DNF
I enjoyed today's theme, but I was thrown for a loop by the clue at 55A: "Investment for a restaurateur." At first, I read it as 'restauranteur'. Spelled the way I was reading it, it isn't even a word! Who knew there was no 'n' in there? But, when I got completely stuck there in the bottom middle section, I re-read the clue more carefully, noted the n-lessness, and decided I was stuck because the word must also mean a person who restores things. With that "update" to my thinking I lost all chance of guessing the correct theme answer: MENUOPTION. I couldn't think of BURNS for "Devilishly clever insults, in slang," and I didn't know NRA or UNC. It also didn't help that I'm not exactly sure how an option is semantically parallel to gold, stocks, or bonds. It turned into a whole new kind of embarrassment of riches for this solver.
Even after I looked at the solution, I got the "keep trying" message from the app. I went over the complete puzzle three times, comparing it carefully word for word, but couldn't find anything wrong. Finally, on the fourth time through, I thought I noticed that the letter 'o' in COCKTAILS was a bit on the thin side - that's how carefully I was looking at it - and it turns out that somehow I typed a zero exactly where the 'o' belonged. So, yeah, did not figure it out thanks to wrong thinking in a big way all around. Do we have an acronym for that yet? DNFIOTTWTIABWAA. It helps to put a name to it.
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| By Unknown author - http://www.epochtimes.de/articles/2007/10/24/186097.html |
I don't mean to short change the theme. The other theme answers, all part of a WORKPORTFOLIO (the humorist's COMEDYGOLD, the butcher's BEEFSTOCK, the physicist's IONICBOND) were richly entertaining.
I also appreciated "Sauce that's heavy on garlic ... and vowels" even though I don't take an AIOLI myself. The clue "50 or more letters?" for AARP was quite clever. I liked ALLWET, ITSALIVE OLIVEOIL and WEAKTEA. I love the word KNELT for some reason. And you don't see its companion of sorts, DIRK, every day.
I enjoyed the idea behind the clue "What makes car care? but its answer ANE glitter, if you see what I mean. There were a few junk bonds like NRA, UNC, NAS, and AIG holding the puzzle together at the edges, but not enough to lower the rating.
So, not a success today, but you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll try to do better tomorrow.
~Frannie.
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