OK, so, if you bend your head to the left and look at this grid sideways, you can almost imagine that it is meant to represent an IOMOTH (Showy insect with dark eyespots on its wings).
See what I mean? No? Harrumph. VERYWELLTHEN!
"Start of an old request for advice" (DEARANN) was tricky, and I was fooled, yet again, by "Driving necessity" (GOLFTEE). And how about "feel seen" debuting yesterday, and FEELHEARD (Be validated for vocalizing one's opinion) debuting today! Nice.
Personally, I prefer the word "murse" to MANBAG (Guy's carryall), but I am not, sadly, the one who gets to name everything.
Remember LEGGS eggs? Mom used to knit covers for them and make them into Humpty Dumpty-like characters.
What else? I don't know from DOCOCK (Spider-Man foe with metal "tentacles," familiarly). Oh wait, is that short for Doctor Octopus? Who comes up with these things? Oh right... the one who gets to name everything.
I keep seeing PRAGENCY (Image editor, informally?) as some weird misspelling of "pregnancy," and INFLIGHTWIFI (Air traveler's connection) never works for me. Of course, I never pay for it ... maybe that has something to do with it. And finally, "Helpful pointer, say?" is cute for SEEINGEYEDOG, but they're usually German Shepherds, aren't they?
Still, a fun, challenging Saturday. Just like we like.
- Horace
I see the moth, kinda. And I'm not familiar with DOCOCK either, but I bailed on Marvel movies a long time ago; not a fan of multiverses or long, drawn out battles or of everyone having superpowers. I use the INFLIGHTWIFI on my ever-more-frequent Jet Blue flights, but it's free and fast and usually works quite well. I find it strange that one uses it in airplane mode, but there you go. I enjoyed DRUNKTWEETING, even though I never did it. Other stuff was tricky, but fun, like LEAK and ENNE (where I entered EttE at first), and PENALTYKICK, where I wanted overtime or tie, but couldn't make either work.
ReplyDeleteOften times when solving the puzzle, certain entries go in that you just know are right. These are great because they give you something solid to build off of. So, this morning, with just a couple entries in the northwest, I poured OLDERGENERATION into 2 down like cement into a post that was to be my foundation for a Saturday puzzle. A couple of spot checks to nail it in place (GAT, OTB) and it was locked.
ReplyDeleteAt 39 Across I saw the clue "Dwindle". And if OLDERGENERATION was the concrete support, WANE at 39A was the steel reinforced crossbar that was never, ever coming out. *sigh*
So, I went back and finished the northwest and had MIDYEAR___ coming down. Oh I know this one...I'm in the corporate world...this'll be
MIDYEAR ASSESSMENT ... nope
MIDYEAR REVIEW ...nope
Okay...it’ll be MIDYEAR something-dumb-and-corporate. No worries. So I worked off the southwest and was left with MIDYEAR ___BACK.
Gee...what could possibly go in there?
The grumbly voice from deep in my brain jumped up and said “Don’t even think about FEEDBACK. Uh-uh. It doesn’t work with WANE.”
The normal part of my brain was thinking...um... FEEDBACK kinda looks like it would fit. But not wanting to be too confrontational it just moved on to other parts of the puzzle. Eventually, INFLIGHTWIFI fell into place and the F was this flashing red beacon that just screamed FEEDBACK.
“What are you talking about? If you put FEEDBACK in there, then you get WADE going across. That’s absolutely ridiculous. WANE is staying put! End of story.”
“Hey...whadda ya say...just for kicks. Let’s put FEEDBACK in see what it looks like? We can take it out later, I promise. Oh...and by the way...who’s that WONDA coming down at 39?”
After much grumbling...FEEDBACK finally went in. And I gotta admit, WADE looked really stupid. And I could only stare at it dumbfounded. Eventually, I just took it all out and had to return to blank squares. My brain was finally able to change the tape cassette and figure it out.
oof...that brain of mine can be really embarrassing