Category: Matthew Stock

Bill’s time: 22m 48s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 Dog adoption grp. : ASPCA

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)

11 Pop group with an “army” : BTS

BTS is a boy band from South Korea with seven members. The initialism “BTS” stands for the phrase “Bangtan Sonyeondan”, which translates literally as “Bulletproof Boy Scouts”. BTS is the best-selling musical act in the history of South Korea.

14 Setting for “Heidi” : ALPS

“Heidi” is a children’s book written by Swiss author Johanna Spyri and published in two parts. The first is “Heidi’s years of learning and travel”, and the second “Heidi makes use of what she has learned”. The books tell the story of a young girl in the care of her grandfather in the Swiss Alps. The most famous film adaptation of the story is the 1937 movie of the same name starring Shirley Temple in the title role.

19 Pepper grinder? : MOLAR

Molars are grinding teeth. The term “molar” comes from the Latin “mola” meaning “millstone”.

22 Extra lives or additional gems, for a freemium game : IN-APP PURCHASE

The “freemium” pricing strategy is common for applications available online. In such cases, a basic product is provided free of charge, and a premium is charged for proprietary features.

26 Pastoral setting? : PARISH

A pastor is a minister or priest in some Christian traditions. “Pastor” is the Latin word for “shepherd”.

27 “Who am I? Two-four-six-oh-___!” (“Les Misérables” lyric) : ONE

The 1980 musical “Les Misérables” is an adaptation of the 1862 novel of the same name by Victor Hugo. The show opened in London in 1985, and is the longest running musical in the history of London’s West End. My wife and I saw “Les Miz” in the Queen’s Theatre in London many years ago, but were only able to get tickets in the very back row. The theater seating is very steep, so the back row of the balcony is extremely high over the stage. One of the big events in the storyline is the building of a street barricade over which the rebels fight. At the height we were seated we could see the stagehands behind the barricade, sitting drinking Coke, even smoking cigarettes. On cue, the stagehands would get up and catch a dropped rifle, or an actor who had been shot. It was pretty comical. I didn’t really enjoy the show that much, to be honest. Some great songs, but the musical version of the storyline just didn’t seem to hang together for me.

28 Cracker shape : ANIMAL

Animal crackers have been around in the US since the late 1800s, with the recipe/design being imported from England. The first really successful commercially-produced animal crackers were produced by Nabisco and marketed as “Barnum’s Animals”. Nabisco animal cracker cookies were first sold in the famous “circus wagon” box in 1902, as a Christmas promotion. Over 40 million packages are now sold every year.

31 “The kids these days have gotten way better than me” : I’M TOO OLD FOR THIS NOW

Me too …

38 Text communication inits. : SMS

Short Message Service (SMS) is the name for the text messaging service that many of us still use on our cell phones to contact friends and family.

44 Actress Thompson : TESSA

Tessa Thompson is an actress from Los Angeles who is known for playing the supporting role of Jackie Cook on the TV show “Veronica Mars”, and for playing student leader Diane Nash in the 2014 film “Selma”. She also portrays superheroine Valkyrie in movies based on Marvel Comics characters.

48 Former minor-league team that played at Aloha Stadium : HAWAII ISLANDERS

Aloha Stadium is located in Honolulu and is home to the University of Hawaii’s Warriors football team. It is a multi-use facility, used for anything from high school football games to Bowl tournaments.

55 Crane lookalike : HERON

Herons are birds with long legs that inhabit freshwater and coastal locales. Some herons are routinely referred to as egrets, and others as bitterns. Herons look a lot like storks and cranes, but differ in their appearance in flight. Herons fly with their necks retracted in an S-shape, whereas storks and cranes have their necks extended.

58 Range rover … or something to do in a Range Rover : STEER

The Range Rover is the luxury version of the celebrated Land Rover made in England. The first Range Rover was produced in 1970.

65 Scrabble bonus seen six times in this puzzle : TRIPLE-LETTER SCORE

The game of Scrabble has been around since 1938, and is the invention of an architect named Alfred Mosher Butts. Butts was born on April 13th, and we now celebrate National Scrabble Day on April 13th each year in his honor.

73 In which “Ciamar a tha thu?” means “How are you?” : GAELIC

That would be Scottish Gaelic.

There are three Erse languages: Irish, Manx (spoken on the Isle of Man) and Scots Gaelic. In their own tongues, these would be “Gaeilge” (in Ireland), “Gaelg” (on the Isle of Man) and “Gaidhlig” (in Scotland).

82 Product lines? : BARCODE

There are two types of barcode widely used today:

1. Linear, or one-dimensional, barcodes usually comprise vertical black and white lines (“bars”) of varying thickness.
2. Matrix, or two-dimensional, evolved from linear barcodes. They are often square in shape, and are usually made up of an array of rectangles, dots, hexagons and other shapes. A common example is a QR code.

84 Something delivered by Jake Tapper or Anderson Cooper : CNN NEWS HEADLINE

Jake Tapper is a journalist working for CNN as lead Washington Anchor. Tapper is also a cartoonist. He wrote a comic strip called “Capitol Hell” that appeared in the Washington, DC paper “Roll Call” from 1994 to 2003. Tapper also had a platonic date in 1997 with Monica Lewinski, not long before the Clinton-Lewinski scandal made the headlines.

Anderson Cooper is a respected news personality on CNN and on various shows around the dial. Among my favorite appearances of his, although he would call them trivial I am sure, was as host of a great reality game show called “The Mole” that aired in 2001. Cooper’s mother was fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt.

89 Kofi of the U.N. : ANNAN

Kofi Annan was a diplomat from Ghana who served as secretary-general of the UN for ten years until the beginning of 2007. Annan was born into an aristocratic family, and had a twin sister named Efua Atta. Efua and Kofi shared the middle name “Atta”, which means “twin” in the Akan language of Ghana. Annan attended the MIT Sloan School of Management from 1971-72, and graduated with a Master of Science degree. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, winning jointly with the United Nations organization itself.

90 Pan feature : GOATEE

In Greek mythology, Pan was a lecherous god who was part-man and part-goat, and one who fell in love with Echo the mountain nymph. Echo refused Pan’s advances so that he became very angry. Pan’s anger created a “panic” (a word derived from the name “Pan”) and a group of shepherds were driven to kill Echo.

93 Battle royale : MELEE

A battle royal is a fight involving many combatants that is fought until one fighter emerges victorious. More recently, the term “battle royale” has become popular following the success of the Japanese film “Battle Royale” released in 2000. There are many, many video games that use the “battle royale” structure.

97 Cyrillic letter pronounced like the “zz” of “pizza” : TSE

Saints Cyril and Methodius were brothers, and Christian missionaries among the Slavic peoples. As well as introducing Christianity to the region in the 9th century, the brothers taught many illiterate people to write. They invented two Slavic alphabets for use in translating the Bible into Slavic languages. One is the Glagolitic alphabet, but the more famous is the Cyrillic alphabet that developed into the Cyrillic script that is used widely today across Eastern Europe and much of Asia.

98 “The English Patient” actress : KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS

The excellent 1996 film “The English Patient” is a romantic drama adapted from a 1992 novel of the same name by Michael Ondaatje. The very strong cast of “The English Patient” includes two of my favorite actresses: Kristin Scott Thomas and Juliette Binoche.

104 Attenuated : THIN

To attenuate is to reduce in intensity or effect, or to make thin or slender.

110 Home of the Hockey Hall of Fame: Abbr. : ONT

The Hockey Hall of Fame was established in 1943 in Kingston, Ontario. However, years of effort failed to raise sufficient funds to build a permanent building for the Hall of Fame in Kingston. The NHL finally agreed to construct a building for a permanent exhibition in Toronto that was opened in 1961. A larger home for the Hockey Hall of Fame was opened in Toronto in 1993.

115 Executive’s acumen : BUSINESS SENSE

“Acumen” is such a lovely word, I think, one meaning “keenness of judgment or insight”. “Acumen” is Latin for “point, sting”, the idea being that someone with acumen has mental sharpness.

117 Apt domain for basketball’s King James : COURT

Basketball player LeBron James (nicknamed “King James”) seems to be in demand for the covers of magazines. James became the first African-American man to adorn the front cover of “Vogue” in March 2008. That made him only the third male to make the “Vogue” cover, following Richard Gere and George Clooney.

118 Scanning inits. : MRI

MRI scans can be daunting for many people as they usually involve the patient lying inside a tube with the imaging magnet surrounding the body. Additionally, the scan can take up to 40 minutes in some cases. There are some open MRI scanners available that help prevent a feeling of claustrophobia. However, the images produced by open scanners are of lower quality as they operate at lower magnetic fields.

119 Something to believe in : CREDO

A creed or credo is a profession of faith, or a system of belief or principles. “Credo” is Latin for “I believe”.

122 Queen ___ : BEE

A queen bee has a stinger, just like worker bees. When a worker bee stings, it leaves its stinger in its victim. The worker bee dies after losing its stinger as the loss rips out part of its insides. However, a queen bee can sting with impunity as her stinger’s anatomy is different.

124 Easily irritated : TESTY

Somebody described as testy is touchy, irritably impatient. The term “testy” comes into English from Old French, ultimately deriving from “testu” meaning “stubborn, headstrong”, literally “heady”. So, our word “testy” comes from the same root as the French word “tête” meaning “head”.

Down

2 Kidney-related : RENAL

Something described as renal is related to the kidneys. “Ren” is the Latin word for “kidney”.

3 Maker of the Flashback console : ATARI

Atari was founded in 1972, and was one of the pioneers in the video game industry. One of the company’s early employees was Steve Jobs, who was hired to work on the game design for the arcade game “Breakout”. Jobs was tasked with reducing the number of chips needed for the game and he recruited his friend, Steve Wozniak, to help with the project. Wozniak designed a circuit board that used only 46 chips, a significant improvement over the original design that had over 100 chips.

5 Birds with deep booming calls : EMUS

The large flightless birds called emus make sounds by manipulating inflatable neck-sacs. The sac is about a foot long, has a thin wall and allows the bird to emit a booming sound. The type of sound emitted is the easiest way to differentiate between male and female emus.

6 “Better Call Saul” channel : AMC

“Better Call Saul” is a spin-off drama series from the hit show “Breaking Bad”. The main character is small-time lawyer Saul Goodman, played by Bob Odenkirk, who featured in the original series. “Better Call Saul” is set six years before Goodman makes an appearance in the “Breaking Bad” storyline. The lawyer’s real name is James Morgan McGill, and his pseudonym is a play on the words “S’all good, man!”

8 Texas city that’s home to Frito-Lay : PLANO

Plano, Texas is located in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. Settlers chose the name “Plano” in the 1840s. “Plano” is Spanish for “flat”, a reference to the terrain in the area.

11 “Au contraire!” : BUT NO!

“Au contraire” is French for “on the contrary”.

14 Urgent time to start gathering tax documents: Abbr. : APR

April 15th wasn’t always Tax Day in the US. The deadline for returns was March 1st from 1913-18, when it was moved to March 15th. Tax Day has been April 15th since 1955.

16 B.Y.U.’s city : PROVO

Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah has about 34.000 students on campus making it the largest religious university in the country. The school was founded in 1875 by Brigham Young, then President of the Church of Latter-day Saints.

23 A group of them is called a “crash” : RHINOS

Here are some colorful collective nouns:

• A pride of lions
• A shrewdness of apes
• A cloud of bats
• A bench of bishops
• A clowder of cats
• A waddling of ducks
• An army of frogs
• A knot of toads
• A memory of elephants
• A dazzle of zebra
• A tower of giraffe
• A crash of rhinos

33 Protagonist in “2001: A Space Odyssey” : DAVE

In the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey”, Dr. David Bowman (“Dave”) goes up against the spacecraft computer known as “HAL”.

34 Crockpot filler : STEW

We often use the term “crockpot” as an alternative for “slow cooker”. The generic term comes from the trademark “Crock-Pot”, which is now owned by Sunbeam products.

35 ___ Mendeleev, creator of the periodic table : DMITRI

Dmitri Mendeleev was a Russian chemist. When Mendeleev classified elements according to their chemical properties, he noticed patterns and was able to group elements into his famous 1869 Periodic Table. So powerful was his table that he actually predicted the properties of some elements that had not even been discovered in 1869. Element number 101 is mendelevium and was named after Mendeleev.

38 “___ All That” (1990s teen comedy) : SHE’S

The 1999 romantic comedy “She’s All That” is an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” (as is “My Fair Lady”). The critics hated “She’s All That”, but it still made it to number one at the box office.

39 Soda shop order : MALT

Walgreens claims to have introduced the malted milkshake, back in 1922.

46 Rikishi compete in it : SUMO

“Rikishi” is the term used for a sumo wrestler. “Rikishi” translates from Japanese as “strong man”.

50 Pink-furred cat in “Garfield” : ARLENE

Arlene is a pink stray cat who is fond of the title character in the “Garfield” comic strip by Jim Davis. Garfield is pretty rude to Arlene though, and often makes fun of the gap in her teeth.

51 Antipasto dish of tomatoes on grilled bread : BRUSCHETTA

In Italy the word “bruschetta” is pronounced differently than most people tend to pronounce the same word here in the US. We should be saying “broo-sketta” and not “broo-shetta”.

52 Campus military org. : ROTC

Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC)

61 Letter that rhymes with the letters before and after it : ETA

Zeta is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet, and is a precursor of our Roman letter Z. The word “zeta” is also the ancestor of the letter name “zed”, which became “zee”, the term that we use here in the US.

Eta is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, and is a forerunner of our Latin character “H”.
Originally denoting a consonant, eta was used as a long vowel in Ancient Greek.
The letter theta is the eighth in the Greek alphabet, and the one that looks like the number zero with a horizontal line across the middle.

67 Tony winner Renée ___ Goldsberry : ELISE

Renée Elise Goldsberry is an actress and singer who is best known to me for playing the attorney Geneva Pine on the TV show “The Good Wife”. Goldsberry also originated the role of Angelica Schuyler Church in the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton”.

75 Poet St. Vincent Millay : EDNA

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright, and the third woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (in 1923 for “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver”). Millay was noted not only for her work, but also for the open arrangement that she and her husband had in their marriage. Millay took many lovers, including the poet George Dillon for whom she wrote a number of sonnets.

83 Engine parts : CAMS

Cams are wheels found on the camshaft of a car’s engine that are eccentric in shape rather than circular. The rotation of the cams causes the intake and exhaust valves of the cylinders to open and close.

85 Bigwig : NABOB

A nabob is a person of wealth and prominence. “Nabob” was once used as a title for a governor in India.

86 Coup d’___ : ETAT

A coup d’état (often just “coup”) is the sudden overthrow of a government, and comes from the French for “stroke of state”. The Swiss-German word “putsch” is sometimes used instead of “coup”, with “Putsch” translating literally as “sudden blow”. We also use the abbreviated “coup” to mean “sudden, brilliant and successful act”.

88 One birthed in Perth : AUSSIE

Perth is the capital city of Western Australia. Perth earned itself the nickname of “City of Light” in 1962 as virtually all the town’s lights were turned on at full power when astronaut John Glenn passed overhead in earth orbit in Friendship 7, so that he could see the city below. The city gave a repeat performance for Glenn in 1998 when he passed overhead in the Space Shuttle in 1998.

95 Place in a crypt : ENTOMB

A crypt is a chamber that is located partially or totally underground. The term “crypt” comes from the Greek “kryptos” meaning “hidden”.

99 Invisible household hazard : RADON

The element radon (Rn) is a radioactive gas, and a byproduct produced when uranium decays naturally in the earth. Radon gas can collect and accumulate in buildings and rooms that are particularly well insulated with very little air exchange. The danger is very real, as radon is listed as the second most frequent cause of lung cancer after cigarette smoke.

103 Crete’s highest point, for short : MT IDA

There are two peaks called Mount Ida that are sacred according to Greek mythology. Mount Ida in Crete is the island’s highest point, and is where one can find the cave in which Zeus was reared. Mount Ida in Asia Minor (located in modern-day Turkey) is where Ganymede was swept up by Zeus in the form of an eagle that took him to Olympus where he served as cupbearer to the gods.

112 Exam with “calculator” and “no calculator” math sections : PSAT

Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT)

114 G.I.’s rations : MRE

The Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE) comes in a lightweight package that’s easy to tote around. The MRE replaced the more cumbersome Meal, Combat, Individual (MCI) in 1981, a meal-in-a-can. In turn, the MCI had replaced the C-ration in 1958, a less sophisticated meal-in-a-can with a more limited choice.

115 Dating inits. : BCE

The designations Anno Domini (AD, “year of Our Lord”) and Before Christ (BC) are found in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The dividing point between AD and BC is the year of the conception of Jesus, with AD 1 following 1 BC without a year “0” in between. The AD/BC scheme dates back to AD 525, and gained wide acceptance soon after AD 800. Nowadays a modified version has become popular, with CE (Common/Christian Era) used to replace AD, and BCE (Before the Common/Christian Era) used to replace BC.

116 Negative Boolean operator : NOR

Boolean logic is a logic system used in computers. The system takes its name from the man who devised it in 1854, George Boole. Boolean logic is used by many Internet search engines. Using Boolean logic in a search you can combine words into one search term “like this” by using quotation marks. You can also search for pages that contain “term one” but not “term two” by searching for “term one” – “term two”.