Sunday, October 7, 2007

Monday, October 8 - Steve Kahn

Linda G here, back from two glorious weeks on Kauai. Before I say anything about the trip or the puzzle, I want to thank the guest bloggers who worked so diligently to keep this blog going in my absence:

  • Howard B, the first guest blogger, as well as the unfortunate soul who ended up blogging last Friday's killer of a puzzle.

  • Robert, a/k/a Green Genius, who filled in for five spots, including the weekends...giving up precious family (and party?) time.

  • Dave (the blogger known as Evad), pitched in and took a Sunday so that Robert could go spend a fun weekend with his lovely wife. For reasons I can't explain, blog hits were at an all-time high on one of Dave's days.

  • Wendy, the brave one...she had never blogged before. It was so nice to have a feminine presence during my absence, and she offered to pitch it for an ailing guest blogger.

  • Rick, a/k/a Cornbread. Rick promised to behave himself...no easy feat for him. Rick always makes me laugh, and the pictures he posted (supposedly of me) were no exception.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you all. And thank you, readers, for your comments. I know how much that means.

I'm suffering terribly from jet lag and the four-hour time difference, so I'll make this one short and sweet. In the coming days, I'll post a few pictures from the trip. Yes, Rick, I'll keep my promise to post one of the real me, although no one will ever think of me as Ava again.

Today's theme entries were all about metal. I'm surprised we didn't see Full Metal Jacket as an answer somewhere.

17A: Bond villain (Goldfinger)

29A: Certain trout (steelhead)

42A: Classic blues musician (Leadbelly). I've never heard of him, but according to this article, his name can be spelled as one word or two. I had everything except the B...didn't help that I didn't know 37D: Pole tossed by Scots (caber). It was a good guess, and Across Lite accepted the puzzle.

52A: Patriarchal gorilla (silverback).

Favorite clues and/or answers include:

34A: Endless, poetically (eterne)

37A: Some red wines (clarets). I had merlots initially, until the downs wouldn't work with it.

40A: Wings it (adlibs).

10D: "Stop!" (enough). That one took me a while to get...I was thinking of stop, as in halt. I'd have done better if it had been clued as "Stop it!"

25D: Germ-free (sterile).

It never fails that I slip up with the A- and B-teams (or lists), and I did it again. 5D: Most-wanted group for a party (A list) didn't come right to me. Fortunately, I had enough of the downs to get it before too long.

I think I can comment on the trip, using answers from today's puzzle. It won't be my best writing, though, and it may not 5A: Make sense (add up).

We decided to 44D: Go up, up, up (soar) in a helicopter the second day of our trip. Much of Kauai can only be seen by air or boat, and the views were breathtaking. We saw the location where they're filming Tropic Thunder, but didn't see a single 47A: Woods or Irons (actor). I don't care that I didn't see Tom Cruise, but I would have loved to see Matthew McConaughey or Nick Nolte. (Cleverly clued, wasn't it?). We 32D: Consumed heartily (downed) several varieties of fresh fish, including opa, ahi, ono, and mahi mahi. We also consumed a lot of local beer, but nowhere near a 57D: Fraternity party setup (keg). I did 61A: Lounge in the sun (bask), but I used sunscreen so ended up with a nice golden glow...no burning. We both 22A: Bemoan (lament) the fact that we couldn't stay longer. It was just so relaxing.

Here's the grid...



...and I'll see you tomorrow.

Linda G

13 comments:

cornbread hell said...

am i wrong or did you miss adding 6D to your vacation review? beats me [SHRUG]

i HEREBY call off my idle threat to post more bogus pictures. i just feel too sorry for you. i mean, if you've never even Heard of leadbelly you've already been punished enough for one lifetime.

(i betcha wendy liked the clue to 3D:GOO...DO)

thanks again for lettin me guest blog, linda. i loved it.

see ya back in the 6-weeks-before-world,
rick

Anonymous said...

Welcome back Linda! Think you've got the wrong page for lead belly-check out his one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadbelly
Looking forward to seeing your pictures.

dann walsh said...

linda,

welcome back! even with jet lag today's puzzle was a relative breeze, right?!

btw, i consider today's theme to be a bit more than you mentioned:

color shade/metal meets a body part

later...

dann

Anonymous said...

Hi Linda, welcome back...glad that you had a grat time. I agree with Dann that the puzzle had two themes rolled into one...metal and body part...hope you have a great day
Bob

Howard B said...

Aloha! Welcome back.
Glad you had a great time, sounds like you made the absolute most out of your trip.

The work week beckons (about as far as you can get from the Big Island), so I have to run - go relax and recover from that jet lag.

Linda G said...

Luigi, I fixed the link on Leadbelly. Thanks for pointing that out.

Dann, yes, a breeze. Can't believe (really, I can) that I missed the body part of the theme. Definitely tired.

Howard, I wish I could relax and recover, but I have a 7:30
appointment before heading to work. Getting up at 6:00 was really hard...my body kept screaming that it was only 2:00.

Thank you all for the nice welcome back. It's good to be home.

Anonymous said...

"For reasons you can't explain..."? My charm, wit, and intelligence don't spring immediately to mind? ;)

Welcome home, Linda!

coachjdc said...

Welcome back, Linda & thanks to all the fill-in bloggers.

Anonymous said...

Glad you're home safe. Jet lag is no fun, although the older I get, the less it seems to affect me.

Your visitors were all lots of fun; lots of variety.

I thought the puzzle today was super easy after I figured out it was "leadBelly" not "leadTelly"(some strange English invention).

How does coach make that little ampersand-like symbol?

Linda G said...

Charm, wit, intelligence...of course! I was trying to think of something that set you apart from the others ; )

jd, & is the symbol on the number 7 key...it just looks very different in this font.

wendy said...

Woo hoo goo do! Glad this wasn't my Monday; I couldn't get the ALGA/TAGS crossing to save my life. I think the early week puzzles are getting progressively harder since I started doing them. LETHAL!

Bach Pham said...

Oh my, my friends and I died on this puzzle, as we do everyday. We couldn't think of another name for monkey all day long. One of my friends desperate tried to fit orangutang, and i do mean desperately, despite it not fitting and our guaranteed "ever" answer. Also, we've never heard of Woods/Irons as actors, so we had "clubs". Coming up for a 4 letter fast food drink starting with L was the biggest challenge of our lives, and yes, we failed horribly. Whoever said 2 heads are better then one obviously was not referring to our group. We're still new at it, but we're getting better, about 2/3rd's done. *hurrah* Maybe one day we'll finish it, until then we're going to continue to rip NYT's into pieces and stomp all over them. We do recycle though, and i think that's the most important thing here.

*sigh*

Welcome back! Sounds like you had a great trip.

Linda G said...

You and your friends make me laugh. But I'm glad to see that you're recycling...most important.

Keep at it!