For the fourth day in a row, the stock market is facing a major selloff. What a mess. My feeling is that this is panic selling, and major hedge funds are just scooping up cheap stocks and getting ready for a rebound next week or the week after. I don’t know if that will happen. What lunacy, though.
It’s my birthday today, and it looks like I never did finish the crossword puzzle. Whoops!
I’ve done a lot of work today, including on a project that will appear on the Tuesday woodworking series.
I also got the flu shot today.
I am wiped. It’s hard for me right now to keep my eyelids from falling shut.
I have attempted both puzzles. The Sunday puzzle was too obscure to knock out. I didn’t even get 25% through before I realized I’d pass out and not wake up in time if I’d kept hammering away.
I got to Great (51 points) in the Spelling Bee, and that’s not enough.
I’m going to go to sleep and then regroup in the morning.
Happy Labor Day!
Crossword streak might end tonight :/
I now have one.
It’s connected to voip.
More on this topic later.
Have a great rest of your day.
Hello from Day 32 of the reopening of California. Today Louis DeJoy was back in front of congressional committees. I had been unaware of this until late tonight. They say that he refused to step down, so we remain annoyed. OMG James Comer just invoked Adam Schiff in his quick-to-please-Trump opening statements, as DeJoy was elected by the board of governors with strong support by Trump, and DeJoy immediately dismantled all kinds of necessary equipment in advance of the election that was heavily vote-by-mail. Also it sure sounds like he called Congresswoman Maloney “Bologna.” Crazy. Jody Hice’s opening statements also included a quick appeal to Donald Trump. Gross.
Yesterday I missed RATTRAP as the only word I am really familiar with.
Meatier Misses
APIARY: A place where bees are kept; a collection of beehives. Oh, man.
IRRUPT: Enter forcibly or suddenly.
PAPYRI: Plural of papyrus.
PARTITA: A suite, typically for a solo instrument or chamber ensemble.
PIPIT: A mainly ground-dwelling songbird of open country, typically having brown streaky plumage.
PITAPAT: With a sound like quick light steps or taps. Oh, like pitterpatter.
Today’s summary
Final score: 24 words for 84 points.
Genius minimum: 86 points.
First word: CHALLAH.
Pangram: NOPE!
Tweets:
Hello from Day 25 of the reopening of California. There’s been icy wind here in Los Angeles. Not icy-icy like how Houston is or elsewhere in the country but like upper-40s. Brrr.
Yesterday I missed BELITTLEMENT, BELLMEN, EMINENT, LENIENT, LINEMEN, METEE, and MINIM.
Meatier Misses
BLIN: one pancake made from buckwheat flour and served with sour cream.
LIMN: literary Depict or describe in painting or words.
TELNET: A network protocol that allows a user on one computer to log into another computer that is part of the same network. What year is this?
Today’s summary
Final score: 20 words for 95 points.
Genius minimum: 82 points.
First word: DAYLIT.
Pangram: VALIDITY.
Tweet:
I write this at about 4:30pm on Friday, so the world currently is in limbo between the impeachment and the trial. Also between the impeachment and the inauguration.
We’ve got a heat wave in LA, and that’s going to last the long weekend.
And then there have been rumors of all kinds of civil unrest. That is to say MAGA rallies at every state capitol. If DC were a state, it would have the two capitols. Crazy.
I’m going to have the usual news sources up on the screens so I can see what’s going on and so I can play Pardon Me! bingo. I’ve created bingo boards with the names of people who may be pardoned in Trump’s last days in office. There are more names than there are spaces on the boards, so of the (free version capped at 30) iterations of it, not all of them have all the same names.
PLAY PARDON ME! BINGO WITH ME!
Stay safe and healthy. I hope the day is uneventful.
As usual for a Saturday post, I’ve written this Friday afternoon. If a ton has happened since time of writing that makes yesterday a distant memory, here’s what the world looked like then:
Tommy Lasorda passed away.
Betsy DeVos has resigned.
Elaine Chao has resigned.
Mick Mulvaney has resigned.
Hope Hicks will be leaving next week.
Ben Carson was trending because people are making fun of him.
Trump remains divisive.
Tucker Carlson has been abusing this audience with
Biden says he’s been saying that Trump is not fit to lead for more than a year. “That’s why I ran,” he said today.
Reported domestic single-day COVID-related deaths topped 4000 for the first time.
Kim and Kanye are splitsville.
No one knows where Melania is.
Ted Lieu announced that he’s bringing articles of impeachment on Monday.
This came after Nancy Pelosi has asked Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and later demanded Trump resign. Doesn’t look like either will happen.
But the impeachment articles on Monday and Ben Sasse saying that he is willing to consider convicting in the senate. We can’t forget that Mark Kelly has replaced Martha McSally in John McCain’s old seat.
Ossoff and Warnock may be sworn in next week.
They need only 66 votes because David Perdue of Georgia bounced a few days ago when his term expired. Kelly Loeffler is still the appointee until they certify the votes in GA.
I have all kinds of news feeds set up to inform me of developments throughout Shabbat.
Local:
KTLA
Domestic:
Los Angeles Times Left-Center
Washington Post Left-Center
New York Times Left-Center
Wall Street Journal Right-Center
CNN Left
Fox News Right
International:
Deutsche Welle Left-Center from Germany
BBC Left-Center from the UK
NHK Right-Center from Japan
Opinion:
Newsmax
Commentary/Trump bashing:
Lincoln Project twitter
It’s raining in Los Angeles! I imagine that means that there’s snow in the mountains. I’m Jewish, and while I appreciate the Chanukah sentiment I receive, I think it’s cool that there’s snow in LA on Christmas eve, as it’s a thing many people sing that they dream of.
I pulled out 23D There are more of these in the U.S. in October than any other month, surprisingly: BRIDES because it certainly is a surprise to me. I guess I don’t really think about October as a good month for weddings because that’s like when all the Jewish holidays are. To compound that with a wedding sounds nightmarish. As I think about it further, October is right after summer ends and is before the world turns to ice. I generally forget about the world getting colder than 45 degrees. Even with the rain today, it’s 62 outside.
Honorable mention to 59A Half of a 1960s folk/pop group: MAMAS, as I had mentioned their counterparts in a post a few days ago. Good for Will Shortz to be a counterexample to recent WSJ editorial misogyny.
I would not have been able to solve this puzzle without figuring out the theme first. And then it was even fun to solve the theme answers. So I’ll present it in that order.
52A Is unable to get away, say … or a hint to 17-, 24- and 40-Across?: CANTFINDTHETIME. Essentially,
17A Spill a shipment of bowling balls?: LETTHEGOODSROLL.
24A Works during a slow day at the restaurant?: WAITSFORNOONE.
The above tattoo picture came from going down a rabbit hole. I looked for a picture of time waits for no one. I then got to time waits for no one tattoo. This image appeared as part of that search. It’s kinda sad all around.
40A Go on a date with a honeybun?: TAKEONESSWEET.
Finished this Thursday puzzle in 26:21.
Whew! A fun one today! I thought I’d continue to try to get Queen Bee, but I have better/other things to do.
To yesterday!
Easy misses: ARUGALA, LULU.
Annoying ones: GOOGOL, LOGROLL
New ones:
ALARUM: OK, WHAT. Archaic term for alarm. Get outta here, NYTSB. SMH.
AUGURAL: Another archaic word! Keep in mind no HORCHATA and no TORTA, words we use today. This means acting as an omen.
LOGOGRAM: A sign or character representing a word or phrase, such as those used in shorthand and some writing systems.
Back to today!
Final score: 30 words for 171 points.
Genius minimum: 151 points.
First word: DINO
Pangram: CONDITIONING
Missed opportunity: DOODOO