Axioms are things which are self-evident (or universally accepted) - basically, truths that require no proof. Idioms are expressions whose meanings are not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements (such as kick the bucket or hang one's head). Don't worry, many people get the two mixed up, myself included. :)
I struggled with the top-right section for a while because I was really trying to make the seasonal clue hay (as in, hay fever), rather than flu. And I didn't want to let that one go, should have earlier. Oh well. Anyway, very nice, reasonably challenging puzzle. :)
RPG in video games stands for Role Playing Game. It's a little loose of a term but it's typically a game where the choices you (as your character) make can alter the story of the game.
I'm not sure what the postal service does with letters to Santa, let alone ones with incorrect zip/postal codes, although I do know that when kids here in Canada write letters to Santa, since we use an alternating letter/number format for our postal codes, they are addressed to H0H 0H0... :)
Margaret Thatcher's nickname of Iron Lady wasn't people being mean to her, if anything, it was probably being too gentle. She was a pretty brutal PM...
Sounds like a wild lineup in the coming days, are the musical genres always so varied one after the other? I guess it makes sense, each gig has nothing to do with the last. Do you ever get, like, conceptual whiplash though going from opera to rock to country like that haha?
@@ryandwyer9521 Every summer we have a Classical series that features four orchestras and lasts about five weeks. When that ends, we have two weeks of dance performances. Then we pepper in whatever concerts make sense for us the rest of the summer. We have The Beach Boys, Norah Jones, Barenaked Ladies and Jim Gaffigan all coming up this summer … the variety of programming is my favorite part of the gig!
Very tough puzzle, interesting but gettable theme (unlike the one the other day, never did figure that one out). Good or bad, though, any puzzle that can work in Pinky and the Brain is automatically a winner in my books. :)
It's probably not good if the best part about a puzzle is that it's over quickly and you don't need the theme to solve it... Wasn't real impressed with this one, and while I'm sure there's something simple for the theme, I definitely am not seeing it.
Rough puzzle, can't say as I was a huge fan of this one. Now, for the ever important pointless fact of the day, I'll tell you about the 23 down clue. ELO is the name of the rating system used in Chess, and Magnus' rating of over 2800 is *very* high, even for a super grandmaster.
Rough one, but impressive you pulled through it. I have to agree, while some non-English words are expected now and again, there were a few too many in this one. Not to mention the incredibly archaic 'bestrew'...
For the homecoming/run clue, I suspect it's a baseball reference... Or at least I hope it is, because I can't think of anything else that would make sense...
Excellent solve. I also struggled with this one, although what threw me off is I completely forgot about the existence of the word saber for the curved blade, and was trying desperately to make the only 5 letter curved blade I could think of (kukri) work, which... well, obviously didn't go so well.. Oopsy. :) Also, in case you're interested, a tanager is a small songbird. So there you go, your pointless fact for the day. Enjoy!
Shtetl, wowee, that's not an easy one to get... Well, let's look up what it is, because I have no idea... Here we go: The word “shtetl” is Yiddish, and it means “little town.” Shtetls were small market towns in Russia and Poland. So there you go. :)
nicely done. I also finished the SW last. Some tricky ones there. Did my solve in 17:35. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2s14UaYtAH0.html
Nice, smooth solve. I also thought early on there would be some rebus activity, but I guess that just shows how clever some of the clues were. Also, thanks for subbing to my channel. :)
I don't wanna defend this puzzle, but FBI stands for Federal Bureau of Investigation, not the three words given in the clue. So it's not like your NYT example at the end.
I would assume (hope?) it's just that the composer had come up with most of the puzzle, including the intermittent letter patterns, and then later had to go back to find something to put in the middle to describe it, and (sadly) settled on box braids. Or perhaps was just trying to make it harder by having such an obscure clue. Who knows. Either way, a very odd puzzle, very lopsided in difficulty, with very little middle ground.
