In the puzzle today, at 32A the clue was “Digital art?” and the answer was PAINT BY NUMBERS. Son Volt shared this dark tune with us:
There are too many “new” statistics in baseball (for me). I guess it’s good to know the speed of a pitch, but do I need the speed of the ball coming off of the bat too? And what’s OPS? I just looked it up — it’s on-base percentage plus slugging percentage. But I never really knew what slugging percentage is. Turns out it’s total bases earned by hits divided by at-bats. So it’s [singles + (doubles x 2) + (triples x 3) + (homers x 4)] divided by at-bats. I actually did not fully get “on base percentage” either, it turns out. That’s the number of times the batter reaches base via hits, walks and hit-by-pitches, divided by at-bats. (Sacrifice bunts are ignored entirely for this: like they didn’t happen.) If this is getting too technical for you, it’s too technical for me too, and this is rudimentary stuff. But even knowing (as I now do) what OPS means, I don’t know what a good or bad one is, so I just stare at it with big blinking Homer Simpson eyes.
Cleveland pulled out a miracle win last night against the Yanks. Down by 2 with two outs in the ninth and two strikes on Lane Thomas, the Guardians (yeah — used to be the Indians) woke up. Lainie (Thomas) doubled and Jhonkensy Noel tied the game with a pinch-hit homer. Jhonkensy’s really his first name: Caity’s cat did not just walk across the keyboard. His nickname is Harriet. [No it’s not.] The Yanks were “fried” in the tenth: i.e., David Fry homered.
What a treat! Today’s poem, from The Writer’s Almanac, is by the late Jim Harrison, Ted Kooser’s friend, to whom Kooz sent his Winter Morning Walks poems. This one of Harrison’s is called “The Bear.”
When my propane ran out
when I was gone and the food
thawed in the freezer I grieved
over the five pounds of melted squid,
but then a big gaunt bear arrived
and feasted on the garbage, a few tentacles
left in the grass, purplish white worms.
O bear, now that you’ve tasted the ocean
I hope your dreamlife contains the whales
I’ve seen, that one in the Humboldt current
basking on the surface who seemed to watch
the seabirds wheeling around her head.
In yesterday’s puzzle at 27D the clue was “Consonants articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth,” and the answer, of course, was DENTALS. It sent Rex off into a paroxysm of delight: — “Technical linguistics terminology! I don’t mind it! Has FRICATIVE ever been in the grid? No!? And not FRICATIVES either? What’s the hold-up!?”
Did you know that FLORENCE was the first city in Europe with paved streets? It was way back in 1339, according 12D yesterday. And how about this tidbit at 5D?: What Alexander Graham Bell suggested as the standard telephone-answering greeting. It was AHOY. It (mostly) didn’t catch on.
OMG, this is so funny. It was posted in the Dull Men’s Club (UK) by Billie Rodgers: I took my gf into the Liverpool branch of John Lewis and she totally enjoyed it. They have a coffee shop there, so I treated her to a latte’,. The young assistant asked me for my name and I thought that rather odd until I realised why. I gave my name as Spartacus and approx 5 minutes later the assistant shouts out “Spartacus!” I stood up and shouted out “I am Spartacus,” and then another 2 people did too.
Simon Moon posted the following post with the photo in the DMC (UK):
Today’s the day. Sort out the Allen key drawer.
John Stockton chimed in: The one on the far left that comprises two parts that slot together- I have one of those.
Can’t top that! See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 