Saturday March 28 2009 Robert H Wolfe

Theme: None (No?)Total words: 74Total blocks: 36I am confused. I thought LA Times Saturday is always a themeless. But maximum word count for a themeless is 72. Today we have 74 words. Besides, all the three long entries have "No" in theme, maybe it's a themed puzzle, after all?17A: "No need to get so excited": KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON37A: "No way": DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH59A: "No idea": I HAVEN'T GOT A CLUE(Note: My bad, I made a mistake. There are only 72 words.)Another struggle, but not as hard as I dreaded last night. I got more than half of the grid filled. Erased a few and then googled a few. Good enough for me. I'll call it a success and move on.I am just so enamored with Rich Norris' "It.... clues", like yesterday's "It can pick up a plane" for RADAR and the other day's "It's twirled in a rodeo" for RIATA. I like the visual images the clues evoke.Today it's a plain fact-based "It replaced the Slovak koruna on 1/1/2009" for EURO (8D). Nice trivia, isn't it? PromiseMe' research yesterday shows that Finland is the only Nordic country that has switched to EURO.By the way, Rich Norris confirmed to me yesterday that there is no rebus puzzle in LA Times.Across:1A: According to design: AS PLANNED. Got it immediately.10A: Attended: WAS AT. Struggled with this simple fill.15A: Prolong: STRING OUT. Unknown to me. Only knew the phrase "string along". I wanted STRETCH something.16A: Prefix with glyph: HIERO. Hieroglyph. I knew the word, but could not spell it properly. HIERO is a prefix meaning "Sacred' or "priestly". Here are some Egyptian hieroglyphs. Sun is easy to recognize, so are the last two birds. I won't be able to tell house, mountain, god or reed though.19A: Triage sites, briefly: ERS20A: River of Tuscany: ARNO. "River of Florence/Pisa/Italy", whatever, the answer is always ARNO.21A: Short-tailed weasel: ERMINE. Turn around, buddy, I want to see if your tail is short.22A: Geometric fig.: RECT. Rectangle. RECT/RECTI is a prefix for "right"/"straight". Remember last time RECTI was clued as "Belly muscles" in our old puzzle? The singular is rectus, meaning "straight muscle of ab, thigh, etc". Rectus is Latin for "straight". Dictionary says RECTO, the right-hand page is rooted in rectus too. So is rectum (plural is recta).24A: Kiara's mother in "The Lion King": NALA. I wrote down ELSA, the "Born Free" lioness first.25A: Letters on seconds: IRR. Why? What are "seconds"?27A: "out?": IN OR. And NEED I (28D: "say more?"). Have to get used to the new cluing style.29A: "Medium" network: NBC. Unknown to me. I hope they have high ratings. GE owns NBC. And I want my GE stocks to go back to where I first bought them. Stupid GE Capital. Bleeder.32A: Breakthroughs in therapy, say: EYE OPENERS. I got the answer immediately. Did not quite understand the rationale though.35A: Language teaching site: LAB. Oh. I've never been to a language LAB. Science LAB yes.40A: "The Lord of the Rings" monster: ORC. Williams always clued it as "Tolkien baddie".41A: Visibly embarrassed: RED AS A BEET. I misremebered the phrase as RED AS BEETS.42A: Thin swimmer: EEL. It does not look thin to me. I really love unagi sushi rolls.44A: Speaker in Cooperstown: TRIS. HOFer. I don't have any of his baseball cards. But I have this stamp. Just learned this morning that his nickname is Spoke. Very interesting. Reminds me of that repetitive actor name Rip Torn.45A: Bit of treasure: GEM. "Bit" here means small?46A: Fireworks reaction: OOHS. Lots of fireworks/accidents during Chinese Spring Festival eve.48A: What a nyctophobe fears: DARK. Gimme. Learned I had mild nyctophobia when I linked this list long time ago. Nact/nacti/nacto is prefix for "night". I feel safe when the closet light is on in the evening.51A: Gelatin candy: JUJUBE. Have never had the JUJUBE candy. To me, JUJUBE is just Chinese date. Not as sweet as the Middle East palm dates though.54A: Composer Khachaturian: ARAM. No idea. Soviet-Armenian composer. Wikipedia says his works were very influenced by Armenia folk music. This coin looks like in mint condition. ARAM is quite close to ABRAM, often clued as "President Garfield's middle name".62A: Crescent shapes: LUNES. Mine was MOONS.63A: Floating point: WATER LINE. Unknown to me. What is "Floating point"?65A: Hematite producers: IRON MINES. I did not know the meaning of "hematite", the principal ore of iron. Hemat/hemato is a prefix for "blood". I don't know how is it related to ore.Down:3D: Foreknowledge: PRESCIENCE. Reminds me of Frigg, wife of Odin. She is prophetic but she never tells others what she knows. Cassandra does tell others what she knows, but no one believes her.5D: Novelist Seton: ANYA. Pure guess. Wikipedia says she wrote a book called "Foxfire" which was later made into a film. I wonder where Firefox the browser got its name then.6D: "The Killing Fields" Oscar winner Haing S. "NGOR. Foreign to me. He won Oscar Best Supporting Actor for his role in "The Killing Fields". He was born in Cambodia and his father was of Chinese descent. See how ridiculous Chinese languages are. His surname () would be spelled NG in Cantonese and Wu in Mandarin. The most absurd to me is Chiang Kai-Shek. He is always Jiang Jie-Shi to us who grew up in Mainland China. Maddeningly different spellings. Mao Tse-Tung ">NOUN. Great clue.9D: Rehab symptoms: DTS (Delirium Tremens)10D: Eddy: WHIRL11D: Pilot: AIRMAN. I wanted AVIATOR, but there is not enough space.12D: "Contact" acronym: SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence). Big stumper. I've never heard of the movie "Contact".18D: Limo leaders, at times: HEARSES24D: Peggy Lee and Marilyn Monroe, at birth: NORMAS. Only knew Marilyn's original name is NORMA Jean (For you, Democrat). Peggy Lee was born NORMA Deloris Egstrom.26D: Dashboard letters: RPM27D: Comic book artists: INKER. Funny Crossword INKER. 30D: Atlantic game fish: BLUE MARLIN. I've never seen a BLUE MARLIN. Why BLUE? The hue on his belly?31D: Zoo enclosure: CAGE. Of course. But my first reaction is LOGY, as in zoology.32D: Shogun's capital: EDO. Japanese kanjin for Shogun () is exactly the same as Chinese character for "general". Many times I understand Japanese words due to this similarity. But I don't know how to pronounce.34D: Like much pottery: EARTHEN. These Terra Cotta Warriors are EARTHEN too.36D: Food preservative letters: BHT (Butylated HydroxyToluene). No idea. Dictionary says it's used to "retard rancidity in foods, pharmaceuticals, and other products containing fat or oil". I checked my cooking oil, luckily there is no BHT. It sounds as toxic as Obama/Geithner's "Toxic Assets" or whatever the new name is. AIG/AIU, you can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig.43D: Slatted window opening: LOUVER. British spell this word as LOUVRE. Like Mona Lisa's Louvre.49D: Meet with the old gang: REUNE. Is this a real word? I've never seen it before.51D: Leave abruptly, as a lover: JILT. Reminds me of Julia Roberts' "Runaway Bride".53D: Doe to be identified: JANE55D"- Rooter: ROTO. Often clued as "Old newspaper section" in our TMS puzzle. I never really understand what section ROTO is.56D: Fordham's hoops conf.: A-TEN. Stumper. Have heard of Atlantic 10 conference. Don't know its abbreviation. Not familar with Fordham either. Here is a list of notable alumni. See Vince Lombardi, Alan Alda, and Denzel Washington?57D: School closing?: MARM. Learned schoolmarm from doing crossword.60D: Prefix with light: TWI. Oh, twilight. Is there a prefix actually meaning "light"?61D: One-third of CDLIII: CLI. 1/3 of 453=151.Full Answer Grid. C.C.

Source: about-world-religions.blogspot.com