books, French, etc. of which I had no clue to. Quickly the puzzle turned and there were too many Googles to make it fun - I think Splynter calls it a fun-sponge. Big Fat DNF.

Thanks anyway Roland. Thanks Steve for ending the agony.

Totally wrong (never got 'em to the write-over point): 42d Menu-bar, 66a Cull 'cuz I had EPIC. There's more, but you get the picture.

Fav- SECONDARY MEMORY. Mine's a sticky-note.

PK - So sorry you got trapped - what a pain. At least you had your phone. My stupid human trick (about 15yrs ago) - I put my phone down before climbing onto the roof. Yeah, you see what's coming. It was >1hr before DW got home to put the ladder back up. Worst part - I could see my beer down below the whole time :-)

Cheers, -T

Steve said...

Right, so ...

@Owen regarding -ARY -ORY/-ERY - I did, in the write-up

@PK - The Shuffle is one of the Apple iPOD range - along with Nano, Touch, Mini and Classic

@Anon 10:24 - what was who thinking about what?

@Northwest Runner - I mentioned in the write-up that it's Dreyer's in the west (not just the northwest).

@Anon 10:48 - Agree on your ballgames. Not so much on the skating trio. Skiing is the sport, skis are the equipment. Not quite the same.

@miss beckley. That's a great point, and I missed it in the write-up. The answer actually is two words - "site map", and the clue uses the single-word spelling of "website" (although "web site" is a variation). By the letter of the law, you're not repeating a word, just a word-part. However, it's so close that if I'd have spotted it in a puzzle I was constructing I'd have tried to avoid it. The LAT has used "Surfer's guide", "Surfing guide" and "Display of links" before. I'd say this one slipped through the editorial net.

Jayce said...

Whew, this one was very hard, I thought. Of course I had to turn on red letters and look up many references. I think the word obscure fairly and aptly applies today.

Yellowrocks, I remember you did not want to "upgrade" to Windows 10, but lately, I read, there is no longer any choice. Many people's Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 computers are being upgraded to Windows 10 automatically, without permission. Could this have happened to you? When our son upgraded his many computers to Windows 10 all of them became suddenly soundless. Apparently the audio drivers no longer worked. Once the manufacturer of his audio device finally provided a driver update, he had to manually update the audio driver on each and every machine.

Miss Beckley, good eye. I didn't see that at all.

Best wishes to you all, and a special good wish for you, PK.

Bill G. said...

Hi everybody. Before I make like Thumper, here are a few insignificant opinions, mostly negative. To be honest, much of the puzzle seemed too hard for me without a little red-letter help occasionally. After getting all of the theme answers, I couldn't see much of a connection among them. I still don't. I had Jam before JIF. SEEP didn't seem right to me. It still doesn't. Like Gary, I only know LULU from To Sir With Love. I went to college in upstate New York and never heard of OLEAN. And there were more fill answers that seemed too hard for a Thursday. Needless to say, this was one of the very few LAT puzzles that didn't provide much enjoyment for me. Okay, enough whinging...

CrossEyedDave said...

Anonymous T, LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!

Jayce, hmm, I heard that about Windows 10 today also,
I have been putting it off because my PC is maxed out.(memorywise)

If they auto-update, my PC is going to crash!

I thought I would try it on my daughters laptop 1st to see if I like it.
But unfortunately her laptop is maxed out also, I found 6 gigabytes tied up
in a file called WinSxS. I have been picking at it (like an old scab)
& so far only managed to accidentally delete the entire picture file (it's gone!)

If Microdoofus auto updates, I will be 1st inline to sue their asses off!

Speaking of forgeries, does anyone have an opinion of the Voynich manuscript?

Bill G. said...

Since I didn't care for the puzzle very much, here are some scattered thoughts running through my addled brain.

In case you notice and keep track of such things, I changed my profile picture. Dunno why but I just like that photo. It's better than usual of me and I think Sammy was really photogenic. (I still miss Sammy.)

Have you heard of RBF, otherwise known as Resting Bitchy Face? Kristen Stewart, Kanye West, Queen Elizabeth are some well-known folks who are said to have it.

What do you think of the adage "Birds of a feather flock together," in particular referring to appearance? Do good-looking people tend to marry each other? I think, in general, they do. George Clooney's wife is very attractive. Lots of other examples among celebrities and my acquaintances. Growing up, I always lusted after good-looking girls but I seldom had the courage to approach someone who seemed so far out of my league. The fear of rejection was stifling. A notable exception comes to mind with Julia Roberts and country singer Lyle Lovett. He was an odd-looking fellow though I'm sure he had some other good qualities. Their marriage didn't last long.

Spitzboov said...

Re: OLEAN. Having lived in Western NY for 20 yrs and involved professionally with the Allegheny watershed for some years, OLEAN was rather obvious since it is the only WNY city with 5 letters. Steve has a point about the size, but the New York constitution has no limit on population size to form a city. Our smallest city, Sherill (home of Oneida flatware) has just over 3000 pop.

Jerome said...

You know how some of you say you're amazed that Constructors can come up with such sparkly and fantastic themes day after day after day?
Well, they can't.

Short-term payday loan? TEMPORARY USURY

alexscott68 said...

Hate is not a strong enough word for this puzzle. There I was staring at LITERARY MORGERY, knowing it was wrong, and yet for the life of me could not come up with FORGERY because I knew JAM had to be correct. Then I'm confronted by EPOS instead of EPIC in the SW corner (didn't remember that bit of crosswordese) and had to just guess on the crossing of OLEAN (wasn't that the name of the artificial fat they came up with in the 90s?) and IOLANI, neither of which I'd heard of before. At least if this had been a Saturday puzzle, I could have retained some dignity. But to be bested by a Thursday puzzle is no way to spend your lunch break.

Well played, Roland Huget, if that is your real name, you tricksy bastard. Consider me your sworn enemy until the end of time or until I can solve one of your puzzles. MORGERY! Criminy, JIF is owned by Smuckers? Why did no one ever tell me this? Grrrrr.

Anonymous said...

What's worse than DNF? Barely started? Hardly showed up? My worst showing since I don't know when. :-( Ah well, there's always tomorrow.

Avg Joe said...

Spitz, I don't know if Nebraska has any statutes related to size and incorporating, but we do have the distinction of having the smallest incorporated municipality in the nation. Monowi, NE. population 1. It used to be larger, but the residents have been, well, dying off.

On a more practical basis, however, most communities of less than 100 are unincorporated. And IIRC population has to exceed 800 for it to be referred to as a city. Otherwise you've got towns and villages, incorporated or not. No love for Hamlets, evidently. Other than in popular nomenclature.

On the Windows 10 topic, I did see an article on Yahoo Finance the other day that MS has initiated automatic "upgrades". Evidently you can change settings to avoid it, but I haven't looked into that yet. Tony? If you've gotten off the roof and retrieved your beer, could you look into this? :-)

TTP said...


Avg Joe, et al,


Go to START ==> CONTROL PANEL ==> WINDOWS UPDATE ==> CHANGE SETTINGS.

Should be intuitive from there.

PK said...

Thanks for your good wishes. My bathroom incident could have been worse. I could have been rushing to the "throne". Instead I was maneuvering to be able to do a load in the washer behind the door. I certainly carry my phone most of the time. I have a bag for it that hangs on the push handle on the back of the wheel chair. I was carrying it in a pants pocket until it almost fell in the throne during my maneuverings there. Since I'm the only one here 95% of the time, having the door off wouldn't have been bad for me. I had him leave it on because I thought some guests might be shy -- plus I was afraid once the crisis passed, I'd have a hard time getting anyone to come put the door back on.

AnonT: LOL! You bring a whole new meaning to "getting high". The good news for you was that your wife wasn't mad at you that day. She might have left you up there a while longer to contemplate your beer.

Bill: You are a such a nice-looking man. I'm sure someone would have loved to get to know you as a teen. My beautiful 16 yr. old granddaughter recently went to a dance with a group of girls (all nice looking) and was disappointed that no boy asked her to dance. She doesn't have a clue how lovely she is and is too shy to make eye contact and smile at a boy in a social setting. The girls had coaxed a boy who hangs around with them into going to the dance with them. Then he got shy and refused to get out on the dance floor. Oh the angst of puberty!

Avg Joe said...

Got it. Did it. Thanks. If I read that article correctly, this is going to be a major hassle in the next few days/weeks.

I'd recommend action for anyone using 7 unless you want to be forced into a change you aren't ready for, and at the worst possible moment.

Avg Joe said...

PK, I'm very sorry to hear of your difficulties, and am happy you got out of that jam without major complications. I also hope you are back on your feet soon.

But I do have a beef. Ever since you mentioned your upcoming walking boot earlier today, I've had a Nancy Sinatra earworm.....and it's all your fault.

TTP said...

Must be my week in the hole.

Furnace that serves main side of the house went out again. Needed an ignition control module. While fixing that, noticed water weeping up through the seams of the floor tiles in the utility room of the basement.

The next day, moved everything out of the way and isolated the leak to the well tank. Made a parts list. New water tank, a couple of unions, fittings, tee, pipe etc.

Got the dehumidifier out to take the moisture up. Plugged it in. Not working. Took it apart, reseated the connections, put it together and got it to run, albeit without the controls for setting the humidity levels and temp / fan speed.

Yesterday I grabbed my parts list and got in the van to head to Menards. Wouldn't start. Battery was dead. Had a three year full replacement warranty. Couldn't find the receipt. Pulled the battery.

Got my pickup truck out of the garage. I normally don't drive it in the winter. Front drivers side tire was nearly flat. Drug out the compressor. Couldn't find a cause for the near flat.

Drove to the nearest Walmart. Don't laugh. It was the top rated battery when I bought it, according to Consumer Reports, and Walmart carried it. That Walmart was out of stock on my size.

Drove to the next Walmart a couple of towns away. They had it. Without a receipt, they based warranty start date on the code stamped on the battery. Just missed getting it for free by two months. Bought a new battery. Brought it home and put it in. Called it a day.

Got up this morning and headed out to Menards in the van. Got there and realized I had taken my parts list out of the van the day before and it was sitting on the passenger seat of my truck. Decided that perhaps today wasn't going to be a good day to replace the water tank.

So I came home and tried to tackle today's puzzle.

SwampCat said...

Not sure what to say about this one. I just didn't like it. I got the theme answers but didn't understand them. Also got lots of the "hard" answers. I guess Thumper and I should just wait for something more fun. Thanks for rescuing me, Steve.

PK, thank goodness you re ok. Anon T, I have no comment!!

Jayce said...

Man oh man, TTP. Maybe tomorrow.

CrossEyedDave said...

Thanks TTP, I changed my settings to "yes, but only with my approval."

Re: battery, any chance you bought it with a credit card?
That would give you proof of date of purchase.
If Walmart won't accept it, send a letter to the battery MFGer.
All you have to lose is the price of a stamp...


P.S., things usually happen in threes, what are you up to now?

Big Easy said...

Ultimately too tough for me today. The SW EPOS-SEEP got me. Never heard of EPOS and for some reason, even though I did the ABC run, SEEP as a verb just didn't click. So where do I start, as I wanted to 'kill' the king but luckily got ABAS but had no idea if BERG was correct, or SEIJI, EDER, ELENI, A STEP, TREK, SCARAB ( beetle), STENTOR, BY RIGHT (always heard it as rightS). Way too many mis-starts that finally got corrected.

EDDA to EPO_ LONG to ONE-D, IAGO to IGOR to HYDE, STAIR to STEPS to RISER, MILITARY SCIENCE to HISTORY, SPADE to EDGER. But I did catch the Y-Y sequence-eventually- because there were a lot of blanks and that enabled me to almost finish.

PK said...

TTP: Mega Bummer! Some days aren't worth getting up for. Better luck tomorrow.

Avg Joe: Now Nancy Sinatra is singing in my ear, so maybe she'll leave you alone. LOL!

TTP said...

Jayce, as the young people say, "I know, right ?" Well, maybe that's passe on the west coast by now, but it seems to be hitting the middle part of the country lately. Either that or I am way out of sync...

At any rate, it could be so far worse, and in the larger scale of things, it's all just a bump in the road. Heck, I could be in the San Fran, Santa Clara, San Jose area and having to deal with the throngs and congestion brought on by the Super Bowl you are hosting. Wait. Wish I were there. I'd revel. Well, comparatively.

CED, DW came home and told me we have a folder for the van, so I will look tomorrow. She is so much more organized than I am. As well as so many other superlatives. More courteous, polite,welcoming, friendly. All those things that complete us....


PK, I am glad you are coming along. Your recount made me laugh. Somehow, I can just picture the whole episode.

Manac said...

It's getting deep here in New Hampshire

Big Easy said...

D-O Sam ERVIN is an easy one for those who lived through it but the Watergate hearings were secondary news compared to the Patty Hearst kidnapping- she joined them and robbed banks.

HG-gas gauge. I never let my gauge even get to 1/4 and in hurricane season never below 1/2 full.

JIF and FOLGERS were Procter & Gamble brands until they sold them to Smuckers.

Anonymous said...

Me too. What everybody else said. In Spades!

TTP said...

There are a few good quizzes that some of you might like to take over at the USA Today website. Husker Gary might be particularly interested in taking the "Friends" quiz.

In the meantime, see how you fare on ID'ing the American Presidents

windhover said...

Basketball, to name one. :)

windhover said...

Joe, Jif was originally made in Lexington, Ky. by a local company formerly known as Big Top Peanut Butter. The owner, before the company went public, was W. T. Young, who is better known as the owner of the thoroughbred horses with the word 'Cat' in their names, for example, Storm Cat. His racing stable was trained by D. Wayne Lucas.
Jif was sold to Smuckers some years ago but is still manufactured in Lexington.

Anonymous T said...

CED - I'm not sure TTP's fix will be permanent. When you "approve" on the next prompt for updates, from what I read, Win 10 will just come along as an update. An article I read today (during the boring speakers) was that the only way to stop Win 10 is to NOT agree to the EULA when it pops up. Unfortunately, you will get the prompt after every reboot. Disclaimer: I use a corporate image that gets updates from our (not Microsoft's) servers so I have no personal experience with this. Like Roy Rogers said, "I only know what I read in the papers."

On the Choosy Mom's PB... I've found JIF and Skippy are the best for cookies b/c of the added sugar. I tried "whole" PB once and the cookies were not sweet.

TTP - Pop calls that the "begat system." Sonnava bi*** if one problem doesn't begat two more.

I'm back from San Antonio and repacked for NOLA. I may be OOO for a day or 3 but, if I don't post by Tues, someone please file a missing persons report w/ NOLA PD :-)

Cheers, -T

TTP said...

Anonymous T, good point. If a user has any options for either Windows Update or Microsoft Update turned on, it would probably be pushed. At that point, a user could avoid installing it by not accepting the EULA.

In my case, I see more value in allowing the automatic Windows and Microsoft Updates to occur. Don't have any issues with bandwidth either, so I'll let them download when my time comes, but may not activate 10 for awhile yet.

So, bottom line, a user would have to turn off updates completely to prevent the push. I think a user can do that from the Change Settings page. There's a good help section under the link to "How does automatic updating help me?" and and added bit of clarity in the privacy statement at the bottom of the page.

Jokingly, EULAs, privacy statements, help texts, and read-me-first docs are probably only read to the same degree that guys read operators manuals before starting up their new power tools.

TTP said...



BTW, for anyone that went to the USA Today site and did the American Presidents quiz...

You may not have seen it, but there's a whole series of those quizzes. Some are on current culture, politics, or celebrities, but there was also another one on American History 101.

Just take the Quizzes link to see them all.