So far so good on the "hopes are high for an excellent week" thing. Today we get a bonus Wednesday rebus puzzle! YOUAREHERE gives instructions for filling in eight squares, as in TA[UR]US (Practical, stubborn, ambitious sort, so it's said). And speaking of that, one of our regulars just had a birthday at the start of the month (Happy Belated, Huygens!), and one of our writers has one coming up in a couple weeks... and hey, it's my brother Dave's birthday today! I'm surrounded by stubborn bulls! Lucky for me, I'm an aries and can butt heads with the best of them. :)
I have read other bloggers saying they are tired of rebuses, but I don't think I ever will be. The moment I realize that an answer needs more letters than will fit is always exciting, and it's fun to see what the constructor will do with it, and how it is worked into a theme. Today, for example, Mr. Gascoigne finds three entries that each use two rebus squares, which was interesting, and the revealer was perfect. I think I had already figured out the rebus by the time I got down to the revealer, but I hadn't thought of the "punny hint" for it, so that was amusing.
Some really good QMCs today:
Light element? (NEON)
75% of 1,000? (ZEROES)
Person who makes do? (BARBER)
Places surfers frequent, for short? (URLS)
and
Is from France? (EST)
And a few good Non-QMCs too:
Org. whose workers look into cases (TSA) (Remember flying places?...)
Go round and round (ORBIT)
Capital of France (E[UR]OS) (Remember France?...)
Very smart (CHIC)
and
Director of many courses (HEADCHEF)
But I'm not so sure about "Game played with the fingers" for PEEKABOO. Are they talking about that thing you do with a baby where you cover your face and show it again? If so, I would probably say it was played with the hands, not the fingers, but then, I could be way off in my thinking about this. Anybody else?
- Horace
Early on I had some of the crosses for T[UR]RKEYB[UR]GER, and thought of turkey, and thought of tofu, and well it wasn't immediate but before long (maybe on [UR]SINE) I realized I was dealing with an ur-puzzle.
ReplyDeleteFinished with one error on RESTe[UR]ATE[UR] crossing TSe which was basically carelessness as much as anything.
The review highlighted many of the delightful clues, and I also liked FRAYED.
5:01
ReplyDeleteLovely to get a rebus on a Wednesday! Elevating that odd puzzle day to an early start to the turn. At one point I was wondering if the answer to 17A would be ToKEYBaGon. What is that, you ask? Great question. All I can say is that I wondered if we were doing a baby talk theme. You know. Babies talk about tokey bagon all the time.
The human brain is an odd thing.
12:48
ReplyDeleteI fig[ur]ed out the rebus pretty early on, and was quite happy with it, and yes, the revealer was great. Of course, I almost never go to a mall, the exception being when visiting the relatives in MN (Mall of America), but I'm familiar with the maps, as is everyone, I suppose. Nice to see TA[UR]US in the grid and as a prominent rebus entry, but too much France, what with ARLES, HE[UR]E and E[UR]OS. For once, ZEROES didn't fool me for a second.