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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

11 FedEx rival : UPS

United Parcel Service (UPS) is based in Sandy Springs, Georgia and has its own airline that operates out of Louisville, Kentucky. UPS often goes by the nickname “Brown”, because of its brown delivery trucks and brown uniforms.

14 Superconductor? : MAESTRO

“Maestro” is often used to address a musical conductor. “Maestro” (plural “maestri”) is the Italian word for “master, teacher”. The plural in English is usually “maestros”.

15 Service provided by Kaplan and the Princeton Review : SAT PREP

Kaplan Inc. was founded in 1938 by Stanley Kaplan, who started his career tutoring students for the New York State Regents Exam in the basement of his parents’ home in Brooklyn. He opened up locations for tuition around the country, and in 1984 sold the company to the Washington Post. Revenue for Kaplan was over 2½ billion dollars in 2009.

The Princeton Review is a company that offers test preparation for those about to take college admission tests.

18 Catherine the Great, for one : TSARINA

A tsarina (also “czarina”) was the wife of a tsar (also “czar”), and so was a Russian empress.

19 Some poison control center cases, in brief : ODS

Overdose (OD)

20 City on Florida’s Space Coast : COCOA BEACH

The coastal town of Cocoa Beach in Florida was known as Oceanus, until the name was changed in 1925. The contemporary name comes from the nearby city of Cocoa that was chartered in 1895. Cocoa Beach’s economy has depended on NASA since the sixties, as the John F. Kennedy Space Center is located 15 miles north of the town. Cocoa Beach was also the setting for “I Dream of Jeannie”, although no filming was done locally.

22 “The Marriage of Figaro,” e.g. : OPERA

Figaro is the title character in at least two operas: “The Barber of Seville” (“Il barbiere di Siviglia”) by Rossini, and “The Marriage of Figaro” (“Le nozze di Figaro”) by Mozart. The two storylines are based on plays by Pierre Beaumarchais, with one basically being a sequel to the other.

28 Mazda sports car : MIATA

The Mazda MX-5 is sold as the Miata in North America, and as the Roadster in Japan. I’ve always liked the looks of the Mazda Miata, probably because it reminds me so much of old British sports cars. The Miata is built in Hiroshima, Japan. The name “Miata” comes from an Old High German word meaning “reward”.

42 Some stir-fry vegetables : SUGAR SNAP PEAS

Sugar peas are also known as snap peas. These peas are eaten before the seeds mature, and the whole pod is consumed.

48 “___ and the Detectives” (1929 novel) : EMIL

“Emil and the Detectives” is a novel first published in 1929. It was originally written in German and was titled “Emil und die Detektive”. The Disney company released a film adaptation in 1964.

54 Rapper with the hit 1990 album “To the Extreme” : VANILLA ICE

Vanilla Ice is the stage name of rapper Robert Van Winkle. Van Winkle used to breakdance with a band of friends when he was a young teenager and, as he was the only white guy in the group, he was given the nickname “Vanilla”.

66 International news agency since 1851 : REUTERS

The Reuters news agency was formed way back in 1851 by German-born, British entrepreneur Paul Julius Reuter. Reuter had checked the feasibility of a news service for a couple of years prior to launching the agency, and the technologies he used for his study were the telegraph and carrier pigeons!

67 Explosive stuff : TNT

Trinitrotoluene (TNT)

68 “Shameless” channel, for short : SHO

“Shameless” is a comedy drama TV series about a dysfunctional Chicago family consisting of six children and a single father who spends his days drunk. The US show is a remake of the original British “Shameless” that is based on a similar family who live in Manchester in the North of England.

69 Archrivals : NEMESES

Nemesis was a Greek goddess, the goddess of retribution. Her role was to make pay those individuals who were either haughty or arrogant. In modern parlance, one’s nemesis (plural “nemeses”) is one’s sworn enemy, often someone who is the exact opposite in character but someone who still shares some important characteristics. A nemesis is often someone one cannot seem to beat in competition.

Down

3 Cartoon frames : CELS

Animation cels are transparent sheets made of celluloid acetate that were used in traditional hand-drawn animation to create animated films. They were first introduced in the 1930s and were widely used in animation production until the late 1990s, when digital animation techniques began to dominate the industry.

5 Part of T.G.I.F. : IT’S

“Thank God It’s Friday” (TGIF)

6 Jim who sang “Time in a Bottle” : CROCE

“Time in a Bottle” is a song written by Jim Croce in 1970 and recorded by him in 1972. The song was released as a single in 1973, soon after Croce died in a plane crash. It was to be Croce’s last number-one hit.

7 Abnormally deep sleep : SOPOR

“Sopor” is a Latin word that we’ve absorbed into English. It translates as “deep sleep” or “lethargy”.

11 Dickens’s ___ Heep : URIAH

Uriah Heep is a sniveling and insincere character in the novel “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens. The character is such a “yes man” that today, if we know someone who behaves the same way, then we might call that person a “Uriah Heep”.

12 Divisions of British pounds : PENCE

I remember the days when there were 240 “pence” (pennies) in an Irish/British pound. Life became so much easier when that was changed to 100 “new pence” in 1971.

13 Hall-of-Fame pitcher Warren : SPAHN

Warren Spahn was a left-handed pitcher who won 363 games, more than any other left-handed pitcher in history. The Warren Spahn Award has been presented annually by the Oklahoma Sports Museum since 1999.

16 Antebellum : PREWAR

The Latin word “antebellum” means “before the war”, which is the sense that we use the term in English. Here in the US, we mostly use the term with reference to the American Civil War.

21 Sleeveless undergarment, for short : CAMI

A camisole (also “cami”) is a sleeveless undershirt worn by women that extends down to the waist. “Camisole” is a French word that we imported into English that ultimately derives from the Latin “camisia” meaning “shirt, nightgown”.

27 Pontiac muscle cars : GTOS

The Pontiac GTO was produced by GM from 1964 to 1974, and again by a GM subsidiary in Australia from 2004 to 2006. The original GTO’s design is credited to Pontiac chief engineer at the time John DeLorean, who later founded the DeLorean Motor Company.

30 Taj Mahal city : AGRA

Agra is a medieval city on the banks of the river Yamuna in India that was the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1556 to 1658. The city is home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites:

• The Taj Mahal: the famous mausoleum built in memory of Mumtaz Mahal.
• Agra Fort: the site where the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond was seized.
• Fatehpur Sikri: a historic city that’s home to well-preserved Mughal architecture.

31 Conical shelter : TEEPEE

A tepee (also written as “tipi” and “teepee”) is a cone-shaped tent traditionally made from animal hides that is used by the Great Plains Native Americans. A wigwam is a completely different structure and is often a misnomer for a tepee. A wigwam is a domed structure built by Native Americans in the West and Southwest, intended to be a more permanent dwelling. The wigwam can also be covered with hides but more often was covered with grass, reeds, brush or cloth.

41 Code-breaking grp. : NSA

The National Security Agency (NSA) runs an annual Codebreaker Challenge that is aimed mainly at the student population. As best I can tell, the focus of the challenge is reverse software engineering. Checking out the Codebreaker Challenge website suggests that the NSA runs this program in order to identify and attract potential new employees.

44 Songs for one : SOLI

“Soli” (the plural of “solo”) are pieces of music performed by one artist, whereas “tutti” are pieces performed by all of the artists.

45 Something a scratch golfer expects to shoot : PAR

A golfer whose handicap is zero is known as a “scratch golfer”. A player with a handicap of 18, given that there are 18 holes in a full round, is known as a “bogey golfer”.

49 Virginia’s George ___ University : MASON

George Mason was a Virginia politician who served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Mason was one of only three delegates who refused to sign the resulting constitution, citing that the document did not establish a “wise and just government”. Mason was also the first delegate to propose that the nation’s seat of government not be located in a state capital.

50 Like argon : INERT

The chemical element argon has the symbol Ar. It is a noble gas, and so by definition is relatively nonreactive. The name “argon” comes from the Greek word for “lazy, inactive”. There’s a lot of argon around, as it is the third-most abundant gas in our atmosphere.

56 Nessie’s habitat, supposedly : LOCH

Scotland’s Loch Ness is famous for its fabled “monster”, referred to affectionately as “Nessie”. The loch is the second-largest lake in the country (Loch Lomond is the largest). Loch Ness takes its name from the River Ness that flows from the loch’s northern end.

63 “Fee, fi, fo, ___” : FUM

The line “fee-fi-fo-fum” (with various spellings) comes from the famous English fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk”. Within the story, the giant at the top of the beanstalk utters a little poem when he detects the presence of Jack:

Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive, or be he dead
I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.