Baristas... are they still working? Can you still get coffee to go? I kind of think you can, because the neighbor across the street drives out every morning and comes back with something in a cup... Me, I'm my own barista, and I was quite thankful when I learned that my preferred coffee roaster was not only still open, but could deliver beans direct to my door!
Today's theme is seven perfectly normal phrases that have all been re-imagined as having some relation to coffee. It's incredible to me that not only were these seven phrases found, but they can also be placed symmetrically into a crossword grid. The little "story" that ties them all together is cute too.
In the non-theme material I like STEALTHY (Like ninjas), PHONETAG (Series of missed calls) (Do people still make calls?), CHARADE (Absurd pretense), and LAUREL (Source of bay leaves). I chuckled at both the Non-QMC "Dinghy thingy" (OAR) and the QMC "Spell the wrong way?" (HEX). Also, speaking of QMCs, there were only two in the whole puzzle today, the other being: "Book that's out of this world?" - a not hilarious, but an interesting clue for ATLAS.
Other Good Non-QMCs:
15D: When you might run away from home (ATBAT)
88D: They usually make the cut (SCISSORS)
I'm not terribly familiar with the phrase "Weak TEA" for an unconvincing argument, but I might try to incorporate it into a conversation or two to test it out.
- Horace
39:41 (FWTE)
ReplyDeleteI don't know ADAMSCOTT, and I thought AlER was perfectly fine for 39D, so when I chose pOl sci as my answer for 45A instead of COG, as it should have been, and never looked back, I made my two errors. Spott doesn't seem like a real last name now that I study it, and why would heavy drinking be associated with the American League, particularly? Anyway, when I didn't get the happy pencil upon filling in the grid, I though the error would end up being around the FLOG/GOER cross (GOER?), but no, those turned out to be correct, sadly. I enjoyed the stacked double letters with EEYORE and RRATED being one atop the other, and the cross of UOMO and MAAM. HANOI makes another puzzle appearance, and everyone loves ITHACA (NY, that is, since I'm unfamiliar with its namesake). This took a bit longer than a normal Sunday for some reason, perhaps because it took me a little while to warm to the theme.
This puzzle cracked me up. Fun, breezy, and whimsical...lovely escapism :-)
ReplyDeleteThat's a fun theme, well executed. A fine Sunday.
ReplyDeleteI thought the theme was fun too, but I did get tripped up on APERCU and UOMO and a few others. Eventually made it through but I guess it was a little difficult (not that I"m super aware of my usual Sunday time). On the plus side, it was less celebrity-heavy than a lot of Sundays, so I approve of that part (and by "approve" I mean "have a chance of knowing the answers" ;-)).
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