Puzzles #37 & 38 or "I'm Going to Title My Children's Book 'Ivan the Terrible Czar'"

Puzzle #37 – completed with no errors. I don’t dare say I’m improving ‘cause that will mean the next puzzle will suck.

There were only two answers that I don’t really know:

11 down, “Actor Morales.” ESAI. He’s a modern day actor (born in ’62) and while I recognize some of the movies and shows he’s been in, I don’t recognize him. He was in La Bamba, Jericho, and a ton of other stuff.

60 down, “School for a future ens.” USNA. It wasn’t until after looking at the answer that I understood that ens. is ensign (a rank in the Navy), so USNA would stand for U.S. Naval Academy.

Since I completed #37 yesterday, but didn’t have time to blog about it – and it was so short – I am going to complete #38 and put it all in the same blog post…

Sometime later and after dinner (for which I made up a new recipe and it was yummy! Sundried tomato and basil polenta cut in ½ inch thick circles and sautéed/fried up a bit in olive oil – put “Just Jack” cheese on top, then slice of tomato, then a little pile a lightly steamed spinach on top – and then just a little dollop of garlic aioli on top of the spinach. Mmmm…).

#38 was great! And, it was chock full of tried and true clues and answers. First, here are a couple that I totally got and are a result of this little project o’ mine:

65 across, “Director Preminger.” OTTO
13 down, “Art Deco designer.” ERTE

The other very common answers were OBOE, ELIE (as in Wiesel), EDAM (as in the cheese), EDEN (lovely place where Adam and Eve allegedly lived), and IVAN (the terrible czar).

Answers I got, but don’t really know are:

26 across, “Money in South Africa.” RAND. Wikipedia tells me that it gets its name from “Witwatersrand, the ridge upon which Johannesburg is built and were most of South Africa’s gold deposits were found.”

3 down, “Actor Lloyd ___.” NOLAN. He’s been in a lot of stuff and, by all accounts, was a great actor. One movie I’ve heard of that he is in – but I have not seen – is The House on 92nd Street. That has been added to the Netflix queue.

Monday Puzzle #36 or "I Loooooove Harper's Island"

Well, I am at least proud of myself for continuing this puzzle thing every day. The last five days have been crazy hectic.

Puzzle #36 – couldn’t complete it, but came close. There were some familiar clues:

44 across, “Nick and ___ Charles of ‘The Thin Man’.” NORA. Totally nailed that. AND, this puzzle even had “44-across’s dog.” ASTA. Totally nailed that, too.

This puzzle also had “Art Deco master” as a clue. The answer is ERTE. This was a clue/answer in Puzzle #23. I remembered that I should remember it, but I couldn’t think of his name. But, the other answers gave it to me.

Couple of answers I don’t know are:

25 down, “King of Thebes, in myth.” CREON. I’m really weak when it comes to Greek mythology.

24 across, “W.W. II female.” I knew it was WAP or something like that, but the answer is WAC. WAP is Wireless Application Protocol. WAC is the Women’s Army Corps.

Ugh, so many things to write about and no time (Michael Jackson service is tomorrow! I need to find a countdown to Glee. I need to check out the Netflix queue and get back to my Pierre Loti book.). Actually, there is always time – but I’m going to watch the next episode of Harper’s Island – loooooove it!

Monday Puzzle #23 or "Battle of the Netflix Queue"

This evening, my husband brought in the mail and said, “Your epic has arrived,” referring to Dr. Zhivago. He has seen it and said it is loooong and may be one of the best movies he’s ever seen. He wants to watch it with me, which means he really must have liked it. My life does not allow me to…OH MY GOD. Oh my god. Omg. Ok, I am in that emotional state where I am deciding whether or not to be pissed. But, I have decided not to be because it was definitely not intended. I was going to say, “My life does not allow me to participate in one activity for (x number of hours),” meaning the length of Dr. Zhivago. So, I opened the Netflix envelope to see how long it is and what popped out? The next Entourage disc. My husband messed with the Netflix queue and bumped Entourage in front of Dr. Zhivago.

This may not seem like a big deal. But, I have been silently suffering my husband’s takeover of the Netflix queue for years. Recently, I have been going in and finding movies I want to watch and bumping them to the top of the queue – but every other movie. So, Dr. Zhivago was 1, Purple Rain is 3, Sunset Boulevard is 5, etc.

So now, we need to get through the three discs he chose before I get Dr. Zhivago. That’s fine. That’s totally fine.

What wasn’t fine was Puzzle #23. I didn’t complete it and I had an error. The error was in 24 across, “With competence,” and 6 down, “Slangy no.” I had “able” and “ixnae.” But, of course, it is ABLY and IXNAY.

The clues I was unable to complete were:

14 across, “1970’s tennis champ Nastase.” Answer is ILIE. He was a Romanian tennis player in the 70’s. My absolute favorite quote from the WikiP page is “Maxim magazine has placed Nastase at number 6 on its top ten ‘Living Sex Legends’ list, as he is reputed to have slept with over 2500 women. After hearing this, his wife said that she was happy to have conquered such a man.”

17 across, “F.D.R.’s dog.” FALA. If Barack Obama had a dog named Fala, do you think he would’ve been elected? Would that have been the straw that broke the Conservative, Paranoid, Right Wingers’ collective backs? I mean, it rhymes with Allah. Actually, it doesn’t. It is pronounced fay-lah. I know this because I heard it come out of FDR’s own mouth. That clip and some interesting information about Fala can be found here. And, the name is Scottish, not Terrorist (although that wouldn’t stop the CPRWers). www.presidentialpetmuseum.com tells me, “At first his name was Big Boy. Franklin renamed him Murray the Outlaw of Falahill after a Scottish ancestor. His nickname became Fala.”

1 down, “Old 45 player.” HIFI. I had the H and the last I.

I was happy to see 64 across, “Top draft level.” Totally got that it is ONEA, thanks to Puzzle #20.

Answers I got but don’t really know are:

66 across, “Noted Art Deco illustrator.” ERTE. If you visit www.erte.com, you will recognize his art.

35 down, “Leave in, as text.” STET. Wikipedia says, “Stet is a Latin word (meaning ‘let it stand’) used by proofreaders to instruct the typesetter or writer to disregard a change the editor or proofreader had previously marked.”

55 down, “College in New Rochelle, N.Y.” IONA.

And that’s it for #23. I’m off to watch…Entourage.