BONUS FEATURES
Hello, Dear Reader! It's me, Horace, filling in for Colum. I've always thought that when this blog ceases, it will disappear as quietly as it appeared - but that's not going to happen quite yet. Sorry this is a little late, but please do not take the timing itself as commentary.
The amusing theme today - er, yesterday - is movie titles that have had one extra letter added, with wacky cluing to match. The first one - "What you'll hear after-hours at a sports car sales lot?" for example, is answered with THESILENCEOFTHELAMBOS. "Lambo," being short for Lamborghini, a fancy Italian sports car. Another theme C/AP is the absurd "Winter wear for a stegosaurus?" giving JURASSICPARKA. Guffaw. Absurd and amusing.
I like that all the answers contain exactly one extra letter, with no other alterations to the titles, and if you remove all the added letters again and make them into a word, you get the appropriate "outtakes." Very nice.
I read over on xword (and this is just the kind of thing that Colum would have mentioned) that all but two Down entries cross at least one theme answer. That seems incredible, and you'd think it would force quite a bit of ACH-worthy junk, but aside from the usual IOU, CAF, NAV, etc., it's not too bad, and they even manage to work in some fun ones like STETSONHAT (Top of a range?), GOLFTAN (Shade that one might find on the links?) (I've always referred to that as a "farmer's tan"), and BOOKMAKERS (Odd's fellows?). What can I say, sometimes I like QMCs.
Overall, an entertaining Sunday.
- Horace
Apologies!!!
ReplyDeleteNice Holi picture! My daughter's boyfriend celebrated that in India a couple years ago! I actually did this one--and online, no less. Very unusual for me on a Sunday. I thought SILENCEOFTHELAMBOS was by far the best themer, but I also enjoyed THEBLAIRSWITCHPROJECT. Appreciate the deep dive into Korean names. Kim, Lee, Park, and CHOI. Who knew.
ReplyDeleteOh nice, I didn't notice this was a Funn Vigeland (co) authored puzzle until getting here. I'm really lax about reading the bylines despite having met at least several regular constructors.
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