Thursday, September 7, 2017

Today's time: 27:43.

--

I could not finish Wednesday's puzzle.  Just way too much esoteric, foreign fill.   EZIO?  HADJ?  DOG IT?  Ugh.

Back to today!  Fresh start!  The "ABC order" theme of today's puzzle is very clever indeed.  I caught on immediately, and it helped enormously with the fill.

Lady Bird Johnson's real name?  CLAUDIA Alta Johnson, née Taylor.  Aw, poor little lame baby bird!

Apparently, cathode ray tube is popularly abbreviated CRT.  I don't believe I have ever heard that.

I also did not know that an the unit barrel (as in oil) is abbreviated BBL.

I have never heard anyone say, "I'm IN UP to my ears!"

MIT is a school we all know, but did you know it was on the Charles River?  I didn't.  So is Brandeis, Boston University, and Harvard.

I'm not really a car buff, so I'd never heard of the "classic Camaro" IROC (named after the International Race of Champions), but apparently it's a good buy.

I have heard of EYDIE Gormé, just barely, but I had imagined her name as pronounced "Edie," and when presented with five letters, wrote *EDDIE.  I knew there was something wrong there.

"Retrieves, as balls" alone added a good ten minutes to my time.  I had *SNAGS until I realized it just didn't work there, and finally stumbled on SHAGS.  Another sports term I don't know.  BOOYAH!

And yet still more sports minutiae: CITO Gaston, "first African-American manager to win a world series."   His name sounds like Citgo Gas-station.  He managed the Blue Jays his entire career.  Figures Canada would be the first to give a brother a chance.

ROLEO is not an often-used word, but it's a word!

Crossword makes sure love Nas.  He's not even in the fill this time!

Clever clues: "Heading for the fence?" is HOT.