I marred my pretty-good-so-far week today by committing the cardinal crosswording sin - not checking the crosses. :( I was humming along (even after starting with the "too clever for my own good" "sec" at 1A "Like sauvignon blanc and pinot grigio, typically" (DRY)), and when I hit 24D: Puts off (DETERS), I had the "DE.." already and I just plunked in DEfERS. Sadly, for me, there's nothing on the back of a baseball card called "staf."
Aside from that, though, this was a fun puzzle. Well, even with that. Many of the longer answers fell pretty quickly for me, but not ABNEGATIVE (Type least likely to turn up in a hospital)! Boy was that a tricky clue. For a while, when I had "...A_IVE" I was thinking it would end in "alive." I'm not sure why, as most people who do turn up in hospitals are, in fact, alive. But anyway, that's sometimes how my panicked mind works when solving, I guess.
I didn't particularly enjoy discovering ATHIRST (Quite eager) in the grid, GUMS is gross, and although I am now getting used to ADSORB (Gather on the surface, chemically), I have not run into it much outside of crosswords. Speaking of that, though, a coworker the other day used the word "agita" in casual conversation, so who knows, maybe ADSORB will come up in conversation soon.
Love the word LACKEY (and "Underling"), and I always love the kind of trivia in "Country that has approximately 0% arable land" (OMAN).
Overall, a fun puzzle.
- Horace
DNF (46:26)
ReplyDeleteWhat a way to try to jump back in. I had, obviously, more difficulty than Horace with this one. I entered DRY right away, along with YMCA, but the remainder of the NW ESCAPEKEYed me for a while. I MADEDO, mostly, in the NE, middle, SE and west, but sadly, WELTY escaped me (although BJORK fell off of the B in its easy cross, BMW. Thinking IMONAROLL, I stumbled with ABNEGATIVE badly, thinking abnegator could somehow be made into a word that fit, and that fit the clue, but no. Anyway, I ended up with four errors total, which is two too many for a proper finish.
I, too, had some trouble with this one. It started out great - DRY and ASANA fell right in - as did ABNEGATIVE, oddly enough. Then, I seemed to hit walls all over the rest of the grid. I had to reveal BJORK and WELTY and EPIC and KNOPE.
ReplyDeleteI have come to rely on that reveal key - better than getting up and going to the computer for research. In the good old days, for Malaska era puzzles, I could pull out the atlas and find that river in the Russian Steppes, for example. Now, too much trouble! Given that choice between research and reveal, I usually go with the later.
So, DNF for me as well.
I don't think I can post it, but Alan Hale, Sr has some great pictures! Think of Robin Hood and Errol Flynn...great actor. Alan Hale, Jr wasn't too shabby, either. Thanks for that fine photo of him.
~MLou
Alan Hale Jr. really shines in "The Giant Spider Invasion."
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