OK – I’m rushing to get this done before I head to the airport; otherwise it’s likely not going out until sometime Thursday. We had a brief brush with winter weather yesterday that threatened several inches of snow but we mainly got rain with a few snowflakes mixed in. I think they got a bit more further north and east in the US and it looks like the Maritimes are getting pasted as I write this. The groundhog predicted an early spring this year, but I’m fine with a long and lustrous winter. Enough gabbing about the weather – on to the puzzle!
- Name: Sick, Dude!
- Size: 15×15
- Entries: 70
- Difficulty: Medium Hard (my solve time: 7:44)
The title reminds me of the “Epic/Brutal Report” comic by Ruben Bolling – it’s something that surfer dudes would say. I pretty much forgot about the title as I solved the puzzle, and it took a little while for me to link the title to the gimmick. The themers are phrases (or a name) with several letters circled, clued straight. The circled letters when read backwards spell a word that describes a type of green colour – hence, turn green (the revealer) or “Sick, dude!”:
- 18A: [All-in-one shopping venue]: MⒺⒼⒶ ⓈTORE: With the phrase “shopping venue” in the clue, I knew “store” was somewhere in the answer. Green is my favourite colour but I am awful at identifying and describing colours but I’ll take a stab – Sage green is kind of a green-gray – check out the sample I copied from here:
- 24A: [Barista grinder]: COFFEⒺ ⓂⒾⓁL – I usually buy my coffee pre-ground, but sometimes I can only get the variety I want as whole bean, so we have a coffee mill to grind it. Lime green is very bright:
- 36A: [Talk smack about]: SPEAK ⒺⓋⒾⓁ ⓄF – To smack talk someone is to insult them or cast doubt on their ability – i.e., talk evil of them. Olive green is similar to sage green, but less gray:
- 48A: [Writer/director of “Julie & Julia”]: NORⒶ ⒺⓅHRON – It took me a little while to get this as I was trying to remember the name of the woman who wrote the book, not the one who wrote and directed the movie, which is the source of this week’s quote. Pea green is a more yellow shade of green:
- 57A: [Show signs of nausea… or an instruction for solving the circled letters]: TURN GREEN – The revealer.
Three weeks in a row with nearly the same solve time, though this one felt the hardest of the three. It was a sporadic solve for me; I jumped all over the place before gaining a foothold somewhere near the center and working outward from there. SW corner almost cost me a clean solve, as there are 4 proper nouns in that area, three of which were essentially unknown to me. I made a few lucky guesses and changed the last letter of 50D from E to A before getting the happy pop up.
Canadian content:
- 4D: [Harper-era cabinet minister Raitt]: LISA – Lisa Raitt born in Sydney, NS and was Minister of Transport from 2013 to 2015.
- 9D: [Voyageurs’ transport]: CANOE – The voyageurs were merchants who travelled the rivers of 17th century North America and were under contracted to merchants or military officers.
- 30A: [“Family Feud Canada” host Gerry]: DEE – I didn’t know there was a Canadian-specific version of this show but why not? Gerry Dee was born in Toronto and has hosted the show since 2019.
- 34D: [Danielle Smith’s prov.]: ALTA – Danielle Smith has been Premier of Alberta since 2022.
- 41A: [Alex Cuba’s opening number?]: UNO – Born in Cuba as Alexis Puentes, he moved to British Columbia after marrying a Canadian. He’s won two Junos for World Music Album of the Year.
- 55D: [RCMP Cpl.’s superiors]: SGTS – Sergeants are senior to corporals in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
- 62A: [Canada’s U.N. Ambassador Bob ___]: RAE – Robert Rae has been Ambassador and Permanent Representative for Canada to the UN since 2020.
- 65A: [CARP members: Abbr.]: SRS – While I like the abbreviation of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons better than that of its American counterpart, I still don’t want to be a member – I’m still reeling from when a ticket seller offered me the senior discount and I was eligible.
Other stuff:
- 1A: [Prez, to the military]: CIC – The President of the United States is the Commander in Chief of US armed forces (usually abbreviated CINC and pronounced “sink”).
- 1D: [“Eats, Shoots and Leaves” topic]: COMMAS – I tried to fit ‘grammar” in here at first as I thought this book‘s topic was broader than just the punctuation mark.
- 19A: [“___ all” (“It’s no trouble”]: NOT AT – Took me a while to parse this correctly and I wondered where on earth “no tat at all” was used to mean “no problem.”
- 40A: [Lemon cookie flecks]: ZESTS – When I think of small things on cookies I think of jimmies.
Quote of the week:
“Is there anything better than butter? Think it over: every time you taste something that’s delicious beyond imagining and you say, “What is in this?”, the answer is always going to be, Butter. The day there’s a meteorite heading toward the earth and we have thirty days to live, I am going to spend it eating butter. Here’s my final words on the subject, you can never have too much butter.”
– Julie Powell