Theme: Whee! Fun homonyms. I might have went with the five (three sir!) little pigs, but there were too many and that's spelled the same as one of the clues.

17. We: PERSONAL PRONOUN.

23. Wie: GOLFER MICHELLE.

33. Oui: FRENCH YES.

50. Wee: EXTREMELY SMALL.

57. Wii: NINTENDO CONSOLE.

Hi all, another Thursday, and another puzzle with the clues carrying the theme instead of the answers. A good mix, all different spellings and meanings. For a while there, I thought I wasn't going to be able to think of another one to to tie them together.

ACROSS:

1. Bass-baritone Simon: ESTES. A late week, more obscure clue than Colorado Park.

6. Second-century date: CXIX.

10. Welding sparks: ARCS.

14. Hard to stir: STOIC. Stir, as in the emotional sense.

15. Old __, Connecticut: LYME. Historical district, artist's colony, and summer resort. Pop. 7500.

16. Half a fictional detecting pair: NORA. Nick and Nora Charles (with Asta the crossword puzzle terrier).

20. Prov. bordering four Great Lakes: ONTario, Canada.

21. Limoges liver: FOIE. French  Foie gras is "fatty" liver.

22. Saltpeter: NITER. Puts the bang in gunpowder and takes it away from something else.

27. Maroon: ENISLE. I had the "LE" at first and was thinking PURPLE? That can't be right.

28. Cycle start: TRI.

29. Common street name: ELM.

30. Amateur golfer's score, perhaps: LIE.  If you lie about your lie, you won't lie easy.

31. Lasting impression: SCAR.  From Old French escare "scab," from Greek eskhara "scab formed after a burn," lit. "hearth, fireplace,"

32. Confucian path: TAO. Literally "the way", path.

38. First woman to land a triple axel in competition: ITO. Midori.

41. Nyctophobic fictional race: ELOI. Afraid of the dark because the Morlocks lived below and hunted at night.

42. Fed. fiscal agency: OMB. Office of Management and Budget.

45. Cheese partner: MAC. We just call it "glop".

46. Moving aid: VAN. Shortening of caravan.

47. "Obviously": SO I SEE.

53. Win by __: A HAIR.  Anyone for a nose or a mile first?

54. Words before many words?: IN SO.  Idiom: In so many words.

55. Canadian attorney's deg.: LLB. Bachelor of Laws.  The double L is a plural form abbreviation, like pp for pages or bbl for barrels.

61. Seller of FÖRNUFT flatware: IKEA. Swedish uses umlauts, too.

62. Phnom __: PENH. Capitol of Cambodia, today's geography lesson.

63. Corn Belt native: IOWAN.

64. Tracy's Trueheart: TESS. The Dick Tracy comic strip that went 18 years before they finally married on Christmas, in 1949.

65. Chipmunks creator Bagdasarian: ROSS. (Rostom) The real name of David Seville, the original voice of Alvin, Simon and Theodore.  Later he employed female vocal artists, recorded at 33, and played back at 45 rpm.

66. Recipe amts.: TBSPS. Equal to half a fluid ounce, one-sixteenth of a cup.

DOWN:

1. Five-time Art Ross Trophy winner, for short: ESPO. Phil Esposito, hockey.

2. Baseball's "Old Perfessor": STENGEL. Casey.  "They told me my services were no longer desired because they wanted to put in a youth program as an advance way of keeping the club going. I'll never make the mistake of being seventy again."

3. Ristorante dessert: TORTONI. Ice cream made with heavy cream, minced almonds, chopped maraschino cherries, flavored with rum. How have I never had this?

4. Frozen Wasser: EIS. German: water, ice.

5. Mocks: SCOFFS.

6. Eau __, Wisconsin: CLAIRE. "Clear waters".

7. Water-carrying plant tissue: XYLEM. A picture is worth a thousand words.

8. Sitter's handful: IMP. Old English impe, impa "young shoot, graft," from impian "to graft," sense of "child, offspring" came from transfer of the word from plants to people. "Suche appereth as aungelles, but in very dede they be ymps of serpentes."

9. Thirtysomething, e.g.: X-ER.

10. Hall of fame: ANNIE. My best guess is referring to the Woody Allen movie with Diane Keaton,since  fame is in lower-case, so not part of a title.

11. Small plant support: ROOTLET.

12. Fur-loving villain de Vil: CRUELLA.

13. Riviera resort: SAN REMO.

18. Carol: NOEL.

19. Available for service: ON HIRE. Again? This still sounds odd to me. On call, now that I understand all too well..

24. Gladly: LIEF. Etymology gives this as "dear" or "love" as with German lieb.

25. Burning desire: ITCH. Um... not really the kind of burning you want to associate with desire.

26. Supercomputer name: CRAY.

31. Fi front: SCI. Science Fiction.

34. Admire greatly: REVERE. From revereri to stand in awe of, to fear, to be wary of.

35. Ancient rival of Assyria: ELAM. Now part of southwest Iran.

36. Zilch: NONE.

37. Slugger Sammy: SOSA.

38. Mom's tough emphasis: I MEAN IT.

39. It makes one's net smaller: TAX HIKE.

40. Pump ratings: OCTANES.

43. Veges (out): MELLOWS.

44. Last track circuit: BELL LAP.

47. Meshes: SYNCHS.

48. __ buco: OSSO. Italian: bone with a hole, a marrow bone of veal with vegetables and wine.

49. Music to the boss's ears: I'M ON IT.

51. Coolidge and Moreno: RITAS.

52. Ford Field team: LIONS. Football, Detroit.

56. Uncle __: BEN'S. Competitor for Minute Rice.

58. "Fresh Air" airer: NPR. A talk show hosted by Terry Gross for over 30 years.

59. __ gratias: DEO. Latin: Thanks be to God.

60. Sound after a breakup, maybe: SOB. Hmmm, that could be what was done, or what was said...

Answer Grid

Al

Thursday, May 19, 2011, Peter A. Collins

Theme:  Connect the dots. The circled letters A through J (the tiny bubbles from 57A) make the outline of (a little fishy from 38A) if you trace a line to each one in alphabetical order after completing the puzzle. (Note, the circles do not appear on the LA Times applet, you can see them if you do the Across Lite version on Cruciverb.com).

This was kind of different, I don't remember doing any other connect the dots puzzles, but I'll bet it didn't help anyone very much in solving.  However, this seemed more like a Monday or Tuesday to me today anyway, less than 10 minutes to complete it.

ACROSS:

1. Ones minding their peas in queues?: PODS. Pea pods hold their seeds all in a row. There are many stories about the origin of the phrase this plays on, but investigations by the Oxford English Dictionary in 2007 when revising the entry turned up early examples of the use of Ps and Qs to mean learning the alphabet. The first is in a poem by Charles Churchill, published in 1763: “On all occasions next the chair / He stands for service of the Mayor, / And to instruct him how to use / His A’s and B’s, and P’s and Q’s.” It is more likely to be that than any of the more fanciful explanations.

5. __ band: PEP. Student sports boosters.

8. Where the music stops?: HARD C. The last letter of the word music has a "k" sound.

13. Uprising: RIOT.

14. Consider judicially: HEAR.

15. End of __: AN ERA. An overused trite phrase.

16. Bony beginning: OSTE. From the Greek word for bone: osteon.

17. Scots Gaelic: ERSE. Early Scottish variant of Old English Irisc or Old Norse Irskr "Irish"; applied by Lowland Scots to the Gaelic speech of the Highlanders (which originally is from Ireland)

18. They might be executed by a judge: STAYS. Original meaning is to stand (related to editor's "stet"), to come to a halt.

19. Vast expanse (and a fitting setting for this puzzle): DEEP BLUE SEA.

22. York's title: Abbr.: SGT. Alvin York, a Tennessee sharpshooter who was deeply religious/pacifist early on, and a conscientious objector to the war. He took out a German machine gun nest by killing 28 soldiers, but he saved 132 others, so he was fighting to save lives.

23. __ Lanka: SRI. Honorific for "beautiful".

24. Fourth-cen. monastic: ST. BASIL. Of Caesarea, (now Turkey) known for his care of the poor and underprivileged.

26. a.m. beverages: OJS. Skip the juice, which has been pasteurized and is concentrated sugar, eat an orange instead...

29. Citric __: ACID. A weak acid found naturally occurring in citrus fruits, it is added to soft drinks to make them sour. The commercial production technique is cultures of A. niger are fed on a sucrose or glucose-containing medium to produce citric acid. The source of sugar is corn steep liquor, molasses, hydrolyzed corn starch or other inexpensive sugary solutions. After the mold is filtered out of the resulting solution, citric acid is isolated by precipitating it with lime (calcium hydroxide) to yield calcium citrate salt, from which citric acid is regenerated by treatment with sulfuric acid. Yummy! Eat an orange instead...

32. Finesse shampoo maker __ Curtis: HELENE.

33. Shows inattention at a lecture, maybe: NAPS.

35. Shrinking sea: ARAL.

37. Chicago commuter carriers: ELS. Elevated trains.

38. Somewhat suspect (and a hint to what can be found by connecting the circled letters in alphabetical order): A LITTLE BIT FISHY.

43. Folksy negative: NAW.

44. Identical: SAME.

45. Very wide shoe: EEEE.

46. Lessens: ABATES. From O.Fr. abattre "beat down, cast down." Related to batter, to fell or slaughter found in abattoir.

49. "Voila!" cousin: TADA. Japanese: Yatta!

51. ENTs, e.g.: DRS. Ear, Nose, and Throat doctors.

52. Bonding capacity measure: VALENCE. Chemistry bonds between atoms to make molecules.

54. Actor Wallach: ELI.

56. Ideal conclusion?: IST. Suffix clue. The most charitable definition of idealist is one who pursues high or noble purposes or goals, such as justice, charity, altruism, equality, fairness, etc. As Terry Pratchett's character "Death" says: "You have to believe in things that aren't true, else how can they become so?"

57. Don Ho hit (and what the O's in this grid represent): TINY BUBBLES.

63. Gaming pioneer: ATARI. The word "atari" in Japanese is a term in the board game of GO for one or more stones that are one move away from being surrounded and thus captured.

65. Judge: DEEM. To pass judgement, to form an opinion. Related to doom, which also meant judgement, condemnation.

66. "Please allow me": MAY I. Or, with "mother" a children's game similar to Simon Says.

67. Old dwelling for 68-Across: TEPEE. From Dakota (Siouan) thipi "dwelling, house."

68. Western natives: UTES. (Utah) from Spanish yuta, name of the indigenous Uto-Aztecan people of the Great Basin, perhaps from Western Apache (Athabaskan) yudah "high" (in reference to living in the mountains).

69. Ready for use: PREP.  Used as the verb form here, to get ready.  PREP is apparently one of those words, like "rhino" that we use without considering it an abbreviation.

70. 20% of seventy-six?: ESSES. There are 10 letters in "seventy-six", two of which are the letter "s", so 2 is 20% of 10.

71. Gambling area: PIT.  We just recently had pit boss.

72. Bad lads: CADS. Shortening of Cadet, "a jumped-up member of the lower classes who was guilty of behaving as if he didn't know that his lowly origin made him unfit for having sexual relationships with well-bred women." [Anthony West, "H.G. Wells: Aspects of a Life," 1984]

DOWN:

1. Urge: PROD.

2. Seine feeder: OISE. French rivers.

3. Heap affection (on): DOTE. Or what a mairzy eats.

4. Self-help segments: STEPS.  A 12 step program is a set of guiding principles outlining a course of action for recovery from addiction, compulsion, or other behavioral problems.

6. Lessen: EASE.

7. Basketball ploy: PRESS.  Short for pressure. Often called a full-court press, this is an attacking defense employed in the backcourt before the ball crosses center court, where the objective is to force a turnover.

8. Argues (with): HAS A BEEF.

9. Tiny crawler: ANT. Also formerly called an EMMET from *ai- "off, away" + *mai- "cut," (maim).  Thus, its name means "the biter off".

10. Like much real estate, annually: REASSESSED. Originally meant to fix the amount of tax on, so to place a value on.

11. Bombay product: DRY GIN. Bombay is a brand name of  gin distributed by Bacardi.

12. Way to relocate a king: CASTLE. A chess maneuver which protects the king and frees up the rook.

14. Like rotini: HELICAL. Pasta.

20. Support in a dresser drawer: BRA.

21. Sudan neighbor: Abbr.: ETH.iopia.  Today's geography lesson.

25. Kate's sitcom pal: ALLIE. 80's sitcom starring Susan St. James and Jane Curtin.

26. "Leaving __ Jet Plane": ON A. We've had lots of Peter Paul and Mary lately, so here's the guy that wrote the song.

27. Flier to Tokyo: JAL. Japan Airlines.

28. Lumbar punctures: SPINAL TAPS.  Cerebro-spinal fluid analysis can be used to diagnose certain neurologic disorders, particularly infections (such as meningitis) and brain or spinal cord damage.

30. Inflames: IRES.

31. Pat: DAB AT.

34. Declare: STATE.

36. 5-Down's capital: LIMA. along with 5D. See 36-Down: PERU.

39. ATM output: TWENTIES.

40. Latin hymns: TE DEUMS. Literal translation: "Thee, O God, we praise".  According to the Devil's Dictionary (Ambrose Bierce) on the similar sounding word tedium:  Many fanciful derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it comes from a very obvious source -- the first words of the ancient Latin hymn Te Deum Laudamus. In this apparently natural derivation there is something that saddens.

41. Slip floater, to its owner: HER. Boats referred to with feminine gender.

42. "Absolutely!": YES.

46. Fly: AVIATE. Latin "avis", bird.

47. Moistens with drippings: BASTES.

48. Acoustics, e.g.: Abbr.: SCI. One of the sciences.

50. Priestly garb: ALB.

53. Turn out to be: END UP.

55. High-tech debut of 1981: IBM PC.

58. "__ do fear thy nature": Lady Macbeth: YET I.  "It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness." She is expressing doubt that he has the backbone for the ruthless action it will require to take and retain the kingship.

59. Epitome of redness: BEET.

60. Pasternak heroine: LARA. Dr. Zhivago...

61. Scrutinized: EYED.

62. Uses a straw: SIPS.

64. R&B artist Des'__: REE.  You gotta be.

Answer Grid.

Al

Thursday, May 12, 2011, Mangesh Sakharam Ghogre

Theme: Machine Language. All the clues are powers of 2: binary numbers, the way computers (or phone texters) communicate.

17A. 8?: HAD DINNER. Ate. (2³ or 0000 1000 in binary)

26A. 2?: EXCESSIVELY. Too. (2¹ or 0000 0010)

50A. 1?: TOOK THE GOLD. Won. (2⁰ or 0000 0001)

62A. 4?: IN FAVOR OF. For. (2² or 0000 0100)

39A. They're not literal, and this puzzle's title: FIGURES OF SPEECH. In math terms, numbers are "figures".

Hi all, Al here on Thursday, Thursday, gotta get down on Thursday... Any Rebecca Black fans? Oh, Friday, you say. Well, I guess that's as close as I'll ever get to being infamous.

I found the puzzle today strangely slow going at first, but it wasn't really all that hard, I just wasn't tuned in. The theme today was fairly modern and enjoyably geeky, even though I refuse to abbreviate my own text like that. I would have liked to see the clues appear in numeric or reverse numeric order though, to give it a third level of complexity, but still pretty tricky.

ACROSS:

1. Not quite dry: DAMP. Originally meant "a noxious vapor", the phrase "come in out of the damp" was from the notion of the night air being bad and miasmatic gasses arising from the soil.

5. "Battle Cry" author: URIS. Leon. A tale of a mixed-ethnic group of Marine enlistees coming together as a close-knit fighting unit.

9. Yippie name: ABBIE. Hoffman. Youth International Party, anti-Vietnam protests, the Chicago eight at first, then down to seven when Bobby Seale (Black Panthers founder) was singled out and tried separately.

14. French darling: AMIE.

15. Reduce bit by bit: PARE.

16. Virginia political family: BYRDS. Harry Flood Byrd and son (Jr.).  I prefer the musical group.

19. "Back Stabbers" group, with "The": OJAYS.

20. Ones with dark-spotted faces: DICE. Possibly my favorite clue for the puzzle today. You can always tell, without looking or touching, what the bottom number on a six-sided die is by subtracting the top from seven.

21. Annual draft org.: NBA. National Basketball Association.

23. 46th U.S. state: OKLA.homa.  Wolverine sings!

24. Nuevo __: Peruvian currency: SOL. A lesson in run-away economics, the original currency, the inti became so hyperinflated that new money had to be issued in 1991 at the rate of 1 sol = 1 million inti.

29. Dig up: UNEARTH.

31. "Ain't __ Sweet": SHE.  Some Beatles accompanied with 57A. Its full name means "jumping flea" in Hawaiian: UKE.

32. Pastures: LEAS.

33. Protein building block, for short: AMINO. Amino Acids. Haven't ever seen or heard it used in this shortened form.

36. Animal's stomach: MAW. Learn something new every day.  I used to think this word just meant a gaping mouth.

43. Happy hour order: ALE.  Ale, ale, the gang's all here!

44. Varnish resin: ELEMI.

45. When doubled, a fish: MAHI. I already think I know what JZB will say, half-baked, probably.

46. "Wheel of Fortune" purchase: AN I.

47. Contrary retort: DOES NOT. Playground rhetoric. The height of forensic capabilities.

55. Female rabbit: DOE. Whale? Cow.  Elephant? Cow.  You'd think there would be more original names for those.  At least a female swan is called something different, a PEN.

56. Business head?: AGRI. A prefix clue.  Agribusiness is a portmanteau of agriculture and business, referring to the range of activities and disciplines encompassed by modern food production.

58. Raison d'__: ETRE. French, "reason or justification for existance". Kiss.

60. Insipid: BLAND.  Orig. from Latin blandus "mild, smooth, flattering, alluring".  Current meaning probably influenced by blasé.

66. It's slower than adagio: LENTO. Musical terms, Italian.

67. Somber genre: NOIR. French for black.

68. "Up in the Air" Oscar nominee Farmiga: VERA. With George Clooney, a movie about downsizing, apparently. Why anyone would go to see that is beyond me.

69. First noble gas discovered: ARGON. The third most common gas in the Earth's atmosphere, more common than carbon dioxide.

70. Lake Michigan city: GARY. Indiana.

71. Noted sin scene: EDEN. As in original sin.

DOWN:

1. Morse character: DAH. Or DIT, or even DOT.

2. Org. featuring seasonal flu information: AMA. American Medical Association. Vitamin D3, and probiotics for prevention.

3. Fifties, say: MIDDLE AGE.

4. Start to cure?: PEDI. Another prefix. A Pedicure is foot care.

5. After the current act: UP NEXT.

6. Operated: RAN.

7. Goddess of peace: IRENE. Greek mythology.  Roman equivalent: PAX.

8. Some Bosnians: SERBS.

9. Donor classification letters: ABO. Blood types, A, B, AB, and O, along with Rh+ and - are the most-known, but actually Rh by itself has 50 types, where D, C, c, E, and e are the main 5.  The + or minus only refers to the D form.  And ABO/Rh are only two out of 30 blood group systems. It is much more complicated than you can imagine and has its own discipline called immunohaematology.

10. Exclamation from Colonel Pickering: BY JOVE. Jovis Pater (Jupiter), also linked to a euphemistic shortening of Jehova.

11. Start to stop: BRAKE. As in "apply the". Caught me trying to think of a prefix at first.

12. Pastoral poem: IDYLL.  Latin idyllium, from Gk. eidyllion "a little picture".

13. Common college admissions requirement: ESSAY. Latin exigere "test"

18. Cake finisher: ICER. Didn't get caught thinking about suffixes. There's a video game called Portal that tells you: "the cake is a lie", which basically is a metaphor for unkept promises made to you in an effort to get you to finish some task.

22. Like-minded gps.: ASSNS. Groups, associations.

24. Bacteria-fighting drug: SULFA. Drugs derived from sulfanilamide.  The first antimicrobial drugs, which paved the way for the antibiotic revolution in medicine.

25. Newsman Roger: O'NEIL. Key NBC correspondent covering the Oklahoma City bombing.

27. Try to catch: CHASE.

28. Food chain: IHOP.

30. Tempe sch.: ASU. Arizona State University

34. One who brings out the inner child?: MOM. Quite the literal clue...

35. "Don't mind __": IF I DO.

36. Wandered aimlessly: MEANDERED. Clecho with 59D. Wander aimlessly: ROVE. Oh, the temptation to make a political joke...

37. Blessing preceder: ACHOO. Gesundheit.

38. Snowy: WHITE.

40. Monthly expense: RENT. Related to render, as in to render payment.

41. Yale of Yale University: ELIHU.

42. Printers' measures: EMS. I though I'd find something interesting here, but it's a boring as it sounds, printing typeset measurements related to the size of a capital M. I provided the link in case you're having trouble sleeping.

46. A lot like: AKIN TO.

48. Owner of a legendary lantern kicker: O'LEARY. Although the great Chicago fire was traced to Catherine O'Leary's barn, the cow story was complete fiction made up by Michael Ahern, the reporter from the Chicago Republican, who thought it would make good copy.

49. 1999 movie about a reality show: ED TV.

50. Indian drum: TABLA.

51. Wolf, at times: OGLER. Probably from Low German oeglen, "look at," from oege "eye."

52. Long-armed ape: ORANG.utan. Man of the woods.

53. Squeezing (out): EKING.

54. Columbus's birthplace: GENOA. Italy.

61. Underworld bigwig: DON. Title of respect, from L. dominus "lord, master."

63. Cedar kin: FIR.

64. Valuable rock: ORE.

65. Cheering crowd member: FAN.

Answer Grid.

Al