Saturday, Nov 26th, 2016, Mark Diehl

Theme: "Rough Diehl"

Words: 66 (missing J,K,Q,W,Z)

Blocks: 22

Phew~!  I solved it.  Did not look good.  Admit to one "post-fill Google", and two red-letter cheats.  Ran over my personal allotted time in less than two minutes.  I am calling this one a win.  The fateful double whammy of chunky corners tied into two double stacks of 15-letter spanners, and this one was going to be a total blank, or at best a slog, as far as I could tell - and the only reason I was able to get through this brutally brilliant construction was due to the fact that I had a streak of proper names that I knew were definitively correct; I put "*"s next to those clues.  The lowest block count I have ever seen in a 15x15 grid, with 26 being the next closest; add to that the fact that in my opinion, there was no 'meh' fill, and I have to admire this one from Mr. Diehl.  The four spanners, and the bonus 13-letter central climber;

15. Loaded : AS RICH AS CROESUS - my Google; I had the name via crossings, and I checked to see if there was a "financial" connection to this person - the Wiki

17. Side dish in a sauce : CREAMED POTATOES - my small family decided on ordering Thankgiving dinner, and we got creamed potatoes instead of mashed - I liked them, but mom and bro did not

50. Cub, for one : NATIONAL LEAGUER - and World Series winner after 108 years

53. Saint-Exupéry classic : THE LITTLE PRINCE - asteroids are involved - the Wiki

16. Sushi bar selection : SPICY TUNA ROLL - not a fan of uncooked fish, but I am familiar with the selections being some type of "roll", which helped

dONeWARD~!

ACROSS:

1. Renewable fuel source : BIOMASS

8. Licorice-flavored liqueur : SAMBUCA - I had "FIRST DOG" for 8d., which made this hard to see, but I am rather "familiar" with this cordial

18. Rashness : HASTE

19. Came across by chance : LIT ON - I had HIT ON

20. Sch. that moved from the Mountain West Conf. to the Big 12 in 2012 : TCU - all perps

21. Prefix with analysis : META - meta-analysis, but in this case, a hyphenated prefix

22. Odd page, normally : RECTO - nailed it; I also know what the frontispiece is

23. Critter with tusks : BOAR

24. Barley wine, e.g. : ALE - argh~! How did I not get this~!? I had no clue

25. First child of Henry VIII to survive to adulthood : MARY I

26. Rummy : SOUSE - the second definition of the word is "drunkard"

27. Leaf producer : NISSAN - oh so clever misdirection; the ECO-friendly car

and a romper image, too~!

29. Like stucco : TEXTURED

31. Lavish supply : PROFUSION

33*. Gateway Arch designer : SAARINEN

36*. Author Huxley : ALDOUS

40*. "The Empire Strikes Back" director Kershner : IRVIN - seen here to the right of Geroge Lucas on the "Dagobah" set

41*. "Tell It to My Heart" singer Taylor __ : DAYNE

43. One abroad : UNE - oh, the number one, missed the misdirection

44. Béchamel base : LAIT - Frawnche for milk

45. Easing of govt. control : DEREGulation

46. Bingo call : B TEN - I tried "TWO B" and "B TWO" first

47. Nature-nurturing org. : EPA

48. State of Österreich : TIROL

49. California's __ Bay : MORRO - perps, and a Natick with Marv at 59d.

54. Caustic solution : SODA LYE

55. Sells off : DIVESTS

DOWN:

1*. King pen name : BACHMAN - this is the name that appears on the novel "Thinner", the first one I ever read from "him"

2. Beersheba native : ISRAELI

3. Euripides tragedy : ORESTES

4. Japanese two-seater : MIATA - another car

5. Top : ACME

6. Miss : SHE - Dah~! I had "ERR", that kind of "miss"

I won't miss this kind of miss

7. British potter James known for Brown Betty teapots : SADLER

8. FDR's Fala et al. : SCOTTIES - not FIRST DOG; took a while to realize we needed a breed here

9. Film beeper, familiarly : ARTOO - Detoo, R2-D2, also a part of the Empire Strikes Back - and other films....

10. Complaint : MOAN

11. Jump in the pool? : BET - my poker game moved up one day this week

12. Bob Hope venue : USO TOUR - I figured it was "USO-", but 'venue' threw me

13. Mark of a shark : CUE CASE - a hustler, a pool hall billiards shark; I have two cases myself

14. Guaranteed : ASSURED

22. Didn't stop talking : RAN ON

23. Destined : BOUND - I suppose I was destined to finally find a new vehicle - here I am at the restaurant with my new old Dodge Caravan

25. Muir Woods' county : MARIN

26. It's a wrap : STOLE

28. Sail-extending pole : SPRIT

30. Yangtze tributary : XIANG

32. Form a political union : FEDERATE

33. Solo pianists often provided music for them : SILENTS - my new old Dodge Caravan came with a cassette player, and I have been listening to myself and friends who've made and sent me audio tapes, and this piece was on one of them;

the dexterity really starts at the 5:00 mark

34. Cheyenne allies : ARAPAHO - half filled via perps

35. Worked with props? : AVIATED - har-har~!

37. Beats to the finish line : OUTRUNS

38. Stoop-shouldered, say : UNERECT - OK, a little "meh"

39. Many in España : SEÑORES

42. Raised the roof : YELLED

45*. __ Moore: Hormel brand : DINTY

46*. '30s-'50s filmdom nickname : BOGIE - Humphrey Bogart - and featured in the song Key Largo, a song that got a lot of "muzak" air time, and I did not know who the singer was

oh, so tacky

48. Hard labor : TOIL

49. Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Levy : MARV

51. Waterfront gp. : ILA - International Longshoreman Assoc.

52. Prefix with Pen : EPI

Splynter

Saturday, Nov 19th, 2016, Erik Agard

Theme: None

Words 70 (missing Q,V,W,X)

Blocks: 38

  First time blogging an Erik Asgard LA Times Saturday puzzle for me; he has seven previously published constructions, and with a posting on a Tuesday, he will have hit for the cycle.  Odd-looking grid with the black corners, a high block count, and the step-stacks of 12-,13-, and 14-letter fills; 12 & 14 is hard to do.  Not much success on my first pass, and the short down clues did not help much - if it had not been for some "I know this" fills, I would probably still be working on the grid.  Got my ta-DA~! with one bad cel, silly mistake crossing a total unknown.  Oh well.  Some of the longer fill;

13a. ESPN game show where four expert panelists compete debate-style : AROUND THE HORN - I see it on the TV at the restaurants occasionally, but not an actual watcher - but I do like the chalkboard quotes

15a. "42" subject : JACKIE ROBINSON - my first thought was the "42" of Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and that was not working.  Baseball is not my thing, but once the -SON appeared, a vague recollection of this movie occurred 

65a. Early U.S. Navy flag motto : DON'T TREAD ON ME

66a. Likely to be returned : MISADDRESSED

ONWARpeD~!

ACROSS:

1. Diagnostic aid : TISSUE SAMPLE - oof; vague

17. Water __ : SKI - oops, not "PIK"

18. Gets ready to eat, in a way : NUKES - affectionate term for microwaving; it's how I defrost chicken and re-heat pizza

19. Key of Beethoven's Sym. No. 7 : A Maj - I filled in the "M", and waited; it's going to be A-G, Major or Minor

21. Clipped affirmative : YES,'M

23. Other: Pref. : HETERO-

25. Scary story sound : CREAK

28. One of a prohibitive septet : SIN - the Se7en Deadly

31. Industry bigwigs : CZARS - ah, we've seen this before; did not occur to me at first; I went with EXECS

32. Hide out, with "down" : HUNKER

34. School offering belts : DOJO - martial arts

36. Get : NAB - oops, not "SEE"

37. Rihanna album whose title is a common prefix : ANTI - half perps and a WAG

38. Cosmic balance : KARMA

40. Analogy part : IS TO

41. An ace is under it : PAR - in golf, it's par, birdie, eagle; on a par-three hole, "ace" is a hole in one

42. Desert bordering the Altai Mountains : GOBI

43. Mitt with ten fingers : ROMNEY - clever

45. "Luck Be __": "Guys and Dolls" song : A LADY

47. Smoking evidence : ASH

49. Shuffles, say : iPODS - Apple MP-3 music players

50. Firming (up) : TONING - D-oh~! I filled in Boning, and 25d was anyone's guess

52. Italian recipe word : ALLA

54. User of recording devices called quipus : INCA - fascinating, for me - I had to find out what a quipu was, and here's the Wiki; down at the bottom, the article mentions Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt series, and I have read two of his books - now I need to get the one mentioned here.

55. WWII conference city : YALTA

58. Home of MLB's Redbirds : STL - St. Louis Cardinals

61. Learn : GET INFORMATION

DOWN:       

1. Persian for "crown" : TAJ - pondered "ABU" at first

2. Subjects of IRS Pub. 590 : IRAs

3. Belt : SOCK - ah, not "SHOT"

4. Japanese hot pot dish : SUKIYAKI - oops, not TERI yaki

5. Athlete's wear, for short : UNI - I believe it's short for unitard

6. Idyllic settings : EDENS - one of the few clues I got on the first pass

7. Toys with strings? : STRUMS - I have been known to toy with the strings of my guitars

8. "I see now" : "AH, OK"

9. "Leave __!" : "ME BE"

10. Trey Anastasio's band : PHISH - nailed it, but for the life of me I cannot remember my favorite song from them from a live concert; my brother might recall the name.  I spent way too much time looking for it....

11. Chaney of the screen : LON

12. Imitation : ERSATZ - great WAG off the "T" in hetero-

14. Unequivocal rejection : NO MEANS NO

16. Told : NARRATED

20. Alcott's "Little Men" sequel : JO'S BOYS

22. __ out a victory : EKE

24. Prefix with tourist : ECO

25. Indian flatbread : CHAPATI

26. Words with a dismissive wave : RUN ALONG

27. Unable to look away : ENTRANCED

I am unable to look away~!

29. Actor __ Elba of "The Wire" : IDRIS - his IMDb; I was not aware he played the captain in the movie Prometheus, the 'prequel' to ALIEN

30. French handle? : NOM - Frawnche for "name"

33. "Citizen Kane" studio : RKO

35. Shake up : JAR

39. Old hoops org. : ABA

40. Thick paint applications : IMPASTOS

42. OB/__ : GYN

44. Sautéing substance : OIL

46. Unicellular alga : DIATOM

48. Abomination : HATRED

51. "Peer __ Homecoming": Grieg work : GYNTS

53. Rapper Kendrick __ : LAMAR

56. Mennen skin product : AFTA

57. Voldemort's title : LORD - from the Harry Potter series of books and films, portrayed by Ralph Fiennes

59. Cookie containers : TINS

60. __-Tokoin Airport: Togo hub : LOME

62. Pasta ending : INI - rotini was the only one I could think of, so I went looking, and found the pasta shapes dictionary

63. Soft drink ending : ADE

64. Young adult fiction author Vizzini : NED - perps

Splynter

Saturday, Nov 12th, 2016, Roland Huget

Theme: None

Words: 70 (missing J,Q,X,Z)

Blocks: 26

Today's puzzle proved to be as difficult as it looked - whenever the symmetry separates the corners (as in this grid) and makes each of the corners independent, for me, that means either getting a foothold, or falling short.  I was able to fill in all the cells, but alas, no ta-DA~!  So I went back and found four red-letter mistakes.  Still, a solid effort on my part, and under my personal allotted time, as well.  7x7 chunky corners, two 9-letter crossings in the center, and four 8-letter "tie-ins";

35a. "Got a minute?" : "CAN WE TALK~?" - a certain catch-phrase for someone, too

21d. Prime example : POSTER BOY

 

  

HanWARD~!

ACROSS:

1. Where member golfers gather, familiarly : THE CLUB

8. Tybalt's house : CAPULET - Montague did not fit, and I was guessing he was a part of one of the main characters houses - either Romeo's or Juliet's

15. French roll : ROULEAU - I tried BAGUETE, which I figured needs another "T"

16. Cognizant of : ALIVE TO

17. Like some wake-up hours : UNGODLY - I like watching people's reactions when I tell them I am usually up for work at UPS about 2:30AM - they get that "It's unGODly~!" look on their faces - and in two weeks, it'll be 11PM for peak season

18. Wine product : VINEGAR

19. Biases : SKEWS - my initial Downs led me to try EDGES here

20. Corp. fundraiser : IPO - ah, a financial ploy, not a person

22. Greeted at the door : SAW IN - oops, not LED IN

23. Dollywood locale: Abbr. : TENNessee

24. __ door : STORM - I tried ENTRY first

26. Broadway seductress : LOLA

27. "__ tu": Verdi aria : ERI - learned from Crosswords

28. Oater accessory : TIN STAR - STETSON would fit, but clashed with CAVORT

30. Like half a deck : RED - I have been playing poker on Saturday nights for two months now, so this type of "deck" was foremost in my mind.  I am up $6 for the eight weeks, with a $20 buy in, and my best night was a $61 take

31. French appetizer : ESCARGOT

33. Hall of Fame knuckleballer Phil : NIEKRO - a Yankee, and I dredged him up from the depths of my mental past

37. Ponderosa order : RIB  EYE - I vaguely recalled that there was a restaurant chain known as Ponderosa, and it must have been from back in my Upstate NY or Cincinnati OH days; none around here

40. Performer who must be from 5'6" to 5'10½" tall : ROCKETTE - pretty good guess on my part; not that I knew of the height restrictions.  I think they must have "minimum leg requirements", too

44. No power can change it : ONE - ah, mathematics.  I was thinking in terms of "power outage", and having no electrical power.  Duh.

45. Calder sculpture : STABILE - learning moment for me.  Alexander Calder "invented" the art form of mobiles, and the ones that don't 'move' are called stabiles.  More from Wiki

There's an example right down the road from me that can be seen from NY 27, Sunrise Highway - referred to as the "big deer head", its title is actually "Stargazer"

47. Burgundy on screen : RON - good guess on my part - from the Will Ferrell movie "Anchorman"

48. Cookware portmanteau : T-FAL - "portmanteau" is one of those things I learned doing crosswords, as well - essentially, it's blending two words, like "SMOG" - smoke and fog.  In this case, as I just learned, it's short for TEFlon and ALuminum

50. Took : STOLE - I hesitated, but was on the "burglary" form of "took" wavelength

51. Paris green? : PARC - I tried EURO, for the money kind of green; then it was BANC, and that seemed acceptable; but BOINT was not - it was my 42d that I guessed wrong

52. Wyandot people : HURON - OK, I cheated - I Googled

54. Tournament pass : BYE

55. Axle in a wooden toy : DOWEL - a complicated definition of a simple item - followed by this clue;

56. One of two nuclides with the same neutron number but different proton numbers : ISOTONE - uh, OK, so I decided isotoPe was good enough, but I was 1/7th wrong

58. Contest name coined by its eventual winner : THRILLA - in Manila, a boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier

60. London-based news agency : REUTERS - took half perps for this to come to me

61. Goes underground : TUNNELS

62. Elaine's home, in Arthurian legend : ASTOLAT - my second "A" was an "E" at first

63. Me time? : EGO TRIP

DOWN:
       
1. Board member : TRUSTEE

2. Geese : HONKERS - I tried "GANDERS", which was 100% 3/7ths correct

3. Concerned with good breeding : EUGENIC - I had HYGENIC, which in the Down looked right, but it's Hyg-I-enic; I've never actually looked at the eugenics definition until today

4. One who's not serious : CLOWN

5. Some arena displays, briefly : LEDs - Light Emitting Diode displays

6. O'Hare initials : UAL - why did I think this was ORD at first~? Because that's the Airport Code.  When I looked up UAL, I was in Luau, Angola - the answer is the abbr. for United Airlines.  Tricky.

7. eBay option : BUY IT NOW - the only way I will buy anything off eBay - I can't be bothered to watch how my bids are doing

8. Frolic : CAVORT

9. "Aladdin" prince : ALI - could have been tied into 58A. if you ask me

10. Strike victims? : PINS

 

The revenge of the pins

11. __ layer: eye part : UVEAL

12. Old-fashioned investigation : LEGWORK - these legs work for me

13. Noncash business : eTAILER

14. Phenomenon measured by the Enhanced Fujita Scale : TORNADO - I mentioned the EF scale in a puzzle last month or so

24. Small seals : SIGNETS - I was thinking seals, the 'animal' - but mixed up my CYGNETS

25. Handcuff : MANACLE

28. Printer inserts : TRAYS - I was thinking "please don't be REAMS" - I cannot get that much paper in my home printer, though I guess one could do so with a commercial unit

29. "The Book of Hours" poet : RILKE - perps

32. Top performer : ACE

34. Squeeze (out) : EKE

36. Grooming process : TOILETTE

37. Estate planner's advice : ROTH IRA - being in the DOWN, I stared at this for way too long before the V-8 can flew

38. Imbues : INFUSES

39. Back up : BEAR OUT - I was 'meh' about this, but then I figured out that you better "back up" your argument, or the facts won't "bear out"

41. Net user : TRAWLER

42. Baroque composer Giuseppe __ : TORELLI - perps and one goof

43. Embrace : ENCLASP - OK, but for me, meh. Clecho with 59d. Embrace : HUG

46. Ideally : AT BEST

49. Numbers game : LOTTO

51. Essential thing : POINT

53. Winter air : NOEL - air as in "tune" or "song" - but "COLD" did pass thru my thoughts

55. 1962 title villain played by Joseph Wiseman : Dr. NO - bang~! Nailed it, but I am a big James Bond fan

57. FDR program : NRA - yeah, uh, this makes more sense than "P.R.E."

Splynter