Wednesday's New York Times puzzle solved: January 31, 2018

My time: 8:18.

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Josh Radnor and Jeff Chen put their minds together to give us a PREMEDITATED theme.  Punnily enough, they added OM (ॐ) to the beginning of several phrases and then clued them literally.  Pre-meditation, get it??

So add om to "aha moments" and get "some wonderful times in Nebraska," or OMAHA MOMENTS.  "Makes an unabridged humor book?" is OMITS NO JOKE.  "Portentous fashion magazine?" is OMEN VOGUE.  And "good name for politico Martin's jazz band?" is O'MALLEY CATS.

Before I understood the "meditated"/"om" joke, I thought these were just portmanteaus, and I tripped myself up on the clue "small version of a popular cookie."  Believing it to be one of the themed answers, I put *JUNIOREO, as a blend of Junior Mint and Oreo.  The crossfill at the J was "juice brand with a distinctive bottle," so I thought the word ending with-OJ would work.  But actually, the small cookie is MINI OREO, and the crossfill is POM, the pomegranate juice with those bulbous bottles.

For "extraction target" I kept thinking of a *VIP in a bad spot needing paramilitary rescue, but it's actually the extraction of ORE.  This is verbatim what I wrote on December 14, 2017, the last time this happened.

Len CARIOU is an actor who has been in Thirteen Days, Spotlight, and "Blue Bloods."  Crossword creators love little-known character actors.

"Important stat for QBs" is TD PASSES.  I didn't think of that.

Gotta admire Radnor and Chen for fitting in SNOOP LION.

I got fooled by "court officials whose jobs have now been replaced by technology."  I kept thinking of legal courts.  But it's about tennis courts.  We no longer use NET JUDGES.  Read this quaint article about the transition, from 1996.

If I knew even the rudiments of Spanish, I'd have known that SER is the infinitive of "to be."

Never heard of ERMA Franklin, Aretha's older sister.  She originally recorded "Piece of My Heart," made famous, of course, by Janis Joplin.

Clever clues: "Women rush to get in it" is SORORITY.  "Extremely fancy?" is COVET.  "It has no point" is INTEGER.  "Symbol for the resistance?" is OMEGA.

Tuesday's New York Times puzzle solved: January 30, 2018

My time: 9:04.

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Emily Carroll takes being HOUSEBROKEN literally in this puzzle.  Running across a pair of rows are circled letters, some on one row and the rest above, which spell out a type of house --- "broken" up by being on different rows.  So we have A-F/RAME, then RAN/CH, DUP/LEX, and finally CHAL/ET.  Fun!

The Sun Devils are the mascot for ASU, Arizona State University.  Sparky the Sun Devil!  He has a pitchfork.

Llwynywermod is, as is obvious from the spelling, WELSH.  It's the residence of the Prince of Wales, located in Wales.  Clarence House is the more famous royal residence, in London.  There are also residences in Scotland and Gloucestershire.

I've never heard the term MOW for the part of a barn where hay is stored.  It's always in the full term, hay mow. Interestingly, it rhymes with cow, not low.  Haymow, you're an all star, get your hay on, get baled!

THETA is the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet, coming before iota.  In uppercase it is written Θ or ϴ, and in lowercase θ.

APPLETON, Wisconsin, is a town founded in 1835 that has a population of about 75,000.   It's home to Lawrence University, a liberal arts college founded in 1847.

And it's NAS!  Again!  Crossword creators' favorite rapper.  This time for the #1 album Hip Hop Is Dead, released 2006.

I almost knew KALAMATA, the "large Greek olive," but wasn't quite sure of the spelling.  It is named for the city in the south Peloponnese.

Did you know that the NY Y[ankees] are the Red Sox archrivals?  I didn't.

Of the two ETTAS mentioned in the puzzle, I've heard of Etta James, "the Matriarch of R&B," but not Etta Jones, a sadly little-known jazz singer.

LOMA Linda, California, is a city in southern California known mostly for its population of Seventh Day Adventists, apparently.

William T. SHERMAN may not have originated the phrase "WAR is hell," but he popularized it.  The entire quote is worth memorizing, actually.

Vientiane is the capital of LAOS.  It is located on the northwest border with Thailand, on the Mekong River.  Vientiane sounds like windy, Laos sounds like loss, it was lost in the wind. 

Apparently Major League Baseball's PENNANT RACE happens around September.

What was once THRACE is an ancient region now split between Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey, bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north and the Black Sea to the east.  An interesting fact is that this region was also once known as Europe.

NOB Hill is an affluent neighborhood in San Francisco.  Best fact: it abuts another neighborhood known as the Tenderloin, a not-so-affluent neighborhood, and this area is sometimes referred to as Tendernob.

Whew.   That was very tough for a Tuesday.  Time for a WREST.

Monday's New York Times puzzle solved: January 29, 2018

My time: 4:33, so close to the record I can see it!

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Lynn Lempel shows us how to DOWNSIZE.  Four Down clues have answers that have sizes in them, smallest to largest as they run west: "Crazy to run into you here!" is SMALL WORLD.  "Newspapers or magazines" is PRINT MEDIUM.  "Contest for an areawide seat" is AT-LARGE RACE (as opposed to electoral district voting).  And finally, "nonsense" is MUMBO-JUMBO.

I had a little bit of difficulty spelling REDDI-WIP.  Ugh.  Ugh on the product and ugh on the spelling.

The fill that probably cost me my Monday record is ET ALII, the masculine plural of "and others."  I, of course, put *ET ALIA, the neuter plural that is much more commonly used. 

Fun vague clue: "the P of PRNDL" refers to car gears.  PARK!

Here's GLEN Campbell's song "Galveston."  It was written by Jimmy Webb, like some other Campbell hits.

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is a plastic compound which is generally deemed unsafe in use for food packaging.

I didn't know OPELS ("Wir leben Autos") had a lightning bolt logo.

SAL ("Erie Canal mule of song) is such a habitual crossword denizen that it's old hat to me now.

Clever clue: "Gave a hand" is DEALT.  

I zoomed through this!  I wish I'd gone faster.  ZAP!

Sunday's New York Times puzzle solved: January 28, 2018

Today's time: 22:12, not bad!

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Priscilla Clark and Jeff Chen rewrote some film scripts to give us "plot twists."  Several entries are movie titles, the last letter of which has been changed to make a new plot.  For example, "retired pool shark returns... to win French impressionist painting!" is THE COLOR OF MONET.  "Guy makes a new best friend... who turns out to be a communist!" is I LOVE YOU, MAO.  "Big monster emerges... with a new line of snack crackers!" is SWAMP THINS.  And "West Coast officers track wisecracking detective... to a bovine!" is BEVERLY HILLS COW.  The funniest one is THE BIG CHILI.

As a capper, the changed final letters, from top clue to bottom, spell out "plot twist."  What a shocker!

AVOCETS are colorful North American wading birds.

I did not know that POP is called "tonic" in Boston.  Don't they speak English over there?  Of course, the Internet, television, and monolithic corporate branding combine to snuff out these regionalisms over time.

"One side of college football's Big Game" is CAL, as in the University of California.  Apparently, the Big Game is a rivalry game played by the University of California, Berkeley's California Golden Bears and Stanford's Cardinals.  It began in 1892.  And here I thought the Big Game was Army-Navy.  No, but that rivalry started in 1890.

Old-timey card players and other cool cats call ACES, especially pocket aces, "bullets."

"Norman!  Listen! Can you hear the LOONs calling?  They're welcoming us back to On Golden Pond!"

"Force on earth" is O-NEG.  Wait, no, that's a blood type!  It's actually ONE-G, as in gravity.  One g is the acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface and is the standard unit of gravity.

I didn't really understand why "two plus two equaling five" is an example of SYNERGY.  But I guess its literal definition is the interaction of two or more agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.

EVIE Sands is a singer who had some success in the 1960s and '70s.  I don't think I've ever heard of her.  One of her minor hits was "Any Way That You Want Me."

USO appears in crosswords a lot but I didn't know their motto was "Until every one comes home."  Well, that'll be never, then.

I've never heard of the cable channel ION, but their tagline is "Positively Entertaining," ha ha!  Its programming schedule seems to consist entirely of syndicated crime procedurals.

SKIL is a brand of tools, mostly saws and drills and sanders and grinders and like that.

Clever clues: "something coming off the shelf?" is BERG.  "Man, for one" is ISLE.  "Casualty of a crash?" is DATA LOSS.  "Bussing on a bus" is PDA. "Gift on a string" is a new way to prompt LEI.  "Mix and match?" is SPEED DATE.  "Org. that's found by accident?" is OSHA.  "Backtalk?" is ECHO.  "Sworn statement" is I DO.

Well, this was a fun puzzle, and that's NO LIE.  It had A FEW rough patches, but nothing to DRED.

Saturday's New York Times puzzle solved: January 27, 2018

My time: 17:09, an excellent time for me!

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A nice themeless by Mark Diehl.  It has a lot of interesting fill, like MARIE CURIE, BEER GUT, TRASHMOUTH, BLOODBORNE, STEADY DIET, TEAM EVENTS, ERRATA PAGE, ZYNGA, and more.

HEME is the red pigment in blood.  It's responsible for the red color in hemoglobin.

I only just recently heard about a Caesar cocktail; I read about it in a Mexican restaurant.  Sometimes it's called a Bloody Caesar.  It has CLAM JUICE!  Ick.

THINK YOUNG is clued as "be open-minded, maybe?"  So... so, so, what, exactly?  Being young is equal to being open minded, so old people are inherently close-minded?  [starts drafting angry letter to Mark Diehl on 1917 Corona typewriter]

New word to me: "trigger-to-cylinder connection" is PAWL.  In general use, it's a bolt that falls into notches in a mechanism to ensure movement in only one direction.

And another new word: POMACE, the pulpy residue from cider making.

"Hello, MARY LOU" was a hit for Ricky Nelson in 1961, but it was written by Gene Pitney.

Isfahan is the capital of Isfahan Province in Iran.  It's famous for its Islamic architecture.  It served as the capital of Persia in the past, but now his home to nearly four million IRANIANs.

Likewise, Thimphu is the capital of Bhutan.  It is home to 104,00 BHUTANI people.  I would memorize all 195 world capitals, if I were any kind of crossword doing guy.

Megan BOONE is an actress best known for "The Blacklist."  I saw a couple of episodes.  It was okay.  It's no "Breaking Bad."

"He hit a homer!  Folks, he hit the laces right off that ball!  He's rounding the bases now!  What a DINGER!  What a humdinger!"

For "green-skinned fruit" I had *APPLE for a long time, which slowed me up!  It's ANJOU.

For "tied up, in he operating room" I had *SUTURED for a long time, which also caused me trouble.  It's LIGATED.

Clever clues: "Side with?" is ABUT. "Space race?" is ALIENS.  "Kept close to one's chest?" is HUGGED.  "Bad way to get to work" is LATE.  "Something you may lay down or break" is THE LAW.

This was a fast time, but EWE can bet I can do it faster... someday.

Friday's New York Times puzzle solved: January 26, 2018

Today's time: 9:24, blowing away the previous record!

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Caleb Madison made this unthemed puzzle, which has a lot of interesting and unusual fill: MAKES A U-TURN, EVER SINCE, WORD VOMIT, WIKILEAKS, RARE COINS, KARATE KID, ON A DOWNER ("how buzzkills end things"), and ABERRANCE, among others.

I just got lucky today; I was on the same wavelength as the clues somehow.  The vagueness vanished, and I saw with clarity the single meaning needed out of the possible meanings.

TORTA appeared January 7 as an Italian dessert; this time it's "Mexican sandwich."  Its typical iteration is a meat, avocado spread, and beans on a crusty roll.

The song "Don't Matter" was a #1 hit in 2007 for AKON.  I've barely heard the name, but he appears to have multiple award nominations and sales records.

Did you know the NY RANGERS were the first American team to win the Stanley Cup, in 1928?  Me neither.  And it only took ten years!

TED Mosby is the character in "How I Met Your Mother" who is telling the story of how he met the kids' mother.  Suit up!  ...I haven't watched this show.

Lake Hamana, in Japan, is a source of lots of local seafood, including bass, oysters, and eels, caught by the EELERS.

I am the single-most clueless American male about sports, an ongoing series: Joe TORRE is a giant in baseball, having been a player, manager, commentator and manager.  He has the fifth-most wins as manager, and had over 2,000 hits as a player.  He wrote a 2009 memoir called The Yankee Years.

The world's first pizzeria is widely believed to be Antica Pizzeria Port-Alba, located in NAPLES.  It was opened in 1830.

Kamehameha Day, celebrated by HAWAIIANS, of course, honors King Kamehameha the Great, who first united the Hawaiian isles.  It occurs on June 11, but celebrations are held in the days before and after.

I didn't understand why SRS had "300 and 400 classes," but it's course numbering.  Frosh get the dreaded 101 classes and so on up.

Did you know Bulgarian rulers called themselves TSARS (emperors) as well?  Yes, Simeon I and Simeon II did that.  Around 913, Simeon assumed the title of tsar and was recognized as such  by Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos, having prior to that been styled Prince (Knyaz).  Simeon II, aka Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, ruled as tsar a thousand years later.

Lots of clever clues today as well: "Building block makeup" is CINDER.  "Diner order that gets filled?" is OMELET (I thought it might pertain to coffee or tea).  "Niche form of architecture?" is APSE.  "Sharp-looking footwear?" is STILETTOS.  "Sticking points" is PRONGS.  "Act without originality" is COVER BAND.  "Sloppy planting job?" is WET KISS.  "Something that people wish you would take when you leave" is CARE.

Well, gotta SPLIT.

Thursday's New York Times puzzle solved: January 25, 2018

Today's time: 13:54, not bad at all.

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Alex Eaton-Salners constructed a puzzle based around a "yachter's itinerary," ISLAND HOPPING.  This means that in the themed answers, you must "hop over" the island name found in the answer to see the "real" answer to the given clue.

For example, "smelled" is SCUBA TANK and if you eliminate the Cuba you get its real definition, "stank."  "Poetry" is "verse" wrapped around Bali: VERBALISE.  "Hayloft item" is BALTIMORE, or "bale."  And of course, "they're not pros" is CONCRETES.

(This all seemed very familiar.  It turns out that Chuck Deodene did a similar puzzle on October 3, 2017, and even used the same Timor/Baltimorean wordplay.)

"Group of football blockers" is O-LINE, which stands for offensive line.

Here's John Lennon and Yoko ONO's song of off the 1972 album Some Time in New York City, "We're All Water."  Not too bad at all, except when she makes those weird animal shrieks.

PHI is the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet, of which there are 24 letters.  Still, "#21 of 24" is fairly abstruse for a clue.  Phi is also the symbol for the Golden Ratio.

Not that I'll ever be able to master it, or probably ever have a need for it, but here's a clove hitch KNOT.  After all, as the site says so well, "Better to know a knot and not need it, than need a knot and not know it."

The rapper NAS comes up a lot in crossword puzzles.  I don't even know the album Illmatic, but I saw three squares and just put it right in.

I've never heard of LES Échos, a French economic and stock information daily paper.

I feel like RICOLA cough drops, made by an herbal lozenge company from Switzerland, taste too medicinal.  I guess that's ironic.

Robert Schumann was a German composer who wrote four symphonies and many Lieder.  I'm not sure he's widely known for his ETUDES.  Wikipedia says, however, "In 1837 Schumann published his Symphonic Studies, a complex set of étude-like variations which demanded a finished piano technique."

I did not know that L.A. also had a neighborhood called NOHO, but of course it's a pet name for North Hollywood, not North of Houston.

Also is Los Angeles: the OTIS College of Art and Design.  Edith Head graduated from there, maybe.

I've heard of one of the two KEVINS: Durant, but not Love.  He's a 6'10" power forward.  Yikes!

Clever clues: "some metal bands?" is ORE.  "Lush" is WINO.  "Part of España" is TILDE.  "Person with an inverted morality" is EVIL TWIN.  "Things with entrances and exits" is SCRIPTS.  "Ball boy?" is DESI.

Well, gee, IDA moved faster if I'd known I was doing so well.  OH SNAP!