Thursday, December 7, 2017

My time: 15:53.

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Dan Shoenholz created today's puzzle.  It has five themed answers that include three-letter words that are homophones of letters: JOHN JAY, CHINA SEA, BUSY BEE, TEXAS TEA, and UP TO YOU (why did he break the pattern like that?)  Well, I'll be.  I mean, gee.  But then, why?

The clue "1, for 45°" puzzled me.  It's TANGENT.  That means the opposite side length divided by the adjacent side length in a right triangle.  For 35° it's 0.7.  To remember how to calculate sine, cosine, and tangent, please use this humorously unhelpful mnemonic.

In the never heard of him department, IVO Andrić was a novelist who won the Nobel Prize in 1961.  The 1945 historical novel The Bridge on the Drina is his most famous work.

Johnny MATHIS sang with Deniece Williams on the duet "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late."

Hello, stage APRON.  We have not seen you since October 18.

I was very puzzled by "bluejacket" until the crossfill revealed TAR, which of course is a sailor.  I was stuck in the Civil War.

The K STATE whose mascot is the Wildcats is Kansas.

For "sci-fi weapon" I wanted *ZAP gun but it's the much less retro ION gun.  Ion guns are apparently real?

"Cougar prey" is ELK, whew.  I was hoping/fearing it might be *LAD.

GIL Hodges was a first baseman and manager for the Mets.  It will come as no surprise that I have never heard of him.

LEVIS Stadium is in Santa Clara, California, and home to the San Francisco 49ers.  Yet another of those American ballparks named after faceless corporate behemoths that strip the game of all character.

New Jersey city FT. LEE (a.k.a. the less popular Fort Lee), is --- a genuine surprise to me --- the birthplace of the American film industry.

The YEN was adopted as currency after Japan's Meiji restoration, which put actual power in the hands of the Emperor after a centuries-long Shogunate.

Well, that was pretty good.  I FEEL OK about it.  But I KEN do better!