I’m making this a bad habit – late again to solve the puzzle and post the blog. Hopefully most of you are doing the puzzle later in the week and can enjoy my belated musings after you finish the solve. I hesitate to mention it lest I jinx it, but my Orioles are on quite the tear to start off the season (sorry about that sweep in Toronto – I’d much prefer they swept the hated Yankees or Red Sox). And the spring weather has been just lovely this year – warm but not humid, maybe a bit less rain than we need, but I’m not complaining. On to the puzzle…
- Title: It Doesn’t Pay to Play
- Grid size: 18(!)x15
- Number of entries: 90
- Difficulty: Hard (my solve time: 9:58)
Some people don’t like quotation themes, but I don’t mind them and this one was quite enjoyable – a Phyllis Diller quip:
- 20A: [Work-related Phyllis Diller quip, Part 1]: WHAT I DON’T LIKE
- 28A: [Quip, Part 2]: ABOUT OFFICE
- 43A: [Quip Part 3]: CHRISTMAS PARTIES IS
- 60A: [Quip, Part 4]: LOOKING FOR A
- 71A: [End of the quip]: JOB THE NEXT DAY
lol – This seems pretty familiar to me but so far I’m unable to find when or where she said it. No doubt as part of her standup routine; I recall seeing her on the Tonight Show many times (now I’m really dating myself) and it’s entirely possible I heard her say it there.
A relatively smooth solve, but quotation themes are always a bit harder since you not only need to break in to the grid, you need to break in to the quotation as well, and that means getting a lot of crosses. And then the difficulty level goes up a bit more with the larger grid size – don’t think Barb has ever done a 18×15 before; my records (258 puzzles) have almost all 15x15s with about 20 of different sizes. Hard to compare solve times with substantially smaller grids, so I judged this Hard mainly based on the “feel” rather than solve time.
Canadian content:
- 7D: [“That’s Hockey” TV channel]: TSN – I’m not familiar with this show, but I’ve often watched The Sports Network when I’ve been in Canada. I was looking for a way to get it here in the the US to watch The Brier a couple of months ago – maybe I’ll figure it out for next year.
- 12A: [Tribute band with a lightning bolt in its logo]: BC⚡️DC – I’d never heard of this band but it seemed a natural and I had a hunch they were Canadian.
- 12D: [Alberta ski town]: BANFF – I think I first learned of Banff when I saw the image on the back of a Canadian $20 bill. I’ve always wanted to go there, and have vague plans to include it as a stop in a future trans-Canada train trip I hope to take someday.
- 52A: [Kim Campbell’s alma mater]: UBC – I had to look up Kim Campbell but now I know she was the first (and so far only) female Prime Minister of Canada. I know UBC quite well and have visited its campus several times.
- 55A: [Green Gables prov.]: PEI – I knew right off that Green Gables was set in Prince Edward Island.
- 69A: [Juno winners with the album “Steady”]: SLOAN – Yet another Canadian band I am not familiar with – I need to create a playlist of all the musicians I’ve seen in these puzzles.
- 81A: [“Little Bit of Red” singer Serena]: RYDER – And here’s yet another Canadian musician I’m not familiar with. Better get cracking on that playlist that will definitely include this song.
Other stuff: It’s getting a bit late, so I may add to this later, or feel free to suggest your own entries to highlight in the comments below.
Quote of the week:
“With a cat you stand on much the same footing that you stand with a fine and dignified friend; if you forfeit his respect and confidence the relationship suffers. The cat, it is well to remember, remains the friend of man because it pleases him to do so and not because he must.” 🐈🐈⬛
– Carl Van Vechten