11:07
Happy Thanksgiving to all! And truly I have a lot to be thankful for, enough that it overshadows not being able to be with family today. Being aware of what you are grateful for is a good step towards enlightenment.
And I am grateful for the NYT crossword puzzle (among other things)! The theme is phrases that start with LONG (71A), which are then interpreted as stretched out with each letter taking up two squares. In practice, this means that the letters are repeated in consecutive squares, leading to the very odd looking VVOOWWEELL (18A: Oboe or flute sound - very clever clue, that). Once I finished the puzzle, the program replaced the doubled letters with a stretched out single letter, which looks amazing in the grid.
There are nods to the holiday at 40A: Celebrated Thanksgiving, say (FEASTED) and at 43A: Sight at the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (SANTA).
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| Felipe ALOU |
Some fun clues today:
3D: It's commonly used to make a product (TIMESSIGN).
9A: Gym leader? (SOFTG) - took me too long to figure this out, once again.
34A: Something you have up your sleeve (ULNA). Reminds me of the old joke, where does the general keep his armies? Up his sleevies!
64D: Darn, darn, darn! (SEW). So good.
And then there's the trivia of 50A: Early TV network that competed with NBC and CBS (DUMONT). How did I not know about this? DuMont laboratories were responsible for the long life of television sets due to their invention of a longer lifespan for a cathode ray tube. Cavalcade of Stars and The Honeymooners originated on this network. It disappeared in part because it didn't have a radio network on which to build its reputation. All information courtesy of Wikipedia.
Enjoy your celebration and your dinner!
- Colum
Happy Thanksgiving, HAFDTNYTCPFCA!
ReplyDeleteLoved this puzzle to pieces! The idea is great, the clues, terrific...I FEASTED on it!
I confess I didn't know DUMONT, but I lucked out by realizing that the word I knew would fit -- DuPont -- would make the "classic Abercrombie & Fitch logo" a POOSE.
Enjoy your day!
Thanks! Hope yours was excellent as well.
DeleteMy favorite answer today was CIA, because one of the early documents on the internet (well, I guess maybe the early days of the web? I forget exactly) was the CIA World Factbook. At a time when the internet just hadn't really been used much for stuff like that it was such a neat thing to have around. I guess these days I'm more likely to turn to wikipedia but I don't know, writing this comment inspired me to browse through the entry for Palau in the CIA World Factbook and it was all kinds of data which I normally wouldn't even think about.
ReplyDelete17:29
ReplyDeleteNice enough puzzle for the holiday. I thought JJOOHHNNSS was the funniest, although WWIINNDDEEDD was pretty good. I didn't know about IISSLLAANNDD having that large a population. I was under the older impression that the five boroughs had around 8.8M total, but that has now changed, evidently. I, like Ms. Clark, was saved from writing in DUpONT by the cross, which could have been gOOSE, but MOOSE fit both better, so no errors. TIMESSIGN was great.
10:27
ReplyDeleteFun! They're getting cleverer with the grid graphics, and I applaud the effort.