Teen Week continues with the Wednesday, September 10 puzzle by Lucas Gaviotis Whitestone (answers.) The notepad says he's an 18-year-old student at Carnegie Mellon and his debut puzzle uses circles to explore the "inner" meaning of his four theme answers.
Today's surprise debut answer word is COWBELL. "It may be heard in a herd." "Menaces to hobbits" is a colorful clue for ORCS. IVOR Novello wrote Keep the Home Fires Burning. It was a big hit in 1915.
I'm not sure "standard degrees for scientists" works for CENTIGRADE SCALE. Surely scientists would far more often use the modern Celsius rather than the long-deprecated Centigrade. Perhaps "standard degrees for junior high science teachers approaching retirement" was too long.
"Come to PAPA" is such a common phrase. I wonder whence it arose.
This puzzle reminds me of a very memorable crossword from Tuesday April 25, 2006 by Kevan Choset. Try it here and you'll see why. I’m serious. Try it.
Since the political season is heating up, I think it's time to bring in a legendary foreign actor to explain what America is all about. Lights, Camera, Emote!
Me, I'm going to throw up, Scotty!
Thanks for the extra puzzle and good vibrations, man. I liked this one the best so far this week, but it was on my wave length entirely. Peace Brother! V
Posted by: PhillySolver | September 09, 2008 at 08:01 PM
More COWBELL! More COWBELL!
That was very good, I really liked the Inner theme. I don't know the difference between Centigrade and Celsius, Jim, but I enjoyed your recluing of it.
It's very easy to imitate Captain Kirk: just emphasize the wrong syllable in the sentence. Say "we come IN peace" and you'll see what I mean.
I always thought VLAD would make a good personalized license plate on a Chevy Impala.
Posted by: KarmaSartre | September 09, 2008 at 08:12 PM
Good theme, well executed, and more varied fill than we've seen for a while! Lots to like -- from "Not the main bank" BRANCH to "Pasta has it" STARCH, and "Secret Service eyewear" SHADES! Thanks, Lucas...encore!
Posted by: ArtLvr | September 10, 2008 at 05:02 AM
Funny I think this was a record Wednesday time for me, no problems, but I needed 5 minutes more for the linked Tuesday, and I've solved it before!
The Celsius used to be called the Centigrade, but some French dude had a problem with that name, so they renamed it.
Good to see a CMU kid among the constructors.
Posted by: pb2q | September 10, 2008 at 11:54 AM