Another lovely Saturday grid. Kind of a big Z shape, with triple-stacks top and bottom. Stacks are always a little daunting, but here, the top, anyway, had a few gimmies - STACEY (Voting rights activist Abrams), HIDES (Prepares for a surprise party), and OLES (Cries after un gran gol de fútbol) were enough to give me THRILLAINMANILA (Much-viewed showdown of 1975) (It was viewed in my house), and Swift's classic AMODESTPROPOSAL. After that, the top was finished up in maybe five minutes. The lower half, on the other hand, didn't go so quickly.
Interesting trivia about SAMOA (Nation that moved east of the International Date Line in 1892 and west of it in 2011). Good QMCs included WHISK (Beat in a bake-off?), SOLARCAR (One traveling by daylight?), and "What a helicopter might fly out of?" (MAPLE). My downfall came at 40A: College-level course for H.S. coders (APCS). I did not know this abbreviation for "Advanced Placement Computer Science," and had guessed APpS, which made ALACARTE (Individually, in a way) incredibly difficult for me to see. I might also have been slightly distracted by an absurd ceremony that was happening on the TV. Some kind of dress-up affair in a church, and then a golden coach being pulled by white horses, and a bunch of announcers pronouncing "mall" as "mehl."
One thing you might find amusing is that I have a folder on my work computer labeled "Mens REA," and I use it to store various questionable things that I may or may not have downloaded and which may or may not be completely ... well, you know. I adapted the idea of one of Frannie's co-workers, who had a folder on his desktop labelled "Porn." His argument was, "If they open it, they know what they will get."
So anyway... I'm a big fan of PROPEACE activities, and when SOLARCARs are viable, I would like to buy one.
Tricky Saturday.
- Horace
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