Tag: Catching rays for days say crossword clue

Bill’s time: 22m 18s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1. Objective worked toward during crunch time? : SIX-PACK

The abdominal muscles (abs) are more correctly referred to as the rectus abdominis muscles. They might be referred to as a “six-pack” in a person who has developed the muscles and who has low body fat. In my case, more like a keg …

15. 43-Across that shares its name with part of a flower : COROLLA

More cars have been sold under the Toyota Corolla brand name than any other brand name in history, even outstripping sales of the VW Beetle. There has been an average of one Corolla manufactured every 40 seconds for the past 40 years. “Corolla” is Latin for “small crown”, part of a pattern used by Toyota in naming their cars (“Corona” is Latin for crown, and “Camry” sounds like the Japanese for crown).

16. Catching rays for days, say : ON VACAY

A vacation (“vacay”) might provide some rest and relaxation/recuperation (R&R).

19. Singer with the 2012 hit “Let Me Love You” : NE-YO

“Ne-Yo” is the stage name of R&B singer Shaffer Chimere Smith.

20. “Later, alligator!” : SEE YA!

Crocodiles and alligators do indeed bear a resemblance to each other, although they belong to distinct biological families. One of the main ways used to distinguish them is by their teeth and jaws. Both the upper and lower sets of teeth of a crocodile are visible when its mouth is closed, whereas only the upper teeth of an alligator are visible with the mouth shut.

22. Successful hacker’s declaration : I’M IN!

A computer hacker is a computer expert, and in particular one who uses that expertise to solve problems with hardware and software. So, the original use of the term “hacking” was very positive. Since the 1980s, the term “hacker” is more commonly used for an expert in subverting computer security.

23. Tubes : TVS

Television (TV, teevee, the tube, the boob tube)

25. Chihuahua, for one : STATE

Chihuahua is a state in northern Mexico that shares a border with Texas and New Mexico. Chihuahua is the largest state in the country, so has the nickname “El Estado Grande”. The state takes its name from the Chihuahuan Desert which lies largely within its borders. The Chihuahua breed of dog takes its name from the state.

28. Hagatna is its capital : GUAM

Guam is a US territory in the western Pacific Ocean, and is the largest of the Mariana Islands. Guam is also the first territory in the United States to see the sun rise on any particular day. As such, the territory has adopted the motto, “Where America’s day begins”. During WWII, the US territory of Guam was occupied by the Japanese for 31 months until it was liberated in the Battle of Guam in July 1944. Of the 18,000 Japanese men holding the island, only 485 surrendered, so almost all perished in the invasion. One Japanese sergeant hid out on the island for an incredible 28 years, finally surrendering in 1972!

30. Big Apple team, on scoreboards : NYY

New York Yankees (NYY)

32. Word on some Emmy awards : SERIES

The Emmy Awards are the television equivalent of the Oscars from the world of film, the Grammy Awards in music and the Tony Awards for the stage. Emmy Awards are presented throughout the year, depending on the sector of television being honored. The most famous of these ceremonies are the Primetime Emmy Awards and the Daytime Emmy Awards. The distinctive name of “Emmy” is a softened version of the word “immy”, the nickname given to the video camera tubes found in old television cameras.

40. Some Girl Scout cookies : SAMOAS

Depending on which bakery makes the particular variety of Girl Scout cookie, the name can vary. For example, Little Brownie Bakers makes the Samoa cookies, while ABC Bakers uses the same recipe and calls the cookies Caramel deLites. The assumption is that these cookies have the exotic name of “Samoa” because they contain the tropical ingredients of coconut and cocoa. The most popular variety of Girl Scout cookie sold are Thin Mints.

42. Any of three sisters of old Hollywood : GABOR

Zsa Zsa Gabor was a Hungarian American actress, born in Budapest as Sári Gábor (the older sister of the actress Eva). Zsa Zsa Gabor was married a whopping nine times, including a 5-year stint with Conrad Hilton and another 5 years with the actor George Sanders. One of Gabor’s famous quips was that she was always a good housekeeper, as after every divorce she kept the house!

Eva Gabor was the youngest of the Gabor sisters, all three of whom were celebrated Hollywood actresses and socialites (her siblings were Zsa-Zsa and Magda). One of Eva’s claims to fame is the unwitting promotion of the game called “Twister”, the sales of which were languishing in 1966. In an appearance on “The Tonight Show” she got on all fours and played the game with Johnny Carson. Sales took off immediately, and Twister became a huge hit.

Magda Gabor was the elder sister of Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor. Like her sisters, Magda was an actress and socialite. Magda married six times in all. Her most famous husband was probably the fifth, the English actor George Sanders, although that only lasted for 32 days. Sanders had been married to Magda’s younger sister Zsa Zsa.

47. ___ wrench : TORQUE

Torque can be thought of as a turning force, say the force needed to tighten a bolt or a nut. In physics, torque is represented by the Greek letter tau.

52. 4x platinum album of 2001 : J.LO

“J.Lo” is the nickname of singer and actress Jennifer Lopez. “J.Lo” is also the title of her second studio album, one released in 2001.

53. Eric of “Munich” : BANA

Eric Bana is an Australian actor who enjoyed a successful career in his home country before breaking into Hollywood playing an American Delta Force sergeant in “Black Hawk Down”. A couple of years later he played the lead in Ang Lee’s 2003 movie “Hulk”, the role of Dr Bruce Banner. More recently he played the Romulan villain Nero, in the 2009 “Star Trek” movie.

“Munich” is a 2005 Steven Spielberg film that deals with the Munich massacre that took place at the 1972 Summer Olympic Games, and its aftermath. Much of the movie follows the Mossad operation to track down and kill the terrorists responsible for murdering the israeli athletes.

55. Pound, e.g. : POET

Ezra Pound was an American poet who spent much of his life wandering the world, spending years in London, Paris, and Italy. In Italy, Pound’s work and sympathies for Mussolini’s regime led to his arrest at the end of the war. His major work was the epic, albeit incomplete, “The Cantos”. This epic poem is divided into 120 sections, each known as a canto.

56. Suffered humiliation : ATE CROW

The phrase “eat crow”, an alternative to “eat humble pie”, perhaps refers to the fact that cooked crow may be edible, but is not a great food choice.

58. Early tool : NEOLITH

A neolith is a stone tool that was produced during the Neolithic Era, the last part of the Stone Age.

60. Participate in quid pro quo : LOGROLL

“Quid pro quo” is Latin for “something for something”, i.e. a swap.

61. Region of Ghana known for gold and cocoa : ASHANTI

The Ashanti region of south Ghana is the most populous of the ten administrative regions of the country, as it is home to the nation’s capital of Kumasi. Ashanti’s economy is driven by the production of gold bars and cocoa.

62. Plucks : TWEEZES

Tweezers are small metal pincers used in handling small objects. Back in the 1600s, “tweeze” was the name given to the case in which such an implement was kept, and over time the case gave its name to the device itself. “Tweeze” evolved from “etweese”, the plural of “etwee”, which came from “étui “, the French word for a “small case”.

63. Roll of 4 and 6, in craps : EASY TEN

If one considers earlier versions of craps, then the game has been around for a very long time and probably dates back to the Crusades. It may have been derived from an old English game called “hazard” also played with two dice, which was mentioned in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” from the 1300s. The American version of the game came here courtesy of the French and first set root in New Orleans where it was given the name “crapaud”, a French word meaning “toad”.

Down

2. PC modem or drive : I/O DEVICE

Input/output (I/O)

4. Law enforcers, in slang : PO-PO

“Po-po” is a slang term meaning “police”.

5. Start of some rock genre names : ALT-

I really don’t know what alt-rock is, and I can’t seem to work it out. Just an old fuddy-duddy …

7. Real first name of writer Isak Dinesen : KAREN

“Isak Dinesen” was the pen name of the Danish author Baroness Karen Blixen. Blixen’s most famous title by far is “Out of Africa”, her account of the time she spent living in Kenya.

9. Prime draft pick : ONE-A

The US government maintains information on all males who are potentially subject to military conscription, using what is called the Selective Service System (SSS). In the event that a draft was held, men registered would be classified into groups to determine eligibility for service. Class 1-A registrants are those available for unrestricted military service. Other classes are 1-A-O (conscientious objector available for noncombatant service), 4-A (registrant who has completed military service) and 4-D (Minister of religion).

10. Tiny tube travelers : OVA

The Fallopian tubes leading from the ovaries of female mammals in the uterus. The tubes are named for the 16th-century Italian anatomist Gabriello Fallopio, who was the first to describe them.

12. Profession in a Eugene O’Neill title : ICEMAN

“The Iceman Cometh” is a play written by American playwright Eugene O’Neill that was first performed in 1946 on Broadway. The play centers on some down-and-out men in a shabby saloon in Manhattan. The title is a reference to the “iceman”, the man who would have delivered ice to homes back in the time of the play. The reference is to a bawdy joke in which the “iceman” was having an affair with someone’s wife.

The playwright Eugene O’Neill was born in a New York City hotel room in what is now called Times Square, in 1888. That building no longer exists and there is a Starbucks on the site today, but you can go take a look at the commemorative plaque at the Northeast corner of 43rd and Broadway. O’Neill died in 1953, in room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel on Bay State Road in Boston. His last words were, “I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room, and God damn it, died in a hotel room.” Eugene O’Neill won a Pulitzer for his play “Anna Christie”.

13. “___ and happiness are an impossible combination”: Mark Twain : SANITY

“Samuel Langhorne Clemens” was the real name of the author Mark Twain. Twain wasn’t the only pen name used by Clemens. Early in his career he signed some sketches as “Josh”, and signed some humorous letters that he wrote under the name “Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass”. The name of Mark Twain came from the days when Clemens was working on riverboats on the Mississippi. A riverboatman would call out “by the mark twain” when measuring the depth of water. This meant that on the sounding line, according to the “mark” on the line, the depth was two (“twain”) fathoms, and so it was safe for the riverboat to proceed.

14. Where Nemo was found in “Finding Nemo” : SYDNEY

“Finding Nemo” is a 2003 animated blockbuster from Pixar. The film was the winner of the Oscar that year for Best Animated Feature. Believe it or not, “Finding Nemo” is the best-selling DVD of all time and, until 2010’s “Toy Story 3”, it was the highest-grossing, G-rated movie at the box office.

24. A.F.C. North team : BENGALS

The NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals team was founded in 1966 as a member of the American Football League (AFL). There was an earlier team called the Bengals in the city that played from 1937 to 1941. That team used the “Bengal” name because Cincinnati Zoo was home to a very rare Bengal tiger.

25. Notable ring bearer : SMEAGOL

That would be Tolkien stuff …

27. A.F.C. East team, informally : PATS

The New England Patriots football team was founded in 1959 as the Boston Patriots. The “Patriots” name was selected from suggestions made by football fans in Boston. The team played at several different stadiums in the Boston area for just over ten years, before moving to their current home base in Foxborough, Massachusetts. At the time of the move, the “Boston” name was dropped and changed to “New England”.

32. Official birds of Quebec : SNOWY OWLS

The snowy owl (also “snow owl”) is such a beautiful-looking creature, I think. The snowy owl has plumage that is thick and white making it well-adapted for life north of the Arctic Circle.

33. Center of a Scrabble board : STAR

Here’s a little Scrabble trivia … “Pizzazz” is the only 7-letter word in English that cannot be played in Scrabble. You can get close by using the Z-tile with the two blank tiles to get to three of the required four Zs, but there’s no way to get to that fourth letter-Z.

38. Literally, “little wheel” : ROULETTE

The term “roulette” means “little wheel” in French, and the game as we know it today did in fact originate in Paris, in 1796. A roulette wheel bears the numbers 1-36. A French entrepreneur called François Blanc introduced the number “0” on the wheel, to give the house an extra advantage. Legend has it that Blanc made a deal with the devil in order to unearth the secrets of roulette. The legend is supported by the fact that the numbers 1 through 36 add up to a total of “666”, which is the “Number of the Beast”. Spooky …

39. Low-cal version of a classic cookie : OREO THIN

For those of us counting calories, Oreo Thins were introduced in 2015. There are only 40 calories in each thin cookie, compared to 53 calories in the real deal.

43. Deep blue : COBALT

Cobalt blue is a pigment, a pigment with a lighter shade than Prussian blue. Cobalt blue is made from cobalt oxide and alumina, and is used as a coloring agent in ceramics, jewelry and paint. Even “transparent” glass usually contains a little cobalt blue, giving a slight blue tint.

44. Director of “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “This Is 40” : APATOW

Judd Apatow is known for producing the TV series “Freaks and Geeks” and “Undeclared”. Those shows aren’t my cup of tea, but he also collaborated with Lena Dunham to create the show “Girls”. I could drink that tea all day long. “Girls” is a very entertaining series …

45. Fail to follow suit : RENEGE

To renege on something is to back out of it. It’s a verb commonly used in card games like bridge and whist. A renege is when a player doesn’t follow suit, even though there may be a card of the suit led in his/her hand.

47. Missionaries of Charity founder : TERESA

Mother Teresa was born in 1910 in the city that is now called Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. At birth she was given the names Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (“Gonxha” means “little flower” in Albanian). She left home at the age of 18 and joined the Sisters of Loreto, and headed to Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham in Dublin, Ireland in order to learn English. Her goal was to teach in India, and English was the language used there for instruction by the nuns. After Mother Teresa passed away in 1997 she was beatified by Pope John Paul II. She was canonized by Pope Francis in 2016, and is now known as Saint Teresa of Calcutta.

49. Button material : NACRE

Nacre is the strong iridescent material laid down by some mollusks on the inside of their shells, and it’s also what makes up pearls. The creature lays down nacre as a defensive mechanism, protecting the soft tissue of its body from the rough surface of the outer shell. Similarly, it uses nacre to encapsulate harmful debris or a parasite that penetrates the shell, and that’s how a pearl is formed.

51. Mother of Perseus : DANAE

In Greek mythology, Danaë was the mortal mother of the heroic slayer of monsters Perseus, with the father being Zeus. Danaë herself was the daughter of King Acrisius of Argos and his wife Queen Eurydice.

57. “Frasier” role : ROZ

Roz Doyle is a character in the wonderful sitcom “Frasier”. Roz is played, very ably, by the actress Peri Gilpin.