Brian finishes off a long day by completing the Wednesday (May 28) puzzle.
It has been a very long day. It’s now 11:09pm as I write this, and I’m just sitting down to dinner. Ridiculous. But before I made dinner (salmon with buttery peas — quite good), I dispatched the Wednesday puzzle in just a few seconds over my average Wednesday time (9:22 as opposed to my 9:15 average). I needed help in one spot, but the rest was smooth sailing.
The theme today was basically “kinds of balls.” And before you think there’s anything dirty going on, we’re dealing with 38A. Word that can follow the starts of 17-, 21-, 58- and 64-Across and 3- and 40-Down (BALLS).
- 17A. Fund-raiser wear, perhaps : BLACK TIE — The last fundraiser I attended found me wearing a normal necktie. In fact, it was the necktie I had worn at my wedding. Not a black tie, but a diamond-ish criss-cross pattern, varying in shades of brown and orange.
- 21A. Yellow flower : BUTTER CUP — I got this first and “black tie” second, of the themed answers. Still couldn’t figure what word followed them…
- 58A. Artist’s smudge remover : GUM ERASER — A somewhat clumsy clue, but I got it easily enough.
- 64A. 1952 Gary Cooper western : HIGH NOON — I have never seen this movie. Although I have a DVD of it (still in shrinkwrap) in my office. I think I purchased it by mistake and never did anything about it.
- 3D. “All In The Family” nickname : MEATHEAD — Apparently, this was a popular television show. I have never seen it. (And of course I’ve heard of it; I’m being a little sarcastic here.) It came and went before I was allowed to watch television (circa 1987).
- 40D. Cajole : SOFT SOAP — What? I have absolutely no idea what this means. And it was the crossings between this and 60A. Goes for (COSTS) for which I needed help. As for 60-Across, I was thinking about going for a victory or some sort of accomplishment, as in vying or attempting. But really — soft soap? What on earth does that mean? Is it a verb? Or is “cajole” a noun I don’t know?
I’m exhausted, so that’s going to be all for my post here… I’m going to try and get the podcast up before the week gets too old… We’ll see what happens.N
