In the puzzle today at 7D the clue was “Chess game’s ending,” and I (correctly) entered MATE. Commenter Gary wrote: My chess games usually end with me pushing all the pieces onto the floor and saying, “This is a stupid game.”
Gary has moved to Albuquerque (a RELO in puzzle-speak) and has reported to us as follows: I’ve enjoyed some northern New Mexican food (if you know, you know), and the mariachi band there had a harp! We went to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center for fry-bread, along with blue corn crusted pickle slices marinated in black cherry Kool-Aid with green chile ranch (fer real).
I still need to grow a mustache, buy a cowboy hat, belt buckle, boots and a pickup. People have been friendly so far. And, In New York I’m a five, a six in Denver, but here I’m a solid eight if the lighting is right.
Under the rules for the hot-dog-eating championship held today in Las Vegas, the eating was limited to ten minutes, no dunking of dogs in water was allowed, and the dogs could not be separated from the buns. The contestants were Joey “Jaws” Chestnut, 40, and Takeru “The Tsunami” Kobayashi, 46, and the event was aired live on Netflix.
Kobayashi had been retired for five years but emerged for one day to battle Chestnut. He retired for health reasons after downing 10,000 dogs over his career. The two last competed on July 4,2009, with Chestnut winning 68-64.5. Before that bout, Chestnut beat Kobayashi three times and lost to him twice. In today’s match, Chestnut’s victory was more pronounced with Joey coming out on top 83-66. He topped his personal best of 76, and walked off with the $100,000 grand prize.
This is not a men’s-only “sport.” Miki Sudo is the current women’s champ having downed a record 51 dogs. She is a 39-year-old New Yorker and also holds the world records in the categories of kimchi, hotdish, and ice cream.
This poem by Robert Hedin is called “Raising the Titanic.” It was yesterday’s poem of the day for the Poetry Foundation.
I spent the winter my father died down in the basement,
under the calm surface of the floorboards, hundreds
of little plastic parts spread out like debris
on the table. And for months while the snow fell
and my father sat in the big chair by the Philco, dying,
I worked my way up deck by deck, story by story,
from steerage to first class, until at last it was done,
stacks, deck chairs, all the delicate rigging.
And there it loomed, a blazing city of the dead.
Then painted the gaping hole at the waterline
and placed my father at the railings, my mother
in a lifeboat pulling away from the wreckage.
Saturday’s puzzle included a clue/answer that blew up a segment of Crossworld, but I thought it was perfectly fine. I’ll let you decide. The clue was “Leaves just in time for dinner?” The answer was FRESH SALAD. Get it? The leaves are lettuce leaves, and they are fresh because they were picked just in time for dinner. Here’s Rex on it:
It’s the worst answer in the grid. By far. I mean, the worst. I had the SALAD part, so how hard could the answer be!? Answer: extremely. Because who would guess that the answer would be something as inane and generic and not-a-thing as FRESH SALAD. What is that? What are these unfresh salads that people (implicitly) consume? I was like “PASTA SALAD? GREEN SALAD? … CHEF’S SALAD? BERRY SALAD!?” The answer may as well have been TASTY SALAD for all that FRESH SALAD makes any standalone sense. I don’t think I’ve ever resented a crossword answer this much. [OC: Wow!] All that work, all that added difficulty, so that I could get … FRESH?! And the clue. That “Leaves” trick is old as the hills, that wasn’t a problem. The problem was “just in time for dinner” did nnootthhiinngg to indicate the idiocy that is FRESH. [OC: But it does!]
The majority of the comments on it agreed with Rex’s take. Maybe a third (myself included) agreed with Anony Mouse who said: I thought that clue was perfectly fine, and I completely disagree with Rex that ‘”just in time for dinner” did nnootthhiinngg to indicate the idiocy that is FRESH.’ There is an undeniable association between “just in time” and “fresh,” particularly in a culinary context.
So there! Can we please move on to something about Taylor Swift now?
Is there nothing the girl can’t do? According to QB Patrick Mahomes, Taylor Swift’s interest in football goes beyond sleeping with boyfriend Travis Kelce. Well, that’s not exactly how he put it. But he did say: “She’s already drawing up plays so we might have to put one in.” Yikes! He may have only been half kidding.
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The Wellington Files 