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Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
11. Rental car add-on : GPS
GPS stands for Global Positioning System. The modern GPS system that we use today was built by the US military who received the massive funding needed because of fears during the Cold War of the use of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. We civilians, all round the world, owe a lot to President Ronald Reagan because he directed the military to make GPS technology available to the public for the common good. President Reagan was moved to do so after the Soviet Union shot down KAL flight 007 carrying 269 people, just because the plane strayed accidentally into Soviet airspace.

19. Megan of “Will & Grace” : MULLALLY
Megan Mullally is an actress probably best known for playing Karen Walker on the TV sitcom “Will & Grace”. Mullally also has a recurring role on the sitcom “Parks and Recreation”, playing Tammy Swanson, the ex-wife of Ron Swanson. In real life Tammy and Ron aren’t exes, as Megan Mullally is married to actor Nick Offerman who plays Ron Swanson.

26. Peyton Manning’s former teammates : COLTS
Even I know that Eli Manning and his older brother Peyton are both quarterbacks!

27. Chuck of NBC News : TODD
Chuck Todd is a television journalist. Todd is the Chief White House Correspondent for NBC.

28. Grub around : ROOTLE
To rootle around is to root around, to dig with the snout.

33. Hosen material : LEDER
Lederhosen is the German word for leather breeches, traditional garments worn by males in Bavaria and Austria.

37. Language that is mostly monosyllabic : LAO
Lao, the language of Laos, does not use spaces between words (or periods!), although this is apparently changing. Spaces are used between sentences and clauses.

39. Lifeguard’s skill, for short : CPR
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) has for decades involved the simultaneous compression of the chest to pump blood using the heart, and artificial respiration by blowing air into the lungs. Nowadays emergency services are placing more emphasis on heart compressions, and less on artificial respiration.

54. Drain cleaner, chemically : NAOH
Caustic soda is sometimes called lye. Chemically, caustic soda it is sodium hydroxide (NaOH). It’s nasty stuff, a white solid in its pure form. When you add it to water it generates an awful lot of heat, a property that is taken advantage of in using lye as a drain cleaner.

56. Singer Falana and others : LOLAS
Lola Falana is a singer, dancer and actress who grew up in Philadelphia. In the sixties Falana had an affair with, and later became good friends with, Sammy Davis Jr. Davis helped get her act into Las Vegas where she was very successful, eventually earning Falana the nickname “Queen of Las Vegas”. With her success came money, and so she became the highest paid female performer in Vegas at that time. Sadly, Falana suffers from multiple sclerosis, a disease that forced her to cut short her career as an entertainer.

59. Handel’s “___ e Leandro” : ERO
The Greek myth of Hero and Leander gave rise to a couple of operas (one by Giovanni Bottesini and another by Arrigo Boito) and a more famous cantata from George Frideric Handel, all called “Ero e Leandro”.

60. At full speed : AMAIN
“Amain” is an old term meaning “at great speed” or “of great strength”.

63. Movies often with shootouts : OATERS
The term “oater”, used for a western movie, comes from the number of horses seen, as horses love oats!

71. World capital that’s home to Zog I Boulevard : TIRANE
Tirane is the capital city of Albania and has been so since 1920. The city was seized by the Nazis in WWII but was liberated in 1944, at which point the Communists seized power. The Communists were ousted in the elections of 1992 leaving a void that led to much bloodshed and an eventual EU military mission to stabilize the capital and the rest of the country. Today things have become so calm that Albania is a member of NATO.

Zog I served as Prime Minister of Albania from 1922 to 1924, then as President from 1925 to 1928 and finally as King from 1928 to 1939.

72. Volatile stuff : TNT
TNT is an abbreviation for trinitrotoluene. Trinitrotoluene was first produced in 1863 by the German chemist Joseph Wilbrand, who developed it for use as a yellow dye. TNT is relatively difficult to detonate so it was on the market as a dye for some years before its more explosive properties were discovered.

79. Hoppy pub quaff : IPA
India Pale Ale is a style of beer that comes from England. The beer was originally intended for transportation from England to India, hence the name.

81. Forbes competitor : INC
“Inc.” is a business magazine that specializes in articles about growing companies. “Inc.” publishes a list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the country each year, calling it the “Inc. 500”.

The Forbes 400 is a list published annually by “Forbes Magazine”, a list of the 400 Americans with the largest net worth. Top of the list for the 17 years up to 2010 was Bill Gates. In the year 2000, the 400 wealthiest people controlled 12.2% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product. That’s 12.2% … I wonder what Thomas Jefferson would have thought of that …

86. Onetime high fliers : SSTS
The most famous Supersonic Transport (SST) was the Concorde, a plane that’s no longer flying. Concorde had that famous “droop nose”. The nose was moved to the horizontal position during flight to create the optimum aerodynamic shape thereby reducing drag. It was lowered during taxi, takeoff and landing, so that the pilot had better visibility. The need for the droop nose was driven largely by the delta-shaped wings. The delta wing necessitates a higher angle of attack at takeoff and landing than conventional wing designs, so the pilot needed the nose lowered so that he or she could see the ground.

87. God holding a thunderbolt : ZEUS
Zeus was the father of the gods and the father of men in Ancient Greek religion. Zeus ruled the Olympian gods who resided on Mount Olympus. The Roman equivalent of Zeus was Jupiter.

93. Musical composition about a lumberjack’s seat? : STUMP ORATORIO (stump orator)
I guess a stump orator is one giving an oration while standing on a stump!

“To stump” can mean to go on a speaking tour during a political campaign. This peculiarly American term dates back to the 19th century. Back then a “stump speech” was an address given by someone standing on a large tree stump that provided a convenient perch to help the speaker get his or her message across to the crowd.

103. Division of biology : MITOSIS
Mitosis is the process by which the complement of chromosomes in a cell nucleus replicates and then divides into two identical sets of new chromosomes. Mitosis is followed by division of the cell itself, resulting in two identical cells. Meiosis is a special type of cell division that results in reproductive cells that have half the full complement of chromosomes. The reproductive cells join together, with one cell coming from each parent, to form a new cell with a full complement of chromosomes. That new cell develops into offspring that have characteristics of both parents.

105. Paperback publisher since 1941 : AVON
Avon was a noted publisher of comic books and paperbacks. The company was founded in 1941, and focused on pretty low-brow literature designed for popular appeal.

109. Wally of cookie fame : AMOS
Wally Amos was a talent agent, one who was in the habit of taking home-baked cookies with him as an enticement to get celebrities to see him. He was urged by friends to open a cookie store (the cookies were that delicious, I guess) and this he did in Los Angeles in 1975 using the name “Famous Amos”. The store was a smash hit and he was able build on the success by introducing his cookies into supermarkets. The brand was eventually bought up making Wally a rich man, and Famous Amos cookies are still flying off the shelf.

110. Stunner : TASER
Victor Appleton wrote a novel for young adults called “Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle”. The company that developed the TASER electroshock weapon named their product as a homage to the novel, as TASER stands for “Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle”. Interesting, eh?

112. Shortstop Garciaparra : NOMAR
Nomar Garciaparra is one of only thirteen players to have hit two grand slams during a single game in the Majors. He accomplished the feat in 1999 for the Boston Red Sox against the Seattle Mariners.

116. Golfer Norman and others : GREGS
Greg Norman is from Australia, a golfer who spent a long time ranked as the world’s number one in the eighties and nineties. Off the golf course, Norman is a very, very successful businessman. One of his more visible ventures is his winery called Greg Norman Estates.

119. Brontë heroine : EYRE
“Jane Eyre” is of course the novel written by Charlotte Brontë, under the pen name Currer Bell. Over the years, I’ve shared here on my blogs that the “Jane Eyre” story line is a little too dark and Gothic for my taste, but a very persuasive blog reader convinced me to look more at the romantic side of the story and give it a second chance. I watched a wonderful 4-hour television adaptation of the novel made by the BBC a while back and I have to say that because I was focused on the relationship between Jane and Rochester, I was able to push past the Gothic influences (that depress me) so I really enjoyed the story. I thoroughly recommend the 2006 BBC adaptation to fans of the novel.

121. El ___ : PASO
Although there have been human settlements in the El Paso area for thousands of years, the first European settlement was founded in 1659 by the Spanish. That first community was on the south bank of the Rio Grande, and was called El Paso del Norte (the North Pass). Most of the urban development under Spanish rule took place on the south side of the river, with El Paso del Norte acting as the center of governance for the Spanish for the territory of New Mexico. The Rio Grande was chosen as the border between Mexico and the US in 1848, so most of the city of El Paso del Norte became part of the Mexican state of Chihuahua (and is now called Cuidad Juarez). The area north of the river developed as a US military post, eventually becoming the modern city of El Paso, Texas.

Down
4. Modern communications, for short : IMS
Even though instant messaging had been around since the 1960s, it was AOL who popularized the term “instant message” in the eighties and nineties.

6. “Silas Marner” author : ELIOT
“Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe” is a novel written by George Eliot and first published in 1861. There’s an excellent BBC TV version of the tale (shown on PBS) starring Ben Kingsley in the title role with Patsy Kensit playing Eppie, the young orphaned child that Marner takes under his wing.

7. Mendeleev who created 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, mendelevium, was named after Mendeleev.

13. The “S” of OS: Abbr. : SYS
I always think of an operating system as that piece of software that sits between the hardware on my computer and the programs that I choose to run. Developers of application programs don’t really have to worry about being able to “talk to” the countless different types of hardware found in the wide variety of computers that are manufactured, they just need to talk to the handful of operating systems that are out there, like Windows, MAC and Unix. The operating system takes care of the rest.

14. Eponymous Italian city : BOLOGNA
The deli meat known as “boloney” is an American invention. It was given the name “boloney” because it resembles Italian mortadella sausage, which originated in the city of Bologna in northern Italy.

15. Like Ben-Hur and company when not racing? : OFF THE CHARIOTS (off the charts)
Lew Wallace was a general for the Union Army during the Civil War, and was also an author. He wrote a very successful and celebrated book called “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ”, first published in 1880.

17. Jazz pianist McCoy ___ : TYNER
McCoy Tyner is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia. For many years, Tyner was a member of the John Coltrane Quartet.

21. Pope Agatho’s successor : LEO II
Pope Saint Leo II was leader of the Roman Catholic Church for less than a year before he died in 683.

30. Cymric : WELSH
The Welsh-language name for Wales is Cymru, which is Latinized into Cambria.

31. Petal pusher? : SEPAL
In a flower, the sepals are those green, leaf-like structures that are “interleaved” with the petals, providing support. Prior to acting as support for the petals, the sepals protect the flower in bud.

35. A.T.M. maker : NCR
NCR is an American company that has been in business since 1884, originally called the National Cash Register Company. The company has done well in a market where new technologies seem to be constantly disrupting the status quo.

45. Figaro in “The Barber of Seville,” e.g. : BARITONE
Figaro is the central character in at least two operas: “The Barber of Seville” by Rossini, and “The Marriage of Figaro” by Mozart. The two storylines are based on plays by Pierre Beaumarchais, with one basically being a sequel to the other.

46. “Gangsta’s Paradise” buyer? : COOLIO CUSTOMER (cool customer)
Coolio is the stage name of rapper Artis Leon Ivey, Jr. In 2009, Coolio joined fellow-American Le Toya Jackson as one of the house guests in “Celebrity Big Brother” (UK version) and apparently he created quite a stir on the show with some outrageous comments. But Coolio also showed a softer side with a spontaneous and emotional reaction to the election of Barack Obama to the office of US President as he watched the election results coming in live in the Big Brother house.

49. “Time, the devourer of all things” writer : OVID
The Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso is today known simply as Ovid. Ovid is usually listed alongside the two other great Roman poets: Horace and Virgil.

50. Skewed to one side : ALOP
I had to go to one of my two huge volumes of the OED to find the definition of “alop”. It means “lop-sided”. A lovely word, I think, but it’s amazing that it seems to have avoided the Internet!

51. It juts into the Persian Gulf : QATAR
Qatar is a sovereign state in the Middle East occupying the Qatar Peninsula, itself located in the Arabian Peninsula. Qatar lies on the Persian Gulf and shares one land border, with Saudi Arabia to the south. Qatar has more oil and gas reserves per capita of population than any other country in the world. In 2010, Qatar had the fastest growing economy in the world, driven by the petrochemical industry.

61. Capone henchman : NITTI
Frank Nitti was one of the top henchmen working for Al Capone. Unlike American-born Capone, Nitti was actually from Italy, near the city of Salerno. When Capone was eventually put away for 11 years for tax evasion, Nitti was convicted of the same crime. Nitti was only imprisoned for 18 months, and when released he was labelled as the new head of Capone’s Chicago Outfit. However the truth seems to be that he was just a frontman, with others making the decisions.

63. Elusive African animal : OKAPI
The okapi is closely related to the giraffe, although it does have markings on its legs and haunches that resemble those of a zebra. The okapi’s tongue is long enough to reach back and wash its eyeballs, and can go back even further to clean its ears inside and out.

64. Unmitigated : ARRANT
“Arrant” means “out-and-out, complete”, and is a variant of “errant”.

66. Dr. ___ : DRE
Dr. Dre is the stage name of rapper Andre Romelle Young. Dr. Dre is known for his own singing career as well as producing records and starting the careers of others such Snoop Dogg, Eminem and 50 Cent.

69. Do : COIF
A coif is a hairdo. The term “coif” comes from an old French term “coife” used for a skull-cap that was worn under a helmet back in the late 13th century.

70. Pacifiers : SOPS
Cerberus is a dog with three heads that appears in both Greek and Roman mythology. Cerberus had the job of guarding the gates of Hades and preventing those who had crossed the River Styx from ever escaping. A sop is a piece of food that has been dipped in some liquid, as one might sop a piece of bread in soup. There is an idiomatic expression, “to give a sop to Cerberus”, which means to give someone a bribe, or pay someone off. The idea is that if one could bribe Cerberus, give him a sop to eat, then he would let you pass and escape from Hades.

76. “Don’t Nobody Bring Me No Bad News” musical, with “The” : WIZ
“The Wiz”, the 1975 musical, was written by Charlie Smalls, and is an African-American adaptation of Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”. The film version of the stage show was released in 1978, starring Diana Ross as Dorothy and Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow. I haven’t seen it, though. “The Wizard of Oz” scares me, as the flying monkeys creep me out. There, I’ve admitted it in public …

84. Mail letters : USPS
The US Postal Service (USPS) is a remarkable agency in many ways. For starters, the governments right and responsibility to establish the Post Office is specifically called out in Article One of the US constitution. Also, the first postmaster general was none other than Benjamin Franklin. And the USPS operates over 200,000 vehicles, which is the largest vehicle fleet in the world.

95. Gunner’s tool : RAMROD
A ramrod is a “stick” that is inserted into the barrel of an older firearm in order to pack the bullet or ball up against the charge of gunpowder.

98. Hops dryer : OAST
An oast is a kiln used for drying hops as part of the brewing process. Such a structure might also be called an “oast house”.

100. Bantu language : RUANDA
There are hundreds of Bantu languages, mainly spoken in central, east and southern Africa. The most commonly spoken Bantu language is Swahili, with Zulu coming in second.

103. Skin disorder : MANGE
Mange is skin disorder in animals caused by parasitic mites that embed themselves in the skin, perhaps living in hair follicles. The same disorder in humans is called scabies.

107. Singer ___ Marie : TEENA
Teena Marie is a very successful R&B singer, born Mary Christine Brockert.

110. Morse dashes : TEES
A “dah” or “dash” is Morse code for the letter “T”.

Samuel Morse was a very accomplished and reputable painter (he was engaged to paint a portrait of President John Adams, for example). In 1825 Morse was in Washington working on a commissioned painting when he received a one-line letter by horse messenger telling him that his wife was ill. He left immediately for his home in New Haven, Connecticut but by the time that Morse arrived his wife had already died and had been buried. This single event spurred him to move from painting to the development of a rapid means of long distance communication, leading to the single-wire telegraph and Morse code.

114. Panasonic competitor : RCA
During WWI, the US government actively discouraged the loss of certain technologies to other countries, including allies. The developing wireless technologies were considered to be particularly important by the army and navy. The government prevented the General Electric Company from selling equipment to the British Marconi Company, and instead facilitated the purchase by GE of the American Marconi subsidiary. This purchase led to GE forming the Radio Corporation of America that we know today as RCA.

115. Certain util. workers : EES
Electrical Engineers (EEs).

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Working hours : UPTIME
7. Bit of a trickle : DROP
11. Rental car add-on : GPS
14. Series of rounds : BOUT
18. Unlikely to surprise : NORMAL
19. Megan of “Will & Grace” : MULLALLY
21. High : LOFTY
22. Sign-off for Spanish spies? : CLASSIFIED ADIOS (classified ads)
24. Wee : ELFIN
25. Suffix with human : -OID
26. Peyton Manning’s former teammates : COLTS
27. Chuck of NBC News : TODD
28. Grub around : ROOTLE
29. Zero-calorie cooler : ICE WATER
31. Parched : SERE
32. Scale : WEIGHER
33. Hosen material : LEDER
34. Two bottled liquids kept in a cabinet? : WINE AND IODINE (wine and dine)
37. Language that is mostly monosyllabic : LAO
39. Lifeguard’s skill, for short : CPR
40. Suffix with direct : -ORY
41. Some red spots : ACNE
44. Early education : ABCS
47. Champion model maker at the county fair? : DIORAMA QUEEN (drama queen)
53. Know-___ : HOW
54. Drain cleaner, chemically : NAOH
55. Early seventh-century year : DCV
56. Singer Falana and others : LOLAS
57. Ellipsoidal : OVATE
59. Handel’s “___ e Leandro” : ERO
60. At full speed : AMAIN
62. Blather : ROT
63. Movies often with shootouts : OATERS
65. Wacky exercise regimen? : WILD CARDIO (wild card)
68. 20 cigarettes per unit and 10 units per carton, e.g.? : PACK RATIOS (pack rats)
71. World capital that’s home to Zog I Boulevard : TIRANE
72. Volatile stuff : TNT
74. Lions’ din : ROARS
75. “Well, looky there!” : OHO
76. Sweet-talked, maybe : WOOED
77. Have one’s cake and eat ___ : IT TOO
79. Hoppy pub quaff : IPA
80. Covering : ATOP
81. Forbes competitor : INC
82. Green room breakfast item? : STUDIO MUFFIN (stud muffin)
86. Onetime high fliers : SSTS
87. God holding a thunderbolt : ZEUS
89. Expert finish? : -ISE
90. From ___ Z : A TO
91. Tiny chastisement : TSK
93. Musical composition about a lumberjack’s seat? : STUMP ORATORIO (stump orator)
99. Home territories : TURFS
103. Division of biology : MITOSIS
105. Paperback publisher since 1941 : AVON
106. Siege weapon : CATAPULT
108. Swore : AVOWED
109. Wally of cookie fame : AMOS
110. Stunner : TASER
111. Its employees might have jumper cables: Abbr. : AAA
112. Shortstop Garciaparra : NOMAR
113. Try-before-you-buy opportunities at knickknack stores? : CURIO RENT EVENTS (current events)
116. Golfer Norman and others : GREGS
117. Fabricates : PRODUCES
118. Part of an applause-o-meter : NEEDLE
119. Brontë heroine : EYRE
120. Sonny : LAD
121. El ___ : PASO
122. Analyzes, in a way : ASSAYS

Down
1. Straighten out : UNCOIL
2. Some baton wielders : POLICE
3. Like stocks : TRADED
4. Modern communications, for short : IMS
5. Purse item : MASCARA
6. “Silas Marner” author : ELIOT
7. Mendeleev who created the periodic table : DMITRI
8. Regrets : RUES
9. Timeworn : OLD
10. Heavy-duty protection : PLATE ARMOR
11. Went smoothly : GLIDED
12. Go laboriously : PLOD
13. The “S” of OS: Abbr. : SYS
14. Eponymous Italian city : BOLOGNA
15. Like Ben-Hur and company when not racing? : OFF THE CHARIOTS (off the charts)
16. Handy : UTILE
17. Jazz pianist McCoy ___ : TYNER
20. Prettify : ADORN
21. Pope Agatho’s successor : LEO II
23. Whizzed : FLEW
28. Fix the coloring of, say : REDYE
30. Cymric : WELSH
31. Petal pusher? : SEPAL
32. Dragged (on) : WORE
35. A.T.M. maker : NCR
36. Alternatives to chips, say : IOUS
38. One out? : ODD MAN
42. Poor : NOT SO HOT
43. One having a little lamb : EWE
44. Over : ANEW
45. Figaro in “The Barber of Seville,” e.g. : BARITONE
46. “Gangsta’s Paradise” buyer? : COOLIO CUSTOMER (cool customer)
48. Empathetic response : I CARE
49. “Time, the devourer of all things” writer : OVID
50. Skewed to one side : ALOP
51. It juts into the Persian Gulf : QATAR
52. Less : NOT AS
58. Examine carefully : VET
60. Insts. of learning : ACADS
61. Capone henchman : NITTI
63. Elusive African animal : OKAPI
64. Unmitigated : ARRANT
66. Dr. ___ : DRE
67. “I’m ___ you!” : ONTO
69. Do : COIF
70. Pacifiers : SOPS
73. Grilled cheese sandwich go-with : TOMATO SOUP
76. “Don’t Nobody Bring Me No Bad News” musical, with “The” : WIZ
77. Logical start? : IDEO-
78. ___ a limb : OUT ON
80. Invite to the penthouse suite, say : ASK UP
83. Retiring : TIMID
84. Mail letters : USPS
85. Pro : FOR
88. Hold stuff : STOWAGE
92. Goes without nourishment : STARVES
94. Detox patients : USERS
95. Gunner’s tool : RAMROD
96. Skirt : AVOID
97. “Just watch me!” : I CAN SO
98. Hops dryer : OAST
100. Bantu language : RUANDA
101. One way to deny something : FLATLY
102. Equilibria : STASES
103. Skin disorder : MANGE
104. White shade : IVORY
107. Singer ___ Marie : TEENA
109. Glow : AURA
110. Morse dashes : TEES
113. Mil. team leader : CPL
114. Panasonic competitor : RCA
115. Certain util. workers : EES

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