A fairly benign Tuesday puzzle, with four theme answers, each beginning with a word that relates (somehow?) to the body. They're not all organs...what are they? Anyway, we have:
20A: Tightwads (skinflints)
56A: Really, really dumb (boneheaded). For some reason, that expression always makes me laugh. I'm sure it reminds me of something from my past.
10D: Big Easy bash (Fat Tuesday)
27D: G.T.O.s, e.g. (muscle cars)
In addition to the theme answers, there are several other long answers.
17A: Super-easy decision (no brainer)
36A: Put too much pressure on (stress out). I'm doing that to Elaine this week. She's been home for ten days. It's time to find a job. Mean mom...
41A: Get the sniffles (catch cold). Could have had something to do with allergies, but it wouldn't fit.
61A: Recycled metal (scrap iron).
6D: Unabomber's writing, e.g. (Manifesto). I'm uncomfortable with that clue.
37D: Enterprise warnings (red alerts).
I didn't have trouble with any of the long answers. I must be on John Halverson's wavelength.
A nice scrabbly X in the grid, shared by 13D: Flirt (minx) and 22A: Dino whose body was more than 30 feet long (TRex).
Efrem returns to the grid at 9A: Violin master Zimbalist. She may have been in a Sun puzzle, but I know we've seen Mata Hari twice recently. She's at 15A today, clued as infamous spy.
Got Neo (60D: Hero of "The Matrix") from the acrosses. Also 32D: "South Park" boy who's always crying "Oh my God, they killed Kenny!" (Stan) was an easy guess. Who's Kenny? And why does Stan always think they've killed him? And who are they?
I'm actually thinking of getting cable (or a dish, or whatever) so I can start watching some of these shows. It might improve my puzzle time, but it will definitely enhance my pop culture knowledge...which is probably 3 on a scale of 1 to 10.
I fell (momentarily) for the trap at 7D: Major Calif.-to-Fla. route. Had _TEN, but nothing was making sense. I-10. One of these days, I'll get it.
I'm going to keep this one brief. It's been a long day and I need to take the advice in 43D: Get some shuteye (sleep).
Good night...
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6 comments:
The very word UNABOMBER makes me laugh. I know that that is totally inappropriate, but it reminds me of ... a simpler, stupider time. I love this clue for MANIFESTO much more than I would have loved a Marx/Engels-related clue. Plus, if you just Google [manifesto], a Unabomber-specific site comes up fourth, higher than any other clue-worthy figure.
Linda:
South Park is in Colorado! (OK maybe only on Comedy Central).
And STAN says they killed Kenny because they did: over and over and over again. Ask your kids.
Since my degree is in what my husband calls a pseudo science, I would have expected Marx/Engels, although it was easy enough to figure anyway.
I'm serious, Barry. By most kids' standards, I'm a bad/mean mom. My kids never watched South Park either, because we made the no-TV decision many years ago. I wonder if that's why they're so eager to move out. Hey, whatever it takes to get an empty nest ; )
You can learn all you need to know about South Park from Google!
Linda, if you really want to get more knowledgable about pop culture, don't get a dish, get a subscription to People or Us or Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly. Much more efficient that way as their writers and editors will condense all that's going in pop culture for you, so you don't have to watch all those bad TV shows and bad movies.
The New York Times is having a promotion for its new internet service called "Times Reader" -- which includes the daily crossword -- for free for 30 days (including the entire rest of the paper too, a 7-day file each and every day). I'm a subscriber, so it comes with the subscription.
I recommend trying it out -- if for nothing else, the crossword.
Go to:
NYTimes.com/TimesReader
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/timesreader.html
I know most of the readers of your blog already have the crossword on-line, but this includes the whole newspaper -- plus you may know a friend who would like to try the electronic crossword or the whole paper (it's well presented, quite good).
Try it!
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