Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Tuesday, March 3, 2015, Kristian House

Well... Finished with three errors? (5:02)

That's what I get for trying to beat 4 minutes on a Tuesday. I would have come very close, except for entering BETtY for Ms. BETSY Ross, mistyping EDSELS with a T on the end, and the not-so-excusable RIBhUT (thinking ShAM for "Flimflam" instead of SCAM). No real defense except for the typo.


Anyhoo, it's my birthday today, and I get the redoubtable HUNTERSTHOMPSON as a theme. In fact, off of _ONZ____ I got the entire theme in seconds, which is why I was moving so fast through the puzzle. It's actually a reasonable theme, overall. Three 15s, although the third is a partial of the whole book/film title (FEARANDLOATHING/ INLASVEGAS). Still, how exciting it must have been for Mr. House to recognize that the second partial matched JOHNNYDEPP in number of letters. In fact, I only heard of Mr. Thompson later in life, well after meeting his caricature Duke in Doonesbury. I don't think I've ever read anything by him.

For the rest of the puzzle, there are some nice bits, such as the GENTRY/NOBLE pairing, CUDDLEUP, and Big Papi ORTIZ. Speaking of which, the Sox opened spring training today. Hope this year's better than last year. I also like KOALA bears, as well as the clue for ONRED ("How some right turns are made").

Not at all a fan of ACER, LUXE, HESHE, or RIBCUT (?). NAV seems like a highly questionable abbreviation to me.

One thing I will say, though: I'm not planning on sniggling anytime soon.

- Colum

2 comments:

  1. 7:44
    What? No picture of Bill Murray as Dr. Thompson? I'm pretty sure I've read all of Hunter's books, starting in my teens, so I, too, had the theme down in seconds, and the puzzle finished in less time than yesterday's, oddly. Because of the theme, this puzzle gets a big thumbs up from me. I even liked the start of HOHO/HADAGO/HELLNO, having SKYLAB in there, some winter Huygens fill (THERMALS) and...well I guess that's it, other than what Colum mentions. Although I will give a shout out to LEIS, as it reminds me of those fantastic Hawaiian Islands.

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  2. 6:03
    I was way faster today than yesterday, too. And I also enjoyed HELLNO.
    I've never read any Thompson, but I've seen the JOHNNYDEPP movie, and I have, of course, heard of him, and because of that, like you two, I had the entire theme very, very early.

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