Happy March everyone! So far it appears to be coming in like a lamb, at least in my area. But I’m not putting away the snow shovels and ice melt yet. Let’s turn our minds away from the possibility of bad weather and the unfortunate reality of world troubles and take a look at this week’s puzzle.
- Title: Deck Hands
- Grid size: 15×15
- Number of entries: 77
- Difficulty: Medium Hard (my solve time: 8:26)
I really like puzzles with titles. They give you an idea of what the puzzle will be about, and can be little bonus puzzles themselves. I do a certain untitled puzzle (ahem) every day (and rant about it here… oops – I meant here) and I miss the titles. It might be fun to start coming up with titles for them myself – maybe I’ll give that a try. I don’t have to do that for Barb’s puzzles – they are always well-titled and I usually guess their meaning wrong (as you know if you are a regular reader of this blog). This week is no exception; as a sailor and ship buff, I saw “Deck Hands” and immediately thought “cool, a nautical-themed puzzle!” Au contraire, mon frère – the final word of each of the themers is a game played using a “deck” of cards (and presumably involves “hands”):
- 17A: [Vancouver landmark spanning Burrard Inlet]: LIONS GATE BRIDGE – I knew this right off the bat having visited Vancouver for work and fun many times. I even got the chance to sail under it aboard a huge container ship. Bridge is a popular card game that I know very little about.
- 24A: [Lose one’s cool, at last]: FINALLY SNAP – Took me a while to get this one, even once I’d figured out the theme since I am unfamiliar with the card game Snap.
- 36A: [Top banana]: NUMERO UNO – Unlike the previous two games, I am very familiar with Uno – a game we play often at family gatherings. Unlike all the other themers, while it can be played with two standard decks of cards, in my experience this game is usually played with a custom deck.
- 50A: [Sweets with a message]: CANDY HEARTS – I don’t know if Barb was trying to get us to think of a candygram but I am sucker for those sweet treats around Valentines Day. Hearts is another card game I am quite familiar with and used to play a lot, but haven’t recently. Maybe time to take it up again once we’re sick of Skip Bo.
- 58A: [Question asked by a project planner… or by a solver of this puzzle, maybe]: WHAT’S THE END GAME – I definitely though this (well, not worded exactly the same) while solving. This is a nearly perfect revealer – if you hadn’t figured out the theme, it will make it clear, and if you had it’s a nice and playful finish to the solve (assuming you solve essentially top to bottom).
I guess Barb couldn’t find a phrase that ends in “Skip Bo” 😉 I play that game at least once a day – it’s become a regular lunch and dinner pastime during the pandemic. This was a harder solve than recent ones; kind of surprised because Barb mentioned in her note delivering it to me that she was “giving the solvers a bit of a break again this week.” Maybe your experience was different than mine – let me know in the comments below. I started off quickly getting much of the N half, but there were several blanks remaining. The S half slowed me down a bit but I chipped away and only had a few blanks with about 7:30 on the clock, not far off my average. But those blanks: I had no idea what 11A was and 13D had an ambiguous 1st letter. I had never seen 49D used before, so had “TTYL” in there for a while and drew a blank on 56A. Ultimately I had to guess at 13D and run the alphabet for 56A. So Barb didn’t “go easy” on this solver. And be warned that in the note she added “but my idea for next week might be a little more challenging.” 😬
Canadian content
- 17A: [Vancouver landmark spanning Burrard Inlet]: LIONS GATE BRIDGE – The Canadian Golden Gate Bridge (at least in my mind) connects Stanley Park in the City of Vancouver to the District of North Vancouver.
- 31A: [Classical grp. at Roy Thomson Hall]: TSO – I’m not familiar with the venue, but it was easy enough to guess it was a symphony orchestra giving me the 2nd and 3rd letters – just needed 11D to determine it was the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
- 54A: [Where Windsor and York are: Abbr.]: ONT – While I think we were being nudged to enter “ENG” here, since I already had 45D and 46D the lead O was a given.
- 64A: [A&W’s Bacon & _____]: EGGER – While I believe there are still A&W restaurants in the US, apparently the Bacon & Egger is only served in Canadian stores.
- 25D: [Prov. royal representative]: LT GOV – Technically the lieutenant (pronounced “lef-tenant”) governor “is the viceregal representative in a provincial jurisdiction of the Canadian monarch and head of state, Queen Elizabeth II.” (thanks once again, Wikipedia!)
Other stuff:
Once again I am running a bit behind this week, so didn’t even get to solve this puzzle until Wednesday afternoon. Barb usually gets it to me Monday or 1st thing Tuesday, and I like to solve and do my initial draft of the blog Tuesday night, then return to it and fine tune on Wednesday. That gives time for interesting things to reveal themselves (and initially interesting ones to prove themselves boring), which is what I generally include in the “Other Stuff” section. So this week it’s up to you all to tell me your interesting “Other Stuff” in the comments below!
Quote of the week:
“No matter how you may try to justify it. You can never justify war. On the other hand, you don’t need to justify peace – it is always beautiful.”
– Bhuwan Thapaliya