Friday, September 22, 2017

My time: 40:23.  Another kicking around the clock, but I took him down in the end.

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Love those long answers --- MI CASA ES SU CASA, I NEVER SAID THAT, ROMANTIC PERIOD, ICING ON THE CAKE.

I got stuck on a lot of tough, vague clues.  For "routine" I got stuck on the meaning of "well-known schedule" but it turned out to mean SHTICK.

"What Pérez Prado was King of" turns out to be THE MAMBO.  Always fascinating nickname trivia from Wikipedia: "He was nicknamed "El Cara de Foca" ("Seal Face") by his peers at the time."  King of the Mambo is a better nickname.  Because I'm not exactly a Mambo King myself, I initially had *THE MAMBA.

A DIODE is a two-terminal electronic component that conducts primarily in one direction, so "current director" is pretty clever!

Here's IAN Somerhalder of 'The Vampire Diaries."  I really don't watch a lot of TV.

Ohm's Law states that the current, measured in AMPS, through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the voltage across the two points.  So much electricity in this puzzle.

"Humiliating defeats" is the stupid ROMPS, not the *ROUTS it ought to be.  For "fish preserved in olive oil" I had *HERRING but it's SARDINE.

A cardioid figure is shaped like a fat heart, which has a lot of ARCs.  Watch the Wikipedia animated example.

"Label producer" is AVERY, a company that make self-adhesive labels.

Mo King UDALL, "longtime Arizona politician," I vaguely remember for the bit of trivia that he was briefly on the Denver Nuggets.

ESA-Pekka Salonen is a name I won't remember ten minutes from now, probably.

"Chamber of commerce?" is SHOP; that's pretty weak wordplay.

I never heard of Miami (resident: MIAMIAN) being called "Capital of Latin America," but there we are.

Clever, ambiguous clues abound: "gross" is EARN, not an adjective.  "It might have a tent sale" is REI.  "Old ball and chain?" is MACE.  "Small square" is ONE.